Image via MIFF
This Melbourne Queer Film Festival screening was my third attempt to see this film; booked at MIFF but sacrificed for tiredness, waiting for half an hour at Cinema Nova yesterday before it was cancelled due to a technical hitch and then rescheduled today. I’m glad I hung in there; it was a beautiful film that pulled me into a world both foreign and familiar. Continue reading
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Some films have great potential; an unexpected premise, a storyline that raises challenging questions and a direction that could take you down one or more interesting paths. The Family Fang, the second feature film directed by actor Jason Bateman, is such a film. Camille and Caleb Fang are avant-garde performance artists who only hesitate momentarily when they become parents, quickly incorporating their children Annie and Baxter into their performances. Their aim is to upset the status quo and watch as innocent participants become drawn into their elaborately orchestrated social mischief. Continue reading
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You know how there are some great animated movies that are a joy to watch for kids and adults alike? Ballerina is not one of them. I was dragged to see it by my 10-year-old daughter as it looked like it was, at least, a story about a plucky girl with self-determination. When we emerged two hours later, my daughter declared, “There was just so much wrong with it!” Continue reading
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Written and directed in 2006 by Iranian Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past, The Salesman) this story of a young, engaged, Tehrani woman as she becomes embroiled in a failing marriage has his signature style. We are immersed in the minutiae of an ordinary day with with one character, in this case Roohi (Taraneh Alidoosti – Elly in About Elly and Rana in The Salesman), who is a catalyst and the pivot point around which the story revolves. Continue reading
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Described as a memoir, this documentary is a montage of footage taken by documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson over the 25 years (so far) of her career. Presented without narration, we see a patchwork of clips that pull us from Bosnia and Afghanistan to Brooklyn and Guantanamo Bay. Johnson only appears on screen once, a highly personal and emotional moment toward the end, but her quiet presence is often felt. Continue reading
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This is a warm and sensitive adaptation by director Rachel Perkins of Craig Silvey’s excellent Australian novel of the same name. The film aims squarely at a mainstream and younger audience than the book, pulling its punches to just touch on the themes of racism and abuse that are central to the story of Charlie Bucktin’s awakening from childhood innocence in the rural town of Corrigan in the 1960s. Continue reading
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Talking about feminism, this is a lovely example of a story that centres around a girl making her own choices in a conservative, patriarchal culture. Aisholpan is 13 and lives with her parents and younger siblings nearly the Altai mountains in Mongolia. Her father comes from 12 generations of eagle hunters and Aisholpan has inherited his passion. Women don’t become eagle hunters though, they milk the livestock, cook food and, according to the menfolk, “argue over the gifts at a party.” Continue reading
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The best way to see a Star wars film is at iMax in 3D (thanks Vaughan for the tip) with your three daughters, some popcorn and a frozen drink. Why? Because it gives a movie reliant on action and special effects its best chance and it will be an enjoyable event regardless. Rogue One has something going for it; being only a fragment of the original Star Wars story (what happened just before Episode IV: A New Hope) it isn’t weighed down by the original Star Wars characters or the unquestioning reverence for Star Wars canon that The Force Awakens seems to struggle under. Continue reading
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For those born after 1980, Trainspotting was a genre-changing, career-making, 1996 film that made us fall in love all over again with 80s punk music and feel empathy for a group of low-life heroin addicts. The sequel, the rather cutely named T2 Trainspotting, unapologetically replicates the original’s style and shows us what becomes of 20-year-old smack heads as they approach middle age. Continue reading
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It takes a while for this slow and quiet study of a man to hit its stride and to show its colours. We meet Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) as he goes about his job as a Boston janitor, at the beck and call of people in four apartment buildings. Lee seems shy and awkward but a few scenes show us it is perhaps a simmering anger that keeps him quiet. Interspersed with the monotony of his life, we see scenes of him on a boat with his brother and nephew and it is only gradually that we become aware these are flashbacks. A phone call brings him home to Manchester. His brother has died, leaving him the responsibility of his 16-year-old nephew Patrick. Continue reading
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