TIFF 2015 Movie Review: No Men Beyond This Point
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- September 17, 2015
- Danny F. Santos
Adding gender politics into a serious discussion is always going to bring a 'loaded gun' into a conversation. This is probably why filmmaker Mark Sawers decided to make a comedy-mockumentary rather than an actual documentary.
No Men Beyond This Point inverts gender politics by creating an alternate history where, in the 1950s, women began to spontaneously have virgin births. More than that, each child born that way is a girl, and as time goes on, there are less and less pregnancies done the old fashioned way.
The main subject of the documentary is Andrew Myers (Patrick Gilmore), who is now the youngest man in the world. He works as a nanny/housekeeper for Terra (Tara Pratt), Iris (Kristine Cofsky) and their six kids. The governments of the world have been eliminated and replaced with a sexually conservative world government, while all religions have been replaced with a belief in evolution and nature (praise onto her).
No Men Beyond This Point is steeped in very recognizable documentary tropes, like talking heads and re-enactments (where director Sawers casts girls to play any boys under the age of 37), but adds hilarious details into the narrative. One of which is that there’s a weather report about the moon early on in the film, which pays off later, because there is now a worldwide synchronized menstrual cycle.
It’s in these little details that the film works best, and some of the best lines are throwaways. The narrative is also structured in a linear way that tells this alternate history from the familiar 50s to the present day, which means, as the changes in our real world diverge, the funnier No Men Beyond This Point gets.
The only real issue is that the film really does try to oversimplify the complex problems of gender politics. With a runtime of only 80 minutes, you can’t expect the film to dive deeply into the issues but from a devil’s advocate point of view, No Men Beyond This Point works brilliantly.
4 out of 5 stars. Here’s the official synopsis:
Imagine a world where, since 1953, women have been able to reproduce without men and they are no longer giving birth to male babies. Now, over 60 years later, this deadpan mocumentary follows the youngest man still alive – 37 year-old Andrew Myers. Working as a housekeeper for a family of women, Andrew finds himself at the center of a battle to prevent men from going extinct. No Men Beyond This Point is a feature film that asks the question,what would the world be like if women were in charge?
Trailer:
Image: Mark Sawers Productions
