VIFF 2014: Violent an utterly audacious feature debut

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      Violent (Canada/Norway)  

      Responsible for some of the best micro-budgeted music videos to come out of Vancouver in recent years, Amazing Factory Productions have produced—along with We Are the City drummer Andrew Huculiak, who takes the director’s credit—a luminous and utterly audacious feature debut.

      Norwegian youth Dagny seems to be experiencing a bardo state in this elliptical tale, as she remembers key moments with friends and family in the wake of a barely hinted at “catastrophic event”. And that’s pretty much it.

      You might accuse these young filmmakers of relying a little too heavily on mood and visual poetics for Violent’s deliberately paced two hours, if it wasn’t for the uniformly impressive performances, grand scale, and genuine emotional payload achieved by the end.

      Rio, September 30 (9:30 p.m.) and October 2 (4 p.m.); SFU, October 10 (3:45 p.m.)

      Follow Adrian Mack on Twitter at @adrianmacked.

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