The reflection
of a dusty computer monitor showing a middle age man playing a command and
conquer style video game. The colors are muted and what draws the eye is the
reflection of the digital world in his glasses. This image sums up Kazik
Radwanski’s second feature How Heavy
This Hammer quite well as it’s about the grey times in life where people just keep
moving forward, somewhat miserably. Erwin is married with two boys but the only
thing that seems to be able to hold his attention is drinking and his computer
games. How Heavy This Hammer is a
pissed off and angry examination of the placid and mundane quality of living that is in overabundance in
Toronto. There has to be more from life?
Where Radwanski’s first feature Tower
extended the anxious close-ups of his earlier shorts into a feature, with
this new feature these techniques are refined as there are more main characters and situations which create more
complex confrontations and settings that lead to new affects.
So if Radwanski’s cinema is the hybrid of Allan King (A Married Couple) and John Cassavetes
(Husbands) – that of a rĂ©el with
stylized natural performances – then its through its capturing in extended
scenes of silence and an inarticulateness and through personal gestures (both
of humans and animals) that it gets to the heart of its characters and its story.
With the online launch of the earlier short film Princess Margaret Blvd. (one of the catalyst of the Toronto DIY
Filmmaker movement) there is a new motivation to dig into Radwanski’s
work: muted characters, walking through a haze, trying to figure out what’s going on,
and not sure what’s going to happen next. Not necessarily an optimistic lesson
but perceptive for its story and influential for leading to what is still to come.
How Heavy This Hammer
begins its theatrical run this Friday at 7PM at the TIFF Bell Lightbox where it’ll
be playing for a week.
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