France makes so many movies that it’s impossible for them all to get released. Of the seven Best Film nominees at the César Awards, the “French Oscars”, only four have received an Australian release. Amazingly, 70 French films have already been released into French cinemas this year, which makes it all the more galling that Australian Francophiles get such limp, lifeless fluff like Le Chef. So often these frothy French tales of (apparent) swoony romance are called “soufflés” for the way they remain lighter than air, except in this case the soufflé is flavourless and deflates in an instant. Even its bland, innocuous title seems disinterested and we haven’t even gotten to the actors, the editing, the writing, the… well, you get the picture.
Will you wanna put another dime in the box office, or ask for a refund? It’s inevitable that the latest all-singing-sorta-all-dancing extravaganza from Adam Shankman (Hairspray), Rock of Ages, based upon the 2006 Broadway musical of the same name, will get compared to Glee – what with them sharing an affinity for bright-eyed moppets singing songs in squeaky, polished voices – but this being a big screen event audiences should be hoping for something more. More is certainly what they get, whether that’s any good…
Cinema has taught us that it’s always the quiet ones that are most dangerous. That’s certainly the case for the seemingly unsuspecting Take This Waltz, a sunny dramedy that lulls its viewers with pseudo quirks, but which actually hides an altogether terrifying dead heart that clubs viewers over the head with its nauseating examination of an insufferable, unhappy woman. Oh sure, Hollywood can throw any number of whiz-bang special effects at me, but nothing in Battleship was as offensive as the dialogue in Take This Waltz. “I’m afraid of connections”, says Michelle Williams’ Margot as she strains to hide the metaphor in her ramblings. She’s afraid of airport connections, you see, but just try listening to that scene and not want to vomit from how obvious it reads. “I’m afraid of being… in between.” Oh please.
Aboriginal history holds a vital position amongst the Australian film landscape. Movies that deal with the first Australians and their modern day descendants are frequently amongst the strongest that this country produces, and their makers are some of the absolute finest this land has to offer. One just has to think of Warwick Thornton’s Samson & Delilah, Ivan Sen’s Beneath Clouds, Rachel Perkins’ Radiance, or many others to see that these stories are special and their storytellers are gifted individuals. ABC’s telemovie, Mabo, is no difference, but while it never reaches the cinematic heights of its big screen cousins, this wonderfully acted and superbly designed television feature is a strong piece of work from its makers. It’s fitting timing, too, on the 20-year anniversary that this fine film should come into our homes.
This morning I read a nicely put piece on the issue of "weird for weirdness' sake" that argues people who make such complains about certain films are using a film's very unique quality as a scapegoat for their inability to like a film. I've seen films that are weird and liked them, and I've seen films that are weird and disliked them, but while I can sometimes understand a person's misgivings over a film due to some impenetrable oddness, I also don't think it's a filmmaker's responsibility to be coherent when they're not working in a familiar wheelhouse. Personally, I think to say a film by David Lynch is "weird for weirdness' sake" is to, quite frankly, not be paying any attention whatsoever, but I can certainly see where somebody could find his variety of weird cinema unpalatable. There's a big difference between personally not liking it and thinking the director has nothing to say. This all ties nicely together with a double feature that I attended this last past week of Alejandro Jodorowsky films at The Astor Theatre.
I'd never seen any of this famed Mexican director's work before, so the chance to his two most famous titles together on the big screen in 35mm prints was one I wasn't going to pass up (it meant skipping the press screening of Jennifer Westfeldt's Friends with Kids that I'm not terribly upset about). I had heard much about Jodorowsky's famed 1970 cult breakthrough, El Topo, but I know now that one can never know what to expect. If I see any of this man's other work I certainly won't make the mistake of thinking I know what I'm getting myself in for It's history as one of the original "midnight movies" was a definite lure, and in that regard I am certainly glad I got the chance to see it (one can't have an opinion on a film without actually see it, no matter what the internet tells us these days), but I can't say I enjoyed the film too much. Yes, it's quite strange, but it's strangeness isn't particularly interesting or portrayed in any visually arresting manner. The film's second half, with its exploitation of disfigured incest victims featuring quite prominently alongside its heavy religious iconography, proved to be a further tedious excursion into a rather uninteresting world that Jodorowsky had crafted. I'm sure Jodorowsky was going for something, but what that something was remains a mystery to me, hidden by laboured storytelling and an excessive run time.
Technically there's skill there, no doubt. I found particular fascination within the soundtrack that Jodorowsky constantly fills with noise despite the barren landscapes. Whether its an army of clucking chickens, gusty winds, mulling goats and the like, the speakers are certainly working overtime when other aspects are not. I got a kick out of the costume design by Jodorowsky himself that I could see had influenced the likes of Tarsem Singh's The Fall. Sadly, I found the film just never went anywhere potent enough to justify its crude stylistic flourishes and disturbing imagery.
The second feature, The Holy Mountain, on the other hand, was an entirely different experience. Dealing with a lot of the same issues as El Topo with its frequently confronting religious imagery and weird segues, I was instantly taken by it unlike its predecessor. The Holy Mountain was, I was surprised to discover, the next feature of Jodorowsky's career. A surprise because it feels like a rapid maturation and major advancement over the sloppy El Topo, but also because it proved that it wasn't just my distinct lack of pharmaceutical aid during the screening of El Topo that made me not enjoy it. The Holy Mountain is an awe-inspiring step for Jodorowsky and one that left me in a constant state of slack-jawed admiration. With its clean, assured direction, phenomenal art direction (truly some of the best I have ever seen), absurd imagery, bonkers descent into comedic oddity, and endlessly fascinating mythology I was entranced by The Holy Mountain.
I was disturbed, as one should be, by the very real animal cruelty as well as the questionable prepubescent child nudity and irksome representation of gay figures (all of which were also found within El Topo, and I suspect his later works, too), but at least this third feature of his came accompanied with such a strong, stylistic vision that I found it less troublesome. For the first hour, certainly, I just couldn't keep my eyes off of the screen as Jodorowsky threw dazzling image after dazzling image at me. From the opening scene of a robed man performing a religious act upon two women in a sterile white and black room I was hooked. I don't really know what any of it means, but I was fascinated nonetheless. Pockets of people amongst the audience were chuckling away at the odd imagery - the toad city for instance - but I mostly sat there with my serious face on, soaking it all in. This was powerful stuff and I was determined to not let Jodorowsky's obvious nods to El Topo's pot-headed legacy get in the way. Of course, by the time one character started humping a mountainside, followed by what can only be described as "tiger tits", something in my brain snapped. I ended up cackling for several minutes straight and then at frequent intervals thereafter until the ending. Oh, that ending? Yeah. Wow. I can't even, ya know? I don't even want to know what the director was smoking when he planned out The Holy Mountain. Something dangerous, no doubt. It's of little surprise that John Lennon and Yoko Ono helped finance the picture, also.
These two films seem like excellent mirrors to any debate about "weird for weirdness' sake". Both are weird, sure, but I found only The Holy Mountain did it in the context of a film with the gravity and the scope to give the impression of having a deeper meaning. In contrast, El Topo felt like little more than shenanigans. Even if I didn't entirely get what it was all about, it's a film of truly epic visual power - visuals that took my breath away - and one that really can't imagine experiencing on a small screen. Thank god The Astor Theatre (once again), hey?
The sub-sub-genre of Melbourne social activism documentaries is certainly one that has sprung up with a vengeance within the local filmmaking community. Empowered by the ease with which these films can be built from the ground up thanks to affordable equipment, eager participants and built in audiences (at least at film festivals) make them an exciting prospect. While I wasn’t a fan of Rosie Jones’ The Triangle Wars, which blandly detailed the fight of rich NIMBYs against a new shopping complex on the St Kilda foreshore, there are others on the horizon that aim to put the spotlight on local institutions in trouble from becoming obsolete. With Natalie van den Dungen’s Persecution Blues: The Battle for The Tote we get a peek into the final days of a building that would come to symbolise an over-zealous government’s reactionary policies that are harming what gives this city its pulse.
Bel Ami has an identity crisis: is it a frilly, comedic period piece romp about a dashing young upstart forced to choose between the love of an impish woman his own age or the giddy older lady who was instantly smitten?; or, is it a dramatic period romance about a motivated young upstart who woos a married woman to make a better life for himself, all whilst participating in a game of political class warfare? By the end credits it was still hard to tell. With two credited directors (Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod), two editors (Gavin Buckley and Masahiro Hirakubo), two music composers (Rachel Portman and Lakshman Joseph de Saram), plus a history of a revolving door casting (Nicole Kidman was cast, but subsequently dropped out) just make Bel Ami’s duel personalities a glaring problem and one that the film never recovers from.
Never again will you be able to say that nobody ever made a movie about Nazis living on the moon who then return to Earth and joined forces with a Sarah Palin-esque politician before waging intergalactic war. No you certainly cannot because Iron Sky is here and after years of development, crowd-sourced funding, and even filming just up north in Queensland, this comical sci-fi spoof is here on the big screen. How it conjured up a theatrical release I’m not too sure, but there it is in its entire goofy, oddball, space opera glory.
Harold Becker's 1985 coming-of-age drama, Vision Quest, must have been a beacon for young gay men. Well, obviously apart from the scene where Matthew Modine discusses wanting to become a gynaecologist so he can "look inside a woman and find the power they have over me", which is just not really dialogue I'd expect to hear in any movie. Still, I can only imagine what it must have been like to be 16 and gay in 1985 and watching Vision Quest. No doubt there were fuzzy VHS copies in high circulation for the second half of the 1980s from all the pausing and rewinding. Teenagers will take anything they can get, haven't you heard? I know that I'm doing little to distinguish myself from the 16-year-old me of ten years ago to the 26-year-old me of today by snickering and giggling at a high school wrestling movie, but it's hard not to when the movie in question is just so out there.
10. Gay tai chi
Oh look, a gay panic scene! Louden Swain (how's that for a character name?), the hunky high school wrestler, gets groped by a patron at his work whilst being taught how to perform tai chi (yeah... it was the '80s, I guess) and he goes bolting outta the room and performs pushups (yeah... I have no reasoning for that). Still, before it leaves too bitter of a taste in the mouth, it's followed by a scene where Louden and his buddy (Michael Schoeffling as Kuch) talk about it in such nonchalant manner that it becomes almost comical.
9. Gay-baiting teenage boys
Do teenage boys really talk like this? Did they ever? If you're having a war of words with a guy at your school, would you tell the other "I'll give ya something to blow" whilst grabbing your crotch? Or are straight male teenagers only afraid of being the "bottom" of a gay joke? Still, Louden's retort of "First ya gotta find it, airhead" is both glorious and gloriously '80s. "Airhead" - not enough uses of that word in this day and age.
8. Jake Ryan
Not gonna lie: I spent a large chunk of Vision Quest's exceedingly lengthy runtime imagining this as a gay romance film about Matthew Modine and Michael Schoeffling (aka Jake Ryan himself) with Linda Fiorentino and nothing more than the sass-mouthin' best friend who ends up with the geek who has been in love with her for the whole film, but whom she kept ignoring. It was still about wrestling though. Sexy gay wrestling.
7. This:
"The girl of my dreams lives under the same roof, I see her every day, but she thinks I'm a kid, immature, a dumb jock, all of which is more or less true ... She's wonderful. She's got all the best things I like in girls and all the best things I (pause) like in guys."
6. Madonna and a gym workout
Yes, Madonna's "Crazy For You" plays over a scene where Louden lifts weights. So motivating, you guys! I presume the sauna is is that-a-way. :/
5. Forrest Whitaker as "Balldozer"
Need I say more?
Okay, I will. He's not even in the movie at all. I was surprised to find him listed amongst the cast with an actual character name. He has only one line of dialogue (that I noticed) and does nothing of any importance whatsoever to the plot so why they went and named him "Balldozer" instead of "Chris" or what have you I haven't the foggiest idea of. Still, it's amusing to see him in there. You can glimpse him in the first small image of #3.
4. Frank Jasper as "Brian Shute"
Ahem.
Ahem.
No, but seriously, I'm always surprised by American high school movies where all the guys are big and bulky like this. My guess from what I've seen of it from television and movies is that it is because the American school system puts such a high esteem on sports, and especially sports that requite size like wrestling or NFL what with scholarships and all that, plus there being a general larger amount of sports to persue that are lucrative (baseball for instance). Growing up in Geelong and attending a fairly normal high school, students were into sports, but unless there was a career in it it wasn't anything that was taken all that seriously. Nothing like Friday Night Lights or this that I'm aware of, but then maybe I just wasn't paying attention. That or my school just wasn't known for its athletic champions. Plus, if you do want a career in sport it's generally AFL and that leans less on massive muscles and size like, say, NFL. Anyway. It's nice to look at and maybe high school wouldn't have been so bad if there were gratuitous somethin' somethin's like this here Brian Shute. Also: teehee, "Shute".
One more? Okay!
Could they film him taking off that top any slower? Also, he attends Hoover High!
3. All of this:
Actually, it's not just Brian Shute up there that gets his body lovingly stroked by the camera, but eventually the entire wrestling team!
I'm sure this is all very true to life of high school wrestling - and, hey, they all have good bodies so they really shouldn't suffer from the same body issues as the rest of us - but that still doesn't make it any less surprising to see it put up on the screen in an otherwise innocuous teen drama. It bathes in skin and I'm sure many a viewer was all the more thankful for it.
And what do they do after he weighs in at the correct number whilst still standing there stark naked? Grab him and slap him around as congratulations, naturally.
Let the man get some jocks on, yeah? That locker room doesn't exactly look warm and inviting now does it?
2. Ain't love grand?
Wrestling is a very homoerotic sport, isn't it? All the scenes of actual wrestling in Vision Quest look like they could be from an athletics themed porno. Yes, yes, aren't I childish, but really... the people who invented the rules of this game shouldn't have made mounting the arse of an opponent as one of the positions one must pose. It's no wonder there are all those pictures out there of male wrestlers succumbing to the wills of their body's functions when there's so much, well, wrestling going on. Jeepers!
1. Madonna Vision Quest? Vision QUEEN. Er...
It's as if the director just knew that both his film and the then 25-year-old singer hired to sing during one seemingly insignificant scene were destined for gay icon status. Madonna's brief cameo appearance as a bar singer who performs two tracks (the uptempo "Gambler" and slow, synth-driven ballad "Crazy For You") propelled the film to international recognition, something an American film about high school wrestling would never have been expected to do. The movie was, in fact, retitled to Crazy for You in Australia and the UK amongst others as a means of capitalising on the huge success of the titular song. "Crazy for You" went to number one in Australia and the USA and "Gambler" reached the top ten here and in the UK so it makes sense. Still, "Crazy for You" is iconic and something of an anthem and it fits into Vision Quest with ease, and I remember the video clip so well with its intercuts of Vision Quest. I surprise myself by having taken this long to actually get around to watching it. "Gambler" is considered more of a cult fan favourite than one of Madonna's most mainstream, well-known tracks so I guess it's fitting that it appears in a movie that is also considered a cult favourite in certain circles.
So, basically, Vision Quest is really, really gay whether you giggle at the homo moments of the wrestling or not. Not sure how many high school sporting movies were including gay references so willy nilly (granted, most are derogatory, but the fact that the lead character shrugs them off seems quite interesting). The film really isn't all that, but it has its moments. It's no Bring It On, but it's about as good as Stick It.
Madonna. One name only, no others necessary. It’s a startling image to see the credit “Directed by Madonna” writ large on a cinema screen for a film as polite as W.E. For a woman whose very image was meticulously crafted to appear as the cutting edge– even when she’s behind the times, she has a marvellous way of beating everybody else at their own game–this sophomore directorial effort (her first to arrive in Australian cinemas) is a very tame picture. Having gone to painstaking lengths to ensure this film assigns her oh-so-serious directorial cred that she has sadly forsaken the very energy that makes her a megastar to this very day. In its place is a mawkish and frequently uninspired take on the lives of the rich and famous, repurposing moviemaking tricks from other sources and shuffling them about like a deck of cards. The finished product is more 52 Pick Up than anything resembling a royal flush.
The best music documentaries are those that shine a light on a familiar subject in a new and illuminating manner, or those that place the spotlight on somebody who otherwise may have gone unnoticed by the general public. Miriam Makeba, the subject of Mika Kaurismäki’s Mama Africa, is one of those names, faces, and voices, that will be remarkably unknown to many readers (plus this writer), but this documentary goes a long way to demonstrating why she was so popular and hailed as the defining voice of African music. The performer of songs “Pata Pata” and “The Click Song” died in 2008, but her life story remains as vital and important today as it did in 1950s and ‘60s. Mama Africa assembles its collection of old interviews, modern day testimonials, and classic performance footage into a powerful film that explores how one woman used her musical gift to bring attention to not only the issues of her homeland, but the racial troubles of America.
Mama Africa screens alongside and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 and Come Back, Africa for a very brief time at ACMI. I looked at all of them via the link.
There’s a joke about the Australian film industry that all of our films are about serial killers in the outback, or serial killers in suburbia, or just all sorts of other grim and grisly things that send potential tourists running to a different departure lounge. The idea of going on a tour of the dusty outback doesn’t look too appealing once you’ve watched a movie about a vacationing couple being carved up and forgotten about, does it? Wish You Were Here reverses that trend and posits all of its trauma – well, the physical stuff, anyway; emotional trauma is something else entirely – offshore as four young, attractive, affluent Sydneysiders venture to South-East Asia for a getaway and fall afoul of… well, both the audience and several central characters aren’t quite aware of what they run afoul of (bad ecstasy, perhaps?) and therein lies the mystery of this debut film of Kieran Darcy-Smith (known more for his acting in work like The Reef and The Square).
This uniquely compelling tale of lives torn apart by seemingly pre-ordained destiny comes from one of Canada’s most promised directors, Jean-Marc Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria). Café de Flore, so named after the popular song that is frequently used throughout the film, follows two parallel narratives that act as mirrors to one another and form a sort of mysterious tragedy of the soul. In the first we find a mother, Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis in her “Canadian Oscar” winning role), taking care of her mentally handicapped child in the 1960s. The second sees globetrotting DJ Antoine (musician Kevin Parent in his film debut) as his marriage falls apart under the influence of a new woman in his life. Where the two converge is a secret that hasn’t even been entirely solved by the end credits, but it’s a fascinating one based on ambiguous ideas of identity and what it exactly means to be in love. Café de Flore very much floored me and its enigmatic charm continued to weasel its way into my mind long after it was over.
Zombies have been inserted into all sorts of unexpected texts in the last decade. We’ve read Jane Austen go all Resident Evil on them in Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, they put the “zom” in the “rom-zom-com” of Shaun of the Dead, and infamous Canadian provocateur Bruce LaBruce even made a couple of gay romance/porn movies most notably Otto or, Up With Dead People. Meanwhile, the television adaptation of the popular The Walking Dead comic series has put the flesh eaters in Prime Time. Now comes Make-Out with Violence, which takes the bittersweet American indie coming-of-age drama and gives it a zombie twist. Naturally.
I really hope the dodgy local cover art of this film - finally being released here for the first of any kind - doesn't deter people from watching it. It's really quite special.
The first non-documentary feature from esteemed British director Terrence Davies (The House of Mirth) in some 11 years is a rather curious creature. Davies has crafted–oh my, has he crafted–a rather drowsy and leisurely paced film that is bathed in rich, deep yellows, crimsons and blues and filmed through a haze of post-war cigarette smoke. Despite seemingly being confined to all but a few sets, Davies has punctuated his minimalistic romance with beautiful refined costumes, ornate set decoration of sublime precision and sumptuous cinematography that nonetheless appears to be slowly strangling its protagonists from behind. An omnipresent autumnal chill permeates the film and The Deep Blue Sea never transcends its stage bound origins, but the finely modulated performance of Rachel Weisz is a thing of such beauty that one can forgive its simpler trappings.
With each of his first three feature films, famed music video director Tarsem Singh has gone by a new name. At first it was Tarsem Singh, then just Tarsem, and then Tarsem Singh Dhandwar. For this fourth film, the updated fairy tale (some would call it “revisionist” since that’s the hot word these days, like “reboot”, “prequel” and others before it) Mirror Mirror sees him revert back to Tarsem Singh and whether the man is secretly trying to convey a hidden message by doing so or not, the man has done enough in my eyes to change his name to Elizabeth Taylor Fancypants McGregor and I wouldn’t care one iota. He is such a rare gift in Hollywood, with films so richly decadent and a feast for the eyes that – to take a page from his latest – I routinely find myself falling under the spell of.
Whereas his first and third films were violent otherworldly fantasies (The Cell and Immortals), his second and fourth features have been buoyantly lavish fairy tales. Mirror Mirror sees Singh veering away from the original, globetrotting fairy tale of The Fall, MIrror Mirror takes the much more familiar tale of Snow White and the seven dwarves and spins it into a comical farce, sumptuously designed and hilariously bonkers in equal measure. First and foremost a movie for kids, its pleasures are not bound to one’s age, instead its rhythmic absurdity should prove a delight for those of any age with a penchant for bright-eyed, candy-coloured visual madness. Curmudgeons will surely find its big-grinned magic hard to resist; its somewhat off-kilter marketing campaign hopefully setting many up for a world of surprise.
Mirror Mirror more or less follows the traditional tale of Snow White that we know from the Brothers Grimm as well as the Walt Disney animation of the 1930s. This time Snow White is kept prisoner in the castle by her evil stepmother after the disappearance of her father, The King. Upon daybreak outside the castle walls Snow happens upon a near-naked Prince, the victim of bandits who reside within the forest. Basically, you can guess what happens after that as Snow White ends up living with the famed seven dwarves before enacting revenge on the Evil Queen, reclaiming her father’s kingdom as well as the love of her charming Prince.
What makes Mirror Mirror so special and not just a tired, flat retread done with enough bells and whistles to feel unique is the flare with which Singh has gone about it. When the term “kid’s movie” cans sound like a dirty word for cinephiles, he has turned the dial up to eleven and embraced the inherent zaniness of the plot. Unafraid to capitalise on the artificial idea at its core, Mirror Mirror fills its frame with an abundance of weirdness, the kind of which is rarely found in a mainstream live action movie for children. The sound editing and visual effects are particularly cartoonish and risk ridicule in being so. The cast, too, are game for the challenge and all elevate their performances to a degree of camp rarely seen. Julia Roberts, particularly, as the evil Queen Clementianna is clearly relishing the chance to be so openly playful with her image, and Armie Hammer is truly delightful as the slapstick charmer. The Queen’s rather overt horniness of his frequent disrobed appearance is one of the film’s most kookily amusing running gags.
As Snow White herself, Lily Collins is a lovely screen presence and her porcelain skin certainly speaks to the story’s origins. I expect a grand Hollywood death match between Lily Collins and the Lynn Collins of John Carter where only one wins fame and fortune. If Lily is willing to work on such obviously nutso productions like this then I hope she wins (we’ll forget about Abduction, okay?)
Of course, as all Singh films have been in the past, Mirror Mirror’s true claim to fame will be the enduring fabulousness of costume design Eiko Ishioka. The Japanese design legend passed away earlier this year and just six months after hitting us with Greek mythology chic in Immortals, she has done perhaps her finest work since winning an Academy Award for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Academy may as well go and engrave her name on a posthumous Oscar right now since the extravagant duds on display here are truly a work of stunning art. The seemingly never-ending parade of overflowing ball gowns, stuffed shirt pomp, frilly lace collars, exquisitely tailored corsetry and stunning jackets (that yellow ribbon jacket is rather to die for) in every colour you could possible imagine – the “color designer” gets their own singular on screen credit! – are a sight to behold and truly a majestic piece of fairy tale couture that will send fans of costume design into frequent fits of giddy joy. There’s even a fashion montage that feels like it was personally put in just for me. A Singh/Ishioka collaboration was always an event and the next film of this man’s will just not feel the same without Ishioka’s miraculous vision.
It takes a lot to truly get me grinning from ear to ear for a film’s entire runtime, but from the weird animated opening, the bizarre yet thrilling mid-film marionette action sequence, the appropriately bonkers make-up and art direction, and, yes, the enjoyable sight of Armie Hammer sans clothes, I couldn’t resist this film’s oddball charms. The upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman may have the gritty pop culture cachet, but Mirror Mirror’s childlike mentality shouldn’t be overlooked. In all fairness, Mirror Mirror is a blast that recalls the best works of Walt Disney whilst living very firmly in the present. A-
For a film built upon such shifting sands of identity and morality, it’s good to know that at least its much-deserved adult rating is a certainty.
If one of cinemas greatest gifts is to confront taboos head on and make audiences contemplate different points of view of something they otherwise might never have considered, then the debut feature of acclaimed local film producer John Winter (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Doing Time for Patsy Cline) will be like Christmas for audiences brave enough to take a chance on Black & White & Sex. A pseudo-experimental feature that Winter also wrote, this film will be a hard ask for many who will balk at the idea of seeing a micro-budget independent feature that raises questions about the sex industry, its workers, and sexuality in general. “It’s a bit of an experiment,” says one of the characters as if pre-empting the negative “WHO WANTS TO SEE THIS?!?” feedback that so frequently greets local films that aren’t aimed squarely at the multiplex. Still, filmed in striking black and white and structured so as to keep the film and its audience constantly on their toes, Black & White & Sex is an adventurous, if occasionally too knowing, look at a world so rarely explored.
There are nearly 30 films listed on IMDb with the title Harvest. From such a roundly unimaginative title, however, comes a story that emerges out of a refreshingly unique location as Benjamin Cantu’s film explores the lives to two young men who stumble across each other within the confines of a farming apprentice program in the Nuthe Urstrom valley on the outskirts of Berlin. For all the internet pornography that has fetishised the lives of farmers, it’s a thoroughly unglamorous life and that’s just one of the surprises of Cantu’s debut feature – he has previously made short films and TV – that rarely lets the audience’s expectations come to fruition. That it takes some 50 minutes for the “queer” aspect of Harvest [Stadt Land Fluss] to finally manifest itself in a truly physical way is another, but what it may lack in overt gay DRAMA for audiences seeking little more that titillation, it gains in a slow-burning intensity that makes for fine viewing.
Opening with gorgeously lensed shots of Germany pastures, Harvest is able to very quickly paint a sense of place as it goes about showing the working lives of a class of farming students. The reserved Marko never speaks out of turn, doesn’t indulge in drinking like his fellow students, responds passively (or doesn’t even notice, it’s hard to tell) to the advances of a female student, and simply wants to learn how to be a farmer to make a life for himself that his troubled upbringing may have otherwise not allowed. Newcomer Jacob has recently quit a similar internship with a far more socially acceptable and well-paid institution (a bank). That the two become friends out of awkward necessity – neither of them feel quite right around other people – rather than some instant sex radar is what lends Harvest’s final sequences a rich authenticity. That they fall for each other isn’t surprising, what’s refreshing is that Cantu doesn’t treat their romance as Gone with the Wind.
Being gay and falling for somebody isn’t the only trouble plaguing these guys, Marko especially, but acknowledging these feelings will make them healthier and stronger, and therein lies the problem for Marko. He’s not sure what he wants; love seems like the least of his interests. At least at first. The performances are uniformly superb, with newcomer Lukas Steltner and Kai Michael Müller as Marko and Jacob proving to be quite stellar. The introverted performance by Steltner is particularly fine as his internal securities slowly begin to fade away. And, yes, they’re both good looking men but they lack a distracting prettiness that would belie their situation.
Handsomely photographed by Alexander Gheorghi, Harvest shares a similar brooding energy to the Danish gay romance, Brotherhood and its potency lingers far more than any cheap, crass, candy-coloured American import. Some may think it’s lack of horniness takes the sizzle out of it, but I found its more subdued take on the relations of young gay men was refreshing and all the slinkier. These two men don’t discover each other in seconds of gratuitous sex, but through evolving, fleeting moments. It has a quiet dignity about it that makes Harvest an impressive piece of work. B+
One week ago today I got to hold an Academy Award.
It was amazing.
Let me explain.
Have you heard of Jim Cameron's Titanic? Yeah, well, it's being re-released for the 100th anniversary of the event that inspired it, and in 3D no less. Because, you know, nothing says respecting the lives of the dead like watching them die in the third dimension! I joke, but I not-so-secretly love this film. It was one of the very best films of 1997 and it's 3D rerelease will make it one of the very best films of 2012. I don't begrudge it any of its success, whether that be grossing over one billion dollars or taking home a mammoth haul of Academy Awards.
Speaking of the Academy Awards... Titanic's producer, Jon Landau, visited our fair shores to do a bit of promotion and while the full 3+ hour screening of Titanic in 3D isn't until next week, they did screen 40 minutes of the final product for us (mostly innocuous stuff like Gloria Stewart seeing herself on the TV, Kate Winslet's big hat, the staircase meeting, followed by a hefty chunk of the stunning sinking sequence) before getting into a Q&A with Landau. Towards the end he produced the golden statue and, hilariously, the Titanic fan who he allowed to hold it was also just kinda allowed to exit the cinema with her hands clasped around it with nobody here nor anywhere looking out for it. They quickly cottoned on that Landau's Oscar had gone walkabouts, but by that time I had already gotten my grubby lil mits on it and it was a glorious feeling.
Then we lined up to have our picture taken with Mr Landau and the Oscar, and boy... it was something. As somebody who actively follows the entire award season circus and who makes no apologies about loving the Academy Awards, getting a chance to actually hold one was incredible. I kinda felt, for those few brief seconds, what the fuss was all about. I'd seen them before - Oscars won by Adam Elliot and Cate Blanchett have a home on show at ACMI in Melbourne - but to actually hold one was something entirely different. It's like the statue has a gravity pull that just drew me in, even if the base was a bit wobbly. Landau needs to send that baby to the Academy's repair shop! It's a wonderful piece of work and I imagine many people who year-after-year bemoan the movie industry's slavish devotion to the Oscar tradition and who spout the same tired "who cares?" arguments would find the experience quite something.
And I love how Leonardo DiCaprio is peeking behind my shoulder there looking all intense and grumbling "I want one of those!"
Country: USA | Germany | UK | Netherlands | Belgium | France
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 67mins
An exquisitely assembled, if still somewhat haphazardly made, documentary about the life of two industrial punk icons, Marie Losier’s documentary The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye is a spryly economical look at the face – definitely the face - of two identities who would rather be an underground somebody than a mainstream anything. Clocking in at only 70 minutes, there’s something to be said about Losier’s decision not to pad her debut feature directorial effort with needless nothings. Still, there does appear to be much left unsaid, some of which surely could have taken place of some of the more obtuse segments that float about within the documentary narrative like driftwood.
As if assembled from jaggedly cut puzzle pieces, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye attempts to craft some sort of story out of the lives of Genesis O-Orridge and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, but focuses more on that of Genesis. Most famous for his work with industrial punk rock outfit Psychic TV as well as the esteemed William Burroughs, before embarking on a body experimentation in pandrogyny with Lady Jaye, his second wife, that aimed to blur the lines between body and gender. Before Lady Jaye’s death at the age of 38, the two had ventured headfirst into their body-morphing project of creating Breyer P-Orridge, a blending of the two through means of plastic surgery.
Lady Jaye, despite being so integral to the story that her name appears in the (rather nifty – something Marie Losie’s filmography shows she is capable of frequently) title, goes somewhat under-nourished by the filmmaker who prefers to stick with the still rather extraordinary life of Genesis. Losier’s frequent work within the realms of experimentation, having worked with the aforementioned Burroughs plus Guy Maddin and the Kuchar Brothers has leant this documentary a fractured texture. Mixing various types of film and video with art, old home movies, photography, original documentary footage and storybook narration, Losier’s film occasionally has the appearance of an unfinished, perhaps disregarded, art installation, and yet this lends it a messy, flighty authenticity.
The work of Losier on her own role as editor is both extraordinary, hypnotic and baffling. Acting as its own ferocious work of art that encapsulates the anarchic spirit of its protagonists, I nevertheless wished it had gleaned a more focused eye on one of the many tangents it goes on. Flashy visuals frequently smash on screen like the twisting mechanics of a kaleidoscope, capturing moments of bliss and poignancy as often as it does highlight the absurdity of their existence. The tagline claims “love is dedication”, and you certainly can’t say these two weren’t dedicated to each other and to their art. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye uses its artist subjects to form its own work of art, and that is something altogether fascinating. However, like any unique work of work, the reaction it gets out of an audience will be Losier and P-Orridge’s reward. The final image of Genesis swathed in fabric feels curiously haunting, his image becoming obscured but never disappearing entirely. No matter the identity, there's always a personality, and that is what Genesis is seemingly all about. B-
France makes so many movies that it’s impossible for them all to get released. Of the seven Best Film nominees at the César Awards, the “French Oscars”, only four have received an Australian release. Amazingly, 70 French films have already been released into French cinemas this year, which makes it all the more galling that Australian Francophiles get such limp, lifeless fluff like Le Chef. So often these frothy French tales of (apparent) swoony romance are called “soufflés” for the way they remain lighter than air, except in this case the soufflé is flavourless and deflates in an instant. Even its bland, innocuous title seems disinterested and we haven’t even gotten to the actors, the editing, the writing, the… well, you get the picture.
