Radiant City
Encyclopedia
Radiant City is a National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...

 film
released in 2006 at the Toronto Film Festival, about suburban sprawl and the fictional Moss family who live in the suburbs, written and directed by Gary Burns and Jim Brown
Jim Brown (radio host)
Jim Brown has been the host of the Calgary Eyeopeneron CBR since 2003. Before moving to Calgary, he hosted The Morning Show at CBN in St. John's, Newfoundland, for eight seasons. His voice has also been heard across Canada as Friday host of The Current and guest host of Sounds Like Canada, As It...

.
The movie is openly critical towards suburban sprawl and its negative effects, being at the same time amusing and ironic.

The film has a documentary form but it is actually mixing fiction and documentary components, which is not revealed to the spectator until the end of the movie.

The fictional part is about the five member Moss family who have just moved from the city into a brand new suburban development. The narrative is set in the Evergreen suburb of Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

. The family discuss and portray life in the suburbs and the various flaws and advantages of modern suburban life, with a considerably greater emphasis on the flaws. While the characters and instances in the movie are fictional, the actors that play them all do live in real suburban areas.

Interspersed with this narrative, experts speak to the camera about their views of the suburbs. These include Ken Greenberg, Joseph Heath
Joseph Heath
Joseph Heath is a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. He also teaches at the School of Public Policy and Governance. He received his BA from McGill University, where his teachers included Charles Taylor, and his MA and PhD degrees are from Northwestern University, where he studied...

, Mark Kingwell
Mark Kingwell
Mark Gerald Kingwell, M.Litt, M.Phil, PhD, D.F.A. is a Canadian professor of philosophy and associate chair at the University of Toronto's Department of Philosophy. Kingwell is a fellow of Trinity College...

, James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere , a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency , where he argues that declining oil production is likely...

, Marc Boutin, Andrés Duany
Andrés Duany
Andrés Duany is an American architect and urban planner.Duany was born in New York City but grew up in Cuba until 1960. He attended The Choate School and received his undergraduate degree in architecture and urban planning from Princeton University...

 and Beverly Sandalack. These portions are filmed in different suburban areas of North America, including Oakville, Ontario
Oakville, Ontario
Oakville is a town in Halton Region, on Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario, Canada, and is part of the Greater Toronto Area. As of the 2006 census the population was 165,613.-History:In 1793, Dundas Street was surveyed for a military road...

.

Plot

The Moss family decides to move from inner city in Calgary to Evergreen, a suburban area, to satisfy Ann Moss desire to live in a new house. Evan, the husband, is still keeping his job downtown, which forces him to a two hours commuting time to work.
Even if apparently the area offers everything that is needed by a family in walking distance, one is actually isolated due to constructions, buildings, distance and the area layout and is constantly forced to rely on the car for every little need.
The family carries on its ordinary life with Ann having a positive opinion of their new life, while her husband, Evan, and the kids can see more clearly the flaws and disadvantages of this syle of life. They however go along with it, contantly trying to find their way to justify their choice.

Cast

  • Daniel Jeffery - Nick Moss
  • Bob Legare - Evan Moss
  • Jane MacFarlane - Anne Moss
  • Ashleigh Fidyk - Jennifer Moss
  • Curt McKinstry - Ken
  • Karen Jeffery - Karen
  • Michaela Jeffery - Nicole

Release

Radiant City was presented at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival with a very warm reception, and also at several film festivals, including Vancouver and Calgary International Film Festivals, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival and the Sao Paulo It’s All True Documentary International Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival and the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri.

Critical response

Radiant City had a very warm reception when presented at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.
Also received several nominations, won also Genie Award for Best Documentary, was the runner up for best Canadian film on the 2007 Toronto Film Critic’s List.

It was also awarded the Special Jury Prize at VIFF (Vancouver International Film Festival
Vancouver International Film Festival
The Vancouver International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for two weeks in late September and early October...

).

Reviews were very positive both in Canada and the United States.

Radiant City currently holds a 93% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, with no consensus yet.

Home Media

The movie has also been released in DVD on March 4, 2008. The DVD includes the original English version of the film and the English version with French subtitles.

External links

  • Watch Radiant City at NFB.ca (Requires Adobe Flash
    Adobe Flash
    Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

    )
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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