Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.11.1991, Blaðsíða 8

8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 1. nóvember1991
Gunnarsson hits home with a dig at our complacency
Elizabeth Aird
“When was the last time Ca-
nadians made a difference any-
where but in their own minds?”
That line gets a rise out of the
audience every time, according
to director Sturla Gunnarsson.
It’s from Diplomatic Immu-
nity, a political drama which
Gunnarsson directed from a
scriptfrom his long-time partner,
Steve Lucas. It’s brought the ex-
Vancouver boy back home for
the local October Film Festival.
The line is a U.S. diplomat’s
dig at the Canadian protagonist
of this very Canadian film.
The Canadian is Kim Dade, a
fence-sitting, order-following,
compromise-making (in other
words, thoroughly Canadian) for-
eign aid officer forced to make
real moral choices in E1 Salva-
dor, a country that makes it im-
possible to be complacently Ca-
nadian.
Gunnarsson believes Ameri-
cans think we’re holier-than-
thou.
“In E1 Salvador, and I think
in our current foreign policy
thrust, we’re just singing harmony
(with the U.S.) now . . . and yet
we still maintain this moral tone.
I think that drives Americans
nuts.”
Diplomatic Immunityis partly
about cutting through our comfy
self-image of the well-meaning
Canadian, a kind of next-door neigh-
bour to the world.
Gunnarsson and Lucas use the true
story of displaced Salvadoran villagers
to paint the Canadian diplomat’s ethi-
cal dilemma.
“The military forces people to move
to the city, which deprives the guerillas
of their population base. Once those
people show up in the city, the Canadi-
ans show up with blankets and hous-
ing, and we call it a humanitarian pro-
gramme.” He chuckles. “Well, come
on.”
It makes ironic sense that
Gimnarsson and Lucas had a hellishly
tough time getting their moral drama
off the ground in the moral vacuum of
the Me Decade. They first went to E1
Salvadorin 1982. It’s finallyintheatres,
almost 10 years later.
“The dominant sensibility of the ‘80’s
was a detached irony toward life and
towardart,” says Gunnarsson, “andwe
were making a film that was essentially
about morality, about what we believe
in and what choices we make.”
It wasn’t as if they were no-names.
They were acclaimed documentary
makers, 1983 OscarnomineesforAAer
the Axe, about white-collar lay-offs.
Gunnarsson directed Final Offer, about
the split between Canadians and the
United Auto Workers. He’s a success-
ful director of episodic TV, including
Street Legal, E.N.G., The Twilight
Zone, Beachcombers and Ray
Bradbury Theatre.
In fact, Gunnarsson is one of Van-
couver’s more successful expatriates in
the East. He grew up here and gradu-
ated from McGee secondary and the
University of B.C. He left here in 1979,
when he was an editor at BCTV, and
decided he wanted to get into directing
full-time.
Well, he’s finally made his first fea-
ture, hair-raising as he says it was (he
and Lucas were “on the hook” to the
Royal Bank for $1 million).
Gunnarsson will come
home for the next feature. He
can’t say much about it, except
that it’s set in and around the
Vancouver Stock Exchange.
“I’m going to put Vancouver
on the screen like you’ve never
seen it before,” he says, and
laughs.
“It’s fabulous. In Vancouver
the establishment is only one
generation away from their
criminal roots. In Toronto
they’re three or four away, they
can actually pretend to be re-
spectable. Here, it’s all about
the frontier, creating something
with your ego.”
In the meantime, he’ll direct
Evelyn Lau’s Runaway: Diary of
a Street Kid, for the CBC. And
he has to carry Diplomatic Im-
munity around the rest of the
festival circuit- from Vancouver
to Iceland (where he was born),
to Sweden, to London.
Slogging the promo circuit is
a piece of cake compared to mak-
ing the movie, but Gunnarsson
says E1 Salvador kept him going
when it got really rough.
“The last time I went was in
’89. It was when we were in
despair about the film. It’s like,
seven years down the line, there’s
still no movie - I didn’t even
know why I was making the
damn thing anymore.”
Courtesy of the Vancouver Sun
Sturla Gunnarsson was born in
Iceland, but grew up in British
Columbia, Canada. His father passed
away some years ago, but his mother,
Ásta Gunnarsson, is an active
member of the Icelandic Canadian
ClubofB.C.
Icelandic^®
Canadian ^
Frón
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Saturday, Nov. 9, 1991
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In view of the millennium ofthe Vikings' arrival to North America, the lcelandic Canadian Frón
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