Sometimes, I finish watching a film and say to myself, ‘I don’t get it’. But the next question to ask is, ‘Does that matter’? In the case of Aaron Poole’s fictional directorial debut, Dada, I feel like the answer to that question is simply, no.  The Canadian actor goes behind the camera for his first feature. It tells the story of a father and daughter road trip.  But, Poole is not afraid to have the audience use their own imagination for interpretation of this film, which takes elements of horror, drama, and magic realism and blends them in a way that is not confined by genre.  

As Adam (James Gilbert) and his daughter, Kai (newcomer Ciara Alexys) drive to their rented cabin along the shore of Lake Huron, there is an easy feel to their relationship.  They are comfortable in silence, but are also playful, shouting out animals they see on their trip or teasing one another about their music selections on the radio.  Kai is soon to turn 16, and you get the impression that Adam might realize he doesn’t have many of these trips left as his daughter, who splits time with her mother, gets older.  

Upon their arrival to the town and provincial park where they are staying, the pair start to see signs protesting nuclear waste dumping.  They understand the community’s concern once they arrive at their destination and find along the shoreline a large, foreboding complex with a continual hum that turns out to be a nuclear power plant.   In the context of the film, this is meant to be the Bruce Power facility, the largest operating nuclear facility in the world, though the film was instead shot in a similar landscape some hours away on Manatoulin Island.  The juxtaposition of this modern structure amongst limestone and conifers is some foreshadowing that things aren’t quite what they seem.

Because, this isn’t just a father-daughter road trip movie.  While there are moments of them having fun, reading together on the beach and discovering their new surroundings, things start to get more complicated.  When Kai comes down one morning, she is seemingly unable to see Adam, walking past him, talking through him.  He assumes this is just one of her games.  But, it goes too far, and it leaves both of them in this somewhat ambivalent space where they cannot communicate and can’t connect.

That’s the best that I can really describe the second half of the film, which is unsettling and disorienting on purpose. Poole has an interesting way of framing the film, with some conversations happening off screen.  Often that dialogue battles for your attention with the surrounding noises, captured by sound designer Bret Killoran, or the score from Filius Blue.  It’s clear Poole wants the audio of this film to impact as much as the visual, and it had me wishing I was experiencing the film in a theatre where I may better appreciate the sound mix, rather than at home.  

 James Gilbert, a prolific actor here in Canada, is well cast alongside Ciara Alexys.  The two have an easy familial chemistry that is an important structure within the film itself.  Without the solid foundation of their relationship, this film doesn’t work at all.  Both actors must have had real trust in Poole, as acting in a film that has a non-traditional structure is a leap of faith.  Yet both Gilbert and Alexys hit their emotional targets with sensitivity and intensity.

While the title ‘Dada’ can be an obvious acknowledgement of the father figure in the movie, it really is embracing Dadaism, the 20th century art movement set on mocking convention and embracing the absurd.  Writer-director Poole makes nothing clear or obvious.  If you’re waiting for exposition and explanation of what you see, you will not find it. 

Dada exists to subvert expectations.  It’s an arthouse film that challenges its audience to abandon the typical film going experience and instead of waiting for events to happen or answers to reveal themselves, just leaves more questions in its wake.  This likely won’t work for everyone, and personally I’m still frustratingly searching for my own answers within the film.  Yet, the fact I’m still thinking about it speaks volumes for what it achieves.  Aaron Poole seems a talented filmmaker who is unwavering in his determination to capture his vision, and I can certainly appreciate what Dada accomplishes cinematically.