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This Italian chamber piece is set at a dinner party where a group of friends, new and old, couples and singletons, gather at the home of Eva and Rocco. After a discussion about secrets, Eva suggests they all lay their phones on the table throughout the meal; any calls or messages must be shared with the group. Continue reading
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Beautiful, heartwarming and heartbreaking, this latest from Ken Loach (Ae Fond Kiss, The Navigators), shows us the inhumanity of the British government welfare system or any bureaucratic system that takes choice and control about their own lives away from ordinary people. Continue reading
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Screening as part of the German Film Festival (that finishes this week in Melbourne), Doris Dörrie writes and directs this homage to the Alain Resnais film Hiroshima Mon Amour and a love letter to the people of Fukushima. Shot in black and white, this begins as a slight tale of a German girl, Marie (Rosalie Thomass), trying to escape her memories amongst those cast adrift in the wastelands of Fukushima, two years after the earthquake and nuclear disaster. Continue reading
This Korean adaptation by Chan-wook Park of the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters was a delightful surprise. Skipped at MIFF because it seemed a bit trivial, I discovered it is a beautiful exploration of the power of women and the many guises of oppression and truth. Continue reading
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Not the Disney film. Definitely not the Disney film. This surreal meditation on the fragility of one young woman is a mannered but metaphorically profound film by Australian director Julia Leigh. Don’t expect titillation, as many seem to from a superficial reading of the synopsis; university student Lucy begins work at an exclusive club where wealthy men can spend the night with her while she is drugged asleep. Continue reading
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Ah Matthew McConaughey, have I ever really loved any film you’ve been in? You’re often a charmer but it’s a smug, chauvinistic sort of charm, especially in those dreadful romcoms you did back ten years or more ago. Mud was okay but I’ve just scrolled through your filmography on IMDb and the answer, really, is no. So why did I bother with Interstellar? I had a vague impression that it was interesting and, being about space, I thought it might interest my Starship Troopers-loving husband whilst also engaging our brains. It did neither. Continue reading
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“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” And so begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I had low hopes for this film as it came and went at the cinema within a few weeks, never a good sign. It combines two excellent genres though – Austen and horror – and was much, much better than I’d hoped. Regardless of it’s occasional flaws in logic and pacing, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies reimagines a classic where women are socially powerless and makes them warriors. Continue reading
MIFF announced some surprise screenings on the last day. These are films that weren’t part of the festival program and were a mixture of classics – Abbas Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry to mark his passing last month – and new films like this New Zealand drama that had just premiered at the NZ Film Festival and been chosen for the New York Film Festival. It’s based on a book by Eleanor Catton, author of the much better know The Luminaries so it has some credentials. Overall it was a pleasant experience though I was left wondering what the film was really about. Continue reading
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