film review: Aquarela

Directed by Victor Kossakovsky

ChinoKino score: B

Review by Allan Tong

Aquarela is Portuguese for "watercolour" and an apt title for a 90-minute visual essay about the power of water. Think of the Koyaanisqatsi films, visual feasts portraying nature without any narration or characters. These are films you have to watch on a big screen, unless your home movie theatre backs out into a drive-in.

film review: Cold Case Hammarskjöld

Directed by Mads Brügger


ChinoKino score: A-

Review by Allan Tong


Cold Case Hammarskjöld asks, Did somebody murder United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld?

In 1961, African nations were shaking off their European colonial masters to be independent. Sweden's Dag Hammarskjöld backed their independence, but upset European governments and big mining corporations who were making money off the continent. One night, Hammarskjöld's airplane went down in northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) as Hammarskjöld was heading to attend cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis. The official reason for the crash was pilot error, but Danish director Mads Brügger calls that a lie. His film explores the cause of the crash in a painstaking search that unspools like a murder mystery.

film review: David Crosby: Remember My Name

Directed by A.J. Eaton


ChinoKino score: A-

Review by Allan Tong


I don't like David Crosby, even though he played for two of my favourite bands: The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. My reason: Crosby is a spoilt, arrogant loudmouth who's lucky he's gotten this far.

So, I'm surprised that A.J. Eaton's new documentary sums up these exact sentiments--and straight from Crosby's mouth without any sugarcoasting. At 76, the ailing and broke Crosby knows that the road ahead is short, so in Remember My Name he reflects on his rocky past and gets a ton of things off his chest. "Time is the final currency," he says.