HOWLS OF PROTEST GREET ONTARIO BAN OF GRASS, THE MOVIE

20-Second Scene Offends: Film Review Board Sees Cruelty In Monkeys Smoking

Adrian Humphreys National Post

While opening to warm reviews and standing ovations in the United States,
the new documentary film by an Ontario filmmaker that lampoons the efforts
of the U.S. government to weed out marijuana use has been banned in his
home province.

The Ontario Film Review Board will not allow the film Grass, by Toronto
director Ron Mann, to be shown in any of the province's cinemas because of
a 20-second scene of four monkeys smoking marijuana.

The scene of the government-controlled science experiment is 30 years old
and was culled from U.S. government archives.

"It is just somebody's ideas of political correctness gone haywire," said
Mr. Mann.

Fifty-three minutes into Grass, the review board's report notes: "Monkeys
(4) restrained in lab setting appear very frightened and uncomfortable."

That, according to three film board reviewers -- who go by their first
names only -- is a violation of "Subsection 2 of Section 14 of Regulation
1031" of the Theatres Act, which prohibits "a scene where an animal has
been abused in making of the film."

"The censor board's standards are outdated and obsolete," said Mr. Mann. "I
think the board's action is pretty misguided and I don't believe that in a
free country we should censor free expression."

He said he will not cut the scene, because it is integral to the movie's
themes.

"I will take it to court if necessary. It is a political film and this is
clearly suppression of free speech."

Mr. Mann said he expected trouble from American politicians who might be
uncomfortable with his film's pro-marijuana message and the poignant poking
at American efforts to demonize a drug that more and more of its citizens
- -- including that nation's current president -- have used.

It never occurred to him, however, that his film would be wiped from movie
screens in his home town, where it is set to open next Saturday, followed
by wider release later in the month.

"I really did think I would get banned in the United States," he said.

The film paints the history of the U.S. government's war against marijuana
- -- from the alarmist movie Reefer Madness to the slogan "Just say no" -- as
poor attempts to quell anyone who threatened the comfortable status quo,
first Mexicans in the southwest, then black jazz musicians, and later hippies.

The film shows attempts made by neo-prohibitionists and politicians to link
marijuana to insanity, communism, rape and poor marks in school.

Narrated by Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson, a noted marijuana advocate,
the film has caused a stir south of the border.

But not the stir Mr. Mann expected.

The New York Times called it "Ron Mann's punchy and enjoyable new
documentary," "seductive," and "very smart." Newsday saw it as "fast, funny
and ferocious."

It is currently playing in New York, San Francisco and Seattle and opens in
more than a dozen U.S. cities on June 16. It has even been shown in
Singapore, a country famous for its strict law and order, said Mr. Mann.

The offending scene was not made for Grass, but is an excerpt from an
anti-drug film from the National Institute of Mental Health around 1970.

It shows monkeys being wheeled into a laboratory in restraints. They are
then seen sucking on a pipe.

"They are not being harmed," said Mr. Mann. "They are probably enjoying
themselves.

"No harm was done to any animals -- or hippies -- in the making of this
movie," he added.

The film's distributor, Lions Gate Films, is appealing the decision and
will appear before a review board committee today.

Carm Bordonaro, co-owner of the Bloor Cinema, where Grass is scheduled for
a week's run starting on June 16, said banning the film could bankrupt his
cinema.

"The Ontario Film Review Board is going to look like chimps smoking pot,"
he said.

"This is going to make them look very silly. You can show people killing
people, you can show all kinds of things, but you can't show chimps
smoking? You kick a real person in the head 20 times on screen and they say
it's fantastic -- you can do it to people, but don't do it to an animated
character or chimps? What's with that?"