Father Geek here with our hardworking, stiff necked, dry eyeballed, numb fingered MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival)reporters, Tamsin and Norman, with yet another comprehensive retelling of their theatrical exploits in the filmland downunder...
I'm sending this now as I have an early one in the morning and don't know when I'll be able to write again. I'm still trying to deal with the final film, "The Piano Teacher" which was quite psychologically disturbing and intense so if there are mistakes in this review I apologise in advance as "my mind is going."
Now to the films...
First up was the Icelandic film, "Angels of the Universe" about a man's dissent into madness. I almost didn't want to see this one because I thought it would be more of the same...schizophrenia, mental institutions and a frustrated artists and, while it did have all these elements, the characters were always engaging and the mental illness was never over-dramatised for the sake of the film. The characters he meets in the mental institution were especially well developed and there were many humourous moments amongst the more bleak ones.
The second film was a bizarre but always entertaining first film called "The American Astronaut" by American Cory McAbee. This was a futuristic comedy about an interplanetary trader who takes on a mission to present a 16 year old boy to the all-women planet of Venus in exchange for the corpse of the previous "male". This is an all singing, all dancing surrealist comedy which was totally enjoyable and highly inventive. Even though I'm sure it was low budget, the filmmaker's imaginations weren't bound by their empty pockets and there was always something exciting and highly imaginative to look at. I'm really looking forward to their next film.
Following this one was the first in a three part MIFF series called, "Reel Gems" which shows early work from some established Australian directors. Today we saw John Ruane's ("That Eye the Sky", "Dead Letter Office") "Feathers", based on a Raymond Carver short story. Then was Geoffrey Wright's ("Romper Stomper", "Metal Skin") "Lover Boy" starring Noah Taylor. It was really great to have the chance to see the early short films of well-known directors and I'm looking forward to the other sessions of these.
Then we had the Japanese film, "Warm Water under a Red Bridge". This was quite a wacky little film about a man who, after the death of his old friend, goes searching for some treasure his friend had told him existed in a certain town, in a house which stands next to a red bridge. He goes searching only to discover a woman lives there with her old grandmother. This woman has a condition which causes her to emit water at strange times and then shoplift. It is quite a bizarre premise and the rest of the film doesn't really sustain the humour or the imaginativeness. It falls a little into melodrama and it is a little slow in parts. Fun but too long.
Just to finish off the night, was one of the most psychologically disturbing films I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot). "The Piano Teacher", starring Isabelle Huppert and directed by Michael Haenke won lots of awards at Cannes and deservedly so, but I am exhausted and drained after seeing it. It is the story of a well-respected piano teacher, Erika, who has total control in her classroom but still lives under the watchful eye of her domineering mother. In every way Erika tries to repress her emotions, especially her sexuality. When a young cocky pianist makes advances towards her, she is confronted physically and emotionally by his offer of love and sex but, after years of repression, she is unable to return his advances in a 'normal' way. This film is completely confronting and intense and not for the faint-heated. It is still swirling around in my head at the moment and I think it will be for a long time.
That's it for tonight. Have an early one tomorrow and I'm trying for 7 sessions. First one at 10:30am the last one will finish at 1am...I'm a masochist.
Tamsin
Annnnd now to Norman's reports...
Maybe it's the 30 film threshold, but I hit a wall today and only just staggered through. ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE was on at 1:00 but it came and went as I stared at the wall of my gentlemen's abode. Then my spiritual advisor Spencer called and snapped me out of my daze... he was taking a day off work and wanted to catch some flicks.
We were just in time for THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT. It's nice to see MIFF taking a braver tack with its American selection this year, unlike the crossover fare of previous selections. Like SOFT FOR DIGGING this is a micro-micro-budget film buzzing with ideas. Lead actor (also director and writer) Coby McAbee moves through this "galactic western" with a, yes, Han Solo-esque swagger. He's a mercenary with all the right moves. Spencer loved this film to death, citing the rockabilly soundtrack where the film lapsed (brilliantly I must say) into song and dance sequences... and also the bizarre Lynch-esque humour.
McAbee decided not to go for any cheap-arse effect shots of his spaceships shooting through space and instead plumped for still sequences. It worked just as well, and I applaud him for the money saved. Spencer instantly placed this in his MIFF top 5. I'd be a little more cautious - perhaps the top ten or fifteen - but THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT was good good fun.
CRAZY THUNDER ROAD was my next scheduled film but I found out late that it was cancelled... I wandered the streets reading a quite good Lee Perry biography and decided to cross over to the dark side of the Force. Yes, I was going to watch a non-MIFF film.
You all ultra-cool AICN readers have probably read about FINAL FANTASY beyond the point of being interested, so I'll just say as far as my initial comments go I pretty much agree with Ebert's review. Beyond that "visual effects good, story bad" point I'll add a few bullet points.
* Dr Aki Ross' face - visual blemishes and all - reminded me a little of Marilyn's autopsy photo in Donald E. Spoto's biography.
* The initial encounter with the "spirits" should have been more dramatic and apocalyptic.
* I'm not a FINAL FANTASY player but dramatically, the "rules" with the baddies were too ambiguous. I needed a baddie with the defined capabilities of a zombie ala DAWN OF THE DEAD.
* How did a woolly script dealing with eight levels of spirits and the earth force of Gaia make it through the Hollywood studio machine? I'm split - not sure whether to damn them for their laziness or praise them for their bravery.
It's a shame for all the visual bravura on show that I have to give the film an equivocal "okaaay". It wasn't all that bad but after a while you forget about how photo-realistic the characters are and don't give much of a damn about what's up there on the screen. But now I find myself repeating Ebert and you all heard that before...
Fellowship Of The Ring will make some no-names very very big stars in a matter of months. Two such names have played leading roles in this year's MIFF. David Wenham (Faramir) was pretty average in THE BANK, but have faith - he's shone in other recent parts. Tonight I saw Karl Urban (Eomer) in the Kiwi IRREFUTABLE TRUTH ABOUT DEMONS and let me tell you: he's got "it", in spades. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me see - it started the night before with a knock on the door. To my surprise it was my old friend the Robot from Daft Punk again. We whiled the night away drinking sake and singing karaoke vocoder-style and after that it gets pretty fuzzy...
I woke up, literally, as I was walking up the stairs of the Forum Theatre. Somehow I'd gotten up, showered, dressed, and ridden through the city on automatic pilot. Then I looked down at myself and realised that I was on automatic pilot - I was a robot. I distantly remembered a moment late the night before, foolishly talking about Kafka and swapping bodies... damn. Luckily I had my overcoat and nobody seemed to notice as the Japanese FACE started playing.
Masako lives with her elderly mother, helping out with the drycleaning business. She is withdrawn, dumpy, totally unattractive, and pretty unlikeable. Her mother dies, bringing Masako's terrible younger sister into the picture. Masako is easily stood over, and an ugly, abusive relationship is sketched with a few dramatic strokes. At this point I anticipated a drama in which the two sisters would over two hours find an unlikely common ground. But no - a few harsh words later, Masako has killed her sister and gone on the run.
Out in the world, we expect that Masako will grow and perhaps blossom. She does, but again it's in the unlikeliest of ways - through enduring two brutal rapes, surviving an earthquake, witnessing a suicide, and having an auto accident. And thanks to the magic of movies, she does seem to become more attractive - glowing with a brief happiness that is periodically foiled as the law closes in. Naomi Fujiyama really is superb as Masako.
I got the feeling writer Yukiko Shii didn't quite know how to end FACE - the further Masako travels, the more episodic and picaresque the film becomes. The story doesn't so much end as we just stop following it. It's a disappointing finish given the quality of Fujiyama's performance.
I'd heard mixed word about THE DEEP END, but this pocket-sized thriller really delivered for me. Tilda Swinton, not my favourite actor in the world, carries the film as Margaret Hall, mother of three kids. (She's effectively a sole parent, as her husband is at sea.) Margaret is worried about her son Beau's relationship with the older Darby. It's not that she is worried about her son being gay - to my relief this was a complete non-issue - but she knows Darby is trouble, and this is confirmed when he offers to stop seeing Beau if she'll pay him $5000. Beau is not swayed by his mother, seeing Darby again that night. It's a fiery encounter and after Beau walks away Darby has a horrible accident that he isn't going to wake up from. Margaret gets up early the next day, spots Darby, assumes Beau did it, and decides to hide the body.
There's a hundred movies about covering up bad deeds but THE DEEP END takes some interesting turns along this road. It all fits, because Margaret wants, above all, to protect her family. And let me say again that Tilda Swinton - who I have passionately and publicly vilified on many occasions - is really really good.
A pause for tea, then something a little different - a session called LENS FLARE. This was 70 minutes of Dreamcast/X-Box/Playstation 2 game trailers that my jiving Daft Punk body severely dug. Hard to pick out highlights, but the groovy SPACE CHANNEL 5 for Sega ("They're sexy!... They're flexy!"), amazing car action of VANISHING POINT (Playstation 2?), the baroque FINAL FANTASY 9 which made no sense but was evocative as hell, and the definite winner - ODDWORLD: MUNCH'S ODYSSEY (the title might be wrong). I was told later that this is an X-Box title and it sure looked amazing but the real reason this worked was the clear, effective way we were cut into Munch's story and his world. The audience cacked their pants at the wry humour - both verbal and visual - on offer from our hero and his little helpers. Definitely worth saving up some pennies for, I'd say.
Lastly we return to Mr Karl Urban and the NZ horror film THE IRREFUTABLE TRUTH ABOUT DEMONS. Urban plays Dr Harry Ballard, an anthropology lecture who also moonlights as a a debunker of religious cults and sects. It's a line of work that has led him into trouble with the local demons. Director and writer Glenn Standring handles the set-up nicely, tongue just lightly in mouth. And as mentioned before, Urban - in his first lead, as far as I know - assuredly synthesises Bruce Campbell cheese with glory years Harrison Ford.
To give Standring credit, he slugs us with a few deaths we don't expect early on. But, it's a sacrifice that in my final reckoning doesn't help the story. In the absence of expendable characters to sacrifice the last act is fairly sluggish. But fine drama aint what we came to see, and on the fun score this was a big hit with the crowd.
I spent the rest of the night searching the seedier parts of town for my body... who knows what Mr Daft Punk'd been doing with it. Tomorrow I - me, I hope - will bring you coverage of SOUTHERN COMFORT, Tsui Hark's TIME AND TIDE, and THE BEAVER TRIOGY.
Norman
