Once again our Dynamic Duo of Downunder reporters have filed their reviews from The Melbourne International Film Festival. Father Geek here is happy to introduce first Tamsin's report for today...
Today was my turn to see the Japanese film "Face" which was reviewed by Norman earlier. Simply, this is the story of a reclusive woman who kills her sister and goes on the run. It has some really nice moments from the lead actress and a few inventive twists in the story, but overall is way too long.
Next up is the big budget, period piece, "The Luzhin Defence", starring John Turturro and Emily Watson. This is the story of an autistic chess player whose lack of social awareness is both exploited by those out to destroy him and the source of attraction for the socially constricted, Natalia (Emily Watson). John Turturro is amazing in this role, but Emily Watson doesn't quite pull off the Russian "Society beauty". I'm sure if you've read the Nabokov novel, there will be criticisms, but I enjoyed it for its lack of stifling period-piece clichés and for the constantly engrossing structure of the story-telling.
Next up it is over to China for "I Love Beijing" and the story of a taxi-driver who is left by his wife. Actually, upon closer inspection of the Film Festival handbook, it appear that they actually projected the reels of this film out of order. Here I was thinking the director was flipping back and forth in time and I actually made the comment that they started this film too early (meaning they provided too much backstory) but it turns out that they projected it completely out of order. I reserve my judgment of this film until further notice.
The second last film for the day is "The Old Man Who Read Love Stories" by Australian Rolf de Heer, starring Richard Dreyfuss and Hugo Weaving. This is about a reclusive old man living in a small community in the Amazon rainforest. When a body is found covered with huge claw marks, the old man and a number of colourful members of the community set out to kill the jaguar. This is a mostly gripping story which suffers a little because The Old Man spends a lot of time talking to himself which is sometimes a little tedious. The performances are mostly fantastic, especially Hugo Weaving who is good in everything he does. The set up of this film takes a little while to get going but it's worth seeing even just for the jungle scenes.
Lastly was a strange one from 20th Century Fox, in the midst of all these indies. "Tigerland" is directed by "the man who put nipples on Batman's suit" himself, Joel Schumacher. Just as I suspected, this is written by first-timers. It is the story of a bootcamp, preparing soldiers for Nam. In amongst enlisters and uneducated draftees, is Bozz, an intelligent cynic who questions the system. It is a pity it was directed by Schumacher because it would have sat better coming from a first-time director outside of the Studio system. There were some corny, unsubtle lines and the tacked on Hollywood-style ending did not feel like it came from the original script. I think this one suffered from "Studio Executus-Interruptus".
More tomorrow...
Tamsin
Now, Father Geek returns to prepare you for our reports from Norman...
Australian director Rolf De Heer introed his THE OLD MAN WHO READ LOVE STORIES by saying this was the hardest film he's ever completed. Not because it was shot in the jungle, or his actors - which include Richard Dreyfuss and Hugo Weaving - were difficult. Rather, it was the melange of (mainly European) funding that conspired to turn his film into a "Euro pudding". This particular kind of compromising pressure is becoming familiar to Australian filmmakers who want to make films - as De Heer has - of scope. It's to his credit that he resisted these pressures and came out of the jungle with something special.
The day started with Australian film LONELY HEARTS, about a lonely old man who meets a lonely young woman through a dating service. Made in 1981 by director Paul Cox, co-written with local comic genius John Clarke, it's dated beautifully. This is warm, comic, gentle, and beautifully observed filmmaking. It's also a timely reminder of how luminous a beauty Wendy Hughes is/was. She was unfortunate to hit her peak before the Mel/Russell/Cate/Heath crossovers made it easier for Australian actors to break overseas.
THE LUZHIN DEFENCE followed, and it was everything Rolf De Heer was later to warn us about.
That's right. Euro Pudding.
Eccentric genius Aleksander Luzhin (John Turturro) arrives at an unidentified Italian restaurant to play in a chess tournament which will decide the world champion. At the same time Russian beauty Natasia (Emily Watson) arrives at the hotel and sets her eye on Luzhin.
First point. Our first meeting with Luzhin, he forgets to get off his train. Okay, he's forgetful. Perhaps eccentric. Got it.
We learn this four, maybe five more times over the first five minutes. Scattered sniff-nose laughs each time. (The sort of laugh a polite crowd does when there's a moment where they should be laughing but the situation is too weak to warrant one.) It's like the filmmakers never quite found their one strong character beat and decided five weak ones would do instead. I'd like to say these lazy habits don't continue, but...
Second point. Turturro and Watson probably made sense from a funding stream point of view. Together, as a romantic couple, they stink. No chemistry whatsoever.
Third point. I'm guessing the template for this film was the ingenious back-and-forth structure of SHINE. LUZHIN... mirrors this, and we see the young Luzhin as he finds his way towards chess stardom. Invariably these moments are sparked by an apropos moment in the conversation, which cues Turturro to stare into middle distance and the screen all but whirlpools... These glimpses of Luzhin's early life in no way enrich our present-tense story. I've read reviews that suggest the flashbacks are an example of Luzhin's chess-playing background, that he's reviewing his "old moves". Clever idea. I wish it were the case.
Chalk this down as one of MIFF's big failures, an arthouse stinker that that should be put down and forgotten.
Next, and last for the day, THE OLD MAN WHO READ LOVE STORIES. Richard Dreyfuss is Antonio Bolivia, the old salt of a jungle outpost far up the Amazon. To his displeasure, he's picked as the guide for an ill-fated expedition to hunt down a female jaguar who has killed several surrounding colonists.
I love jungle pictures, from Herzog's AGUIRRE: WRATH OF GODS to Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, and this effort from De Heer is right up with both of them. It's all in the first shot of the film, a ravishing point of view shot moving up the Amazon and then closing into Antonio, reading by lamp-light in the window of his hut. He's just finishing a pulpy love story, puzzling over its final few lines. Antonio has just learned how to read - he sounds out the words, puts them together, goes over sentences several times before proceeding. He's so methodical he notices things that we would otherwise skim over. Starting a book titled "Lovers of the Forgotten Gardens", he wonders who forgot the gardens. And also hopes that the lovers loved each other, not the gardens. It'd make for a boring story otherwise.
All gold, and Dreyfuss socks it to us like an actor of his calibre should. I occasionally find him annoying... trying to wheedle sympathy out of me with his considerable chops. De Heer keeps him honest and helps drag out a a Dreyfuss performance that must rank as one of his best. Providing support is the chameleonic Hugo Weaving, snaking in with another great performance as the colony's dentist. Kudos to the supporting cast also, but as this film is so new (the first public screening was only two days ago) I'm afraid I don't have the supporting material to mention them by name.
This was a highlight of MIFF for me, maybe even my favourite film so far! Here's hoping the presence of Dreyfuss and Weaving will ensure an American release, and more opportunities for De Heer who is now moving into the prime of his career.
I'm starting to flag, really getting quite tired... respect and support re: the film threat articles. They're pretty obviously personal attacks (the captions in the second article particularly)... the whole pseudonymn thing - I mean, give me a break! They're so far up their own arses it makes me... well, you know all this already, but I just wanted to say it so you know someone else thinks it...
Time for one of old Norman's speed reviews as it's pretty late and I saw a heap of films today. (As I don't have a copy of the program handy I'm pretty light on for details as well too, sorry)
First up was Kirsten Sheridan's DISCO PIGS. Two young Irish kids who've always been in love are facing bigger and bigger obstacles to their relationship as they get older. Some bravely honest situations and dialogue handled beautifully by the two leads, who I assume are pretty new to the game. Nice observations on growing up and not being understood by authority figures. The subtitles were unnecessary and distracting.
Next, the French TOTALLY FLAKEY. A situation drama that felt - not in a bad way - like it had come off the stage. Two girls and one boy are in a hotel room for the night. One of the girls is the boy's friends' girlfriend. The other girl is a ring-in, picked up that night. The second act is the strongest of the three, with the filmmakers pushing and pulling all the possibilities out of the triangle situation. They occasionally surprised me, but a few wrong choices in the latter part of the story weaken the emotional credibility of the piece.
HYBRID is a doco about a 100 year old American farmer who has experimented in corn crops over his long lifetime. He's a potentially fascinating subject but for some reason is always kept at a distance through the narrative. I never really got much of an emotional insight into his character, and as a result I was never hooked into this story. What didn't help was meaningless stop-motion sequences of corn cobs writhing around in the dirt. I don't mind narrative digressions, but you've gotta earn my attention before you go out on a limb!
My last pairing of Herzog doubles was probably the weakest of the three sessions I've seen. GOD'S ANGRY MAN and HUIE'S SERMON both carry the Herzog imprint, but they feel more like assignments than obsessions, and it's carried over by the complete lack of Herzog V/O. (I know docos can be personal without a V/O, but in Herzog's work his dry, pithy observations seem so central that I feel I can regard this as a given.) Both docos centre on religious men, but they're men so absolutely different that it's almost poetic.
The first, GOD'S ANGRY MAN, looks at an early tele-evangelist who goes live to air on his own TV station 3-10 hours a day. It's pretty much a telethon, cheesy house band and all, but what makes this special is how our friendly Pastor berates his audience for not coughing up enough dough... and then claims "This is NOT about the money!". The audience enjoyed this one a great deal.
If people are looking to put 20th Century artifacts away in a time-capsule somewhere then they should find space for HUIE'S SERMON. It's pretty much an entire sermon from the preacher - presumable called Huie, although he's never introduced - spanning his entrance, initial song, address, climax, resolution. I've only ever seen burlesqued versions of gospel-style sermons in Eddie Murphy films, and just how Huie builds the audience up into a crescendo, brings them down, takes them back, then lets them loose on a song, is pretty remarkable.
Last film of the day was the much-hyped Korean serial-killer drama TELL ME SOMETHING. Body parts are turning up, sometimes from different victims at the same time, and there's only one link between all those murdered: they knew one girl. The investigation establishes that all the victims, at one point, had romantic entanglements with this particular girl.
That dratted MIFF booklet compared this to SEVEN in terms of its style and clever plot. Well, it was neither. Even the poorest of the Korean films at MIFF - SECRET TEARS, MEMENTO MORI - gave me the occasional filmic buzz with some camera movement, or V/O layering with action, or inspired editing. There were flashes here and there in this one, but it felt very workmanlike, even a bit hackneyed. And the plot! Sixth film of the day, my faculties weren't at their strongest, but the film just didn't make sense. (The final twist didn't seem to, anyway.) McGregor, my film companion for the night, made more positive noises than me about the film but I get a feeling he was just trying to justify missing the final season five episode of "Buffy"... which was great and so sad, regardless of you bastard American-slanted websites blowing the end for me months ago...
