TAKING FLIGHT

Many will remember that filmmaker Albert Nerenberg worked for Hour
when it first began publishing back in 1993, writing a popular and
often poignant city column, This Just In, while instigating and
operating Secret City, a loosely governed, frequently hilarious,
quasi-anarchic creative collective that printed its graphic,
video-still-illustrated commentaries in these pages. It's an ethic and
aesthetic that lives on in his current satirical and incisive
endeavour, the Toronto-based Trailervision film company. Personally,
I'll always remember Albert because I was occasionally called upon to
edit his columns. To this day he holds the all-time record for double
spaces: 762.

Prior to Hour, where he worked for some three years, Nerenberg had
been known primarily as a journalist, a McGill Daily product writing
for the Montreal Daily News and The Gazette. But two video
documentaries, Okanada (in which Nerenberg and crew slipped past
soldiers and behind the barricades to film from the inside during the
Oka crisis) and Riot Night in Canada (documenting the aftermath of the
1993 Montreal Stanley Cup victory), provided evidence of greater
aspirations.

Last year, Nerenberg's Trailervision parlayed his critically acclaimed
Stupidity doc - dedicated to that quintessentially human
characteristic and those who best represent it - into an annual
hosting of the World Stupidity Awards as part of the Just For Laughs
comedy festival.

"This year we're shitting our pants, there's so much stupidity going
on," says Nerenberg incredulously. "We're like, why don't we just give
up? We don't need to spotlight stupidity, it's everywhere!"

In fact, partly due to Nerenberg's Stupidity, his latest and most
accomplished doc to date, Escape to Canada (opening in Montreal this
week), nearly didn't happen.

"I had just finished Stupidity, and though the film did well,
personally it was like a near-death experience it was so exhausting,"
recalls Nerenberg. "I find when you make a film there's always a
terrible moment a few months before it's done when it looks like it's
never going to get made and you've got no money... So when I finished
Stupidity I promised myself I was going to take a long break from big
feature docs.

"Originally, Escape to Canada was going to be a very small film - a
funny little film about this strange legal coincidence: that the same
day gay marriage was legalized in Ontario, so was, in effect,
marijuana. And then what happened was, while we were following both
events, they just kept going and going. Gay marriage became a huge
American election issue, then a Canadian election issue, and then came
the Marc Emery [extradition] case, so against my will this became a
much bigger film than I wanted it to be." He then laughs. "To my horror!"

It's actually only 84 minutes, but it feels bigger. Quickly paced and
reasonably slick for this kind of rapid-fire, cut-and-paste doc
making, it is Nerenberg's most polished work to date. Powerful,
quickly spliced vignettes are the backbone of the production, which,
as mentioned, evolves from a simple exploration of the coincidental
nature of same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization into a more
complex investigation of the reasons behind the surge of Americans -
from pot refugees to military deserters - seeking sanctuary in Canada,
and of the nature of freedom itself. In typical Nerenberg fashion,
calculated minor omissions and a willful, if delicate, massaging of
the facts manipulate depictions for maximum dramatic effect - pot, for
example, was never "legalized" per se - though, as always, we tend to
forgive him his hyperbole.

If Escape to Canada feels big, it may not be the subject matter alone:
Nerenberg had 18 other videographers contribute to the final cut.

"I think the interesting thing about why there are so many filmmakers
attached is that normally when you make a film you have a desperate
time trying to get the footage that you need," says Nerenberg. "What
was weird about this film is that videotape of extraordinary events
would just arrive under our door."

Which may go some way toward explaining why there are so many
mini-docs, you could say, contained within the larger framework, any
one of which could almost stand on its own. One in particular comes to
mind, the story of a young U.S. Army deserter who is followed and
filmed as he makes his white-knuckle drive across the Canada/U.S. border.

"That's interesting, because you're right... There's also the guy [Darrell
Anderson] who was in Iraq and who was blown up and then deserted. He's
really funny, 'cause this guy gets back thinking he had this terrible time
in Iraq, decides not to go back, arrives in Canada and basically has the
time of his life. And this is so classically Canadian: One of the first
things he did after arriving in Canada is get a Quebecois girlfriend."

Boo-yah! Power to the American brother!

"He went to Montreal and he was, like, 'I love Montreal!' He didn't
know what Montreal was, he had no idea. He couldn't believe that
people were smoking pot in the club where he was delivering a serious
political speech - it blew his mind. And that was magical for me,
seeing this guy enjoy the freedoms of Canada."

Funny he should mention Montreal. I, biased as I am, was left with the
sense that Montreal as a whole was underrepresented in Escape to
Canada, with even the Bloc Pot, Canada's first activist pro-marijuana
legalization political party, barely getting a mention. It seemed odd,
given Nerenberg's strong connection to and life-long love of the city.
Just a case of civic sour grapes on my part?

"I think, for me, because I've made so many Montreal-centric films,"
he says stopping and starting, finding a more comfortable position on
the hot seat. "You know, to me there is an interesting Montreal angle
to this film," he continues, finding his way out and giving it just
the right amount of classic Nerenberg finesse.

"Originally when I pitched the idea, the first people who were
actually passionate about it were not anglo Canadians. Canal D, a
Quebecois channel, were the ones who really championed this film. So
really, the film emanates from Montreal. And, as someone who's lived
in Montreal, I think this is Canada's Quiet Revolution. Quebec had
one, Canada's just a little bit behind," he says laughing.

In light of the recent Harper Conservatives victory, I'm of two minds
about the timing of the release of Escape to Canada. Would its message
of a tolerant, personal-freedom-loving nation have been more credible
before Canada stumbled to the right, or is the film well timed to
serve as a reminder that core Canadian priorities extend beyond the
narrowly defined traditional values espoused by the more trenchant
right-minded mouthpieces sharing our air?

"For me the timing is perfect because I think Harper's government is
essentially a referendum on which Canada you want: Do you want a
Bush-lite Harper government, or do you want a government that goes in
the way that Canada has been going quite successfully for some time?
The reason I think this film will work is I don't think a lot of
Canadians realize the amazing changes that have happened in their
country," finishes Nerenberg.

"In terms of timing, I actually couldn't ask for better: Harper can
put on his show, and I can put on mine."

Escape to Canada opens at Cinema du Parc, Feb. 17