Keep ’em comin’!
Winnipeg-shot film provides Winnipeg talent with a boost, while evolving Canadian cinema
William O’Donnell, staff
Canadian cinema has the curse of being frequently pigeonholed as too “artsy,” unusual, or cheap-looking for theatres. The box office numbers for Canadian productions defend this accusation, especially in our own country.
In a recent interview I had over coffee with Genie Award winning (and Canadian) director Robert Cuffley, he told me that he believes Canadian cinema “should not be a painful chore to watch . . . I really want to break that feeling.” In an attempt to prove that Canadian films can have a great “entertainment value” without losing any Canadian distinction, Cuffley presents his latest production Walk All Over Me, which also happened to be shot entirely in Winnipeg.
“[Canadians] should not feel like they should rent a Canadian film just to be a good citizen,” Cuffley proclaims; he’s very adamant about the filmmaker’s need to perform in order to accomplish this task.
The discussion then turned to Cuffley’s hopes to display not just entertainment value but to demonstrate that Canadians are capable of “immense professionalism” in cast, crew, and overall production. Winnipeg seemed to give a very encouraging impression on this front; “Leelee [Sobieski, the star of the film] has been quoted many times saying that [Winnipeg’s] crew was the most professional she had ever worked with in her life. And I agree with her in many ways . . . they were fast, kind, hard-working, and just overall very professional.”
The local cast was another highlight of this production. “I’ve had experiences where a shoot blows its wad on the stars, then gets local supporting cast that are —” Cuffley made an expression on his face that worried our waitress, who dutifully came over to check his concern, thinking it may have been about his order. “But the talent from Winnipeg was amazing.”
Cuffley made special note of local performer Ross McMillan, who Winnipeggers may know best as “Roderick” in Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World if they are not familiar with his endless amounts of local acting and directing work for stage and screen. “I got comments [about Ross] all the time . . . telling me how amazing he was. People kept saying to me things like ‘Leelee was great, but who was that guy with the grey hair?’ and asking ‘Why don’t I know this guy?’ because so many could not grasp the idea of a person this talented who was not a well-known American actor,” Cuffley testified, without me even prompting him. Cuffley also commented on how McMillan’s dry humour and wit matched the film’s comic side perfectly.
I asked Cuffley more about the film as a comedy, and the discussion turned onto the tricky placement of films into genres. “Many people call [Walk All Over Me] a comedy, and just as many call it a thriller. Neither is right, but at the same time neither is wrong,” Cuffley stated. Walk All Over Me is the story of a young girl named Alberta (played by Sobieski) who poses as a dominatrix, stepping in for her friend Celene (played by Tricia Helfer, a model-turned-actress). This setup seems ripe for comedy, and it plans to be, but as Cuffley explained to me, “At the 23-minute mark, the film switches genres completely.”
Regarding the bondage and S&M of the film, “It’s really just a backdrop for the story,” Cuffley explained, but also went on to explain that it made for interesting, unintentional promotion. After becoming linked to a U.K. S&M site, Walk All Over Me’s website’s hits quadrupled in less than 24 hours.
Currently, Cuffley is working on three new major film projects, the next being a romantic comedy that involves female pro-wrestling (tentatively titled “Chokeslam”), and the third project is another to be shot in Winnipeg.
At the present time, Walk All Over Me is playing nightly at the Globe Cinema. A great chance for fine entertainment, supporting Canadian cinema and witnessing some leather action (not the point of the film, Cuffley explained, but you certainly can’t ignore it).
