Clearcut

Clearcut, directed by Ryszard Bugajski, is a Canadian film based on M.T. Kelly's award winning novel, about a white lawyer whose path crosses with an angry Indigenous activist determined to kidnap the head of a logging company. As the journey unfolds, the activist Arthur grows increasingly violent, while both Arthur and the kidnapped executive criticize the lawyer's indecision and his exploitation of the case through the law; the film's ending hints that Arthur may in fact be Wisakedjak, a trickster spirit from Indigenous mythology. Director Bugajski had been pressured to become an informant by the secret police in communist Poland and refused, saw his film Interrogation banned, and went into exile in Canada in 1985; he has said his interest in physical and psychological torture and how people respond to it stems from his own struggle with communism. Clearcut was his first English language film. It found little mainstream attention in North America but built a cult following in Germany; actor Graham Greene has called it his favorite role of his career. Who it's for: anyone curious about a director who fought censorship in communist Poland turning, in his first English language film, to a story of colonialism and land rights struggle in Canada. Who it's not for: those expecting a clear divide between good and bad, since the film deliberately leaves its characters' conflicting arguments unresolved.