vernon film society
Bringing the best in world and Canadian film to film lovers of Vernon and the North Okanagan
RADIANT CITY
Director: Gary Burns, Jim Brown
With: Mark Kingwell and James Howard Kunstler
Run Time: 86 minutes
Country: Canada
Language: English
Rating: PG (Coarse language)
Reviews: www.metacritic.com/film/titles/radiantcity
In RADIANT CITY, the much talked-about new documentary by Gary Burns and journalist Jim Brown, there’s something more desperate about suburbia than its housewives. Whether you call it sprawl or growth, the suburbs have been the dominant form of community planning in North America for fifty years. In this incisive study, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival® and was chosen as one of Canada’s
Top Ten films of 2006, Burns and Brown peer into the windows – and lives – of those who call suburbia home.
The Moss family is one such household. The parents commute to the city for work, while their kids shuffle from school, to gymnastics, to playing among the half-built homes of their new community. Their micromanaged lives are mapped out on the kitchen whiteboard. The Mosses seem split on their suburban experience: Mom loves the safety and big house; Dad is busy starring in local theatre productions; son and daughter feel
isolated from the neighbours. The siblings share their thoughts as they take us on an ironic tour of the neighbourhood. Suburban communities are examined and criticized by experts including the University of Toronto’s Mark Kingwell and author James Howard Kunstler. The legacy of the suburbs is traced from the rise of the automobile to the arrival of the “new urbanists,” who look to pre-war models for designing future communities. Yet RADIANT CITY is more than a critical dissertation on the suburbs. Burns lends the movie his witty, satirical edge, crafting a film that is informative, insightful and hilarious. This film is his most direct confrontation yet with the suburban lifestyle and aesthetic; his familiarity with the landscape allows him to capture both its seductive allure and its less enchanting realities. Like the identical streetscapes of a housing division, RADIANT CITY hides secrets behind its glossy exterior that, once revealed, change not only how we view the ’burbs, but also the film we’ve just watched.
“RADIANT CITY is successful as both a documentary on the suburbs and an intimate look at the ups and downs of an admittedly quirky nuclear family.” - David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
“Enlightening and disturbingly funny.” - Aaron Hillis Village Voice
