Can I Get A Witness?

An incredibly ominous premise, executed with incredible style. So, so beautiful, and reckoning with grief in such a unique and confronting way.

I was promised a utopia, but this is quite clearly speculative fiction on the side of dystopia, however calm things seem in the now of the story.

The divide between generations has never been more clear. Oh, it’s heartbreaking. It’s violent without being violent. It’s everything that we have to say about being human and being here. Being as much a contribution as a burden. Making us think harder and harder about what the consequences of that balance is. What love is. What love costs us. What it costs to be on earth with each other.

When you’re full body sobbing 30 minutes in, that’s a good sign something important is happening.

It’s a distinctly Canadian film about personal and community responsibility and agency, that seems uniquely informed by COVID, and people’s competing reactions to personal sacrifice under the guise of community responsibility.