VIFF -- Review: Nous, L'orchestre De Paris

The audience seeing musicians up close in the orchestra

Nous, L'orchestre De Paris (2026)

When the audience sits down to listen to an orchestra, they see lots of musicians in black on the stage, but as a collective they produce amazing music under the guidance of the conductor; people may not know or appreciate the individual players and their motivations for performing in an orchestra.

The documentary, Nous, L'orchestre De Paris by director Philippe Beziat gives viewers an idea of what it's like, sitting from their point of view on the stage, and a bit of their backstory of how they became one of the 120 members of the Orchestre de Paris.

Makela leads the orchestra in a rehearsal

The film opens with the orchestra's young 30-year-old Finnish music director Klaus Makela, but he isn't interviewed; instead some of the players are taken aside and asked to listen to a rehearsal and to explain what they hear.

They listen intently, and as musicians they can hear details many of us don't hear, or they praise their fellow colleagues. One remarks, "Eighteen violinists make the same gesture in a fraction of a second. That really impresses me."

However, early in the documentary, the audience doesn't hear their voices, and instead their answers or comments are transcribed on screen, which was kind of frustrating; only later on we can hear their own voices.

But then there are other comments that are just written in English on the screen, like "being in an orchestra is like being in a forced marriage" -- it wouldn't be fair to attribute that to any particular person because they were truthful observations that he or she said.

Some consider the 30-year-old a prodigy

We meet a violinist from Serbia who cycles to work, a double bassist who came from a punk rock background and became entranced with classical music, a percussionist at the drums, and a flautist who leaves the orchestra after 40 years there.

One scene early on shows guest conductor Elim Chan rehearsing and then performing with the orchestra. She describes that it can be tough parachuting in to work with the orchestra, but in the end we see it's a job and everyone gets on with it. It was cool to see Hong Kong-born Chan in the film, and she is now the music director at the San Francisco Symphony.

In a way the musicians are part of a family, spending a lot of time together. Some break off into small groups to do chamber music, or even jazz. But the most interesting part is the musicians explaining where they sit, who sits next to them, and how not only do we see their point of view, but also hear it too, instead of from the audience's side.

We also get to see the modern concert hall up close, the Philharmonie de Paris, in the outskirts of Paris. Director Beziat is no stranger to making films about classical music and opera. Perhaps Nous, L'orchestre De Paris satisfies his own curiosity of what it's like to be part of a powerful musical collective and gives the audience a greater appreciation for these musicians.

Nous, L'orchestre De Paris

Directed by Philippe Beziat

90 minutes

Everyone has a Charlie Brown Christmas

If you go with the flow, you can survive this holiday season

We've been conditioned to make Christmas a special occasion, a picture-perfect celebration with delicious feasts around the dining table, fabulous gifts picked out and beautifully wrapped, homes warmly decorated and keeping traditions to the letter.

But things change over time, and so do expectations.

Years ago we used to write Christmas cards to a long list of people, then for years pre-Covid we summarised our year in a letter sent out with cards, but this year we only sent out a mere handful.

Expectations bring more tension and stress

We used to brine and roast a turkey every year, checking on it hourly and basting it to prevent it from burning in the oven. The last two years we pre-ordered a roast piglet and we still had lots of leftovers. Congee made from the bones is just as good as the ones made from turkey.

It can be so hard to hold things together with expectations to be happy and joyous 24 hours a day, which can lead to tension and arguments that reverberate to the rest of the family. It just ruins everyone's day, or the rest of the holiday.

Which is why I'm so grateful for A Charlie Brown Christmas, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

The animated annual classic is about how Charlie Brown feels depressed and wonders if he will find the true meaning of Christmas. He eventually finds it in a small sad-looking tree that we all call "a Charlie Brown tree." 

A jazzy Christmas makes things better

When Charles Schultz made the TV special in 1965, it wasn't clear how A Charlie Brown Christmas would be received.

But maybe it resonated with people -- as someone on Instagram posted, they felt seen. 

Christmas for me is the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's light, jazzy and improvised, cause that's what life is... go with the flow to survive the holidays intact!

Laufey in Vancouver in A Matter of Time

Laufey has so many fans in Vancouver they filled an arena

Last night I went to watch the artist Laufey perform in concert live at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. This multi-talented half Chinese, half Icelandic singer, songwriter, cellist, pianist and guitarist knows no bounds.

She has literally had a stratospheric rise in the last few years after she started filming herself while studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston when the Covid-19 pandemic began. She played her cello, and sang jazz numbers which caught my attention. Her fashion sense is "very demure", mostly covered up, long gathered skirts, lace blouses, and flats, the opposite of the stereotypical female singer who reveals a lot of skin.

Fans wearing bows and crowns

I missed Laufey when she performed in Vancouver at the Orpheum Theatre about a year ago, so when she announced her A Matter of Time tour with a Vancouver date, I was compelled to buy a ticket, which was not cheap -- $180 and that was the early bird price too, sitting in the lower level but at the back.

In the afternoon I passed by Rogers Arena on the way to watch a documentary in the Vancouver Film Festival, I saw crowds of people already gathering outside the venue. They were super early for the concert!

After 5pm I got a quick bite of beef pho at the food court in the shopping mall and did a quick five-minute visit to the Michelin event before heading to Rogers Arena. And there were a lot of fans, mostly girls dressed in Laufey-esque outfits, skirts, ankle socks, flats, big bows in their hair, or crowns; at every concert a super fan is chosen for their outfit and is given a Laufey crown by Mei Mei, her giant bunny.

The opening act was the antithesis of Laufey, Suki Waterhouse, a model, actress and singer who wore basically black lacy lingerie with lacy pants so her form fitting shorts were showing through. A fan blew her hair constantly on stage to give her a sultry look.

After about 45 minutes her set ended and the stage was set for Laufey. The wave went around the arena several times which was fun. 

Finally when the lights dimmed people screamed and the show started off with an intro much like a musical. Laufey appeared in a white spaghetti strap dress with a billowing full skirt.

Here's the set list:

This giant arena was almost all filled last nighte

Act I

• “Clockwork”
• “Lover Girl” (extended outro)
• “Dreamer”
• “Falling Behind” (extended outro)
• “Silver Lining”
• “Bored”
• “Too Little, Too Late” (extended outro; contains elements of "Bewitched")

Act II

• “Seems Like Old Times” (Carmen Lombardo cover)
• “Valentine” (Jazz version)
• “Fragile” (Jazz version)
• “While You Were Sleeping” (Jazz version; shortened)
• “Let You Break My Heart Again”

• 

  The sets were creative and elaborate

  Act III

  • “Carousel” (Live debut)
  • “Forget-Me-Not”
  • “Cuckoo Ballet” (Interlude)

  Act IV

• “Mr. Eclectic”
• “Castle in Hollywood” (extended outro)
• “Promise” (extended intro)
• “Goddess”
• “Tough Luck”
• “Snow White”
• "From the Start" (extended outro)

She removed the billowy skirt to reveal a fringy dress, sang a few jazz numbers in her own "jazz club" in the centre mini stage, and played the piano and guitar a few times, and an interlude on her cello. 

The screens showing Laufey were helpful!

During her costume change, a pre-recorded video of her showed a "backstage" back and forth with Laufey and her sister Junia who is her stylist that was quite amusing. Laufey changed into several outfits, including Snow White that got everyone excited, and it was a song she sang towards the end of the show.

One extra song was inspired by Vancouver's rainy weather, and she sang Misty while playing the piano.

Laufey is one talented young woman, and authentic in what she says. At the end she sang From the Start, as a song to inspire everyone in the audience to chase their dreams, because she did, and now she's filling arenas around the world!

Review: Come Back Anytime

Ueda serving his famed soy-based ramen in Bizentei

The other day I watched a documentary called Come Back Anytime, about a husband and wife who own a ramen shop called Bizentei in Tokyo.

It's not about the ramen, but the soup base, where Masamoto Ueda scoops some light soy sauce into a bowl, then adds soup stock made from pork bones, pork ribs, scallions, ginger, and garlic and lets the giant pot simmer all day.

Ueda is well into his 60s and has been making this special soy-based ramen for about 40 years, day in, day out. There's snacks too, like gyoza that he and his wife Kazuko make, and if you're a regular you could get a seasonal treat like pears or mountain yams recently picked from the farm.

Ueda works with his wife Kazuko everyday

And Ueda has a lot of regulars. They passionately explain why they love Bizentei's ramen so much. One musician says he has traveled all over Japan and eats ramen everyday and none of them come close to Bizentei.

That must be music to Ueda's ears, but he is just happy to see satisfied faces of his customers. He said if a female customer unabashedly picked up the bowl to finish the soup, then he knew he she enjoyed her bowl of ramen.

Director John Daschbach and producer Wataru Yamamoto managed to befriend Ueda to get him and his wife to explain how they opened Bizentei and even follow him on his excursions outside of Tokyo to visit not only his own plot of land that he carefully tends to every two weeks, but also invites his regulars to come pick pears and dig up bamboo shoots at other farmers' farms and then enjoy the fruits of their labours.

One scene shows them making rice and then putting ground mountain yam on top which has a gooey kind of texture. Another is making mochi, or Japanese rice cake for the new year, literally pounding rice with a wooden mallet into a sticky dough that is then sliced up into rice cakes. He even incorporates it into his bowl of ramen.

How the couple met is also a cute story, Kazuko falling for a wayward teenager in their senior high school year, but with a lot of patience and luck, he managed to get on the straight and narrow path. Her father owned a noodle shop and suggested the young couple take over. They did and Ueda came up with this special soup stock which has become his calling card ever since.

"There's a big pear over there!" he tells the farmer

But it's not just the food that regulars come for -- it's also to chat with Ueda and the other customers, building a small community that enjoys each other's company, and also lean on for help. 

One woman felt she knew Ueda enough to tell him her father had passed away and cried in the shop; Ueda told her to come back anytime...

The documentary is split into four parts, spring, summer, fall and winter to not only format the story arc, but also show the seasonality of food. The music is jazz and it weaves in and out of the film. At first it seems a bit strange for it to be part of the documentary about a ramen shop, but it lifts the film, giving it more energy and and flourish.

It's not a tear-jerker, but Come Back Anytime is a lovely portrait of a couple just making a living doing what they do best, like the millions of other mom-and-pop shops all over Japan. They are dedicated to their craft, and one can't help but address him as "Master" from his years of life and professional experience.

Come Back Anytime

2021

Directed by John Daschbach

Produced by Wataru Yamamoto

81 mins