Thoughts on the Sydney Film Festival

I was supposed to go camping on the Saturday and Sunday of the June long weekend so I cut back my Sydney Film Festival sessions to a Flexipass10 (usually I buy a Flexipass20 or 30 and watch 15-20 films and share the rest). Of course I knew that watching fewer films meant any 'bad' films would comprise a higher ratio of the overall selection and skew my impression of the festival as a whole. But even though I had to skip a few on my shortlist due to clashing schedules and other commitments, I was fairly confident of my choices because the last few years I seem to have picked films I've liked fairly universally.

So, how was it?

Here's are some short reviews (some spoilers—beware!):

NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS

Blurb: In this assured and astonishing feature-film debut, life in a middle-class neighbourhood in present-day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private-security firm. 

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars and surprised myself by awarding it that highly. In this 'slice of life' film, narrative plays a loose second to character. All the characters and the roles they play in the neighbourhood show the dynamic and culture of the street but there is simply not enough here to be more than a sketch of a film. We have a bored housewife, a bored building manager and his grandfather, a bored property magnate, and the families and ancillary characters that encircle them threatening, but never quite managing, to carve some sort of narrative arc.

Top marks go to mood and for the artful elevation of the neighbourhood into a character of its own. I suspect I gave one more star than it deserved because I have a soft spot for the underlying theme, the interconnectedness of all things.


POSTCARDS FROM THE ZOO

Blurb: Maverick Indonesian director Edwin creates a dreamlike world in this story about a girl raised in a zoo whose life changes when she meets a handsome cowboy with magical powers.


I gave it 3 out of 5 stars, one for the mention of 'postcard', one for the mention of 'zoo' and another for having a character best described as 'handsome cowboy with magical powers'. This film shows what happens when tight magical realism unravels into a 'then this happened' kind of story. The first thing that happens is a really cute little girl wanders around the zoo at night looking for her father. It's never explained how she was left behind. She finds an encampment of unofficial zoo workers and we accept that she grows up at the zoo as an unofficial guide before following said magical cowboy into the 'real world' as his assistant. During practice of a disappearing trick, he literally disappears and she gets a job as a masseuse in a shady parlour down the road.

I think Edwin was trying to hard to convey the parallels between this innocent girl and the captive animals that she loves so much. There's a sense of exploitation at both the zoo and the parlour, and even the cowboy's employment of her as his assistant. The reason it doesn't work is that he's trying to cram too many surreal moments into a fairly weak narrative and these quirks jolt us into realising there are too many unanswered questions, enough to make us distrust the quivery story. However, the lead actress was likeable and I love zoos so I'll stick with the rating.


L

Blurb: Drolly funny Greek 'Weird Wave' film about a driver, referred to as the Man, who lives and works in his car and spends all his time sourcing the finest honey for a narcoleptic—occasionally meeting his wife and children in a carpark.


I gave it 2 out of 5 stars. The theme of disconnection and connection is quite strong, coming through in the set-up of the Man living in his car and then, after he loses his honey-couriering job, joining a motorcycle gang. Meeting his estranged wife and children is also a recurring motif, as is dreaming about a dead friend who appears in the film as a man pretending to be a bear.

There's quite a bit of WTF?! in this film and in some weird way I do care about the Man, but the piecemeal story was too alienating for me to truly like it. At the end, all I could think was 'that was it?'


LOVE LASTS THREE YEARS

Blurb: This charming comedy follows the misadventures of a literary critic who meets an irresistible and inaccessible beauty and tries to hide the fact that he wrote a cynical bestseller denouncing love.

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars for its tight script, well-cast characters and real laughs. It was also a beautiful film with some excellent cinematographic choices, which is unusual for a comedy. The script plays for laughs on three levels: there is farce, there is slapstick but there is also plenty of clever wordplay (the main character is a literary critic, after all). Our protagonist is a likeable but self-absorbed rogue who is too smart for his own good but with whom we empathise in his quest to understand love after he's jilted by his wife and falls for his cousin's spouse.

There's no Hollywood ending here; although he gets the girl, he doesn't 'learn a lesson' about himself or about love, but in the meantime we do. Sort of. At least we laugh at what we think we understand, which is far more important in a film that bills itself as a comedy.



BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Blurb: A Sundance and Cannes prize winner, this unforgettable feature-film debut is set in a defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world, as icebergs melt and prehistoric creatures descend.

I gave it 5 out of 5 stars for its heartbreaking beauty, vitality and indomitable spirit. This is magical realism at its best: grounded enough in reality for us to understand and care for these fringe characters who dwell in poverty but are otherwise happy, but wondrous enough to open our eyes to the world that they see for themselves, a sparkling, carefree future. The theme of freedom was as tearaway as the main character Hushpuppy and lingered long after the closing shot.



DEATH OF A JAPANESE SALESMAN

Blurb: The last months in the life of recently retired Japanese businessman as recorded by his filmmaker daughter: a surprisingly funny and immensely moving documentary.

I gave it 3 out of 5 stars but on second thoughts it should probably have one more (which I will take from 'Neighbouring Sounds'...). This film is incredibly droll for a doco about death and much of that comes from the filmmaker's well-scripted voiceover as she speaks as her father. An example: "That's my youngest daughter. She should stop following me around with a camera and find a husband." However, in some ways this makes the accompanying image lose some intimacy.

The scenes were well chosen, representing the traits of both her father and the wider family, while keeping to the thread of his preparation for death. It's amazing that throughout this doco we are prepared for his death and yet feel it so acutely when he does pass. I bawled my eyes out.


PINK RIBBONS, INC

Blurb: Provocative documentary that exposes problems with the ubiquitous pink-themed corporate fundraising for breast cancer research.

I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. For everyone who has ever been annoyed at how pervasive pink is during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, how entwined pink is with breast cancer, and suspicious about where all the money really goes, this doco is for you.

First of all, this is a brilliant film to see if you are interested in how to market a disease. 'Pink Ribbons, Inc' deals with the corporatisation of breast cancer and how it shapes the way we think about charities and medical research. But beyond that, it looks at some of the hypocrisies in the Pink Ribbon campaign (e.g. companies that sell carcinogenic products sponsoring Pink Ribbon events) and the gaps in where the funding goes (too much towards research to find a cure and not enough towards investigating causes).

While presented as a stock standard doco (talking head cut to Pink Ribbon event cut to animated graphic cut to talking head), it doesn't push a cynical view but fairly even handedly allows its interviewees to say what they need to say. Any cynicism comes from the audience's perception of that interviewee. Really made me think not just about Pink Ribbons but charity marketing as a whole.




ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA

Blurb: Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan takes on the police procedural, and the result is a beautifully layered narrative in which every line of dialogue contributes to solving the puzzle.

I gave it 3 out of 5 stars, all for cinematography. The blurb lies: there is no puzzle, just long lingering shots of the Turkish countryside and a seemingly neverending night in which a team of police staff attempt to find the body of a murder victim using the testimony of a prisoner who has confessed to the crime.

This is a beautiful-looking film, badly made. I understand the Ceylan is trying to make us feel like the characters who must endure the long night, but all of that could've easily been rectified with an injection of narrative. By the end of it I didn't care for any of the characters, what they did or did not do, nor the murder victim, nor the prisoner. The 'twist' is more like a clumsy reveal that loses its meaning in the weak ending.


ALPS

Blurb: The team behind Greek 'Weird Wave' films Dogtooth and Attenberg return with the absurd tale of a secret club whose members are paid to act as replacements for the recently deceased.  

I gave it 2 out of 5 stars and was incredulous when I found out it had won the 2012 Sydney Film Festival Official Competition prize. Granted I came into the session at least 20 minutes late and may have missed some of the crucial setup, I mustered no sympathy for any of the characters and what should've been a compelling premise fell flat in every scene due to the thick layer of contrivance to be weird.

The addictive nature of the club's activities was the strongest part of the film and that was well played throughout, but the dynamic between the characters was stilted and the dialogue (albeit deliberately in some scenes) even more so.


A SIMPLE LIFE

Blurb: With perfect performances from Andy Lau and Deanie Ip, Ann Hui's moving film looks at the decades-long relationship between a man and a devoted family servant who suffers a stroke. 

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. This film surprised me as I didn't expect to like it so much. Apart from being a touching story, the blurb was right about the perfect performances: for a sentimental story it was emotionally restrained and well played. It was also surprisingly humorous with some light touches that didn't feel inserted. The theme of family and belonging was very clear and although I didn't bawl my eyes as in 'Death of a Japanese Salesman', I did shed a tear for aunty when she passed, yet I was happy that she had found true friendship with her ward before she did.


OVERALL
Aesthetically this was one of the best film festivals I've experienced for cinematography, so I gave it plenty of points for beauty. For a festival that touted the slogan 'One festival, infinite stories', however, there was a distinct lack of narrative in many of the films I watched, which was disappointing from both an expectation level and an enjoyment level.

I watch films because they have a beginning, middle and end. The good ones make me think and are enjoyable to watch, the bad ones at least end. All these 'slice of life' films and movies with weak endings just make me feel like I've wasted my time. I mean, if you're not going to provide closure, all you're doing is setting me up for disappointment because hell, as a filmmaker, you have to give me enough plot, character, setting so I can construct something worthwhile for the time and money I've afforded you.

I can get a good plot from a book, I can get good characters from TV, I can get good settings from my travels: only in cinema do these three elements combine in an optimal way to become art. Unfortunately in the 2012 Sydney Film Festival there were too many parts missing for the films to really soar.

#30: Five films that mean a lot to you

Love it when a 30-day meme takes almost two months.

This list does not include my favourite film of all time because I think it'd be too difficult to name just one from a list of about 20 films I really, really like and would be happy to watch over and over again.

But here's a shortlist of films that mean a lot to me and why.

Inception
Well, it was directed by Christopher Nolan, what's not to like? But beyond that, Inception is a cerebral blockbuster, the difficult balance between critical and commercial success. If you didn't think about it, you could still enjoy it. If you did think about, you'd enjoy it more. Who would've expected a speculative heist movie to earn so much at the box office?

True, Nolan was not nominated for an Oscar for his direction, but I think he was robbed (of a nomination—I don't think he should've won) because Inception is a difficult story to convey and the direction in it was spot on.

Add the fact that Inception was designed specifically for the medium, an original story, and not part of a franchise and you have an acclaimed filmgoer's film.

Teeth
This is a B-grade horror film (the humour is also so very black) that was screened at the Sydney Film Festival a few years ago. I liked it so much I later acquired it on DVD as an example of a horror film that I could actually watch again.

Teeth means a lot to me because it's a prime example of a film that's very firmly B-grade not aspiring to be anything else, yet with an excellent cast and well directed. It's money well spent in other words, and gives me faith that the industry isn't completely full of people who earn too much for bad movies.

The Graduate
This was the first old movie I liked. It is also a film that stands the test of time: I feel it covers the universal theme of a disaffected youth trying to find himself, his confusion about love and sex, and the point at which he grounds himself and chooses life.

Speaking of choosing life, what's not to like about a film that gets sampled in a George Michael video clip? "Do you want me to seduce you? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" Too funky, Mr Graduate.

Kundun
The scene of the massacre. Unforgettable.

Into the Wild
It's a romance about a young man's relationship with the world and it's based on true events. Let's call this a vicarious pick.

Read the entire 30-day movie meme.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#29: Last film you watched

I thought 'hang on a minute—isn't this Day #12?' But yes, it differentiates between films seen in the cinema compared with films I've watched in general.

Well, the last film I watched was at the cinema, Sleeping Beauty. I had these Dendy vouchers I wanted to use up so organised to meet my boyfriend at Dendy Newtown to see The Tree of Life. Unfortunately, due to train dramas we missed the start of The Tree of Life so we decided we'd try and catch the later session.

WELL, the later session was at 9.20pm and for a two-and-a-half hour movie, that would've made it incredibly difficult for me to get home. I saw Sleeping Beauty was also playing—I missed it at the Sydney Film Festival—and that the next session was at 9.10pm and at a respectable one-and-a-half hour running time.

So thanks to Cityrail, two more people saw Sleeping Beauty than would have ordinarily.

I liked it more than my boyfriend did. It was aesthetically quite cool and distant, which corresponded with the main character's (Emily Browning) encounters as she drifts from day to day, never really engaging with anyone or anything with any warmth.

Unfortunately, this meant that it lacked was audience empathy. I would say that about half of the audience in the cinema didn't care about her, or what happened to her. There were also lots of nipples.

However, there was the compulsion to want to know what was behind the things that happened—the creepy lingerie waitressing gig and the nude sleeping gig—which intrigued until the end. This was not climactic enough to make it a good film, I'm sorry to say, but I still thought of it as an interesting piece that was worth watching.

Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#28: Last film you bought

I... don't recall. The last film I acquired was The Hulk (starring Edward Norton), which was in a leftover promo pack and attained as a gift from a neighbouring publishing house.

The last DVD I bought was Leonard Cohen Live in London.

The last film on DVD I bought would've been during the Borders closing down sale and I think it was an enviro doco. Ah yes, it was Garbage Warrior, which I haven't seen yet. Unfortunately I missed this one at the Sydney Film Festival a couple of years ago, hence the purchase.

Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#11: How often do you go to the cinema?

(as opposed to renting films out or watching them at home)

I didn't really go to the cinema as a kid. My parents weren't those kinds of parents. The first movie I saw in an actual proper cinema (as opposed to a cabaret set-up in an RSL) was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. It was for a friend's brother's birthday (hi Beq! Hi Benny!) and I was 12 at the time.

In my teenage years, cinema-going was still rather sporadic; it was not until uni that I started going to the cinema at Macquarie Centre during long breaks between classes (I went to Macquarie Uni). Student ticket prices helped.

The past few years has seen my cinema consumption go up from about once a fortnight to 3-4 times a month despite the fact that I consider movie ticket prices exorbitant. I rarely pay full price anyway, it's just nice to bitch about it sometimes.

A lot of this comes from film festivals where I'll see anything from 5-10 movies in the season. I also like to enter competitions that have movie tickets as prizes, as well as bid for a place at free preview screenings.

Compared to my DVD/home consumption, this is high. I don't own a lot of DVDs—maybe 20 movies and 20 TV shows/music DVDs—and I don't watch movies on TV. I do have a Quickflix account, which gives me four rentals a month, but they tend to be for hard-to-get TV series or docos rather than films I miss at the cinema.

If I want to see a film I'll see it at the cinema, I guess. Or sometimes on a plane.

Day 12 - What’s the last film you saw in the cinema?
Day 13 - What’s your favourite/preferred genre of film?
Day 14 - What’s the first film you remember seeing in the cinema?
Day 15 - What film do you wish you had never seen?
Day 16 - What is the scariest film you’ve seen?
Day 17 - If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Day 18 - Favourite movie hero?
Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#2: Name a film that you’ve seen multiple times in the cinema

I don't think I've ever seen a film more than twice at the cinema so the word 'multiple' sort of rules everything out.

Actually, I have seen something three times: it was a short called The Adjustable Cosmos, which screened ahead of two films I saw at last year's Sydney Film Festival. I then saw it again in a collection of animated shorts for the Fantastic Planet film festival. It's a funny film that kept the laughs through multiple viewings and I became quite fond of it.

Some films I've see twice at the cinema:

• American Pie: The first time it'd screened as a 'mystery film', the second time I went with friends who'd missed out. Should I be admitting this?


• American Beauty: I was a bit WTF? the first time so I thought I'd see it in a break between uni classes back when cheap Tuesday tickets were actually cheap.


• The Dark Knight and Sherlock Holmes: These films screened after Clash of the Titans at a movie marathon. Although my movie friend and I had already seen both of them, we'd decided they were good enough to see again, particularly on the big screen. Just as well, because Clash of the Titans was shithouse, so we needed two decent movies to wash our eyes out.


• Inception: Saw this with my movie friend, a much anticipated film. Then it featured as part of my first date with my current boyfriend because I recommended it and I wanted to see if I could pick up anything further upon second viewing.


• Boy: Saw this at last year's Sydney Film Festival and *loved* it. I later went to see my sister in Canberra and she doesn't often get time to see movies (despite being a Dendy Club member) so I recommended it. There are so few cinema complexes in Canberra, and so few screens in each complex, that this ended up being the only decent thing showing. Just as well it was a top film. The most interesting thing about it is the first time I saw it I remember laughing so hard I cried. The second time I saw it, I cried so much I had to laugh.

I'm a fan of going to the cinema for the big screen experience. My tiny townhouse will not fit a big screen and sound system (well, the wall will fit a big screen but I just don't have the space to have my couch as far back as it needs to be, a la Roy's place in The IT Crowd episode 'Moss and the German'). A film's run also forces me to watch it in a set time, which is more than I can say for my DVD queue at Quickflix.

I will try and see a film at the cinema more than once if I think it warrants the big screen experience but in general, with movie ticket prices being what they are, I like to see something new each time.

Day 03 - Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a film.
Day 04 - Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a film.
Day 05 - Name a film that you can and do quote from.
Day 06 - Name a film musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
Day 07 - Name a film that you would recommend everyone see.
Day 08 - Ever walked out of a film?
Day 09 - Name a film that made you cry in the cinema.
Day 10 - Name a film that you liked that everyone hated.
Day 11 - How often do you go to the cinema (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
Day 12 - What’s the last film you saw in the cinema?
Day 13 - What’s your favourite/preferred genre of film?
Day 14 - What’s the first film you remember seeing in the cinema?
Day 15 - What film do you wish you had never seen?
Day 16 - What is the scariest film you’ve seen?
Day 17 - If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Day 18 - Favourite movie hero?
Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

Screen time

So Sydney Film Festival season is upon us. The full program was released this week and Sir and I are madly coordinating which sessions we'll attend together.

What I want to know is why hasn't anyone coded a program that will let you save a film onto a personal calendar as you're browsing so you can then open the calendar and make your final selections based on times, venues, and clashes?

In an ideal world, this would not just be a planner but a way you can buy your tickets.

For example, I have a Flexipass20 but I am probably only going to see about 15 films, 5 of which I will be accompanied by my boyfriend or movie friend. In my head, there is a program that allows me to:

• see all the sessions for films I've flagged as possibilities;


• select everything I want to see or deselect the duplicates;


• select how many tickets I want for each session;


• redeem my flexipass against them all in one hit.

How about it Sydney Film Festival?

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - Foreign-language films

Poison Friends
(18th June - State Theatre)

A brilliant but manipulative student guides and cajoles his friends into writing for a purpose. Ultimately, though, he becomes the victim of his own arrogance when their success throws his failure into sharp relief.

I disagree with the program's claim that this film is "so unrepentantly French" because I actually found it to be almost a cross between a British boys club mentality and a serious American college thinkpiece, ie not as French as I expected. Maybe History Boys meets Wonder Boys but not as good or thoughtful or funny as either of those movies.

There were a couple of interesting comments on friendship and writing but ultimately the movie was pretty boring and aimless, flitting from friend to friend without developing much pathos for any of the characters. I think the film said the most about the hero mentality in some people - how some people have a compulsion to 'help' others but ignore their own apparent problems.

Film rating: 5/10
Enjoyment rating: 5/10



The Heavenly Kings
(22nd June - Greater Union #2)

It is only at the end of the film that the audience actually understands the extent to which this mockumentary was 'mock'. Director Daniel Wu, a well-known Hong Kong actor, cobbles together some famous Hong Kong celebrities to form a pop band called Alive. The band do well despite having only one member who can sing. Hilarity ensues.

The clincher is that Daniel Wu really did cobble together some famous Hong Kong celebrities to form a pop band called Alive, for the purposes of making a film about the dying art of real music. The group says that they all wanted to make a film about a boy band but they decided to go one step further and pretend that they were a boy band. Hence all the scenes with the boys' onstage performances is actual concert footage with fans none the wiser to the ruse - until now.

Heavenly Kings is a well-paced mockumentary with a serious message about the state of music in today's culture. The blend of real doco footage and scripted moco footage gave the film a sense of authenticity without losing its humorous edge. Some parts were hilarious (cue the stylist!) and the scattered animation added an unusual touch. On the narrative side, the story arc was too contrived and too neatly resolved but some of the media stunts and offhand comments were gold.

Film rating: 7/10
Enjoyment rating: 7/10

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - English-language films

Death at a Funeral
(15th June - State Theatre)

What happens when a patriarch dies and the funeral goes to pieces? Daniel is the deceased's eldest son trying to conduct a dignified funeral for his late father. He is overshadowed, however, by his younger brother Robert, a successful writer who has just flown in from New York. As he rehearses his father's eulogy to idle chatter about his brother being a better writer, he finds that he has far greater things to contend with including his cousin's hallucinating fiance and a mysterious midget who wants a cut of the will.

Death at a Funeral is a very British film with very British humour involving a blend of physical humour with wry one-liners. I say 'very British' to mean that the whole script is outlandish but somehow understated. Well-cast characters make this a worthwhile indie film and a definite affection for the characters was the film's overall strength.

As with most British comedies, it all goes to hell before it comes back again. The film is well-played by all with an excellent sense of timing. The slapstick threatens to go a bit far, but director Frank Oz reins it in with a deft hand and the story arcs finish with satisfactory, though far from neat, closure.

Film rating: 8/10
Enjoyment rating: 8/10



Teeth
(17th June - State Theatre)

Dawn is an attractive teenage girl who has pledged to abstain from sex until marriage. When a new boy, Tobey, captures her heart, resistance becomes more and more difficult until Dawn discovers a secret weapon. Teeth. But not in her mouth. When sex meets nuclear mutation, the results can be bloody for some.

Teeth is exceptionally well-made and well-edited. Every moment serves an ultimate purpose and no thread is wasted in the tight 87-minute frame. The most admirable part is writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein's perfect balance between the comedy and horror genres - difficult to achieve but he makes it look easy in this film.

The horror initially comes from Dawn's gruesome discovery of her secret weapon, which involves a fair amount of blood and a lot of screaming. Thereafter, however, the audience develops that uncomfortable foreknowledge of what could happen scene by scene in each subsequent encounter. This impending discomfort is exactly the kind of feeling for which this genre should aim.

The comedy is pitch black. Lichtenstein has a go at the cultish abstinence group, the inadequate sex education at school, oversexed teenagers and Dawn's weird stepbrother Brad. It's absolutely awesome that you can have a hearty laugh at the expense of all these groups when there's blood everywhere else and a lot of squirming men. I highly recommend this film if you want to see a well-balanced horror/comedy.

Film rating: 9/10
Enjoyment rating: 9/10

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - documentaries

All in this Tea
(13th June - State Theatre)

Very early on in the film, doco-maker Les Blank captures tea pioneer David Lee Hoffman and director Werner Herzog in conversation over a cup of tea. One of them says something like "a walk through the meadow, early morning mist in the forest, fresh air on a mountain - it's all in this tea", giving the doco its name. It's an apt comment, for the film itself is a compelling look at tea culture through Hoffman's 1990 journey to China to find good leaf.

Frustrated with poor quality tea bags and the growing propensity for factory rolled leaves, Hoffman forges his way through the Chinese countryside to try and convince the tea brokers to let him buy straight from the farmers who produce the best tea. Along the way the audience learns more about tea culture, tea growing, tea rolling and tea making. It's easy to like Hoffman, despite his brashness - he knows his stuff and he essentially pioneers fair trade before the term was coined.

Les Blank took Q&A at the end and had some interesting anecdotes. He spoke of being on the road with Hoffman when the authorities became suspicious about filmmakers hanging around farmers. One official asked to see some footage - Blank was a bit nervous because he knew that there was footage of children in the fields and he knew that the authorities didn't like that because Westerners were wont to show evidence of child labour and exploitation. He handed the guy a random tape and it turned out to be one of Hoffman sniffing lots of different bushels of tea. "He was fascinated," said Blank, "he just watched the reel of David sniffing all this tea until my camera battery ran out."

By the end of this I was inspired to learn as much as I could about good tea so I could get some for myself.

Film rating: 7/10
Enjoyment rating: 8/10



Forever
(16th June - State Theatre)

It's hard to know what this doco really says. Is it a sort of 'day in the life of' the Pere-Lachaise cemetery? A comment about death? A comment about art surviving death? Doco-maker Heddy Honigmann makes it all of these things using a good nose for talent. Much of the film is serendipity as Honigmann scours the cemetery for interesting people who may have insights to the graves that they visit.

Along the way we see the headstones of such artists as musician Jim Morrison, philosopher Marcel Proust, composer Frederic Chopin, Iranian writer Hedayat, actress Simone Signoret, and other unfamous but unforgotten people through the eyes of volunteer grave carers, who look after the headstones, fans of the artists and cemetery workers. The carers are usually widows who spend a day a week looking after their lost beloved's headstone - brushing away dirt, giving it new flowers - before looking after other headstones in disrepair. All of them display an acceptance of death but also demonstrate a resilient type of love.

The fans have been chosen well. Honigmann goes into depth with just a few such as a Japanese pianist who she finds praying at the grave of Chopin. The girl explains that her late father loved Chopin and that Chopin's music speaks to her - and yet it is clear that this is an inadequate description of what cannot be said. Honigmann also finds an Iranian taxi driver at the grave of Hedayat. He carries a book of poems around with him everywhere. He also sings. Refusing to perform at first, he then obliges, the a capella a nice reminder of the power of the voice enduring over mortality.

Honigmann's most interesting find is a couple of men who happen to have a very strong connection to the cemetery. One is a tour guide, he speaks of the different graves he tells tourists about, including the crumbling grave of a young woman whose poetry can still (barely) be read inscribed on her tomb. Another interviewee is a mortician who when asked if he ever cries for the dead says "no" and then after a pause admits that he actually can't physically cry because he has no tear ducts.

All have varying and fascinating views on death, making for a surprisingly uplifting doco.

Film rating: 7/10
Enjoyment rating: 7/10

Sydney Film Festival 2007 - compilations

Digital Projections
(12th June - Greater Union #2)

A nice mix of shorts, some more memorable than others. On the funny side was a trio of films; 'Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006' (a 2D 'video game' with hilarious parodies of game violence - decapitating zombie babies anyone? - and random superpowers... a bus?), 'MTV Happymart' (an ultra-short film about a quirky Asian supermarket where shoppers feel compelled to dance whenever the store manager turns his focus to a sexed-up MTV clip) and 'The Lecture' (a nicely reflexive animated piece about two animation teachers bitching about their students).

I particularly liked the idea of 'Pirate Baby', but I felt that it went on for a bit longer than necessary. For such a short short (90 secs), 'MTV Happymart' had an noticeably outstanding colour palette, was well cast with great costuming. 'The Lecture' featured some interesting animation, great visual jokes and a succinct punchline.

Other films had a beautiful fragility, such as the opening number 'Explain', a video clip for Sarah Blasko, short film 'On the Other Ocean' and stop-motion piece 'The Luminary'. Blasko's music, lyrics and vocals for 'Explain' gave it particular appeal, though the environmental interpretation and illustrative animation did a lot to enhance the emotion of the song.

'On the Other Ocean', a narrative about a family excursion that ends in tragedy, was beautifully shot and beautifully told. Generally I don't like films that indulge in lots of stills and slow pans, but in this case it was really well done and entirely appropriate. However, the soundtrack of disturbing noise was quite difficult to listen to and grated on the ears throughout. Silence might have achieved the same effect.

As a stop-motion piece, 'The Luminary' already had a painstakingly fragile look and feel about it, but the focus on the minutae of the character's life created a wonderful picture of a lonely life. This led to a punchline that I didn't expect, hence making the film much funnier than the beginning half suggests.

Contents:
Explain [Sarah Blasko video clip]
On the Other Ocean
Hearts A Mess [Gotye video clip]
Life Begins [The Energies video clip]
The Reality Project
Under the Cherry Tree [Telemetry Orchestra video clip]
Peephole
Choking on a Wishbone [Architecture in Helsinki video clip]
Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006
MTV Happymart
The Lecture
Black Hole Blues [Jack Ladder video clip]
The Luminary
My Old Ways [Dr Dog video clip]



Comedy Shorts
(14th June - Greater Union #1)

I had high hopes for the Comedy Shorts. I'd had a crappy day and was especially looking forward to laughs, thus it was rather disappointing that this compilation eased into the laughs with the first few films but then just fell away. Don't get me wrong, the films in this lot weren't bad at all, they just rarely moved past 'mildly amusing'.

'The Guitar Lesson', for example, was about a middle-aged guy attending guitar lessons at a younger man's flat. He learns to play Serge Gainsbourg's 'Letitia'. Eighteen minutes later... The End. NOT FUNNY. NOT INTERESTING.

Most of the films had a chuckle in it, but rarely did they inspire the kind of laugh that the audience struggled to contain lest they miss the next part of the film, which I was expecting. (And I don't think that's an unreasonable ask considering that Digital Projections delivered such moments and never advertised itself as comedy).

The pick of the lot was probably 'The Japanese Tradition: Apologies' for laughs and the claymation offering 'Professor Pebbles' for amusing story. 'Apologies' was a compound joke that exploited the Japanese culture of apology to attain the laughs, thus the translations were particularly important in this case. 'Professor Pebbles' was a story about a 500 year old devil who sets out to prove that he is evil enough despite everyone else's opinion in the underworld. Some great one-liners and visual jokes with the claymation giving the storytelling an automatic cute factor.

Still, I can't contain my disappointment about this compilation, I consider it the single weakness of my SFF viewing.

Contents:
For a Few Marbles More
The Japanese Tradition: Apologies
Pick Up
The Night Before Christmas
The Technical Hitch
Christmas in Huddersfield
Fetch
The Guitar Lesson
Hold Up
Stuff
Professor Pebbles
Menged