NZIFF 2012: Wrap up (Wellington edition)

The two most glorious weeks of the year have, once again, concluded.

The total number of films I saw is about half of what I got to last year (27 in total) and largely due to my low key presence during the first week (working on that all important second draft) the whole fest felt like it just whipped right on past me. I missed far more than I saw.

I had a lot of fun with films like The Angels' Share, How to Meet Girls From a Distance and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

How to Meet Girls From a Distance was particularly impressive given the limitations placed on the filmmakers. These guys were the winners of the inaugural Make My Movie competition, with a prize of a $100,000.00 production budget. Which, as anyone involved with making a film can tell you, is not a lot of money really. And then they only had a limited time to actually make the film and even less time to cut it, ready for the Festival. Chuck in the fact that they decided to make a romantic-comedy about a stalker and you can see that they weren't short of challenges.

I am so pleased I went to the Far Out Far East double feature of Henge and Young Gun in the Time that played at the same time as Moonrise Kingdom. Henge was a low-key body horror that morphed through oddity to domestic drama to mild conspiracy to murderous relationship to kaiju. Every time I thought I knew where it was heading, BAM! It went somewhere completely unexpected. And Young Gun in the Time is the follow-up film from the director and star from Invasion of Alien Bikini. It's a (very) low budget Korean time-travel film about a broke private detective. It wasn't incredible but it had a strange charm to it, and I had to respect them for making what they did with the budget they had.

As always, there were a couple of bum notes in the festival. While Beasts of the Southern Wild was in no way a bad film, and I absolutely enjoyed it... I was expecting more from it. I was expecting, nay hoping, to be grabbed by it; for the film to reach out to me and move me in some profound fashion. And while there was a lot to like about the film (seriously. See it if you get the chance), for me it just didn't have that indefinable "oomph".

V/H/S though was an entirely frustrating, boring and slightly painful experience. An anthology of found footage horror films, too many of them became about the gimmick than anything truly frightening. There were a couple of neat ideas in one or two of the segments but it was, overall, the low point of festival. Also: just about every single character/victim in these films were complete douchebags. I didn't really feel bad that any of them died in the end. Contrasted completely with Cabin in the Woods.

I am so damn thankful that I got to see Cabin in the Woods on the big screen. After all of the hoo-hah with MGM's finances going down the gurgler, a delayed release in the States and a threatened direct-to-DVD status in Australia and New Zealand I thought I would never get to see this wild ride of a film with a packed audience. But I did. THREE times. Every time was amazing. Every time was with a packed, fun-loving, appreciative audience. And one of those sessions was a weekday day-time screening and the other was a late addition that packed out in less than three days. That's at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington - a cinema with a 700-odd capacity. And boy-howdy the film delivered. Fun and crazy and inventive and intelligent and bursting with ideas and great performances. I want to see it again. Right now.  I had a lot of fun in the Cabin.

I also had a helluva time with Ben Wheatley's Sightseers. I went in utterly blank on what to expect. I have heard good things about Wheatley's Kill List (which I'm still hoping to see soon) and just went in blind. And I loved it. A strange, darkly comic British camping trip with two (somewhat) lovable and messed up people, I had a ball with it and encourage everyone to see it. It's an off-kilter film in the absolute best way possible.

Your Sister's Sister and Liberal Arts carried a gentler sense of humour to them and I enjoyed them enough, and they were finely made with some charmingly watchable performances, but they're not on the list of stand outs.

In addition to Marilyn and her diamonds and Gentlemen, the classics at the 2012 NZIFF were: The Shining, Bonjour Tristesse and Mantrap. All of these films were my first ever viewings. I enjoyed the hell out of Gentlemen and Mantrap - I find Marilyn a fascinating actress to watch (in addition to, yes, being drop-dead gorgeous) and Mantrap was the live cinema event for Wellington. A Clara Bow starring silent from the 20's it was a lot of fun, even if it took a few odd turns. But boy, that Clara Bow was full of some popping zest! 

In her second low-budget scifi, Brit Marling told us to listen to the Sound of My Voice, Mads Mikkelson's falsely accused paedophile tried to evade The Hunt and Woody Harrelson stormed the Rampart in a racist haze of alcohol and cigarettes. All were fine films but, as with Beasts, they didn't quite grab me at the visceral, emotional level.

That task was left to the utterly devastating documentary Bully and the profoundly disturbing Compliance. I saw Bully the morning after Compliance which, as you will soon read, may have fed into my emotional response. Because that emotional response was... well, it was quite emotional. I'm not, generally speaking, a big crier at the movies. I'll get choked up from time to time, but I tend to hold the tears back or just not quite get to that emotional point. Bully had me weeping openly, profusely and often. The crew just spend time with these kids who are being bullied, with the families of the kids and with the families of kids who have taken their own lives due to bullying. The school system and the authorities are shown to be, at best, ignorant and, at worst, lazy and just not giving a damn. It should be noted, that Bully focuses on the extreme examples of bullying; these go beyond school-yard taunts and become physically and mentally aggressive. There is criticism to be levelled at the film and the possibility of different approaches untaken (really, it should be called "Bullied"), but this documentary hit me on an emotional level like nothing else.

But the film that really had an effect on me, the film that I am choosing as my pick of the fest, was Craig Zobel's Compliance. There are few films that have got under my skin as much as this one did. Based on true events, the film details the horrible and horrifying systematic degradation of a young fast-food restaurant employee. A man phones the manager, claiming to be a police-officer and accusing the pretty young blonde girl of stealing from a customer. Over the course of the day she is humiliated and violated by the manager and other people. I'm not the only one that was affected by the clinical degradation of the film: there were a number of walk-outs; people who could no longer stand to see what was happening to this innocent girl. And part of that comes from the (to us) patently outrageous commands and requests coming from this bodiless voice on the phone but that, over the course of the day, these people are berated and placated into following.Compliance sent me out of the cinema angry, dizzy and spiraling into a weird, dark mental place. 

I may not have seen as many films at NZIFF 2012 as last year, but I can say that there will be a number of ones I did see that will stay with me for a long, long time to come. And that's why I go the festival every year.

New Zealand International Film Festival: My Picks (Wellington edition)

It's really getting into winter now which can mean only one thing for film-lovers: the annual New Zealand International Film Festival is once again on its way around the country.

Which of course means there are previews upon previews for upcoming films. And with the launch of the Wellington programme last night, I would be remiss if I didn't also offer my picks for 2012. Where possible, I've included links to trailers.

Hold onto your butts, and here. We. Go.

The opening night film is Beasts of the Southern Wild. I first heard of this coming out of Sundance and, aside from watching the magical trailer, I have avoided reading too much about it. It's one of those films I want to be a surprise.

Other films I've heard about but not read about to preserve as much of the discovery as possible, include the weird Cannes hit Holy Motors, the new film from Ben Wheatley Sightseers, the horror anthology V/H/S and Brit Marling (whose Another Earth I really, really didn't like) and her other low budget sci-fi Sound of my Voice. And, of course, the film rescued by Ant Timpson and the Festival from a direct to DVD release, Cabin in the Woods. One film I have seen but think everyone should see (everyone. I mean it), and with as little knowledge beforehand, is Klown. There's only the one showing in Wellington so make sure you get your tickets in early. 

The Festival is also chock full of great documentaries, with ten feature-length New Zealand docos this year! There's mad maestro Werner Herzog with a basket-full of films interviewing death-row prisoners (Into the Abyss and various Portrait of... films), the Keanu Reeves produced investigation of film vs. digital Side by Side and Bully which will no doubt be an emotionally traumatic (but rewarding) experience.

The classic films lined up for this year are a truly delicious bunch. I'll be seeing, for the first time ever and on the big screen, Stanley Kubrick's horror classic The Shining. I'm going to be falling in love with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell all over again in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and I'm sure to fall for Jean Seberg in Bonjour Tristesse. And the Live Cinema event this year is the Clara Bow starring Mantrap.

This year the Festival has done something slightly different, when it comes to their selection of New Zealand shorts. In previous years there have been collections under the banner Homegrown. This year, in association with Madman Entertainment (who's logo I'll be seeing a lot of at the Festival) they're holding their first ever competition: New Zealand's Best. Other Kiwi films I'm looking forward to checking out are the two Wellington features Existence and How to Meet Girls from a Distance; a post-apocalyptic dystopia sci-fi and a twisted romantic-comedy respectively. Costa Botes makes his return with The Last Dogs of Winter,  his documentary exploring the endangered native Eskimo dog the Qimmiq. There's also a number of other great looking documentaries and a selection of Maori and Pasifika short films.

And then there's all those other films that I've been hearing about for the best part of a year, coming out of other film festivals or having small, limited runs overseas. Films starring big-time Hollywoood actors in dark roles, like Rampart with Woody Harrelson as a violent, intolerant LA cop or Killer Joe with Matthew McConaughey as a killer for hire or Bernie with Jack Black as a suspected murderer with the creepy moustache to prove it. I was honestly not expecting Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom to be in the Festival as I'm sure it already has a general release secured. But hell, I'm certainly not complaining about getting to see it early!

Looking over my scribbled notes, lists and spreadsheet I could quite easily keep writing about the great films on offer. The new Studio Ghibli film Up on Poppy Hill, the delightfully charming looking I Wish, the bizarre and amazing looking double feature Far Out Far East (featuring body horror and time travelling), the Joel Edgerton and Antony Starr, um, starring Wish You Were Here. I've been a fan of Mads Mikkelsen since Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself and his performance in The Hunt earned him Best Actor at Cannes. Mathieu Kassovitz's Rebellion about the French response to an uprising in New Caledonia should be intriguing and visceral. How I Met Your Mother's Josh Radnor directs Martha Marcy May Marlene's Elizabeth Olson in Liberal Arts, which should at least be funny and sweet. Sean Penn goes super intriguingly weird in This Must be the Place and Gael Garcia Bernal features in No as an ad man attempting to defeat Pinochet in Chile's referendum and The Loneliest Planet as an adventure tourist travelling with his girlfriend through the Caucasus mountains. Ken Loach has the sweary Scottish comedy The Angel's Share, Micahel Haneke ponders love and death with the Palme d'Or winning Amour and... see? I've just gone on and on and on. I was supposed to be wrapping it up in this paragraph.

Ok. So, I've given some of my picks but one of the true joys of the Festival is discovering cinematic gems yourself. Do yourself a favour: pick up a programme, flick through a few times and just pick some films. Pick something that you might otherwise never get the chance to see; don't just go to the big nights. Get along to the documentaries, the small indie charmers and shockers. Surprise yourself.

So, what are your picks so far?

29.07: THE TREE OF LIFE (NZIFF)

New Zealand International Film Festival: beginulate! I have 55 films I'm hoping to see over the 17 days this year and while that may seem a lot, it's just what I do each year. Last night marked the start of the 40th NZIFF in Wellington and I guess my first full film of the Festival is quite the pick. The entire film is just about as far away from a "typical Hollywood" film as you could get (but starring two of the most respected and well known Hollywood actors). This year's Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, it has already played in the States to some polarised audiences. And, evidently this audience was unsure what to expect either as there were a number of walk-outs - notably in the last 2 minutes of the film.

To be fair, I'm not entirely certain what my own expectations for the film were but knowing Malick's previous work, I was sure there was going to be a focus on nature and large digressions around that. Well, The Tree of Life has that and then some. It is a beautiful film, with long moments that can only be described as cinematic poetry. There comes a point where you just have to give yourself up to it and let the wonder wash over and around you. These periods of visual trippiness and beauty easily give Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey a run for its money. In fact, the centre-piece of the film is the bravura sequence that includes the creation of the earth, the shaping of the planet, pre-history, dinosaurs before finally leading up to the birth of the O'Brien's first son, Jack. 

The Tree of Life is not a narrative film in the often seen sense of the word. There is no strong narrative throughline, instead the body of the film is taken up with Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien (an uncompromising Brad Pitt and an ethereal Jessica Chastain) and there three boys growing up in 1950's Texas. Brad Pitt takes the role of Mr. O'Brien - a bastard of a father, he who must be feared and respected - and completely owns it. His physicality is impressive, saying much with just a hunch and the set of his jaw. Chastain too is impressive as the more kind-hearted and all too-often put upon mother and she carries a difficult role with grace. Which is fitting, as this is (as far as I can read) what she represents. Dichotomy and binary opposition are in constant play and reflection throughout the film: selfish nature and self-less grace; Mrs. O'Brien and Mr. O'Brien; the micro and the macro; the natural world and the city; the past and the present.

As great as the two adults are, it is the three boys who are at the centre of it all and they are impressive. Malick has pulled off the trick of capturing boys... just being boys: they run and play and fight and get in trouble. But they are also boys whose eyes, especially when their father is around, dull a little. Hunter McCracken as the young Jack (later Sean Penn) is an especial marvel, carrying no sense of being a "Hollywood child" and instead just quietly carrying a lot of the film. 

The film isn't perfect, and you could argue that some of it veers towards the unintelligible and pretentious. What you cannot call The Tree of Life (and Malick) is unambitious. Malick constantly pushes the camera in and out, always creating a sense of movement and filling the film with small surprises. Each shot, each frame is a small work of visual art, as they often are with Malick's films. This is a film of beauty and wonder, sadness and life, nature and religion. I look forward to seeing it again.

30.06: MEDIANERAS

Gustavo Taretto, the writer-director of this Argentinean romantic comedy, is an obvious fan of Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Much like the beginning of the Great Nebbish’s film things begin with a voice-over and shots of the city. The city, in fact, as a character. In this case, Buenos Aires. But these aren’t the type of shots the Buenos Aires tourism department would use. This opening montage shows the bizarre and the ugly in the architecture of Buenos Aires, while our narrator Martin lays all of society’s ills squarely at the feet of this poor architecture and city planning. This is balanced out by Mariana’s opening narration, expounding on the beauty of the architecture in Buenos Aires – she is an architect herself and loves the strange details and history behind the buildings that make up the city. The name of the film comes from the word for the ugly, featureless sides of buildings; the medianeras or "side-walls". 

This tells the tale of two people who are seemingly perfect for each other… if only they were to meet. It seems unlikely in a city of millions that they ever will, despite living in adjacent apartment blocks. And Taretto has great fun with this concept – there are meet-cutes that almost happen, there are parallel occurrences in the characters lives, there are little moments and hints at what they could be together. And despite the well-worn rom-com convention that the two lovers will come together, over-coming all obstacles in their way as they do so, there is a genuine question as to whether these two will. I couldn't help but feel that if this concept had been processed through the Hollywood system we would have been given a film overstuffed with forced "quirkiness" and coincidence. Instead, Taretto manages to balance a realism that keeps the film just this side of twee.

This realism is accentuated by the cinematography of Leandro Martinez, who manages to capture the personalities of various buildings while balancing this with the thriving life of modern Buenos Aires. The mood of the film changes subtly with each season, with Martines giving each season its own palette; an obvious move perhaps but one that may have been missed or overdone in a more Hollywood version of this tale.

The comedy is sharp and the characters well drawn - both Martin and Mariana are suffering from acute post break-up blues and they're both trying to deal with them in their own way. To add to that is the pressure of living in a city of millions while feeling connected to no-one. Medianeras is a film about love, and the search for same, in the modern city that has at its heart a love for that modern city. Martin and Mariana may criticise the city (Martin particulary) and the disconnection they feel, but it is criticism that carries affection with it. The film is not perfect - Taretto almost fumbles the end and there is a post-credits sequence that we could have defintely done without, but these are not enough to undo the affection that has been built up for these characters and this film.

NZIFF: WELLINGTON LINE UP ANNOUNCED!

Last night I attended the Programme Launch for the Wellington leg of the 2011 NZ International Film Festival and there are more than a few films I'm excited about seeing this year. There are over 400 sessions over two weeks and across 6 cinemas. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Wellington Film Festival and you can read an account of the first few years here.

As with last year, however, I am disappointed that a) there is no Live Cinema film closing out the Festival and b) Auckland DO have Live Cinema closing out the Festival and it's Nosferatu! Live Cinema has been a highlight of each Festival year for me - it is a silent classic with live accompaniment and previous films have included Buster Keaton's Steamboat Jr. and the horror classic (with live theremin!) The Cat and the Canary.

So, what have we got to look forward to? A veritable boat-load of films have been shipped from the Cannes Film Festival this year and there seems to be a stronger emphasis (or at least a few more) action/thriller films from overseas. But let's break it down shall we?

There are the Big Films like:

• Terence Malick's Palme d'Or winning The Tree of Life
• The now banned from Cannes Lars von Trier's Melancholia
• Morgan Spurlock's newest doco-experiment POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
• Werner Herzog's 3D cave painting exploration, Cave of Forgotten Dreams 

But it's not all about the new hotness. There is also a selection of bona fide cinematic classics:

• Martin Scorsese's incendiary Taxi Driver in a brand new 35mm print
• a restored digital print of Fellini's La Dolce Vita
• A "lost" Elia Kazan classic, Wild River
• Metropolis (the second time I'll be seeing this at a Film Fest and not the last time this year either - the NZ Symphony Orchestra will be playing the score with the film later this year)

Having the chance to see classic films like these on a cinema screen is one of the highlights of the Film Festival for me, every year.

But one of my other very favourite things about the NZIFF is getting to see work from new directors, new voices. This year I've already picked out:

• Submarine
• Troll Hunter
• Snowtown
• Hobo With a Shotgun
• another low budget, intelligent sci-fi? Sign me up for Another Earth
• Tyrannosaur - Paddy Considine's directorial debut!

Then there are those films I've been reading about and anticipating for a year... or sometimes more!

• I Saw the Devil
• 13 Assassins
• Space Battleship Yamato
• The Innkeepers (with director Ti West in attendance)
• The Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan food and impersonations
• Martha Marcy May Marlene

And the NZIFF is never one to skimp on the documentaries. This year (among others) I have on my list:

• Page One: Inside the New York Times
• Errol Morris' Tabloid
• Hot Coffee - a film about the rise of the litigious culture in America
• Senna - a car-racing doco that has been making big impressions overseas
• Sons of Perdition
• Project Nim - from the director of Man on a Wire.

And this barely scratches the surface of what I'm looking to experience at Film Fest this year. There are always those few films that I have absolutely no idea or preconceptions about before going in, and it's this chance to discover a new cinematic gem that really invigorates me and makes me appreciate all over again the hard work the NZIFF team do each year. As for me? Not only will I be trying to get to as many films as possible (the current list is sitting around 60), I'll also be a volunteer usher, manning the Film Society information desk, working the day job and writing about it all. 

Yeah. I can't wait.  

NZ INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: A PREVIEW

Well, the Auckland programme for the annual NZIFF has launched and Flicks have got a run down of every film so far announced. I ran my keen wee eyes over the huge list of films and found more than a few that caught my attention. The Festival starts in Auckland in just over three weeks time and winds its way down to Wellington in just over a month (with the Wellington leg of the programme launching next week on June 30) so we can enjoy a fortnight of glorious cinematic gorging and madness.

I've got a long list of 60 films.

One of the reasons I love the annual Film Festival so much is that it is very eclectic; it's a film festival with something for everyone. On my personal long list I've got everything from Tree of Life to Hobo With a Shotgun. From classics like Taxi Driver and Metropolis to exciting new films like Trollhunter and Submarine. And I haven't even had a chance to read the entire programme yet! Needless to say, when I get a look at the full programme for Wellington I'll be talking a little more about those films I'm looking forward to most. And, as I did last year, during the Festival itself I'll be writing up every single film I see. I'm looking forward to it, all over again.

Film Fest: Day Seventeen

Alright. This is it. I made it. The final day of Film Festival. Thank the fucking gods. After battling through the worst of a hangover (and missing In the Attic because of said hangover), we managed to get through town in the driving wind and rain for our first film of the last day.

The Red Shoes
I actually had absolutely no intention of seeing this when I first heard it was playing. I'm rather glad I reversed that decision. This is a sweepingly big romantic melodrama that just isn't made anymore, and I'm glad I got to catch this Technicolor classic on the big screen.
The main thrust is a love triangle - between Vicky Parker the talented ballerina who lives to dance, the precocious young composer Julian... and the ballet, in the form of the obsessively controlling Lermontov. There is love, laughter, tragedy and dance. With a film like this you just have to let yourself go with the melodrama and the romance and not get caught up in minor niggling details.

Under the Southern Cross
I guess this was the closest we had to a Live Cinema event this year. The Live Cinema event – where a classic silent film is shown at the Embassy with live orchestra accompaniment – is one of my favourite parts of the Festival. This year, for reasons I’m not sure I can go into, we didn’t have the usual Live Cinema down in Wellington. Especially gutting as Auckland had Sherlock Jr. – a Buster Keaton classic.
Instead we had this film from 1928, shot in New Zealand with an all Maori cast. The score was a new thing worked up by three prominent Wellington musicians, notably Warren Maxwell of Trinity Roots, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Little Bushman. The film was due to start at 6:30pm. But as the musicians were still setting up and fiddling about (and fair enough, there should’ve been more time between this and the previous session) the doors didn’t open until 6:40pm. There were cries from the crowd beyond of “Hurry up!” and “Supposed to have started by now!” Yeah, no duh. Perhaps there’s a reason the doors haven’t opened yet? Because that’s what I wanted to deal with when I had a hangover: an angry audience.
Anyway! You’re maybe wondering about the film. The film itself was pretty standard guff: two warring tribes, two star-crossed lovers, a nefarious prince, battle, death and love. Nothing particularly exciting or new there. As for the live music… when it was there it was interesting and bold, melding new sounds to this incredibly old film. But that was the main issue – when it was there. There were long spells of no score. And always in an odd place; in a part of the film that could’ve, and should’ve, worked with a score of some sort. Somewhat disappointing, especially when what score there was there was so intriguing.
It’s a great idea to have contemporary scores to classic films, and maybe something we can begin to see more of. But the film nerd in me really does enjoy these silent classics up on the big screen with their original score. So, a return of the “classic” Live Cinema please.

Amer
Oh, this really wasn’t the film I wanted to end the final (severely hungover) day of Festival on. It’s a psychedelic head-trip of a film, an homage to Italian giallos of old. I’ve never really seen any of the giallos though so I have no idea how true to them this intensely cut, largely dialogue free film with a slim to not-there narrative, is.
I’m slightly ashamed to say, I nodded off for quite a fair bit of it. What I did see… well, I had no idea what the hell was going on. Properly freaky scary in places and intensely sexualised in others and with a killer soundtrack, ripped from films of the era I was left with impressions more than anything. Which, from talking to people afterward, would’ve been the same had I actually seen the whole thing. There are scores of quick cuts, notably on extreme blurry close-ups and use of outrageous colours. Perhaps if I was not so hungover and tired I could've soaked into the experience of it all more.

And that's that. The Film Festival over for another year. But don't worry, I'm not quite done with it yet. There's still my Festival Wrap to come and an In Appreciation Of... for Once Upon a Time in the West. It's been a crazy hectic couple of weeks, and I hope you've been reading and enjoying what I've had to say about the various films I've seen.

We will return to our irregular scheduled programming soon.

Film Fest: Day Sixteen

Ok. The penultimate day of Festival. Nearly there. Nearly finished. Just had to get through this day and to the Festival Party that night. Ahhh... it's what I've been looking forward to. Drinking, dancing and generally blowing off steam. It was a damn good night, with plenty of moves busted and beers drunk. And boy howdy, I felt it the next day. But before we get to that...

Melody for a Street Organ
There is no way I would have chosen to see this film. I was rostered on to Usher it though, so I had to. To me, it looked to be a depressing Eastern European "art" film that would be a slog. I wasn't disappointed.
The film concerns two little tykes on their way to Moscow (from somewhere in the Ukraine I think) to find their dads. They're all alone and are quickly booted off the train and robbed. I think we're supposed to care for them, but the poor performances and the fact the characters don't seem to be like real people at all, inhibits this. In fact, no-one in the film acts like a real person. Everyone encountered is some sort of cipher, meant to symbolise some belaboured point. At one point, the two kids wander into a part of the station full of people on phones. No-one has anytime for them. Everyone gestures wildly, with their hands, their face and their bodies as if they were drama school dropouts asked to act being on the telephone. It's a scene that drags on and on. And we get the point very, very quickly. The whole film is like this.
Thus, when we finally reach the obviously tragic end my only emotional response to the whole thing was: thank fuck that's over. My brain felt like it had been relentlessly pummeled with a hammer. The Symbolism and Meaning Hammer.

American: The Bill Hicks Story
This was the film I was actually looking forward to seeing today. A documentary on Bill Hicks, his life and comedy. An interesting choice was made in not showing the people talking for the majority of the run-time. Interviews with Hicks' family, friends and fellow comedians are overlayed with animated photographs, old footage of Hicks and various filmed stand-up gigs. It was hard to tell who was talking at times and it occasionally took you out of the flow of the story.
The story of Hicks' life is engaging enough, and I see what they were going for with the use of photographs. As for Hicks himself, he's one of those brilliant comics you either get or you don't. As he died way back when, I've only known of him posthumously and loved his angry, intelligent humour. He seemed to truly want to change the world. To make people laugh and really get them thinking. Of course, he wasn't amazing popular in the States. So while all of this, and the details of his life, were new to me I don't know how new it would be to true Hicks fans in the audience (like the guy sat in my room who heaved and giggled at just about every utterance from Hicks). But the footage of Hicks's first gigs, shot on home video when he was still in high school, is something to treasure. As well as home video footage of his last ever gig.
The real sadness in the Bill Hicks story is that we lost him. Like so many other great minds, we lost him early and we lost him young. Dead at 32 from pancreatic cancer, he was really beginning to become a stand-up superstar (especially in the UK, surprisingly).
If you know Hicks, if you know his comedy, you'll get a kick out of this. If you don't know Bill Hicks... please, take a listen sometime.

Film Fest: Day Fifteen

Wow. Just typing out that title "Film Fest: Day Fifteen" was a little scary. Fifteen days of constant movie watching?! Insanity. Yet here I am, still with a coupla days to go. So what was on the cinematic menu for today? A brutal noir, an uncomfortably funny comedy and a disappointing sci-fi.

The Killer Inside Me
This was one of my most anticipated films of the Festival. I've been liking what Affleck has been doing the past few years, and Winterbottom is always an interesting director to watch. Of course, when the film premiered at Sundance there was much hue and cry raised about the violence, particularly towards women. One woman calling shame down on the film, and shame down on Sundance for showing it. What a blinkered view.
Winterbottom certainly doesn't shy away from the violence. But seeing as how this is a film, based on the book of the same name, that follows a cold killer of a man would you expect the blow to be softened?
This is a brave central performance by Casey Affleck, not shying away from the cold darkness inherent to the character. He brings that smarmy style of charm so associated with his older brother, but with a dark edge to it. But we cannot forget Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson, both giving brave performances in their own way. It's not usual for Hollywood starlets to allow their characters to be treated this way. They are absolutely fearless, the both of them. There are scenes, particularly with them, that are extraordinarily difficult to watch. The ending is, however, is somehow beautiful. In a twisted sort of way.
It's a brutal 50's Texas set film noir, and the obvious companion piece to it would be American Psycho.

Cyrus
I was not expecting to like this as much as I did. I feared some sort of hipster style comedy. I was pleasantly surprised as this is one of the best, funniest and most real romantic comedies I've ever seen.
John C. Reilly is a schlub, divorced the past seven years and still not over it. At a party he meets Marisa Tomei. And they hit it off. And things seem to be going great between them and you get the sense that this is the first happiness either of them have had for a long time. And then he meets her son. Her hyper-intelligent, passive-aggressive obsessive son, played by Jonah Hill. You remember when Robin Williams first went creepy for One Hour Photo? That's what Hill seems to be channeling here as he appears from the shadows with a blank face and false friendship to Reilly.
Unsurprisingly, given that Reilly and Hill are the male leads, the comedy is informed by the Apatow/McKay school of improvisation. Thankfully, the directors keep a rein on things becoming too absurd. They have a keen eye for relationships, and how real (and adult) relationships work and can get screwed up by the people in an around them. The similarities between John C. Reilly's character (unable to completely let go of his ex-wife) and Jonah Hill's Cyrus (unable to let go of his mum) are noted without being overplayed. The only time this very realness, this naturalness, becomes distracting is in the camera-work. The "documentary" feel to it can be distracting at times. I understand wanting to keep the camera fluid, like the scenes, but there a few too many obvious zooms for it to totally work.
However, that's a minor gripe to an overall wonderful film. It's funny, sweet, real and more than a little awkward.

Splice
Oh. Oh dear. Oh how very disappointed I was with this. From the director of Cube Vincenzo Natali and produced by Guillermo del Toro? With Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley creating an horrific abomination of nature and a crime against nature?! How could I not dig this groove? Well, it turns out... throw a bunch of cool stuff together and sometimes you get a big, cheesy disappointment. Like microwave macaroni.
Brody and Polley are cutting-edge geneticists; they're rock-star scientists, part of the geek-chic. They wear crazy-cool clothes and have a punk rock attitude to science and morals. They push the boundaries, man. So they end up creating a animal-human collage like creature before their funding gets pulled. And from there... well, every beat is pretty predictable. An anonymous female donor is mentioned and, guess what? It turns out to be Polley! With the running (more brisk walking) and hiding there's no real sense of tension or horror. Their quickly growing (and maturing) creation/daughter Dren tends to just... hang out.
The interplay between the three of them and the shift in dynamics is largely handled well; Polley first protecting Dren and then clashing with her and Brody at first wanting to destroy her and then... well, this is where the film lost me actually. You see, Brody and Dren... get it on. Down'n'dirty in the hideout: the scientist and the creation. The audience lapped it up, whooping with laughter at the pure ridiculousness of it.
There were quite a few moments of that: unintentional laughter. Splice was a very serious-faced B-movie that didn't pull it off. Which is a real shame because I love genre films, I love sci-fi and I love the potential of a great idea. It just didn't happen here.

Film Fest: Day Fourteen

After covering the start of someone's shift at the Embassy, I scooted down to the Film Archive for my own usher shift. It's not a shift I was particularly looking forward to - the usher seat at the Film Archive is absolutely awful and considering the film was a collection of indie European digital animation? Cause for concern.

Autour de Minuit
So, my initial review of this was merely going to read "Pretty pictures but sitting in the front row made me feel somewhat sick". There were some nice looking short films, but most of it was just so much visual noise. However, the entire programme was pretty much saved by the final film: Logorama (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81d8SUaCMJo). It was a technically awesome, well written, smart and funny short film. It knew what it's message was, and it made sure you knew. And in the most entertaining way possible.
Another standout was Plasticat - in a futuristic city, a cat passes a bum on the street. He is then hounded by, not just his shoulder angel and devil, but a whole host of little flying consciousnesses. Very charming, and quite well done.
I'm glad there's a place for this type of indie, experimental animation. If everything was from the big animation houses, the artform would die out pretty quickly.

Film Fest: Day Thirteen

Well, despite finishing work at the day-job early and hauling ass down to the Paramount, I still missed out on 25 Carat. As it was Sold Out. A little surprising, as I thought it was flying under the radar a bit but I guess all I can do now is hope it gets some sort of release later. At least I was able to go home, catch my breath and do some dishes!

Mammuth
Gerard Depardiu stars as Serge in what could be thought of as a coming-of-retirement-age tale. Forcibly retired from the meatworks at 60, he has to set off across country, collecting proof of the various oddjobs he's been doing over the years in order to claim his pension. He's a sweet natured, somewhat naive elephant of a man.
The film is filled with some hilarious scenes (Serge's retirement party and Serge and four other men bawling their eyes out in a crappy hostel restaurant are stand outs), and some very random ones. These are moment of pure, unforeseen strangeness; such as Serge and his elderly cousin jerking each other off. It's a brief scene, seemingly unconnected to anything else and not mentioned again. It just adds to the overall feeling of slight oddness. In a good way.
What it's really all about is a man, a couple, who have worked their entire lives and only now learning how to live. How to live, breathe and be happy.

How I Ended This Summer
I got the feeling I may have enjoyed this film, if given more time and space around it. But with my head packed with films, I just couldn't get into this. We have yet another unsympathetic protagonist. In fact, he's a bit of an asshole.
Two men are stationed on a remote Soviet monitoring station in the Arctic. The old hand who's been there most of his life and the young man who's come up for the summer. It becomes part psychological thriller, part survivalist film. But it's hard to sympathise with the young guy when he's brought it all on himself. It becomes somewhat touching at the end, but as I said, given more space in my brain I think I would have appreciated the whole a lot more.

Film Fest: Day Twelve

The Invention of Dr. Nakamats
Japanese inventor Dr. Nakamats purportedly holds over 3,000 patents, easily beating Thomas Edison’s 1,000-odd. He claims to be the inventor of the floppy disk, has a street, avenue and square named after him. He is approaching his 80th birthday and considers it middle-age. He’s a fascinating character and it’s difficult to know whether he’s for real, a fraud or a crack-pot. This documentary really doesn’t illuminate which.
Essentially being a “week-in-the-life-of” style documentary, we see nothing outside of the Nakamats bubble. Everything we find out about the man comes from the man. Perhaps I’m just used to more wide-ranging documentaries but I would have appreciated interviews with his family and other inventors, for example. There are a couple of glimpses into what may be the real Dr. Nakamats: an awkward hug with his daughter and upon receiving an electric shaver from his children for his birthday he still elects to get his shave at the barbers.

Wah Do Dem
You do have to give props to the two young directors for getting this made. Good on them for making a feature film with, what is obviously, a very small budget. It’s just a shame it couldn’t be… better.
It has a distinctly low-fi aesthetic; what this means is that it all looks very digital, not crisp and clear visuals, and the sound is murky and hard to make out at some points.
All this could be forgiven if the narrative was in any way interesting to me. It lost me at the start with a set of characters so painfully hip I wanted to slap them. And then none of the guys friends want to go on a free cruise? What's up with that?! So, our main guy (Max) ends up having all of his stuff stolen (pretty much my worst nightmare) in Jamaica and has to begin the cross-island trek to the US Embassy in Kingston. Despite there being a clear goal for our character, the film strangely wanders and drags.
If you can get yourself into the mindframe, I'm sure you'd enjoy this film. I know more than a few people have. I didn't.

Film Fest: Day Eleven

Farewell
A smart, tense espionage film Farewell sheds light on an otherwise unknown tale of the Cold War. Specifically, the events that helped bring about the end of the Cold War. A high-ranking Russian official in the intelligence network begins passing on incredible information, detailing Soviet penetration in the highest reaches of Western governments, to the French in the form of a young engineer stationed in Moscow.
A very atmospheric, if sometimes conventional, spy film the true-story at the heart of it all is amazing enough. There are moments of high tension and sheer disbelief and the film pulls in everyone from the French engineer and his family caught up in the intrigue, to Ronald Reagan and Francois Mitterand.
Our Russian spy is a bear of a man, dancing through the webs of intrigue. He’s not giving away secrets of the State for money, or because he was turned by the West. He’s a Francophile, but is doing this for love of his country. He knows the system is frozen, that the majority of Russian research is merely plundered from the West, and that urgent change is needed. It's a compelling motivation and is really the heart of the film.
Honestly, it's a little difficult for me to write about Farewell. As good as it was (and it was really very good) it was absolutely blown out of the water by my second film of the night...

Winter's Bone
17 year-old Ree is raising her younger brother and sister and looking after her mentally ill mother in rural Missouri. Things are hard enough for her, but then the law comes a-callin’, telling her that her no-good con of a father put the house and property up for his bond. He’s got a week before his court date, or Ree and the family lose the house. Ree ain’t gonna let that happen, so she gets to huntin’ down her pa.
Don’t let the Southern setting and female protagonist fool you – this is a hard-hitting noir film. The places Ree’s got to go, and the people she has to see… well, let’s just say these folk ain’t no good ole’ boys running rings around Boss Hog. These are oftentimes mean and nasty drug cookers, living in tumble-down shacks and farms far from prying eyes. The fact that everyone seems to be related to everyone else means little.
It’s a powerful film, with a tension that sits in your gut and is anchored by the fierce central performance of Jennifer Lawrence as Ree. She’s in almost frame of the film, and never lets up. She’s a young woman with the weight of her family on her back and the temerity to keep them together. Whatever the cost.
It could be considered as a distant Southern cousin to Rian Johnson’s Brick – a noir film outside of a city and the shadows, a protagonist you wouldn’t expect and complete with its own nigh-impenetrable dialect. But where Brick was very stylish, and stylised, this is far more real and dirty. Watching this for the first time is just as astonishing as watching Brick for the first time.
This is a phenomenal film, one of my picks of the Festival and one I want to get people to see. It deserves to be seen on the big screen and I absolutely, thoroughly recommend you get to it if you have the chance.

film Fest: Day Ten

Animation Now!

I’ll be bluntly honest: I was incredibly disappointed with this year’s Animation Now! I haven’t made it to the past couple of years showings, but from when I have gone there are usually at least one or two films that really stick out. Absolutely nothing in this programme of short animated films resonated with me. There are, again, the usual couple of Eastern European films sitting comfortably with the art-wank doodlings that seem to carry no real point to them.
Is Spike & Mike’s Twisted Festival of Animation still going? Why don’t we seem to get anything from there? No more Don Hertzfeld films? Very disappointing.

Teenage Paparazzo
Yes, yes the director, Adrian Grenier of Entourage was in town for this. So, because he’s a famous(ish) actor type it was a sell-out show. With a lot of young girls. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I missed out on the Q & A being posted on the door to stop anyone trying to get back in. Yep. I was Security. Grrr.
As I was also acting as Security on the door beforehand (Karate Chop!) I missed the first few minutes of the film. Easy enough to pick up though. Grenier, in his role as a celebrity and usual target of the paparazzi, came upon this 13 year old kid, Austin, snapping pictures. This fascinated Grenier, so he began documenting Austin at work and at home. The whole thin becomes rather cyclical as Austin becomes a minor celebrity in his own right and Grenier begins hunting him. Grenier manages to get in with some paparazzi and discusses the modern fame obsession with professors, historians and celebrities – actors like Matt Damon and people famous for being famous like Paris Hilton.
Nothing new is really uncovered about the celebrity obsession we have; part of it comes down to monkey evolutionary social dynamics, part of it from the media saturation of the modern age.

The Double Hour
My one and only Festival film up at the Penthouse theatre, The Double Hour was unfortunately a bit of a letdown.
This Italian thriller begins with Sonia, a young maid from Hungary working in a hotel in Turin, cleaning a room just as the occupant leaps to her death. It’s one of many things in the film that is an interesting idea in of itself, but carries little relevance to the overall picture. Sonia meets the dark, mysterious Guido at a speed-dating evening and the two start dating. While out at the wealthy estate where Guido works as a security guard, the two are attacked and the estate robbed. Then things get a little strange for Sonia…
There a few decent jump scares in the second act, but it doesn’t all add up. The reveal at the end of the second act is reasonably easy to figure out and loses some (if not all) of its impact. This second act is especially susceptible to unexplained goings on. While there is something of a reason for this, it really isn’t satisfactory to explain everything.

Film Fest: Day Nine

As we reach the midway point of the Festival, I'm beginning to have trouble remembering what day it is, what time it is or even where I am. That can't be good, right?

Marwencol
This may be my favourite documentary of the Festival thus far. It's the sadly moving tale of Mark Hogencamp, who ten years ago was an alcoholic who got the living crap beaten out of him by five teenagers. He ended up with massive brain damage and memories missing. A talented sketch artist (we see some of his work on what appear to be war comics) before the attack, he has a very unique form of personal therapy. He began his own town. Of dolls.
Marwencol is the small town, the new world, created by Mark in the wake of the attack. It is a WWII era Belgian village, populated by Barbie dolls and large G.I. Joe figures. A number of the residents are the alter-egos of various friends and family members of Mark. He uses the village to work on his fine motor skills and also to work through the trauma of the attack.
Mark seems like a gentle, creative man who no longer needs or wants to drink (perhaps the one upside to the attack. And it is always mentioned as the attack) who occasionally has trouble distinguishing Marwencol from reality. In Marwencol he controls events - his alter ego can be captured and tortured by the SS, but then saved by three gun-toting women - so it's little wonder he feels safer there. He's constantly telling the story and taking photos, really beautiful photos, to help him tell it.
It's a pretty moving tale. If you want to check out more: www.marwencol.com

The Misfortunates
This tale of a (severely) dysfunctional Belgian family, the Strobbes, living in a small village in the 80’s didn’t really do anything for me. I guess you could call it a coming of age tale. And there are moments of non-PC hilarity, but for the most part it is rather depressing.
Gunther lives with his dad and three uncles at his grandmother’s place. All four brothers are such incredible fuck-ups, none of them can afford to have their own place. They're a tight-knit family, possibly because they don't have anyone else, willing to defend Strobbe honour at the drop of a hat. Unless, like the sister, you marry out of the family and no longer call yourself a Strobbe. Then they don't care if your husband beats you. They're misanthropic and misogynistic and there's not a charmer among them.
The film dragged particularly in the middle and the overall pace never managed to keep me engaged. Things seem to wander between Gunther's childhood in this house to adult Gunther, but never in any sort of order or purpose.
It's an... ok film. An average coming-of-age story with a portrait of a very fucked up family. Nothing of it stayed with me after I walked out of the cinema (that could be in part to the amount of films I've seen).

The Room
Majestically, heroically awful. As opposed to the atrocious Birdemic, The Room is watchably bad cinema. Writer/director/producer/star Tommy Wiseau is like an alien combination of van Damme and Schwarzenegger... in a dramatic role. He has some of the same bizarre watchfulness as Arnie, and a weird unplaceable accent. He flicks his long black hair around, mangling language and giving us way too many shots of his bare ass.
There are many, many unexplained events in The Room, and they all add to it's bizarre charm. Well, maybe not charm, as there is some truly horrendous (not so) subtextual messages about women, but... something. Where Birdemic was a really bad film made by someone who seemed to have never watched an actual movie, The Room seems to have been made by Martians who have watched too many films (and soap operas) but fail to understand how real people actually interact.
If you get the chance to watch The Room at a cinema, preferably with a lively audience, I recommend it. There'll be spoon throwing, yelling at the screen and a good time had by all. The Paramount are due to be showing it once a month for the next few months. Get along.

Film Fest: Day Eight

Today was my one day off work entirely: no day-job and no work at the Festival. Just a day to go and watch movies. I certainly don't think I saw as many as I could've (or planned too), but it was nice to have the day off just the same.

HOWL
I'm not familiar with Allen Ginsberg's famous poem, with it's impact or with it's poet. I know the name Ginsberg, but do not know his work. I'll cop to that. HOWL is bio of the poem, and as such we learn little of the man. The script is taken from HOWL, court transcripts and interviews with Ginsberg (played magnificently by James Franco).
The interview talks to us of the lead up to writing HOWL, the process in writing it and little bits of Ginsberg's life. This is intercut with the obscenity trial, which seems a little lifeless at times. A little too stagey. We see nothing of the impact of the poem outside of the courtroom - the focus of the film is so tight, and so intent on not inventing anything, we never really get the full social impact HOWL had. However, it must be commended for not imposing it's own meaning on the work.
The various styles on display make for a kaleidoscopic effect: there is the interview, the writing process and reading in black & white, the trial and segments animated to Franco's reading of HOWL.
This would likely resonate more with someone who knows the poem, who knows Ginsberg and who knows poetry. I enjoyed the film (aside from the random high-pitched whine coming from the theatre's speakers), but I don't think it will have much of a lasting impact on me.

I Love You Phillip Morris
Making the decision to not see a film straight after HOWL, and allowing myself time to sit and have lunch before I Love You Phillip Morris allowed me a chance to catch my breath, albeit briefly, before once again diving into the Festival madness.
I Love You Phillip Morris is a bit of a mad romantic comedy. Jim Carrey is a scary looking con-man, with a whacked out kind of hair do, who falls in love with Ewan McGregor's sweet Phillip Morris in prison.
Similar in tone to Bad Santa, no surprise as the writers of that are the directors here, it doesn't quite match that films outrageous hilariousness. I'm not sure if this has been toned down since it first screened, and I first heard about it, but it doesn't seem overly outrageous. Sure, you still get the full-on shot of Jim Carrey fucking a guy in the ass, but the rest of it seems... I don't know. Maybe it was more my expectations of outrageousness.
In any case, the love story at the heart of it all, is sweet. In a creepy kind of way. Ewan McGregor gives one of his best performances in years, as the sweet and slightly naive Phillip Morris. Jim Carrey's Steven Russell is a little creepy in his utter devotion and obsession with the love of his life. He's a constantly lying con-man, continually ending up in hospital for various reasons.
The comedy is there, never real full belly laughs, but it makes for a more than enjoyably wee film. You're not likely to see a romantic comedy quite like this again.

A Town Called Panic
I don't know if I can fully explain this slice of Belgian insanity. Not in the way that I couldn't explain Enter the Void, but more in the way that to explain this film, to break it down, might detract from your viewing and appreciation of it. I'll try my best and be as brief as possible.
Indian, Cowboy and Horse live together in a small village. It's Horses birthday and Indian & Cowboy have forgotten. They race to get Horse a gift and in so doing set off a chain of events that sees them on many, many adventures. It's a sugar-rush of a insane child-like invention you just have to let yourself go with.
It was the most enjoyably bizarre film I have seen in some time, and one I wanted to watch again straight away. Seek it out.

A Prophet
Continuing the theme of prison films for the week, A Prophet follows Malik, a young French-Arab sent to prison and his life there. Aside from yet another idiotic texter, I found it difficult to get inside the film. Where Animal Kingdom throws you in with the family, I felt like A Prophet kept us at arm's length; possibly because I cannot personally relate to life in prison and that feeling of isolation and having no-one.
The transformation of Malik throughout the film is something phenomenal: it's hard to reconcile the Malik at the end of the film being the Malik at the start the change is that impressive. He gets taken under the wing of some Corsicans, who run the prison, and quickly teaches himself the ins and outs of prison (and criminal) life.
One perfectly wel timed power surge later (cutting power out to most of the surrounding block. Just after I told the stupid texter to stop using her phone) we were up and away again. Things become a little strange when Malik begins seeing Reyeb, an Arab he killed to stay alive and get in good with the Corsicans, and strange flashes of prophecy. It doesn't really gel with the otherwsie realistic film: all grim shades of grey and Malik's scarred body.
It's a great film, a new French crime epic, but it just didn't connect with me. I far more enjoyed Anima Kingdom and Cell 211.

Film Fest: Day Seven

Have taken the day off work to usher at the Embassy. Starting at 12:00pm and not finishing my day until around 1:30am, I think it's safe to say this was my longest day at the Fest so far. What did I get packed in? Why, read on. Read on.

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
I'll be upfront, ballet really isn't my thing. I have a passing fascination in dance, and how dancers can move their bodies and the way in which they can tell a story but that's it really. I'm not familiar with famous dancers, especially famous ballet dancers. But whatever. What La Danse is is a collage of moments from the Paris Opera Ballet. They don't really lead anywhere - there isn't much of a narrative through-line - and so are just there, on the screen. The various scenes are not really building to anything. We see various rehearsals and classes going on, but no real idea of if or when they'll be performed.
It does give a pretty comprehensive glimpse inside the Opera Ballet. There are snapshots from sewers to stage, from studios to rooftops, from the dancers to costumers to Artistic Director.
The Artistic Director, in fact, is the only person we really get to spend any time with. We never get to know any of the dancers, never get a sense of what it's actually like to live and breathe as a ballet dancer. Yes, we see their strength with massive leg muscles holding them up; their almost inhuman grace and flexibility. But we never get a sense of their life. Of how a ballet dancer may start out at the Paris Opera Ballet and progress to being a part of the company and then a star. We get glimpses of some of this type of life, but not much. Certainly not enough for the two and a half hour run-time.
And I think that run-time, and lack of progression, led to the opposite of late-comers: early-leavers.
It's a well shot documentary that allows you a peek inside one of the top ballet companies in the world. Depending on how much ballet interests you will depend on how much you get out of this.

Cell 211
See my write-up from Day Six.

Oceans
Documentaries like this one live or die on their photography. And, boy, does this live. There are absolutely stunning shots throughout, from the ocean floor to a fishing ship being swamped by massive waves.
There is a wide variety of sea-life on display, from cute and cuddly favourites to weird new creatures. And the whole thing is narrated by Pierce Brosnan sounding like a bit of a woolly school-teacher. There's also a bit of anthropomorphic personification in some of the scenes - crabs massing on the sea-floor like armies in a scene to dwarf anything from Lord of the Rings; otters relaxing on the waves like Florida retirees and a neighborhood stoush between a crab and a shrimp. While this helps make the film more watchable for the kiddies, the aspect of death is not shied away from: baby turtles are shown being picked off by waiting birds.
The whole comes across as a kind of soft-activism. It tugs at your heart more than it engages with your mind. I'm not putting this type of film-making activism down, merely pointing out what this film is.
Oh, and there's a truly awfully horrendous Disney song at the end.

Lebanon
Claustrophobic. That would be the one word review of Lebanon. And seeing it in the Bergman theatre at the Paramount just adds to that feeling - it's such a small theatre, you feel crammed in with the main characters.
The reason the film is so claustrophobic is it follows an Israeli tank crew during the Lebanon war. The entire film, bar bookending shots, is inside the tank. All shots of the exterior are shown through the limited view-scope of the tank. We are crammed in with these frightened young men, as they crack under various pressures. As with many other films in the Festival, the tension is ratcheted up and the pace keeps you off-balance: just like these poor recruits.
It's exceptional cinema, and one I need to revisit. Part of that is I found myself pulled out of the action, pulled out of the tank, by a jackass on a cellphone a couple of seats down from me. Lebanon is the type of film where you're thrown in with the characters, as disoriented as them, and to be pulled out of that by some dumbass who can't wait two hours to text someone is grating to say the least.
This is a film that should be brought back for general release: it deserves to be seen on a cinema screen. Just without the cellphones.

Enter the Void
I'm really not too sure what I can say about Gaspar Noe's latest mindfuck. I certainly don't "get" it. But then, I don't know if it can be completely "got".
Noe loves to fuck with your eyeballs and the opening credits are a dizzying array of strobing colours and fonts. From there we have a POV of Oscar, a low level drug dealer in Tokyo, as he heads out into town and is shot by police. We flash through events in his life, and events that lead him to his death and then POV of his spirit watching over the fallout.
That's a very quick summation of it all, I'm sure there's more stuff around the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but that pretty much sums it up. And it goes on for well over two and a half hours. Add that all the characters are absolutely awful people, constant strobing effects and that the final segment is far too long and self-indulgently wanky and you have a very, very difficult film to watch. I certainly won't see another film like it, especially at the cinema, but I don't really know if I like it. I don't hate it. But I don't like it either. I certainly couldn't recommend it to anyone.
The visuals on offer are indeed stunning but I can do without anymore strobing effects thanks. It's repetitive, challenging, obtuse, art-wank, beautiful, scary, maybe brilliant and maybe bullshit. I can't recommend you watch it, and I say you have to make up your own mind with this one. But, for me, I think if I want to watch a crazy film with fantastic visuals that deals with death, I'll rewatch The Fountain.

Film Fest: Day Six

Kawasaki Rose
You could almost think of this as the Czech The Lives of Others; a country still coming to terms with it's days under Soviet rule and the constant surveillance of the Secret Police. But while The Lives of Others was placed in the time during Soviet rule, Kawasaki Rose is placed in the modern day where the secrets of the past arguably carry more weight.
This was, again, a film I had an initial trouble becoming involved. I'm sure that is, in part, to ushering it and having to usher late-comers to seats. That's alright, comes with the volunteering. My main issue was with one of the main characters. The son-in-law of a hero of the Velvet Revolution, who works as a sound man on a film crew shooting a documentary about said hero and father-in-law, he's a bit of a selfish asshole. And by "a bit", I mean unrepentant: the guy's wife is just getting out of hospital and he's dicking around on her, and decides to tell her when she's still recovering. It does all tie, thematically as well as plot-wise though. He projects his insecurities onto his father-in-law and it is because of this asshole, and the documentary, that some secrets come to light. Secrets that could destroy the family and everything the father has worked for.
Once the focus shifts away from this guy and onto his wife and daughter, things definitely improve. I'm still considering this film and would enjoy seeing it again, from start to finish. I'm not sure if it fully connected with me, but there's something there. Something in this story of secrets, lies, betrayal and redemption.

Cell 211
Holy shit am I glad this was at the Festival. I had no idea what to expect with this when I rocked on in, and boy. It's the type of film I wouldn't imagine coming back for a cinema release (unfortunately), but it's Hollywood remake would. And it's a film with such a great, simple premise I'm almost surprised it wasn't made in the Siegel/Bruckheimer heyday: the new guard at a prison comes for a visit the day before he's due to start. While there a prison riot starts and he has to pretend he's an inmate to survive.
BAM. There it is, your concept all wrapped up for you. This is high-grade B movie stuff, a high-concept prison thriller, made with such precision and skill it grabs hold and doesn't let up. Juan is our nominal hero, the prison guard who finds himself in the middle of the riot, and he's the audience identification character. At first, he's pretending to be an inmate to survive, but he gets pulled deeper and deeper into the situation and the violent men behind the riot.
Juan is like the Ethan Hawke character in Training Day, a young family man caught up in a crazy situation. And while you can identify with Hawke, you're really there to watch Denzel. And Cell 211's Denzel, and secret weapon, is Luis Tosar's Malamadre. The leader of the prison riot and a magnetic, violent presence. Sounding like he's smoked fifty packs of cigarettes a day for twenty years, with his shaven head and beetle-eyebrows he commands instant respect and fear in the prison. He seems to take Juan under his wing and may even start to consider him a friend. But what happens when he finds out the truth?
The growing tension becomes palpable as Daniel Monzon places his characters in prime situations for things to go wrong. The stakes keep getting raised for Juan, and you're ultimately unsure what side he's going to end up on. The film may raise some questions around the treatment of prisoners, but it's less concerned with that than having you on the edge of your seat. I even found myselff what the heel could possiblyy happen next when I saw it again the next day.
It's a damn cracking film, and I am very glad the Festival saw fit to include it in the program. Maybe it's not a serious minded film, with oblique references and disorienting camera-work (or, as Cartman would put it: "a bunch of gay cowboys sitting around eating chocolate pudding") but I'm glad I got to see this at a cinema. I think it's right up there with other fantastic Spanish genre films of late like Timecrimes. Check it out if you can. Before Hollywood get a hold of it.

Film Fest: Day Five

After feeling like I went 0 to 150mph in terms of film watching, I felt like I got my second wind today. And it was a relatively light day for me today; just work and then two films. Two films?! Feh! Beginner’s stuff! Which isn’t to say today at the Festival was not without its fair share of running around like a loon. I did a bit of a numpty thing and got the start time wrong for I Killed My Mother – it started later than I thought. But I managed to fill the time helping usher down at the Paramount. Why not, yeah?

I Killed My Mother
This is the first film from French Canadian writer, director & lead actor Xavier Dolan. He’s 20 years old and already has a second film out. Are you feeling a little sick after reading that? It’s ok. That’s normal.
For a first film, it's remarkably confident - precocious and more than a little pretentious, but confident. It concerns a teenage son and his single mother. They, to put it nicely, don't really get along. They can barely have a conversation without it eventually turning into a screaming match. And sure, he's an intelligent angsty teen who's a bit of a selfish asshole, but she's no picnic either. It's a stressful watch at times. Just as things between them seem to have settled, BOOM! One of them sets the other off and we're away screaming.
This by no means makes it a slog - it's an often beautiful film with moments of humour and you're constantly wondering where this relationship is going to end up. At times you're hopeful they can sort things out between them, other times you just want them to get as far away from one another as they possibly can. They love each other, but they can't stand one another.
The direction is playful at times, with Dolan playing with different stylistic flourishes and framing. It straddles an interesting line between a first-time feature director finding his voice, and an amazingly assured film. It's one I wouldn't mind checking out again and Dolan is cetainly a director to watch.
The second the film finished I had to race my ass back down to the Paramount to help put in…

Scheherazade, Tell me a Story
A (surprisingly) sell out show this one. I had no idea so many people would be interested in this. So, a sell out show mean absolutely all seats are full. Oh, except for those late-comers. Those late-comers whose seats are in the middle of a row.
The film itself was, like those seats in the middle of the full row, a little hard to get into. That mainly lay with the different cinematic language. I'm not talking about the language spoken by the characters, I'm talking about the language of the film. It's cut in such a way that it looks slightly off to Western eyes. I'm told other Middle Eastern films have this similar style, which is why it's like another language. Interesting to view and appreciate, but a little distancing for me.
The Scheherazade of the film is Hebba, a late-night TV host in Cairo known for her political attacks. Her husband and other want her to tone the show down (at least until her husband can score a political appointment). She does so by telling three stories over three nights. Stories that explore the position of women in modern Egyptian society. These at first delight, and then inflame.
I was surprised as to how much of the run time was taken up with the stories; it certainly feels like the majority. Each story explored a different exploitation of women, of wives, and it was difficult for me as a Westerner to understand the attitudes. They are perhaps not all too dissimilar from attitudes still prevalent in the West, especially in more conservative areas.
I think the film was intended to be politcal; to show Egyptians this side of their society. To open their eyes to the daily fear and suffering some women go through. I fear that conservatives may view as further proof that women need to be more tightyl controlled.