Tag Archives: 4 stars

The Eagle Huntress (2016)

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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 →

Moonlight (2016)

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Image via moviescounter.com

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 →

Lion (2016)

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Image via cinemathread.com

This is an unexpectedly beautiful and thought-provoking film based on the true story of five-year-old Indian boy, Saroo, who becomes separated from his family. He is lost amongst the millions, one of 80,000 Indian children who go missing every year, and it is a 25 year journey before he has the chance to reconnect with his home. Continue reading →

Fukushima, Mon Amour (Grüße aus Fukushima) (2016)

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Screening as part of the German Film Festival (that finishes this week in Melbourne), Doris Dörrie writes and directs this homage to the Alain Resnais film Hiroshima Mon Amour and a love letter to the people of Fukushima. Shot in black and white, this begins as a slight tale of a German girl, Marie (Rosalie Thomass), trying to escape her memories amongst those cast adrift in the wastelands of Fukushima, two years after the earthquake and nuclear disaster. Continue reading →

Heart of a Dog (2015)

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A missed MIFF film, thanks be to ACMI for screening some MIFF gems well before they might get a Nova season (or not). Heart of a Dog is Laurie Anderson’s rumination on death, wrapped loosely around stories of her dog Lolabelle. It is spoken word and a moving montage of illustrations, painterly home movies and text, seeming to skitter from one thought to another. Continue reading →

The Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

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The what-a-people? Full of memorable, quotable lines that are all the funnier for being in a Kiwi accent, there is nothing really to dislike about this sweet New Zealand comic drama by Taika Waititi, director of What We Do in the Shadows and Boy, two of my favourite Kiwi films. You’ll recognise Taika as he also often features in his films – Viago in Shadows, Alamein in Boy and the minister in Wilderpeople. Continue reading →

Girlfriends (1978)

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GIRLFRIENDS-2One of the great things about MIFF is that you get to see older films that you can’t easily access. I don’t book many of these as there are so many new films to see but I liked the sound of this 1978 one by director Claudia Weill. It’s a simple story about two room mates, Susan and Annie, whose friendship is tested when Annie moves out and gets married. Continue reading →