The Evolution of Inanimate Objects
Focus on Canadian Artists showcasing multimedia literary event with conversation between authors Harry Karlinsky and Guy Gavriel Kay and screening of Canadian film À l'origine d'un cri (Crying Out) by Robin Aubert.
Doors open at 6 pm
6:30 p.m. Multimedia Literary Event: The Evolution of Inanimate Objects, $5
8:45 p.m. Film: À l'origine d'un cri (Crying Out), $10
This Is Not A Reading Series, Workman Arts, Friends of the Archives and Rendezvous with Madness present Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Guy Gavriel Kay and stunning archival imagery in a daring dialogue about science, psychiatry and the family.
Did Charles Darwin’s youngest son Thomas end his days in a London, Ontario asylum? If so, did his evolutionary theories around knives, forks and spoons die with him?
Join authors Harry Karlinsky and Guy Gavriel Kay in a surreal setting of moving and static images projected on walls, scrims and screens from historic psychiatric institutions. There, they will discuss sly and ironic questions around science, academia and fathers and sons engendered from Karlinsky’s widely acclaimed novel The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879).
Harry Karlinsky is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at University of British Columbia. He is the founding and on-going Director of the award-winning Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Series and writes film reviews, many for the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s publication Canadian Psychiatry Aujourd’hui. He has written extensively on Alzheimer’s disease, psychiatry and information technology and educational applications of films in mental health.
Multi-award winning author Guy Gavriel Kay has published eleven novels and a book of poetry. He has written social and political commentary for the UK Guardian and the Globe and Mail. China’s Tang Dynasty inspired Under Heaven, his latest novel.
À l'origine d'un cri (Crying Out)
Robin Aubert, Canada, 2010, 115 Minutes, French w/ English subtitles
Crying Out revolves around three generations of men in a highly dysfunctional family where pain, loathing, trauma and alcohol abuse dovetail with demons and ghosts in Quebecer Robin Aubert's compelling but disturbing family drama spiced with twisted black humour. When a distraught widower Le Père (Michel Barrette), in a fit of booze-fueled madness, can’t release his young second wife, he digs up her corpse from the cemetery for one last road trip together in his old car. The family sends his troubled son Le Fils (Patrick Hivon) and wily curmudgeonly father Le Grand-Père (amazing veteran actor Jean Lapointe) to find and retrieve him. All three men have serious issues personally and with each other and all three drink to ludicrous excess to avoid dealing with them. It takes a while to cut through some macabre antics and care about these extreme characters but when you do, they truly have their redemption. Crying Out has creepy moments but also touching ones. Taut performances from the three male actors keep the melodrama from going over a horrific edge. Aubert has infused his lead characters with a mélange of attractive and irritating traits. Like real human beings they are deeply flawed, but also deeply lovable.
DiD
Jake Wynne, UK, 2009, 15 min, World Premiere, English
A young abused man suffering from DiD (Dissociative Identity Disorder) commonly referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder, hikes up a mountain to scatter his dead mother’s ashes, however, he must battle his internal three competing personalities with differing pasts who attempt to sabotage his journey to the top.
