Director Visar Morina perfectly captures the uneasy dislocation of being a foreigner in a structured and comfortable society, using every frame to push us into a growing paranoia.
Continue readingExile (Exil) (2020)
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Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky (2020)
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You know if Steven Oliver is narrating, this is going to be a warm and fabulous ride through a serious subject. Taking the 250th anniversary of the landing of Captain Cook in Australia as a jumping off point, Indigenous artists create modern-day songlines that voice an Indigenous view of colonisation.
Continue readingBorn to Be (2019)
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There are probably many people like Dr Jess Ting in the world, just going about their work but, because of their empathy and dedication to making a difference, they change people’s lives.
Continue readingDingo (1991)
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Notable for being the most significant acting performance by Miles Davis, Rolf de Heer’s feel-good, boy-has-a-dream drama seems like a film from another era.
Continue readingCorpus Christi (Boze Cialo)(2019)
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This solid and compelling drama from Jan Komasa wraps a story about morality and choice around the limitations of class and culture in rural Poland.
Continue readingThe Go-Go’s (2020)
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I wanted to like this documentary about “the first all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to reach number one in the Billboard album charts.” This fact in itself is worthy of celebration. That this feat occurred in 1982 and hasn’t been repeated is appalling and I was hoping that this documentary by Alison Elwood might shine a light on “why The Go-Go’s?”
Continue readingKuessipan (2019)
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Kuessipan sneaks up on you. For awhile it feels like a familiar story of race and class and wanting freedom from the confines of family and community as you teeter on the precipice of adulthood.
Continue readingServants (2020)
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For its imagery alone, this bleak and beautiful drama by Ivan Ostrochovský is worth a look, although it’s love of an exquisitely composed frame distances you from the characters.
Continue readingShirley (2020)
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Josephine Decker gives us a rich and textured exploration of feminism and patriarchy, wrapped around a fictionalised account of real-life gothic horror writer Shirley Jackson.
Continue readingThe Killing of Two Lovers (2020)
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Having just watched Black Bear (2020), which explores gender roles in its arty maelstrom of a story, The Killing of Two Lovers shows how to nail it. Robert Machoian immerses us in the head and heart of husband and dad David as his marriages crumbles.
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