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This Italian chamber piece is set at a dinner party where a group of friends, new and old, couples and singletons, gather at the home of Eva and Rocco. After a discussion about secrets, Eva suggests they all lay their phones on the table throughout the meal; any calls or messages must be shared with the group. Continue reading
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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
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Beautiful, heartwarming and heartbreaking, this latest from Ken Loach (Ae Fond Kiss, The Navigators), shows us the inhumanity of the British government welfare system or any bureaucratic system that takes choice and control about their own lives away from ordinary people. Continue reading
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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
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 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
One 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
Seeing three films in a row is hard, particularly when they are 4pm, 6.30pm and 9pm sessions with only enough time in between to power walk to the next venue. Knowing that the Graduation was a 2-hour Romanian social realist drama, I didn’t have a lot of confidence that I would make it through to the end. I found myself, though, absorbed and swept up in a story about Romania and parenting and regret and acceptance. Continue reading
Directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring the seemingly ubiquitous Adam Driver, I was expecting something interesting but mainstream from Paterson. That’s not quite what this film is. On the surface it is an uneventful study of the routine of a single, ordinary life, with some humour provided by a dog. Underneath, it is a meditation on the difficulty of reengaging and finding meaning in life after military service, or perhaps any trauma. Continue reading
The French title of this lovely family film is Jamais Contente, which I think translates as ‘never satisfied’ and this seems an apt description of both the affliction of the central character, 13-year-old Aurore, and the attitude of the adults around her. Aurore is repeating year 7, has a younger sister who always gets good grades and an older one who seems to do what she likes. Aurore feels misunderstood by all and disenfranchised from her family. Continue reading
