Euro TV

[Arab Nights (imported)]

So I have just found myself on an Air Canada flight. When you go to inflight entertainment, there are the usual groupings of Current, Action, etc. etc. Being Air Canada, they also had Canadian movies. I clicked on that just so I could ask the attendant for a refill on black coffee and make a joke about needing it to help me stay awake thru a Canadian film.

For no good reason I clicked on Gaz Bar Blues which was listed as comedy buy was anything but. Here are some links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379298/

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_Bar_Blues

My take on the film is that it begins with all the usual human foibles etc. of a group of men who hang around the corner gas station. The feeling I had was of guys who were not bad, they just had nothing better to do for one reason or another than hang daily at the station. There were the usual little human conflicts and dramas involving the hanger-ons and the owner’s sons, who were teens to early 20s and had the usual issues with life, etc. The scene is a rundown neighborhood and all the cars are old clunkers. You get the feeling that the gas station earns just enough, but never enough to flourish and the owner is a sucker for every hard luck story.

Then one son decides to go to Berlin as the wall is falling and take photos. He sends letters and photos which, of course, are the highlight of the day. At first there was the euphoria in Berlin, but then reality sets in. West Berliners thought themselves much better than East Berliners and East Berliners grew bitter because they had bought into a system for 40 years which disappeared almost overnight. They were then told that what they had done for decades was wrong and they would have to change. Of course, many East Berliners had habits and did not want to change. The son sided with them and goes on a long bender and ends up being arrested totally drunk for trying to re-insert blocks in the wall the protect the life of East Berliners. He is sent back to Canada by the Canadian consulate.

Quickly you sense that the changes that East Berliners are being forced into are similar to the gas station. Full service is on the way out. Whereas before the owner looked at the station as a way to keep his family – his four sons – together, he now faced a reality of people saving a few pennies and going to self-service with computerized pumps. If he goes self-service, he does not need four sons, he needs one teenager at $4/hr. His kids kind of go their own way and one night he puts up a hand lettered sign saying ‘Closed Permanently’ and walks away from something that had been his entire life.

The film ends with two of the locals walking up and being totally disoriented by the gas station being closed.

As I said, it is anything but comedy. But it was well done and had a very valid point to make and make it very well. I am glad I watched it.

The was one other movie titled 'Tommy' which has to be the shortest movie I have ever seen. A father is driving his son out into the forest to bury the kid's pet turtle. While they are giving eulogies, the turtle walks away. They find it, but decide to leave it in nature and drive back. The film is maybe 5 minutes long. Oooookkkkaaaayyyyy. A very Canadian movie.