The Falls

This evocative, slyly subversive tour of director Kevin McMahon's hometown established his poetic, lyrical approach to the essay film, along with his knack for examining Canadian culture through a playfully intellectual lens.

Niagara Falls — the "Canadian capital of kitsch" — turns out to hide plenty of eccentricity and contradiction beneath its tacky tourist exterior. A member of a family of daredevils recounts how many people have died going over the falls, including his own brother. A resident of the notoriously polluted Love Canal describes the twisted trees lining her street, and the birth defects her daughter suffered.