Category Archives: MIFF

Melbourne (2014)

Standard

I think this is my favourite Iranian film of the Festival. I have seen three – Tales, Tehran Taxi and this. Tales had some good moments but Melbourne is a nicely constructed debut feature film that keeps you considerably uncomfortable throughout. Continue reading →

Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015)

Standard

Oh Peter, Peter, Peter. Have you changed or have I? I think it’s fitting that I ended the festival with a Peter Greenaway film. I discovered Greenaway films when I was falling in love with cinema back 25 years or so ago.It was fitting also that I walked out on it as I did the first film of the festival. Continue reading →

Putuparri and the Rainmakers (2015)

Standard

I’ve seen a few films in the past two weeks that have changed my view on something or at least given me a profound insight. This Australian documentary joins those ranks. I mentioned that Don’t Tell Me the Boy Was Mad made me think of the displacement of Australian Aboriginal people and this commonality has been reinforced by today’s film, Putuparri and the Rainmakers. Continue reading →

Grey Gardens (1975)

Standard

This US documentary by the Maysles was made in 1975 and it shows that, if you have remarkable people, you only need to point a camera at them for long enough to get a story. We are flies on the wall of the crumbling East Hampton mansion, Grey Gardens, owned by Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, ‘Little Edie’. Edith is Jackie Kennedy’s aunt and we can see that she has come from old money and the American aristocracy. That is all in the past though, as the mansion is a squalid place, full of cats and raccoons and rubbish and Edith and Little Edie live an insular and co-dependent life within its walls. Continue reading →

Don’t Tell Me the Boy Was Mad (Une histoire de fou) (2015)

Standard

A somewhat trivial title for a film grounded in long-held sorrow. The original title, Une Histoire de Fou gives perhaps a more meaningful name – A History of Madness. This is a French film but it is about Armenia and the repercussions of the massacre of more than one million Armenians by the Ottoman government during and after the first World War. You may be like me and several French characters in the movie to say, “Where’s Armenia?”. How could I not know about this part of history? Continue reading →

Magic Magic (2013)

Standard

This is the Sebastian Silva film that I had originally booked and then got the recommendation to see The Maid. I really liked that one and I suspected that this wouldn’t be as good. It wasn’t, but he has won me over as a director and I’m now intrigued to see more of his films.

Alicia is a California girl joining her cousin Sarah for a break in Chile. With some Chilean and American friends they head south to a remote coastal location where they are surrounded by the mess and noise of nature. It becomes clear that Alicia is suffering from some kind of breakdown and the isolation, geographically and emotionally from those around her, means she quickly spirals into psychosis. Continue reading →

Love (2015)

Standard

I still have the Satie music from this film in my head. This is a French film by Argentinian director Gaspar Noé and it was only on the way home that I realised Love really reminded me of Irreversible. A quick IMDb search and it turns out that was a Noé film too. If anyone reading this has seen Irreversible, you’ll know that Noé is a director who is fearless in his approach. The mood of this film was similar and the technique of beginning at the end, but where Irreversible was a harrowing look at the things we can’t change, Love approaches a similar theme in quite a different way. Continue reading →