Redemption SK

First off, forget I'm related. This past Thursday night I was able to catch the first of six episodes entitled Redemption SK on SCN. This happens to be a labour of love for my sister and her husband, Larry. They have worked long and hard on this show, and I was impressed.

It's very different, odd one might say, but I loved it. Starting out slow, the show has minimal dialogue and fantastic scenery. While many might get caught up in our regular TV, I happen to think this was innovative in more ways than one. Too often I find the 'hot' picks of the season move rather rapidly and the dialogue tells you everything. We aren't stupid, let's leave something to our imagination. Okay, there is LOST where everyone is confused, and I really shouldn't even mention it, since it's not a show I watch. However, from the snippets I see in advertisements, and from what friends have said, it's complicated and out there. Well complicated is nice. I, for one, don't like TV producers and writers who feel I'm unable to put anything together and so they have to spell everything out for me. I like mystery and I like trying to learn more about the characters through their actions and emotions rather than every word they speak.

Now to me, mystery via a convoluted plot line is very different from mystery via silence. That's the draw of Redemption SK...the silence and the beauty. Again, yes, it had a slow start, but if you hung in there past the first five minutes you were in for a big treat. I have no idea where the next episode is going to take me, but I'm certainly interested in finding out. Using our vast pool of home-grown talent, and no, I'm not being sarcastic, we really do have an amazing amount of talent in our province, and innovative approaches to film making, Lasa Media Arts has made a fan out of me.

Back in 1996 Mike Leigh made a movie called Secrets and Lies, starring Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. I was drawn to the film because I read somewhere that Mike Leigh actually kept the actors a secret from each other. Basically, Marianne Jean-Baptiste is a black woman searching for her mother, who turns out to be Brenda Blethyn, noticeably white. Anyway, what Leigh did, was keep the two actresses a physical secret from one another, and then, on the day of filming the scene where the two would actually meet...that's when they did actually meet for the first time. Right on the set, right during the scene. Hearing about that was enough to have me hooked, and for good reason too, the film went on to win numerous awards

Larry took a similar approach, allowing actors to flesh out their characters. They were given general plot lines and took it from there. I have to believe this is a big part of what makes Redemption SK so appealing to me, each actor was their character, I believed in them. Okay there were a few moments when I wondered if the acting was about to go into that forbidden territory of over-acting, but whew, they pulled back and I was sucked right back in. You are drawn to the characters, you want to know more about them, and the oddness of their situations are juxtaposed with quirky, sometimes funny, and odd dialogue. I can't say I laughed out loud at the show, but there were some moments that had me giggling.

More than the story lines, I was mesmerized by the camera work and scenery. Thank you so much for showing Saskatchewan in a realistic light. Personally, I don't mind making fun of some of our small towns and I like humor, but come on, we aren't all rednecks...thankfully Redemption SK knows this. This isn't Corner Gas or Little Mosque on the Prairie, it's something different, it's something more real to me, it's something so much bigger.

When the camera could have taken us to a seedy, run down bedsit, which was what I was fully expecting, they took us instead, to a pretty, bright room. It looked comfortable though sparse. Now maybe it was by accident, I don't know, but the minimalistic set decor added to the ambiance all the way through. Think of what we see on TV today. The sets are designed to either take us back to the 70's, show us the high tech land of hospitals, or have us guffawing at how backwards some people still are with their old fashioned radios and ugly checkered Lazy Boys. Redemption doesn't do this. Everything is clean, everything is bright, everything is minimalistic. Where do you look, why at the characters, what a novel idea. Oh and don't think the characters are all fluffed up with fancy hair, bonded whiter than white teeth or there to make you cringe in their outdated clothing so they look like they are trapped back in the disco era. Nope, they just look like people you would see when you walk around the city on a normal day. Maybe the rubber pony tail holders and baggy pants are boring, but they are honest.

Okay now let's forget the characters and story lines, let's talk about the actual production. When my sister told me the entire series was shot using a hand held camera, I was dumbfounded. Production on Redemption SK is right up there with the best of them. It doesn't look like a home movie, it looks like a big production with all the associated costs. The background score and soundtrack are Saskatchewan too, and fit perfectly, although I did feel the audio was a bit too loud in some spots, almost covering what little dialogue there is.

If you ask me if I recommend the show, I have to say yes. If you ask if I am proud of my sister and brother-in-law, well again I have to say yes. If you ask if I'm blogging about it because she's my sister...HELL NO, I'm blogging about it because I was impressed.

Redemption SK airs on Thursday nights at 10pm on SCN (Wooo no commercials!)

-Swapna