13 March 2019 – All very urban. I come reeling out of Ruben Brandt, Collector, a VIFF mid-day showing, and decide I need to walk it off. The visuals of this animated feature film are brilliant — and hallucinatory.

So there I am, walking into the downtown east end, my eye sharpened to see things   slightly beyond reality.

And I am rewarded.

A man dancing with a respectable office tower wall …

ferns fluttering coy eyelashes on an unrespectable (but very tactile) parking lot wall …

and a serpent winding his tail around defenceless street-corner chairs in Chinatown.

I am even rewarded with a passing snippet of Did-I-Really-Hear-That sidewalk conversation.

Young man: “So some domestic ones escaped, and they’re gettin’ together with wild ones, and now they’re progenating like crazy.” Impressed girl-friend: “Oh, wow!”

Progenating? I begin an automatic tut-tut and then stop myself. Slightly to my horror, I realize I like it. Maybe I’m just admiring that he knows the word “progeny” and feels free to lay hands on it.

Just like that serpent having its way with those street-corner chairs.