Polaroids

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Toronto surrealist Lillian Nécakov examines cinema in a book that
reflects her avant-garde sensibilities. Although certain standard
features such as numbered pages are dispensed with, accessibility is not
abandoned.

Nécakov is most engaging when dealing with familiar Hollywood
subjects. “Yikes! It’s All a Bit Too Kitsch” is a sentimental
deconstruction of Pillow Talk. Nécakov views the manipulative plot of
this romantic comedy as “a bit too kitsch,” but admits the film’s
appeal, confessing that she too will “rewind the VCR.” She closely
studies foreign views of Hollywood. In “The French Love Buddy Love,”
she probes France’s mysterious admiration of Buddy’s alter ego,
Jerry Lewis, and concludes that the French love Lewis because he
validates their anti-American prejudices.

Our attitudes toward film personalities are questioned. When “Hal
Hartley on a Harley” spouts nonsense to Torontonians, they take it
seriously because “hey he’s Hal Hartley” and these urban
sophisticates worship the independent director.

Nécakov must reach two audiences: the cinéastes and everyone else. In
these poems, she communicates effectively with both.