In the past couple of years I have been noticing a trend in Canadian films.  These films showcase the beautiful Canadian scenery with a booming Canadian soundtrack.  Cole is one of these Canadian films.  It takes place in Lytton, British Columbia, a small town of only three hundred people in its core. 

The movie is based around the main character Cole—a young, ambitious man who cares greatly about his family.  His family is his sister and her two children and his mother who is suffering from a mental disability.  He also has to deal with his sister’s abusive live-in boyfriend and father of her second child.   Cole is stuck in Lytton protecting his family and attending to the family business.  Much to his sister’s chagrin, Cole began attending a class in a college three hours out of Lytton.  In school Cole gets the opportunity to test drive the lifestyle he never had.  Cole’s exposure to this new life is extremely authentic.  He meets a girl and falls in love.  The story is nothing new but the way director Carl Bessai presents it is what se

ts it apart from other self-discovery Canadian films.

Kandyse McClure plays the beautiful Seraphina, Cole’s love interest.  Seraphina is of African-American decent and a tremendously wealthy family, a juxtaposition rarely shown in cinema. The characters play off each other defying many stereotypes often made. 

Chad Willett plays Bobby, who is Cole’s sister’s abusive husband.  Bobby is a bone chilling character that I would feel terrified to play.  Willett’s portrayal is convincing and believable.  In the question and answer period, Willett said he jumped at the opportunity to play a character. 

In the film, the characters are portrayed without grooving to different stereotypes too easily. Although timeless issues, Cole captures a modern flare that no one could possibly mistaken for a film from twenty years ago.    

The opening scenes showcased beautiful Lytton with the dynamic voice of Canadian Chad VanGaalen.  My telephone has a great application where I can find out what song is playing with only ten seconds of music playing.  I never have to anxiously wait for the credits to see what I’m listening to any more!  Telephone antics aside, this soundtrack is easily the best soundtrack I’ve heard all festival.  It has a folk-based edge, featuring artists like Jason Collett, Great Lake Swimmers, The Deadly Snakes, Black Mountain and even a new track from Broken Social Scene called “Cocaine Skin”.  When I asked the director of the soundtrack he commented that this is the first film he had a soundtrack for, he had normally just relied on composers. Bessai claimed he had little knowledge of indie music but received much help from Paper Music based in Toronto.  I am not familiar with a Paper Music, much as I am Paper Bag Records. Regardless of who worked on it, this soundtrack would be the perfect soundtrack for a vacation out west, exactly where this movie takes you. 

The final thing I would like to acknowledge in this film was their use of private funding only for this project, without subsides.  He said the initial budget was around half a million, but after they wrapped, it was approximately one million dollars.  Small budget and big love for a film shows. This film has yet to be picked up by a major distributer.  I really hope it does because it’s a beautiful take on people in rural British Columbia.

There's still a few more screenings to go!

http://www.tiff.net/mobile/filmsandschedules/films/cole