Tag Archives: 3.5 stars

Love (2015)

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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 →

Mediterranea (2015)

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Another multinational production – even Qatar gets a look in on this one – but I think it would be classified as Italian. It’s about Africans looking for a better life in Europe, though, so you feel as if you have been immersed in a melting pot of cultures, all looking for something better. Continue reading →

Pioneer Heroes (Pionery-geroi) (2015)

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I got lost in this Russian film. Not lost as in ‘so absorbed with the story I lost sight of myself’, lost as in ‘I have no idea what’s happening’. It started well. We are in the 1980s Soviet Union watching children practicing to become Pioneer Heroes, the youth movement modelled on Lenin and the values of the Soviet Union. Three in particular we get to know – Sergeyev who wants to be like all the other kids but also wants to be a hero, Katya, who struggles to keep her grandfather’s bootlegging a secret as it is against the rules of the PH, and Olga, an anxious girl who relies heavily on Katya’s confidence and decisiveness. Continue reading →

Me Romantic Romani (2015)

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I added this film late to make up my 50 films and because I had a morning with no films booked. It looked like a light one, part of the Next Gen program aimed at teens and so there were the usual rows of uniformed school kids in front of me. It’s an Italian film and is set in the down-at-heel suburb of Falchera on the outskirts of Torino but it’s not really about Italians, it’s about Romani, or gypsies as we might know them. Continue reading →

Sherpa (2015)

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Did you know that the Sherpa people are an ethnic group? I didn’t, I thought sherpa was an occupational term for the Nepalese people who assist climbers on Everest. This Australian documentary delves in to the lives of the Sherpa people and how the bloated industry that has grown to enable wealthy foreigners to summit Everest affects their lives and community. We follow Phurba Tashi Sherpa as he leaves his family to lead a team of 25 Sherpa people who will assist an international group led by experienced expedition leader Russell Brice. If Phurba summits this year, it will be his 22nd time, a record. Continue reading →

Graceful Girls (2015)

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It’s hard not to be won over by the girls and women of the callisthenics community. Callisthenics, it turns out, is uniquely Australian and developed with migrant populations as a way to promote physical fitness and gracefulness for young girls. Callisthenics is like a cross between gymnastics, ballet and synchronised swimming and (almost exclusively) girls and young women train and compete in solo and group events. The pinnacle, is the annual competition at Royal South Street in Ballarat, in particular the Most Graceful Girl prize. Continue reading →

Sworn Virgin (Vergine giurata) (2015)

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Sworn Virgin is another of those multinational coproductions but I’m going to call it an Albanian film. The thread of the story is about gender roles in rural Albania, and although it is set equally in Italy, it is Albanian life and culture that we experience. The story is set in two time periods, we see Mark traveling from Albania to Italy and reuniting with his sister and her family after 14 years. We can tell that Mark is actually a woman and we know that Lila, his sister, knows but everyone else is oblivious. We then flash back to Lila and Mark’s teenage years in Albania and we discover the story. Continue reading →

Phoenix (2014)

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I quite enjoyed this German drama about a woman, Nelly, disfigured in a concentration camp whose facial reconstruction surgery alters her so much her husband fails to recognise her. She has been physically and emotionally shattered by her experiences, all her family have perished but her husband has survived. She is desperate to find him only to discover that he was the reason she was arrested. Sensing her similarity to his wife, who he believes is dead, he persuades her to pretend to be his wife and so he can inherit her fortune. Continue reading →

My Skinny Sister (Min lilla syster) (2015)

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I wanted to really love this Swedish film. It had great bones, interesting characters, interesting topic, an unflinching gaze and a strong central performance from the 12-ish year old lead. It is the story of her character, Stella, as she watches her sister Katja, the skinny sister of the title, struggle with the rigours of competitive figure skating and, slowly we discover, an eating disorder. Continue reading →