MIFF 2009 Day 11 - 3/8/09

Still unwell, I missed Film is a Girl & a Gun and Dogtooth, and there was a no-show by Claire Denis for her talk with Philippa Hawker. On the strength of Beau travail, one of my favourite French films, I just couldn't miss 35 Shots of Rum.

• 35 rhums (35 Shots of Rum, Claire Denis, France/Germany, 2008)
  

35 Shots of Rum
I sense that there's a lot more I could write about this film than I will, because I don't have the time to ponder and research it. It's clearly a very personal film for Denis, who was due to introduce it and attend a Q&A, but didn't show. Apparently she's preparing her latest film for screening in competition at Venice. But Michelle Carey conveyed a few words about the film, and how the story basically is about her grandmother who died, leaving her grandfather to raise her mother.

This is another 'quietly satisfying' film that is observational and captures some of the minutiae within relationships. A father and daughter struggle to let go of each other, each pursues another or is pursued. People make advances, counter advances, there are rejections. Love, pain, it's all there.