Cinema Takes

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Not One of Us

2012-01-29T13:26:00.001+11:00

No car chases, no computer graphics, very low tech. Must be England 1973. The pace is leisurely and the dialogue rich and revealing. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the vintage John Le Carré novel is probably not for Matt Damon or Daniel Craig fans.

It assumes that its audience have some sense of Cold War history. In fact it seems targeted at baby boomers - those who read the book and saw the TV series but have difficulty remembering the intricacies of the plot and characters. This reviewer was in that category like many of the cinema-goers attending.

Gary Oldman as George Smiley does a serviceable but lacklustre job. Alec Guinness showed in the 1979 TV series that dour doesn't have to be bland. At times it seemed that Gary was mimicking Guinness. The rest of the cast are real pros, though John Hurt seemed too debauched as Control, but doesn't he always. At the other end, Colin Firth lacked a rough edge in his role.

Have to wonder what the current generation would make of this nostalgia flick, if they bother to see it. Director Tomas Alfredson has created a world that never existed yet somehow rings true.

I was reminded of Sir Humphrey Appleby's great line in Yes Prime Minister when he learns that his predecessor was a Russian spy. How could "one of us" be "one of them"? Unfortunately the film leaves that question unanswered.

Melancholia: not the way the world ends

2012-01-15T18:13:00.001+11:00

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

If you didn’t know that Melancholia is a film about the end of the world, the opening is a plot spoiler in itself. This slow-moving prologue, set to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, is a director’s tribute - part 2001: A Space Odyssey and part Hitchcock dream sequence.

It’s a multi-genre affair. As Sci-Fi, the science is mostly fantasy. As the apocalypse approaches, cars won’t start but the electric golf buggy does. Just suspend all disbelief at the beginning.

It has all the key elements of the wedding movie complete with bizarre, dysfunctional family. Mother (Charlotte Rampling) is the embarrassing speechmaker. (John Hurt) is the unlikely father, a serial sleaze enchanted with womanhood in the guise of numerous Bettys. Though he’s not the one to have gratuitous sex in a bunker.

At several levels, it is a bitter, mostly humourless society farce. Justine’s tagline for the boss of her Public Relations firm: “Nothing is too good for you!” The setting is a private castle complete with 18-hole golf course, bridal path and exquisite gardens. It’s a biting but essentially unoriginal satire of Western decadence and the conspicuously wealthy. Lars seems to be trying to prove that old aphorism about not being rich and happy. He can’t be a golfer.

The cast is a high-powered gathering. Apparently, Kirsten Dunst was not first choice for the lead but she fits perfectly. Her droopy eyelids and glassy stare are naturals for the deeply disturbed Justine. Charlotte Gainsbourg is convincing as timid sister Claire who fits the other definition of melancholia of having “ill-grounded fears”, except that this time she’s on the money.

Kiefer Sutherland as brother-in-law John seems happier as filthy-rich capitalist than as astronomer buff. His timely exit is as much a plot device as a statement on his character. He just doesn’t need to come between the sisters any longer.

The two Skarsgårds, Alexander as naïve, reality-challenged husband Michael and Stellan as evil boss Jack, are quite adequate in their roles but they’re not the main game. In fact Abraham, Justine’s favourite mount from the flash stables, will probably remain more memorable. Cameron Spurr, as Claire’s young son Leo, is no scene-stealer but he stays the course.

Melancholia is clearly an allegory. You can pick your own lessons. Justine is not just suffering from the 21^st Century pandemic of depression. She is surrounded by a pack of cynical black dogs who seem to have lost the capacity for happiness.

In some ways she belongs to the dark side of 19^thcentury romanticism. Her melancholy finds no joy in anything. Ironically, she discovers calm, purpose and inner peace when preparing her magic cave for the end.

I was more taken with this film than I had expected. It was refreshing not to use the word fluff as we left the cinema. Lars von Trier wears the crown of auteur self-consciously. As writer/director of Melancholia, he tries his best to make a grand statement about the human comedy.

Aliens Attack The Block

2011-12-01T13:59:00.001+11:00

Before the preview session we were warned that the film was dark and violent but fun. For a Sci-Fi alien film, Attack The Block turned out to be on the light side with less blood and violence than expected. It was fun! The audience laughed a lot - a real plus for a teen flick as there were lots of baby boomers in attendance.

A London housing estate is besieged by extraterrestrial monsters. Writer/director Joe Cornish keeps a fast pace, punctuating the humour with the inevitable but fairly subdued ‘horror’. The script is clever at times, though the frequent references to oppression of the block’s underclass youth by police, government and society is hardly subtle or necessary. Better to let the bleeding obvious… Anyway, it’s a film about a London riot of a very different kind.

The youthful cast proves the depth of acting talent in Britain. John Boyega as gang leader Moses deliveres his heroic lines with suitable deadpan. He has excellent comic support from Luke Treadaway as nurdy Brewis, and gang members Pest (Alex Esmail) and Biggz (Simon Howard). Pre-pubescents Mayhem (Michael Ajao) and Probs (Sammy Williams) add the kind of attitude you’d expect on the block.

The plot is so implausible I won’t even bother with any spoilers. Clearly U.K. government budget cuts have sunk deeper than an alien’s glowing teeth, as the military don’t even seem to notice an attack from outer space.

It’s a Them and Them and Us movie. Like the teens, it turns out that the aliens are just misunderstood. Fittingly Moses apologises to Sam (Jodie Whittaker) by telling her that they wouldn’t have robbed her if they’d known she lived on the block.

Nearly forgot the drugs warning: There is lots of weed in this movie. It’s a big part of the humour so not everyone will be pleased.

(Thanks to Ned & Co for the free tickets.)

PS. Life imitating art: a guidedog-in-training had to be removed by its trainer after barking at a tense moment late in the film.

The Tall Man: Death in Paradise

2011-11-23T15:20:00.000+11:00

The Tall Man documents the death in police custody of aborigine Cameron Doomadgee on Queensland’s Palm Island in 2004 and the subsequent inquests and trial of Sergeant Chris Hurley.

From my review of the book in 2010 The Tall Man Story continues:

The background to this tragic story is very bleak:

the appalling treatment of indigenous people in Queensland by settlers, government and police;
the forced relocation of the unwanted and ‘undesirables’ to Palm Island’s virtual prison;
the continuing consequences of the stolen generations and separated families;
the culture of apathy and denial within the police, forensic pathologists and the justice system;
the code of coverup;
the ‘them and us’ attitudes of some in the Deep North towards their Southern cousins;
the legacy of Christian missions on indigenous beliefs and values;
the sorry state of reconciliation in parts of Australia.

One of the best things about this documentary is that it lets the people speak for themselves. There is no heavy narration or running commentary. Of course that doesn’t necessarily make it objective or without a point of view. As I wrote about the book’s author Chloe Hooper:

It’s easy to feel that she was trying to nail him for the still unexplained violent death of Cameron Doomadgee.

Writer/director Tony Krawitz has been essentially true to the book. He explained his approach and views in this interview:

The audience can draw their own conclusions, just as Chloe Hooper’s readers had to. Some voices are missing, especially Sergeant Hurley and other members of the police force. We have to rely on extracts from his interviews during the investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.

Some aspects are left out such as detailed coverage of the riots and subsequent prosecutions. Some recent developments since publication have been added. It’s hard not reach for clichés such as disturbing and confronting. It’s also hard to leave the theatre with any feeling of optimism about most of the issues outlined above.

If you miss this quality production at the cinema, SBS should be screening it later and hopefully will be available on SBS OnDemand.

Flickcrit: Babies - Speaking for Themselves

2011-07-03T22:34:00.000+10:00

No commentary, no dialogue to speak of, just four babies in their first year of life. Ponijao from Opuwo Namibia, Bayar from Bayarjargal Mongolia, Mari from Tokyo Japan and Hattie from San Francisco USA.

Though not my topic of choice, I was won over within seconds. Thomas Balmès'Babies is my kind of documentary maker. He lets the camera tell the story. The structure is straightforward and predictable: from breastfed dependency to toddling independence. You can draw your own life lessons, just enjoy the wonder of infancy or do both. If the global village has any future, it is being nurtured in these communities.

It's a French production but could hardly be classified as foreign language. Wikipedia suggests that some viewers think "it lacks insight and depth". Must be used to docos that do all the thinking for them.

Do yourself a favour - catch this one, preferably on the big screen. I haven't smiled so much at the cinema for ages.

Flickrit: Get Low

2011-05-31T23:37:00.001+10:00

Director Aaron Schneider is on the mark with Get Low. Its mixture of dark humour with darker drama creates a mood reminiscent of the early Cohen Brothers films.

The story is based on a real character from the 1930s who planned to be a live guest at his own funeral. In this fictionalised version Felix wants to have his life recounted and thereby hangs the tale.

It is a classy cast who give very professional performances. The three generations of men deserve a a joint Oscar. Robert Duvall shines as the feared hermit of forty years Felix Bush. Bill Murray as unconventional undertaker Frank Quinn does what he's best at - the likeable rogue.

Lucas Black as his idealistic assistant Buddy enjoys the company of these screen greats. Sissy Spacek as Mattie Darrow and Bill Cobbs as the Reverend Charlie Jackson do what's required and more.

If you don't enjoy this one then stop trying.

Mad Bastards: Raw and Real

2011-05-23T18:09:00.000+10:00

Writer/director Brendan Fletcher's film Mad Bastards is a rough and ready depiction of aboriginal life in the remore Kimberley region of Western Australia. No punches are pulled. Poverty, unemployment, violence, alcohol abuse, domestic violence are all there in large doses. But so are the personal struggles to overcome these legacies, and the enduring strength of the people.

The cast are mostly amateurs and this shows throughout the movie. However, there is a heightened honesty and intensity, as many play roles that reflect their own life experiences.

The following is taken from the Press Kit:

TJ is a mad bastard, and his estranged 13‐year‐old son Bullet is on the fast track to
becoming one, too. After being turned away from his mother’s house, TJ sets off across the country to the Kimberly region of northwestern Australia to make things right with his son.

Grandpa Tex has lived a tough life, and now, as a local cop in the outback town of Five Rivers, he wants to change things for the men in his community. Cutting between three generations, Mad Bastards is a raw look at the journey to becoming a man and the personal transformation one must make.

Developed with local Aboriginal communities and fueled by a local cast, Mad Bastards
draws from the rich tradition of storytelling inherent in Indigenous life. Using music from legendary Broome musicians the Pigram Brothers, writer/director Brendan Fletcher poetically fuses the harsh realities of violence, healing, and family.

Dean Daly-Jones as TJ, Lucas Yeeda as his 13 year-old son Bullet, Ngaire Pigram as the mother and Greg Tait as grandpa policeman Tex all give professional performances, though Ngaire is the only experienced actor. Tait is a fair dinkum copper from the area.

If you're not yet a fan of Ngaire's fellow family members the Pigram Brothers, there is plenty of opporunity to meet some of them and their music, plus musician Alex Lloyd.

Mad Bastards is a raw but very real film that is both confronting and touching.

Incendies

2011-05-20T17:45:00.000+10:00

French Canadian writer/director Denis Villeneuve brings Wajdi Mouawad’s dark play Incendies to the screen with the intensity the story deserves. Mouawad is Lebanese but this fable is set in a fictional Middle Eastern country with the intention of divorcing it from a specific political conflict or participants.

The message is about ending anger thorough personal rather than the public reconciliation such as that seen in South Africa. The scale of the violent horrors is immense: rape and torture, cold-blooded execution of ‘innocents’, adult and children.

The cast is first class. Lubna Azabal gives a haunting portrayal as Nawal Marwan, a Christian whose youthful romance sparks this dark mystery.

Her children Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux Poulin, Maxim Gaudette) are sent on a quest to discover their father and brother with the assistance of notary Lebel (Rémy Girard). The journey to discover their brother Nihad (Abdelghafour Elaaziz) is interspersed with flashbacks to Nawal’s youth.

The surprises and twists in the plot are a little too predictable at times and sometimes beyond belief as well. We have to take it as allegory if the ‘message’ is not to be lost.

A powerful, disturbing film that ends on a note of hope. Not for the faint hearted.

The Way Back: Endless Steps

2011-04-28T09:42:00.004+10:00

There is a lot to like about The Way Back: great scenery and photography; some fine acting; a boy's own adventure (well almost if you don't count the girl). But overall this is not one of Peter Weir's best films.

The horrors of Stalinism were laboured without revealing anything new or deepening our understanding of the gulag tragedy. Perhaps it will help to educate a younger audience.

The storyline is predictable and clichéd.

The performance of Colin Farrell, as the criminal Valka, is the most appealing but then he has the most to work with. His dark-Irish charisma suits the part. Ed Harris, as the American Mr. Smith, rarely gets beyond wooden or perhaps it's just the enigmatic character he's playing. Jim Sturgess, as the leader Janusz, is too good to have survived as far as Siberia.

The direction and editing are pedestrian (no pun intended). Cinematic devices such as the dream of coming home to the front door are twee to say the least. Perhaps the walking boots at the end are a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Eisenstein.

The script screams out for some insight into the individuals - what made them unique as well as universal.

Nevertheless, if you're into survival sagas, then this two-hour-plus contribution to the genre should suit.

In A Better World: Beating Bullies

2011-04-27T14:31:00.007+10:00

In A Better World (Hævnen) is a morality play where evil and goodness contend. Three archetypal bullies dominate their worlds: a schoolyard thug, a dystopian warlord/godfather and a belligerent sociopath.

They test the principles of liberal adults who abhor violence. The story confronts the ultimate dilemma: how to overcome violence and intimidation without embracing it. How to turn the other cheek without being defeated or giving in. When their children decide on retaliation rather than rationality, the fragile lives of the adults do not seem to offer any answers.

The standout of the highly professional cast is Markus Rygaard who plays Elias, one of the sons.

The plot moves both inevitably and predictably to its dramatic climax and rather trite resolution.

As an allegory, its message is too in-your-face to be the stuff of first class fiction. Nevertheless, In A Better World is a movie with merit that should appeal to all ages. We'll let the ten-year-olds decide for themselves.

Brighton Rock: Trying Too Hard

2011-04-07T16:02:00.001+10:00

Brighton Rock has lots going for it: a Graham Greene classic; iconic locations; a social turning point; clashes of generations and sub-cultures; tragic love; and crime. Not to forget that it is also the era of the Second Vatican Council, with its attempt to modernise Catholicism.

Plus a stellar cast.

The original film, based on Greene’s 1938 novel, was made in 1947 the year I was born. This remake is set in 1964, my last year at school, a truly memorable one. At the time the Beatles are kings, angry youth in England side violently with the waning rockers or the trendy mods. At the same time the old local gangs face extinction by sophisticated, national criminal organisations. Both literally and figuratively, guns are replacing flick knives as the weapon of choice.

Young Pinkie (Sam Riley) is an old style psychopath. His idea of romance is to pull the legs off a spider like proverbial daisy petals. The seventeen year-old girl is in fact named Rose (Andrea Riseborough) and her romantic notions are quite the opposite. It’s a case of guile versus guileless. Riley and Riseborough both give excellent performances, though they often seem too controlled with emotions switching on and off.

Both characters have an Old Testament hell-fire view of Catholicism that is not adequately explored. It is just one of the many themes and sub-plots that compete for our attention. This adaptation tries to do too much.

The official website claims that it ‘embraces the classic elements of film noir and the British gangster film’. At times director Rowan Joffe’s style is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1930s English crime movies or his 50s crime thrillers. However, he doesn’t quite hit the mark. Despite seductive sets and stunning scenery the look of this film is more 1950 than fifteen years later. Perhaps the changed timeframe was a mistake. This adaptation is trying to do too much.

The supporting cast are faultless: Helen Mirren as the relentless Ida; John Hurt as her admirer Phil Corkery; and Phil Davis as washed-out crim Spicer. Yet somehow most of them just don’t seem comfortable in this environment, not even the very typecast Davis. Godfather Colleoni (Andy Serkis) also seems an anachronism.

Perhaps the changed timeframe was a mistake. Brighton Rock revisited is a quality production but writer/director Joffe just tries too hard for this movie to become a classic.

Flickcrit: How I Ended This Summer

2011-04-06T22:07:00.000+10:00

"Against the haunting backdrop of an Arctic outpost, 2 men with fiery tempers ignite in a deadly conflict. A handsome newcomer threatens the hostile veteran amidst thick fog, sharp rocks, and the merciless Arctic Sea."

A film of 124 minutes featuring only two characters needs to have something special going for it. Alexei Popogrebsky’s How I Ended This Summer has both first class performances and stunning photography of its remote location.

It is dominated by its amazing physical environment – a meteorological outpost on the Arctic Sea. He has used the Russian Valkarkai Polar Station as the setting for an intense drama between two men and two generations.

Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis) is the middle-aged old-hand, obsessively committed to the routines of reporting daily weather readings. The work also involves monitoring a Soviet era radioactive relic. That task goes to his assistant Pavel (Grigory Dobrygin). He is a twentysomething novice on a summer job who is more interested in video games than keeping meticulous records.

Although Dobrygin is also a novice, his film debut is impressive. He more than matches the intensity of his older colleague.

This movie is classed as a psychological thriller, which suits writer/director Popogrebsky who majored in Psychology at Moscow State University. It is a clash of personalities, values and generations. On top of this, the extreme environment plays a not insignificant part as one of the protagonists.

The slow pace in the first half of the film creates the necessary mood of isolation and establishes the fear that Pavel has for the unbalanced Sergei. When Pavel withholds bad news it is because he dreads that the older man will tip into uncontrolled rage and violence. The decision backfires, of course, and his summer faces a nightmare ending. Pavel starts to join Sergei on the dark side.

Unfortunately, the second half takes too long to build to its climax. The film could have been shortened considerably by tighter direction and editing. It is too mono-paced. Nevertheless, How I Ended This Summer is worth a visit to the cinema.

Film Review: The King’s Speech

2010-12-19T10:20:00.001+11:00

King's Speech Trailer

David Seidler’s screenplay of The King’s Speech follows the conventional wisdom of the unlikely, unwilling king-in-waiting and stutterer who finds his voice during the crisis of war. The key speech and climax is Bertie’s (King George VI) first radio broadcast following the war declaration in 1939.

It’s the classic cliché of the reluctant hero saving the day. Apparently the king had conquered his public speaking disasters by the time he visited Australia in 1927 to open the new Parliament House in Canberra. But you wouldn’t want to ruin a good story…

His family’s story has been one of the best known, both then and now. The Battenberg-Windsors have continued their star/celebrity status. They are the ‘firm’, a family business that is part politics, part public relations, and increasingly a large measure of popular entertainment. Bertie remarks that the advent of radio has made them all actors.

The young Elizabeth of the movie has lived to see her sister and children divorced, her 'uncle' assassinated by the IRA, the death of her ex-daughter-in-law Diana with the royal controversy that followed, and her son and heir’s marriage to a divorcée . The constitutional crisis surrounding the abdication of Edward VIII seems small beer with hindsight. Marry a divorced woman. Never!

The clash of the State religion with the king’s desires is underscored by the political storm emerging in Europe. The new King George VI watches newsreel footage of an Adolf Hitler speech and answers a query as to what he is saying , “I don't know but... he seems to be saying it rather well. …”. One would have expected him to have studied German, especially with his connections and given name of Albert. In fact Churchill points out the unsuitability of a Germanic name for the monarch.

Politics aside, personal relationships are the core of this drama. The friendship between then Duke of York and his unorthodox Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue is masterfully handled by two real pros, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. They relish the irony of an antipodean colonial teaching his monarch how to speak the King’s English. Firth never quite captures the look of a scared rabbit in a spotlight that the real Bertie always seems to have in old photos and film clips.

Helena Bonham Carter gives a skilful and controlled performance as the future Queen Elizabeth.

The royal brothers are both constrained by the House rules. Guy Pearce makes a credible Edward VIII (not his familiar name but then he could hardly have been called King David). However, his royal accent falls a little flat at times. The behind the scenes exchanges do not present a flattering portrait of this failed ‘ruler’.

The supporting cast is outstanding. You’d expect nothing less from Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of course he has an illustrious acting history with characters that stutter. Timothy Spall as Churchill captures the icon without descending into caricature. During the film Churchill shares with his monarch his own struggle to overcome a speech impediment.

Director Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech is a very effective weaving of the personal and the political. Expect some Oscars from this period piece.

Social Network: Reality Hits the Wall

2010-11-06T16:13:00.003+11:00

David Fincher’s Social Network is a dramatised account of the creation of Facebook and the lawsuits that followed. It’s primarily about Machiavellian intrigue: ‘You don’t get to make 500 million friends without making a few enemies’.

IMDb has thoughts on how accurate the story is. In the film FB’s creator Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) has no real friends or lasting romantic relationships. Apparently this doesn’t match the real-life person and since it is central to his character development, or lack of it, I’m treating it the story as fiction.

One aspect that has some legal ‘truth’ is the interweaving of legal depositions with connected flashbacks. They are cleverly scripted by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, but unfortunately there are just too many of the Q&A scenes.

It’s a highly competent cast. Eisenberg does silence extremely well with a great combination of brooding genius and arrogant back-stabber. Armie Hammer does a sterling, nay an Olympic, job as identical twin rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. I can now put a face to Justin Timberlake who plays villain Sean Parker, but was unmoved by the encounter.

This is a boys’ own film. Harvard of the 21st Century is not presented as the home of sensitive new age guys. Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), the catalyst for Mark’s initial anti-social website Facemash, is the only female character who would not feel at home in a fraternity movie.

There is a new twist – the advent of geek groupies. Money and power have always been sexy. It’s no coincidence that we’re led to believe that FB’s early success was based on the desire of young men to get laid.

Social Network is memorable for its final scene and last lines: “Mark, you’re not an arsehole, you’re just trying very hard to be one.”

We can only hope that the real Zuckerberg is a much more interesting character than the one portrayed. Otherwise those billions are going to waste.

(Thanks to Cinetology for the tickets.

I have 223 Facebook 'friends'. None of them are characters in the film.)

Boy: Realising Potential

2010-09-26T16:52:00.002+10:00

Boy recreates a time when young boys and Michal Jackson were not a sniggering matter. This delightful, insightful Kiwi film proves what can still be done on a small budget. It is funny, moving and disturbing at times. Its Mature Audience classification in Australia belies the cast of children who seem to have little difficulty dealing with so-called adult themes that bedevil the oldies.

Set in 1984, Boy is thoroughly modern in its exploration of their world. Writer/director Taika Waititi has drawn on his schooldays in New Zealand and his Maori background. He also very entertaining as the tragi-comic adult lead Alamein, leader of his 3 man Crazy Horse gang.

Waititi's light touch makes for a mostly gentle and genuinely funny journey with Alamein’s two sons and their whimsical collection of cousins and schoolmates. Some of the lesser lights struggle with their lines but it doesn’t really matter. The really young ones basically do everything without dialogue and don’t miss a beat.

The three make a quixotic family. 11 year-old Boy, is the idealist. James Rollston is a natural in this part. His bumbling innocence reminds me of the boys in Stand By Me, as he knocks on the door of puberty. Younger brother Rocky is the dreamer and fantasist. It’s hard not to be captivated by Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu’s performance. Taika makes a flawed, roguish but likable knight as Alamein.

Do yourself a favour. Spend a little time in Waihau Bay. Like Boy, it realises lots of its potential.

MIFF 2010: City of Life and Death

2010-08-04T14:58:00.001+10:00

1937.

Japanese troops beseige and conquer the Chinese captial Nanking.

City of Life and Death is fiction but is based on the experiences of real people who were caught up in this shocking tale of war and inhumanity. It has the feel of a documentary and recreates in black and white, the horror captured on film at the time. Mass executions, brutality, rape, and forced prostitution are presented in the matter of fact way that they were carried out.

This isn't anti-Japanese propaganda though the shame of their actions should not be forgotten. Kakodawa (Hideo Nakaizumi), a young soldier, represents the human side of the invaders. Just as Mr. Tang (Wei Fan) shows the desperate attempts that some locals tried to protect their families.

If there are heroes in this story, they are the women. Plus one child, Xiaodouzi (Bin Liu), who is still alive today. The dramatic focus is the International Safety Zone, where an illusory attempt to help refugees from the slaughter takes place.

This film should be compulsory viewing in a world that still seems obsessed with going to war.

MIFF 2010: The Killer Inside Me

2010-08-04T09:57:00.000+10:00

Perhaps you have to be in the mood. Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me was disappointing. This portrait of evil will suit fans of gratuitous violence but as a character study it fell way short. It's part crime thriller, part horror, part psychological drama.

It may have been because Casey Affleck plays bad cop Lou Ford with his cowboy drawl that is impossible to understand at times. Is this great acting or poor elocution?

The plot was both unlikely and predictable. We are asked to accept that Ford has suddenly come out in his late twenties as a nasty after years as a nice guy. The trigger of a slap on the face hardly explains the sudden emergence of Mr. Hyde.

The law enforcement people, led by DA Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker), are not the brightest bunch. Even basic forensic science of the early 1950s like fingerprinting seem beyond them. Their extraordinary lack of any sense of smell at the final confrontation is amazing.

This film is pretty pedestrian pulp fiction. Perhaps the storyline of the original crime novel was fresh in 1952. It just seems to have been done to death on film and television.

Of the victims, Jessica Alba performance is much more memorable as Joyce Lakeland than Kate Hudson as girlfriend Amy Stanton. The rest of the male cast had the appeal of a telemovie.

As a longime Tarantino follower, the blood saturation point may have been reached for me.

MIFF 2010: The Day Will Come

2010-07-29T16:55:00.000+10:00

The Day Will Come (Es kommt der Tag) is a mystery of sorts. Director/screen writer Susanne Schneider has crafted a suspenseful and tense drama but the plot is rather transparent.

Katharina Schüttler gives a powerful performance as Alice, a young woman in search of her identity. Her self-destructive, sometimes violent nature seems wrapped in her genes. Iris Berben as Judith has to keep her passionate beliefs bottled up for self preservation. Anyway, enough spoilers.

Judith's family are very effectively portrayed by Jacques Frantz (husband) Sebastian Urzendowsky (son) and Sophie-Charlotte Kaissling-Dopff (daughter). They are all very convincing in the crisis that overwhelms them.

This is dual language (German and French) film. It's bilingualism is central to its heart of darkness. This exploration of evil, personal betrayal, and healing is well worth the effort.

MIFF 2010: Apart Together

2010-07-29T15:42:00.000+10:00

Apart Together (Tuan yuan) has an unusual twist on the love triangle. Newly weds separated by the Chinese Nationalist Army's retreat to Taiwan are reunited in late 1980s Shanghai after forty years apart.

It's a fairly light romantic drama as former soldier KMT soldier Liu Yangsheng (Ling Feng) gets reacquainted with Yu-e (Lisu Lu) and meets his son and her second family. It's a difficult emotional journey for the couple. this is not just because of opposition to her returning with him to Taiwan but also through the magnaminous acceptance of her second husband ex Communist soldier Lu Shanming (Xu Caigen).

As well as the exploration of these tangled relationships, there is also some forboding comment on the emerging modern China, with its threat to the extended family and neighbourhood communities.

The pace of this story was annoying at times. The lead character lacks both energy and depth. In contrast to his rival's overacting, it is a rather flat and uninspiring performance. In contrast Lisu Lu gives a subtle and moving portrayal as the second-time-around lover.

MIFF 2010 - Cane Toads: The Conquest

2010-07-29T14:45:00.000+10:00

After more than 20 years, Mark Lewis has returned to his classic topic in Cane Toads: The Conquest. We catch up with the relentless march of this unpopular guest in Australia.

The ingenuity of the local defenders and their futile attempts to stop its spread across Northern Australia are documented in detail. It is an salutary lesson in the dangers of eco experimentation. Yet there seems no sense of irony from those who hope for a biological or genetic solution.

There are some of the old favourites. Golf clubs! A taxi swerves across the road with more deadly accuracy than the original combi van. Monica Krause, the young girl who owned "Dairy Queen", reminisces about her gigantic pet toad.

Surprisingly it's the dogs who steal the show. Their closeups almost make the 3D worthwhile. Lewis manages to find a range of people who are more than willing to share their cane toad stories. There is a character gallery that is well worth visiting.

Mark keeps himself out of the conversation, a style that many other documentary makers could well copy. The politician talking heads became a little monotonous but that is their specialty.

Can't say that no toads were harmed in the making of this film. The gas extermination of thousands may disturb some viewers.

Nevertheless, Cane Toads: The Conquest is very engaging experience.

The Hedgehog: French Fate

2010-07-22T15:01:00.000+10:00

Director/screenwriter Mona Achache has created an unusual ensemble of characters in the highly introspective film The Hedgehog (Le hérisson). It is tight, well acted work. The unifying element is the setting: a plush apartment building where they all reside.

We view this claustrophobic world through two lenses. Firstly, 11 year-old Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) produces a film-with-in-a-film as she videos her life in preparation for her 12th birthday suicide. The rest of the Josse family is just as dysfunctional, with mother Solange (Anne Brochet) leading the way.

Our second point of view is through the eyes of Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko), the 54 year-old concierge. Renée lives in a tiny space compared with the residents though it’s luxury compared to the local vagrant Jean-Pierre (Jean-Luc Porraz). The cluttered books and memorabilia in her flat expose the richness of her inner life to her are visitors.

This invisible widow becomes the central person, not just in Paloma’s life. New resident and widower Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) brings unexpected romance to her dreary existence.

The somewhat bizarre climax has its own inevitability. Only the French would call it a happy ending. Nevertheless the dramatic conclusion is a strong affirmation of life as much as it is a comment on fate and death.

I Am Love: Classy Tearjerker

2010-07-14T19:50:00.002+10:00

Director Luca Guadagnino has created an elegant, moving film. I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) is an Italian language movie with an English-speaking star. Ever the professional, Tilda Swinton learnt Italian and Russian for the part of Emma Recchi.

Somewhat surprisingly her character does not speak the modern lingua franca English. Tilda is an excellent clotheshorse for Italian fashion which she does with captivating style.

The direction and photography caress our senses. The slow pace is perfectly suited to this tender love affair. It is a story of ideas and emotions. However, the climax comes with sudden speed. The frenetic conclusion is stunning.

The scenes where lover and and housekeeper undress Madam mirror Emma's life. She has been the trophy wife brought back from Russia where her husband Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) "collected things". We follow the journey from dutiful wife and mother of adult children to her personal liberation.

The context is present day upper-class Milan. The wealthy Recchi family live a seemingly ideal existence in their 1930s rationalist-fascist mansion. Grandfather had a "past" with Mussolini's regime. The father seems oblivious to his children's desires and his wife's restlessness.

Eldest son Edo is horrified by the direction their business is taking when they are approached to go global. The hyper-villain Mr. Kubelkian (Waris Ahluwalia) is the consumate neo-con seducer, speaking of capital as democracy and war's potential to bring development to the third world. The attacks on the Upper Class and globalisation are none too subtle.

Edo is more interested in joining his friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) in his restaurant business. Emma is also drawn to Antonio, making for an unusual triangle.

It's an excellent cast. Maria Paiato is particularly strong as the housekeeper Ida. Alba Rohrwacher also shines as Betta.

I Am Love is a visual feast and a classy tearjerker.

Animal Kingdom: Jungle Genes

2010-06-20T15:12:00.000+10:00

Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn is at his manic best as the 'Pope', Andrew Cody, in Animal Kingdom. Writer/director David Michôd has capitalised on the success of the recent Underbelly TV series to bring us a gripping underworld-family drama. The story is based on the murder of two policemen in Walsh Street, Melbourne in 1988 and the notorious Pettingill family.

The very strong Australian cast is led by newcomer James Frecheville, as Josh Cody, who steals the glory. He has the unenviable task of carrying off a degree of sanity in a swamp of psychopaths. Joel Edgerton as family guardian Barry Brown walks the fine line between these with aplomb.

This is a film where the focus is squarely on the eyes of its characters. The dialogue is secondary. Jackie Weaver as matriarch Janine Cody is an exception. Her obsessive need to talk through the dramas would seem false if the archetype gangster mum Kath Pettingill had not done so very publicly at the time of the real life murders and trial. Apparently there is even an Oz Un-reality TV series on infamous crime families. If I knew its name, I wouldn’t provide a link. Have to draw the line somewhere.

On obvious question that is partially explored by Animal Kingdom is the nature of these institutions. What makes them tick: family ethos, loyalty, fear, herd instinct, psychotic genes, the business ethic? We don’t hear the Sopranos excuse that they are soldiers fighting an unjust system in some kind of class war. It would have made a better film if this exploration had been deeper. We certainly get a very different take on our suburban neighbours.

The other disturbing side of this movie is the police corruption. Crooked cops involved in the drug industry are universal. However, the Armed Robbery Squad that is portrayed as totally out of control has its roots firmly in the actual events of the 1980s. Senior Sergeant Nathan Leckie is a standout white knight of law enforcement in a sea of black. It isn’t a role that enables Guy Pearce to shine but keeps it straight and to the point.

The judicial system also takes a hammering. The coke-sniffing criminal lawyer, in both sense of the word, is also based on a real person. The cynical and amoral female barrister comes straight from British crime television.

This is a quality movie. Animal Kingdom maintains its restrained intensity to the last shot. Pun intended.

Fish Tank's Winning Combination

2010-06-19T18:56:00.001+10:00

Writer/director Andrea Arnold has created a winning combination in Fish Tank: an energetic, in-your-face fifteen year old struggling to come to terms with her bleak existence in an English housing estate in Essex.

Mia (Kate Jarvis) has more attitude than the girl with the dragon tattoo and less fear if it’s possible. Her attempt to rescue a horse that she believes is being mistreated is emblematic of this complex character.

Two new males enter her life: mum’s new boyfriend Connor (played with understatement by Michael Fassbender) and her new friend Billy (Harry Treadaway). Experience and innocence!

With her dysfunctional family and self-destructive risk taking, the plot unfolds with depressing inevitability. Fortunately there are enough twists to prevent the story falling into complete predictability.

Kate Jarvis is perfect for the role. She was 17 which helped to give her character a tougher edge. The fact that she is a Tilbury Town local, complete with accent, adds a priceless authentic element.

The film finishes on a note of hope, so don’t be put off by its dark themes.

Crazy Heart: Not Another One-night Stand

2010-02-18T17:50:00.000+11:00

Writer/director Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart is the country music version of The Wrestler. A has-been loner struggles to regain career, love and self-respect. While alcohol runs his life, singing legend Bad Blake’s life consists of a downward spiral of one-night stands of both varieties. Bowling alleys, bars and baby-boomer groupies.

After four previous nominations, Jeff Bridges might pull off the Best Actor Oscar that eluded Mickey Rourke last year. He was robbed, of course. Bridges’ gravely voice and roadmap face are tailor-made for his role. He oozes authenticity from start to finish or perhaps it’s just sweat. If it’s not the Academy Award makeup, then Jeff should take the cure immediately.

The plot is pedestrian and predictable which suits the country/romantic-drama genre perfectly. It’s melody drama rather than melodrama.

The rest of the cast make the best of their roles. Maggie Gyllenhaal, of Dark Knight fame, gives a suitably sweet and mercifully understated performance as his love interest Jean Craddock. Predictably Jack Nation, as her young son Buddy, steals most of his scenes. Robert Duvall does a solid but less than memorable job as Bad’s mate.

Apart from the battle with the booze and the romantic tension, the real drama centres on his rivalry with former protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) who basks in the top-billing that was once Blake’s preserve.

Hard to judge if the songs are as good as the script trumpets, but that's for country fans to decide. Singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham brings a genuine note to his brief appearance with Weary Kind. Bridges and Farrell sing their numbers. a creditable job for Colin whose IMDb bio claims he is tone deaf. Perhaps that helps.

Clichés, platitudes and aphorisms are the grits of the lyrics. The movie’s tag ‘The harder the life, the sweeter the song’ sums it up. Fortunately, though he’s a slow learner, Bad knows when to fold ‘em and doesn’t dwell too much on his mistakes. He’d have to do nothing else.

Crazy Heart is an enjoyable, sentimental journey. We know from the start that good will triumph over Bad. They only die in the songs.

The Hurt Locker: No Place for Heroes

2010-02-18T14:02:00.002+11:00

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is a well crafted film, with a tight, engrossing script by Mark Boal. It is visually appealing if that term can be used to describe Baghdad’s urban battleground. It tells the story of a US army bomb disposal team in Iraq in 2004.

The direction is virtually flawless with hardly a wasted shot during its 131 minutes. She maintains suspense during several long sequences, in part by using the leader’s rogue behaviour that puts himself and his team in regular jeopardy. The actors are deftly handled with authority and precision. Jeremy Renner gives a disturbing portrayal of Sergeant First Class William James, leader of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit. His strong performance more than earns his 2010 Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.

Despite having a wife and child back home, the protagonist/antagonist is a loner who only opens up through hard liquor and macho camaraderie. Keeping faith with the military cliché/pun, he is a loose cannon who takes clearly unacceptable risks with his own life and his comrades. His team members Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) do not share his fatalism, bravado and apparent death wish. James’ personal struggle is not with the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) but with the human side - the innocent victims, the collateral damage of the insurgents’ bombing campaign.

It’s hard not to have problems with subject matter that is not only very confronting but whose multiple layers will appeal to diverse audiences. The horror and inhumanity of war may well be lost on those looking for an action adventure. You have to wonder whether this is an intentional marketing tool. The official website talks about “the military’s unrecognised heroes”.

Nevertheless, it tells an important story of our times, without too much moralising or in-your-face propaganda. It shares this with Ridley Scott’s 2001Black Hawk Down that is a poorer but very popular cousin in this war/action/drama genre. It may be the result of James’ space age protective body suit and Sanborn’s race, but the individuals are easier to identify than in Scott’s thriller.

They are also easier to identify with, as there is much greater character development. The strong cast includes memorable cameos: Guy Pearce, yet another Australian actor playing a US soldier; David Morse as a gung-ho Colonel who would fit comfortably into Apocalypse Now; Ralph Fiennes as a British bounty hunter; and Christopher Sayegh as the Iraqi boy Beckham.

There is probably too much predictability in the plot but then it is catering for a mass audience.

The Hurt Locker is one of the best American war movies since Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It deserves its 9 Oscar nominations.

It's Complicated: Screwball Seniors Sitcom

2010-01-26T16:14:00.001+11:00

It's Complicated is seniors sitcom, baby-boomer screwball, cuisine cinema. Writer/director Nancy Meyers has crafted a feelgood movie that's funny as well.

It continues her involvement in this genre established in Something's Gotta Give and far outshines that effort.

The stellar cast don’t let her down. Meryl Streep as Jane Adler proves again that she does comedy as easily as the heavy drama that won her youthful Oscars. I’m beginning to think her quaint giggle is a personal trait not just part of her acting repertoire.

Alec Baldwin, as ex- hubby Jake, is made for this part of retread romeo. It's no coincidence that the filmmakers see him as their Spencer Tracy. He's good but not that good. Alec has the decadent girth we associate with successful American attorneys and the innocent eyes of the amoral egoist. When he looks Jane straight in the eye, it’s hard not to believe his spin. At times we almost symapthise with him as he tries to escape the second-marriage trap he has set for himself. Almost!

Steve Martin has less to play with in his role as Adam, the third corner of the triangle. It’s a fairly flat performance but zany isn’t what we expect from an architect. To Meyers’ credit, his contributions to the more comic scenes, such as the party, are mercifully restrained. It’s not the slapstick, loud Martin that many try to avoid.

The over-the-top stuff is left to John Krasinski as Harley, the future son-in-law. But the audience enjoyed his comic moments. The three grownup offspring are ably played by Zoe Kazan, Caitlin Fitzgerald and Hunter Parrish, as is to be expected from seasoned Hollywood professionals.

One thing that annoys is the trite setting in Santa Barbara's semi-rural Upper-Class America. Jane’s home is reminiscent of Rachel Getting Married. She is having additions made to the house where she lives alone. The kitchen isn’t big enough. Not! Anyway,who wouldn't want to wake to a view of the Pacific. Her bakery business is to die for, naturally. How else could she afford the lifestyle.

You have to wonder if the inclusion of Jane’s psychiatrist and Jake's fertility clinic are simply soft satire or just giving the audience something to identify with. It seems that having a shrink is just part of the conspicuous consumption of this section of U.S. society.

Lake Bell and Emjay Anthony make a suitably menacing, if stereotypical, mother/son duo as Jake's second family. Just part of the everyday world of post-divorce.

It’s Complicated has the feel of a French food farce. Most of the action revolves around eating but it just isn’t biting enough.

Cheers for Bran Nue Dae at Sundance

2010-01-23T14:48:00.000+11:00

A quick review of Bran Nue Dae by Anne Thompson from the Sundance Film Festival:

Friday morning in the Spotlight section (for films that Sundance programmers love that have screened elsewhere), Aboriginal musical Bran Nu Dae scored lots of laughs at the Racquet Club. Here’s how one attendee described it in a text message: “Grease meets Gods Must Be Crazy meets 10 Canoes! Geoffrey Rush makes surprise leading role. Fun, fun, fun! The audience screamed and cheered at the end! Very audience friendly and appealing with big heart and theme. Very Aussie cheekie."
Sundance Watch: Redford vs. Gilmore, Howl, Restrepo, Bran Nu Dae

If you haven't seen it yet, it's still screening in Oz cinemas.

Up in the Air: Departure Lounge Lizard

2010-01-20T19:00:00.009+11:00

Jason and Ivan Reitman’s film Up in the Air has had a fair bit of hype. It is supposed to be quality comedy/drama/romance. Unfortunately it does not live up to expectations. It doesn’t hit the mark on any of these.

George Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, is a specialist in “departures” – telling people they are being let go, fired, retrenched, down-sized, made redundant. He does this face to face, across the United States. It’s a lifestyle he guards closely: priority check-ins for first class flights, hotels and car hire. He has platinum card memberships galore. His life goal is to add a record frequent flier mileage milestone to his coveted American Airline Concierge Key. There is some irony in the fact that he lives in and for the loyalty program stream. Employers who are too cowardly to fire their loyal workers pay for his lifestyle.

Up in the Air has too few witty lines or amusing situations to be a comedy. There is plenty of dramatic potential but few really explosive scenes. The main exceptions are the emotional responses of unwanted workers. There is no bite, no sting, no edge – not even in the sex scenes. Mercifully we are spared the suggested phone sex of the kind that attacted Meg Ryan some controversy for In the Cut.

The people we meet are impossible to empathise with. Bingham could have reached interesting places as he wrestles with his empty existence. He doesn’t.

The film is just like Bingham: good to look at and shallow. The social satire is lack-lustre. It just isn’t a recession version of Wall Street. “We are not swans. We are sharks” has nothing on “Greed is good!” The debunking of our protagonist’s philosophy of life as an emptied backpack is an assualt on a straw castle. Most people want the baggage of other people and belongings in their lives. Ryan’s world is the essence of conspicuous consumption, just without ownership or commitment.

The failure of his dabble with other possibilities is pre-ordained. In fact most of the plot is disappointingly predicable. His fling with another high flier, Alex Goran played by Vera Farmiga, is a prime example of waiting for the obvious. She and Ryan are members of the Mile High Club, though with other people. She even warns him that she is very flexible, as if we hadn't guessed.

The fate of whiz kid Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) is similarly trite. Her plan to replace in-the-flesh interviews with cyber-sacking precipiates a fairly dull trip of self discovery with Bingham. Her relationship and her position at Bingham’s firm have only one possible direction. She learns the very unoriginal lesson that you should follow your dream not your boyfriend. Unfortunately she’s a bit too young for George Clooney for any romance to bubble - not really his type anyway.

Sadly both of the female leads are very forgettable. The boss at Career Transition Counseling Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) has a lot of scenes for little impact.

A lot of talent and resources have gone into the making of this movie. It's entertaining fluff at best. To labour the filmmaker's own pun, it just doesn't connect.

Monty Python's Almost Final Cut

2010-01-18T15:15:00.004+11:00

And now for something completely different.

There is usually a new Python present available each Christmas. I've been given most of them. The latest is the DVD set of Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut

Apart from the TV series, the pythons made two (of their four movies) cinema classics. Number One is Life of Brian, closely followed by the earlier Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The set includes recent interviews with the five remaining members: John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, plus Graham Chapman before his death in 1989. Regular python female Carol Cleveland, plus a host of off-screen crew and python friends also share their experiences.

The rest of the Circus delight in reminding us, ever so gently, how difficult the truly brilliant Cleese could be. John shares many of their foibles as well. His eulogy for his writing partner Graham is priceless.

The talking is interspersed with segments from the shows and films. There is a collection of several of the most famous sketches including the Dead Parrot, the Lumberjack and Fish Dancing.

Python fans and those looking for a look at the bright side: Don't miss it!

Avatar: One, Two, Three Dimensional

2010-01-11T18:00:00.008+11:00

The last thing I expected from the latest blockbuster, Avatar in 3D, was to come away satiated. And not just because it’s so long. My fairly low expectations were easily exceeded, with the possible exception of the plot. James Cameron’s old fashioned, escapist entertainment is pitched at pubescents and above. That’s despite the M classification in Oz.

This is a cross genre movie. It’s part sci-fi with clear ancestors in Stars Wars, Dune and Jurassic Park, part fantasy with dragons aplenty borrowed from Excalibur and Lord of the Rings, plus cowboys and indians thrown in for good measure. There are echoes of the Age of Chivalry as the White and Black Knights joust futuristically, more Monty Python than Camelot. This time they are following the U.S. Marine’s creed, which seems to have two distinct versions.

The story is easy to follow if a bit laboured. It doesn’t really require most of the protagonist’s narration and video log voice-over. It is suitably predictable but then it’s action, not suspense or mystery. It also helps when the aliens know a little English.

The cast earn their pay but our hero is essentially two-dimensional. There isn’t much depth to any of the characters but who was expecting it. Sam Worthington as Jake Sully makes a better human-Navi hybrid than a disabled marine but that’s a no-brainer. His potentially witty lines don’t have the impact of Harrison Ford quips but Sam’s not quite in his league. Nevertheless he’s another in the long line of graduates of Australia’s NIDA who play many of the big roles in Hollywood.

Worthington is well complemented by Sigourney Weaver as the head scientist and Zoe Saldana who plays Neytiri. I’m still pondering why Weaver’s character smokes. Product placement perhaps or a way of giving her more depth. Stephen Lang is the archetypal villain as the Colonel.

Those looking for a message will probably find it, but be warned it’s not much of an allegory. It may have upset some conservative commentators, but not all tree-huggers, gaia greenies or animal libbers will embrace it either. The indigenous people are full-on meat eaters.

Ultimately god/gaia is an anti-colonial, anti-globalisation, save-the-planet, peace warrior. She’s called Eyra on Pandora. The 'mother" doesn’t take sides, she just gets even.

Speaking of trees, who said size doesn’t count! Avatar is a visual extravaganza. 3D has come a long way in the decades since I last peeked through the red and blue. Still a way to go but the smudgy glitches are outweighed by the overall sensual impact. The music score adds to the mood despite being over the top at times. I couldn’t work out if it was tongue-in-cheek when slipping into ‘here come the cavalry’ or Indiana Jones orchestration.

The Na’vi aliens grow on you although they’re not nearly as interesting as the prawns in District 9. The Banshee flying dragons are impressive, as are the other ferocious forest creatures. Like 3D, computer graphics can be taken for granted now.

So one for the story, two for the acting and three for the technology.

There has to be an Avatar II. We all know that the white man always came back with more troops to finish the job.

Bran Nue Dae January Cinema Release

2010-01-01T14:35:00.005+11:00

Advance screenings of Rachel Perkins' glorious Bran Nue Dae start next week with the national release to follow during January.

This is one of the best 2009 Australian productions. This indigenous Shakespearean-style comedy/romance/road movie is all fun. Don't miss it.

Spread the news!

It's also screening at the Sundance Film Festival later this month.

Broken Embraces: Almodóvar's Mature Mastery

2009-12-27T18:50:00.001+11:00

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos) is vintage Pedro Almodóvar.

It’s Pedro’s homage to film-making. It features a movie within the movie, a documentary about the making of the movie and a sequel. Moreover, there is a first release of ‘Girls and Suitcases’ plus a director’s cut.

Almodovar is not just one of the world’s foremost auteurs. His works virtually constitute a genre of their own. This venture has all his melodramatic trademarks. Love, jealousy, betrayal and tragedy. A disabled protagonist who has buried his former self. A menacing father and an obsessed gay son who battles his father’s rejection. A very vulnerable femme fatale. A lip reader. A mysterious past. Startling revelations. Several key incidents involve hospitals, which often play a pivotal role in his films. There is even a coma.

This story has a dual time frame. 1994 concerns the shooting of ‘Girls and Suitcases’ and the inevitable love triangle that develops between the producer Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez), his mistress and female lead Lena (Penélope Cruz) and the director Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar). Almodóvar sends up his earlier films such as Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) and Kika mimicking all their colour and zany style. He even uses some of his long serving actors in supporting roles in Suitcases.

2008 brings catharsis for the sole surviving member. Harry Caine, formerly film director Mateo Blanco, confronts his past as he recounts the disastrous events of 1994 to his assistant Diego (Tamar Novas) whose mother Judit (Blanca Portillo) had been his production assistant and is now his agent.

It’s hard to fault the cast who give polished, professional performances. Pedro seems to bring out the best in Penélope Cruz by aiming for restraint rather than hysterics. In fact the whole movie shows a marked maturity with masterly control of its edgy suspense and humour.

This is arguably one of, if not the best Almodóvar to date.

Enjoy!

A Serious Man: MidWestern Woody Allen

2009-12-19T16:36:00.005+11:00

The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man is a clever, cute but ultimately disappointing film from this highly creative duo. There is little enlightening or new in this comic tale of Jewish identity crisis except its location.

It’s set in a suburb like St. Louis Park, Minneapolis, Minnesotawhere they grew up. That is its main original feature. It’s 1967 but feels more like 1957, except for sex and pot in the suburbs.

Larry Gopnik, played capably by unknown Michael Stuhlbarg, is a Physics professor who specialises in the Uncertainty Principle. “It proves we can't ever really know... what's going on.” Larry is haunted by his unsatisfactory home and work life. His dreams are even worse than his reality if it’s possible.

No matter how well crafted this movie is, I’m over the Jewish male searching for the meaning of life in his religion and his dysfunctional family. Woody Allen has done it to death. At least we are spared his typical family dysfunctionality where mother or mother-in-law is the prime target of ridicule. This time it’s the wife and children. And the rabbis who give us theology according to Jefferson Airplane .

I’m over stereotypical rabbis who are as helpful as Tony Soprano’s therapist. . Over situation comedy that relies on absurd coincidence or un-empathetic characters. Over lines like, “There’ll be no nose jobs in this family!” Over perving on the sunbaking neighbour. And over the eccentric Uncle Arthurs of this surreal world. The sole representative Goy is the menacing redneck next door. Unless you count the parable of the Goy’s teeth.

There is a self-contained folk tale in Yiddish as a prologue. According to the Coens, it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Just a self-indulgence like much of what follows. The twisted ending calls out for real irony. Perhaps I missed it.

Most fans of Joel and Ethan Coen will enjoy A Serious Man. Go along and share this tortured view of life but don’t expect one of their greats. This strange exposition of Jewish subculture doesn’t break enough new ground.

The Boys are Back: Just Say Maybe

2009-12-17T13:28:00.005+11:00

Director Scott Hicks’ first Australian movie since Shine is set in his home State of South Australia. Unfortunately The Boys are Back does not live up to that extraordinary film.

Just Say Yes is a great motto for life unless you are a single parent with little experience of taking personal responsibility. The Boys are Back explores this as well as love, loss, grieving and the absentee father.

Clive Owen plays Joe Warr, an English sports journalist who married an Aussie and settled in a rural retreat. It is a true retreat, for he is rarely home while his wife Katy is still alive. This life as a thoroughly modern bread-winner might help to explain the breakdown of his first marriage.

It’s a strong cast. Julia Blake is very professional as mother-in-law Barbara but Chris Haywood’s talent is wasted as her husband Tom. Laura Fraser as Katy and Emma Booth as Laura, the once and future Ms Warrs, don’t miss a beat.

Joe’s six year-old son Artie, played by Nicholas McAnulty, has some of the best lines of the script, if they seem unlikely for his age. George MacKay’s performance as son Harry, is suitably teen-brooding. He understands his father’s immaturity much better than Joe does. For a journalist Joe is a remarkably poor communicator at times.

Some aspects of the plot are too contrived and require too much suspension of disbelief. Others are just too predictable, especially the ending.

Ultimately, The Boys are Back is too soft and too forgiving. The hard edges are blunted too much by Clive Owen’s personable performance. It’s an enjoyable experience but had the feel of telemovie rather than really memorable cinema. If you’re thinking of watching it, I’ll just say maybe.

Soundtrack for a Revolution: Songs of Freedom

2009-12-13T16:58:00.000+11:00

Writer/directors Bill Guttentag Dan Sturman have made a masterful documentary. Soundtrack for a Revolution weaves historical footage, recent interviews and music from the time with modern performances of the freedom songs of the United States civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Participants in this moving, often tragic and ultimately triumphal period tell their stories of fighting racism and segregation in America’s South. Congressman John Lewis and UN Ambassador Andrew Young retrace their journey of non-violence with Martin Luther King Jnr.

Lynda Lowery was a 14 year-old when she was brutally attacked at the peaceful march in Selma. Her emotional recollection of that event and those that followed embodies the spirit of the times.

The struggle for black rights was a major part of my teenage television viewing: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycotts; violence in Little Rock Arkansas, the 1961 freedom rides, the 1963 March on Washington, the mid 60s campaign for voting rights; the integration of universities; Bloody Sunday at Selma; King’s assassination in 1968.

Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and North & South Carolina were villains in the ongoing news. Bloodshed in places such as Birmingham and Selma regularly led the bulletins. Bombing, lynching, murders and beatings and intimidation by police and the Ku Klux Klan painted a sorry picture.

Most of the songs are well known to my generation: We shall overcome, Hold on/Keep your eyes on the prize, We shall not be moved, Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round. Other are less familiar.

An array of first class modern artists brings the songs to life: John Legend, The Roots, Wyclef Jean, Joss Stone, Angie Stone, Mary Mary, TV On the Radio, Blind Boys of Alabama, Anthony Hamilton and Richie Havens, plus the inspirational Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir.

A very important story, familiar to many, has been reinvigorated in a way that will make it accessible to new generations. The film ends with the newly elected Barack Obama. Soundtrack for a Revolution is a fitting testament to those whose voices made his journey possible.

It is no surprise that this film is on the short list for the Oscar for best documentary.

Bright Star: A Joy Forever

2009-11-28T16:29:00.000+11:00

Bright Star is an engaging experience. Writer/director Jane Campion has crafted a beautiful film, as lyrical as a Romantic poem. We glide through this tender love story, sharing the passion, despair and sublime joy that the only young can generate. When poet John Keats meets 16 year-old Fanny Brawne, they spark from the beginning. We follow the waves of their romance to its inevitable and final separation. Not even Planet Hollywood could spin this piece of literary history into a happy ending.

The cast give stellar performances. Abby Cornish presents the feisty, independence of Elizabeth Bennet, combined with the obsessiveness of first love. Ben Whishaw is a very credible dying youth. He has the look, as well as delivering a lyric or two with some sensitivity. Janet Frame’s collaboration with Jane Campion began brilliantly in An Angel at My Table. She continues this success with a very spirited portrayal of Mrs Brawne.

Just as John Keats’s poetry isn’t for everyone, this film is not for the action movie crowd or costume soap opera. Its two hours running time moves with a modulated pace that matches the narrative perfectly.

The opening sequence has Fanny sewing her latest fashion creation. Campion’s close-ups, especially of hands and eyes, give the film an added intimacy. With its timeless quality, the film takes us well beyond the usual period piece. Nevertheless, its sets and costumes more than match its rivals and are sure to win awards.

The essential elements of rivalry and jealousy are realised not in other women but in the form of Keats’ close friend Charles Brown, played with suitable intensity by Paul Schneider.

Like a Jane Austen novel, the letter is a vital player in their courtship and his absences. Fittingly there is a letter competition on the website. Nothing beats love letters from a poet. Campion is not afraid to let Keats’ poetry speak for him.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

However, it’s not just a romance. Keats struggles for everyday survival not just fame. His enemies are poverty and disease not just the critics. Fanny is his brightest star and Jane Campion brings her to life in a masterful way.

Capitalism: A Love Story - revolution postponed

2009-11-25T16:43:00.001+11:00

It was a sympathetic crowd at the cinema in Melbourne's posh Brighton suburb watching Capitalism: A Love Story. They must have been either chardonnay socialists or from the other side of the tracks. Maybe they lost a bundle on the stock market last year or watched their superannuation shrink. Perhaps some were the kind of Catholic who follows the Sermon on the Mount. Michael Moore's latest documentary has something for all these groups.

Moore is no captive to ideology: the union factory occupation adjourns for mass and communion; a Sheriff refuses to evict people; the credits roll to the strains of the Internationale; the people’s revolt starts with peaceful pressure on their representatives on Capitol Hill over the bailout.

As a filmmaker he is master of the simple visual image: the confrontation at the headquarters of the Fat Cats of Wall Street and industry; the family grieving for lost loved ones or the home from which they are being evicted; the dispossessed moving back as squatters into their houses; the bulldozed factory where his father worked.

True to form, Moore takes on the big end of town in his comic citizen-arrest pieces and mock showdowns. He wraps the crime scene in Manhattan with police tape. It is, of course, the New York Stock Exchange. It could have been the guarded citadels of Citigroup, AIG, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, General Motors or any of the other gangster dens of this documentary. All your humble security guards recognise MM immediately. His tilts at revolving doors have become a cliché for them and us. The drama and the humour have been sapped from this kind of satire. We all know the joke.

Sadly we never find out exactly what 'derivatives' are but it seems to be a synonym for theft. Karl Marx called property theft. Some irony. There appears to have been a lot of property stolen. However, Moore must only be a closet Marxist. He only mentions the other “-ism”. He sees 'democracy' rather than socialism as a solution to capitalism’s evils: worker participation and ownership, unionism, transparency. His website's "Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now" is not exactly revolutionary stuff.

But it's meeting the victims of the system that has the most impact. Moore is at his best when he talks to ordinary people: those suffering and sometimes fighting evictions, the unemployed, the un-paid families of 'dead peasant' life insurance schemes, workers taking direct action in the workplace. His faith, indeed his roots, is with the powerless.

With god, the union and the law on his side he shouldn’t fail. However, for all its heart wrenching stories of ordinary people and its compelling indictment of Big Capital and High Finance, Capitalism: A Love Story doesn’t nail the culprits. Barack Obama was the great hope when the film was made. It’s revolution postponed. A sequel would paint a sorry picture of free enterprise American style post 2008.

However, it is time to read the big print. See this if you can.

Moon: Good Old-fashioned Sci-fi

2009-11-19T13:49:00.002+11:00

Moon is a sci-fi film that doesn’t rely on spectacular computer graphic action and aliens for its impact. It’s an entertaining and thought provoking experience.

In a near future, our energy problems have been solved. Earth uses non-polluting fusion reactors powered by Helium-3 mined on the moon. Sam Bell is the sole worker for Lunar Industries on the dark side of the moon. As he nears the end of his 3-year contract, things start to warp badly around him.

He has been out of direct live contact and has to rely on recorded messages. His only companion has been the computer system GERTY, voiced by Kevin Spacey, a less sinister version of HAL 9000. It is torn between its role of helping him and its instructions from the company.

Director/writer Duncan Jones has created a film with attitude. It’s an old fashioned movie in many ways, which may help to explain some critic’s negativity. The sets have the look and feeling of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien. Model miniatures with CG effects layered on top were used to create this engaging atmosphere.

The pace glides along. There is no video game speed here. Moon is as much about the human condition as it is about technology. Jones is clearly a Ridley Scott fan but rather than Blade Runner’s replicants he uses a more realistic scientific twist to explore what it means to be human.

It took only 33 days to shoot but it’s not a complex story and its minuscule cast hardly needed coordination. Sam Rockwell as his namesake protagonist puts in a first class performance.

Some of the plot is a bit hard to accept. For instance Lunar Industries have spent an extraordinary amount of money on their deception. It’s hard to figure out the cost/benefit.

At the end we hear a radio broadcast from earth complete with a shock-jock airing familiar populist prejudices. It’s a nasty way to bring us back to earth. I really enjoyed the trip.

In Search of Beethoven's genius

2009-11-11T17:56:00.000+11:00

You don’t have to be a fan of classical music to know and have enjoyed Ludwig van Beethoven’s music. Whether it’s Symphony No.9 in Clockwork Orange or the 5th in Picnic at Hanging Rock or numerous others movie scores, it has popular appeal beyond the concert hall or classic CD collection. Moonlight Sonata, Ode to Joy and many more are generally recognised.

As a follow-up to In Search of Mozart, Phil Grabsky brings us a monumental 139 minute tribute to Ludwig van Beethoven. In Search of Beethoven is detailed, informative, entertaining and thought provoking with a comprehensive, chronological introduction to his life and his works. There are 55 performances from some of the world’s best orchestras and artists.

However, it’s too long for the cinema. Long enough to make a worthy three part TV series. There are too many talking heads. Perhaps Grabsky didn’t want to offend any of the multitudes of experts by leaving them out.

It’s beautifully filmed but relies heavily on the clichés of this documentary genre. It isn’t easy to match the aural majesty with enough visual splendours. Inevitably it falls back on: orchestras in every state of rehearsal or performance; close ups of pianists, cellists and other performers; the rear view of numerous conductors' torsos; paintings interspersed with modern day exteriors of Vienna and similar locales. He also seems to favour chopping off the tops of heads unless they are entrants in the competition for the most disheveled male Beet hairstyle.

Fidelio, Beethoven’s only finished opera, brings some much needed drama and visual engagement.

Juliet Stevenson’s narration is crisp and fresh, perhaps too detached at times given the passionate nature of the subject.

Mercifully Grabsky has steered clear of re-enactments. Nor has the use of David Dawson as Beethoven’s voice been overdone. In fact more of the story in Beethoven's own words might have helped our understanding of his true character. The filmmakers’ claim that it uncovers the myth of the “heroic, tormented figure battling to overcome his tragic fate, struck down by deafness, who searched for his 'immortal beloved' but remained unmarried. It delves beyond the image of the tortured, cantankerous, unhinged personality, to reveal someone quite different and far more interesting.”

However, this search for the real person falls short. We do not really get into Beethoven’s heart or mind. In fact we learn more about his drinking habits than his attitudes to women, marriage or children. There is little revealing material from his own writing or those who were close to him such as his nephew or his romantic interests.

Don’t be put off. Watch this one for the joy of the music.

Greenaway Reconstructs Leonardo's Last Supper

2009-11-03T13:43:00.003+11:00

Peter Greenaway's Installation Art Captures Melbourne

Leonardo's Last Supper has come to Melbourne for the International Arts Festival this year. It's one of Peter Greenaway's image technology installation art projects. It follows the success of his multimedia event 'Rembrandt's The Nightwatch at the Rijksmuseum' in Amsterdam in 2006.

Greenaway calls these art forms, "speculative painting-cinema dialogues". Greenaway has reinvented himself as a new Da Vinci. Had Leonardo been alive today, "an investigation into the continuity and correspondence between the language of painting and the language of cinema would have been obligatory for him".

Da Vinci Cloned

Unfortunately it could not be the original masterpiece. However the reproduction is cleverly forged, in both senses of the word. It is claimed to be, "a perfect, three-dimensional sculptural clone of Milan's crumbling, 510-year-old chapel wall and painting."

The half hour show alternates between caressing and interrogating the painting. The micro-accuracy of the the video projections is astounding. Today's audio-visual presentations are certainly light-years ahead of the old slide projectors.

Is Cinema dead?

Ground-breaking film director Greenaway declared cinema dead as early as 2003. This seeming about-face may have been a consequence of his 1999 movie, and perhaps last true cinema production, 8 1/2 Women. It received a drubbing from most reviewers at the time.

His cinema triumphs include the beautiful The Draughtsman's Contract where his early training as a painter brought magnificent scene scapes to this period piece. Drowning by Numbers drew on his skills as a film editor in constructing its elaborate storyline. The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover became a cult movie very quickly. The Pillow Book is perhaps his best film, as he mixed media to telling effect. It weaves traditional Chinese and Japanese poetry and calligraphy into an exploration of sensuality by its extensive use of body painting.

Last Supper Highlights

There are many highlights during the half-hour with Jesus Christ and his twelve apostles. The exploration of the hands is particularly striking. The opposite wall hosts a cascade of highly detailed close-ups of the painting's grainy texture. It reveals a fascinating perspective that is
usually hidden from an audience. The painting itself started to disintegrate not long after it was finished in the 1490s. Since the effects of numerous restorations have been removed, The Last Supper is now close to the original except of course for its fragmented state.

The audience crowds around a table of food and drink dividing the installation room. Bread and wine are the essentials.

Nine Classic Paintings Revisited

The other art works in the proposed Nine Classic Paintings Revisited series are: Veronese's The Wedding At Cana, Picasso's Guernica, Velasquez's Las Meninas, Seurat's La Grande Jatte, Monet's The Water Lilies - Nympheas, Jackson Pollock's One: Number 31, and Michelangelo's The Last Judgement.

For the multitudes that can't attend one of the original venues, hopefully there will be traveling versions that match the high quality of this Melbourne event.

Peter Greenaway is performing the last rites for the cinema a little prematurely. But it's a performance that's well worth attending.

(This article first appeared on Associated Content)

Departures Intimate Touch

2009-11-03T09:00:00.000+11:00

Departures (Okuribito) is a Japanese film that everyone should see. It is about death and grieving but don't be put off by the subject matter. It's about family, relationships and identity, plus the role of tradition and ritual in everyday lives. The story also explores the role and importance of work in our lives. It does so with a gentle touch and good humour.

This movie has a stellar cast. Masahiro Motoki won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Leading Actor 2008 for his role as cellist turned novice mortician Daigo Kobayashi.

Tsutomu Yamazaki plays his master Ikuei Sasaki. This veteran actor captured the award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. His best-known role outside Japan is probably that of the trucker in the classic noodle film Tampopo. He continues his romance with food in this part.

Ryoko Hirosue as Daigo's somewhat insipid wife Mika, is a previous best supporting actress winner from 2000. Apparently her fame started with a series of cosmetics advertisements. Coincidentally makeup is a skill that Daigo has to acquire in his new job. It's hard to judge her ability, as this role doesn't offer much with its confining stereotype. It is the weakest part of a mainly robust script. The other major blemish is the predictability of the plot. That seems to be inevitable with this kind of soft-centred drama.

When Daigo's orchestra is disbanded he leaves Tokyo for his small hometown Sakata. There he inadvertently applies for a job in "departures". It turns out to be working in decoffination, a funeral ceremony that prepares the deceased for burial. It is normally conducted with the family and close friends present and involved. The story is his journey of self-discovery as he becomes a professional.

Fortunately there is a current of humour that helps to elevate the movie from the potential for melodrama. Motoki's facial expressions are a key element in pitching the right level of levity in a story that has death as a central theme. The departure ceremony is deftly handled, showing both the intimate and touching side of saying goodbye and the potential for explosive behaviour among the mourners. Both actors perform the elaborate rites in an extremely convincing manner.

Another veteran of Japanese cinema, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, plays bathhouse owner Tsuyako. She refuses to sell her business for condominiums despite pressure from her son. Takashi Sasano brings more cinema experience as her best customer and friend Shokichi, whose own occupation takes on significance at the conclusion of the story. This sub plot builds on the theme of traditional Japanese culture that the film is exploring.

Departures is a moving journey into the world of death and funerals. However, its 130 minutes could have been chopped. The first hour and a half flies by, with tight direction from Yojiro Takita. The last thirty minutes or so is sometimes irritatingly slow and repetitive. For example the giving of stones symbolism is overworked. It has become more than obvious that Daigo's father gave him a rough and heavy burden to carry through life.

It was a unlikely winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars. It is a journey that is well worth taking.

(This post was first published at Associated Content)

Julie & Julia Film Review: Eating Their Words

2009-10-30T08:14:00.006+11:00

A Food Film to Savour

My partner is a food tragic who regularly turns today's exotic TV recipe into tonight's meal. Like Julia Child I'm good at eating, very good. My lack in culinary skills is balanced by my blogging. Between us we have the perfect credentials to review Julie & Julia.

This movie was a must see for us. In addition to the aforementioned interests, we have always been keen followers of that limited but classy genre, food films. Greats like 'La Grande Bouffe', 'Tampopo', and 'Eat Drink, Man Woman' cover a range of cuisines such as Scandinavian, Japanese, Italian and Chinese. 'Julie and Julia' adds a gastronomic tableau of French delights. It's not those who are butter shy.

Writer/director Nora Ephron has a track record of fluffy, feel-goods such as 'Bewitched', 'Michael' and 'Sleepless in Seattle'. Her latest film is a leap forward, perhaps because of the outstanding cast or its irresistible storylines. Meryl Streep is superb as the eccentric and original Julia Child. Amy Adams carries off the stressed joy-germ Julie Powell with seeming ease. They are well matched and perfectly juxtaposed. Only fifty years prevent them from building on their memorable interactions in Doubt. This time superior and novice meet in a virtual world.

The husbands are not an equal pair. Stanley Tucci has the more compelling character in Julia's husband Paul. He thoroughly eclipses Chris Messina's portrayal of Eric Powell. To be fair to Chris, he had little to work with. His one-dimensional character is the weak link in the script. It is ironic that the really moving love story belongs to the older couple.

A highlight is Julia's interactions with sister Dorothy, played with zany gusto by Jane Lynch. They are real gems.

In 1950s Paris, the Child's have the pick of the settings for romantic comedy. Ephron manages to give the overworked city a fresh look in this delicious twist on the American in Paris genre. The Powell's apartment above a pizzeria in Queens, New York, offers a suitably unglamorous contrast to that other great metropolis.

Fans of Julie and/or Julia should try not to bring along too much baggage. The audience is reminded regularly that the movie is based on two "true" stories and two autobiographical books. But in the end this is fiction. It's all too good to be true. Don't expect more than a superficial dip into the lives of these two remarkable celebrities. Their haracters' flaws are the ones we'd all like to have.

Some aspects of the movie are disappointing. Meryl Streep's performance is captivating but it does not escape caricature at times. Amy Adams is the girl-next-door whose antics borrow a bit too much from sit com humour.

In essence the film is fun, not drama. It's a glorious sensual experience in both senses of the word.

Enjoy! Bon appetite!

(This post was first published at Associated Content)

Séraphine's unique vision

2009-10-10T22:47:00.002+11:00

Séraphine is the 'true' story of Séraphine Louis de Senlis. It is a French language film about art, about sanity, and about class. She is one of the invisible people, a maid, cleaner, clothes washer and odd jobs person. She is also a painter of rare talent, an autodidact who paints because her religious voices tell her to.

This French servant of the Virgin Mary is discovered by a German agnostic, gay art collector, Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur). (Uhde was an early admirer of Picasso.) Two world wars and the depression punctuate their personal and professional association. Wilhelm encourages Séraphine to develop her painting.

This is a slow but moving portrayal of this unique and little known woman. Director and co-writer Martin Provost is clearly mesmerised by her:

Séraphine is a visionary in the powerful sense of the word. She let herself be carried by something that was stronger than she was, that she did not control, at the risk of destroying herself. This moved me deeply.
Director Interview

Provost milks the French rural settings for all their beauty and tranquility. However, the 125 minutes could have been cut back without losing any of the film's emotional and intellectual impact. It's a visual feast. Séraphine's paintings are also a revelation.

The two leads are exceptionally good. Yolande Moreau lives the role in a memorable performance. Her Mary Poppins silhouette of hat, bag and umbrella graces the screen with both pathos and humour.

Her urbane patron is well captured by Tukur, presenting the gentleness and humanity that are central to the character. No Germanic stereotyping here. The supporting cast keep up the high standard.

Samson & Delilah: Oz Oscar entry

2009-09-29T19:50:00.004+10:00

Great news for Warwick Thornton's Samson & Delilah:

Screen Australia today announced that the feature film Samson & Delilah is Australia’s official entry for nomination consideration for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards®.
Screen Australia 29 September 2009

District 9: aliens love their children too

2009-09-29T15:25:00.000+10:00

District 9 could have been just another alien sci-fi movie except for the location and the lead. Johannesburg is an apt place to establish a ghetto for the unwanted, in this case the 'prawns' whose spaceship has been parked over the city for 20 years.

Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, produced the film which was directed by Neill Blomkamp. We take the computer assisted special effects for granted these days, but the prawns unusual bodies were cleverly created. Under their hard shells they have soft hearts.

Wikipedia details the parallels with South Africa's District 6, and its forced removals under the apartheid system.

The film has most of the hackneyed plot devices we have come to loathe or love depending on our personal viewing needs. We have the visit, xenophobia, segregation, the experiments, fugitive on the run, the break-in, the chase, the shootout and self sacrifice.

Most of the characters are stereotypes: the greedy capitalists, the Nigerian gang, the misunderstood aliens, the blood thirsty mercenary, even the unlikely hero.

But it is the casting and performance of Sharlto Copley as Afrikaans Wikus Van De Merwe, the dedicated company man from Multi-National United, that saves this otherwise ordinary tale. He carries off the role of the dag (dork) who finds courage, exceptionally well for a very inexperienced cinema actor.

There is an extensive official website that includes games and other fun stuff for those who are that way inclined.

Even if it's not your favourite genre, don't write District 9 off your list of potentials.

Early Oscars Betting: time to make a killin'

2009-09-25T08:40:00.004+10:00

Intrade have opened their first market on the Oscars for next year:

Winner of Best Picture 2010

Like one of the contenders for nomination for an Academy Award, it's very much Up In The Air

As Inglourious Basterds' Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) would say, it's time to make a killin'.

Inglourious Basterds: celluloid assassins

2009-09-24T18:18:00.000+10:00

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is more comedy than drama, more suspense than action. That's what makes it worth the effort of a cinema viewing. He rewrites the history of the Third Reich in true comic-book fantasy style. Always the risk-taker, Tarantino teases us with some lengthy dialogue-rich scenes that stand apart from his trademark graphic violence.

The opening sequence,as SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), the "Jew Hunter", parries with French farmer Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet), is a tingler as they switch between French and English. The 'La Louisiane' bar scene, as actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) meets with English spy Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), accelerates to its inevitable derailment.

There are the usual visual allusions to cinema classics, so beloved by the buffs. IMDb has a list of movie connections. Fittingly the plot's epicentre is a Paris cinema owned by Shosanna Dreyfus/Emmanuelle Mimieux (Mélanie Laurent), a very fatale femme. Laurent and Kruger are highlights, continuing Tarantino's penchant for powerful female leads.

Nation's Pride, a fictional Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) propaganda film within a film, is the story of hero Private Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). Tarantino's view: “I like that it’s the power of the cinema that fights the Nazis,” he says. “But not just as a metaphor, as a literal reality.” David Bowie's song Cat People (Putting Out Fire) reinforces the message.

Brad Pitt as Lieutenant Aldo Raine, the hillbilly leader of the assassin squad, shows that his comic display in Burn After Reading was no fluke. It's no Oscar winning performance but he carries off the role with a fine touch of Tennessee fun. "We're in the Nazi killin' business and business is a boomin."

Talent packs the screen. The strong cast are too numerous to mention. Eli Roth who plays basterd Donny Donowitz also directed Nation's Pride with his brother Gabriel. Apparently the black and white Stolz der Nation runs for seven minutes, though only parts are shown in the movie.

While Inglourious Basterds is a long way from Tarantino's best, this modern mixture of The Dirty Dozen and Flame and Citron will appeal to lovers of the heroes versus villains genre.

Eden is West's pedestrian offering

2009-09-18T15:05:00.010+10:00

Eden is West (Eden à l'Ouest) is a pedestrian offering from director Costa-Gavras and not just because the protagonist is heading across Europe on foot. The film is a far cry from his early greats such as Z. and Missing.

Illegal immigrant Elias is searching for his Eden after washing up at an Aegean resort. He sets off to Paris on a so-called Odyssey. For the most part his temptresses and monsters are a fairly lack lustre bunch. The villains of modern capitalism and consumersim are stereotypes and most of the lessons of this fable lack any subtly. Apart from the occasional rip-off merchant and refugee exploiter, our gallant hero mostly encounters generosity and kindness.

Perhaps the most poignant moments come from the juxtaposition of rich German tourist Christina (Juliane Köhler) and poor Greek peasant Sophia (Dina Mihailidou).

Riccardo Scamarcio as Elias is a real charmer who does innocence very effectively. He's a curly-haired Tony Curtis. He manages to carry off a lot of very ordinary slapstick and revels in non-verbal interactions. Unfortunately his character's naivete is just one of several weaknesses in the screenplay. Elias is a generic refugee from an unnamed country whose religion and other cultural background are not presented. He is implicitly Muslim since he is shocked at first by nudity, alcohol and gratuitous sex. He's a fast learner.

There is a quirky, self-indulgent series of scenes with film crews in the background that adds little to the story or experience.

Despite the seriousness of its underlying themes, we are presented a cheery, optimistic view of humanity. Sadly the plight of refugees becomes submerged in its 'life is beautiful' message.

As an allegory about modern Western society it lacks punch. The film is a confused mix of comedy, drama, social satire and farce. It just isn't going anywhere.

The ending just doesn't do it either. It will take more than magic to change the inequities of modern civilisation or resolve a directionless plot.

Beautiful Kate: Always on their Minds

2009-09-14T18:49:00.002+10:00

Director/screenwriter, Rachel Ward has created a very moving experience in Beautiful Kate. It's a story of a dysfunctional bush family, set in the dry but magnificent country around South Australia's Flinders Ranges. Ward's husband Bryan Brown doubles as producer and actor.

The death of his wife left Bruce Kendall to bring up their young children, two boys and two girls. His macho, tough approach to parenting brought nothing but disaster. A explosive mixture of adolescent sexual awakening and outback isolation was compounded by his choice of home schooling through School of the Air. The young twins Ned (Scott O'Donnell)and Kate (Sophie Lowe) were especially close.

When Bruce is dying, forty-year-old Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) returns to their property with his feisty girlfriend Toni (Maeve Dermody). Writer Ned starts to record his memories as a way of burying his ghosts or closet skeletons. When his sister leaves him as carer for several days, all the old wounds are reopened. The film is a journey towards the ubiquitous closure cliché. Bruce and Ned would find much more colourful synonyms for an ending, happy or otherwise.

This is a remarkably talented cast. Brown gives one of his most convincing performances and Mendelsohn impresses throughout. Rachel Griffiths as youngest sibling Sally is rock solid. Lowe does a fine job steering clear of the potential overkill inherent in her very difficult role. Dermody's scenes with Brown leave us with the certainty that there is much more depth to her character than we meet on the surface. Scott O'Donnell is a capable actor though he lacks the cheekiness and charisma of either the young or mature Mendelsohn.

The father/son confrontations are classics. Wall-flies would no doubt have enjoyed the rehearsals and off-screen banter. Rachel brings out the best and worst in both of them.

Kate is a well paced and structured narrative using unfolding flashbacks very effectively. Despite its themes, it is not a dark or brooding film of the kind that has been criticised lately. At one stage the older Ned cries out, "I'm still here!" in despair. As he drives back to the big smoke, these words herald a new opening.

Her feature film debut as director is a triumph for Rachel Ward.

Balibo: Tense East Timor Testament

2009-08-16T11:40:00.003+10:00

Robert Connolly’s Balibo is a compelling political thriller. It “is a true story” based on Jill Jolliffe’s book, Cover-Up.

It is in fact four stories:

The story of five Australian journalists who were murdered at Balibo by the Indonesian forces that invaded East Timor in 1975.
Of Roger East, an Australian journalist who sought the truth about their deaths.
Of Juliana who testifies as an adult to her experiences in Dili as an eight year old.
Of the spirit of the East Timorese people as embodied in their current President José Ramos Horta.

Connolly and playwright David Williamson have constructed a script that has avoided potential pitfalls associated with layers of flashbacks. At times the pace faltered as the context or the suspense was being established.

There is little attempt to present detailed characterisations of the Balibo 5. Damon Gameau as Greg Shackleton is the focus of the group. His re-enactment of Shackleton’s famous TV report from the frontline is impressive. You can compare the two on the website. The rivalry between the Channel 9 and Channel 7 crews continues today, though in a less friendly way.

Anthony LaPaglia gives a very convincing performance as Roger East. He has enough weight both figuratively and literally to carry off the role of a seedy, disillusioned journo.

Oscar Isaac manages the difficult job of the young José Ramos Horta. Fortunately he does not try imitating this distinctive and well-known personality.

Gyton Grantley (Gary Cunningham), Nathan Phillips (Malcolm Rennie), Mark Winter (Tony Stewart) and Thomas Wright (Brian Peters) show the depth of Australian acting talent. As does Simon Stone as ABC journalist Tony Maniaty.

The East Timorese cast are exceptional. Anamaria Barreto meets the high expectations of child actors these days as young Juliana. Her parents are Timorese and she lives in Darwin. Bea Viegas gives an intense, moving portrayal of the adult Juliana. Osme Gonsalves also impresses as Ximenes, a Fretlin soldier. It is difficult to find out the names of many of the actors as they are not listed on the website or IMDb.

The film raises many questions about the political responsibility for what happened and the need for justice to be done. This is a dark part of both Indonesian and Australian history. It does not attempt any definitive answers. That would be another movie. The historical background is analysed in depth and can be accessed through the official website.

Balibo works very effectively as both a political statement and a personal drama.

See it!

The Bastards: all in a day's work

2009-08-12T14:01:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival

The Bastards (Los bastardos) is an award winning Mexican film. It’s mostly Spanish language though it’s set in the United States. Fausto (Rubén Sosa) and Jesus (Jesus Moises Rodriguez) are illegal day labourers. They have been hired to murder someone. We follow them on their mission.

In only his second feature length movie, writer/director Amat Escalante clearly worked at using his limited budget by the use of unconventional techniques:

Basically I was looking for a feeling of overwhelming fear. Something that is bigger than us but you cannot define.
Los Bastardos blog

Nina Zavarin gives a disturbing performance as Karen, a lost soul in LA suburbia. Trevor Glen Campbell as her son Trevor does a convincing job of alienated teenager.

The strengths of this very experimental piece are also the roots of its weaknesses:

Long takes with little or no panning or use of zoom. Characters occasionally move in and out of frame and there is the odd dolly shot. The lack of variety is irritating and hard to justify in many of the scenes.
Action taking place off-camera, sometimes “behind” the camera. It's trite and ineffective.
Long silences, that cause us to lose interest as the story does not progress.
Sparse dialogue. The characters’ motivation or psychological states remain too clouded.
The use of actors with no experience. (Nina Zaravin was an exception.) There are few intense verbal clashes between characters.

It was shot in “five intensive weeks” of filming. A redeeming feature is the absence of the shaky hand-held photography that has been so trendy but is rarely used effectively. Unfortunately the cinematic style adopted does not lead to increased drama.

It would be wrong to classify this as an action movie. Very little happens. Nor does it quite hit the mark as horror or thriller. There is some suspense but it doesn’t provide the tingling tension or build-up we associate with these genre.

It isn’t very nail-biting. You just wish they would get on with it. It’s certainly edgy at times but the snail pace is frustrating. The only surprise is not what happens but when.

Going by the awards The Bastards has received, there is a keen audience for this film. This gives some hope to independent filmmakers with little money. Unfortunately it is unlikely to reach the cult status of films like Robert Rodriguez's el cheapo El mariachi.

There are many other measures of success. A last word from Amat Escalante:

I think the most interesting and amazing thing that I've done with my second feature, on a personal level, is working with two people who are not actors who at first could not believe that they were going to be in a movie and then get to the Cannes festival ... a movie with them is an experience that changes your life, both they and myself.
Los Bastardos blog

Amreeka: Fresh Off The Boat

2009-08-11T17:15:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival

Amreeka presents the experiences of Palestinians living in the West Bank and those who migrate to the United States. The word is Arabic for America. It’s about their everyday lives rather than the political situation, though this dictates many aspects of their existence at home and abroad. The impact of 9/11 on work, school, family relationships and normal social interactions underlies this very human story.

Two sisters from Bethlehem of all places are reunited in Illinois: Muna (Nisreen Faour) the optimist who wants a better life for her 16 year old son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) and Raghda (Hiam Abbass) the hardened pessimist who wants her husband Nabeel (Yussuf Abu-Warda) to take them back to Palestine.

Adjusting to American culture is hard enough without the added burdens of prejudice against migrants and the anti-Arab feelings generated by the war on terrorism.

In many ways writer/director Cherien Dabis has created a soft-sell movie. It’s about understanding not retribution and it's executed with lots of humour. We do not see the worst of the occupation. It mostly presents the small humiliations and day-to-day abuse of their rights.

The wall dominates their lives. Its graffiti calls not too subtly to the audience: “ICH BIN EIN BERLINER!” and “BEEN THERE DONE THAT!”

Of course, the anti-Islamic feelings are misdirected as Muna’s family are not Muslims. This is not the first use of this trite device in a film about Middle Eastern migrants. Among others the Lebanese in The Combination are Christians but experience the same kind of racial profiling.

The first two people to befriend Muna are outsiders themselves. Her workmate Matt (Brodie Sanderson) is a high school dropout. Mr. Novatski (Joseph Ziegler), a teacher from Fadi’s school, is a Polish American Jew.

The rest of Muna’s extended family are well portrayed by the strong cast including her three nieces Salma (Alia Shawkat), Rana (Jenna Kawar) and Lamis (Selena Haddad) and her mother.

Amreeka is a gentle persuader that is well worth seeing.

Bran Nue Dae Blazes

2009-08-11T14:27:00.002+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival

The film of Bran Nue Dae premiered to enthusiastic audiences at MIFF 09. Director Rachel Perkins* and a first class Australian cast have brought the musical to life with energy and fun. Rachel has described the process of bringing this much loved stage musical to the screen as frightening and fun. This indigenous Shakespearean-style comedy is all fun.

Young, star-cross'd lovers are separated. Willie is an aborigine at boarding school in Perth in 1969. He dreams of reuniting with his sweetheart Rosie (Jessica Mauboy) who is back in Broome. He is played by Broome schoolboy, the angel-faced Phillip "Rocky" McKenzie. Geoffrey Rush is the wicked Father Benedictus who wants him to follow in his footsteps into the priesthood. He is determined to stop Willie from getting back home. Willie's unlikely saviour is Uncle Tadpole (Ernie Dingo) a drunk, a conman but a charmer.

Along the way we meet two hippies in a combi wagon (Missy Higgins plays Alice with style), Roadhouse Betty (Magda Szubanski) and the raunchy Roxanne (Deborah Mailman, also stylish).

As befits a classic comedy, many complex relationships are revealed at the finale on the famous Cable Beach. In the words of its theme song:

There's nothing I would rather be
Than to be an Aborigine

* Rachel Perkins directed the indigenous musical film One Night The Moon, which has been turned into a stage production opening in Melbourne’s Malthouse soon.

(Official website is under construction)

Zift Happens

2009-08-10T12:54:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Zift is film noir set in post-war Bulgaria. Its black and white format works for this historical piece, creating a very appropriate mood. It is gloomy and seedy. It also moderates the ample blood associated with the inevitable violence. The magnificent settings reflect both the pre-war architectural grandeur of Sofia and the grey totalitarianism of the communist state.

The film has many of the classic noir stock features. Following release from prison in the 1960s, the protagonist Moth (Zahary Baharov) narrates his story taking us back to 1944. The mystery revolves around a diamond missing from the original crime scene. The femme fatale Ada or Mantis (Tanya Ilieva) is his school sweetheart. There is lots of suspense and a protracted chase. We meet a range of oddball characters during his one-night fight for life.

Betrayal is an essential part of this genus. The “villain” is his old partner in crime Slug (Vladimir Penev), now a powerful apparatchik who has thrived under the brutal, repressive Stalinist regime. Moth knows that he should trust no one.

This is an entertaining and at times troubling look at what people will do to survive. In keeping with the genre, it has an underlying layer of misogynism. There is little challenge to the view of women as men destroyers. The praying mantis metaphor is indulged both verbally and visually.

Both Baharov and Ilieva have very strong screen presences. He’s a man’s man, muscular and square-jawed. She’s lean and lithe with enticing eyes. The pair ooze sensuality, especially when working off each other.

According to Moth, “zift” means "bitumen" and was used as chewing gum. It’s also slang for “shit”. Very fitting for this dark movie. However, it’s tempered with some humour. Moth’s scrambles through the women’s section of a large bathhouse. He dives into a pool to retrieve a false eye that belonged to Grater (Tzvetan Alexiev) a prison friend. It’s worth seeing just for the gallery of tattoos. There is a sample in the trailer.

Director Javor Gardev and novelist/screenwriter Vladislav Todorov have crafted a tight script within an ample 92 minutes. Lots of other filmmakers could follow this example of brevity.Zift is definitely worth a look.

(The sub-titles on the copy shown at MIFF were less than satisfactory at times, which is very disappointing given its release was nearly a year ago.)

Silent Wedding: no laughing matter

2009-08-09T22:30:00.000+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Silent Wedding (Nunta muta) is three films in one. A search for the para-normal. A romantic comedy. A political drama. It’s one too many.

There are many truly comic moments in its village that at times feels like sixteenth century rural Europe. The peasants are struggling to come to terms with the realities of Stalinist Romania in 1953. They treat their small local party cadre with ridicule. The modern day ruins of the giant factory are the legacy of this clash with brutal authoritarianism.

The characters and settings are pure Bruegel. Mara (Meda Andreea Victor) and Iancu (Alexandru Potocean) are a courting couple full of the joy and pleasures of youth. Their feuding families are finally united when a wedding is planned. Three upcoming events determine the date of the celebration and set their fate.

Firstly, the circus is coming. Coincidentally Iancu’s best friend is a dwarf, a seemingly essential element in stories of the supernatural. Secondly, the communist party has arranged a propaganda film night, a challenge in a place without electricity. Finally, Lent is approaching, with its deep significance for these religious people.

Silent Wedding has lots of entertaining and funny parts. There is a very effective three Stooges slapstick routine, a very difficult task at any time. The silent wedding scene is very amusing for the most part. Unfortunately, like the movie itself, it is too long with just too many visual gags and unnecessary detail.

The modern day TV crew’s search for a para-normal story could easily have been omitted to tighten up this production. The supernatural elements could also have been left out.

The unfolding tragedy is apparently based on a true story. If so it doesn't quite do its subject complete justice.

Walter Murch: cinema diamond cutter

2009-08-08T20:28:00.000+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Walter Murch's CV as a filmmaker reads like a Who's Who entry of American cinema: The Conversation, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient and many more.

In Murch - Walter Murch on Editing he talks about his role as film editor on some of the best known movies of the last forty years. He's a talking head with a difference.

Edie Ichioka and David Ichioka's documentary is not about the technicalities of editing. There is little jargon or complex technique. Its strength is in the exploration of how film is created, in particular the collaboration that brings image, sound and story together.

If you're into filmmaking, put this one high on your list of must sees.

In the Loop: war of 4-letter words

2009-08-08T18:00:00.002+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

In the Loop is a very enjoyable, well made spin off from the British TV series The Thick of It. Like most top British comedy it relies primarily for its humour on dialogue rather than visual gags.

Leader in this arena is Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker the U.K. government's Head of Communications. He is a foul-mouthed bully whose spew of offensive, sarcastic invective is unparalleled. He's a bully who harasses all around him.

The diminutive British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) is another Pythonesque character whose droll one liners seem lost on his underlings. His new press officer Toby Wright (Chris Addison) has more than a professional interest in his U.S. opposite number Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky) and slides down a steep learning curve on his first visit to Washington D.C.

It's a simple plot. U.S.President and U.K. PM want to go to war in the Middle East. The man to deliver this is master spinner Assistant Secretary Linton Barwick. David Rasche as Linton gives us some wonderful Donald Rumsfeld moments. In a War Committee meeting he asks the participants to imagine that a glass of water is a shoe. Mimi Kennedy as Karen Clarke does a competent job as his foil.

James Gandolfini, of Sopranos fame, adds his considerable weight to the anti-war forces in the role of General Miller.

When the film was introduced at MIFF 09 it was described as a mixture of Monty Python, The Office and Yes Minister. It certainly lived up to this accolade with lots of laughs throughout.

Blessed : facing our worst nightmares

2009-08-08T09:40:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

According to the producers, Blessed “is a film about mothers and children, about love and beauty, about being lost and finding your way home.” Director Ana Kokkinos, of Head On fame, has given us another disturbing exploration of surviving in the twenty-first century.

It is a very grim, gloomy look at ordinary lives in Melbourne’s western suburbs. They are outsiders: single parent families, migrants, indigenous stolen generation, the old to the very young. A lot of it is not a pretty picture: shoplifting, burglary, child abuse, poker machine addiction, clothing outworkers.

It’s the underclass, the working class who are unemployed or underemployed and exploited. Alienation is a sad, everyday fact of life. they are desperate people in a society that is failing them.

The story uses dual timeframes of a single day. Firstly we see the children’s crises unfold from their perspectives. Later the day is repeated using the parents’ experiences as the focus. The threads are tied together by the use of characters that link the narrative both directly and indirectly.

There are haunting scenes:

Two mothers visit the mortuary. One regains some hope, as the other screams unforgettably in despair.

A mother and father sit in a hospital emergency waiting room, separated by an empty seat and a crowded past.

A man cries for his stolen youth and his lost mother.

A woman cradles the unborn child in her womb, both facing a seemingly hopeless future.

The cast is outstanding, showing the depth of both experienced (Miranda Otto, William McInnes, Frances O’Connor, Deborra-Lee Furness, Monica Maughan, Wayne Blair) and new (Eamon Farren, Sophie Lowe, Harrison Gilbertson, Eva Lazzaro, Reef Ireland ) talent in Australian cinema.

McInnes plays the only father in this patchwork of relationships. He convincingly captures the essence of this lost soul, who is petrified, in both senses of the word, by life. Otto and O’Connor each leaves us with a lasting image as she dances, one of hope and the other of desperation.

Blessed is a dark drama that should touch you to the core.

Endgame: finishing off apartheid

2009-08-07T12:30:00.000+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Michael Young (Jonny Lee Miller) is the invisible man who brings together white South Africa and the African National Congress in the early ‘90s. Endgame is a film about talk. It’s the dying days of apartheid. The government condones clandestine discussions in England as a stalling tactic to try to divide the ANC leadership.

Academic Professor Will Esterhuyse (William Hurt) and future SA President Thabo Mbeki (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lead the two sides. Separate overtures are being made to Nelson Mandela (Clarke Peters) by Dr. Niel Barnard (Mark Strong) head of the SA National Intelligence Service. Esterhuyse becomes an unlikely double agent as his friendship with Mbeki grows.

It’s a chess game whose result is famous so the macro-political level is not the focus of this treatment. Mandela is not the central character of this story. Nor do the director Pete Travis and writer Paula Milne spend much time on the brutality perpetrated by both sides. Two short bombing incidents and a fairly tame car chase will not satisfy action movie fans. Silences and stillness are as important as the dialogue, dramatic as it is. It’s a tight script with few wasted shots.

The extraordinary cast includes Derek Jacobi as the boss of Consolidated Goldfields who are the secret sponsors of the talks and Timothy West as President P.W. Botha. The actors manage the Afrikaans accent extremely well. The decision to cast Clarke Peters as Mandela plays out quite well as he captures the spiritual stature of the man without having his physical size.

The filmmakers also resist the temptation to use clichéd fades into the real people at the end. It's a pity that neither the official website nor IMDb give John Kani a credit for his role as ANC President Oliver Tambo. He is among the profiles on Channel4 which showed the film earlier in the year. Its website has lots of additional information about the end of apartheid as well as the film itself.

Engame proves that talking heads can be much more compelling than computer enhanced action flicks.

Pardon My French: going through the motions

2009-08-06T13:44:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Pardon My French is a puzzling title for this colourless film. Un chat un chat is the French name of this disappointing comedy/drama.

To call a cat a cat (or spade), Pardon My French is a dud. Célimène aka Nathalie (Chiara Mastroianni) says that she is “unstitching herself” though she denies having depression. She is a well-known novelist, who sometimes refuses to speak even to her psychiatrist. Apart from writer’s block the causes of her emptiness and identity crisis are unclear. Her lack of passion quickly becomes tiresome.

There are four people in her life who are trying to help her overcome her listlessness. Her seven year old son Adam (Mateo Julio Cedron) is suitably precocious but not enough to redeem the movie’s flaws. They are staying with her mother (Dominique Valadié ) while her apartment is renovated. It’s wrapped in plastic like a Christo Art project. Mum regularly interrupts her sleep baking habit.

Her last partner Viorel (Philippe Rebbot) is even less charismatic than his estranged lover.

A seventeen year old girl Anaïs (Agathe Bonitzer) is stalking her in a “friendly” way. She wants to write about her. Their interactions are sometimes bizarre but ultimately boring.

Célimène’s transition back to some kind of normality is so nuanced, it appears seamless. Apart from a not-so-surprising birthday party, there is no dramatic climax. She just floats back into life.

Pardon My French is not comic enough nor does it explore deeply into Célimène’s inner life. Its competent cast had little to work with.

Breathless: a stunning nether world

2009-08-05T13:15:00.004+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Breathless (Ddongpari) is a stunning film, in both senses of the word. It leaves you feeling battered around the head and awed by the boldness of its themes.

An unlikely group share a Korean barbeque: a girl in senior High School; a divorce woman and her young son; her father; and a former gangster. Missing is the man who brought them together, Sang-hoon, a gangster who worked as a loan shark debt collector.

So are the schoolgirl’s brother and Vietnam War veteran father. They are just two of the many dysfunctional characters we meet in this broken society.

Yang Ik-june, who stars as hard-man Sang-hoon, also served as the film’s screenwriter, editor and producer. It’s a low budget movie that has won a number of awards. Like its anti-hero, it pulls no punches with large serving of graphic violence and “offensive” language. It must set a record for the most four letters words in two hours of film.

Perhaps the most confronting issue raised in this film is the prevalence of domestic violence with wife bashing a recurring theme. The relentless brutality leaves us breathless and disgusted. There is none of the glamour of action movies such as Chocolate. Sang-hoon routinely bashes people indiscriminately. He’s from the “what are you looking at” school of thuggery.

However, his relationship with schoolgirl Yeon-Hue (Kot-bi Kim) is warm and tender, more sensual rather than sexual. Their arguments bring humour and humanity to their otherwise joyless lives. Kim has a natural gift for the comic moment but also handles fury and fear like a seasoned professional. She has plenty of opportunity to exercise the latter talent.

This dark and gloomy story ends with some hope. However, it is hope tempered with a very large dose of despair.

A Mother's Nightmare

2009-08-05T09:47:00.000+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Madeo (Mother) is a very challenging film from South Korea. Hye-ja Kim as Hye-ja, the over-protective mother of the film’s title, gives an outstanding performance. Director Joon-ho Bong takes us on a tortuous journey that is murder mystery and suspense drama. But most of all it is the tale of a mother-son bond that is stretched beyond the limits.

When her mentally disabled son Do-joon (Won Bin) is jailed, Hye-ja sets out to find the real perpetrator. Her quest brings much more than she could ever have anticipated.

Mom is an unlicenced acupuncturist who believes that she knows a secret point that will help you to forget your worst memories. If only…

There is no classic happy ending. The audience is left to decide if any kind of justice has prevailed.

The touches of humour help to soften an otherwise disturbing look at what happens when a mother goes to extraordinary lengths to protect her vulnerable son.

Flame and Citron: when the Nazis arrived

2009-08-04T14:11:00.002+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Ole Christian Madsen’s Flame and Citron presents two riveting characters who are fighting for the motherland in Copenhagen, 1944. Their job is assassination, ruthless and usually cold-blooded. Their usual targets, who are chosen for them, are Danish collaborators with the Nazis.

This is a violent, bloody story based on real people and events. The rules, if there are any, do not preclude collateral damage. Women and children are among the innocent victims of their deadly resistance to the occupation. Not shooting first is a dangerous manoeuvre as Flame discovers.

Thure Lindhardt plays Bent Faurschou-Hviid, the red-haired young assassin of the duo, with style and control. His love interest is the brooding Ketty Selmer (Stine Stengade ), a worthy femme fatale and Mata Hari.

Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal of the very troubled Jørgen Haagen Schmith, the car mechanic and driver, is superb. The worse his marriage becomes, the more Jørgen becomes involved with the killing, culminating in a colossal Hollywood style confrontation with the German army.

Their network, based on the Holger Danske resistance group, leads a charmed life for the first half of the movie. They meet openly in front of the local Gestapo.

This is a powerful exploration of the lives of these tow national heroes, as personal morality is discarded for patriotism. We are often reminded that this is war. As well as the Nazi war and intelligence machines, they also face divisions, intrigues, political expediency and betrayal in their ranks.

The film’s main weakness is its implausibility. Bent and Jørgen seem invisible to their enemies for most of the story. They are virtually bullet-proof as well. The pair makes several undetected trips to Stockholm for high level resistance meetings. The Nazis can’t have been that stupid or ineffective, though truth is often stranger...

Flame and Citron is part psychological suspense and part action movie. The former works more convincingly than the latter.

No winner in Thrilla in Manila

2009-08-03T17:34:00.001+10:00

John Dower's Thrilla in Manila is an anti-climax in many ways.

If it weren’t for rhyme and Muhammad Ali’s love of taunting his opponents, this film might not have been made. Without the racial slur of “gorilla” that is at the centre of their personal feud, it would have lacked punch except in the literal sense.

The documentary has historical significance although little is added to our understanding of Ali’s complex and at times contradictory personality. Smoking Joe believes that his former opponent’s current illness is a punishment from god.

The fight itself is heralded as the greatest of all time. It was close and extremely brutal. It is beyond dispute that both men did themselves irreparable physical harm. Their two previous encounters were one a piece. This treatment of their bitter rivalry, shown from Joe Frazier’s point of view, leaves a bitter taste that the classic When We Were Kings (Rumble in the Jungle) did not. Neither the duelling duo or the world of professional boxing comes out looking pretty. Suffice it to say that Joe had lost the sight in one eye in 1964, eleven years before this match. It had gone undetected by the authorities or perhaps was just overlooked.

It is hard not to compare Thrilla with the Rumble, Leon Gast’s 1996 documentary about Ali regaining the title from George Foreman in Zaire in 1974. Dower had to rely on limited original footage and resorted to a lot of repetition of the clips available. Gast had extensive footage of both the fight and the long weeks beforehand. They seemed to be having a three month long concert with James Brown and company while Foreman’s hand recovered from injury.

Dower used a similar narrative structure. Both films examine the choice of a third world dictatorship as the location and the odd hour chosen to meet television commitments in the U.S.

Much is made of Ali’s political involvement with the Nation Of Islam, most of it covering the same ground as the earlier film.

If Frazier had given up his bitterness, this film would have lost much of its sting. Sadly there was no real winner in the Thrilla in Manila.

Defamation: in search of anti-semitism

2009-08-03T13:54:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

“It’s time to live in the present and look to the future,” is a seemingly trite assessment of the issues facing Israel today. Yet writer/director Yoav Shamir’s documentary Defamation (Hahmatsa) is a refreshing and original take on anti-Semitism. Not only is it a Jewish perspective but also Shamir is a Gen X Israeli. He is wicked in the very modern meaning of the word. His occasionally mocking tone contrasts with the extreme seriousness of his overall examination of this vexed topic.

His journey takes him to the United States in search of causes and instances of anti-Semitism. It leads him to heated debates about anti-Zionism:

Is it a mask for anti-Semitism?
Is supporting the cause of the Palestinians or criticism of the actions of the State of Israel a form of anti-Semitism?
Is the holocaust used as an excuse or rationalisation for Zionist excesses?
Are Israeli's interests being undermined by the U.S. Israel lobby?

His access to people and situations is remarkable. Who could refuse an Israeli Jew who is researching anti-Semitism? He goes inside the U.S. based Anti-Defamation League, including extensive interviews with its leader Abe Foxman and coverage of his trips overseas proselytising to some of the world’s political elite.

Shamir accompanies a group of Israeli students on a ‘March of the Living’ to Auschwitz. It’s an historical pilgrimage with a highly political agenda.

This passionate, personal piece of journalism is also remarkably balanced. We hear the ideas, concerns and opinions of a wide range of people:

Yoav’s 92 year-old zionist grandmother who thinks that overseas Jews are more interested in money than religion;
African Americans who believe that there is some truth to the long discredited Protocols of Zion;
well-off secular American Jews who believe that Israel is an “insurance policy” against future genocide;
the bitter and extremely frank Professor Norman Finkelstein who sees conspiracies by pro-Zionists as the problem;
academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt whose book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy argues that "the lobby's impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well";
a teacher and students during their Polish excursion.

Yoav Shamr was accused of being anti-Semitic following his 2003 documentary Checkpoint that criticised Israel’s policies towards Palestinians. Defamation gives us a chance to judge for ourselves.

Inferno: Clouzot's classic cut short

2009-08-01T17:09:00.000+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

It’s a compliment to Henri-Georges Clouzot that his unfinished film L’enfer (The Inferno) has an entry on IMDb. The recent French documentary L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot explores the reasons for its abrupt termination. It also pays homage to a potentially great classic, alongside his other films such as Les diaboliques.

Romy Schneider, who starred as Odette, was at the height of her career and her onscreen presence. Serge Reggiani, who was the catalyst for the film’s abandonment, played her psychotic husband Marcel. Clouzot’s uncharacteristic lack of focus and on-set heart attack were also culprits, it seems.

Salvador Dali’s surreal contributions to Hitchcock’s dream sequence in Spellbound have nothing on the special effects created for Marcel’s nightmares of jealousy. It is worth seeing just for these alone.

Unfortunately all the sound has been lost. Some script-readings and voiceovers, plus some discreet sound effects, help to enhance the extensive original footage.

This is one for movie buffs: a documentary about a film that was never finished.

Chocolate: Kill Bill 3 Thai Style

2009-08-01T15:23:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Director Prachya Pinkaew, a martial arts specialist, gives us a kickboxing movie with attitude: Chocolate. The hero is a teenage girl Zen played by 24 year old Yanin "Jeeja" Vismistananda. The thin plot involves her fund raising efforts for her ill mother Zin (Ammara Siripong). A case of Zin and Zen.

This movie has everything: Yakuza gangsters; glitzy transvestite Thai mobsters; autism; samurai sword duels; novel fight sets. Not to mention hundreds of fights and an ample sufficiency of blood. Some of it's real as the closing credits include a black and white montage of accident clips from the shooting of these extravaganza clashes. Pinkaew doesn’t just rely on computer graphics. Stars and stunts alike share the scars. He also pays homage to Tarantino with a Kill Bill 3 scene to die for. There is even an allusion to Indiana Jones. (No animals were hurt in the making of this film.)

Not my usual genre but it surpasses the little I’ve seen of Jackie, Charlie and Jet over the years. Its popularity is evident in the 600,000 + views, plus 500 comments, that the YouTube video above has received.

A must for all the action fans who enjoy a good fantasy. There is no shortage of movies about genocide at the festival if you want real violence.

Snow: Bosnia's complicated peace

2009-08-01T13:57:00.007+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Snow (Snijeg) is another movie that explores the dark side of humanity but offers hope to those who survive the worst that modern society can serve up to them. It’s Bosnia 1997 and the Slavno village is trying to cope without the men who were taken away during the war. Their fate is still unknown. There are only two males remaining, Dedo (Mir Hadžihafizbegović) the grandpa who leads prayer at their wrecked mosque and Ali (Benjamin Đip) a young boy who is totally traumatised by his personal horror.

Young widow Alma (Zana Marjanović) struggles to bring her husband’s dream to life by making the area a viable farming community. When two Serbs come offering to buy their land for developers, past and future clash as they search their souls for a way forward.

The cast have a mixed background of theatre, film and television. The children are all first-timers. It doesn’t show in their performances that are excellent given the dramatic nature of their parts.

Zana Marjanović gives a very controlled portrayal. Writer/director Aida Begic captures the rhythms of her life in close detail. Alma’s relationship with her mother-in-law Safija (Vesna Mašić) is skilfully realised and nuanced. It is Aida’s first feature-length venture, after directing short films.

As religion plays a central role in their community, the couple of supernatural elements are forgivable.

If you get a chance, don’t miss Snow. In Aida Begic words:

War is one of the most essential situations one can experience because of the constant closeness of death. If death follows you in peacetime, then peace continues to be as essential as the war was. Peacetime is sometimes more complicated than the war.

… This relationship between life and death, war and peace, past and future creates a lot of absurdities in the lives of people in my country. It creates a lot of questions but gives no answers. Pain and joy, love and hate, east and west are all happening and clashing at the same time.

… it may sound overly romantic to insist that the struggle for truth and freedom is worthwhile. But maybe we just need to be reminded. If art is not there to remind us, then what is?
Director’s Note

Empty Nest: fatuous fantasies

2009-07-31T11:14:00.001+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Fifty something men have various oral fantasies but lusting after your dentist is a novel way of exploring a mid-life crisis.

Empty Nest is a lightweight Argentine comedy about a writer trying to get over one of life’s humps. It is a Spanish language baby boomer’s movie.

When Leonardo (Oscar Martínez) and Martha’s (Cecilia Roth) three children fly the coop, each of reacts very differently to the new freedom. She picks up where she left off at University, PC (pre child). He responds to his jealousy that follows in typical fashion. He tells his new lover with characteristic insensitivity, “I’ve never cheated on my wife before”.

There is a catch. His mysterious neurologist friend (Arturo Goetz) contends that as part of aging we can believe that our recollected fantasies are real. In Leonardo’s case it is not really important as his are shallow, to say the least. His real fantasy is to be able to change small details of his past. Wouldn’t we all! As the official website says, “Leonardo prefiere la introversión”.

Martinez is best when silent, projecting Leonardo’s confused inner-life through his droll facial expressions. Roth plays Martha very effectively but her role is too limited.

The dilemma for director Daniel Burman is that it’s hard to sustain a cerebral comedy. He can’t blame the writer. The story slips more and more into absurdist techniques as he tries to build to some kind of climax. The final stages of the film are disappointing. we are left floating as Leonardo's fantasies cannot fill the vacuum.

The Schoolgirl's Diary: Propaganda 101

2009-07-30T23:06:00.004+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

MIFF's own description of The Schoolgirl's Diary (Han nyeohaksaengeui ilgi):

The first ever film from North Korea to be distributed internationally.
A gently sketched tale of a rebellious teenager, exasperated by her overworked parents and the boredom of life in the North Korean countryside, A Schoolgirl's Diary is significant in being the first time that life under Kim Jong-il's regime has been represented in commercial cinema.
Su-ryeon, fed up with the simple country life, longs for the cosmopolitan, apartment-living lifestyle of the city. Frustrated and dissatisfied, Su-ryeon lashes out at her parents and her older sister, but coming events will give her perspective on her situation.
Features the real-life North Korean soccer star Kim Jin-mi as Su-ryeon's tomboyish older sister.

There was some real emotion and humour but otherwise it was Propaganda 101. Reminiscent of documentaries from Mao's China circa 1968. The best moment came when teenagers replacing a house chimney thanked thermodynamics.

Essentially The Schoolgirl's Diary is a recruiting film for Science students.

Kill Daddy Goodnight: not just history

2009-07-29T17:08:00.000+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Kill Daddy Goodnight (Das Vaterspiel), an Austrian feature, draws in the viewer gradually. Director/screenwriter Michael Glawogger has created a holocaust film with a difference. The Jewish victims are Lithuanian as is their exterminator. The horror is mostly “off-stage” without the detailed re-enactment customary in this genre.

The job of exploring the dark side is entrusted to a flawed character. The protagonist Rupert Ratz (Helmut Köpping) is an unlikely standard bearer for the truth. He loves his alcoholic mother, is in love with his volatile sister, and hates his politician father. A suitable case for Freud. The movie’s title refers to Ratz’s video game where you get to kill your father endlessly.

A call from of the strange and formidable Mimi (Sabine Timoteo) brings him to New York and to a dark, hidden history. Ratz's more "innocent" intent is to consummate his long held lust for her.

The film is punctuated by testimony from holocaust victim Jonas Shtrom (Ulrich Tukur) about his wartime experiences and his search for Lukas (Itzhak Finzi), one of the Lithuanian responsible for the death of his father.

Like The Reader it’s not quite a search for understanding. We find it nearly impossible to empathise with a mass murderer, contrite or otherwise. Similarly it is impossible to really share the horror of the survivors.

Not really About Elly

2009-07-29T09:24:00.003+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

About Elly (Darbareye Elly) is a Iranian film about a group of youngish middle class couples from Tehran. They head off for a long weekend on the Caspian Sea in their cars that include a BMW and a Patrol 4WD. The sole single amongst them is a woman named Elly who is the kindergarten teacher one of the couple’s children.

When Elly disappears, presumed dead, anger takes over. The story is not really about Elly whom they and we barely get to know. Rather it explores their insecurities and fears, revealing conflict, frustration and mistrust between both couples and friends. An increasingly complex web of lies is the catalyst for the erupting arguments and personal attacks.

Writer/director Asghar Farhadi has crafted a solid but fairly conventional piece. It is reminiscent of an Ian McEwan novel. Early fun of the weekend is only marred by Elly's concern that she get back home after only one night. Her sudden disappearance plunges them into increasing attempts to cover over what has occurred. Deception and lies make revealing the truth more poisonous and destructive.

The film’s two hours could have been trimmed to increase its impact. Its suspense is not heightened by often slow, laboured detail. Despite this it is worth a look. The cast give powerful and convincing performances.

About Elly is not just a different and highly relevant perspective on urban, middle class Iranians. It’s about the nature of truth and what it means for our closest relationships.

Home: living beside the fast lane

2009-07-28T22:27:00.002+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

There's no place Home until one day the expressway that they’ve been living happily beside for ten years is finally opened. Separated from their access road and pounded by traffic noise, an outwardly well-adjusted family comes apart.

The mother Marthe (Isabelle Huppert) is tied to this home. It has helped her overcome her past depression. The elder indolent daughter Judith (Adélaïde Leroux) is also tied to home, spending her days sunbathing next to the highway. Younger daughter (Marion Madeleine Budd) is the ugly duckling, an unworldly nerd whose response is to collect scientific data and research possible car fume related diseases. The father Michel (Olivier Gourmet) and young son Julien (Kacey Mottet Klein) are the anchors to normality.

Despite their best attempts to cope with their impossible situation, eventually the wheels come off. All seems lost until they break down the walls that are strangling them, both literally and metaphorically.

Director Ursula Meier uses a fairly conventional narrative structure, as their home life becomes more and more bizarre until it reaches its surreal climax. Along the way there are lots of both tender and explosive family moments, especially the warmth between the parents and their son.

Sometimes the story travels too slowly. As an allegory for modern society, both at personal and technological levels, it requires a suspension of disbelief that is hard to sustain at times. Having a team of six credited writers for the film may help to explain this problem.

As French films go, Home is refreshing because it is atypical in many respects. Ultimately, in this touching and funny exploration of families and what holds them together, we are being asked to question what is normal.

Oh My God! Oh My God!

2009-07-27T17:36:00.003+10:00

The short film at the Melbourne International Film Festival before North was a 9 minute gem.

The Norwegian Film Institute sums it up extremely well:

Oh My God! is a humorous observation of children´s interpretations and experiences of sexuality. The film also looks back through grown-up eyes at the reality of being part of the in-crowd” and the lengths to which one is prepared to go to become a respected member. But first and foremost Oh my God! is a film about the orgasm.

It's about three 11 year old girls exploring their sexuality, in particular their idea of orgasms.

It's been described as courageous, taboo-breaking and provocative. It was certainly funny!

North: Battling the Blues

2009-07-27T12:58:00.009+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

Nord (North) is a delightful road movie, though the travelling is by snowplough and skiis.

Norwegian director Rune Denstad Langlo and writer Erlend Loe have created an uplifting allegory about modern times. Langlo's first feature film is definitely whiteout for the blues. He calls it "an off-road movie" because of its isolation.

Jomar Henriksen (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) is a talented skier who has withdrawn from life. He spends his time as a ski-lift operator, sleeping and watching tunnel disaster documentaries on a National Geographic channel. He subdues his depression with a mixture of booze and pills. This nordic bear would dearly like to hibernate in the local psychiatric hospital.

His partner left him when Jomar refused to leave his bed. They have a son who is now four. Spurred on by fate, Jomar heads North in his snowplough to find them. He encounters a number of eccentric people along the way as he battles the snow and his own demons. Most of these adventures help him to rediscover his former self. In particular Marte Aunemo who plays Lotte, a young girl who befriends Jomar, gives a beguiling performance. With the exception of Christiansen, most of the actors are non-professionals.

A couple of these meetings seem to serve only as punctuation for his interminable travels across the artic terrain, without adding much to his or our understanding. Watching the magnificent snowscapes, it was hard not to share his snow blindness at times.

The final scenes as he approaches his destination are awesome. If only…

Milk Of Sorrows: walking close to the walls

2009-07-27T10:09:00.002+10:00

Melbourne International Film Festival 2009

La teta asustada (Milk Of Sorrows): walking close to the walls

We loved Milk Of Sorrows , Claudia Llosa’s touching film about a woman struggling to overcome her fears. Magaly Solier gives a mesmerising performance as Fausta, the Andean daughter who wants to take her mother’s body back to their village.

The appropriately named Perpetua has passed on a deep fear of the world “through her milk”. She was raped and brutalised by terrorists when pregnant with Fausta and her husband was murdered. The movie’s title translates literally as fear-filled breast and it’s referred to as the “tit illness” by one of the characters. (Despite it’s Spanish name, this film is predominantly in the local language, Quechua.)

This story is strongly rooted in Peruvian superstitions and traditions. The people of Fausta’s village “walk close to the walls” to protect themselves from the “lost souls”. Fausta protects herself from rape by a bizarre implant. Her cousin Máxima peels an orange to test her suitability for marriage.

Fausta’s relatives in Lima run a wedding business that could only exist in Latin America. It would make a great reality TV program: Matrimonial Idol - couple of the month. Their ceremonies are decidedly post-kitsch and add a needed light touch.

Fausta and her mother sang to each other as a way of communicating their inner feelings. This haunting habit of improvised songs is exploited by her moody employer, a concert pianist whose career is in decline. Our glimpse of her protected bourgeois Lima life is a very unflattering one. Ironically the tilt door of her fortress home opens briefly onto a vibrant street scene.

This film owes as much to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying as it does to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Like all good quests, La teta asustada’s journey is more spiritual than real. It is well worth taking this journey with Fausta.

Last Ride: breaking the cycle

2009-07-23T17:55:00.004+10:00

Last Ride is another quality Australian film from Madman.

This road movie moves inexorably to its dramatic, sad but inevitable ending.

Chook (Tom Russell) is a ten year old whose father Kev (Hugo Weaving) is teaching him about outback survival while on the run. Chook doesn’t quite get it. The kid doesn’t even know who Butch and Sundance were.

Kev tries hard to be the caring father but his history is against him. The cycle of physical and psychological abuse handed on from his own father is hard to break.

Kev reckons that he and Tom are mongrels. He fits both meanings of the word. His frustrations with the world and his son are habitually spoken through his fists. His attempts to do “his job” of looking after the kid always seem to backfire.

Much of the plot is either predictable or telegraphed (with the resolution neatly achieved with the help of its modern technological descendant). There are sub-themes that are not fully developed but very topical. Kev claims that his great grandfather was an Afghan camel driver and his great grandmother was a full-blood aborigine. This prepares us for important modern Muslim and indigenous encounters during their travels.

Hugo Weaving is his usual effective self. Unfortunately he does not quite capture the character. His accent and attractive personal manner don’t fit the part of violent misfit living outside the law. True to recent performances by child actors, Tom Russell steals the film with an impressive follow-up to his role in Daniel. The rest of the cast are hard to fault.

Director Glendyn Ivin has presented a tight piece. The Flinders Ranges setting, which is beautifully photographed, is worth the price of the ticket. It’s one of Australia’s special places. The scenes driving across a salt lake covered with water are magic.

Graffiti at the start of the film tells us that “when Kooris rule… always bet on the black”. However, Kev’s gamble is bound to fail. In 21st Australia there is no place to hide in the outback. National Parks and caravan parks have replaced most of the remote camping spots. Kev's macho, Wild West view of life just doesn't work anymore.

Sauce for the goose: film festival politics

2009-07-22T13:05:00.003+10:00

So what's sauce for the goose...

You're a filmmaker who objects to a particular government's actions. Then boycott film festivals with whom they are connected.

You're a country that objects to a film festival that has entries critical of your government. Boycott it.

The Goose:

British director Ken Loach has withdrawn his film Looking for Eric from the Melbourne International Film Festival in protest of Israeli government funding.
UK director pulls out of Melbourne film fest over Israel funding

The Gander:

THE Melbourne International Film Festival is reeling after the withdrawal of three Chinese films in what appears to be retaliation for the festival's backing of a documentary about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
China pulls films out of festival

Once upon a time the debate was about sporting boycotts such as the 1971 Springbok rugby tour. Mixing politics and sport. The Moscow and Los Angeles Olympic Games were the main casualties.

The dilemma: To protest against Israel you forgo the Uighur documentary. Rather than bin your membership of the Melbourne International Film Festival, the only alternative seems to be to lobby the Festival to end sponsorship by foreign governments or political organisations.

That's the course I'll be taking. Any thoughts?

Shooting Billy The Kid

2009-07-18T21:31:00.004+10:00

The Bayside Film Festival concluded tonight with Jennifer Venditti's documentary Billy the Kid. A suitable lead up to the Melbourne Film Festival in a week's time. Billy was shown at last year's festival. The film warmed up an otherwise blustery Melbourne night.

The theme of Bayside's festival was young and emerging filmmakers. A wide range of short films by local secondary school students was also on show. In one of the workshops young actor and singer Lisa Maza shared her experiences as a first time documentary maker as co-director of Living in Two Worlds. The need for multi-skilling to survive in multi-media ran through her presentation.

Noodle: a bit hard to swallow

2009-07-15T10:07:00.004+10:00

It has taken two years for Noodle to reach Melbourne. It’s a lightweight but enjoyable Israeli comedy/drama. Like classic Shakespearean comedy the relationships are confused, with multiple misunderstandings.

Two sisters share a unit in Tel Aviv. Miri (Mili Avital) is an El Al flight attendant who has lost two husbands in the ongoing military conflicts. The other sister Gila (Anat Waxman) has her estranged husband Izzy (Alon Abutbul) living next door. He's an unlikely leading man.

The central plot could only happen in Israel where the use of illegal immigration as a theme must have more than a touch of irony. It has a fluffy, happy ending that is uplifting if corny and predictable.

Noodle is a Chinese boy. The attempts to reunite him with his mother are the catalyst for the romantic elements in the film.

It's a well chosen, competent cast. Director and co-writer Ayelet Menahemi has created a tight, fast flowing story. This is another multiple language film. Hebrew is the main one, plus English and Chinese.

Noodle has the feel of a telemovie, which might explain its limited cinema release. The plot is a bit hard to swallow but it’s worth a look if you need cheering up.

Disgrace: bleak morality tale

2009-07-09T22:21:00.001+10:00

Both J.M. Coetzee’s novel and its film adaptation leave their audience wanting more answers. Disgrace is a confronting and brutal tale of life in modern South Africa. The message is clear. There are no simple solutions.

Literary academic David Lurie’s admiration of Byron seems to have formed his personal morality and his professional ethics.

His amorality leads to a doomed relationship that precipitates both work and identity crises. His alienation from university colleagues and students results in a refusal to defend his reputation or his professorial position.

He is not the victim of an old fool’s infatuation but the arrogance of a serial Casanova. He quotes William Blake as his sole defence, "Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." His retreat to his daughter’s remote farm entangles their individual problems in the realities of life in the post apartheid era.

Director Steve Jacobs and screenwriter Anna Maria Monticelli continue their professional and personal partnership as co-producers. Their earlier collaboration on La spagnola in 2001 was another Australian production that is a minor gem.

John Malkovich’s ability to convey complete self absorption and intense self doubt without dialogue make him an excellent choice for David. Relative newcomer Jessica Haines plays his daughter Lucy. Hers is a competent and moving performance. Eriq Ebouaney strikes the right tone in a difficult role as Petrus, the black farmer and her co-landholder.

Disgrace is an adaptation that more than does justice to the novel. Like the book, it does not sensationalise or over-dramatise this extremely difficult story. I had misgivings before the screening because the novel seemed so bleak. Lucy’s compromise and David’s acceptance of her decision offer such slim hope.

We are left with little doubt that this is an allegory for the issues facing modern multi-racial South Africa. Yet it is at the personal level that the film is most powerful.

(It is disappointing that the official website is not yet online and that the IMDb has little detail. A synopsis and trailer are available through Icon Movies or click on the image above.)

Classic Cinema Collections

2009-07-09T17:45:00.000+10:00

We've been travelling for two months in Spain and France where we visited two museums that are musts for cinephiles.

The first is the Museu del Cinema in Girona, Spain. It more than lives up to its claim:

It is one of the few museums where you can journey through the 500 years of the history of images, seeing what were the predecessors and the origins of the cinema.

The museum's focus is on the evolution of technology. It has an extraordinary collection covering Chinese shadow theatre, camera obscura, lantern apparatus, optical boxes, early photography and chemical development techniques, still and film cameras and projectors, the first television and lots more.

The emphasis is on the story of the captured image, the development of the media, rather than on the content of films themselves.

Le Musée de la Cinémathèque française in Paris has a similar but smaller collection of apparatus on display. The early film memorabilia with related movie clips take the history of cinema a further step. It is not confined to French films as the name suggests but includes items from a range of countries. The focus is on the evolution of cinema in the first half of the 20th Century.

The skull from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, some of the gears from Chaplin’s Modern Times, the robot from Lang’s Metropolis, and Martine Caro’s dress from Lola Montès are just some of the rare pieces one can see in the permanent exhibition Passion Cinéma. The exhibition tells the story of the collection and preservation of what makes up France’s vast cinematographic heritage: films, props, optical devices, costumes, and archives.

If you get a chance don't miss either museum.

The Boat That Rocked: when we were young

2009-05-06T13:00:00.001+10:00

Some of us remember when rock was young. It is impossible to convey what it was like to be 18 years old in 1966. The Boat That Rocked goes a long way towards realising that. Life on board Radio Rock is a fictionalised version of the pirate radio stations that broadcast from ships in the North Sea to a British public thirsty for more rock n roll during the mid 60s.

It's fantasy not history, remembering a world where uttering the f-word on radio was a crime and novels were banned. Elections were fought over the Vietnam War.

Young Carl (Tom Sturridge) is sent by his mother Charlotte (Emma Thompson) to join the ship's DJ crew after being expelled from school. This floating microcosm of sex, drugs and rock is hardly the place for a new leaf. It is the era of free love. But as Carl soon discovers, sex might have been free but it wasn't frequent for many aspiring Don Juans.

The movie is clichéd and predictable but this is more than made up for by its immense energy, its collection of eccentric characters and the great sound track. Can't wait to get the CD.

Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Count continues to amaze with his versatility as an actor. Bill Nighy is hard to fault but that's to be expected as he's typecast in the role of captain Quentin. After their success in Love Actually Director Richard Curtis obviously enjoys working with him.

The movie is very well cast. It's hard to fault their performances. Katherine Parkinson plays Felicity the only woman permanently on board with her usual zany style. Kenneth Branagh is also typecast as government Minister Dormandy but not so successfully.

The Boat That Rocked is just really good fun which should ensure a good box office in the current climate of gloom.

Samson and Delilah: the good fight

2009-05-05T13:08:00.003+10:00

(This review contains some spoilers)

Samson and Delilah is a film that all Australians should see. It is confronting and disturbing: poverty, unemployment, petrol sniffing, violence, clashes within aboriginal communities and with so-called mainstream society. Nevertheless in keeping with the optimism of its writer/director Warwick Thornton, it offers some hope.

Warwick Thornton told Real Time magazine that:

I’m one of the biggest romantics in the world and, from day one, these two kids had to live. That was the most important thing. It would have been quite easy for them to die and that’s just wrong, that is so wrong. I couldn’t live with myself as a writer. I need them to live for me as a human being, to feel stronger.

This is a very personal story about teenage love, more Romeo and Juliet if anything. The one bit of good fortune they have is that they are the right skins for marriage. The hair-cutting connection to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah is based in an ancient aboriginal custom.

Their courtship and bonding are unique, as Samson doesn’t speak. Traditional communication such as sign and body language are a necessity.

This drama cannot be divorced from its social and political context. The seeming hopelessness and helplessness of remote aboriginal communities like this one screams out for not just understanding but some way forward. Some will not be happy with the solution presented here as it involves traditional homelands, demonised by some Australian commentators as “cultural museums” that offer little positive for the future.

Samson lives out the despair of many young men caught in this cultural chaos.
Their lives revolve around western music and fading attempts to maintain traditional connections to land and family. Chronic boredom and lack of purpose exacerbate the aimlessness.

Delilah spends her time supporting the only functioning member of her family who is around, her Nana (Mitjili Napanangka Gibson). When the inevitable happens the pay back aunts follow ritual in punishing her but offer little other help to this 14 year old.

Their escape to Alice Springs reflects the everyday life of many aborigines who have looked to towns for some solution. We see the exploitation of indigenous artists, local hostility to the homeless, the massive gulf between tourists and the people they have come to see. Gonzo, played by Warwick’s brother Scott Thornton, is a riverbed refugee who finds solace in cask wine and his own songs. He is their sole support in Alice. When he looks to religion for his salvation, they do not follow this well-trodden path.

Thornton brings out the best in his inexperienced cast. The performances of relative newcomers such Marissa Gibson Rowan MacNamara are remarkable. They handle the tragic and comic moments with equal ease.

The Real Time interview, the official website and its downloadable Press Kit have detailed insight into Warwick's motivation and methods. Both well worth a visit.

Everybody owns a reason for being. In everybody’s journey through life there is the good fight.

Samson & Delilah is my reason for being. It is my good fight. (Warwick Thornton)

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: not child's play

2009-04-30T10:15:00.001+10:00

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is the latest and least satisfying of the recent films about Nazi Germany and the Final Solution. After The Reader and Good we have a child’s take on the Third Reich and the Holocaust. It’s the story of eight year old Bruno who befriends Shmuel, a Jewish boy of his own age. The drama comes from three elements: his father is the concentration commandant, his grandmother is anti-Nazi and the friend is a camp inmate.

The best aspect of this movie is Asa Butterfield’s performance as Bruno. He manages to carry off the unlikely naiveté like a mature professional. In contrast Jack Scanlon who plays Shmuel, is less convincing and seems less comfortable in his role.

This applies even more to David Thewlis as the father. He displays an intellectual commitment to the Nazi ideology but little of the emotion and fire that you would expect to go with it. The rest of the SS officers and his zealous father (Richard Johnson) are stereotypes without any character development. The exception is Rupert friend as Lt. Kotler who has family conflicts of his own.

Bruno’s twelve year old sister Gretel is played competently by Amber Beattie. Her extreme infatuation with the Reich and its macho men in uniform dims as her parents’ relationship sours.

Director Mark Herman has given us another pedestrian re-creation of the world inside and outside the camps. The cold, stark architecture of their national socialist home symbolises this monster regime. Like much of the film it is clichéd. The contrived plot does not overcome the lack of other originality. Its predictability adds to the letdown after all the publicity and apparent popularity of this British production.

Striped Pyjamas, as the name suggests, is also a children’s film. It is their attempts to make sense of an adult world destroying itself in the name of renewal. Most will have to wait for the DVD as it has an M rating in Australia. The novel by James Boyne has won both children's and adult book awards.

Many filmgoers will find this sentimental treatment a touching experience. In many ways it has the same problem as Good: “If you missed The Reader or The Counterfeiter or classics such as Sophie’s Choice or Schindler’s List, then Good will be a fresh and rewarding experience.” Good: just another Third Reich movie

Tulpan: spring in the steppe

2009-04-26T16:58:00.007+10:00

What does a young Kazakh man like Asa (Askhat Kuchencherekov) do when he leaves the Russian navy? He looks for a bride and plans to settle down to a life of herding sheep on the Hungersteppe (Betpak Dala) of Kazakhstan. The only available bride is Tulpan who he sets out to woo. He resists his friend Boni’s attempts to get him to head for the cities.

Kazakh documentary maker Sergey Dvortsevoy has brought us the acclaimed feature film Tulpan. Its flat, dusty, dry plains are reminiscent of parts of outback Australia but are even more remote. The movie was shot 500 km from the nearest city Chimkent. It is harsh and unforgiving with powerful dust storms dominating the environment.

Most of the interior scenes take place in traditional tent houses called jurtes. The family is close in every sense of the word. Asa's sister Samal (Samal Esljamova) and Ondas (Ondas Besikbasov) and their three children share their home with him. Some of the most touching scenes involve singing within the intimacy of the family group.

The tiny domestic space is not the only cause of tension. Ondas is particularly tough on his brother-in-law Asa, perhaps because of the incredibly strong bonds between brother and sister.

Like the lives of the local people, the making of the film revolved around and evolved with the lives of the sheep. Dvortsevoy explains on the official website:

The crew spent two weeks just following sheep. In the third week, we tried several times on video to understand what camera movements should be used when the sheep is giving birth. Once the camera crew was technically ready, we waited for one of the thousands of sheep to give birth. The shepherd had a radio station and would call us as soon as one was ready.

When the scenes were shot, I understood that they are so unique and powerful that I had to adjust the rest of the film to those scenes rather than adjusting them to the script. From that on we opened the film to the experiences we made in everyday life and let them influence the story-building. In the end the film grew like a tree and many things were unpredictable.

The karakul sheep from Central Asia have been controversial:

[astrakhan] could refer to the fur of newborn Persian or karakul lambs or it could refer to broadtail fur taken from fetal lambs (or generally refer to both)—but whatever its exact definition, astrakhan boils down to one thing: early death for lambs, often even death for fetal lambs and their mothers.
Astrakhan: Hot "New" Fashion is the Same Old Cruelty

The birth scene is the most gripping moment of the story. The website has a full explanation.

One small criticism: the shaky hand-held camera work was sometimes unnecessarily distracting.

It's easy to see why Tulpan has been hot at the film festivals. Superlatives are hard to avoid: original, raw, authentic, genuine, funny, joyous, honest.

Dvortsevoy has restored respectability to the term reality. In fact it is hard not to think that this is a documentary at times. These people couldn't really be actors. It’s great to see the potential of the movie medium stretched in such powerful ways.

UPDATE:

There is an Interview with Sergei Dvortsevoy, writer/director of Tulpan with Cinetology. He is visiting Australia.

Closed for Winter: unlocking summer's secrets

2009-04-23T18:50:00.001+10:00

Australian writer/director James Bogle has given us the very introspective Closed for Winter, an adaptation of Georgia Blain’s 1998 novel of the same name. This dark film brought to mind the recent French language I’ve loved you for so long, “This is a sombre, desolate tale. It is as much about her complex relationships as it is the past.”

Both stories explore coming to terms with loss, about achieving the dreaded ubiquitous cliché and about creating a new beginning.

Twenty years after the disappearance of her older sister Frances (Danielle Catanzariti) Elise Silverton (Natalie Imbruglia) is obsessed by her memories. Frances’ fate is still unresolved. Her mother Dorothy (Deborah Kennedy) spends her waking hours compulsively reading and responding to similar tragic news items. Her dilapidated house is piled with newspapers. The shadowy absence of her husband, who died in a work accident before the disappearance, hangs over everything.

Two other men help to break this cycle of mourning. A relationship with her boss Martin (Daniel Frederiksen) offers a way out for Elise. Daniel’s performance as the geekish nerd who manages the local cinema was the hardest to warm to. It seems too much of a caricature.

John Mills has been the family’s long-term doctor. His developing friendship with Elise brings the film’s climax that helps her to confront the past. Tony Martin gives a restrained, perhaps underwhelming, portrayal.

Those who haven’t followed Neighbours or aren’t great fans of popular music, Natalie Imbruglia may not be as familiar as Kylie Minogue. Most of her acting has been for television. She does brooding silence very well but doesn’t handle vigorous dialogue as skillfully. The young Elise (Tiahn Green) does silences even better. Like many recent roles by child actors, her performance steals a lot of Natalie’s impact. Natalie also seems a few years too old for her part.

Deborah Kennedy maintains a crazed sparkle in the eyes, warning that Dorothy's neuroses should not be taken lightly.

Bogle’s controlled direction manages the frequent flashbacks fluently and effectively. The beach scenes with the aging pier mold the mood of the tragic summer perfectly. However, at times these shots linger too long, in what is an otherwise concise production. There are some twee aspects such as the garden and the mosaic but they are minor irritations.

The film is not really a mystery or suspense, though much of the critical action happens off camera. Towards the end Elise says that she now knows as much as she need to. The same is true for the audience. The resolution is predictable but that doesn’t spoil this troubled journey. An emotional life that has been flat-lining for so long has only two possible directions.

(Thanks to the Melbourne Writers Festival and Goalpost Pictures for the complimentary tickets.)

Good: just another Third Reich movie

2009-04-16T18:08:00.003+10:00

Germany's Third Reich didn’t last its planned thousand years but there seems little doubt that they will be making movies like Good for that long. It’s certainly a winning genre at the Oscars and the box office.

The key word for this Nazi/Holocaust film is derivative. You know immediately that you’ve been there before:

the swastika-draped scenes of Hitler’s Chancellery,
the book burning,
the betrayal by academia of their principles,
the wrecked apartments of the wealthy urban Jews,
the extravagant lifestyle of the senior Nazis,
tension between Aryan and Jewish friends,
the roundup,
the concentration camp climax.

This is another film where it’s very difficult to empathise with the protagonist. Kate Winslet’s character in The Reader, Hanna Schmitz, copped some criticism for showing the human side of the holocaust perpetrators. Viggo Mortensen’s John Halder may also be too human for some. He is a weak, compliant individual who clearly thinks of himself as a good man. He may be essentially good, but his increasing acceptance of the dark side of the Third Reich comes too easily. The world needed better.

Academic and novelist, Halder is a cold, wet fish. He barely enjoys his adulterous sex life. His criticisms of the Nazis are shallow: Hitler is a joke who won’t last. He sees his role as honorary, an SS “consultant”. “I prefer to be called Professor.”

Like many of its genre, Good has a very attractive look. Its costumes are well designed. The production notes reveal their pseudo-authenticity. They’ve been modernised by use of 30s styles that most resemble our own. There are few hats except for the military. The sets reflect the grandeur of Speer’s Berlin:

GOOD uses Hitler’s affection for neo-classical temples to underline the split personality of the entire society—a society in which all those clean, white marble and limestone surfaces are meant to hide a nation’s debased, besmirched soul.

The official website also claims that Director Vicente Amorim “heightens the visual elements – sets, costumes, and lighting – to emphasize that what we are watching is symbolic, a sweeping parable about conscience and consequences.” If it’s about the struggle between individual and society, or within himself, then we see a very one-sided contest. Halder was just following...

Nevertheless this is a well-made film. Many other directors could take a leaf for its concise 96 minutes. It is hard to fault the performances of its very professional cast.

If you missed The Reader or The Counterfeiter or classics such as Sophie’s Choice or Schindler’s List, then Good will be a fresh and rewarding experience.

Camino: children suffering for Opus Dei

2009-04-15T10:48:00.003+10:00

Jesús Te Ama

Director Javier Fesser’s Spanish film Camino (The Way) evoked anger and pathos in me in equal measures.

Eleven-year-old Camino (Nerea Camacho) is increasingly hospitalised by a serious illness. Her greatest wish is to join a drama group where she has met her heart’s desire Cuco (Lucas Manzano). Her mother Gloria (Carme Elias) is a dedicated lay member of Opus Dei (Work of God) who believes that the end justifies the means with regard to her ambitions for her daughters. Her husband José (Mariano Venancio) is powerless, and increasingly alienated from his wife and church. Camino’s older sister Nuria (Manuela Vellés) is an Opus Dei numerary who lives a celibate existence in one of their highly controlled centres, much like a nunnery. She is subjected to mortification (self harm) when she puts small stones in her shoe. Suffering for Jesus.

It is hard for someone brought up a Catholic to view this film without lots of baggage. Nine years under the Jesuits was enough education to lead me away from the mysterious ways of mother church. Though they prided themselves as the religious intelligentsia, the Society of Jesus always fell back on faith when their reasoning failed. To Opus Dei faith explains everything. It is quite a different institution with its belief in the sanctity of everyday life and work and the conviction that we can all become saints. Their beliefs and rituals seem incredibly bizarre without the crutch of faith.

Camino is probably for everyone except hard-core Opus Dei:

true believers in a Middle Ages version of Christianity;
those who reject organisations such as Opus Dei but retain their faith;
and those who do not capitalise god.

The old cliché that we see what we believe seems to apply here.

It is based on a real story, that of 14-year-old Alexia González-Barros who died in 1985 and awaits canonisation. If you believe in offering our children’s suffering to god, then Camino’s life makes lots of sense. If you don’t then you may be outraged by what takes place in this story.

Fesser believes that he has made a non-judgmental work based on his exploration of similar cases:

“All these characters, however, have in turn led me to discover other stories, much closer to home, which have allowed me to recreate faithfully and with great precision the medium in the midst of which all this takes on a special meaning: the Opus Dei.

Camino is meant to be a story told from an objective angle, free from prejudiced or stereotyped mindsets. A film which regards reality with a generous gaze, without judging it. Rather like an x-ray image. And this is precisely the reason for this film's bold, closely focused and severe quality.”

I doubt that the followers of Opus Dei would agree with him. In fact there is a lot of negative criticism on the web.

To solve these difficult metaphysical conundrums, Mr Meebles comes to the rescue. He is one of Camino’s favourite picture book characters. He has everything but has one problem. He doesn’t exist. A metaphor for god no doubt! A critique of the ontological argument for the existence of god will have to wait for another time.

With its dream world elements this is a fairy tale in many ways. I was sucked into the story despite initial distaste for the subject matter. Its sentimental plot borders on the telenovela with:

pubescent love
hospitals with graphic operations
secrecy and intrigue
suspense and misunderstandings
and of course contrived coincidences

There is even confusion over names.

It has its own charismatic villain. In this case Opus Dei priest Don Miguel Ángel (Pepe Ocio) uses the required mixture of charm and persuasion to manipulate his flock. The black frocked vultures circle as the possibility grows of Camino becoming an Opus Dei Saint Bernadette.

The cast does an exceptionally good job, with the children standing out of course. It's too long and could have been more tightly edited.

Keep an open mind. It’s worth going along to see the powerful affirmation of innocence in this murky world of god’s works.

Summer Hours: fading into autumn

2009-04-12T07:42:00.001+10:00

Éloïse & Frédéric

L'heure d'été/Summer Hours is a French language story of family generations. When Hélène Regnier (Edith Scob) dies after her 75 birthday, her two sons Frédéric (Charles Berling) and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) and daughter Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) have to decide what to do with her home and possessions. Her collection of art and furniture is much sought after, with the Musée d'Orsay as central players. The museum originally commissioned three short films that were never made.

The central theme of “what we leave behind” is familiar one to those of us who are baby boomers. Perhaps this is an advance on the preoccupation of filmmakers with what to do with the old folks. Now it’s how to deal with their passing. Or more cynically, the inheritance.

At a deeper level the film is about coming to terms with the past, about dealing with our formative memories and about how we move on with our lives. But director Olivier Assayas is primarily concerned with present relationships and the way people envision their own legacy:

“But the flow of life, which brings change, is much stronger, truer and deeper than the melancholy you feel by looking to the past.”

The unique family home and its contents are the focus of the siblings’ difficult deliberations. For Assayas, the property is “at the centre of the film … places have souls”. They have to work out a future that may not involve this critical bond in their relations with one another. Frédéric is an economist who rejects much of the new globalisation that has taken Jérémie to a new life in China and Adrienne to success as a designer in New York. He alone is remaining in France. There is added denial to his ruminations. His biggest hurdle is not accepting the loss of his mother and the house but in acknowledging her relationship with her famous artist uncle.

Frédéric’s legacy is his children. In the later stages of the film, the attention shifts to the younger generation through his daughter Sylvie (Alice de Lencquesaing). She is a very 21st Century teenager, a feisty risk taker who shows the kind of independence we would have expected from her aunt Adrienne in her youth. Sylvie’s key memory involves Hélène sharing the hope that one day her granddaughter will bring her children to the house to play in the gardens. By the way her father chain-smokes through every scene, she is likely to get her inheritance soon.

Another central character is Éloïse, the housekeeper (Isabelle Sadoyan). She loses her home as much as, indeed more than, the remaining family members. However, there are no surprises in this sensitive portrayal. It is a strong cast that seems wasted at times. Juliette Binoche has few challenges in her role. Dominique Reymond gives a very professional performance as Frédéric’s wife.

The film claims, “for every family there is a season”. Summer Hours felt more like autumn to me. It’s beautiful and reflective but extremely slow. The drama is very muted and conflicts are too quickly and too easily resolved.

Let the Right One In: Vintage Vampire

2009-04-09T10:50:00.001+10:00

Låt den rätte komma in/Let the Right One In is vintage vampire. I thought I'd never enjoy another in this genre but this film took me by surprise. A real gem!

This is the best foreign language, pubescent female vampire movie of 2008 by far. It’s set in Stockholm in 1982, obviously a memorable year for Swedish horror. Kåre Hedebrant as the bullied boy Oskar and Lina Leandersson as the girl vampire Eli are magnificent! They even outshine the child actors in Slumdog Millionaire.

The local eccentrics add extra colour to the blood on the snow. The group of friends who get caught up in Eli need for blood are truly Dickensian: Jocke (Mikael Rahm), Gösta (Karl-Robert Lindgren), Lacke (Peter Carlberg) and his girlfriend Virginia (Ika Nord).

Most of the conventions are followed: the ageless vampire; aversion to sunlight; a Renfield character played by Per Ragnar; infected victims; the necessity of being invited into a room.

Like all good vampire movies it’s a love story, if just a little unusual.

Director Tomas Alfredson and novelist/screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist are to be congratulated on breathing life into this genre. Though there is plenty of blood Alfredson doesn't overdo or milk the horror. In contrast the boys who torment Oskar are far more chilling than any vampire. They give the tale its real elements of suspense.

Elegy: sex not quite everything

2009-04-07T11:33:00.003+10:00

Kingsley and Cruz make an unlikely pair in Elegy. It took a while to suspend disbelief in this romance/drama. Its protagonist, David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley), is a Literature academic, a lecturer in Practical Criticism at a New York University. Literature, art, photography, and theatre are his milieu. He is also a minor media celebrity.

The story is based on Philip Roth’s 2001 novel The Dying Animal, which I haven’t read. Kepesh is the latest in a long line of aging male intelligentsia who have libido issues. Self indulgence and total lack of commitment are their essentials.

He is a serial hedonist who seduces one of his mature age students, Consuela Castillo (Penélope Cruz). She comes from a comfortable Cuban American family. Kepesh sets his sexual sights high. However, he ignores all the old clichés: no fool like an old fool; be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. His motto: "When you make love to a woman you get revenge for all the things that defeated you in life."

His best friend, George O'Hearn (Dennis Hopper) fancies himself as the master of practical advice. He’s a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Isn’t everyone’s life coach? He and David share everything, especially those things they’d never tell the women in their lives. At one of those inevitable New York lunches he outlines his theory that ‘beautiful women are invisible’. Beauty is skin deep. We don’t see it.

Consuela is far from invisible but we learn very little about the person beneath. This is not a story about their relationship. It’s about his coming to terms with their relationship. We never quite learn her identity, what makes her tick and why Kepesh fulfills her deepest needs.

The first person narration helps to expose the workings of Kepesh’s self-obsessed personality but is unnecessary at times and overlaps awkwardly with his confessions to O’Hearn.

Patricia Clarkson, does her usually impressive job as Carolyn, David’s regular sex partner of 20 years. She’s a former student of course. Patricia worked alongside Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Clarkson outshines her in both films. Nevertheless, Penélope gives a much stronger and more restrained performance in Elegy than in her Oscar winning role. Perhaps the members of the Academy were rewarding this effort that was not nominated.

Isabel Coixet’s direction is straightforward and conventional. She handles the carnal elements with restraint, given their profile in the plot. However, some of the cinematic devices are hackneyed beyond belief. David stands lonely in the NY crowd. The lovers stroll on a deserted beach and fade away. There was little sense of a fresh, original NY experience. Occasional and inconsistent use of simulated hand-held effects detracted and distracted at times.

It has taken a fair while for this film to reach Australian cinemas. We went with fairly open minds, as there has been little local publicity. Not even the prominent role of Penélope Cruz’s breasts seems to have stirred the mainstream media or perhaps there is just too much to compete with lately.

It’s a good film but not an enriching experience. It’s impossible to empathise with the main character. You just wish, as is suggested in the film, that he’d grow up and that the American obsession with old men and young women would move on.

(Thanks to Melbourne Writers Festival and Hopscotch films for the complimentary tickets.)

Of Time and the City: Liverpool Made Me

2009-04-03T12:52:00.002+11:00

The 21st Century has seen an amazing rebirth of feature length documentaries as a rich cinema experience. Obvious examples from 2008 are Man On Wire and Waltz with Bashir.

Of Time and the City is the latest and certainly the most eccentric. It has no obvious claim to a mass market, not even from its home turf Liverpool. It is quite esoteric at times, laced with poetry and introspection which may make it less accessible for some who would otherwise enjoy it immensely. Yet at the same time it is a vivid history of post-war Liverpool, and its working people. A collage of the changing character of British cities in the second half of the 20th Century.

This is filmmaker Terence Davies' homage to his roots. The official website describes it as "both a love song and a eulogy. It is also a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it toll." Davies was born in November 1945, after the end of the Second World War and at the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

Terence comments that "family, church and the movies [were his] whole world". He grew up in Liverpool's slums. The changing and unchanging architecture of this port city is central to his memories. The enduring buildings are mostly Classical, with more columns than a U.S. State Capital.

We see the promise and the betrayal of the slum clearances with the communities of small terraced houses replaced by the ghettos of public housing towers. The "loss of dreams" is underscored by Peggy Lee's The Folks Who Live On the Hill. "We had hoped for paradise. We got the Annus Mundi," puns Davies.

His republican sentiments are clear. We are treated to some of the highlights of the royal circus known as the Betty Windsor Show, in particular her wedding and coronation.

He also parades the other masters of pageant and ritual, the Roman Catholic Church and its red-robed clergy. However, the papal pomp is not enough to keep Terence within the faith. The hideous new Cathedral cannot cement his attachment to his ancestral religion. Instead he visits a different arena, the wrestling ring, to indulge his adolescent homosexual fantasies.

Of Time and the City is a visual gem, using mostly archival footage. It's his first documentary and Davies says that he cut it like fiction - "the images should speak". The narration mixes poetry with his own commentary as he explores "time, memory and mortality". T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is a major source of inspiration:

Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
(East Coker)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
...
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
(Little Gidding)

Musically Davies has little time for the pride of Merseyside, The Beatles. His soul has been stirred more by the likes of Mahler. The film's sound track is an aural delight.

If you're looking for a travelogue, then forget this film. Terence Davies challenges his audience, through his personal reflections, to ponder their own journeys.

(Most of the quotes and background for this review are from two major resources at the film's website: the Full Transcript and a video interview with Davies.)

Easy Virtue: Jessica Biel's BMW 328 time traveller

2009-03-30T15:54:00.009+11:00

In my review of Easy Virtue I suggested some mischief took place:

An anomaly is the spectacular BMW sports car. A German car was hardly the choice so soon after the war. It also seems an anachronism, probably about a decade too early. Maybe BMW were sponsors or paid for product placement. That badge just keeps appearing in close up.

Thanks to my neighbour who is a MG TC devotee, I have found the answer. He has a copy of The Automobile magazine that featured the sports car on its front cover in November 2004.

It's a BMW 328, manufactured between 1936 and 1940.

Larita Whittaker (Jessica Biel) was clearly a woman ahead of her time.

Not So Gran Torino

2009-03-25T11:20:00.001+11:00

The setting for Gran Torino is the Global Financial Crisis' 'Ground Zero': the suburbs of 'Motor-City' Detroit before the worst of the sub-prime meltdown.

I didn't review Gran Torino when it was first released because I was disappointed with it. It deserves big ticks for: good acting; a tight script and topicality. But the crosses are a lot to bear from such great filmmakers: lack of originality; pedestrian predictability and a dearth of insights. Going by the box office and its continuing presence in Australian cinemas I seem to be in a small minority.

This is a story that has all the elements to make some indelible statements about modern urban society in countries like the U.S. and Australia. It has similarities to the recent Oz film The Combination that explored similar issues in Sydney. We have the clash of cultures and generations. Racial and ethnic tensions. Drugs, guns and gangs. Unemployment.

Walt Kowalski is a widower, a Korean War veteran living next to Hmong refugees. He is an alien in his own neighbourhood. This old autoworker and his classic 1972 Ford Gran Torino represent a past glory that has long faded. Clint Eastwood does modern alienation better than anyone. He’s as bitter as the beer that is his constant companion.

However, his character does not move far beyond the stereotype: the redneck who learns to open up his heart of gold; the poor communicator who is misunderstood; the gun toting but ultimately selfless vigilante; the tough, silent enigma who triumphs over his prejudices. His best friend is his dog Daisy. As the official website's Production Notes announce, “They don’t make them like they used to.”

The rest of the cast do an admirable job: Bee Vang as Thao Vang Lor, the teenager who Walt mentors; Ahney HerSue as his sister Lor; Chee Thao as their Grandma.

Nick Schenk’s screenplay is tight but overly sentimental and very predictable. Still it’s a praiseworthy effort for a first timer screenwriter. It certainly suited Director/Producer Eastwood’s acting style: the stare, the locked jaw. At times he feels like a cross between Michael Douglas in Falling Down and Gary Cooper in High Noon .

So what are the messages of Gran Torino? Prejudice breeds in ignorance. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. The work ethic and self-reliance are the way out.

This film says little new about multi-cultural societies or the possibilities for reconciling their deep-seated problems. We see the good, the bad and the ugly side of community: family, prejudice and gangbangers. The macho ethos that dominates so much of modern life is skimmed over. We discover during a visit to the barber that real men aren’t racist, sexist, ignorant and rude. That’s just the way they interact with their mates.

The ending is clichéd and unsatisfactory in most respects. You would have expected the blatantly telegraphed punches to rankle Million Dollar Baby’s creator a bit more.