Accidents Happen

Accidents Happen (Andrew Lancaster, Australia, 2009)
This film is quite an achievement, a very clever dysfunctional family black comedy. Its succeeds on at least two fronts. If you didn't know otherwise, there is almost nothing to suggest the film was made in Australia. It's set in Connecticut (as is the novel it is based on, by American-born author now living in Australia, Brian Carbee) and, other than Geena Davis in the lead role, most of the remaining cast are Australians. While it is relatively easy to recreate the American mid-west (cars, flag-poles, etc), it's the seamless use of accents that I found most impressive.

The Australian kitchen-sink dramas (KSDs) of recent years have usually not failed, but not succeeded either. They kind of sit in this nether region where they look nice, have good performances and handle worthy subjects, but never really get off the ground dramatically. Another success of Accidents Happen is that it has taken a genre that has been done to death, and injected pizzazz or oomph. It's got that wow-factor that US quirky indie comedies (QICs) aspire for, but have done to death as much as we've done our KSDs to death, but with a freshness and darkness the QICs lack. You could say that Accidents Happen takes the best of both KSD and QIC genres and leaves out what's hackneyed, and come up with a really fresh oddball film that works.

Davis plays the mother of an accident-prone family. She's bitter, foul-mouthed with wit and is perfect for the role. I've mentioned recently that English-language films don't seem to offer interesting roles for women - most of the interesting roles have fairly limited appeal and are usually chick-flicks. This character is a joy to behold and a gift to Davis (and vice versa), who injects the film with humour, energy and ultimately, warmth.

While the support cast (including Harry Cook and Joel Tobeck) are strong, special mention also goes to Harrison Gilbertson as the youngest son who is most prominent in the film. He's perfect for his role as the good but damaged and guilt-ridden son who parents the mother and puts up with the taunts of his brother (Cook). There's a pathos to the character that is both endearing and moving.

Like most good comedy, the story works because it has a foundation in reality. It's stylised, but underneath we can believe the scenarios presented. I know I can - I've been in multiple serious accidents (god only knows how I survived) and lost a child. The depictions of a family coming to terms with its various misfortunes ring true and are simultaneously funny and tragic.

The film's recurring theme song is terrific; in fact the music throughout is very good - perhaps unsurprising given the director has a musical background. The visuals are also excellent, with some lovely slo-mo shots of various accidents in close-up. The film has a dreamy look about it with the use of lighting and atmospherics. The whole production design has a lovely feel to it.

I noticed David Stratton on At the Movies questioning why an Australian film, made in Australian with mostly Australian actors should depict an American story. I think this is unnecessarily picky. It's not the first local film to do it. Virtually all of the scenes set in America in Mao's Last Dancer were shot in Sydney, for example. It's also not evident that Happy Feet is an Australian production. The Machinist (starring Christian Bale) and Planet 51 both appear to be American films, but are produced in Spain. For me, Accidents Happen showcases what we are capable of in terms of taking on the Americans at their own game and in our ability to adapt and diversify. Hey, we're doing something different and let's celebrate that!

I think the direction the local film industry is taking is a good thing. I've often said that what the industry needs is a steady number of runs on the board, and with Beneath Hill 60 also currently screening, that's two strong local films that local audiences should have no trouble connecting with and feeling good about what we produce. We need films like this, that audiences will go to because they want some good entertainment, and not because they're feeling charitable and a need to support the local industry. If we can continue to do this over a period of time, perhaps we can do what Germany has achieved over the last decade or so: lifted the percentage of local film attendances from around 5% to the current 25%. It's do-able.

Out of interest, I thought I'd peruse the multiplexes to see how widely the film is being screened. I was more than a little surprised to find that neither Hoyts, Greater Union nor Reading were screening it and Village has it on one screen only - the Rivoli (where I saw it), in their smallest cinema, which only has six rows of seats! I just don't get that at all. This seems to be a clear bias against Australian films, even though the casual viewer would have no idea it's not American and even though it's better than most films of the genre from America. There's clearly shit going down here and I'm not impressed with the distinct disregard of the big muscle players.

The Week in Review - 25/4/10

My Week in Review will be short this time around - most of the films I've seen this week are from the Festival of German Films and reviewed separately. I'm also more time poor than usual.

FILMS:

• Beneath Hill 60 (Jeremy Sims, Australia, 2010)
• Soul Kitchen (Fatih Akin, Germany, 2009)
• Das Weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke, Austria, 2009)
• Les parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy, France/West Germany, 1964)
• La baie des anges (The Bay of Angels, Jacques Demy, France, 1963)
  
• Aimée & Jaguar (Max Färberböck, Germany, 1999)
• Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (Fatih Akin, Germany/Turkey, 2005)
  
• Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock, Fatih Akin, Germany, 1998)

DVD:

• The Twilight Zone (Series 1, 1959)
  

Beneath Hill 60
Director Jeremy Sims must have a thing about confined spaces. First it was Last Train to Freo, which took place almost entirely in a single railway carriage, and now it's Beneath Hill 60, largely confined to the tunnels and trenches of World War I. Based on the diaries of Oliver Woodward, it's about the true story of the Queensland mining engineers that were recruited specifically to dig beneath the enemy in Europe and blow up with explosives their strategic positions - in this case Hill 60 in Belgium.

The cinematography is very nice, and if the sets look real, it's because it was shot largely underground and in trenches. It must have been grueling for the actors who are often covered in mud. While the film has been criticised by some for cutting periodically to Woodward and his future wife in Queensland just prior to the war, I think it offers both a relief to the audience of the claustrophia of the tunnels and also offers a wider palette of drama to appeal to audiences. It may not be as gutsy a war film as some, but it's certainly a view of war from a perspective that we've not seen before and the most remarkable thing is that it's never been made into a film before. It seems that the hype and jingoism of Gallipoli has overshadowed other worthy stories.

The film has been criticised for the intrusive use of music. I agree, but fortunately it's only in two or three places. Unfortunately, they're key moments and I just wished they'd toned it down a little, even though it's not fatal. I also thought the friction between Woodward and his superior officer (Chris Haywood) was a little cliched.

The most pleasant surprise for me was how well Sims utilised Brendan Cowell. I recently applauded David Michôd's clever use of Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom, and similarly Cowell has been used against type. His laid-back Aussie bloke persona worked very well as social satire in television's Life Support but it seems that every role since has boxed him into the same character. In Beneath Hill 60 he plays it straight, with none of those cliched mannerisms.

I've often mentioned the homogeny of Australian films in recent years, and how 2009 may have been a turning point by injecting diversity into the films being made here. Beneath Hill 60 is also a welcome addition to the variety of films that Australian audiences can embrace, and international audiences, too, for that matter.

The Twilight Zone
I've been watching this first series intermittently over the last week or so. It's kinda kitsch, of course, but fascinating as well. It's got the film noir-type voiceover, it's got the cold-war/space invasion paranoia of the era, along with the trivialisation of new-age concepts we take for granted now. It's also highly moralistic - not all episodes, but many have a paternalistic attitude in upholding society's values, a somewhat last breath for the Hays code, perhaps. Anyway, as a forerunner to shows like The Invaders, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and X-Files, it's great viewing. I've bought the definitive set and plan to watch all six series.

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom (David Michôd, Australia, 2010)
This debut feature by David Michôd, which won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is simply exhilarating. I'll go so far as to say that I think it's easily one of the top ten Australian films of the last two decades. To put that into perspective, the only films I’d place on that pedestal are: Everynight... Everynight, The Boys, Em 4 Jay and Samson and Delilah. If pushed, I could also include Ten Canoes, Shine and Three Blind Mice. And now Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom is a mixture of genres – at heart an ensemble family drama, but also a crime thriller. The poster art perfectly captures the mood – much like a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy. Clearly inspired by the events surrounding the Walsh Street police shootings of 1988, it details a family’s implosion as crime and police corruption collide. Josh or J (James Frecheville) is embraced by that part of the family that his mother hid from him until she unexpectedly dies. He has no-one else to turn to. Like Malik, the young petty crim in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, he becomes our unwitting tour guide to the dark side as we follow a relative innocent’s induction into a world of crime.

Animal Kingdom is no less suspenseful than Audiard’s film and just as powerful. In fact, it's like a cross between A Prophet and The Boys. There is some violence, but it’s mostly off-screen. The film creates a nail-biting atmosphere by feeding the audience information that characters are denied. One of my favourite scenes involves a suburban dad (Clayton Jacobson from Kenny) simply backing his car out of his drive-way. We know the urgency of the situation, but he’s oblivious to the danger. There are various twists, which are wholly ‘organic’ and believable, as opposed to being tricksy Hollywood-style.

Some actors have never put in better performances. Michôd has brilliantly tapped a hitherto unseen talent in Ben Mendelsohn, without a trace of his usual larrikinisms. His inhabiting the role of a criminal psychopath is just as terrifying as David Wenham’s Brett Sprague in The Boys. Jackie Weaver's performance as the matriarch is also stunning. It demonstrates a skillful balance of excess and restraint, with an unsettling effect created by the contradictions of her homeliness, emotional neediness, mental stability and cunning ruthlessness. She has some great lines and is one of the backbones of the story. Guy Pearce is another and his performance as the seasoned detective is perfectly understated. Frecheville and Mendelsohn are the other pillars.

The whole ensemble cast performs well, with strong support from Joel Edgerton, Sullivan Stapleton, Dan White, Laura Wheelwright and others. Character development is just wonderful across the board. The story works so well because Michôd mostly underplays it, trimming the film of any fat. J is quietly introverted, so we don’t know what to expect. Ambiguity in characters causes doubt about who can be trusted. Sometimes, when action takes place, it seemingly comes out of nowhere. Court scenes are all but removed, focusing on the human and suspense elements.

Adam Arkapaw's magnificent camera work recalls László Baranyai's work in Noise (2007), easily the best aspect of that film. The music and sound design are terrific – pretty much on a par with the excellent achievements of Samson and Delilah. Each of the parts of Animal Kingdom is well-realised; the sum of the parts is sublime. This is a finely constructed story, one of the best films of the year and I can’t wait to see it again. Given that Sony Picture Classics snapped it up straight after the Sundance gong, hopefully it will do well in the US. I have no doubt it will receive a strong reception here.

Animal Kingdom is being released in Australian cinemas on 3 June.

Links: Official website

Here's the trailer:
..

The Week in Review - 27/12/09

FILMS:

• The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, USA/UK/New Zealand, 2009)
• Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie, UK/Australia/USA, 2009)
  

DVD:

• Network (Sidney Lumet, USA, 1976)
• L'argent (Robert Bresson, France/Switzerland, 1983)
• Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, Australia, 1979)
  

The Lovely Bones
I found this film OK, if not a little disappointing. With Wahlberg in it, it could almost be The Happening in terms of look and feel. I actually didn't mind Wahlberg in The Happening but his acting seems a bit weak here. Weisz and Sarandon don't really do much so it's left to the young actress Saiorse Ronan and Stanley Tucci, who seems to be channeling Bruce Willis (esp. á la The Jackal). Actually Tucci's is the surprise performance in the film and is very creepy.

I do like the metaphysical element and the way it's enmeshed with a slight horror element (much more maturely than most contemporary horror) and yet somehow the film doesn't seem to have the impact that it could. Perhaps it's because the film aims a little low, trying to please the masses with an otherwise difficult subject. It's actually quite conventional with some pretty blatant contrivances.

Heavenly Creatures remains my favourite Jackson film, and there's one scene that makes a nod to a particular scene in that film. The Lovely Bones is worth seeing as part of Jackson's work, but don't expect anything major.

Sherlock Holmes
I had no intention of seeing this film, but taking the kid for a bike ride and ending up at the local cinema, it was either Sherlock Holmes or a two-hour wait. The kid was about as impressed as I was - not very much. I think the film suffers from two major things: firstly there's Ritchie's kinetic style. Some love it, I don't. It appears sporadically, enough to remind you it's a Ritchie film, but not enough to spoil it completely if you're tired of his devices.

Secondly, the film tries to be too many things without focusing on what Sherlock Holmes was always about. It's got a bit of Harry Potter, a bit of Batman and Robin, Starsky and Hutch and so on. In the end, it's just another generic action film with little to distinguish it from all the other bland action films and certainly little that defines it as Sherlock Holmes.

People have raved about the production design. I'd say it's just OK, nothing special you haven't seen before. Mostly, it disguises its flaws by keeping it dark and grimy. A bit more colour would have been nice. And what's become of Robert Downey Jr, that he has to stoop to such bland roles? He may be a good actor, but here he's just playing a generic Robert Downey Jr character, the same as all the other bland comic ones. If you're a fan of his, I suppose you'd swoon to see more of the same, but for me it's all a bit tired and formulaic. Jude Law would have made a better Holmes, rather than the smart-arse Dr. Watson sidekick he plays.

Ultimately, I found the film quite laboured and it was a struggle to stay awake. I nodded off at least four times - and this is an action film! The action is itself completely run-of-the-mill, the humour is bland and the characterisations are bland. Lord Blackwood seems to be modelled on Valdemort, and the the twists surrounding him are predictable. What should distinguish the film from a zillion others like it, is the Holmes character and methodology, which has been mutilated beyond recognition and we're left with mediocrity. I can't recommend this to anyone.

Network
I'd seen clips of Network over the years, it always looked good, and of course it is. I love satire, and this is so understated on one level (ie, the humour) and overstated on another. The anger is what fuels the narrative, whether it's Howard Beale, Maureen Dowd (the female, black communist - what a joke), the Ecumenical Liberation Army or Faye Dunaway's over-the-top television producer character.

Everyone's "mad as hell". You've got the network owner in his mad rant who is actually telling it as it is. Democracy and countries are an illusion. The Russians weren't sitting around a table discussing Marx - they were plotting business the same as the Chinese and the Americans.

Actually, there is so much insight in this film with its analysis of society, politics, money and yes, television networks, that I find it amazing that all this can make it into a mainstream film. I suppose like Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon, it shows how backward we've become (in terms of what can get made in the mainstream). The film pre-empts reality television by two decades, perhaps like the books 1984 and Brave New World, extrapolating into the future and actually being spot on. Where the networks were going all those decades ago was despicable, and yet we have descended much lower into the bowels of television hell. Man, if only we could make raw films for the mainstream like this today.

L'argent
I've only seen a couple of Bresson's films, and they're decades apart. Wow, what an aesthetic! It'd be very hard to get away with this today. There is so little embellishment with fixed cameras and sparse dialogue, and the acting is so raw - at times quite clunky. I had no idea where this film was going, so when it went to where it did, it was a bit of a shock. It seems to have a social message, a critique of the social system and how an innocent person wronged can have disastrous effects. But it's also a meditation on money and its corrupting influence. The camera certainly dwells on the physical transactions of money.

I imagine Bresson is not everyone's cup of tea, but this affected me considerably. I've been discussing Cassavetes recently, and while the two directors' styles are very different, both have some commonality with their raw aesthetics. Cassavetes' films are usually quite volatile and emotional, Bresson the opposite. There is an emotional detachment, underscored by the frequent shots of people's legs as they walk past, devoid of dialogue. I feel I need to work through more of Bresson's work - L'argent was his final film.

Breaker Morant
Yes, it must be Xmas time, because I've watched 3 DVDs so far this week, about as many as I've watched in some years. Anyway, it's a good opportunity to whittle down the number of unseen DVDs in my collection, and I must be one of the last people to see this one. And wow, what a film, for it's day and even for today. A veritable who's who of the Australian film industry, it showcases many who have probably never done finer work since (Bryan Brown anyone? Or even Bud Tingwell perhaps).

This is, of course, an impressive local film and I remember when I was in the US in the 80s, whenever anyone found out I was Australian, they would always say "Oh, I loved Breaker Morant" (and Crocodile Dundee, but we won't go there). It really has a mature aesthetic, not unlike European art cinema, with a strong Australian flavour. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it really has a lot to say about politics and political expediency, even in the context of current events such as the war in Iraq. It seems this guy Morant and Hancock got badly done by, even if they were scumbags. They were poorly done by by both their superiors and the British and Australian governments.

The Week in Review - 29/11/09

Yeah, yeah, time flies and I still don't have my new PC set up right. Maybe if my contract isn't extended at the end of the year I'll have time for some catch up. It should be a dream desktop when I'm finished.

Meanwhile, it's been a fascinating week of film and I just had to post a little on what I've seen.

FILMS

• Prime Mover (David Caesar, Australia, 2009)
• Moonrise (Frank Borzage, USA, 1948)
• Until They Get Me (Frank Borzage, USA, 1917)
• Antichrist (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland, 2009)

DVD

• Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, USA, 1969)

Prime Mover
I saw this with reasonably low expectations, and well, I got what I expected. David Caesar ain't a bad film-maker; he's competent enough, but his films never really get beyond mildly entertaining. I actually like Mullet more than most, but this one feels like it's just going through the motions, and has that traditional flatness that most of our films of the last five years or so have suffered.

I've always found Ben Mendelsohn irritating, and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe his acting is too theatrical, but it never convinces. His role in this is pretty silly but it's really the writing of the film that lets it down. It never fully commits to full-on genre or full-on small-scale drama, trying to have a bit both ways. Speaking of which, Sarah Watts was on board as producer, and her influence with the animation is overtly reminiscent of Look Both Ways. In short, OK as a time-filler.

Moonrise
I can't say I've seen a lot of film noir, but this I really liked. It's unconventional (part-melodrama), looks great and has some pretty wild characterisations.

Until They Get Me
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, my experience of silent era film was limited to Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Kops. This Borzage film displays much more complexity and drama, with themes similar to Moonrise, which screened prior. Both are about men who have killed, and are pursued by the law. The endings also have much in common, seemingly conventional, but with happiness in adversity. They make good companion pieces and demonstrate some of the breadth of Borzage's work.

Antichrist
This is a difficult film for me to write about, and a difficult film to watch. I can understand anyone hating this film or finding it offensive. I can also understand criticisms of the film being deliberately provocative. It certainly is the latter (and offensive, too, for that matter), but gratuitously? I don't know. It's not a film one enjoys and it really is horror, almost torture porn. I neither like nor dislike the film. I respect the effort and I also respect the so-called anti-female message, particularly for being anti-politically correct. But I dispute that that makes von Trier misogynistic.

For me, it's a film to be experienced but I don't think it will have much of a lasting impression. It's as disturbing as Gaspar Noe's Irreversible, which I think leaves a stronger impression than Antichrist. The hand-held camera is distracting at times but otherwise the visuals are mostly quite stunning. I love the opening and closing black and white. I also love the symbolism of the animals and the women, though I understand neither. Maybe others know or have researched the meaning. I don't care if I don't know, because the mystery is alluring. One senses there is meaning, even if one doesn't get it.

Easy Rider
Having really dug the Hopper exhibition at ACMI (do go see it if you haven't), I'm really looking forward to the Focus on Hopper's America. Getting into the groove, I checked out his seminal and ground-breaking Easy Rider, which has been newly restored and is getting a long play at ACMI. I have very fond memories of seeing this at the Clayton drive-in in the early 70s, and it left me with a lasting impression. Of course, at that time, I knew nothing of Hopper, who both stars in the film and directs it.

The film is credited as heralding in a new - but short-lived - golden era of Hollywood, the first of a number of independent films that were distributed by the big studios, and allowed for the rise of luminaries like Francis Ford Coppola and others. Looking at it now, on one level it doesn't seem like a 'great' film, and yet it was so revolutionary, so confronting and so encapsulated an era. I've often been critical of contemporary films that paint the 60s and 70s - the hippy era - as stylised, hip, flower power as if it was some kind of commercial fad. The rawness of this Hopper film shows it as I remember it, rough, crude and unsophisticated.

The characterisations by Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson are just terrific. There's an experimental element to the film that I'd forgotten, that might be considered a bit crude now, but reflect emerging styles of the period. The film is a blast and I've really got to see it on ACMI's big screen when it opens for two weeks from Boxing Day. And the Focus on Hopper's America starts this week (3 - 13 December).

The Week in Review - 25/10/09

Ah, my first week in review in a while. I still don't find I have the time to write as much as I'd like. And, for what it's worth, I installed Windows 7 today, so you can be sure that everything in my world will change for the better.

FILMS:

• The Box (Richard Kelly, USA, 2009)
• ... A Valparaíso (Joris Ivens, France, 1962)
• Les statues meurent assi (Statues Also Die, Chris Marker & Alain Resnais, France, 1953)
• La jetée (Chris Marker, France, 1962)
• Dimanche à Pekin (Sunday in Peking, Chris Marker, France, 1956)
• The Boys Are Back (Scott Hicks, Australia, 2009)
• Sonnensucher (Sun Seekers, Konrad Wolf, East Germany, 1958)

The Box
All of Richard Kelly's films have been ambitious. Donnie Darko was pretty much flawless for me. Southland Tales was admirable for its ambitiousness and I really enjoyed the quirkiness though it obviously wasn't as well received as Kelly's previous film. The Box puts Kelly back on track and is sure to be better received than Southland Tales, though it's also sure to confound some critics and audiences.

Think Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, X-Files, The Invaders and others I can't think of, all rolled into one, and you get an idea of what The Box is about. It's a blend of science fiction, thriller and fantasy, in many respects like Donnie Darko, ramped up with suspense, strange but not quirky like Southland Tales. The use of music is excellent and the score keeps the tension just right throught. It's 110 minutes long but it's engaging every step of the way.

The film cuts to different scenarios that create a rich tapestry of events but strangeness permeates them all. Something is not quite right and you wonder where this is going. I don't want to give anything away, so will just finish by saying I found the film very enjoyable and satisfying. I noticed that the film was shot in digital, though others I spoke to afterwards didn't notice. It's one of the best-looking examples of digital that I've seen, in fact, probably the best. Richard Kelly is a man with ideas.

Chris Marker season at Melbourne Cinémathèque
I was surprised at how effected I was by these simple films that were written and/or directed by Chris Marker. ... A Valparaíso is an amazing document of a unique port town in Chile. Life there at the time was amazing and I wonder how it is faring today. On paper, Statues Also Die has little to say and yet is strangely compelling, largely because of the clever narration. Marker clearly has a warped sense of humour, entwining irony and sarcasm, particularly evident in Sunday in Peking. La jetée is, of course, the film that inspired Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. That the film consists almost entirely of still images is a fascinating testament to the power of Marker's story-telling abilities. The dystopian imagery is still borrowed by science fiction today.

The Boys Are Back
I have a soft spot for Scott Hicks and, for many years, Shine was one of my favourite Australian films (perhaps it still is; I don't know without seeing it again). There's no doubt that he makes fine looking films but there's something about this latest one, competent that it is, just doesn't quite work for me. Maybe it's a bit flat dramatically, or just a bit too cliched. In general it's quite OK but it never really soars or breaks free from the ceiling it boxes itself into.

I've never really been a fan of Clive Owen. I've always found his acting wooden and unconvincing. It worked well in Children of Men where this was required, much like Keanu Reeves' role as Neo in Matrix. But while Owen's character in The Boys are Back similarly requires an emotionally stunted male, I find my old prejudices returning and thus Owen unconvincing. Maybe it's because he's too much of a 'star', too well-known. Maybe this makes it a plus for others and will draw them to the film. Maybe they will like it more than me. It's definitely a cut or two above the mediocre suburban dramas we've all grown to hate and criticise in recent years, and should be well-received by audiences both here and abroad (most likely the UK, because of the English element, and the BBC co-produced it). It's also adds positively to what is an exceptional year in local cinema (from a broader perspective). But it doesn't particular affect me or drag me into its world.

Sun Seekers
This is quite an extraordinary film for both its time and place. While we normally associate the Iron Curtain and film with images of smiling proletariat and beneficent leaders, this film is gutsy even by Hollywood standards of the day. Wolf shows how life was, pretty much in a matter-of-fact way, and no wonder it was banned. The film is amazing for its honest depictions of social depravity, political shenanigans and the friction that existed between the Germans and the Russians. The print was excellent quality and I look forward to seeing more of these films screening as part of ACMI's Focus on East German Cinema.

MIFF 2009 Day 16 - 8/8/09

• La nana (The Maid, Sebastián Silva, Chile, 2008)
• Zift (Javor Gadev, Bulgaria, 2008)
  
• Das Flüstern der Bäume (The Whispering of the Trees, Tom Lemke, Chile/Germany, 2007) + Salt (Michael Angus/Murray Fredericks, Australia, 2009)
  

The Maid
Psychopaths are everywhere, even in our own homes. That's the message of this film about Raquel, a jaded and bitter maid to a middle-class Chilean family who's been around a little too long. Twenty years in fact, since a year before the oldest daughter was born. When the parents decide to get another maid in to assist Raquel, she sabotages all their endeavours but the mother is too attached to let Raquel go.

I found the film a little frustrating, because I hate this kind of character (I've seen my share of corportate psychopaths) and wanted to see successive maids overcome the obstacles put in their way. I also hated how the maid mostly gets her way each step of the way, but none of this is a reflection of the film. It's an OK story, nothing special and the film was enjoyable enough without showing any great insights.

Zift
Film noir, Bulgarian-style. Aside from some sub-titles that disappeared into the print, this is a tremendously enjoyable and satisfying film that uses every noir cliche, but uses it with style, tongue-in-cheek and with a strong, dark Balkan flavour.

Salt
I was keen to see this short (28') on recommendation and also after winning a festival award (don't ask me which one). The visuals of Lake Eyre, including time-lapse photography are absolutely inspirational and I'd love to be able to recreate what Murray Fredericks has. I also loved the personal nature of his story, the video-journal nature of his record and his frankness. A beautiful story and film that I highly recommend. This screened prior to The Whispering of the Trees. Check out the official website for some amazing examples of the time-lapse photography.

The Whispering of the Trees
I knew nothing about this film and went sight unseen on the strength of its accompanying Salt. I had planned to attend the Closing Night film, Bran Nue Dae, but figured I'll see it when it gets its inevitable (but yet unscheduled) release. With a fascination for indigenous cultures, I found it a very endearing documentary, about a slowly disappearing culture in southern Chile and Argentina. This remote community survives entirely by their harvesting of pine nuts, a dangerous job that has sustained them for generations.

MIFF 2009 Day 10 - 2/8/09

• Blind Company (Alkinos Tsilimidos, Australia, 2009)

Blind Company
I first discovered Tsilimidos' work with Tom White, a film that impressed me with it's beautiful visuals, humour and humanistic narrative. That film also changed the way I looked at the homeless. Coming soon after Candy and Little Fish, I didn't have high expectations for Em 4 Jay, a film about a couple of drug addicts. I was so over drug addicts and yet this film blew me out of the water. Again photographed by Toby Oliver, the visuals are just amazing but it's once again the deeply humanistic story-telling that won me over, and this remains my equal favourite Australian film. It may then be no surprise to hear that Blind Company was my most anticipated film at MIFF this year.

I never took much notice of Colin Friels until I saw him play the titular role in Tom White, in which he magnificently demonstrates frailty and an understated desperation. Once again he takes centre stage in Blind Company as Geoff Brewster, who is living in isolation at the family beach cottage, waiting for inevitable death. Geoff's quiet daily routine is thrown into turmoil when his nephew, Josh (Nick Barkla), arrives unannounced and consequently engages in antagonistic behaviour.

Tsilimidos is a competent and assured director. With Blind Company, he is in no hurry to reveal the secrets of its characters, but that shouldn't test the patience of the film's target audience. The story is basically a relationship slow-burn that reminds me a little of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's style of narrative in films like Climates or Three Monkeys.

The performances are, as expected, convincing. Friels is always good value and his role as a dying academic is full of ambiguity. Nick Barkla gets to show his range. He was completely convincing as the junky in Em 4 Jay. In Blind Company, he is almost as convincing as the Porsche-driving reckless son of privileged parents - somewhat a yuppy.

I presume it was Adam Arkapaw's cinematography on Julius Avery's excellent award-winning (Cannes Jury Prize, no less) Jerrycan that caught the eye of Tsilimidos. His camera work has a very Eastern European aesthetic about it. The outdoor shots are reminiscent of Christopher Doyle's beach scenes in Paranoid Park and have the strongest visuals.

Indoors, however, is a different matter, and while there is a reliance on natural light, the camera exposure often leaves characters in silhouette. The effect is to shroud the film in darkness which distances the audience. This is the single-most flaw in the film.

I spoke to the director briefly after the film and he confirmed that Toby Oliver was unavailable. Being the film's premiere screening and Alkinos being pre-occupied post-screening, and me being sick, I didn't get the opportunity to discuss further. There was to have been a Q&A session which didn't happen because the film ran late. Apparently there will be one at a future screening, which I will aim to attend.

Overall, the film is worth-seeing and another fine addition to the country's body of work. It's especially worth seeing as part of the director's body of work, even if it isn't his best film. Tom White and Em 4 Jay were always going to be hard to beat.

ACMI Focus on Australian Noir

OK, I know it's hard to look that far ahead, but here's something to look forward to after MIFF. ACMI is presenting a focus on 'Australian noir' to coincide with the opening of a new permanent exhibition (ah, so that's what all those construction works were about!).

I've seen a few of these films and can vouch for them, such as The Magician, Wake in Fright, Boxing Day (my favourite local film of 2007), The Square (my second favourite local film of 2008), Pure Shit and Dark City.

I'll be looking to catch the other titles that I haven't seen: The Horseman, Goodbye Paradise and Heatwave. The season runs from 17 - 27 September. You can put these dates in your calendar, or subscribe to mine.

[Image: Richard Green in Kriv Stenders' Boxing Day]

ACMI Cinemas Presents
Focus on Australian Noir
Thursday 17th September – Sunday 27th September
Curated by Richard Sowada and Spiro Economopoulos

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) will present a season of gritty, stripped-back Aussie realism when Focus on Australian Noir opens this September.

Curated by ACMIs Head of Film Programs Richard Sowada and Film Programmer Spiro Economopoulos, the program features nine films playing over ten days, all inspired by the noir genre, each one dark in style and subject matter.

“We’ve taken this great selection of films and looked at them through the lens of film noir. Each of them has at their heart the great traditions of the genre, but there's a real sense of playfulness and experimentation with the style, giving a unique spin to classic film noir conventions,” Richard said.

“The film noir elements turn up in surprising places – the glaring sun of the outback in Wake In Fright, the maze of sky-less Melbourne laneways in The Magician, or the confines of a house in Boxing Day – all have locations which are characters in themselves,” he said. “The willingness among these filmmakers to challenge and spin these customs, either by choice or necessity, makes for invigorating viewing.”

The season will open with the hit of last years Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), The Horseman (2008), where it won both Best Film and Best Director. Steven Kastrissios’ gritty revenge film rewrites the book in its unrelenting vision of a grieving father who will stop at nothing to get back at the men that killed his daughter.

The season continues with another film applauded at MUFF, winner of Best Film, Director and Actor categories in 2003, The Magician (2005). Director and star Scott Ryan turns in a scorching film trailing the life of a hitman, whose twisted code of ethics is, in equal parts, loathsome and likable.

Regarded as an Australian classic, Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971) plays on the fear of the unknown invoked by the outback and often leveraged in Australian films, particularly those of the 1970s. This controversial film takes uptight teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) into the outback, where one night turns into a shattering hallucination of gambling, drinking and brutality. Adapted from the novel of the same name, but simply known as Outback beyond Australian shores, Wake in Fright draws a brilliant early-career performance from Jack Thompson.

The ‘bread and butter’ for Australian noir filmmakers lies in ever-popular stories of crime and corruption. Carl Schultz’s Goodbye Paradise (1982), is set around the years of Joh Bjelke-Peterson's National Party Government. Queensland is depicted as a cesspool of corruption and vice, as a booze-addled ex-cop attempts to solve a murder and in the process uncovers a plot for a military coup. Goodbye Paradise was recognised with two AFI Awards; Best Screenplay for Australian screenwriting legend Bob Ellis and co-writer Denny Lawrence, as well as Best Actor in a Lead Role for Ray Barrett.

Similarly crooked characters make up Philip Noyce’s Heatwave (1982). Partly based on the real life disappearance of Sydney activist and journalist Juanita Nielson, Heatwave depicts a complex web of corruption that surrounds the proposed redevelopment of a poor inner-city Sydney neighbourhood and the fight that ensues between the residents and the all-powerful property developers.

A recent Australian noir hit at film festivals across the globe, The Square (2008), premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2008 to critical acclaim. Written by one of the films’ lead actors, Joel Edgerton, and Garage Days writer Matthew Dabner, The Square is the debut feature offering from promising local director Nash Edgerton and has been reviewed as a “terrific, satisfying, full-bodied Australian crime film” by The Age.

Also screening is Kriv Stenders’ Boxing Day (2007), a real-time drama about a family gathering the day after Christmas. As parolee Chris prepares lunch for his fragmented family, old tensions are ignited and dark secrets unearthed with explosive consequences as a good day spirals out of control.

Filmed in Australia, Alex Proyas’ dystopic sci-fi noir Dark City (1998) is a burgeoning cult-classic set in a city run by a group of creepy beings called ‘The Strangers’. Dark City tells the story of a John Murdoch (played by Rufus Sewell) who wakes up in a strange hotel with amnesia and discovers that he is wanted for a series of brutal murders he has no memory of committing. A Hollywood cast is peppered with top Australian acting talents including Colin Friels, David Wenham and Melissa George.

Naturally, a noir film needs material that lends itself perfectly to the genre so what noir season would be complete without delving into the seedy world of drugs? Drugs and drug taking are portrayed in all their brutal honesty in the ground breaking fictional film, Pure Shit (1975), about four junkies who traverse the city in pursuit of drugs and action. Director Bert Deling challenged more than audiences when he unleashed his second low budget film onto the Australian public. At the time of its release, The Herald deemed it “the most evil film ever made”, no doubt referring to its no holds barred look into Melbourne drug culture.

Focus on Australian Noir draws links with ACMI’s new permanent exhibition, Screen Worlds: The Story of Film, Television and Digital Culture, opening in September. The exhibition will spotlight Australia’s film history and talent. Many of the films in this season feature directorial or acting talent featured in the exhibition. “We very much wanted to time this season for the opening of the exhibition to give visitors a holistic experience while at ACMI,” said Richard. “Whether you’re learning about Australian film history for the first time, or simply wanting to expand your knowledge, the film program and exhibition are great companion experiences to one another.”

Focus on Australian Noir invites you to melt into a gritty world inhabited by grifters, misfits and antiheros, where the innocent become the guilty and the guilty – well, they get what they deserve – when this season comes alive at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image from Thursday 17th – Sunday 27th September, 2009.

And here's the complete program:

Thu 17 Sep 7pm, Fri 25 Sep 7pm
The Horseman unclassified 18+, Steven Kastrissios, 110 mins, Australia, 2008, HD Cam
Steven Kastrissios’ gritty revenge film rewrites the book in its unrelenting vision of a grieving father who will stop at nothing to get back at the men that killed his daughter. The film’s breathless pace and no holds barred approach creates a visceral punch with enormous power and resonance.

Thu 17 Sep 9.30pm, Sat 26 Sep 7pm
The Magician MA15+, Scott Ryan, 85 mins, Australia, 2005, 35mm
Director and star Scott Ryan turns in a scorching film trailing the life of a hitman. Low-fi and lean, this ‘documentary’ of the world of small-time gun-for-hire Ray Shoesmith is all sinew. Ryan brings a lovely depth to Ray’s character, whose twisted code of ethics is, in equal parts, loathsome and likable.

Fri 18 Sep 7pm
Pure Shit R18+, Bert Deling, 85 mins, Australia, 35mm
Four junkies traverse the city in pursuit of drugs and action. A film for and about outsiders, Bert Deling’s outlaw classic has a thrilling sense of danger in both style and story – even 30 years later. Dark, dingy and known to the law, it’s the kind of delinquent kid you don’t want your child to play with.

Sat 19 Sep 7pm
Wake in Fright M, Ted Kotcheff, 114 mins, Australia, 1971, 35mm
Pushing the bush myth as far south as it can go, this controversial and gritty classic follows the increasingly off-kilter journey of very proper and uptight British teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) whose one night in the outback turns into a shattering hallucination of gambling, drinking and brutality.

Sat 19 Sep 9.30pm
Boxing Day MA15+, Kriv Stenders, 81 mins, Australia, 2007
In Kriv Stenders’ devastating real-time drama, a family gathering the day after Christmas ignites old tensions and unearths dark secrets as parolee Chris prepares lunch for his fragmented family. As the day progresses, crime and innocence collide with explosive consequences as a good day spirals out of control for our fractured antihero.

Sun 20 Sep 3pm, Sun 27 Sep 5.30pm
Heatwave M, Philip Noyce, 92 mins, Australia, 1982, 35mm
Partly based on the real life disappearance of Sydney activist and journalist Juanita Nielsen, Heatwave depicts a complex web of corruption that surrounds the proposed redevelopment of a poor inner-city Sydney neighbourhood and the fight that ensues between the residents and the all-powerful property developers.

Sun 20 Sep 5pm
Dark City M, Alex Proyas, 100 mins, Australia, 1998, 35mm
Alex Proyas’ dystopic sci-fi noir centres on a city run by a group of creepy beings called ‘The Strangers’. Rufus Sewell plays John Murdoch, a man who wakes up in a strange hotel with amnesia and discovers that he’s wanted for a series of brutal murders he has no memory of committing.

Thu 24 Sep 7pm, Sun 27 Sep 3pm
Goodbye Paradise M, Carl Schultz, 119 mins, Australia, 1982, 35mm
An underrated classic, Goodbye Paradise is set around the years of Joh Bjelke-Peterson's National Party Government. Queensland is depicted as a cesspool of corruption and vice, as a booze-addled ex-cop attempts to solve a murder and in the process uncovers a plot for a military coup.

Sat 26 Sep 9pm
The Square MA15+, Nash Edgerton, 101 mins, Australia, 2008
A hapless everyman falls for a younger woman with a dodgy boyfriend and an even dodgier stash of money. In classic noir style, love (and everything else for that matter) doesn’t run smoothly as a plot is hatched to take the money and run. With great respect to the noir form, The Square is a “terrific, satisfying, full-bodied Australian crime film” The Age

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.

The Week in Review - 28/6/09

FILMS:

• En construcción (Work in Progress, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 2001)
• Innisfree (José Luis Guerín, Spain, 1990)
• Bastardy +Q&A (Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Australia, 2008)
• Le renard et l'enfant (The Fox and the Child, Luc Jacquet, France, 2007)
  

DVD:

• T is for Teacher (Rohan Spong, Australia/USA, 2009)
  

SHORT FILMS:

• MIAF - International Program #3
• MIAF - Studio Watch: The Mill

Work in Progress
Quite a fascinating film whose documentation of the demolition of an old neighbourhood is reminiscent of the films of Pedro Costa (though without the same level of bleakness - not a criticism of either director's work). I don't have a lot to say about it other than, like In the City of Sylvia, Guerín demonstrates a photographer's fascination with capturing the soul of a city and its inhabitants.

Innisfree
Guerín's unconventional style is anything but mainstream. This is quite an odd film, an ode to the locations where John Ford shot The Quiet Man. Once again, Guerín is fascinated by location, this time rural Ireland. He certainly is an enigma.

Bastardy
Remarkably, Amiel Courtin-Wilson spent some seven or so years making this film, and in the Q&A session afterwards he explained why. Firstly, there was an issue with money, that came in dribs and drabs. The fact that the subject spent significant periods incarcerated also caused problems.

As I have mentioned previously, I met Jack Charles a few years ago and, having found him a very colourful and gregarious character, was keen to learn more about him. What a journey! As a 10 month old baby, he became a member of the Stolen Generation, and has never known his father. He discovered acting at age 19, set up the first Aboriginal theatre troupe in the 1960s, has been addicted to heroin since 1973, He's subsisted on burglary ("collecting the rent", he called it), has seen the walls of HM Pentridge up close and personal several times and has been homeless for large stretches of his life. There's more - much more - but that's it in a nutshell.

I found it fascinating that Jack sat in the front row (I was two rows directly behind him), with every conceivable shame on full display to him and the audience that filled the large Kino cinema. I was going to ask him during the Q&A how he felt about seeing himself like that, but he addressed it anyway. He said something to the effect that he was inspired to be able to set an example to his own people of what can be achieved, how he had left all this behind him and was now a respected elder of his mob. Since his last release from Deer Park prison, he's gone straight and says there's no going back to that life. I sincerely hope so.

[Pictured: John Safran, Jack Charles and Amiel Courtin-Wilson]

MIAF
From my perspective, animation shorts are a good interlude to serious film-going, which could be interpreted as some sort of snobbery, but that's what it is for me. I saw one of the international programs as well as a curated selection of shorts from The Mill, a London studio that has made many award-winning advertisements (some of which have appeared on Australian TV), music videos and short films. The Mill's work is very impressive and many of the pieces were not obviously animated, using animation to create hyper-reality to various situations.

T is for Teacher
I'm reviewing this ahead of the films screening at the Bayside Film Festival. I liked this a lot, and (with Rhys Graham's Skin) it's screening at 7pm on Thursday 16 July at Palace Brighton Bay, followed by a Q&A with director Rohan Spong. The film documents four transgender individuals as they transition from men to women in their roles as high school teachers in the US. My review is coming soon.

The Fox and the Child
This is a beautiful looking film that merges documentary with fiction. Basically, it takes a glorious rural landscape in France and contrives a little story - almost a fairy tale - about a young girl who befriends a wild fox. I would have preferred seeing the original French version, but the voice-over narration by Kate Winslet is quite OK and obviously makes it more marketable to an English-speaking audience. The story sometimes goes on a bit longer than necessary, but this is a very enjoyable film that is also well-suited for children.

The Week in Review - 21/6/09

Winter solstice - I love it! There's a change in energy and from today the days start to get longer. The two-week Guerín season started at Melbourne Cinémathèque and, if you missed this week (a highlight of my year so far), make sure you see the coming screenings on Wednesday.

FILMS:

• Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, Australia/USA, 1971)
  
• En la ciudad de Sylvia (In the City of Sylvia, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 2007)
• Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia (Some Photos in the City of Sylvia, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 2007)
• Tren de sombras (Train of Shadows, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 1997)
• Reservations (Aloura Melissa Charles, USA, 2008)
  

Wake in Fright + Q&A session
I don't have time to go into detail. I found this really enjoyable, a gutsy Australian film, made by a Canadian. Maybe it takes an outsider to take an honest look at ourselves, for that is what Kotcheff achieved. It's very authentic and has dated really well. It looks a helluva lot better than the pirated DVD copy of a VHS that screened at MUFF last year, but I was aghast when about a minute or two disappeared from the screening I attended. Grant wants to leave the pub when the cop (Chips Rafferty) is about to take him to task for not offering to shout a drink in return. We missed that, but the first-time audience wouldn't know it.

The Q&A was with director Ted Kotcheff, editor Anthony Buckley and moderated by Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood). Various stories and anecdotes were shared and enhanced the evening. I raised the issue of the missing bits, but given that the speakers weren't in attendance during the screening, couldn't really comment. Buckley assured me that the film is present in its entirety, so I'm assuming it was a one-off glitch.

In the City of Sylvia
José Luis Guerín’s In the City of Sylvia has been described using various well-deserved superlatives. Not only is Guerin's unique film an amazing cinematic accomplishment, but it does it with almost no dialogue. It taps into primal human desires for connection and desire, exploring the nature of memory.

Humanity is a strange beast, full of contradictions. On the one hand, “man is gregarious” and we desire love, friendship, community and so on. On the other, there is an inherent incompatibility between both individuals and communities, who seemed destined for conflict. True friendship is, it appears, quite rare and many friendships seem to depend on absence for sustenance (a type of “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, I suppose).

The Melbourne Cinémathèque screening of In the City of Sylvia was greatly enhanced by Some Photos in the City of Sylvia which is much more compelling than it looks on paper. Not only is it completely silent (no dialogue, voiceover or music - which highlighted my rumbling belly and no doubt disturbed those sitting close to me), but there are no moving images either. It consists of a series of still photographs by Guerín that effectively constitute (unconventionally) a type of making-of documentary that explains the original film.

Not only is the original film highly autobiographical or self-reflexive, dramatising the director’s own experiences over twenty years earlier in the same locations, but it sheds light on his intentions with the film and the theme of the struggle between the human desire to connect and the natural resistance to the same, or disconnection.

The film has both a naturalistic look and feel, yet stylistically heightened. The visuals are stunning, with Strasbourg an amazing backdrop as our artist protagonist traverses the streets of this picturesque small city in search of his lost Sylvia. The film assumes a voyeuristic perspective, highly observational, perhaps as the guy sees the city. We see lots of images of women, particularly young women. Some are gorgeous, some not. Often they are backdropped by large perfume advertisements that feature the faces of gorgeous young models, underscoring the director’s fascination with femininity.

Guerín’s preoccupation with faces takes various forms and he often portrays how people appear from the voyeur’s perspective. He could almost be toying with the audience, demonstrating how from a distance one person looks relative to another: they are not seated together but from the viewer’s perspective appear to relate. Deep focus is used to good effect, differentiating between the different scenarios. Similarly, Guerín seems fascinated by the dual or parallel imagery of filming someone through a window whose reflections superimpose over the person, creating a unique kind of visual experience.

Couples kissing are a recurring theme. Several characters reappear intermittently, like the African belt seller. A homeless woman is sitting in the street and, while we don’t see her again, we recognise her discarded beer bottles. “LAURE JE T’AIME” appears to be scrawled all around the city. Who is this Laure? And who is her lover?

In a film where dialogue is near absent, the music takes on a heightened sense of importance. It powerfully punctuates the narrative in an organic manner as our protagonists wander the steets. Sometimes there are performers at the conservatoire, buskers in the street or music blaring over speakers in a bar or passing car.

In the City of Sylvia is poetic, original, beautiful, captivating and moving. It is an experience and a privilege. If you get the chance to see it, don’t miss it.

Tren de sombras
Fatigue set in during this screening and I don't think I imbibed it as well as I could have otherwise. So I don't want to comment on it, other than to say I'd like to see it again.

Reservations
Nice film, but unexceptional. Co-presented by ACMI and Women in Film and Television, it naturally has a woman director and features Australia's Kerry Armstrong in top billing in an ensemble piece. Like In the City of Sylvia, it deals with themes of human disconnection as we encounter various lonely individuals spending one night in the same New York hotel.

Reservations is what I find myself now calling a "worthy" film, and that's not a compliment. Like many local films of recent years that tackle "worthy" issues, it somehow lacks dramatic impact. Sure, a film doesn't have to be hyper-real, but it just lacks pizzazz, oomph, mojo, something. We can see where it's going, it seems a bit too derivative and the film's conclusion is a bit too neat. But it's worthy!

Disgrace

Disgrace (Steve Jacobs, Australia/South Africa, 2008)
Steve Jacobs' first film, La Spagnola, was an excellent debut that had the great misfortune of opening on September 11, 2001 and consequently didn’t get the exposure it deserved. It’s about a Spanish woman’s post-war migrant experience in Australia and is beautifully filmed. It is full of drama, passion and interspersed with comic moments that make it a largely undiscovered gem.

Disgrace represents a much more ambitious project by Jacobs. It’s an Australian-South African co-production, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel of the same title by the esteemed former South African (and now South Australian) writer, J.M. Coetzee. It is set in South Africa and stars John Malkovich as David Lurie, a Cape Town university professor of poetry. Like Ben Kingsley's character in Elegy, Lurie is a sexual predator who targets his female students.

That’s about the only comparison I would make with Elegy. Malkovich’s performance is perhaps his best in several years. He performs as an actor rather than the Malkovich stereotype we’ve come to accept (and sometimes hate). There’s none of that psychopathic screaming, for example, even though he plays a not particularly endearing character. In fact, the emotional baggage we may carry for Malkovich works in his favour, with the restraint adding a new-found nuance to his acting.

The uniting element between Jacobs’ films is a preoccupation with a country’s culture, albeit from different perspectives. La Spagnola depicts the difficulties of a Spanish immigrant, who gravitates towards the local Italian community. She is an outsider to both the Australian and immigrant communities. In Disgrace, Lurie's sexual indiscretions find him forced to resign from his long-held university position. He takes up residence in self-imposed exile with Lucy, his lesbian daughter on her remote rural farm. Here, Lurie finds himself in a totally different culture, one he struggles to come to terms with because of the violent local politics.

I haven’t read Coetzee’s book, so I don’t know how faithful to its source material the film is. But it feels weighed down, very much like a book-to-screen translation. Like a novel, the film withholds information. In a book, the writer completely controls the flow of information with words. In the film, various nuances were lost on me and I failed to comprehend gaps in information.

Generally, I’m all for not having narrative fully expounded. Imagination and deduction can be powerfully utilised in cinematic story-telling. The film does respect an audience’s intelligence in not spoon-feeding every little detail, but it also doesn’t convey details that may be required. It felt like it was emulating the source material’s structure without sufficient adaptation. On the plus side, the film leaves room for ambiguity and no doubt there will be countless debates over the motivations of different characters.

The story is largely concerned with Lurie’s relationships with women – in particular Melanie, the student he seduces, and his daughter Lucy, with whom he has a strained relationship. Jacobs’ exploration of these relationships remains cold and distant. We never see any warmth, affection or meaningful dialogue between Lurie and the women in his life (and this is the exact opposite of La Spagnola). These two women remain angry and we are never privy to their internalisations. Emotionally, it has the effect of distancing us from the characters. We only have Lurie’s misogynistic perspective, and he’s not particularly insightful or redeeming a character.

I felt Lucy’s lesbianism is largely inconsequential to the story and wonder whether this aspect of her life needed to be included. I acknowledge that her orientation is relevant in some respects, but it’s an element of the story that seems under-developed.

It will be interesting to see how Disgrace is received by both critics and audiences. I think most will be more impressed by it than I was. It should appeal to the same demographic that embraced I Have Always Loved You, for example. I suspect it will also appeal to those who have read the book and have more of an understanding of what is happening in the background, both in terms of the politics and the women's internalisations.

It is nice to see the film adding diversity to the year's local films, so maybe 2009 will be a turning point for the Australian industry. For me, though, this film doesn’t match some of the year’s stronger contenders.

Disgrace opens in cinemas on 18 June.

Cinema Nova is hosting an advance screening on Sunday 14 June at 5pm, followed by an impressive line-up for a panel discussion: Which is better? The book or the film? From Nova:

To celebrate the release of the film adaptation of J. M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize winning novel DISGRACE, starring John Malkovich, Cinema Nova in partnership with Readings are proudly present the first in an ongoing series of discussions to try and settle the age-old dinner party dispute: WHICH IS BETTER? THE BOOK OR THE MOVIE?

Melbourne’s best and brightest film, publishing and arts identities will join the panel and try to settle the score.

Elliot Perlman is a barrister and award-winning writer who adapted his own book, THREE DOLLARS, for Robert Connolly’s drama starring David Wenham.

Sue Maslin is the multi-award winning producer of Japanese Story and the executive producer of Irresistible starring Sam Neill, Emily Blunt and Susan Sarandon.

Catherine Deveny is a controversial social commentator for The Age, was named amongst the 100 Most Influential Melbournians and co-wrote the 2005 AFI awards with Russell Crowe.

Tom Ryan has been the film critic for The Sunday Age in Melbourne since 1989. A film lecturer in Australia and the UK, he has also contributed to several international film magazines.

Peter Rose is the editor of Australian Book Review. He was a publisher at Oxford University Press and is author the much loved memoir Rose Boys.

To be moderated by Michael Veitch a performer, broadcaster and writer, Michael started his career in TV comedy on legendary shows such as The D-Generation and Fast Forward. Born into a family of journalists, he has written as a theatre and literary critic for The Age, Australian and Herald-Sun newspapers. Michael is the host of ABC’s vastly popular Sunday Arts program.

MORE PANELISTS TO BE CONFIRMED CLOSER TO THE EVENT!

Buy the book before the event! 10% discount for in-store purchases of DISGRACE (Conditions: only at Readings Carlton, with a valid cinema ticket from the screening)