I have no idea what this Iranian film is about. It’s stylish, unconventional and full of beautiful moments and promise but ultimately I felt I was missing out on a cultural context that may have made sense of the story. It begins as a drama with a man, Babak, recounting to an investigator the events that had led up to that moment. We then see the events unfold; he is sent to make a report on a man who has killed himself on the island of Qeshm. He was an ‘exile’ living alone in a derelict boat in the middle of a desert cemetery and Babak can see that he was murdered. His investigations begin to reveal surreal and confusing facts. Continue reading
Category Archives: Bechdel fail
Apprentice (2016)
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I cried at the end of this film, I’m not sure why. There is a quiet reverence to it and beauty that is at odds with its setting. By Singaporean director Boo Junfeng, the setting is a Malay maximum security prison where Aiman has just begun work as a guard. He seems kind, conscientious, though emotionally distant from his only sister. Soon he is taken under the wing of Rahim, the prison executioner, who teaches him how to ‘kill well’, with the least pain and the most compassion. Continue reading
Behemoth (2015)
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I like to be shown rather than told and this Chinese documentary about the vast coal mines of Inner Mongolia did just that. Made up of dialogue-free footage, we are taken on an absorbing and sobering visual journey. The behemoth of the title refers to the monster of the Bible who devours mountains and, through a loose translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, we journey through the Purgatory, Hell and Paradise of China’s insatiable appetite for industrial production. Continue reading
The Nightingale and the Rose (2015)
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Not a MIFF film. I took a detour at ACMI this morning as I waited for my first film session of the day and watched Del Kathryn Barton’s sumptuous animation of Oscar Wilde’s short story, The Nightingale and the Rose. Continue reading
The Demons (2015)
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The name of this film helps me understand better what the theme of it was. It’s a slow-moving observational film, centred around Felix who is at the cusp of puberty and trying to make sense of the motives and expectations of the people around him. The ‘demons’ come in many forms, none literal, and they seem to be the fears and compulsions that we can’t resist. Continue reading
The Event (2015)
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Like Ma, this film was a little challenging to enjoy as it made no concessions for the knowledge-base, or lack of it in my case, of its viewers. Made entirely of found footage with no narration or explanation, we watch the events unfolding in Leningrad in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapses. Continue reading
Diamond Island (2016)
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Diamond Island is a newly developed piece of reclaimed land, separated from Phnom Penh by bridges, and the place where urban locals go for fresh air and entertainment. The construction sites of the many luxury condominiums being built also provide opportunities for work for Cambodians and this beautiful and sobering film starts with Bora leaving his rural village to find work there. Continue reading
Lily Lane (2016)
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Expectations again. This Hungarian film was described as a horror, well actually “somewhere between Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky and a horror film.” It wasn’t a horror. It was a dark tale to be sure but slow to get to its point. That would have been the Tarkovsky bit. Continue reading
Ma (2015)
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I knew this film was going to be different. The story of the Virgin Mary, without dialogue, as a choreographic piece and framed as a southern US road movie. And different it was. Writer, director, choreographer and star, Celia Rowlson-Hall attended a Q&A afterward which helped me understand this surreal, movement-based story. Though I’m still not sure why the members of the Village People were carrying motel room furniture across the desert. Continue reading
Evolution (2015)
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This is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Its colour palette, location and aesthetic are exquisite. It is also enigmatic, to the point of being unsatisfying. We see a small, austere, island community of women and boys. The women are pale eyebrowed, dressed in colours of skin and earth. The boys are prepubescent, unsmiling. They live in bare, white houses amongst black sand, rock and crashing waves. There is little dialogue and no context for this odd world. Continue reading
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