Well, fellow Film Geeks the end of MIFF is just around the corner. Ms Tamsin and pardner-in-Crime Norman have been doing a great job covering this major fest down in Melbourne for us, and Father Geek here, for one, is going to miss them and their wonderful reports. Maybe they'll consider doing a regular once a week AICN Downunder report for us.

As International Editor for the site I've been trying to recruite someone to do just that for a year now. The Australian/New Zealand area is the last major film producing site to come on board with a regular weekly column and I'd love one or the other, or both of these gung ho reporters to concider joining our international crew with news, reviews, etc... of what's happening in the lands of LOTR, MAD MAX, ROMPER STOMPER, and DEAD CALM. Write ol' Father Geek and let's make this happen...

Here's Tamsin...

Started the second last day of the fest with a change in programme so initially was a little 'miffed'...

But luckily was able to change my ticket and see the Swedish/Lebanese comedy "Jalla, Jalla!". It was a great surprise. The festival programme mentioned that it was 23 year old Josef Fares' debut feature and what a great debut it was. Roro is still dominated by his strict Lebanese family which stops him from introducing them to his Swedish girlfriend, Lisa. When they arrange a marriage for him with a good Lebanese girl Roro is forced to pretend that the marriage will take place, to help out the Lebanese girl who will be sent home to Lebanon and disowned if she doesn't agree to the marriage. It is an extremely tight and at times hilarious story with fantastic performances from all the actors. A definite crowd-pleaser. This one should find a release in the US.

Had to run to the next one, which was a classic from Ishii Sogo, "Crazy Family." This is a cult black comedy about a Japanese family who become crazier by each film minute. From psychotic studying techniques to white ant infestations this film has it all. It is definitely one for the ages.

Wasn't sure what I was in for in the next one - an Estonian animation, "Saamuel's Adventures Part 1-3". The Saamuel Adventure Part 1 was first created in 1993 and is animation like you've never seen it. "Cabbage Head" has Saamuel, in a desperate attempt to enter the County Fair, stealing his neighbour's enormous cabbage head which had popped up out of nowhere. But once news of the enormous cabbage head breaks around the world people come from all over, including New York, Peking and the KGB to try and steal the cabbage head. In Part 2, "Cabbage Head 2: Back to Europe", Saamuel discovers oil on his land and lives the highlife until his wife's pet chicken is stolen by Europeans and Saamuel must venture off his property and save him. Part 3, made in 2000, is called "Saamuel's Internet" and is absolutely hilarious. Saamuel and his pet pig are sucked into the Internet which is run by the dastardly Bill Gates, whose minions are Will and Tommy from Men In Black. All three films are so detailed in their production as well as being hysterically funny and inventive. It's Wallace and Grommit on crack. Loved it.

Now to one from Brazil, "Orfeu" which had actually been released in 1999. This film is based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, set during Carnivale and among a poorer neighbourhood in Rio. The overall production of this film is rich and spectacular but cannot compare with the classic "Black Orpheus". In "Orfeu" the music is too tacky modern and is alienating for a foreign audience. The performances are thin and the story underdeveloped. It looks amazing and is beautifully shot but it is ultimately wasted.

Last film for the night was the only Manga I've seen so far, "X". New millennium stuff, Gods of Heaven versus Gods of Earth. This certainly isn't the best Manga I've seen. It is repetitive but difficult to follow and the dubbed version is terrible (but at least provided some moments for laughter). My legs started twitching in this one, the guy behind me was kicking my seat, the guy next to me was chewing his gum and breathing heavily (not to mention that he'd removed his shoes) so I can't say this was a great experience. But I stayed to the end and only vagued out for about 20 minutes in the middle. I'm sure I was thinking about something important.

Tomorrow's the last day and while I am looking forward to becoming sane again I feel a little sad knowing it's all going to be over again for another year.

Tamsin

Annnnnnd now here's our favorite Mommy's Boy... Norman with his festival coverage...

Wharra day at the pictures, easily the best of MIFF so far. A number of pics are now vying for the "Golden Gunston", more on that in a couple days time in the MIFF WRAP.

INUGAMI started things off. There's an element of TWIN PEAKS to this, with the action taking place in an isolated town surrounded on all sides by forests and mountainous terrain. Akira is new to town on a high-school posting, which functions nicely as our intro to the town, its key players and mysteries. He sets his eye on Miki, an older woman who magically grows younger through the narrative, but this is a love definitely not destined to run smooth...

There's a curse on Miki's family passed down through the maternal line. The senior woman of the family is required, every morning and every night, to put her eye to a ceramic vase and count the Inugami demons inside. Fail to keep this vigil and the Inugami - ghosts of wild dogs - will escape, causing terrible things to happen to the community. Miki is struggling with her duty and terrible things are indeed happening to an increasingly angry and vengeful community.

Beyond this point director/writer Masato Harado pulls a couple of very neat rabbits out of his script bag. Telegraphed, a little, but still really effective, and our 'hero' Akira has to make some difficult choices about his involvement with Miki.

INUGAMI didn't quite gel into the involving, eerie piece of work I hoped it would become, but it was nevertheless one of the more satisfying "Fantasian" films of MIFF.

The Italian TEETH followed. How could you not love a film that starts with a young boy smashing his front incisors against the ruins of Pompeii? All to the tune of "Child in Time"?

We next see Antonio as an older man, still bent inward with worry about his massive two front teeth. He feels guilty about leaving his wife for a new lover, and even worse about not being able to provide child support for his two kids, who he adores. During a fight with his lover Mara about her possibly having an affair with her dentist, she smashes one of his incisors with an ashtray. Antonio is so sick of his teeth, this is the chance he's been looking for to get them ripped out, and start again.

TEETH is pretty much a 100 minute metaphor, but Gabriele Salvatore makes it come alive with canny evocations of just how horrifying a journey to the dentist can be. Droopy-eyed Sergio Rubin, as Antonio, is a convincingly loveable loser.

RAIN followed... a debut feature from New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs.

It's the 1970s. The family is on holiday in the beach house. Janey, 13, is our main character, the daughter of unhappy parents Kate and Ed. Her best friend and constant - sometimes too constant, but she doesn't mind - companion is her younger brother Jim. Cady, a charismatic freelance photographer, has swung into town on his cruiser. He's good company at the boozy parties that take up nights, and Kate lets herself get involved with him. Janey happens to witness her mother and Cady together, and along with feeling scared and angry she finds herself feeling... jealous.

This is surely cinematographer John Toon's break-out film. His work here, capturing the distant horizons and still water of Omaha, is stunning. Neil Finn (Crowded House) and Edmund McWilliams chime in with a distinctive and organic score. And Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki turns in an Anna Paquin-esque starmaking turn as Janey. I can't rate RAIN high enough. Please, America, make it a hit. This is more lyrical and true than THE PIANO.

(and as part of my occasional LOTR actors pre-view... Marton Csokas [Celeborn] shines as charming rogue Cady. For those on the other side of The Force, Csokas will later appear as "Poggle the Lesser" in SWEP2. Busy boy!)

I was feeling a bit emotionally drained after RAIN but what should follow but just about the most perfect antidote to that... WE SOLD OUR SOULS FOR ROCKNROLL, a doco on "OZFEST 99"!

First image of the film is Ozzie lolling in the seat of his private jet. Immediately a guttural roar of "OZZIE!!!" went up in the crowd and we were away. This was great fun, director Penelope Spheeris taking us from the lowest of low bands on the bill - getting their van repossessed - to the Sabbath, groupies lolling around their vans and all. I loved seeing Ozzie's vocal accoutrements backstage: lukewarm lemon tea, oxygen mask, water, buckets, and a curious-looking steam hookah. Kicking renditions of "Black Sabbath" and "Paranoid" left us all pretty happy.

SEXY BEAST was sold out so I got my ticket ripped inside the cinema and got an aisle seat near the front. It starts with ex-crim Gal (Ray Winstone) in his own little paradise, after nine years in the slammer. Spain, a gorgeous villa in the Costa Del Sol, and a loving relationship with his wife DeeDee (Amdana Redman). Trouble arrives in the form of Don Logan (Ben Kingsley). He wants Gal to help out in a job, back in London. Gal's retired, but Don is pretty darn persuasive. Shit goes down.

SPOILERS FOLLOW...

What did I think? It's a great 84 minutes, but it's only three-quarters of a movie. Was it cut through post, to keep the story more firmly on Gal and his perilous situation? Maybe. We cut pretty quickly to the job Gal helps pull off, which aids in narrative economy but I needed a bit more of a set up to the heist. How it's meant to go, how it could fail, perhaps a couple more layers to it. The wider problem is that I was yawning a little through the heist itself... it wasn't something I felt part of, involved in. Director Johnathon Glazer seems to lack confidence in his material during this sequence and rather hurries through it.

SPOILERS END...

Hats off to the performances. As noted in other dispatches, Ben Kingsley is superb as Don Logan (note to Guy Ritchie: English villains don't need ludicrous cockney names to be threatening. That comes from the performances.) Ian McShane is truly threatening as the mastermind behind the operation. Ray Winstone, as Gal, is less flashy but it's all in what he holds back. One wrong step, one rash, angry word and his Spanish paradise is gone - it's an acting lesson in restraint. Amanda Redman was also great as DeeDee.

As I stared ga-ga at the end credits my vision went swirly and it was the day before, and I was just about to start watching Ishii Sogo's AUGUST IN THE WATER....

Let's not talk about the plot straight away. This seems more a film of Ishii's then-current preoccupations, loosely woven into a narrative. Ecology. Astrology. Water and stone. Drought and flood. First love. Encounters with alien objects. And, platform diving.

Twin meteorites fall on Fukuoka. Soon after, locals fall victim to "Stone Disease", a fatal ailment that causes internal organs to turn to stone. Ishima, a champion high-diver, is also blighted but cheats death by becoming the only person to recover. Her new boyfriend Mao is the first to realise that Ishima has not completely recovered. She's... different.

Let me break in here and say that the Ishii style is present and accounted for. He has a way with the moving camera and the instinctual, associative edit that is a real gift. A couple films into this Ishii retrospective, I'm beginning to notice some common flaws in his storytelling however. His first acts are fine, intriguing; beyond this point the stories tend to get away from him. That's just my burned out opinion, and I'm ready to be proven wrong with GOJOE, the last of my Ishii films which I'm seeing Sunday.

You really want to know the rest of the plot after I've dissed his storytelling? Okay, it gets strange. Then it gets stranger. Ishima is not quite possessed, but she has some strange ideas floating around in her head. Is she a ghost? Is someone else in her body? And what is that vibrating rock at the top of that mountain? As the MIFF synopsis point out, Ishii doesn't really want to answer any of those questions and perhaps that's why some people adore this film. I didn't quite.

Next up, the totally sold out 101 REYKJAVIK. There was a slight delay getting everyone seated at the beautiful Capitol Theatre so I entertained the crowd with a quick rendition of "Where Are The Clowns", accompanying myself on electric harmonica. It went down a treat and I had to refer several eager types to my agent.

What a nice surprise to see Victoria Abril turning up in an Icelandic film. It's totally appropriate that her presence in the narrative is the spice that Hlynur (Hilmir Snaer Gudnason), a thirty year old slacker still cocooned in his mother's place, needs to get up off his arse and do something. (note to filmmakers worldwide: are all male losers who are going nowhere in their lives really devastatingly beautiful? I know I'm not... whoops)

Hlynur doesn't say an awful lot to his circle of friends. Thankfully he's more chatty to us, taking us in hand as he walks through crowded bars and bedrooms and gets so drunk that he accidentally screws his mother's lesbian lover Lola (Abril), making her pregnant. It's a breezy, flip, essayistic journey that only starts to falter when director/writer Baltasar Kormákur demands an emotional investment from the audience that he hasn't really earned.

I'll be looking for this soundtrack by Damon Albarn (Blur) and Einar (Sugarcubes). Mr Albarn is shaping as a unlikely but considerable talent in the scoring business, although one of his earliest cues - where he injects a screeching note of tension into an innocous walking scene - is hideously misconceived. His tip of the lid to the Kinks, with a revamped arrangement of 'Lola' is a particular highlight of the movie.

I hung around in my private box for most of VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS. Despite getting a coffee, I didn't last the distance of this restrained comedy-of-manners which to the displeasure of several sexually frustrated fanboys in the crowd (whoops again) wasn't a sex romp with lots of Asian hotties.

Norman out...

normangunston@aintitcoolmail.com