Warning warning – this is going to be another very loooong stop!
Oh Canada! It is the second biggest country in the world. It takes a few turns and three people to colour Canada on the world map in the kitchen. Some of the people in our party have lived in Canada and we have a good Canadian friend who lives two streets from us so it is a very exciting entry. Still, I am surprised at how little we know about Canada – and how the general feeling is that Canada is doing much better in so many ways compared to its southern neighbour. But there are dark spots in its history as well; Canada, as so many others, has not been at its brightest regarding its treatment of First Nations people.
But one thing is certain- natural beauty!. Canada has a majestic landscape, varied and vast, displayed in its ten provinces and three territories. Just see any footage of the magnificent Yukon and its breathtaking elegance or of Alert, the northernmost settlement with continuous (year-round) population, or the huge waves outside the coast of Newfoundland.
But first, as always. Food.
The festive, joyful Canada Night
After decorating the house with numerous Canadian flags and filling the air with a Spotify playlist tailored especially for this occasion, the Canada Night gathers so far the biggest Virtual Nomad crowd. There are 22 people around the table with seven newbies at their very first Virtual Nomad theme night. The menu has been designed by our Canadian friend CL who has also overseen the selection of the most successful Canadian artists for the playlist. It is a night with maple syrup and Dion, Mitchell, Bieber, the Weekend, Twain and the likes. For the youngest of the Virtual Nomads, it is their favourite night yet, and it truly is a very successful, lively and joyful evening.
The people gathered around the food, music, fire pit, warm sauna and the ice bath, including some of the core Virtual Nomads, apart from myself: my partner JK, my children L (17) and A (11), L’s boyfriend NA (18), my stepchild FK (15) and seasoned Nomads AK, DK and their adult children AK and MK (all on their 11th Virtual Nomad stop), dear friends KD, KD (15) and JD (their 6th Virtual Nomad), L* and her daughter S* (3rd stop) and newbies, all great old friends: our resident Canadian friend CL, partner JJ and kids EL (10) and SL (14) as well as a fellow European CB and her children JB (10) and EB (8). No need to remember everyone as it is a big group.
The food is amazing and everyone brings a plate or two. All eyes are on CL, our Canadian friend and food authority for the night, when we ask how well everyone did. Really well, it turns out.
The iconic and most recognisable Canadian dish is Poutine – chips (French fries) topped with cheese curd and gravy. Poutine originated in the 1950s in Quebec, and became a symbol of Québécois culture and has since become a national dish. There are even annual Poutine celebrations around the country. Poutine is basically a layered dish – on the bottom French fries, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, topped with cheese curd – in most cases this is cheddar or mozzarella. The cheese forms a melted blanket for the chips once the gravy is poured on top. In 2007, a poll by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation placed Poutine as the 10th greatest Canadian invention and in 2017 it was selected as the favourite Canadian food (ahead of maple syrup). There are different variations of Poutine. For our Canadian night, we have two forms of Poutine. AK prepares the traditional Beef Poutine with savoury beef gravy and JK prepares a vegetarian version with vegetable gravy. Both get an approval from CL and are very successfully consumed in record time, particularly by the youngsters!
The most elegant and certainly very well received dish of our Canadian night is the Tourtière meat pie prepared by L*. She is a very experienced cook and this is her third Virtual Nomad stop (after Burundi and Cameroon). It is a classic Christmas Eve dish for French Canadians and traditionally eaten after the midnight mass. It is made with a “flaky crust” filled with meat (usually pork or beef) and mixed with spices, and sometimes vegetables. L*’s Tourtière is exquisite and looks (and tastes!) very elegant.
JD, KD and KD (15) bring smoked salmon. Canada is one of the largest producers of salmon in the world and exports salmon in large quantities. Historically, salmon has been an important food source for First Nations people and many coastline communities still depend on salmon fishing, some using traditional methods of catching salmon when it travels upstream. Smoked salmon is an important culinary part of the wide Canadian kitchen, particularly in regions such as British Colombia. JD is particularly good at preparing smoked salmon and meat, so the dish is stunningly tasty.
CB, a wonderful European newbie with her delightful daughters JB and EB brings a Caesar salad. It is not originally Canadian but according to our resident Canadian CL, it deserves to be on the menu as it is very popular in Canada. CB creates an excellent salad in situ and just like that we have another stellar cook in our Virtual Nomad community!
I bring stuffed peppers (or capsicums as we call them in Australia). I have made them for some other Virtual Nomad stops so I feel like a pro. These are vegetarian peppers, filled with tofu, vegetables, spices and cheese. I have chosen small capsicums which makes them easier to eat. They might not aesthetically look exactly as they should but taste heavenly ☺. I also prepare corn cobs in the oven which is the easiest recipe ever – corn cobs showered in butter and then heated in the oven. JK prepared Bannock, a traditional bread with Indigenous roots – made by various First Nations and Métis communities for generations. It is a baked or fried bread that mixes Indigenous cooking with colonial influences.
As for our resident Canadian CL and his family, they prepare what is often considered Canada’s national drink, the Caesar. It is a super unique cocktail made with vodka and Clamato (tomato and clam juice together), hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and served with lime, a celery stick, greens and bacon. It was invented in Calgary in 1969 and the proud inventor was a bartender called Walter Chell who wanted to create an Italian type of cocktail but à la Canadienne. It is considered more than a cocktail and served in a jar with salt around the glass. It has the strangest but most fascinating taste that cannot easily be forgotten.
CL and company also prepare Nanaimo bars, a typical, very rich three layer dessert – a crumbly base, a creamy custard-filled middle layer and chocolate on top. CL’s partner, our dear friend JJ, is an incredible cook and her bars are almost better than the original, says CL. Nanaimo bars come from a place called – Nanaimo! – on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, first documented in the 1950s and becoming a well-loved, no-bake dessert often associated with Canadian cuisine. They are very rich and the big Virtual Nomad crowds, especially the young ones, loooove them (L (17) proofreader here: I can confirm I am still dreaming about JJ’s delicious, heavenly bars, but know if I tried to recreate them I would set all 3 layers on fire somehow – cooking is a meticulous craft!). The other dessert, butter tarts, are prepared by FK (15) and they are also marvelous and received very well. And, of course, a Canadian Night would not be complete without pancakes and maple syrup.
Canada on a maple leaf
Canada is huge. It has vast landscapes and it embraces three oceans: the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic. Canada has the longest international border in the world with its only neighbour. Canada has ten provinces and three territories.
The name Canada actually comes from the Huron-Iroquois word kanata, meaning a village or settlement.
According to the 2021 Census, there are about 1.8 million Indigenous people in Canada, forming roughly 5% of the whole population. Before the arrival of the Europeans, unsurprisingly there were many more First Nations settlements around the continent including the Inuit in the Arctic and Haudenosaunee in the East. The first Europeans arrived around the year 1000 AD (the Vikings) but European colonisation did not really start until 1497 when John Cabot (born Giovanni Caboto) sailed to the shores. But it was the Brits and the French again that quarrelled over the dominance of Canadian land, both allying with rival Indigenous communities. Jacques Cartier claimed the land for France in 1534. The French established Quebec as the capital in the 17th century, but then the Brits wanted their share of the maple pie and the Seven Years’ War resulted in British control over Canada. In 1867, The British North America Act put several provinces together. Canada gained self-governance (within the British Empire) in 1931 but full legislative independence waited until 1982 when Canada obtained the right to amend its own constitution.
Canada has a complicated past (and present) regarding the treatment of First Nations and Inuit people. The 1876 Indian Act established the assimilation policy that resulted in some terrible repercussions such as the Canadian Indian Residential System. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (yes, the father of Justin) launched the Multiculturalism Policy in 1971 that attracted millions of immigrants. Other divisions have also marked Canadian history. The referendum for independence of the French speaking Quebec was held in 1995, losing narrowly (75% of the population of Quebec speaks French). The capital of Canada is Ottawa.
The Virtual Nomad reading record: Six books from Canada
My resident Canadian friend CL designed the menu and chose the artists for the Canadian night with great success, but he is not sure what books and movies to recommend, therefore I turn to my other delightful Canadian friend AA who gladly takes on the task. AA works in connection with Canadian culture so she is well suited for this. Canadian literature of course has a massive scope so to come up with only a few recommendations is quite a feat. In the end, she recommends ten different authors and I end up reading a whopping six books. As six is already a large number of books, I leave out very interesting books and hope one day to be able to return to them.
Without doubt, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood are the great dames of Canadian literature. Margaret’s The Handmaid’s tale is globally influential and probably one of the most famous, if not the most famous, Canadian book. I have already read it years ago so AA recommends that I read one of Margaret’s early books “to get a sense of how she blew literature apart from the very start of her career”. I decide to read The Circle Game, a collection of poems. I am not usually big on poetry and probably would have not read this collection if it was not for AA’s recommendation. The poems talk about duality and perceptions – relationships, images of the world, the dichotomy between the adult world and childhood, emotional isolation, going around in circles. I end up enjoying quite a lot – not surprisingly Margaret’s writing is sublime and I enjoy some of the poems immensely, and some less – as tends to happen with poetry. “So now you trace me like a country’s boundary or a strange new wrinkle in your own well known skin”.
The Break (2016) by Katherena Verette was a bestseller in Canada and won several awards – and boy, are all those so well deserved. Katherena is a Michif (Red River Métis) writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is also an Indigenous rights activist and her plight for equality for Indigenous peoples in Canada shines through her writing. She grew up in a socially challenged, high crime area of North Winnipeg, and when she was 14, her 18 year-old brother Donovan disappeared. Donovan’s case was not widely published or commented on, and Katharena has been very outspoken about the lack of media attention and slow investigation due to Donovan being an Indigenous man.
As for the book itself, her debut, it is hard to put it down and I basically read the 352 pages in one go. It is a riveting, outstanding, captivating, haunting book. A story about a young Métis woman witnessing a nightly assault of a young girl grows not only into a powerful family saga but also reflects the systematic and structural violence against Indigenous women. When I read Imbolo’s second book for the Cameroon stop, at the beginning I expected it to be the standout that this book turns out to be. The different voices carrying the story are complex yet rich in their struggles and trials. The pages contain a very real and heart wrenching yet mesmerising story telling. Later I found out that it is the first of a trilogy, and now I know I need to read the other two as they follow the story of some of the characters. I will not do it now as I need to move on along the Virtual Nomad path but definitely will when the opportunity arises. But yes, this book truly is a masterpiece.
Whatever I read next unfortunately must come after this beautiful book, such a hard act to follow.
Ru (2009) by Kim Thúy is a book that I have long been wanting to read. It tells the story of a young Vietnamese refugee who with her family escapes the communist rule by boat. She arrives in Montreal with her family via a refugee camp in Malaysia. The book mirrors the story of the author, but is not strictly autobiographical, written in an almost stream of consciousness or conversational style (in which someone rambles endlessly and all you do is listen). It is built in the form of a collection of memories from a wealthy family in Vietnam, then as ‘boat people’ facing the perils of a dangerous journey and later building a new life in Montreal. The word ‘ru’ has different connotations, meaning a ‘lullaby’ in Vietnamese and ‘stream/flow’ in French, both concepts of which are mixed in the book. The book jumps back and forth in time describing life in many different phases: the war in Vietnam, the escape on a boat, the travel to Canada, life as an adult and the return to Vietnam. What seems most emphasised are the life events before Canada and then the full meaning of love that the main character finally understands when she becomes a mother. It is an interesting yet not fascinating novel; a nice yet not an engaging read. It is for sure well written yet feels unfinished – for me Ru unfortunately does not fully deliver the way some other stories of immigration that I have read for Virtual Nomad have.
I am very grateful for AA for her list because the literature journey I take brings me right around the vast country. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1998) by Wayne Johnston takes me straight to Newfoundland, and the book is as much, or more, about Newfoundland than it is about the people in the story. The book is a fictionalised life story of the real Joey Smallwood, a politician who rose from poverty to become the first Premier of Newfoundland. He is credited with bringing Newfoundland to the Confederation of Canada. What I read about him (outside the book) is that he remains a controversial figure who brought infrastructure and social benefits to Newfoundland (roads, education reform), but stayed in power for longer than needed and dealt with his opponents and the press with a hard hand.
The book is long (500+ pages) and while the historical and political side of it is quite interesting (based on real events), the cat and mouse play with a fictional childhood friend, intellectual rival and potential love interest Fielding, is less so. Fielding is a quirky character for sure and is given much more storyline than Smallwood’s real wife and children but her story (and its big revelations) feel predictable. But the descriptions of the history of Newfoundland and Smallwood’s travels, profession and rise to power are quite interesting. I probably would have benefitted from having more background on the history of Newfoundland so I might have completely missed some of the nuances that make this book so important for many Canadians.
Thomson Highway is a Cree man from northern Manitoba and a Canadian Residential school survivor, author, musician, playwright, and social worker. In 2000, Thomson was named one of the 100 most important people in Canadian history. Residential schools (see also a documentary about the subject in the next section) were places where more than 150,000 Indigenous children were placed when removed from their families to be ‘assimilated’ into non-Indigenous Canadian society through religious indoctrination, harsh conditions, prohibition of native languages, and in many cases violence and sexual abuse.
Kiss of the Fur Queen (2008) is about two brothers who live through a Residential school and the aftermath of their experiences. Less time is dedicated to the horrors of the school itself than to their life after. When the brothers step into the real world, they find themselves not belonging to anything or anyone, not their magical Cree world nor the modern society that alienates them as individuals. The Fur Queen watches over them and the storyline jumps from one reality to another. Sometimes hard to follow, the book covers a lot of trauma territory, with people finding themselves in a place of social solitude. An interesting read, with skilful writing, albeit confusing at times.
I finish the long Canadian literature stop with the memoir Run Towards the Danger (2022) by Sarah Polley. I’ve been a great fan of Sarah’s work – including her movies Stories We Tell and Women Talking (and I watch yet another title later!) as well as her acting in several films, my favourite being The Secret Life of Words. However, no, I have not seen Road to Avonlea which made her famous as a child actress. This book is a collection of six essays about traumatic watershed moments in her life including themes such as stage fright, sexual assault, high risk pregnancy, scoliosis, losing her mother, a concussion and her complicated relationship with fame and child stardom. She writes with an astonishing openness. I find confessional, semi auto-biographies sometimes uncomfortable and while I nearly wept while reading some of the essays, it is the first of the six that I struggle most with – not only for the strange affection that Sarah’s father seems to feel for his child, but also for the circumstances around Sarah’s stage fright (at a very tender age, must be noted) and the impact on other people. I consider abandoning the book after the first essay but luckily I do not since the book grows from there. One thing becomes certain: child stardom sucks.
The books from AA’s list of recommendations that I leave for a future occasion are Son of a Trickster (2017) by Eden Robinson, In the Skin of the Lion (1987) by Michael Ondaatje, Fifteen Dogs (2015) by André Alexis and the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny.
It must be said that my childhood dream was to visit Prince Edward’s Island due to Anne of Green Gables. And that a book I love is I heard the Owl Call My Name (1967) by Margaret Craven.
The Canadian Movie Festival
Not surprisingly, Canada has a thriving, rich and abundant film industry. As with other film rich countries, the Canadian Movie Festival will include ten movies / documentaries / tv series. My Canadian friend AA approves of our list, and then it is time for the ten viewing experiences – which, in the end, ends up being more than ten.
It’s Sarah again! Sarah Polley is a Canadian filmmaker and actress who started her career as a child actress and then grew to enjoy directing and writing more. A few months ago, JK and I watched Sarah’s masterful documentary Stories We Tell (2012). What to say about it without revealing too much? That it is a nuanced, skilful personal story that opens layer by layer like an onion. The basic storyline is that Sarah learns that who she thought was her biological father is not, so she starts a personal journey that goes through surprising emotional landscapes and grows much bigger than one person. It is enthralling and deep, moving and brilliant. Stories We Tell is about memory, losing and gaining, family, and belonging. It is, basically, about the stories we tell to ourselves and others.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) by Zachariak Kunuk is the first ever movie filmed in Inuktitut. It is based on an old Inuit legend that has been passed down through generations as oral tradition. It has been selected by several filmmaker polls as one of the greatest Canadian movies ever made. It is a fascinating movie that at first is a bit difficult to follow, therefore the understanding of what is happening and who is who does not come until a bit later down the track. Even that is ok as this is an Inuit story made fully by Inuit filmmakers and actors, with no need to adjust the storytelling. Once the spectator understands what is going on, it opens an incredibly detailed and interesting glimpse to the ancient life and customs of the Inuit, and their survival in extreme conditions. The story is mixed with spiritual magic, rivalry and a hero’s journey. Atanarjuat marries two women that prompts the rage and jealousy of his rival, the son of the leader of the tribe who obtained his leadership in a questionable manner. It is visually stunning, and what a feat it must have been to film in a land of snow and ice! Much screen time is given to rituals, songs and preparation of food, but it also gives a glimpse into the organisation of the community and its lifestyle. Zachariak himself was born in Nunavut (the northernmost, largest territory in Canada), which is self-governed by the Inuit. It is an extraordinary, albeit very long film.
The Oka Crisis in 1990 was a 78-day-long land dispute between the Mohawk Indigenous nation and the city of Oka regarding the building of a golf course and apartments on top of their sacred burial sites. Oka is a town situated south of Montreal in Quebec. Kanehsatake: 270 years of resistance by Alanis Obomsavin is a fascinating documentary of a landmark moment in Canadian Indigenous history. Alanis, an Abanaki woman herself, spent those 78 days with the protesters, and had unique access to the Mohawk warriors defending the land. She shows the mistreatment of the Mohawk by the army and the common press: according to the Canadian Film Board, the other press’ coverage of the conflict was from a “biased Western perspective”. Alanis’ documentary helped to show the press-diminished Mohawk perspective, and her presence as a film-maker and bystander probably helped ease the tensions and avoid further violence. The documentary shows how the conflict started to attract international attention and how other First Nations people expressed their solidarity with the Mohawk situation, and is considered a landmark documentary for its portrayal of Indigenous people. One of the activists on site was 14-year-old Waneek Horn-Miller who was stabbed close to the heart (while protecting her 4-year-old sister) by an army officer. She nearly died but recovered and became an Olympic athlete. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgYtF32ml5Q)
Another movie that frequently tops the lists of best Canadian cinema is Mon Oncle Antoine (1971) by Claude Jutra. Many countries have their quintessential movies that form part of the national idiosyncrasy and are important for the collective memory, and this movie seems to be that for Canada. It has topped three out of four times the Toronto Film Festival list of the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time – a list compiled every ten years since 1984. In the latest list (2015), it was second only to Atanarjuat. It is a coming-of-age movie describing life in a 1940s mining town in rural Quebec. Mon Oncle Antoine was directed by the very controversial Claude Jutra who died at 56 due to early-onset Alzheimer’s, and thirty years after his death, allegations arose indicating he was a paedophile targeting young boys. It is difficult to take these allegations lightly when watching the movie. Nevertheless, I can see why the movie is considered a classic; it’s nostalgic, portraying a conservative landscape of a world at the verge of change. While I would not put it on my ‘best of’ lists, I still enjoyed it and I do understand that films have a different importance to different people, for different reasons.
The Canadian Residential School system was a chain of boarding schools for Indigenous children that existed for more than a hundred years. More than 150,000 children were removed from their families to attend these schools in order for the Canadian government and Christian churches to assimilate them into Canadian society and forget their ‘savageness’; their own culture and language. The conditions in most of these institutions were extremely harsh and cruel, and approximately anything between 2,300 and 30,000 children died while under religious care. Disease, hunger and sexual abuse was rampant and many of the survivors came out deeply scarred. We Were Children (Tim Wolochatiuk, 2012) is a shocking, dramatised documentary following the story of two survivors, Lyna Hart and Glen Anaquod. Your heart explodes from sadness when you see a big-eyed 4-year old Lyna ripped from her family and placed in state care, and then raped by a priest. About his experience, Glen says: “I don’t know what kind of God they have that loves to hurt others.”
Not everyone is the system was completely evil, however the majority were still accomplices to a discriminating, abusive system. The last school closed in 1996 (the one Glen had attended) and an official apology by the government was delivered in 2008.
In December 1989, a gunman walked into the École Polytechnique of the University of Montreal targeting female students. He killed fourteen women, and injured ten more women and four men. His motives were widely reported to be anti-feminist and based on misogynist terrorism. Acclaimed filmmaker Denis Villaneuve decided to make a fictionalised recount of the events, changing the names of the victims. Filmed in black and white and with very little dialogue, it plays like a normal winter day turned into a catastrophic, violent nightmare. The story is filmed primarily from two different perspectives, or three, but the third is the one that should not be named. The filmmakers consulted the family members of the victims and made the film with the intention to respect and honour the victims. It is a gripping watch that haunts you afterwards. I have read some of the rave reviews and several analyses, and I understand that the filmmakers were portraying the shooter as an emotionless monster, but I still feel that the movie does not achieve to celebrate the lives of the fourteen women killed and subsequent injured and life-long traumatised individuals. While I can understand that the movie has a certain value, I struggle with the idea that in twenty years I would be watching a film of the April 2024 Bondi Junction shopping mall massacre.
The next movie is again quite different, this time another from the ever so amazing Sarah Polley. Away From Her (2006) is based on a short story by Alice Munro, telling about a wife’s Alzheimer’s disease and the sacrifices her husband goes through. It reminds me of Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012) that I watched for the Austria entry, but this movie is much gentler. It is a melancholic, outstanding movie about love and loss, remorse, sacrifice and devotion. The acting is top notch and the movie itself is directed in a beautiful, gentle way that breathes like real life. I have seen several movies about Alzheimer’s disease and for me, this is probably the best one. It is not sensational– it is understanding, it is real, it is gentle, and it is forgiving.
The Sweet Hereafter (1997) by Atom Egoyan is about every parent’s worst nightmare, and is therefore a difficult watch. It again has Sarah Polley in it. The story is about a community grieving when several families lose children in a school bus accident. The movie became a critical and commercial success in Canada, which is quite a feat considering its subject matter. The movie jumps between different timelines and has a strong focus on the different characters (rather than presenting events in a chronological order). The movie is set in a mountain town in British Columbia. The acting is generally very good, and again Sarah Polley demonstrates the strength of her craft. While about a village/town, it is above all about loneliness – and maybe greed. It is an interesting, yet difficult watch especially hitting hard as a parent.
Incendies (2010) by Denis Villeneuve is… quite a movie. It has been hailed as a masterpiece but also criticised for being messy, implausible and disturbing, and to some extent for its orientalism (even if based on a play by Waidi Mouawad). I do not quite know what or how to think about it but it is impactful for sure, and quite shocking. I struggle to find the words to describe how I feel and quite frankly cannot say whether I liked or disliked it. It is again better not to reveal too much of the plot but it is mainly a story about the twin children of an Arab Canadian woman who learn about the secrets of their mother. One thing was certain, I could not stop watching it even if some of the cultural caricatures bothered me to a certain extent. But what did I think about it? I am still quite not sure, even in my review!
Taken (2016) is a three-season 39-episode series (currently preparing the fourth and final season) on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada. Violence against Indigenous women in Canada is disproportionately high to the extent that it has been called a national crises. In 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set up a national Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Every episode of the series looks into a separate case. While my intention is to watch the whole series, for this stop I watch the first twelve episodes (series one).
In 2014, the disappearance and death of a 15-year-old Indigenous girl Tina Fontaine drew national attention to the issues of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Her story is covered in the first episode, and it was her story that finally highlighted the violence against Indigenous women and the epidemic number of Indigenous women that had gone missing or found dead.
The second episode tells of the Highway of Tears – a 700-kilometre-long Highway 16 in British Columbia famous for the murders and disappearances of primarily Indigenous women. The conservative estimates say there have been around 18 murders of Indigenous women related to the highway, whereas the locals say the number is much higher. According to Amnesty International Canada, the disappearances and murders are part of a broader systematic problem of violence against Indigenous people in Canada. Along the Highway of Tears, poverty and lack of safe transportation in a landscape of long distances add to the unsafe conditions for Indigenous women and girls. There are several documentaries exclusively about the Highway of Tears, many of them available on various platforms.
The Funny Canada Mini Film Festival
There they are, the ten Canadian movies and tv series, all watched. But then my Canadian friend AA rightfully reminds me that while the list of ten movies from Canada is amazing, there are very few comedies on the list. She says that Canadians are funny – and my selection of movies, although many covering critically important subject matter, is quite sombre. I absolutely agree with AA and after a string of movies of dark topics, I follow her lead to incorporate a couple of comedies in the mix. AA provides me with the “23 funniest Canadian movies” list by the Globe and Mail (2023) and I choose three that are available to watch and then I also rewatch another ‘comedy’, one of the most famous Canadian movies which in fact, really is not a comedy after all.
La grande séduction (2003) by Jean-François Pouliot is a cute little film about a village that needs a doctor in order to have the employment opportunities the village desperately needs. Once they get one, they decide to make him love the village so much that he decides to stay. The plot is not exceptionally original and the ‘fish out of water’ stories have been achieved in many forms, but it is a nice, light, lovely, feel-good watch. I watch it with my son A (11) and it does get a large bunch of good laughs out of us. It is a feel-good movie and definitely has a lot of charm – and it is a welcome change after dark and deep themes. It is a great watch with kids despite that the very first scene of the movie implies the whole village having sex – but it is done in a way that prompts a little bit of giggling from my preteen. We both really enjoyed the film.
The F Word (2013) by Michael Dowse is available under the title What If as the original title was too risky for the US market (insert a ‘rolling of eyes’ emoji). It is a hilarious, witty and well written rom-com that I fully enjoyed. While the main story is a bit boring, the main characters aren’t that interesting (although Daniel Radcliffe does a pretty good job) and the whole woman/man cannot be friends trope is always an infuriating claim, it is the collection of colourful side characters that make it truly enjoyable. That is– all the side characters are delicious and steal the scene one after the other – you can just tell the absolute blast the actors had in bringing these characters to life. It also has a sensationally good Adam Driver and Mackenzie Davis in supporting roles.
Starbuck (2011) by Ken Scott is a comedy about a sort of douchey man who has fathered 533 children through a sperm bank. He is chaotic, lazy and unreliable, but of course lovable and learns a lesson in the end. The movie is sentimental and predictable but quite sweet. While it is cheesy and stereotypical, I actually found myself liking it much more than I expected, or wanted :). There are, however, things that I do not understand – why would the kids refer to their families as ‘adoptive families’ if they were conceived through IVF? Why did they need to find their sperm donor so badly as if they did not have loving families and as if they were abandoned?
Jesus of Montreal (1989) by Denys Arcand is constantly selected as one of the Best Canadian films. I watched it years ago and found it boring, so I return to watch it now as a full-fledged adult to see if it will impress me more. It is described to be a comedy… but is not very funny. The film plays with the idea of what would happen if Jesus lived in modern times. A group of actors is hired to do a modernised play of Jesus which is then loved by the public but hated by the church (who paid for it). Slowly, the main actor’s life starts to resemble the life of Jesus. While I understand that this is a fascinating idea, the film requires a solid degree of knowledge on Christian theology which I do not have so I am unable to appreciate the nuances of the film. I understand that there is irony and there is criticism, and I think maybe for the right audience it is a revelation. Denys is the director of another highly acclaimed Canadian film, the Barbarian Invasions (2003) that I also saw years ago as another movie that left me unmoved – while it won numerous awards and people find it great. Maybe Denys just is not the director for me.
So that’s it, dark and light movies from Canada. There are still a few Canadian comedies to see but it is definitely time to move on.
Music
The most streamed song on Spotify with more than 4 billion (nearly 5) is by a Canadian musician called the Weeknd and the song is a very catchy one that everyone knows….
Our Canadian Night Spotify list consists of the most successful Canadian musicians (and some personal favourites of the group) and five of their most streamed songs. Too many songs to mention but we played the top five most streamed songs (in August 2024) from Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Loreena McKennitt, Shania Twain, Rush, the Band, the Weeknd, Alanis Morissette, Celine Dion, Carly Rae Jepsen, Anril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Shawn Mendes, Buffy Saint-Marie, Bryan Adams, Nelly Furtado, Alessia Cara, Drake, k.d.Lang, Michael Buble, Justin Bieber, The Tragically Hip, Barenaked Ladies, Ryan Gosling – the list can be found on Spotify under “Canada Night Music” (note from L (17) – I didn’t know that most of these artists were Canadian! Virtual Nomad is informative in more ways than one :p).
What was my favourite song? I cannot tell – just that there was something for everyone ☺
Thank you wonderful Canadian friends CL and AA for making this stop a delicious, interesting and content rich stop
Thank you L (17) for your proof reading!
Next stop: Cabo Verde