Who says miserable movies can't be fun? This Toronto theatre is having a 'Bleak Week'

“Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” got its start at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles in 2022 with screenings of such downbeat films as “Spoorloos (The Vanishing)” (about a missing woman), “Elephant” (a school shooting) and “The Sweet Hereafter” (a fatal school bus accident). Since then, the concept has spread to almost 100 theatres in cities around the world.

Serena Whitney, the Revue’s director of programming, had already been interested in presenting a version of “Bleak Week” when the American Cinematheque reached out to her first. “It was very serendipitous,” she told the Star. The only rule was to program at least one film per day for seven days. “That was really exciting, but also daunting, because I realized that bleak can mean so many different things, depending on who you ask.” Whitney ended up scheduling 13, with a special — though not exclusive — focus on Canadian films.

Egoyan and Johnson will both be on hand for Q&As following their movies’ screenings, as will many other filmmakers. “Heated Rivalry” creator Jacob Tierney will be joined by “Schitt’s Creek” star Emily Hampshire for their 2010 serial-killer thriller “Good Neighbours.” 

Opening the series will be Don McKellar’s 1998 Toronto-set apocalyptic comedy, “Last Night,” starring Sandra Oh. McKellar first heard about the idea of “Bleak Week” while attending a screening at Winnipeg’s Dave Barber Cinematheque. “They told me about it and I thought, ‘Well, of course, they have a ‘Bleak Week,’ it’s Winnipeg,” he said with a laugh. “When I made ‘Last Night,’ people thought, ‘Oh, this is about the end of the world — it’s sort of dark. Now I think it’s just accepted by the younger generations. It’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, OK, when and how?’”

“I think that, unfortunately, the titles probably feel more emotionally resonant to them because of the world they’re in,” Whitney said of Gen Z’s interest in dark movies. She also sees the value in programming more challenging films, even while admitting she has a hard time with bleak films outside the horror genre.

The program presented an opportunity to look at bleakness through varied lenses. On June 3, for example, the 1978 animated classic “Watership Down” (rabbits under siege) will be screening with a recorded intro from Guillermo del Toro. A dark film, it is nonetheless one parents might want to bring their kids to.

That won’t be the case for the screening immediately following it, a rare 35-mm print of Roger Watkins’ pornographic “Corruption” (a man’s descent into depravity). That film was suggested by former Revue programming director and Star contributor Eric Veillette. “He pitched this as an adult film that helped inspire ‘Twin Peaks,’” Whitney said. “We don’t play a lot of adult films, but this one feels like there’s a purpose to it, and there’s an art house crowd for it.”

Vincenzo Natali, who is presenting his 1997 Canadian horror classic “Cube,” prefers to live in the darker corners of cinema. “Nothing is more exhausting to me than a ‘feel-good’ movie,” which remind him of “meeting someone who is forcing themselves to smile.” For him, a program like the Revue’s is the antidote: “‘Bleak Week,’ on the other hand, highlights films that are not an artificial attempt to cheer up their audience. They are tough and dark but also honest and heartfelt, and in success, cathartic. Ironically, I often feel lighter on my feet after I’ve walked out of a ‘bleak’ movie.”

That dichotomy, the catharsis that emerges out of darkness, is the real animating principle behind “Bleak Week.” “These are stories about people who are put in despairing situations, in bleak environments and circumstances, faced with overwhelming challenges,” said Brian Damude, who is presenting his restored 1975 Canadian thriller “Sudden Fury.” “Yet they are forced to face the situation, learn to succeed and overcome or lose everything.”

Damude believes there’s something intrinsic in Canadians that makes the country’s national cinema especially hospitable to bleakness, given Canada’s dark colonial history and the difficult experiences of so many immigrants. “It is safe to say that Canadians, including new Canadians today, know what it’s like to struggle to get out from under,” he said, “and they are naturally attracted to literature, drama and visual art that speaks to that struggle.”

Despite their grim themes, many of the films in the series do contain a core of optimism. Naomi Jaye, who will be at the Revue for a screening of her 2024 film “Darkest Miriam,” starring Britt Lower (“Severance”) as a grief-stricken Toronto librarian, had not heard of “Bleak Week” when she was asked to participate, but she understood why her film fit the mould.

“Darkest Miriam,” she said, is about “reckoning with the difficulties that people face in their lives, but ultimately that the world is a beautiful place.”

McKellar feels the same about “Last Night,” explaining, “I think of it as quite an optimistic film. It sort of has a happy ending. As happy as you can get with the annihilation of the world.”

Capturing that totality of experience was Whitney’s goal. “If people just want to be disturbed, or they want to cry, or they really want to think, or if they want to connect with something like grief,” she said, “I think that there’s something for everybody.” In the end, it’s all about creating an outlet for the audience — the catharsis Natali seeks from the movies.

“They’re humanist films,” McKellar said of the “Bleak Week” program. “There’s an acceptance of the reality of the world, but they embrace a sort of humanism and a stronger sense of community.”

And the desire for these kinds of stories is nothing new, as Jaye points out. “I think people seek out things that are dark as a way of dealing with their feelings. Right back to the Greek times,” she said.

“To hope when surrounded by darkness is a profound thing.”