By Kyle Flynn

As an American, my own knowledge of the ongoing politics of our friends up north and the historical context of Canadian political candidates is fairly limited. When Peter Kuplowsky announced Matthew Rankin’s newest film, Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney as a part of the Midnight Madness line-up this year at TIFF, my ecstatic joy was through the roof as a lover of documentaries and the transgressive, fun, and weird films that frequent this program. Every piece of news and buzz that spread only helped bolster my anticipation for the film, under the guise of many of the other midnight madness films letting me down slightly this year. 

The film immediately throws you into the action, existing purely as an archival documentary that uses public footage to craft a curated image of Brian Mulroney for the viewer. At no point does it not feel ever expansive and honest in its presentation, with Mulroney’s voice and the political context he existed in at the forefront at all times. The footage curated for the documentary, I imagine, took many hours to find and splice together for how cohesive it all feels. 

Matthew Rankin also serves as the film’s writer and editor, spearheading his auteurism through the project. The narrative structure he chooses breaks the film up into various chapters and contracts each section to individual slices of Mulroney’s life. The even-handed approach he takes in selecting how to approach each moment of the film only gives me a minute to realize he is far ahead of his craft than people know. I have not watched his previous narrative feature, Universal Language, but the rhythm at which the documentary moves feels so story-worthy that it makes you question whether this all really happened, and once you find out it did brings new meaning to the words ‘Truer Than Fiction.’

The visual presentation of the documentary is likely going to be the primary selling point for skeptics about whether a documentary on a former Canadian Prime Minister is something that would remotely be worth watching for them. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. The use of color and lighting effects in an archival documentary is highly advanced. The engagement it manages to hold with you, for a layman like myself, with respect to Canadian politics, is not only a matter of the substance included by Rankin in the film, but the unbelievable visual and special effects utilized by Rob Feulner and Adrian Replanski. 

I never expected anything like this to be the festival’s must-see documentary, but it undoubtedly is. An incredible in-depth exploration into the career of Brian Mulroney, but even if that doesn’t sell you on the picture. It manages to be the most fun and batshit film I have watched this year. Capturing the current political moment through the lens of the past and finding ways to learn more about our society in the process. In a world where so many contemporary documentaries lack the bite to really expand the visual language of the medium, isn’t it worthwhile to see something make that attempt?

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars