More Festival News

BIFF Update #2

With the festival soon wrapping up, I’ll be putting my mini-reviews up a bit late. Originally I wanted to post day-by-day, but with a full time job, and the films, that’s become too much! Anyway – here’s my take on the next few films we saw.

TRUANT (New Zealand - 2005)

This short film from New Zealand follows the actions of a schoolboy who, whenever possible, forsakes his studies to ride the bus work on his sketches. When he meets tough street kid Romy, the two form a quick bond, but his ability is to draw people, not understand them, and the defense mechanisms that brought Romy to the street in the first place surface when she feels too close to :LSKDJF. Told in a non-linear way, Truant is a taut mini-tragedy that reveals just enough about its characters.


WHOLE NEW THING (Canada, 2005)

Possibly the find of the festival, Amnon Buchbinder’s Whole New Thing, currently in the top ten films based on audience votes, blew into Brisbane like a breath of crisp, Nova Scotia air. This is a coming of age tale with a difference – self-assured 13 year old Emerson (S:DLFKJ) finally arrives in the local school system after being home-schooled by his eco-nudist parents. Yet the clichés inherent in such a plot are quickly dismantled; Emerson deals with bullies with ease (verbally) and does not have the same hang-ups about girls as his classmates. It is his growing crush on his English teacher (Daniel MacIvor) that begins to complicate his life, and the lives of everyone around him. Shot on a shoestring budget, Whole New Thing successfully navigates the fine line between heart-ache and comedy and is so much more than a ‘gay, coming of age tale’ as many reviews have called it. It is Emerson’s ability to match childlike innocence with adult intellect (“I’m not gay, or straight. Those are just labels”) that shows the viewer that it’s the ‘grown-ups’ who need to do the most maturing.

ROUTE 66 (Canada, 2003)

The title of this NFB short seemed to change three times during the introduction, but that did not diminish its powerful effect. Shot by Quebecois filmmaker Roger Otis along Australia’s notorious Capricorn Highway, the film is a five minute dedication to the beauty and danger of the Outback. Focusing on the speed, isolation and determination of the Roadtrains (the giant, Aussie long-haul trucks) Otis juxtaposes images of the roads, the fauna and the truckers’ haunts simultaneously using the rearview mirrors as split screen and different stock and filters for each shot-within-shots. A quirky homage that was well-received by a knowing audience.

TIDELAND (Canada/United Kingdom, 2005)

…and so, we come to Tideland. Terry Gilliam, fresh out of his battles with Miramax after The Brother’s Grimm, promised to make a movie that was entirely his vision. Notorious in the past for having his films butchered by the studios (think Brazil), here there is no one but Gilliam to take the darts or laurels. And no one but Gilliam could have come up with such a story. Nine year old Jeliza-Rose is the only child of a has-been guitarist and his wife; both junkies who make Jeliza-Rose cut and cook their heroin. After her mother dies of an overdose, her father Noah (Jeff Bridges) takes Jeliza-Rose back to his mother’s now abandoned homestead on the Prairies. Shortly after arriving, he swears he’ll need one last fix, and isn’t kidding – Noah spends most of the rest of the movie dead and rotting, leaving Jeliza-Rose to fend for herself. Her only companions are four dolls heads which begin to take on a life and voice of their own, but when the neighbours get involved in Jeliza-Rose’s life, the macabre becomes horrifying and the insanity commonplace. Not a movie for the faint of heart, Tideland is a naturally divisive film, with half the audience hating it and half loving it. I myself felt like walking out at at least one point (more for the languid pace of the third act than any content objections) but this is the damndest film. I can’t recommend it (like the film’s distributor, I can’t think of any audience for it outside of the festival circuit) but I can’t forget it either. The imagery is haunting and horrifying – like a car crash you cannot turn away from. Imagine a film where a young girl dresses her father’s corpse in a woman’s wig, puts makeup on him and a feeds him peanut butter while pushing the gas out of his bloated stomach. Now imagine this is not even close to the strangest scene in the film, and you’ll have a good idea of what Tideland is all about.

BIFF - Day 5

Sorry to Loz about not posting for a while. Driving up to Cairns took a lot out of me, and work has been unrelenting since I got back (apparently, parents think it's MY fault their kids are lazy turds!)

And even when work lets up, there's always something vying for my time. This week it's the Brisbane International Film Festival (or BIFF for hilariously short).

The Festival started last Thursday, and we've been to three films so far, with five more to go. Here's a bit of a breakdown:

Film #1 - Thank you For Smoking (USA, 2005)(Gala Premiere)

A brilliant satire of corporate greed and personal responsibility. Aaron Eckhart is Nick Naylor, a lobbyist-cum-spin doctor for the tobacco industry whose gift of gab endears him to Hollywood execs and cancer victims alike. But his flexible morality begins to catch up with him as his ex-wife questions his parenting skills, a reporter 'digs deep' to write a feature on him and a group of anti-smoking activists announce they will kill him. Still, Naylor takes it all in stride and we watch his realization that it's not cigarettes he's passionate about, but the ability to argue, challenge and force people to think for themselves. Never preachy, never oversimplified, this is satire at its sharpest and best.

Film #2 - Ten Canoes (Australia, 2006)

Though not actually part of the festival, we couldn't miss an opportunity to see this ground-breaking Australian film. This is the story of a story - a filmic representation of the storytelling traditions of Indigenous Australians. David Gulpilil (of Walkabout and The Last Wave) narrates a story ("not your story, my story") of a young Aborigine who becomes jealous of his brother's many wives. To understand the 'right way' to live, the brother tells an ancient tale - one that has been passed down for thousands of years. Like all good stories, this one twists and turns, meanders and comes back on itself. Its tangents are made all the more compelling by Gulpilil's narration - which draws the non-Aborigine in while also commenting on the follies of the characters. A sight to behold and an amazing encounter of a rarely seen world.

Film # 3 - An Inconvenient Truth (USA, 2006)

As a film, Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth is not the best example of documentary style. Often clunky and heavy handed, the film is saved by its subject matter. Based on a lecture by Al Gore (yes, that one), this is an eye-opening, jaw-dropping look at the effect we are having on our planet. The increase in greenhouse gasses is leading us down a slippery slope from which, Gore contends, we have a small window to escape. Though the film falters a bit when dealing with Gore's personal motivation (the black & white still photography attempting to cast him in a 'Kennedy-esque' light) Gore himself is persuasive and persistent. The impact of human behaviour on the icons of our planet is tangible - the great snows of Kilimanjaro are a fraction of what they were 25 years ago, and in another 25 they'll be gone for good. The facts are stunning, the evidence convincing and the presenter engaging. If the film, for lack of brevity, isn't able to draw in the billions of people (i.e. all of us) who need to see it, then more's the pity for the human race.

Daily Road Trip

On the weekend, we finally got a radio for the car. Plus, LMK and I now commute to work together. I've b een driving for over a month alone with no music, now I have great company and tunes! Life is good!

Great to be Me!

Without getting into too many details, I think it's fair to say I rock.


Example: The job I have. I was the number one choice. The number two choice ended up getting a job at another school. Last week he was arrested for making bombs and charged with terrorism offences.

They were SOOO Happy this week at work that I said yes!

:D

Labor Day, Aussie Style

Big day! Labor Day here. I celebrated work by playing all day. Frankly, I'd rather do it the other day - spend 364 days playing, and work one day to remind myself how good I have it.

I had some friends over for lunch today. They were nice, but they ate like birds!


Also, on an unrelated note, Brooke rocks! She knows why!

Back to School Special

Tomorrow, I begin my kick ass new job.

I got a 6 month contract teaching Film, Television and Animation at a High School here in Oz. Back home, you would never get a chance to teach this at High School - the school I'm at was a pilot project for the whole country. They have a $10 Million dollar film dept, with editing suites, a blue screen room, shitloads of cameras, lights and other equipment and some great teachers. In fact, they have better facilities than either of the two Universities where I did my undergrad.

It's a bit overwhelming to be going there. The teacher I'm going to replace is going on a 6 month sabbatical to A: finish his PhD. and B: update the textbook for FTV for Australia (since he WROTE the textbook for this course). Also, I'm not so great with animation, but I'm so psyched to be teaching film! I can't wait!

TFG

Film Review #1

Film Review Time! This week, it's.....

V For Vendetta
[Spoiler warnings abound! See the film first!]

Perhaps one of the boldest mainstream films in years, James McTeigue’s V For Vendetta is that rarest of multiplex films: one that demands that the audience think. Its dystopic worldview could be seen as either a wake-up call or a warning, but the big question here is whether or not mainstream film consumers can be moved to thought, let alone action, by political commentary masquerading (quite literally) as an action thriller.
The film’s plot is centred around Great Britain in the not-too-distant-future, after ‘America’s war’ has plunged the world (and presumably Western democracies) into chaos. England, in its fear of being destroyed by civil war and assimilated by foreign/subversive elements, elects a deeply religious firebrand who restores order by dismantling democratic institutions, rounding up all deemed to be ‘Un-English’ to be sent to camps and appointing himself dictator for life. Sound familiar yet? The references to Nazism are so thinly veiled that John Hurt’s Chancellor Sutler, all pomp and rage, channels the Fuhrer perfectly, and McTeigue captures the brownshirts with his perfectly synchronized, goose-stepping stormtroopers. This new England is secure and organized, but totalitarian.
Enter into the mix V, an enigmatic anti-hero in a permanently affixed Guy Fawkes mask who has decided to finish the work of his 17th Century counterpart. To pull the people out of complacency, V argues, they must be able to see that the institutions of the oppressors are merely bricks and mortar – to see them torn down can illicit an internal change in citizens’ views that no regime can control.
And therein lies the film’s biggest strengths and biggest liabilities. After an opening relating the events of Fawkes’ capture and execution, McTeigue introduces V (Hugo Weaving) and through some very clever intercutting, Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman), a young woman destined to be stripped of all that she is and believes in order to restore freedom to England.
V and Evey quickly form a complex mentor/student-father/daughter/-lover relationship, and in this relationship the true themes of the film are brought to the forefront. For all his waxing poetic on freedom, V never gives Evey a choice – she is coerced into becoming his disciple after he manipulates the memory of her parents and makes her accept mortality through trickery and torture. All of which complicates our acceptance of V as a hero (or even an anti-hero); he speaks in egalitarian tones, but is exacting his own revenge. He talks of freedom but gains a key ally through coercion.
The film is challenging, provocative and demands that the audience participate, not merely observe. Portman aptly described the film as a ‘dialogue’ and more than any film since Fight Club it is. What I admired about the film is the way it challenges the viewer. This is not a film you watch in the dark, consume and forget. It is a film which forces you to demand or deny your sympathy to V: is he a terrorist? Is he a liberator? Has he given Evey her freedom or merely brainwashed her to switch allegiances? Is the ultimate destruction of parliament needed? (At this point V has won, his enemies are dead, and the highest ranking party member alive is one who stands for tolerance and truth.) All of these questions are raised by the film, and its self-awareness raises it from the level of Friday night popcorn flick to political filmmaking that is a good as could be from a mainstream, Hollywood studio.
You cannot sit passively and watch this film – you can hate it, despise it, love it or revere it, but you cannot remain unmoved by it.