MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2009
The Melbourne International Film Festival screens at various locations in Melbourne between July 24 and August 9. The opening night film is Balibo, Robert Connelly's searing story about the murder of five journalists in East Timor in 1975. The closing night film is Bran Nue Day. This year, there are a number of special guests, including Quentin Tarantino, who will introduce a special premier screening of his new World War II epic Inglourious Basterds.
Check daily newspapers and the website melbournefilmfestival.com.au for screening details. This site will provide regular updates, reviews of films screening throughout the festival, and links to AFCA member's web sites where you can read more reviews.
melbourne film blog (Paul Martin)
Paul's invaluable list of festival films with a cinema release date
screen fanatic (David O'Connell)
cinema autopsy (Thomas Caldwell)
man about town (Richard Watts)
cinetology (Luke Buckmaster)
last night with riviera (Matt Riviera)
celluloid tongue (Gerard Ellson)
ask me about my vow of silence (Andrew Lee)
Peter Malone
THE BURROWERS Not a nature film about rabbits or some other subterranean animal. It is about subterranean monsters. This is a horror film with a difference: a setting in the 19th century American West. The Burrowers re-creates the remote West quite effectively, with its settlers eking out a living on the land, with the small towns, with the military and its vain, mini-ruthless officers, scouts and other wanderers of the West – and Indians. While the race clashes are evident and the repercussions of confining the Indians to reservations, this is what is happening on the surface. After a rather sweet romantic picnic and the possibility of a nice engagement, the family of the young woman find themselves under siege in their house and retreat to the basement. Is it an Indian attack? No, it is the burrowers – who drag them off to their burrows. The film concentrates mainly on the searchers. They trek the west in search of the family, the military intending to wreak vengeance on the suspected Indians. The fiance, a scout, an official who is courting a widow, her son and assorted other men, including an Indian, follow leads until they too experience the burrowers – who are gradually revealed visually to the audience. So, this is a film of mystery and menace which evolves into horror with bodies paralysed and preserved for devouring by the burrowers. Then there are night attacks on the central characters themselves. An Indian woman joins the group and offers ways to combat the monsters... The basic plot is familiar and always acceptable for this kind of genre. But, the unusual atmosphere of the west for this kind of story and the way that it is filmed enhance the conventions.
THE HURT LOCKER Another film about Iraq, strong films (like Redacted, Rendition, Lions for Lambs (Afghanistan), In the Valley of Elah, The Battle of Haditha, Stop-Loss) which were not popular with the US public in 2007-2008. Too close to the bone? Too critical of American involvement in the invasion of Iraq, government policy, the waging of the war and the destructive and devastating consequences? The Hurt Locker is one of the most critical of these films. It is based on articles written by Mark Boas (also the basis for In the Valley of Elah) after he spent time as an embedded journalist with a specialist bomb-diffusing squad. As plots go, the film is generally a succession of missions to defuse, so detailed that the audience will feel that they have almost been embedded as well. The dangers and the risks are palpable. As one of the squad, with obsessive pessimism continually gnawing at him, states: that to be in Iraq is to be dead..
There is a quotation at the opening of the film which tells us that war is a drug. This is illustrated by the central character William James (Jeremy Renner) who is described by an officer as a Wild Man, whose actions are reminiscent of the cowboys (or, rather, the gunslingers). A young boy who sells fake DVDs and plays soccer with James and calls himself 'Beckham', asks him if he is a gangster. He kind of agrees. The opening of the film shows a fatal incident - and will remind audiences of science-fction films from 2001 to Star Wars as the leader puts on the protective gear reminiscent of a space walk and uses robots for discovery - until a wheel literally falls off. The tension is always intense, the support officer is on the alert for hostile movement, the crowds look on, the huge bomb is in the middle of a Bagdad street and a bystander detonates the device. With the cumulative effect of the missions, and the reminder that there are lessening numbers of days for the squad's tour, we realise we would want to be out of there. Yet James is a gunslinger, does not seem to have any fear, takes off his protective gear, removes his earphones and takes all kinds of risks, even when the clean-up squad is ready to move in. We see a car parked at the UN headquarters with a cunningly concealed bomb. We see a cluster of bombs buried in a street. A boy is in a warehouse, a bomb inside his body. An innocent man is set up with explosives bound to him by steel and with a short timer. His assistant (Anthony Mackie) is angry with him and the other member (Brian Gerraghty) fears that James' recklessness will get him killed. There is an interlude out in the desert but the group are pinned down under fire. There seems virtually no relief, except some horsing around, drinking or the fake DVDs. As with most of the Iraq films, the American soldiers are shown as automatically suspicious of every 'Hajji' and very limited in their knowledge of the language, relying on shouting, swearing, gun threats and intimidation. At the end, we do get some relief as we go back to the US, but James is addicted, overwhelmed by shopping in the supermarket by endless rows of cereal choices (like Oliver Stone's sequence in Heaven and Earth), and wants to return. The point is being made that for the average soldier and, perhaps for commanders as well, is that they are not fighting for a cause or ideals but just fighting and, for some, that is an addiction. There are very brief cameos from Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse. The Hurt Locker is surprisingly from a woman director, Kathryn Bigelow, although she has made some strong male bonding and conflicting films like Point Break and K9 - the Widowmaker. Winner of the SIGNIS award in Venice 2008 (as was In the Valley of Elah in 2007).KISSES A very brief feature about two youngsters during one day in Dublin, Dylan and Kylie. They seem to live in ordinary families but we soon discover that Dylan's father is violent and that Dylan's older brother had left home so years before. Kylie's older sister picks on her and her mother makes Kylie do the work. She is also wary of her uncle Maurice. After a particularly violent outburst against him, Dylan decides to run away and Kylie joins him. The day is both ordinary and eventful, pleasant on a barge where the captain tells them about Bob Dylan and his music, difficult when they find the street for Dylan's brother has lots and lots of houses. Other adventures have them helping a street busker (and Kylie taking a cut of the money collected) but as night falls things become more sinister, especially when a car of pedophiles presume that she is on the streets. Dylan clings to the car and rolls on his wheels in pursuit. They do meet a kindly Bob Dylan lookalike (an uncredited Stephen Rea). They tell their stories to each other and their secrets and then have to make the decision whether to go home or not. Very well acted by the two children, this is a sad tale of contemporary families and their effect on the children. The film opens in black and white and becomes more colourful as their adventures go on – and then the colour fades.
MARTYRS A difficult film to watch – and many would not want to watch it – and a difficult film to review. Some controversy arose about Martyrs when it was first released. Because of the prevalence of American 'torture porn' (a name given to such films as Saw, Captivity, Hostel I and 2, Frontieres), any film which featured graphic torture scenes received that label. However, Martyrs is different from these films which are designed for entertainment. Martyrs, whether one likes it or not, has a more serious intent. Martyrs is the story of Lucie who escaped from her tormentors when a child. She is a very disturbed girl and mutilates herself. She also battles with a spectral girl who slashes her. However, the doctors think she is mentally ill, imagining creatures, and enlist the help of Anna who has befriended her. 15 years later, Lucie says she has discovered her torturers and goes to seek revenge by killing them.. The film takes an unexpected turn here and takes further unexpected turns as the film goes on. The key to the film is the introduction of a strange sect who want to investigate how much a person can suffer – and transcend the suffering. This is the difference between a victim and a martyr. Most people collapse under suffering and can withdraw into mental collapse. It is the martyrs who go beyond the pain, who go beyond fear and glimpse something of another world. This is the theory that the sect members express and the film, with some horrendous sequences of torture and pain, visualises this through the torture of Anna. Clearly, this is not a crowd pleaser. Its plot of internment and exploitation, especially of women and children reminds us of shocking actual cases in Belgium and Austria. Martyrs merits serious attention for its themes, always raising the difficulties of sensibilities of how much detail of suffering audiences are willing to see or how much they can take. [These themes are not all that far from those of Lars Von Trier in Breaking the Waves, Dogville, Manderlay and The Antichrist.]
VILLA AMALIA A very good reason for seeing this film is the presence and performance of Isabelle Huppert. For more than thirty years now, she has enhanced many films with insightful interpretations of difficult characters. As this film opens, she (Anne) is spying on her partner of fifteen years, discovering that he is having an affair. At the same moment, she encounters Georges (Jean-Hugues-Anglade) a friend from her childhood days, though not recognising him at first. When she breaks with her partner, she decides that it is time for a complete change of life. In real life we wonder when someone we know or a relative or close friend makes a decision that seems irrational. They want to walk out on the life they have known and lived for a long time. They want to disappear. They want to do something else with their lives and do not mind cutting off contacts with people who love and appreciate them. One of the strengths of this film is that it presents a credible picture of this kind of behaviour. Anne is a talented pianist and composer. She walks out in mid-performance. She decides to sell her apartment. She asks Georges to set up an anonymous account for her and she will travel and disappear. As Anne travels through Europe, she buys clothes, abandons them and tries to eliminate all trace of her life. The Villa Amalia of the title is the house she finds on an island off the Italian coast where she feels she should be. There is more to the plot – and the question of whether she will make contact, whether she will compose, what she will do with her life but the key issue is that of the crisis that would compel a person to change their life completely.
filmreviews Greg King
BALIBO. The opening night film is sure to be controversial. Balibo is Robert Connolly’s searing and powerful story about five Australian journalists who were brutally murdered by Indonesian troops on the eve of the invasion of East Timor in 1975. The film is full of a palpable sense of anger that these events happened on our door step and yet the Australian government did nothing. And the UN and the rest of the world also turned a blind eye to the atrocities being committed during the Indonesian invasion. The fate of the journalists unfolds in a series of extended flashbacks that becomes increasingly harrowing. Their laidback Aussie attitude gives way to a growing sense of dread as their situation becomes more perilous when they witness the covert beginnings of the invasion. Anthony Lapaglia, who is also one of the producers, has rarely been better than here as Roger East, a respected veteran foreign correspondent. He is persuaded by the charismatic rebel leader Jose Ramos-Horta (Isaac Oscar) to go to East Timor and investigate the fate of the journalists, and report to the world what is happening. David Williamson’s finely tuned script delivers an emotional punch, and rarely has a film left an audience feeling so angry. In a strong year for Australian films, Balibo stands out as one of the most impressive yet. Not to be missed!
EDEN IS WEST. Greek director Costa-Gavras tones down the overtly political nature of his past films like Z, Missing, etc, for his latest film, which is an entertaining and broadly appealing story about a young man on a journey through contemporary Europe. Taking its cues from Homer’s The Odyssey and Voltaire’s Candide, Eden Is West follows illegal immigrant Elias (Riccardo Scamarcio) on his cross-country journey from Greece to Paris. Along the way he relies on the kindness of strangers, but there are many along the way who will also exploit the naïve young man, taking advantage of his good nature and inability to speak their language. A rich visual treat, Eden Is West has been gloriously shot on various locations by Patrick Blossier.
TYSON. Tyson is only the second documentary from maverick director James Toback, who began his career with the gritty urban melodrama Fingers. Toback sat down with his friend, former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, while he was still in rehab and filmed him as he talks in unhurried fashion about his life, his boxing achievements and his personal life. Toback appears sympathetic as he lets Tyson do all the talking. And that is one of the problems with this documentary – the film is nothing short of an apologia for Tyson. As he reflects back on his life and his spectacular and very public fall from grace.we get no other opinion, no perspective to add depth or insight. Toback incorporates plenty of archival footage of some of Tyson’s early bouts, which show the ferocity with which he fought in the ring. However, Tyson reveals an unexpectedly softer side to his fearsome persona as he talks about his relationship with Cus D’Amato, the legendary trainer who recognised the potential in the teenaged tearaway and became a surrogate father figure who saved him from the mean streets of Brooklyn. Toback uses split screen effects and multi-tracking of the soundtrack at times to beef up the dry material, but this technical gimmickry doesn’t really add anything.
BLACK DYNAMITE is a wonderfully wicked parody of the blaxploitation films that were an action staple of ‘70’s B-grade cinema. The brainchild of co-writer and star Michael Jai White, Black Dynamite features a tough, no-nonsense action hero who sets out to wreak his own brand of justice in the hood and avenge the murder of his younger brother. Along the way he exposes some corrupt cops, rids the neighbourhood of drug dealers, and traces a hideous conspiracy all the way to the “honky home” – er, white house – of President Nixon. White’s performance captures the essence of action hero Jim Kelly, best known for his role in Enter The Dragon. Black Dynamite comes replete with all of the cliches of the genre, including the tough dialogue, the mindless and over the top action, martial arts, the sex, the car chases, and the wonderfully cool costumes, but it plays them for laughs. Deliberately shot in retro style by director Scott Sanders, Black Dynamite brilliantly catches the B-grade aesthetic of the genre. Even the occasional shot of the boom microphone and the shonky sets are part of the overall concept. A lot of fun!
BLESSED. Anna Kokkinos’ films have always been provocative and confronting. Her latest, Blessed, is no exception. Like her pervious films it deals with some big and important themes like adolescent angst, teens struggling with their own sexuality, trying to find their sense of identity. But here Kokkinos and regular co-writer Andrew Bovell have tackled more ambitious themes as well. Blessed looks at the relationship between mothers and their children, and the physical and psychological damage they unwittingly inflict on their offspring through neglect, indifference, selfishness, or because they are too absorbed in their own world and its problems. Blessed follows five different stories and characters from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds in a non-linear structure that jumps between the various strands. We first see the kids’ point of view and then we follow events from the mothers’ perspective. Not all of the stories will have a happy ending. Kokkinos has assembled a strong cast, including Deborra-Lee Furness, William McInnes, and Miranda Otto, while Frances O’Connor is heartwrenchingly good. The young cast also acquit themselves well. Cezary Skubiszewik’s haunting and sublime score heightens the emotional punch.
NORTH is a wonderfully droll, delightfully surprising, unexpectedly funny and offbeat road movie from Norway of all places. Jomar has been traumatised by recent events from his past and has sunk into a quagmire of apathy and indifference. But one day he gets out of bed determined to change his life. He heads out across country to visit his child, travelling some 900 miles by snowmobile and, when that breaks down, skis. Along the way he is literally burning his past behind him. The people he meets along the way also help him reassess his life and move on. Making his debut feature, Rune Denstad Langlo’s direction is suitably low key and he delivers a droll and visually stunning movie that finds humanity in the loneliness of the long distance traveller. There is a winning performance from Anders Baasmo Christiansen, and the largely non-professional supporting cast adds to the film’s eccentric nature. Philip Ogaard’s rich widescreen cinematography captures the superb wintry, snow-covered landscapes, and Ola Kvernberg’s beautiful score adds to the film’s immense pleasures. A real winner!
SWEET RUSH. Dealing with grief and loss and sexual awakening, this new film from veteran Polish director Andrzej Wajda (Katyn, etc) is a disappointingly dull and pretentious piece of art house nonsense. An older woman, unaware she is dying of cancer, falls in love and sets out to seduce a handsome youth she spots on the riverbank. But the romance is doomed. Then, at times, the camera pulls back to reveal that this is actually a film, breaking down that barrier between the audience and the screen. But this artifice means that the audience fails to connect emotionally with the characters and their fate. On another level, the drama is interspersed with a moving monologue written and delivered by the film’s star Krystyna Janda, whose husband died during the production. On the surface, Sweet Rush looks beautiful, but is rather dull and ultimately meaningless. My first dud from this year’s festival.
MARTYRS. A Franco/Canadian co-production, Martyrs is a deeply disturbing, unrelentingly nasty and viciously misanthropic piece of torture porn in the same gory vein as Hostel and its ilk. The film starts with Lucie (Mylene Jampanoi) bursting into a house during breakfast and shooting the occupants. Lucie is the survivor of a series of grisly experiments conducted by a shadowy group who use young girls as guinea pigs to explore the after world. Her friend Anna (Morjana Alaoui) tries to rescue her, but is herself captured and becomes their next victim. She is systematically beaten and abused in a series of gut churning scenes. Director Pascal Laugier cites legendary Italian horror director Dario Argenti as an influence and it’s not surprising. Laugier certainly doesn’t pull any punches here, and the uncompromising Martyrs lifts the bar for graphic on screen violence. As Hostel proved, there is certainly an audience for this kind of grim and unpleasantly sadistic film, but does it have a place in a film festival like this?
MOON. Eschewing the big budget and CGI special effects of most sci-fi films, Moon is a quietly intense, claustrophobic mood piece about the loneliness, isolation and paranoia of an astronaut who has spent too much time alone in space. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an engineer manning a mining station on the moon, which is providing vital resources for an energy starved Earth of the distant future. But after an accident leaves him severely injured, Sam comes face to face with a clone of himself, and begins to question his mission and even his own identity. Rockwell delivers a mesmerising and convincing performance in what is virtually a one-man show. Kevin Spacey provides the voice for GERTY, the computer which controls the moon station, and he sounds alternately caring, controlling or vaguely ominous. Heavily influenced by sci-fi classics like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or Silent Running, this debut film from Declan Jones (the son of legendary rock star David Bowie) is truly something of a space oddity.
THIRST. In a time when Hollywood produced horror films are becoming more predictable and formulaic, Asian cinema seems to be producing some of the more original and genuinely unsettling horror films of recent times. Thirst offers an unusual take on the traditional vampire tale. An idealistic young priest (Kang-ho Song) ventures to Africa to help deal with a mysterious epidemic. A blood transfusion leaves him infected with the blood of a vampire. He becomes immortal and develops a sudden thirst for human blood. Upon his return home to Korea, the priest wrestles with a moral dilemma as he tries to balance his need to drink blood to survive and his religious vows that forbid him from killing people. Chan-wook Park slightly tones down the excessive violence of his previous films Old Boy and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, opting for a heady and decidedly off beat mix of gore, sex and gallows humour. There are some wonderful moments throughout the film, but the pacing is a bit uneven. And at 133 minutes, the film is way too long for what it sets out to do.
LITTLE JOE. Lou Reed sang about him in his song Walk On The Wild Side, and Andy Warhol remarked that “Joe Dallesandro was the epitome of male sexuality.” In the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, Dallesandro was the staple of a number of trashy, avant-garde soft core porn films produced by Warhol in his now legendary Factory (Trash, Heat, Flesh, etc). But he wants to be remembered more for his body of work than just his body, and this fascinating documentary from director Nicole Haeusser (making her feature debut) allows him an opportunity to tell his story. Dallesandro talks candidly about his career and reveals himself to be quite charismatic and articulate, and aware of his place in 20th century pop cultural history. He talks about his personal life, his early years as a teenage delinquent, and the suicide of his younger brother. He also drops a few wonderful anecdotes about working with Warhol and regular director Paul Morrissey in the heyday of the Factory. Dallesandro also talks about his post-Warhol career, when he was based in Europe and made a number of films that were, to his disappointment, never released in America. He had hoped that those films may have opened up a new career for him in much the same way as the spaghetti western trilogy did for Clint Eastwood. Dallesandro eventually returned to the States and gained small character roles in a range of films, including John Waters’ Cry-baby and Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey. A must for film buffs, Little Joe contains lots of clips from Dallesandro’s films, as well as some rare archival footage and photographs.
THE BURROWERS. A wonderful genre-bending film that should have broad appeal, The Burrowers takes the traditional conventions of the western movie and adds a chilling touch of horror. Much of the action takes place in the badlands of Dakota in the 1860’s. A family is mysteriously attacked and slaughtered in the middle of the night, and the women dragged off into the night. Fearing that Indians have taken the women hostage a posse sets out after them, much as John Wayne did in the classic The Searchers. But there all similarities end. The posse soon discovers something far worse lurking out there – ancient creatures known as burrowers, that come out every three generations to feed on human flesh and to store bodies in their underground burrows. JT Petty’s muscular direction is reminiscent of Robert Aldrich, Michael Winner and even Sam Peckinpah, and the creature special effects are quite good. The cast delivers strong performances, although Doug Hutchinson (from The Green Mile, etc) is memorable as the racist cavalry officer.
ABOUT ELLY. A group of middle class Iranian friends head to the beach for the weekend. Invited along is Elly (Taraneh Alidooshi), the nursery school teacher of one of the young children. But the relaxed spirits and fun filled atmosphere soon take a turn when one of the children nearly drowns and Elly goes missing. The families turns on themselves as blame and recriminations fly. And then Elly’s fiance turns up demanding answers. Much of the film’s dialogue seems improvised, which gives it an unforced and natural feel. Banned in Iran, this is a deceptively simple enough film on the surface. But like most films emerging from Iran, About Elly contains a wonderful subtext that explores the divisive nature and repressive political structure of contemporary Iran, and the film is especially critical of its social strictures that deny women rights and an opportunity to have a say in their own lives. Director Asghar Farhadi’s use of hand held cameras brings a sense of urgency and tension to key scenes. The ending is nicely ambiguous, leaving audiences to make up their own minds as to Elly’s fate.
DEATHBOWL TO DOWNTOWN. The accepted history of skateboarding acknowledges the role played by Californian surfers known as the Z-boys in establishing the fledgling sport in the ‘70’s. But that was “a frontier tale coloured by a carefree mythology” that ignores what was happening on the East Coast. While the Z-boys had access to empty swimming pools in which to hone their craft, the skaters of New York City had to take it to the streets. But that doesn’t mean that their involvement in helping to establish the sport is no less relevant or influential, as this documentary sets out to demonstrate. In the mid-‘70’s, New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the city was no longer a suitable place to raise a family as it was overrun by crime, poverty and drugs. But this gave the graffiti artists and skaters plenty of freedom to move around the city and find places in which to practise their moves, and even introduce revolutionary new moves that moved beyond what their Californian counterparts were doing. Over the next thirty years, New York again prospered and the cityscape changed. Giuliani was elected Mayor and given a mandate to clean up the city, forcing the skaters to adapt and change. Deathbowl To Downtown traces this colourful history of New York, and unfolds from the perspective of many of the skaters who were there at the forefront of the burgeoning sport. Skate addicts themselves, co-directors Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski have wonderful access to interview their subjects, but they are also able to include plenty of rare, amateur video footage shot by the skaters themselves as they rolled around the city, challenging authority. Chloe Sevigny narrates the film and she gives the material a sense importance that seems unwarranted. Deathbowl To Downtown will be of great interest to skaters and those immersed the whole skating culture, but it will seem a bit “ho-hum” and of limited appeal to anyone else.