The Oxbow Cure (2013)

The Oxbow Cure: Directed by Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas. With Claudia Dey, Grace Glowicki, Marvin Weintraub, John Gastold. A woman retreats to a lonely cabin in the woods in order to wrestle with her demons and the debilitating ailment that plagues her.

“Whatu0026#39;s most remarkable about this film is that it was made at all, let alone in Canada at the current time, when the available sources of funding are both risk- and art-averse, and tend to ruin potentially good concepts with their forced u0026#39;creativeu0026#39; input (too many cooks, etc. – especially when those u0026#39;cooksu0026#39; are businesspeople with no real understanding of film). If only more young people, upon graduating from film school, would do what the production team behind this did: collaborate to make something without having to rely on the u0026#39;officialu0026#39; sources of funding, and without worrying about whether it would be u0026#39;commercialu0026#39;, etc.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs for the film itself: itu0026#39;s far from perfect, but overall itu0026#39;s quite good at what itu0026#39;s trying to do – while not quite there, itu0026#39;s at least trying to do something more along the lines of Tarr, Kiarostami, Akerman and the like rather than taking its cues from American films (whether Hollywood or the u0026#39;mumblecoreu0026#39; indies). The acting (by a non-professional, who does a far better job than most u0026#39;professionalu0026#39; Canadian actors these days would!) is very good and nicely demonstrates the point about film acting being mostly a matter of re-acting. The use of the camera is probably the filmu0026#39;s strongest point – while there are some conventionally u0026#39;prettyu0026#39; shots, there are also quite a few images that are formally striking and effective without being u0026#39;beautifulu0026#39;. The editing is minimal and non-intrusive, and always seems to suit whatu0026#39;s being shown; the sound editing, while excellent in some scenes, goes over-the-top or becomes on-the-nose in others – especially in regards to a couple of musical choices that break the otherwise strong mood created by image, editing and non-musical sounds and which just plain donu0026#39;t fit. Furthermore, the plot, which could so easily have fallen into cliché u0026#39;Can-litu0026#39; territory (and surely would have under the influence of the aforementioned funding agencies!) manages not to, and so becomes a solid addition to the u0026#39;canonu0026#39; of works featuring this Canadian literary trope (isolation in the snowy wilderness) rather than a rip-off or unintentional parody of them.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eGiven the dire state of Canadian distribution for Canadian-made films, who knows if this will still be playing at the TIFF Lightbox by the time anyone reads this, or whether it will become available on DVD or some format after its theatrical run.”