Director: Matthew Rankin
Stars: Brian Mulroney, John Diefenbaker, Joe Clarke
Synopsis: In 1976, Brian Mulroney launched a charm offensive the likes of which Canada had never seen, dismantling the political establishment one dad joke at a time. In this psychedelic doomscroll through the mind of a master politician, filmmaker Matthew Rankin charts the flamboyant rise of Canada’s 18th prime minister
“When Irish hearts are happy,
All the world seems bright and gay.
And when Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure they steal your heart away.”
There might not be a more essential National Film Board of Canada documentary made in this century than Matthew Rankin’s Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney. It’s probably the most striking piece of political cinema we’ve seen in this country since Denys Arcand’s Comfort and Indifference, and you won’t realize what Rankin is doing until long after you’ve left the cinema and caught your breath from having laughed so incredibly hard. Because, yes, the collage of images (and colors) that Rankin proposes in his hybrid docu-sh*tpost is akin to an extended episode of Infoman on acid, as it tracks the rise of one of Canada’s most popular prime ministers before he became the face of the nation.
Brian Mulroney, or “Le p’tit gars de Baie-Comeau,” (The little boy from Baie-Comeau) started from humble beginnings until he vied for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. His first bid was unsuccessful. Mulroney was beaten by Joe Clarke, who eventually became Prime Minister of the country for six meager months, and was upended by Pierre-Elliot Trudeau once more after his budget failed to pass the House of Commons. Rankin treats each of these moments in history as lesson in backstabbing, where Mulroney plotted his ascension from the first time he lost the leadership bid, even if he attempts to publicly support Clarke’s reign.
Through six unwieldy episodes, Rankin exposes the moral rot at the center of not only the Conservative Party of Canada (Mulroney’s charm offensive was extremely popular…until it wasn’t and the party became what it is now) but of every single federal party who attempt the same type of showmanship as did Trudeau. The whole thing looks and sounds like a farce. At least, that’s what you’ll believe upon witnessing a bevy of hyper stimulating kaleidoscopies that assault your senses and pervert much of what Mulroney said or did at the time. It looks and feels like complete ridicule, but it won’t be long before you begin to parse what he’s actually doing, and it’s there where Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney begins to open up in front of you.
At face value, Midnight Madness sounds like the perfect vehicle to unleash this beast in front of an unsuspecting audience. And who doesn’t like making fun of politicians? After all, most filmmakers like to poke fun at more popular figures like Trump or George W. Bush. There hasn’t been a movie that attempts to humoristically approach Brian Mulroney, because most pundits agree that his demeanor and tenure was relatively human. By the end of the movie, perhaps you’ll have a different idea of the public perception of Mulroney, who, of course, possessed the charm of both Paul Newman and Robert Redford to convince anyone to vote Conservative, and loved to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” at whatever occasion he had.
The man had an unmatched aura, but his motivations seemed to have been driven by ego, especially when attempting to upend the leadership bid of Joe Clarke, despite saving face in public and saying that Clarke is the right person for the job. All the while, the ghost of John Diefenbaker looks down upon Mulroney, as if he acts as a sort of Jor-El for the Tories. Rankin actually expresses this through a Fortress of Solitude-esque museum where Mulroney asks Diefenbaker’s brain for guidance in the hopes that he will prevail to upend Clarke and become the next Prime Minister of the country after Trudeau successfully took down the Conservative minority government six months after its tenure.
It looks and feels stupid, but please trust me that Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney is far from being so. Rankin successfully distills at least fifty years of political and cinematic history by incorporating the biggest movements of the time – the question of Québec sovereignty (and “le beau Risque” once Parti Québécois leader René Lévesque supported Mulroney), the figures that made their way into the sphere upon Mulroney’s reign that would have a tangible impact on the future of Québec politics. One of them is Lucien Bouchard, one of Mulroney’s closest friends and colleagues that eventually left the conservatives to form the Bloc Québécois, and the other is John James Charest. No one knew him when he joined Mulroney’s government, but his name will soon be forever etched in Québec’s collective history…
With Mulroney born and raised in Baie-Comeau, it’s inevitable that Québec would have an intrinsic part of Rankin’s documentary. Perhaps Western audiences unfamiliar with Canadian and Québec politics might not vibe with Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney as much as the ones who understand Rankin’s almost esoteric parallels, but even a layperson will have a firm grasp of Mulroney’s impact within Canada and the world. Rankin purposefully stops dead in his tracks when he becomes elected as Prime Minister, which might act as a deterrent for anyone looking for a deeper exploration of how bad he was as a leader, but we don’t need to go through those events for now. Maybe in a sequel…
