52 Films by Women Vol 9. 23. Can I Get A Witness? (Director: Ann Marie Fleming)
I have more of a problem with the title, Can I Get A Witness? than the film
itself. I spent much of my son’s childhood and adolescence reminding him that
‘can’ is about ability and ‘may’ is about permission. In Canadian
writer-director Ann Marie Fleming’s alternate future-set film, citizens who
reach the age of fifty automatically receive a witness to their state
authorised death, though nobody in the movie talks about the government, which
frankly must come as a relief. If someone delivers a refrigerator to your home,
it is because you have chosen the option to consume a chilled alcoholic
beverage before having lethal chemicals – a form of anti-pollen – released in
your presence.
Fleming describes her film as a ‘fable’. According to one AI definition,
a fable is a ‘short, fictional story featuring anthropomorphised animals,
plants, or inanimate objects that teach a moral lesson or principle of life’.
It lists ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ as an example, illustrating the adage,
‘slow and steady wins the race’. By this definition, Can
I Get A Witness? features anthropomorphised humans, which is a
response to Trump’s America, in which Christians are anything but and a
deceased talk show host who aimed hateful rhetoric damning the global majority
is revered as a martyr. I have no doubt that Canadians are great brand
ambassadors for the human race, which, to refer back to the Tortoise fable, is
less of a race and more, ‘we’ll get there when we get there’.
Fleming previously directed the animated feature, Window
Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming, the title of
which demonstrates a talent for hedging one’s bets. I want to see the version
translated into English. She is interested in Canadians – humans – of East or
South-East Asian heritage, since they have different concepts of God, the
afterlife and quilting. Canadians have been taught to feel guilty about occupying
a land stolen from people native to the continent. They view themselves as tenants
who pay rent in kind, through acknowledgements rather than hard-earned cash.
This keeps them humble in every aspect expect sports. The cold winters are a
metaphor for punishment. No, the cold winters are a punishment. Canadians don’t
make popular culture in their own country since to do so would be an act of
hubris. They are generally well-read and can see you coming.
It is said that death is the one thing you cannot vote for, much like the
American President. In the alternate future of Fleming’s film, you can sign the
paperwork, take the fridge and wait for some young people to turn up with an
ominous looking wooden box. But who are these young people, and why do they
look like Christian Scientists, clean shaven, smartly attired, who give the air
of, ‘we’re ready, why aren’t you?’
Kiah (Keira Jang) is about to join their fold. It is apparently a great
honour, though she might just as well be undertaking ‘The
Long Walk’ from the recent Stephen King movie adaptation. Her mother, Ellie (Sandra Oh) wants her to
dress appropriately. ‘You’re not going out like that,’ she tells Kiah, asking
her to change from a loose top and slacks to a flowery dress. The majority of
deaths take place in the open air, because it is easier to dispose of the body.
In Fleming’s film, death is a summer activity when hockey is in the off-season.
Kiah is nervous, as well she might. Ellie has a refrigerator delivered, a
model from thirty years ago. ‘Listen to that hum,’ she exclaims. The
refrigerator is like the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, worshipped
by hunter gatherers. In Fleming’s film, no one goes shopping, they reach for
hand-me-downs and travel by bicycle and skateboard.
We understand that a certain point, humans hit the reset button. Noone chooses one-speed bicycles. The film opens to the sound of the Ink Spots, ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire’ as we see a vast blaze approaching a treeline. Cut to a wind-up gramophone playing music whose notes are illustrated by animation. Fleming acknowledges her roots, or Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. The price of the reset – the deal, if you will – is only described much later. This is a society in which orientation consists of watching Duck Soup. Parents don’t explain sex, rather the Marx Brothers. Of course, young people of the alternate future would rather watch Zoolander, only you have to book it in advance. This is an actual joke from Fleming’s film, uttered twice.
Pictured: Kiah (Keira Jang) and Daniel (Joel Oulette) are orientated through a screening of 'Duck Soup' in a scene from the Canadian 'alternate future' film, 'Can I Get A Witness?' written and directed by Ann Marie Fleming. Still courtesy of Mongrel Media.
Kiah’s partner on the first day of the job is Daniel (Joel Oulette) who arrives at the same time as the fridge to present a wooden box to Ellie, that appears to resemble a coffin for a rabbit. ‘You should put it in the refrigerator,’ he points out, anxiously. There is an unwritten order to these things, a convention, like tipping. Ellie offers Daniel some pie, which he consumes messily. This pie becomes a synonym for Kiah. We sense Ellie is pushing Kiah towards Daniel because who can resist good pie?
There are two roles: recorder or digger. It is unclear why the likenesses
of the soon to be deceased are rendered in pencil, though the depiction on
paper gives the subject a transitory look. Life is not the end. As we discover
with multiple death scenes, the fifty-year-olds are interested in leaving good
looking corpses. They take showers or a trip down the river, their departure
augmented by animation. A body slips into the water (saves on burial) and we
see animated flowers appear amongst the lily pads. The inference is that death
helps life grow. We have to take our turn.
The first time Kiah is confronted with a dead body, she vomits. Rather,
she dips her head down and retches off-screen. Were we watching a John Waters
movie, there would be traces of vomit on her clothes. This is Canada. They
don’t think about vomit, except as matter for further decomposition. Pretty
soon, Kiah is drinking dead people’s champagne and finding the taste
disgusting. She and Daniel shatter champagne flutes. You’re supposed to break
glass in an emergency, not in a period of repose.
The soon-to-be corpses react to impending demise in different ways. One
woman who has just returned from jogging – exercise for distraction – asks Kiah
and Daniel to phone some numbers through a landline. Kiah calls the woman’s
daughter. The young woman has no idea her mother’s time has come. Another man
invites Kiah and Daniel into a hut and shows them a gun. ‘I’ll die, but you’ll
have to shoot me.’ ‘I can’t do that,’ says Daniel. ‘We’ll reschedule. I’ll come
back another time.’ He and Kiah leave. Halfway up a hill, Daniel remarks. ‘He
has a gun. There’s no way he has any bullets.’ They hear a gun shot. You expect
Kiah to ask Daniel to be the recorder.
Daniel confesses that he has done Kiah’s job. Each one sketches the
other. Daniel shows Kiah his picture of her – a stick figure. On the other side
of his paper is a drawing with more attention to detail.
There is a debrief, a sort of diggers and recorders support group, where
they decompress. As at a gathering of addicts, Kiah doesn’t want to share.
There is a lot to process. The group discusses social media. People shared
everything about themselves on electronic devices. Isn’t that crazy? There is
an inference that the absence of technology has a purifying effect. You wonder
if this film was sanctioned by the Amish.
Meanwhile, Ellie goes through a suitcase and discovers a mobile phone.
She later shows its contents to Kiah – digital media, which we are told did not
survive owing to the magnetic event. There are pictures of Ellie when she was
younger. Also of Ellie’s best friend, Kiah. ‘We were fire jumpers together.’
‘Why are you showing me this?’ asks Kiah. A thought crosses the audience’s
mind: Ellie raised her best friend’s daughter as her own, rather than (just)
named her after her.
The film’s humour is dry and crumbling. There is a long story about a
horse that takes part in a horse race, told by a man on a riverboat before he
falls under water. The horse never wins a race but wakes up one morning
convinced that he will. After the race starts, the horse bolts from the gate
and leads the pack. The finish line is ever closer but one by one the other
horses overtake him. The horse finishes last. Each horse apologises to the
dreamer horse about overtaking him. Each felt a force behind them that drove
them forward. A greyhound overhears the conversation and consoles the horse.
The horse remarks, ‘oh my gosh, a talking dog’.
The film builds to the point at which Kiah faces her mother’s departure.
Except there is not so much a change of course rather an acknowledgement that
emotions have already been processed. The film describes humanity’s way of
dealing with over population and various crises: placing a limit on life
expectancy. Some people may pretend to be older to die with their loved one.
Some may have cosmetic surgery – without electricity – to hide behind the mask
of youth. Kiah and Daniel are like census collectors who have come to foreclose
an individual’s life. You wonder, who gets the property or is there no private
ownership?
Can I Get A Witness? takes its
title from a song by Marvin Gaye - not an ‘old timey’ one. If it’s a fable –
and I’m not convinced – it is about the necessity of sacrifice to maintain some
aspects of civilization. But how about a Canadian film to match the comedy of Duck
Soup and Zoolander. Where is Strange
Brew?
Reviewed at Vue Shepherd’s Bush (Screen
17), West London, Thursday 25 September 2025, 15:25 screening
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