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TORONTOANTIQUESONKING

“A whole new sound”-KanyeWest

Hip-hop violinist and Grammy Award-

winning violinist and producer, Miri Ben-

Ari’s unique music is a revolutionary

fusion of classical,

hip-hop, soul and dance.

MIRIBEN-ARI

MARCH13,

NEWORLEANS

JAZZORCHESTRA

FEBRUARY26,

GRAMMYAWARDWINNERS

BESTJAZZENSEMBLE

In their swinging style, this 18-piece big

band performs original arrangements

of New Orleans piano legend Allen

Toussaint’s greatest hits.

MIRIBEN-ARI

NEWORLEANSJAZZORCHESTRA

TICKETSFROM$

TICKETSFROM$

A20 OTHEGLOBEANDMAIL | SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,

T

he singular hallmark of this
age of peak television is
that anything can happen.
Great, thrilling, unconventional
drama emerges from the fringes
and is watched and praised. An-
other defining aspect of this TV
era is the tendency of critics to
praise serious-minded content
above all else. This is too conven-
tional an approach for a time in
which conventions are thrown
away.
Hunters (streaming on
Amazon Prime Video) is precise-
ly the sort of series that will
puzzle some viewers and certain
reviewers. It isn’t what’s expect-
ed, you see. Presented to the pub-
lic and heavily promoted as a dra-
ma about a miscellaneous crew of
regular folks coming together to
find and kill Nazis in New York in
the 1970s – and starring Al Pacino
as their leader – it is imagined in
advance as a propulsive revenge
thriller.
It is that, but in tone, style and
execution, it uses a mad mash-up
of methods to tell its story. Freed
from limitations, the makers –
the creator is David Weil, who has
almost no previous credits, and
the executive producer is Jordan
Peele – proceed with the narra-
tive, but fill it with wild argumen-
tativeness and appear to be en-
gaged in an ambitious pursuit of a
unique tone, one of jokey, car-
toon-like deadpan. On the evi-

dence of early episodes (there are

10), it’s as thrillingly unusual as it

is thrilling.

The thriller story is the only

straightforward element. Jonah

Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman), a

slacker teen in New York, is dev-

astated when his grandmother, a

Holocaust survivor, is murdered.

He’s eager for revenge, which

brings him to the attention of

Meyer Offerman (Pacino), who

has knowledge that a gaggle of

Nazis has moved to the United

States and organized a cabal that,

of course, has nefarious inten-

tions. Meyer has his own cabal, in-

tending to wipe them out. The

gang includes a squabbling mar-

ried couple (Carol Kane and Saul

Rubinek) who happen to be arms

experts, a nun with ultraviolent

tendencies (Kate Mulvany), a

Vietnam vet (Louis Ozawa

Changchien), an actor who oozes

sleaze (Josh Radnor) and a spark

plug named Roxy (Tiffany

Boone), who is straight out of a

1970s blaxploitation movie.

Not one of these characters is

fully drawn – and are not meant

to be. Even the Meyer character,

played deftly by Pacino, is a pencil

drawing of a puppet master, pull-

ing the strings behind the vigi-

lante force. This doesn’t diminish

the quality of the series, once you

accept that it is filled with nods to

comic-book antics.

The tone will puzzle, if not be-

wilder, some viewers, as the series

also relies on realistic flashbacks

to the Holocaust that are unset-

tling in their depiction of terrible

cruelty.

The point of these flashbacks is

to bolster the zealous search-and-

destroy mission of the Nazi hun-

ters in the main storyline. There is

considerable torture on display

and some of the arguments about

the end justifying the means feel

truncated in order to get back to

the action.

In a way,Huntersis indescrib-

able. It has a propulsive quality

that will take many viewers on a

binge-watch. It’s a bold experi-

ment, visually ostentatious, and

its illustration of late 1970s New

York is almost as vivid as the

1950s setting in Amazon’sThe

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

ALSOAIRINGTHISWEEKEND

CBC Docs POVreturns after a long

absence withnipawistamasowin:

We Will Stand Up(Sunday, CBC, 9

p.m.). It is Tasha Hubbard’s un-

nervingly tender doc about the

matter of Colten Boushie, a 22-

year-old Cree man who was fatal-

ly shot by farmer Gerald Stanley

in 2016, on Stanley’s farm near

Biggar, Sask. Hubbard’s aim,

which she executes wonderfully,

is to stick with the Boushie family

as they experience Stanley’s trial,

the intense news coverage and

the corresponding social-media

onslaught.

Sometimes, it’s a fly-on-the-

wall documentary, simply ob-

serving the tensions around the

trial and the verdict. Sometimes,

it allows the Boushie family to

just talk and talk, at first unable to

find the right words, and express

their grief and bafflement. Highly

recommended.

There are two major returning

shows, as well.The Walking Dead

(Sunday, AMC, 9 p.m.) starts the

second half of its 10th season, one

that was energized by the appear-

ance of Alpha (Samantha Mor-

ton) and the Whisperers – and

their demonic rage. This batch of

episodes will also see the depar-

ture of Danai Gurira as Michonne.

First up, our heroic characters are

trapped in a cave with a nasty

horde of zombies. And whither

Negan, now that he has teamed

up with Alpha and the Whisper-

ers?

Better Call Saul(Sunday, AMC,

10 p.m.) is back for its next-to-last

season. At this point in the pre-

quel to Breaking Bad, Jimmy

McGill (Bob Odenkirk) is quickly

evolving from hustling, newly

minted lawyer to crooked man

with few scruples or friends, one

Saul Goodman.

There is a sense of menace

about the first new episode, but

similar to all before it, it moves

slowly, almost icily examining

Jimmy’s descent into the void.

That void is, you might say, Amer-

ica itself, where damaged, inse-

cure men make foolish decisions

daily.

Vigilantejusticeisserved–withstyleandgrimhumour

AmazonPrimeVideo’s

heavilypromoted

Nazi-killingdrama

Huntersisambitiously

unconventional

JOHN
DOYLE

OPINION

TELEVISION

AlPacino,left,andLoganLermanstarinAmazonPrimeVideo’srevengethrillerHunters.Pacinoleadsagroup

ofregularfolkscomingtogethertohuntandkillNazisinNewYorkinthe1970s.

W

hat do you have to do to
be seen for who you re-
ally are? In the case of
Cassils, a visual artist who goes
by one name and uses the pro-
noun they, the answer involves a
large amount of highly athletic
labour.
Cassils, a Canadian now work-
ing in Los Angeles and known for
performances relating to the
body, staged a heavy-duty event
at the Gardiner Museum in To-
ronto on Thursday, a 90-minute
endurance test in which they
clawed themselves windows in a
box of wet clay. The audience was
ushered into a darkened exhibi-
tion space and invited to sit,
stand or move around a large
acrylic box, itself about the size

of a small room. The sides of the

transparent box were completely

obscured with grey clay, but Cas-

sils’s labour was already audible

as they began to scrap back the

stuff, gradually allowing the au-

dience peepholes into the per-

formance.

Sometimes standing, some-

times swinging from a trapeze to

reach higher up the sides, some-

times scraping effectively with

clawing hands, sometimes slash-

ing vainly with kicking feet, Cas-

sils eventually revealed them-

selves. Here was a lean and mus-

cular body, bare-chested and

wearing only shorts, glistening

with sweat from the effort, which

must have been getting harder as

the clay stiffened and dried.

You could probably have re-

moved the clay a lot faster using a

stepladder, a spray bottle and a

big metal scraper, but which of

us, with the possible exception of

some politicians and movie stars,

approaches the creation of our

public identity with nothing but

efficiency in mind? The perform-

ance’s metaphor for visibility be-

came more emphatic as it pro-

gressed: This is how hard it is to

be seen as a trans person. Cassils

would occasionally put an eye to

the glass and peer suspiciously at

the audience as though remind-

ing the voyeurs that the perform-

er could see us, too.

Cassils calls the performance

Up To and Including Their Limits,a

reference to the American per-

formance artist Carolee Schnee-

mann who used her suspended

body to draw lines on paper for a

1970s piece titledUp To and In-

cluding Her Limits. Like the pio-

neering body and performance

art of those years, Cassils’s work

can certainly test the patience of

viewers, albeit not as fiercely as it

tests the artist’s endurance. Still,

on Thursday, the concept was of-

ten more gripping than sitting

through the lengthy execution.

I actually found the piece most

evocative in its mysterious early

stages when it felt as though the

unseen Cassils was clawing their

way out of the grave. Raw clay,

the stuff of creation, seemed to

have fashioned a tomb for the

artist, suggesting a powerful im-

age of life and death.

The remains of the perform-

ance, as well as video footage,

will be on display at the Gardiner

as of March 5, when the ceramics

museum opens an exhibition ti-

tled Raw devoted to contempo-

rary artists who use unfired clay.

As well as Cassils, they include

Magdolene Dykstra, Azza El Sid-

dique and Linda Swanson.

Raw shows at the Gardiner

Museum in Toronto from March 5

to June 7.

Artistexplorestransvisibility

throughperformancewithclay

KATE
TAYLOR

VISUALARTS

VisualartistCassilsgaveanevocativeperformanceatToronto’sGardiner

MuseumonThursday,clawingwindowsintoaboxofwetclay.

CASSILSWITHALEJANDROSANTIAGO

ARTS