The Bitter Ash (1963)

The Bitter Ash (1963). 1h 20m

“The Bitter Ash is a Canadian classic, cheaply made (by university students), but powerful and haunting in effect. Be warned of dubbing problems and occasional over-acting. The dialogue, structure, editing, and the jazz soundtrack more than compensate for this. Indeed, the filmu0026#39;s faults add to its charm. For anyone interested in the beginnings of the counter-culture and the sexual revolution of the early 1960u0026#39;s, the film is a must. It begins with a black screen u0026amp; the sound of a heart beating; it cuts to opening credits illustrated with drawings of skeletal men fighting — lacking flesh. There is something gothic, dead and fearful in 1950u0026#39;s culture and Cold War angst, that the film transmits. TBA takes the imagination both inside its characters and outside, into the economic, familial, social and historical moment/place of its creation: provincial Vancouver at its first moments of self-consciousness and cultural rebellion. Unlike so much contemporary Canadian film, it makes no effort to conceal its identity. And unlike many other early Canadian features, TBA is not a docudrama. The male characters are immediately recognizable as commentaries on mainstream cinematic masculinities: the `angry young manu0026#39; from the working class, and his romantic alternative, handsome gentility (i.e. James Dean or Warren Beatty). At the centre of the drama, Laurie (Lynn Stewart) is a dropout from the middle-class, determined to escape the empty materialism of her parentsu0026#39; generation, but, after a poor marriage, motherhood and poverty, finds herself confronted by more formidable forces.”