Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
It was a feelgood Sunday for me at the Japanese Film Festival with two charmers – My Uncle and this animation that also showed at MIFF this year. Aimed at kids, it is a two-layered story about Kokone (voiced by Mitsuki Takahata), whose father Momo (Yôsuke Eguchi) repairs cars, and Princess Ancien, whose magic tablet allows her to give life to objects in the beleaguered kingdom of Heartland. Continue reading
Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
I was completely charmed by this family comedy at the Japanese Film Festival. Yukio (Riku Ohnishi) must write an essay for a school contest about an adult in his family. His parents are too unexceptional so he chooses his infantile loafer of an uncle (Ryûhei Matsuda). Continue reading
Image via cinemasiren.com
I’ll go out on a limb and say the best way to make a film about women is to have one direct it. The fact that the title and trailer of this film focused on William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman and co-inventor of the lie detector, led me to suspect that this might be another hagiography of a bloke who supported women’s rights. Happily it is definitely not. It is a sexy tale that places the women firmly in the centre and has given me a new appreciation of Wonder Woman. Continue reading
Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
A slow burn of a film, A Double Life at first seems to be about the vagaries of a young girl, trying to find meaning in her life. Inspired by the work of French artist Sophie Calle, True Stories, it becomes instead a thoughtful and moving exploration of privacy, connection and compromise. Continue reading
Image via japanesefilmfestival.net
My first Japanese Film Festival outing for this year, I stepped in to a multi-coloured tangled web of a tale about disaffected youth in rural Japan. Ai (a radiant Sairi Itô) is rejected by her mother and shipped off to a religious commune. Finding a sense of belonging there as Ananda, her peaceful world is upended when cult leader Levi (Matthew Chozick) is arrested. Continue reading
Image via http://www.etonline.com
Can Taika Waititi please direct every Marvel/DC film? Then I might be tempted to watch them. Not my favourite genre, New Zealand director Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do in the Shadows, Boy) for the most part refuses to take his job too seriously and peppers the script with largely improvised and genuinely funny dialogue. Continue reading
Image via http://www.engadget.com
The way to make a sequel, and big budget movie, is to give the directing job to a non-American it seems. French-Canadian, Denis Villeneuve, who directed the superb Arrival and Incendies, takes a fair stab at this one and manages to equal the original in mood, visual impact, leisurely pace and partially clothed women. Continue reading
Image via http://www.nordicfilmfest.org
A fitting film to review during White Ribbon Week, Hotel Coolgardie is a low budget but beautifully realised documentary about the brutal and misogynistic culture that proudly exists in outback Australian mining towns. Continue reading
Image via http://www.indiewire.com
Wow! Where has this film been hiding? Thanks goodness for ACMI that keeps showing these unlooked for and unheralded gems. The advertising for this Mexican horror/drama almost put me off; “Sexual desire, social realism and the uncanny converge in this provocative genre splice.” It could’ve been a Neon Demon – and you can click on the link to see how much I loved that ‘genre-splicing, misogyny-satirising’ movie. Happily The Untamed is nothing like it and I loved its deadpan and excoriating look at heteronormative oppression, wound through with a profoundly meaningful and metaphorical motif of horror. Continue reading
Image via miff.com.au
There’s something lovely about this dark comedy, although it’s almost unbearable sometimes to watch the sad and dangerous trajectory of hapless Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza). Continue reading
fillums 