In the lead up to the 7th Canadian Film Festival in Australia (August 2012), join us as we countdown the Top 100 Canadian Films of the past 30 years. We'll be posting one film a day leading up to Canada Day on July 1st 2012. Do you agree with our staff favourites? Let us know your thoughts!
Inspired by a conversation with filmmaker and mushroom buff, Jim Jarmusch, counter culture specialist, Ron Mann, sets off to the annual Telluride Mushroom Festival in Colorado. There he encounters the unique sub-subculture surrounding fungi that includes an unlikely assortment of nerds, nuts, hipsters, tripsters, artists, chefs, musicians, foodies, foragers, and seekers… all paying homage to the mighty mushroom.
Over the years, Toronto filmmaker Mann has made a number of fascinating documentaries examining subjects sitting just outside the mainstream; from marijuana (Grass) to comic books as vectors of counter-culture (Comic Book Confidential); from Woody Harrelson’s sustainability bus (Go Further) to the customized cars of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (Tales of the Rat Fink).
Combining investigative journalism with animation, archival footage, and a neo-psychedelic soundtrack by the Flaming Lips, Mann continues his (re-)appraisal of the backwaters of popular culture with this hilarious mushroomentary.
Mycologists such as Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans take you through the many virtues of fungi, from nourishment to mind-expansion, and its uses as a cure for many ills both physical and environmental. The enthusiasm is heartfelt and generously shared, but evangelical propaganda is not on the agenda. The interviewees might have a mad glint in their eyes, or an earnestness that can make you cringe, but Mann keeps a reasonable distance, allowing us to be the judge.
Like most of his films, Know Your Mushrooms is rough-hewn and unfolds in a whimsical, free-associative manner; but like most Mann films, it doesn’t take itself seriously enough for this to matter. Playfulness and humour, too often absent from most mainstream documentaries, are valid guides when it comes to offbeat subjects.
Opening the doors to perception, Mann takes the audience on a strange but thoroughly entertaining trip and delivers us to a brave new world where fungi might well guide humanity to a saner, safer place.
- Matt Ravier
“Mann has the knack of generating fascination where none seemed to exist, of carving intrigue from an apparently non-intriguing topic” – The Globe & Mail
Know Your Mushrooms had its Australian premiere at the 4th Possible Worlds Film Festival in 2009 in the presence of filmmaker Ron Mann.
To see the other films in the countdown so far, click here.