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This honest, human film by French director Mia Hansen-Løve wrapped me in its warm embrace and, as the camera pulled slowly out on the final scene and the harmonic tones of the Fleetwoods began to sing, it brought me to tears. Not overly sad, the story of a 60-something-year-old woman assessing her life resonated deeply. Continue reading
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A movie about a woman being victimised isn’t the kind I would normally go and see but Berlin Syndrome is directed by Cate Shortland (Somersault, Lore) so I knew it was going to be interesting with the story of the woman at the heart. Clare (Teresa Palmer) is a naive Australian tourist newly arrived in Berlin. By chance she meets German school teacher Andi (Max Riemelt) and strikes up a hesitant friendship that leads to her staying the night at his isolated apartment in an otherwise empty former East Berlin apartment block. When she wakes in the morning with Andi gone to work, she finds the doors and windows locked and she can’t leave. Continue reading
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Harold and Maude meets High School Musical in this messy, funny, teen romp of a film by Australian Neil Triffett. Ethan (Benson Jack Anthony) is a misfit in his school. Identifying as an emo with black eyeliner and a melancholic preoccupation with death, he is expelled after trying unsuccessfully to hang himself from a tree in the schoolyard. As the new kid at scruffy Seymour High, he finds his tribe with wannabe emo band Worst Day Ever who are vying for a prize in a regional band competition. Trouble arises when Ethan falls for Trinity (Jordan Hare), singer in rival Christian band Hope. Continue reading
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It’s hard to love a film that’s deliberately ambiguous but there is something about this odd, French, mixed-genre movie by Olivier Assayas that mesmerises. Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is in a kind of frantic and masochistic limbo in Paris. Her twin brother Lewis has died from a congenital heart condition they both share and she is waiting for him to show her a sign that the afterlife exists. Continue reading
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The delightful, tiny film Once thrust musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová into the spotlight when they won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008 for Falling Slowly. The Swell Season is the name of the band they formed and toured around the world as well as this quiet and genuine B&W documentary that follows the ups and downs of their personal and professional relationship in the aftermath of their success. Continue reading
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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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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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After the delightful furore at the Oscars that saw La La Land‘s seemingly all white (and mostly male) entourage plough through their speeches for Best Picture only to be spectacularly replaced by Moonlight‘s nearly all black (and mostly male) contingent, it was with great interest that I sat down to watch this film. With Mahershala Ali being feted as the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar and Moonlight as the first LGBT movie to win Best Picture, I was expecting a film that would challenge white, conservative, heteronormative ideas. While Moonlight is a decent and worthy movie (if only for its all black cast), it was rather coy in its tackling of LGBT issues and Ali’s nomination, for what is a fairly small part compared to the substantial performances of the much lesser known Trevante Rhodes (Black) and Ashton Sanders (Chiron), says something, I think, about the benign paternalism of the Oscars. Continue reading
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