Image via miff.com.au
This slow and bleakly beautiful meditation on the decay and desolation of modern day Russia is framed around the story of one broken family. Continue reading
Loveless (Nelyubov) (2017)
StandardLucky (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
This is essentially a one-hander for nonogenarian Harry Dean Stanton who beautifully captures the fragility and complexities of old age. Continue reading
BPM (120 Battements par Minute) (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
AIDS and activism in the 80s and 90s are inextricably entwined. Grassroots organisations like ACT UP were at the forefront of multifaceted agitation, lobbying, education and shock tactics to reduce the spread of the virus and increase research into treatment. Continue reading
In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
This is how revenge movie should be made. Turkish director Fatih Akin takes a story that could have been plucked from today’s news and exposes the personal cost of racism. Continue reading
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
My first Indonesian, feminist, spaghetti western. Marlina (Marsha Timothy), a young widow living alone, defends herself with cool insouciance against a rapacious gang. Continue reading
The Square (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
An artful satire about collective responsibility and contemporary art, The Square is clever and sometimes challenging but overlong in delivering its message. Continue reading
Afterimage (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
I think we are supposed to feel sympathy for Polish artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski (Boguslaw Linda) whose avant-garde art saw him fall out of favour under socialism in the 40s. Continue reading
Tehran Taboo (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
Tehran Taboo uses rotoscope animation to tell the story of four people unable to have choice in their lives due to the religious and social limitations of modern day Iran. Continue reading
Virtual Reality: Inside Manus (2017)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
Three men who have been held in detention on Manus Island tell their stories in an affecting graphic novel style of virtual reality. Continue reading
Glory (Slava) (2016)
Standard
Image via miff.com.au
Glory grabbed me from its first realistic scenes to its devastating ending. Described as Capra-esque and a black comedy, this is anything but; intense, understated and bleak, it is a powerful drama about what is lost when corruption and greed win out over humanity. Continue reading
fillums 