Tag Archives: 5 stars

Toni Erdmann (2016)

Standard

TONI-ERDMANN-1

I nearly didn’t see this film. Thank you to MIFF buddy Alex #2 who encouraged me to book this encore screening after I had ditched an earlier screening in exchange for a bit of sleep. I loved it. Laugh out loud loved it. Now I want to see more of Maren Ade’s films. This film revolves around Winfried and his adult daughter Ines. Through steady and wry observation, we see the dynamics between them, the effect of a separation and what their early years together might have been like. They seem very different now; he always finding humour in the everyday, she trying so hard to be a competent adult. Continue reading →

Chevalier (2015)

Standard

CHEVALIER-02At last, a five star film. I had hopes for Chevalier as it is co-written by Efthymis Filippou, the co-writer of The Lobster and Dogtooth, two brilliant films by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. And you know how much I loved The Lobster. Set on a luxury yacht off a nameless Greek Island, six men, with various connections with each other, dive, fish and share food, wine and stories. Slowly at first and then with greater intensity, they begin to compete for the prize of the “best man in general.” Continue reading →

The Lobster (2015)

Standard

I’m going to write a lot about this film because I loved it. This is the one film I most wanted to see at MIFF but it sold out within the first few days and I missed out. I had high hopes for it as I loved Dogtooth, the previous film from this director, Yorgos Lanthimos. His films are not for everyone. They can be black and bleak and devastating but they are incisive and profoundly moving satires about our self-imposed limitations and fears. Continue reading →

In the Crosswind (Risttuules) (2014)

Standard

Hold the phone, Simone, and shut the front door, Lenore. I have seen my film of the festival. The one that blew me away and I would have started watching again if I could. In the Crosswind is an Estonian drama unlike anything I have seen before.

It tells the story of the forced removal of half a million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians from their homelands by Stalin, to be ‘resettled’ in Siberia and prison and forced labour camps. The only dialogue in the film is the reading out of the actual letters and diary entries of an Estonian woman, Erna, to her husband Heldur. She has been taken with other women and children to Siberia and lives in dire poverty and deprivation, he has been sent to a gulag. Continue reading →

Gayby Baby (2015)

Standard

gayby-baby

5.0_orange_sm

All the way home on the tram I thought about whether to give this outstanding Australian documentary about the children of same-sex parents 4.5 or 5 stars. For me, it was a perfectly crafted documentary, how docos should be made (and I’m talking to you George Gittoes). Engaging subjects who feel safe enough to be real on camera, a story and a message that slowly unfolds, that we observe  and understand without the need for exposition, and no sign of the film maker, we are totally absorbed into the world of the subjects. Continue reading →