Ask any fan of our country’s film culture what was the pivotal Canadian silver screen production of the last 30 years, and the answers will vary among Donald Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road, Denys Arcand’s Le déclin de l’empire américain, Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, Bruce McDonald’s Highway 61 and David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, to name many of the usual suspects. Rick Moranis’s Strange Brew? Probably not, which is a shame.

Also, probably not Crime Wave, which is also a shame. In 1985, Winnipeg director John Paizs made this crazy-weird film (not to be confused with the Sam Raimi film Crimewave, one word, unfortunately for Paizs also released in 1985). Not many people saw Paizs’ film, but I would argue that it nonetheless managed to change the landscape of Canuck cinema.

The film focuses (as much as Crime Wave, surreal and disjointed, focuses on anything) on a writer named Steven. Capable of creating stories with beginnings and endings, the middle always escapes him. Paizs uses the multiple starts and finishes to introduce the cast of characters, finally settling on a hero “from the North.” Seen today, it feels kind of Joel and Ethan Coen and kind of Charlie Kaufman, albeit pre-Coen ‘brand’ and entirely pre-Kaufman.

Crime Wave is an interesting movie that intentionally emulates the look of period Canadian educational films (no doubt you sat through more than enough documentaries on Canadian redwood trees and Hinterland Who’s Whos to automatically get the gist). This mimicry of cultural cinematic conventions is similar, in a sense, to Brit director Edgar “Shaun of the Dead” Wright’s early-2000’s work on Look Around You. Paizs accomplishes his skewering with a pizazz and targeted flair that most pro-parody filmmakers, in any era, could only pray to achieve. One scene in particular, involving a character named Dr. Jolly and set in a cornfield, will etch itself into every viewer’s memory bank. (The good doctor is eerie and unsettling enough to have reportedly influenced Mullholand Drive director, David Lynch.)

Alas, nobody really saw the film, and you wouldn’t know Paizs if he was sitting beside you at the local Pizza Hut. On a meta level, the movie is more about the plight of independent Canadian film than the titular crime wave. A close viewing shows that, waaay back in 1985, a little Canucklehead film director was making precise criticisms about separating our culture from the corrupt influence of the USA: The writer character, Steven, is not only played by Paizs, but also has an awful experience trying to complete his project Stateside. Crime Wave stands proof positive that in Canada, we could lavish time, effort, love, skill and training and resources onto creating a film with no comment on contemporary culture or descent into boring melodrama. And I rejoice in it. What we typically think of as “Canadian films” tend to invoke banal philosophical quandaries amidst dreary landscapes. (Or is that Canadian literature?) Even in 1985, someone, somewhere in Canada understood that we should also make film just for entertainment and fun. And it wasn’t just Rick Moranis.

Crime Wave has been celebrated by “those in the know” (aka, critics and quasi-pretentious — but inclusive! — bloggers). Still, you can’t find it anywhere. Not even on Netflix. That said, you can find my documentary Don’t You Forget About Me on N’Flix. So, put it in your queue! (And again alas, Sam Rami’s Crimewave? Yep: It’s on Netflix.)

Do we care to have Canadian films? I think so, but then what is a Canadian film? And where the hell do we get to see them, if not during a film festival? TIFF and VIFF and the Montreal World Film Festival are around the corner, so get what you can there.

It hasn’t all been a rough road for Paizs, by the way: He went to direct some memorable Kids in the Hall segments (“M. Piedlourde,” anyone?), helping put the innovative troupe on the worldwide comedy map. So we can thank him for that, and gratefully find Kids in the Hall on DVD. Point is, we should start thanking him for Crime Wave, too. We can start by asking Netflix Canada to carry it.

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Image courtesy of ToastyKen.