MIFF 2009 Day 6 - 29/7/09

• Aruitemo aruitemo (Still Walking, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2008)
• Red Riding: 1980 (James Marsh, UK, 2009)
• Tatarak (Sweet Rush, Andzrej Wajda, Poland, 2009)
  

Still Walking
MIFF held a Kore-eda retrospective a couple of years ago and I think I saw them all, or maybe I missed one. Consequently, I was keen to see this latest effort and wasn't disappointed. Basically, it's a day in the lives of a family that unite (begrudgingly) each year to observe the death of a family member thirteen years earlier.

The son, daughter and their respective families travel to the home of their parents, an aging and retired doctor and his wife. It's summer and straight away I'm reminded of Olivier Assayas' sublime Summer Hours, especially the opening scene which similarly depicts the various dispersed branches of a family in an infrequent rural get-together in the family home. While Assayas' film procedes to explore other themes, Kore-eda's remains very much in the small details of the inter-family interactions.

Kore-eda is a very talented director. It is the observational nature of the film in capturing details of otherwise very ordinary people that makes this film a delight to watch. It feels almost a privilege to be privy to their lives, to see what makes them tick. It reminded me of a funeral I attended a couple of years ago for the father of a work colleague. I knew not the deceased man but attended to support my work pal, who had shown me support in various ways after my son's passing. At the funeral, I heard various eulogies that brought tears to my eyes as I received some insights into this man's life. And so I felt with this film, which becomes a meditation on the nature of relationships and ultimately, their passing.

Still Walking is a quietly satisfying film, certainly no headline act, but the type and quality of film I look forward to each year at MIFF, largely because this is the only time of year we get to see films like it. If quiet, nuanced, insightful, contemplative cinema is your thing, you'll want to see it.

Red Riding: 1980
As expected, with James Marsh at the helm, this is a big improvement over the previous instalment (Red Riding: 1974). The story seems to have a closer alignment to the Yorkshire killings, plays out with more realism and is more convincing all-round. Paddy Considine puts in a good performance and all-in-all, this ain't a bad genre film. I'm now looking forward to the final instalment, 1983, tomorrow.

BTW, while there are some slight connections between this and the previous film, you don't need to have seen the earlier one at all. This is self-contained.

Sweet Rush
It's Wajda in his twilight years; old age is here and death can't be too far away. And so it is with this film, a very strange creature indeed, that requires some further information to glean its meaning. It mixes a film's fiction with events taking place in the life of the film's protagonist and we switch between different 'realities'.

Technically, the talent is obvious and the visuals are very nice. A bit more narrative clarity would have been nice. By the end, I had some idea of what it's about and, if you ever consider seeing it, make sure you read up about it first.

The Week in Review - 5/7/09

Circumstances conspired to enable me to see more films than usual this week. First, there's been an abundance of films worth seeing: Melbourne Cinémathèque, of course, but also ACMI's Focus on Girls 24/7 and advance screenings that I didn't want to miss. Also, it's school holidays, which means I have a two-week break from my Alliance Française classes and on top of that, with conflict in the home, what better to avoid stress than sit in a dark cinema? Don't worry, it's a long story. A very long story.

FILMS:

• Coco avant Chanel (Anne Fontaine, France, 2009)
• Cztery noce z Anna (Four Nights With Anna, Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France, 2008)
• Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, UK/West Germany, 1971)
• Winged Creatures + Q&A (Rowan Woods, USA, 2008)
• Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cleo From 5 to 7, Agnès Varda, France/Italy, 1962)
• Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Jeanne Dielman, Chantal Akerman, Belgium/France, 1975)
• Balibo (Robert Connolly, Australia, 2009)
• Wanda (Barbara Loden, Barbara Loden, USA, 1970)
  

Coco avant Chanel
I'm loathe to cricitice a film like this. It's like many I see that are well-made, technically proficient and yet do nothing for me. I'm simply not part of the more mainstream target audience that will revel in the drama, the period and the background to this iconic character. I don't find that her life is that interesting and that she never married is no great accomplishment.

Four Nights With Anna
This film does so well what I love about Eastern European cinema: it looks absolutely beautiful (in a decaying sort of way - check out my profile, urban decay is one of my interests) and its minimalist story-telling leaves one guessing. The film does have Hitchcockian elements and you feel that the director is messing with your expectations. This is my first experience of Skolimowski, so I'm interested to see the other Cinémathèque screenings to get a sense of what he's about.

Deep End
Having discussed this elsewhere, I don't really feel like regurgitating much of this. I liked it, it's historically fascinating, a kind of document of its time. As I was discussing with someone last night, it seemed to do for 1970s London (by a Pole) what Wake in Fright did for outback Australia (by a Canadian). Both films seem very frank and truthful analyses of their respective settings by so-called outsiders.

Winged Creatures
I don't care what Rowan Woods produces; anyone that can make a The Boys has won my respect. For me, the uncompromising brilliance and edge-of-your-seat suburban terror of that film indicates unusual talent. I took the opportunity of telling him after the Q&A that The Boys is a film that he can probably never equal. I know a director is focused on the current and upcoming projects, but the truth has to be said.

It can be easy to fault Winged Creatures and Matt Ravier has done an excellent job of pointing them out, though I don't feel the faults are as fatal as he. During the Q&A, Woods seemed to acknowledge some of the flaws himself, and knew that an ensemble film is inherently difficult.

As much as I would love Rowan Woods to make films like The Boys, I suppose every director wants his or her films to be seen, to make money and to make work for future work. Maybe Woods doesn't see a future in uncompromising bleak social dramas. So what we have now are compromised bleak social dramas.

Winged Creatures is a more ambitious project than his previous endeavour, Little Fish. First, it was made in Los Angeles with a fairly high-profile cast that includes Forest Whitaker, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Hudson, Guy Pearce, Jeanne Tripplehorn and others. It's visually a nicer film to look at and the themes are also more interesting. So, I feel it's an improvement on Little Fish.

The film is clearly looking for an audience, and compromises have been made to succeed in that direction. As Matt Ravier points out, there is little subtlety and little is left to chance that the audience won't understand the narrative each step of the way. It makes the film accessible to a wider audience but, as with Coco avant Chanel, this is not what I look for in cinema.

I liked the themes the film explores. Various survivors of a random shooting in a diner try to come to terms with their trauma, each in their own way. Dakota is chilling as a born-again Christian and her final transformation is very moving. But her initial transformation is just too over-the-top. I was surprised how gripping the film starts out. Unfortunately, the ensemble structure diffuses the opening dynamics and the film gradually loses momentum.

Cleo From 5 to 7
I found this rivetting. At first, it seemed to have the frivolity (sans the experimental nature) of Daisies, also screening as part of the ACMI Focus on Girls 24/7 and which I saw at Melbourne Cinémathèque a year or two ago as part of the Czech New Wave program. Clèo is a young female singer with a sort of princess bitch syndrome a la Daisies. As she wanders the streets of Paris, with concerns other than the latest hat or shoes (she may have cancer), the film takes on an element that strongly recalles Louis Malle's Le feu follet. Like Malle's film, the protagonist's journey takes us on a walking tour of the back-streets of Paris, but without anywhere near the level of bleakness of Le feu follet's Alain Leroy. Interestingly, these films were made about a year apart (Clèo was made first).

The 5 to 7 refers to two hours in an evening of Clèo's life, depicted in real-time, as she worries about her hospital test results, interacting with various people.

Jeanne Dielman
Is this the film that inspired Van Sant's Gerry? Two very different films, different scenarios and aesthetics, yet strangely parallel. Sure, one is set in mountain and desert regions as two Gerrys try to find their way; the other about a widow/housewife/mother-cum-prostitute who is trying to find her way.

This film is an amazing and confident accomplishment for the young Akerman (she was 25 when this was made). Like Gerry, it demands much of an audience. You must submit to it, to its pace, to its rhythm. You have to get into another mode of experiencing cinema. In Akerman's film, the camera is static virtually the whole time, and the subject is banal beyond belief. We view Jeanne as she cooks, cleans, tidies and receives clients. Takes are long, no detail is left unseen. The story takes place over three days, and each day seems superficially much like the previous.

Yet there's change we can't help noticing. We are not privy to Jeanne's inside world, which is clearly conflicted, but we can deduce this by the slight ripples in her daily rituals. She has decent middle-class standards and yet a pragmatic need to survive financially, which she achieves through prostitution. This film rewards the patient and I was surprised to see only one walk-out during its 200 minute run-time.

Balibo
This is the film that opens MIFF in a couple of week's time and I was lucky to attend a media preview, introduced by the director. I was thinking it was the closing film and I mentioned to someone that it would make a good opening night film, which of course it is - silly me! The buzz coming out of the screening was palpable, with some saying it's not just another good Australian film, but one of the best films of the year. Refer to my comments about Chanel.

I like the film, in fact parts of the film I like a lot. Firstly, Australian films rarely touch political issues, but this is one political issue - a tumour in the nation's psyche - that has festered for way too long and needs to come out into the open. In a sense, the film confirms that which we always knew, or at least suspected. It demands questions, but doesn't necessarily ask them, if you get my drift. It leads us to water but doesn't make us drink, trusting an audience to understand the issues, without ramming them down our throats.

The performances are generally good, especially Oscar Isaac as a young and charismatic José Ramos-Horta (now the president of East Timor). The film has a couple of problems, the main one being coherency. There are different narrative threads, taking place in different time frames and the film's effectiveness is, as I mentioned with Winged Creatures, diffused by the parallel handling of the threads. Despite this, the film manages to rise above the flaws, and present what feels not just worthy, but important. It involves us in events that are historic and relevant, in an authentic way. The film is particularly effective in its bringing the story to a climax; it's very moving without cheap sentimentality.

For a more positive and extensive response to the film, check out Matt Ravier's review.

Wanda
What a remarkable piece of film-making - they don't make 'em like this any more! With grainy 16mm film and an aesthetic that strongly recalls Cassavetes, we just don't see enough of films like this. Barbara Loden directed and played the main role, a raw depiction of a woman with not a lot going for her. Divorced as an irresponsible mother with no regard for her children, she takes up with a thief and finds her situation going into downward spiral. The revelation of characters, in particular the thief, is both clever and funny. There is a truthfulness to the depictions that is chilling and awesome.

Skolimowski at Cinémathèque

Poetry, Paradox, Politics: The Film of Jerzy Skolimowski
Screening at ACMI, July 1 - 15

The Melbourne Cinémathèque is proud to present, in association with The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, & the Australian Institute of Polish Affairs, a season of films from one of Poland’s greatest living directors, Jerzy Skolimowski.

Commencing July 1, this season of specially imported 35mm prints provides a provocative sample of Skolimowski’s politically explosive filmmaking trajectory. Skolimowski, who is also a screenwriter, actor and poet, was an accomplished writer by his early twenties. His love of jazz added another dimension to his restless filmmaking style, particularly his penchant for improvisation, and brought him into contact with composer Krzysztof Komeda. Skolimowski has also collaborated with filmmakers of the “Polish School” including Andrej Wajda and Roman Polanski.

Long and tangled threads of irony, absurdity, poetry and fantasy link the deeply political work of Skolimowski, a director whose career spans five decades and who made films in several countries. This season includes his semi-autobiographical Andrej Leszczyc trilogy [Identification Marks: None (Ryopsis) (1964), Walkover (1965) and Skolimowski’s favourite of his own work, Hands Up! (1967/1981)], his stylistically inventive Barrier (1966), key works of his non-Polish career [Deep End (1971), Moonlighting (1982)], as well as the Melbourne premiere of Four Nights With Anna (2008), his return to filmmaking after a 16-year hiatus. Screening as follows:


Wednesday July 1

• 7.00pm Four Nights with Anna (2008)
• 8.40pm Skolimowski early shorts: Oko wykol (The Menacing Eye, 2", 1960), ErotykErotique, 3", 1960), Hamles (Little Hamlet, 9", 1960), Pieniadze albo zycie (Your Money or Your Life, 5", 1961)
• 9.00pm Deep End (1971)
  

Wednesday July 8

• 7.00pm Identification Marks: None (Ryopsis, 1964)
• 8.25pm Walkover (1965)
• 9.55pm Barrier (1966)
  

Wednesday July 15

• 7.00pm Moonlighting (1982)
• 8.50pm Hand

• s Up! (1967/1981)

Link: The Age article by Jake Wilson

The Week in Review - 2/11/08

FILM:

• La sentinelle (Arnaud Desplechin, France, 1992)
• En jouant 'Dans la compagnie des hommes' (Playing "In the Company of Men", Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2003)
• Etz Limon (Lemon Tree, Eran Riklis, Israel/Germany/France, 2008)
• Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (The Saragossa Manuscript, Woyciech Has, Poland, 1965)

DVD:

• Ischeznuvshaya imperiya (Vanished Empire, Karen Shakhnazarov, Russia, 2008)

Desplechin's La sentinelle & Playing "In the Company of Men"
It occurred to me within the last couple of days, that my experience with the cinema of Arnaud Desplechin somewhat mirrors my discovery of the music of REM. I first heard them in 1992, when Losing My Religion was blitzing the airwaves. At the time, I was losing my religion and, though the song has nothing to do with that, it took on special meaning for me. Yet when I first heard it, I couldn't work out if I loved it or hated it. I now understand that REM's music is so densely multi-layered, working simultaneously on different levels, and it was so unlike any music I was accustomed to, that I was unable to digest it immediately. In fact, I heard the song some 40 or more times before I started to realise that I absolutely loved it. It became my favourite song for many years, and REM remain one of my favourite bands.

It's too soon to say that Desplechin will have a similar effect on me, but I get the sense that his work is so dense, so complex, so unique that I have no common reference points, no easy way of digesting everything that is projected on-screen. Having seen two of his films last week, I was a bit more prepared this week, and I felt more at ease with his work. At ease? It's not something you really feel for Desplechin's films, but I can't think how better to explain myself.

La sentinelle is an elusive film (aren't they all?), Playing "In the Company of Men" less so. I enjoyed them both, but like last week's films, I feel I need to see them again to digest them. I like Desplechin's films, I'm fascinated by them, but I can't say yet that I'm at the point I got to with REM. I do not yet love them.

Lemon Tree
Superficially, this is the type of film one typically sees at the Como. It's a fairly standard piece, a David versus Goliath, with a Palestinian widow going head-to-head against the Israeli Defense Minister, who orders the latter's 50 year old lemon grove be demolished in case it provides cover to terrorists. What raises it above the normal pulp is that it represents a shift in Israeli cinema that allows for a bit more honest introspection. It questions the morality of modern Israeli security policies such as the building of the wall (reminiscent of Berlin, and everything that wall represented), forced evacuations and destruction of Palestinian properties. The film didn't completely win me over, but I was impressed by its honesty. It's worth a look.

The Saragossa Manuscript
An absurdist piece, reminiscent of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and made around the same period. I like absurdist cinema, but this one is very long, and it really demands repeat viewings to digest it all. It contains stories within stories within stories, and not meant to be understood. One character even admits to being confused by the convoluted stories himself. It was OK, but I can't see myself rushing to watch it again anytime soon.

MIFF Day 16

Sat 9 August
Pora umierac (Time to Die, Dorota Kedzierzawska, Poland, 2007)
Hîrtia va fi albastrã (The Paper Will Be Blue, Radu Muntean, Romania, 2007)
Sztuczki (Tricks, Andrzej Jakimowski, Poland, 2007)
De la guerre (On War, Bertrand Bonello, France, 2008)


Time to Die
A nice looking film with it's gorgeous black and white cinematography and photogenic subjects (an elderly woman in her deteriorating home and a border collie dog). Somehow, it all seemed a bit too twee. The director played it safe and pulled all the sentimental strings he could. At this stage of the festival, it didn't grab my interest particularly. It's the kind of film that could do well at the Palace Como cinema.

The Paper Will Be Blue
The Romanian Wave films continue to impress and this one is right up there. It has an aesthetic similar to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days though, rather than a social drama, this is a war/political thriller. It depicts Bucharest at the peak of civil unrest and during the revolution that culminated in the overthrow of the communist dictatorship of Ceaucescu. Some of the politics are a little opaque to non-Romanian audiences, which I didn't mind. What was evident was the confusion, mistrust and general peril in the streets.

The film starts with a tragic outcome that the rest of the film leads up to. We follow a military unit as one member attempts to join the revolution, and as his comrades struggle through the urban chaos to bring him back. The film has the realist/documentary feel of many of the Romanian new wave films. We get glimpses into the everyday lives of the protagonists, betraying the director's humanist approach to the subject. The film is a testament to the events of the era. Highly recommended.

Tricks
A Polish social drama with a slight hint of understated black comedy. This would be a good film for culturally aware adults to take their children to (but it's not part of MIFF's New Gen stream, so kids weren't allowed). The film looks nice with its depictions of family life in impoverished provincial Poland. I would have enjoyed it more outside of the festival context.

On War
This is a very unusual film, and that's a good thing. It's not a conventional story and it's not conventionally told. A film-maker is unfulfilled and stumbles into a cult that transforms his life. He leaves his life as he knew it and things get both weird and potentially dangerous. The film looks great, is unpredictable but I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have due to fatigue. It was at this point that I decided to make it my last festival film. I was planning to see A Christmas Tale on the final day. Better to get a day's rest before I return to work.

MIFF Days 2 - 7

We're a week into MIFF, and I've only written about the Opening Night film, Not Quite Hollywood. Fatigue, time (or lack of) and the realisation that I have to get to bed by 1am have prevented me from writing as promptly as last year (as I recollect, I did a write up every night, no matter the time - crazy!). I must say, I made a big mistake this year. I went to Opening Night with not enough sleep, and have struggled since. I'm trying to catch up now, but it's difficult. Memo to self: next year make sure you're well-rested before the festival starts.

Day 2: Sat 26 July
A fost sau n-a fost? (12:08 East of Bucharest, Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2006)
Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, Australia, 1978)

Day 3: Sun 27 July
Vikaren (The Substitute, Ole Bornedal, Denmark, 2007)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada, 2007)
Of Time and the City (Terence Davies, UK, 2008)

Day 4: Mon 28 July
Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land, Teresa Prata, Portugal/Mozambique, 2006)
Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs, USA, 2008)
Katyn (Andrej Wajda, Poland, 2007)

Day 5: Tue 29 July
El Baño del Papa (The Pope's Toilet, Enrique Fernandez, Cesar Charlone, Uruguay/Brazil/France, 2007)
Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mister Lazarescu, Alexandru Munteanu, Romania, 2005)

Day 6: Wed 30 July
Bam gua nat (Night and Day, Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2008)
Élève libre (Private Lessons, Joachim Lafosse, Belgium/France, 2008)
40 x 15: The 40 Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight (Olivier Jahan, France, 2008)
Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong, 2008)

Day 7: Thu 31 July
Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (My Marlon and Brando, Huseyin Karabey, Turkey, 2008)
Qing mei zhu ma (Taipei Story, Edward Yang, Taiwan, 1985)


12:08 East of Bucharest
This is a quietly satisfying film. It starts out as an ensemble drama with understated dry wit and somewhere along the way - I'm not sure when - it becomes a black comedy. The film documents the impact of the fall of the Ceacescu dictatorship on a micro level, analysing social changes, people's recollections and how lies are perpetuated. I'm making a point to see as many of the Romanian films screening at MIFF, and this was a good start.

Long Weekend
Screening as part of the Ozploitation stream, I'd heard good things about this film. With a low budget and a cast of two, despite its obvious flaws, this is a film that has much to admire and enjoy. Director Eggleston is able to maintain a high level of suspense without dialogue for long stretches. I liked the film and the missus really loved it.

The Substitute
I took the kid to see this, and while I didn't think it had anything scarier than a Harry Potter movie, there was one scene that unsettled him to the point that he started crying (he's 7 years old) and the missus had to take him out. Aside from that, I found the film fairly clumsy, like many Australian or German films. It felt like an Australian kids flick you might see after school on the ABC. It also seemed quite derivative (from parts of Men in Black). It has, however, won overseas awards as a children's film. It has funny moments, but I found it unsatisfying as either a children's film or as a film in general.

My Winnipeg
This ode to Guy Maddin's hometown reminded me of a film I watched online on Matt Clayfield's blog a while ago, but be damned if I can find it. This is the second Maddin film I've seen, after Brand Upon the Brain at MIFF last year. In the context of a film festival, I like the unconventional nature of Maddin's work, though this one is not as gripping as last year's title. Still, it's worth a look.

Of Time and the City
I found this pretty dull, perhaps a made-for-TV BBC documentary. Because I set up my MIFF schedule and forget what each film is about, I often go into the cinema without a clue of what I'm about to see. It took me quite some time to work out that this film is an homage to the director's hometown Liverpool. I found the narrative using mostly prose, including quotes from a wide range of writers like Jung and Engels, distancing. With a short run time of 72 minutes, I still found myself looking at my watch waiting for the end.

Sleepwalking Land
This film looks good and had some good elements, but just didn't work for me. I found it's narrative too clunky, too contrived. The dynamics between the actors just didn't seem quite right and I couldn't believe in the story.

Momma's Man
Low budget indie US film-making that aspires for the transcendence of Old Joy, replete with subtle political messages. Not bad, but doesn't achieve Old Joy's peaks.

Katyn
Wow, this film packs a punch. It looks great (with the same cinematographer from Polanski's The Pianist and Oliver Twist). Like other Polish films I've liked (including others by Wajda and also early Kieslowski), there's historical and political references that may seem a little oblique to non-Polish audiences. If anything, that only piques my interest to learn more about them. Perhaps more of a problem, though, are some of the relationship dynamics that I didn't completely work out - it'll take another viewing to clarify some of them for me.

Nonetheless, this is a powerful film that was clearly a very personal project - it depicts the World War 2 massacre that took the life of Wajda's own father and clearly impacted not just many of the films he has made, but his whole life. It certainly shows that the Soviets were not benevolent dictators but rather treacherous murderers who colluded with the Nazis for their own ends. Massively popular in Poland and that's country's entry for this year's Oscars, hopefully it will get a local release. This was the first stand-out film at the festival for me.

The Pope's Toilet
An enjoyable enough dark comedy that captures the social and cultural life of poverty in an Uruguayan village as it prepares for the visit of the Pope. The ending is somewhat predictable but it's the journey that is more satisfying.

The Death of Mister Lazarescu
This is the kind of film I want to see at a festival, or any time for that matter. A film like this would never be made in the West, yet it is as universal as any film could be. Who would think a story that follows an obsese and drunken slob through the last hours of his existence could be so compelling? With long takes, the film has a documentary look and feel very similar to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, my favourite cinema release of 2007.

The film is an damning indictment, not just of Romanian bureaucracy, but of the failings of hospitals everywhere. In all its minute detail and documenting of hospital admissions, I could see no material difference between how we operate here on the other side of the globe in a much more affluent society. Perhaps the only departure from Australian society is that we could more reliably expect an ambulance when needed.

Like 4 Months, this film has a fly-on-the-wall feel to it, as we get a glimpse into this poor man's life: how he lives, what is family situation is, who his neighbours are and how his addiction to alcohol is about to lead to a descent into bureaucratic hell as he is shunted from one hospital to another. Must-see cinema at its finest!

Night and Day
Pardon me now, and for the rest of my mini-reviews of MIFF films, if I become repetitive in my use of the term "quietly satisfying". For that is how I found this film, as I did with the director's Woman on the Beach, which screened at MIFF last year. A Korean guy flees to Paris to avoid possible arrest for possession of marijuana. Not seeking to absorb French life in any way, he simply bides his time and we see a foreigner's experience of Paris as he hooks up with various compatriots. While I've been a little disappointed with my overall selection of films so far, this one is enjoyable and - wait for it - quietly satisfying.

Private Lessons
I should not have gone into this film with the high expectations I did. But I couldn't help it: after the director's magnificent Private Property, my favourite film at last year's French Film Festival, this is one of only two films that this year I decided I must see. It is not a bad film, but lacks something that his early film had.

Both films have a common theme: boys growing up without their fathers. While Private Property was extremely restrained and understated, Private Lessions goes for the jugular and puts to the fore, transgression that is only hinted at in Private Property. The film looks good and has some good elements. I think it lacks subtlety. Perhaps after Christophe Honoré's Ma mère (My Mother), it is a little too predictable and a little too contrived. Still, if you like transgressive and challenging cinema, this is a good film to see.

40 x 15: The 40 Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight
I suppose this is a reasonable festival selection considering the Directors' Fortnight stream at this year's MIFF. It was interesting enough, but nothing compelling that says you've gotta go out and see it. It covers how the DF came into being, its rocky history and where it is now.

Ashes of Time Redux
This film is all style and very little substance. It's a story in the vein of Zhang Yimou's martial arts spectaculars though with Wong Kar Wai's vivid and impressionistic visuals. I found the story very confusing and would need to see it again to understand it better, but there's no way I'd want to see it again, regardless of how good it looks. There's some good humour there, especially the way the film at times resembles or emulates the American Western genre. For me, the film is meh.

My Marlon and Brando
An interesting film that is not spectacular in any way but holds much interest for its depiction of a Turkish woman who tries to travel to Kurdish Iraq to hook up with her lover. It's 2003 and the US has just invaded Iraq, and she has to go via Iran. What I found most compelling was the difference in social mores as she travelled from one country to another. Turkey is really progressive compared to some of the places she went.

Taipei Story
I found this disappointing after all the hype surrounding Edward Yang. The film is austere, with minimal dialogue or narrative exposition. Generally, this is a quality I admire and it's on display in a MIFF film I liked a lot more, The Death of Mister Lazarescu. In Taipei Story, I found it kept me confused for way too long and I failed to understand the nature of the relationships between some of the central characters.

The Week in Review

With the French Film Festival starting this week, I could see only one window of opportunity to see the much-acclaimed The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, a Melbourne production that is aptly (if not unusually) screening at the Malthouse Theatre. I planned to leave work at 4pm on Friday, leaving me plenty of time for the 5pm screening. Unfortunately I got held up by my boss and arrived at the Malthouse at 5.02pm to find that I'd been locked out. This is something I'd never experienced before, certainly not at any cinema. My calendar is really full at the moment and this was the only screening I could fit in. Disappointed? You bet. Ironically, I expect that a 5pm Friday session would have been near empty.

FILMS:

• Macbeth (Roman Polanski, UK/USA, 1971)
• Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water, Roman Polanski, Poland, 1962)
• The Black Balloon (Elissa Down, Australia, 2008)

Macbeth
I had some anticipation in seeing this magnificent portrayal of treachery, a film I first saw in my teens when we covered the text in English. It left a strong impression on me, and I remembered it as a cold and bloody film. Some thirty-odd years later and it has certainly withstood the test of time. I haven't read Shakespeare since my school days, but the guy was brilliant, and Polanski certainly brings the text to life.

I loved the graphic and repugnant depictions of the witches, bookended with the spell at the start and the coven at the end. The murder scenes were fantastically gory, and one wonders what effect the then recent murders of Polanski's pregnant wife and three of his friends by the Manson gang had on the making of the film. The story effectively portrays the changes that occur when one commits a crime out of greed. Things don't go to plan and for Lady Macbeth, the result was insanity. My favourite scene is Macbeth's vision of Banquo's ghost at his dinner table.

Knife in the Water
Polanski's first film, and the only one made in his native Poland, I found it a fascinating look into the director's early work. While the tone and narrative are clearly different, I saw similarities with Michael Haneke's Funny Games. The obvious connection is the yacht, but both films also had a playful competitiveness about them. I particularly liked the ambiguity of the ending in which several questions were left unanswered.

The Black Balloon
Despite Lynden Barber's glowing recommendations for this new Australian film, the shorts gave me reservations that I found justified. I don't think it's enough for a film to be authentic and based on a true story (which it is). It has mostly good performances, though I found the smile of the lead, Rhys Wakefield, slightly grating. I also think Toni Collette is in serious danger of being permanently typecast as a frumpy suburban mum. When I think of Rowan Woods' The Boys, I know she can do so much better.

What can I say? Maybe I'm just suffering Australian coming-of-age fatigue. Luke Ford did a better job of portraying an autistic child than I expected, and Gemma Ward was better than I expected. Erik Thomson also performed fine as the father, and his small role was well written, I thought. During and after the film, I just felt like I hadn't been offered much that could be differentiated from the raft of other coming-of-age films that have been released here in the last year, even if it is a touch better than the rest of them.

The Week in Review

FILMS:

• Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, UK, 2007)
• I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1943)
• Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1942)
• The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1943)
• Money Movers (Bruce Beresford, Australia, 1978)
• Belle de jour (Luis Buñuel, France, 1967)
• Les amants criminels (Criminal Lovers, François Ozon, France, 1998)
• Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1966)

SHORT FILMS:

• Regarde le mer (See the Sea, François Ozon, 52 mins, France, 1997)
• Action vérite (François Ozon, 4 mins, France, 1994)
• La petite mort (Small Death, François Ozon, 26 mins, France, 1995)
• Une robe d'été (A Summer Dress, François Ozon, 15 mins, France, 1996)
• L'homme idéal (The Ideal Man, François Ozon, 5 mins, France, 1996)
• Scènes de lit (Bed Scenes, François Ozon, 25 mins, France, 1998)
• X2000 (François Ozon, 8 mins, France, 1998)
  

DVD:

• Dekalog: 1 (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1989)

Eastern Promises
A separate review will be posted.

The Melbourne Cinémathèque screenings of films by Jacques Tourneur
I wasn't over-awed by these three films. I liked them as under-stated horror films, and they certainly looked nice. Maybe I don't have enough historical context to appreciate them fully.

Dekalog: 1
A bright father has an even brighter son who meets a tragic end. Classic Kieslowski. I like the way he raises questions of religion and spirituality but without overtly taking a position. I glean from his films that he is at least agnostic and humanistic, if not a covert spiritualist (quite distinct from religious faith).

Money Movers
An overlooked classic Australian heist film by Beresford that is edgy and captures some of the cultural aspects of the day. Apparently a favourite of Quentin Tarantino who used a similar torture scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Belle de jour
It's a pity I didn't see this before Belle tujours at MIFF this year. I'm keen to catch up on the back catalogue of Buñuel films, and while I enjoyed this one, it didn't overly grab me. It screened as a companion to François Ozon's 5 x 2.

Criminal Lovers
After making over a dozen short films for a decade, Ozon finally debuts with this very chilling story that seems not entirely original. A schoolgirl convinces her boyfriend to murder a fellow student who has been pursuing her sexually, and things don't go according to plan.

Ozon uses the screen masterfully, with beautiful naturalistic visuals, great characterisations and edgy story. It was interesting to see both leads early in their careers who have gone on to become very recognisable - Jérémie Renier (L'enfants and Nue propriété) and Natacha Rénier (Les amitiés maléfiques and La raison du plus faible), and both performances were very strong in this film.

Ozon has shown himself to be a diverse film-maker, and not unlike some of his other films, inserts a light-hearted and understated love scene at the end of what is otherwise a very taut thriller.

Persona
Having read Filmnut's nice review of this film, I feel much of this film went over my head and I might watch it again on DVD one day. Visually stunning, and tackles some strong themes of identity and reality.

See the Sea
At 52 minutes, this is not feature-length material for Ozon, but substantial enough to tackle a gritty yet understated story. Visually it has much in common with some of his later films, particularly Under the Sand, and has a dark side somewhat like Criminal Lovers with strong resemblances to some of the dark films of Michael Haneke. There are no comedic or melodramatic devices in this, no outbursts of song. The end is chilling.

The film screened with the other short films by Ozon. Other than a handful of other shorts that did not screen at ACMI's Focus on François Ozon, and Sitcom (which I missed), I have now seen the remainder of Ozon's oeuvre. I definitely prefer his more understated and naturalistic films such as Under the Sand, as well as his dark thrillers like See the Sea and Criminal Lovers. I like the way he includes sexuality, nudity and homosexuality in a non-self-conscious manner and his films have a humanistic aspect that connects with me.

The Short Films of François Ozon
There were quite a few of these films at the one session at ACMI, which predominately explored relationships and sexuality. One or two I had seen previously, perhaps on SBS television.

The Double Life of Veronique

La double vie de Véronique (The Double Life of Veronique, Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
[This post contains spoilers]

Watching a film like Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique on the wide screen at the Astor Theatre is truly one of life’s great joys, and one of the reasons I keep going back into darkened cinemas for more. There are many types of films one can like a helluva lot, but films like this embody what is most important to me about the medium.

Kieslowski doesn’t use a great number of words to convey a narrative. With sparse dialogue, magnificent visuals, sound and music, he puts together a story – full of ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing our imagination or personal projections to fill in the gaps. His work could be considered spiritual, metaphysical, existential, political, romantic or atheistic depending on the outlook of the viewer. There’s possibly a little of each of these sprinkled throughout his work, but primarily what I find in abundance is a deep sense of humanity.

Watching The Double Life as a part of the body of Kieslowski’s films that I’ve seen thus far, it seems abundantly clear to me that there is a common thread of deep humanism. Whether it is his patiently capturing the words and body language of humble workers or hospital patients in his early documentaries or depicting more morally intricate and stylistic scenarios, there is a sense that this is a film-maker who understands the complex nature of human beings, their drives, their struggles and their suffering. If I had to pick one common theme in his work, it is this: the human race is connected through the common experience of struggle.

[Spoilers follow]

Connectedness is a theme that comes to the fore in The Double Life in a most sublime, subtle, poetic and evocative manner. Two girls, born at around the same time, in different places, they look the same and follow a similar life path. Not only are they practically twins, they are almost the same person. Intuitively aware of the unknown and unseen existence of the other, they feel unalone in the world. When woe befalls one, the other feels the loss and grieves for something or someone she knows not.

This is not an original theme – the Superman comics of my teens spoke of everyone in the world having an alter ego, an identical double somewhere. Kieslowski raises this comical idea to a transcendent and haunting design that draws one into its exploration of a fantastical and emotionally wrenching reality. Woven throughout the narrative is the recurring Kieslowski theme of chance or destiny. One catches a glimpse of the other, but they do not meet.

Irène Jacob plays both Veronique and Veronika. There are devices that reappear in the Three Colours trilogy, particularly Red, in which Jacob played the main character. There is the old woman, who in the trilogy is attempting to place a bottle in the bin. In The Double Life we see a similar character (twice) but in a slightly different situation. Jacob’s characters respond with genuine concern for the women’s welfare.

Politics often plays a part in Kieslowski’s films, sometimes subtly (as in his early documentaries) or overtly (as in Blind Chance). One of the most critical moments in The Double Life takes place with a political protest as the backdrop, with running youth and lines of riot police. No explanation of the event is given.

Nor is the significance of the flasher ever made clear. It seems that Kieslowski is inserting details from life (perhaps things he has seen or read about) at unexpected moments – just like life itself. Some of them – like the flasher – seem to have no significance other than that of the moment. It serves to add understated drama, humour and surprise in an already rich story. Expect the unexpected. Other details appear that are not explained: the dour-faced woman from the Polish audition passes momentarily at the train station (another recurring device). We see her expression, but hear not a word from her. We can only imagine what she must be thinking.

A poignant moment in the film occurred when Alexandre (the puppeteer, played by Philippe Volter) explained why there were two dolls (metaphorically, two Véroniques). They damage easily, he says, so one is needed as a backup. I don’t think this was intended literally in relation to Véronique, but rather as a cryptic metaphor.

Part of the beauty of the film is that the performances are so natural. It all looks so effortless and the film flows fluidly. The characters are all so interesting, even the small fleeting roles like the orchestra conductor, the fathers of both women and the bent old woman are captivating.

The Double Life immediately preceded the Three Colours trilogy, and is very similar to the trilogy both thematically and stylistically. These four films could almost be a Four Colours quadrilogy, the colour of The Double Life being yellow (though the colour green is more noticeable as a secondary colour on the DVD version than on the big screen). The use of a colour theme in this film seemed to be stronger than the use of any colour of the trilogy, and was reminiscent of the production design of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (perhaps Aronofsky took some inspiration from this film).

It seems that Kieslowski was developing themes and ideas that he further built on over subsequent films. Just like David Lynch’s Twin Peaks seems like a further development of ideas expressed in Blue Velvet. Music was cleverly integrated into the narrative in both The Double Life and Kieslowski’s subsequent film Blue. Its presence was overt and sumptuous, but never anything but a natural element of the production. Composer Zbigniew Preisner’s many collaborations with Kieslowski included The Double Life and the entire trilogy.

All four of these films were also co-written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and all but White were edited by Jacques Witta. A common aesthetic in these films can be at least partially attributed to a consistent creative team. Three Colours: Blue remains my favourite Kieslowski film, and close to my all-time favourite film. The Double Life of Véronique is not far behind; I consider it on a par with the rest of the trilogy.

The Double Life of Véronique is a film that is hard to categorise: it could be considered a mystery, drama or a thriller. It is erotic, existential and metaphysical. It’s an important work by an important film-maker with timeless appeal. It was great to see it on the Astor’s large screen and I look forward to discovering more of Kieslowski’s work.

The Week in Review

[Edit: link added] Synopses of the 12 Kieślowski documentaries from the 2-DVD set.

FILMS:

• Céline et Julie vont en bateau (Celine and Julie Go Boating, Jacques Rivette, 1974)
  

SHORT FILMS:

• Le coup du berger (Fool's Mate, 28min, Jacques Rivette, 1956)
• Melbourne International Animation Festival: Preview of Program #1
  -Once Upon a Time (Jerome Dernoncourt, Samuel Deroubaix, Corentin Laplatte, France, 5'30)
  - The Foxhole Manifesto (Nick Fox-Gieg, USA, 4'15)
  - A Journey Across Grandmother (Meghana Bisineer, UK, 5'15)
  - Burning Safari (V. Aupetit, M. Maleo, J. Irzenski, F de la Taille, A. Presal, CW Trebutien, France, 1'45)
  - La marche des sans nom (L. Vigroux, N. Laverdure, J Constantial, France, 5'45)
  - The Lecture (Clint Cure, Australia, 4'00)
  - Journey to the Disney Vault (Robert Marianetti, David Wachtenheim, Glen Steinmacher, USA, 3'15)
  - The Red Shoe (Magnus Fredriksson, Sweden, 4'15)
  - Carlitopolis (Luis Nieto, France, 4'00)
  - Ten Thousand Pictures Of You (Robin King, UK, 3'00)
  - Weiss (Florian Grolig, Germany, 5'15)
  - Blindman's Bluff (Isabel Herguara, Spain, 7'15)
  - Dreams & Desires: Family Ties (Joanna Quinn, UK, 9'45)

DVD:

• Prześwietlenie (X-Ray, 13min, Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1974)
• Życiorys (Curriculum Vitae, 45min, Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1975)
• Klaps (Slate, 5min, Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1976)

BOOKS I'M READING:

• Almodóvar on Almodóvar (Revised edition, 2006, Frédéric Strauss)

Le coup du berger
This was Rivette's fourth short film. At half an hour long it could easily have been a TV episode. Its content is more conventional than the three Rivette feature films I have seen - the style and sensibility are very much like Hollywood movies of the time (including those by Hitchcock). A woman is cheating on her husband and the film concerns itself with the various posturing a deceitful person goes through, the film-maker's tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Rivette did the narration, and the party depicted contains a veritable who's who of the French New Wave including Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut and Jean-Claude Brialy. I found this very accessible (unlike his feature films) and enjoyable.

Celine and Julie Go Boating
I admit I had only four hours the night before watching this celebrated 193 minute Rivette film. That I stayed awake for the length of it is testimony to its ability to enthrall an audience. It had fantasy themes in common with Duelle and was a film that leaves itself wide open for interpretation. As I commented in relation to the previous week's screenings at Melbourne Cinémathèque, Rivette's films feel like there's always something or some piece of information that's being withheld from us being able to completely know exactly what we're seeing.

Celine and Julie are superficially two very different people, yet are magically drawn to each other. They partake in a fantasy world, perhaps sharing a dream, or visiting another dimension where a reality repeatedly acts itself out as if theatre on stage. Theatre and fantasy/supernatural seem to fascinate Rivette, and he takes his time telling his stories. This is testing for a modern audience who expect everything to be handed on a silver platter, with easy explanations and in a tight time format. Rivette reminds me of surreal/absurdist film-makers like Luis Buñuel, Raúl Ruiz and David Lynch. I think I need time to appreciate his films; for now I feel like a child looking in on an adult's world, in wonder of what I'm seeing but not quite understanding it.

MIAF
A review of the MIAF screening will come in the next few days. Festival director Malcolm Turner introduced the session. He mentioned MIAF is one of the largest animation festivals in the world and that a phenomenal 2200 short films had been submitted to the festival this year, of which some 350 will be screened.

Short Documentaries by Kieślowski
After Melbourne Cinémathèque screened the Kieślowski season earlier in the year, I purchased every Kieślowski film on DVD I could find, including a 2-DVD set of his early documentaries that I purchased from Poland (via Merlin.pl). It was a little tricky, as I speak no Polish and used an online Polish language translator to navigate my way through the transaction.

As there was nowhere else online advertising these films, and as it was such a laborious process, I purchased three copies to both spread the cost of postage as well as to make the effort worthwhile (when I figured friends would want to purchase a copy). It ended up costing under $25 per set and surprisingly arrived within a week - matching Amazon for service and excellent value indeed.

Four of the twelve documentaries screened at the Kieślowski season, and I'm gradually catching up on those I haven't seen. X-Ray is fascinatingly cryptic in a clearly Kieślowski fashion. Various talking heads talk about their respective conditions that have affected their lives, crippled them and changed their outlooks. Yet we never learn whether any of these men (and they are all men) are connected in any way or what condition they have suffered (it may be tuberculosis). Kieślowski is clearly wanting to interest us in these men's lives while withholding vital information, ironically not unlike Jacques Rivette. Kieślowski's style is also similar to Errol Morris who similarly seems content to just hold a microphone and allow his subjects to speak in their own time.

Curriculum Vitae is a fascinating inside view at a Communist Party meeting that seeks to expel a member who has taken part in a worker's strike. It is astonishing to see the access that Kieślowski received - like a fly on a wall. The various angles and lighting were mesmerising. The subject of the film gives some indication of the director's fascination with politics that were later explored in films like Camera Buff and especially Blind Chance. It's quite chilling to see justice meted out by committee and recalls McCarthyism and George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck. Yet the end is ambigous and demands further inquiry as to what happened to this poor sod.

Slate seems more like an experimental film than a documentary. To quote from a post on IMDB:

When a director films, or 'takes' a shot, each is identified by having a 'slate' or 'clapperboard' with the information regarding the shot written in - what shot number it is and which take it is. The clapper is used when making a sound take, the visual information of the clapper closing synchronized with the jump on the graphic read out of the sound track. The sound and visuals are recorded on different media and this is necessary to match sound and visuals or else everything would look like a poorly synced cheapo chopsocky epic. When it comes to editing the final film the states are all cut out of the film.

What Kieslowski has done her is a little experiment of recovering the clappers and splicing them into a short film. They are all taken from his film The Scar (Blizna). As such Klaps qualifies as another workplace documentary from Kieslowski The experiment produces a strange result of presenting the characters from the photoplay as the actors they are. Its sort or magic/anti-magic. The presence of the clapper renders the actors as people in costume saying scripted things. The suspension of disbelief is suspended.

I didn't find this very short film of much interest other than as an example of Kieślowski's work. This is the only short film by the director that I have had this impression of.

[Edit: link added] Synopses of the 12 documentaries

The Week in Review

FILMS:

• Running With Scissors (Ryan Murphy, 2006)
• Trzy kolory: Bialy (Three Colours: White, Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)
• Amator (Camera Buff, Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1979)
  
• Bobby (Emilio Estevez, 2006)
  

BOOKS I'M READING:

• A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar (Mark Allinson, 2001) - finished at last
  

Running With Scissors
I found Running With Scissors very disappointing, not that I went in with high expectations (mostly because I knew little about it). Like A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, it documents the dysfunctional life of a writer who depicts his own life on screen. While Montiel's film used gritty realism and is reasonably successful at conveying his personal struggles, Murphy's gets caught in a quagmire of (1) attempting (unsuccessfully) to be quirky like Little Miss Sunshine (which itself is mediocre), (2) emulating the wit of American Beauty (but not even getting close, even though Annette Bening is used in a similar role) and (3) in spite of reasonably good performances, suffering poor writing and direction. The film is over-long and fails to engage. But hey, I thought that about Little Miss Sunshine and it was immensely popular, so go figure.

Three Colours: White
It's been 13 years since I first saw Three Colours: White. I always remembered Blue as my favourite of the trilogy, so didn't have expectations as high as I did after seeing Blue last week. I still prefer Blue, but White is still a very impressive and totally absorbing film. The humour is more evident in this film, but contains all the moral complexity, subtlety and depth of any other Kieslowski film.

I noted links to Blue that I hadn't noticed on first viewing: Juliette Binoche enters the courtroom momentarily at the start as she did in Blue, the bent old person attempting to place a bottle in a recycling bin and the finger tracing the map similar to the the finger tracing the music score in the earlier film. Both films start with the death of a relationship and maybe that's incidental (but maybe not).

One thing I'm unclear about is the significance of the pigeon shitting on the protagonist at the start. That's a big blob of white, and perhaps it signals this guy's lot in life. We see pigeons at different times, such as the flashback to the wedding, but most times we just hear the pigeon wings flapping in the background. It seems to be a code for something, but I'm not sure what.

Janusz Gajos' performance as Mikolaj was outstanding and his slowly unfolding relationship with Karol was most intriguing and the most appealling aspect of the film.

While Karol's revenge against Dominique maybe considered the most obvious manifestation of the film's theme of equality, what struck me both at the start and the end was the lack of equality that migrants often experience. In court, Karol was disadvantaged in France and Dominique similarly so in Poland. It calls into question the ironic proclamation etched into the French courthouse at the start - Fraternité Égalité Liberté.

Camera Buff
There was a fresh honesty in this small yet complex film. Most fascinating to me was the parallels I could see in my own life. As a teenager, I also happened to end up with a camera (35mm SLR) that changed the avenues open to me. And more recently, I've found myself drawn more and more into cinema. I always carry a camera with me and try to capture things that may interest me. Others have suggested, and I've contemplated experimenting with a video camera. The film recalls Smoke (Wayne Wang, 1995) with Auggie falling into photography by chance, and it changing his life.

Bobby
While the intent of the film is honourable (like Old Joy and Full Nelson, to highlight the loss of idealism Kennedy offered at the height of the Vietnam war), it lacks subtlety. It tries too hard to be profound, when understatement would have been more effective. It relies on lots of high profile names, which might appeal to some but holds little interest for me. I can't let the opportunity pass without saying that Demi Moore was well-cast as the egotistical stage performer.

Kieslowski Double - 1

Last night Melbourne Cinémathèque screened the first of four weeks of films by Krzysztof Kieslowski. First up was Trois couleurs: Bleu (Three Colors: Blue, 1993) followed by Przypadek (Blind Chance, 1981). The latter didn’t receive a release until 1987 due to state censorship (the film takes a dim view of politics in Poland).

I discovered Cinémathèque last year but rarely stayed for the second screening because of work the next morning. This year I’ve made a commitment to myself to try to get to as many second screenings as possible, and this week’s was surely the pick of the season thus far for me. The Kieslowsi double was completely sublime.

Three Colors: Blue
I started watching films as an adult in 1992. The first three films were Shattered (Wolfgang Petersen, 1991), The Doctor (Randa Haines, 1991) and Black Robe (Bruce Beresford, 1991). I first saw Blue when released around 1993/94. It was the first ‘arthouse’ film I’d seen and struck me. It opened me up to the fact that there was a whole other world of cinema out there, other than mainstream Hollywood.

Thirteen or so years later and, though I knew basically what the film was about, both I and my appreciation of cinema have evolved and sufficient time has passed to the point that the second viewing was almost like seeing it for the first time. The film is emotionally powerful, confidently and competently directed, though I feel these descriptions to be understatements. For me, it must count as one of the best films I have ever seen.

The three colours in Kieslowski’s trilogy refer to the French flag (blue, white and red), and each colour represents liberty, equality and fraternity respectively. Kieslowski’s depiction of liberty is explored in the context of Julie, the survivor of a terrible car crash (Juliette Binoche) which claimed the lives of her husband and five year old daughter.

Grief is a terrible thing, and those of us who have experienced it first-hand know how disorienting it can be. It is also lonely – no-one else can relieve a person’s pain, and it must be worked through. Binoche’s depiction of a grieving person was a performance of a quality I have never seen her repeat.

Kieslowski delves into one person’s journey and offers tremendous insights. His sense of humanity without sentimentality is awesome. Though he is Polish, the film is in French language and filmed in France (mostly Paris). I can see now how this film on first viewing drew me into the darker French dramas, and each year I eagerly await the Melbourne French Film Festival (coming soon: 20/3/07 – 3/4/07). Films like Blue are, however, rare.

Blind Chance

La double vie de Véronique (The Double Life of Veronique, 1991) and the colours trilogy are the only Kieslowski films that received a commercial release in Australia. The Cinémathèque screenings are a rare opportunity for Melbournians to see one of the world’s great director’s films on the big screen.

Blind Chance recalls for me various films that I have seen that were made later. Like Hollywood film Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt, 1998) with Gwyneth Paltrow, it asks the question “what if?”. What if that train you’re running to catch: (1) you just get it, (2) you miss because the station-master obstructs you, or (3) you miss without incident? This seemingly innocuous incident has a profound effect on Witek’s life. But unlike the romantic pop story in Sliding Doors, Kieslowski uses the scenarios to paint three different stories for one man torn between his sense of moral obligations, personal ambitions, grief at the recent loss of his father and mental weakness. All this is painted in the context of political unrest and upheaval in communist Poland.

Each outcome is completely plausible, and tragically ends in pain of one kind or another. A conjugal relationship is formed in each scenario, but with different women and with different outcomes. Kieslowski here is refuting the romantic concept that there is a thing called destiny which predetermines who we end up partnering with. Even if we choose left over right, the popular mythology would have us believe, we will end up with our true soul mate.

Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt, Tom Tykwer, 1998) was more like Blind Chance in content and theme than Sliding Doors. Tykwer’s energy-packed and unconventional romance thriller also used the ‘what-if’ concept to explore philosophical ideas and darker elements of society, though not with Kieslowski’s gritty realism. Tykwer had Lola and Manni die for each other in two scenarios, and a happy ending in the third. Kieslowski’s Witek joins the Party machine in one scenario, becomes a student rebel in another and struggling to remain impartial in the third. The film is profound and moving and the end is sudden and shocking. I sat agape for sometime while the credits rolled.

Based on week 1 of the Kieslowski screenings, I highly recommend the rest of the season at ACMI on Wednesday evenings, 7pm. On March 14 is screening Three Colors: White and Camera Buff. March 21: Three Colors: Red and A Short Film About Love as well as the short Bricklayer. March 28: 2 shorts: Refrain and Factory before two Sam Fuller features (The Naked Kiss and Park Row).