MONKEY WARFARE

Director: Reg Harkema
Cast: Don McKellar, Tracy Wright, Nadia Litz
Run Time: 75 minutes
Country: Canada
Year: 2006
Language: English
Rating: 14A (Frequent drug use, coarse language)

“Laconic off-kilter humour is well worked out on all levels of the production.”– Dennis Harvey, Variety

MONKEY WARFARE, Reg Harkema’s (A GIRL IS A GIRL) latest treat for the brain and the senses, screened to wide acclaim at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival®, where it was awarded an Honourable Mention from the jury for the Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film.

MONKEY WARFARE is set almost entirely in and around a ramshackle house in Toronto’s West End, where middle-aged bohemians Dan (Don McKellar, LAST NIGHT, CHILDSTAR) and Linda (Tracy Wright, CHILDSTAR, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW) eke out an existence scavenging in garbage dumps and rummaging through yard sales for undervalued objects. They spend their evenings getting baked and staring silently into space. As the film opens, tragedy strikes: their dealer has been busted. Enter the enigmatic young Susan (Nadia Litz, RHINOCEROS EYES, LOVE THAT BOY), a winsome, mysterious hipster who rescues Dan from the perils of sobriety by offering him organically grown B.C. bud. Susan’s arrival re-invigorates Dan, who clumsily tries to seduce her with counterculture memorabilia. As the couple grows accustomed to their newfound guest, the relationships among the three change. Dan and Linda function – sometimes simultaneously – as parents, confidants and mentors, while Susan acts as both temptress and conscience. And she’s not the only one with secrets.

Equal parts political comedy, elegy and domestic drama, MONKEY WARFARE exudes considerable scruffy charm, much of it due to the performers’ evident glee. Outfitted with a ludicrous Fu Manchu moustache, McKellar delivers an inspired comic performance, most notably when his encounters with Susan lead to his sexual re-awakening. Wright plays Linda as a ruefully wised-up woman, at once tired and proud of the way she and Dan have managed to exist on the margins for so long, while Litz exudes a keenly observed mix of youthful arrogance and innocence. Harkema directs with a pop-art brio, loading the film with visual references to seventies exploitation movies. The film is driven by a sly comic take on bohemia, counterculture politics and disillusionment. So crank up your old MC5 records and ask yourself whether complacency is the logical end of opposing the mainstream, or just a minor lull along the way.

“MONKEY WARFARE comes equipped with Godard-tested tactics (jump-cuts, onscreen text, agitprop slogans) and a mighty cool soundtrack (Comets on Fire, Pink Mountaintops, Weird War). The result is energetic and quintessentially Torontonian.”– Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly