Cinema Canada (Jun 1983)

irr nnn nS TIESSEN iliuminations for his protagonists, no epiphanies. Only the viewer, by virtue of his dramatic distance from the action, as voyeur and as witness, is spared the apparently nihilistic vision thatin the end defines the orb in which Kroeker’s characters attempt to function. In varying degrees in the works discussed here, the agentand nature of the betrayal are unlikely, yet appropriate. Let us look atan example: Fusi Bergman, in God Is Nota Fish Inspector, is betrayed by his daughter, Emma, who destroys his illusion of being the eternally mischievous, stubborn, adventuring prankster, cleverly out-witting some authority figure, whether it was a friend’s father when he was a boy, or the fish inspectors now that he is old. Emma, frustrated in her attempts to stop her fathers early morning fishing forays onto the lake, reports him to the authorities only to discover that they, whom Fusi delightedly believed he was eluding every morning, actually watched over him daily, charitably and invisibly assuring his safety as he carried out his little escapades. Here, as in Valgardson’s short story, is the obvious irony : the agents of government, not the militantly Christian daughter, provide what Kroeker would regard as the ideal Christian norm in the story. Through Kroeker's treatment of structure and development of character, a still deeper irony takes over as his main theme the irony involving Fusi Bergman's perception of himself. For Kroeker, the primary and more subtle context for betrayal and loss of hope is found in the death of Jimmy Henderson, the friend whom Fusi tries to salvage from the demeaning atmosphere of Bethel House, the local old-folk's home. While Jimmy Henderson is merely alluded to in Valgardson's story, Kroeker makes of hima more central figure. This mute victim of stroke epitomizes the condition of life from which Fusi is a fugitive: Jimmy is stripped by his institutional environment of a certain dignity that is implied simply by the state of adult hood. This fact is especially threatening to Fusi, who revels in his own free-wheeling independence, which he identifies with “being a man.” Like a slightly anarchistic and now very old adolescent, Fusi feels threatened by the confinement and authority the oldfolk’s home represents. While his feelings are legitimate enough, and gain the audience’s deep sympathy, it is clear, too, that the existence of the institution offers him the means for exploring the possibility of adventure and mischief, and so he announces to his friend, “I’m gonna bust you outa this place.” Taking Jimmy with him on a summer afternoon outing to the lake shore, he says with both pleasure and defiance, “you can't live like a man (in there).” Fusi happily wheels his boyhood friend to the dock on the lake not far from Bethel House, and gleefully relates to him his most recent successes at duping the fish inspectors (and, implicitly, defying his law-andorder religious daughter, as well as her husband). “They'll never catch me, Jimmy,” he boasts with a boyish twinkle in his eye, “I'm too fast for them.” And Jimmy, who up until this pointin the story has seemed oblivious to the people and events around him, now laughs— genuinely, loudly. When Fusi returns to Bethel House the morning after his outing with Jimmy, he learns that his friend has died during the night. As he stands in the kitchen of the institution, deeply shaken by the news, his daughter Emma enters, obviously relishing her mission. The spiteful words with which she assaults her father shatter the self-protective illusion that had once allowed him ant mn 7 trails Fusi Bergman (played by Ed McNamara) in God Is Not a Fish Inspector (1980) to declare adamantly, in response to her reference to the old-folk’s home, “| am not one of them.” She says, coldly, “I called the inspectors,” and adds triumphantly: “They've known about your fishing all along... They watch for you every morning in case you get into trouble and need some help.” In terms of the film’s structure and theme, it is significant that Fusi’s spiritual wounding at the hand of his callous daughter should coincide with his learning of Jimmy Henderson’s death. Emma’s words, after all, strike a death-knell not only to Fusi's perception of “manhood” (as narrow as that may be) but to his personal myth-making. For even though Fusi had managed to remain outside the walls of Bethel House and so apparently retain his dignity as an adult, he has now (by the steely words of his daughter, and as surely as his mute and helpless friend) been stripped of his manhood. Furthermore, he has now been stripped of his boyhood, his playful romanticism, his prankish slyness, his ability to organize threats against Emma's rigid, religious grip on things. His allusive, subtle “God is not a fish inspector’ is snuffed out with her blunt, literal “you can't do any damage with just one net” and her final bit of verbal weaponry, “the Lord’s will be done." If life is like a poker game—to take an oft-repeated statement from EEE 16 / a