San Francisco FIPRESCI Review: Nights with Théodore

Nights with Théodore

Dir. Sebastien Betbeder

Country: France

Running Time: 67mins 

Aus Rating: N/A 

At only 67 minutes long, Sébastien Betbeder's captivating genre mash-up Nights with Théodore (Les nuits avec Theodore) could be seen as skimping on the drama. However, it turns out that that is in fact the perfect length, and perhaps more filmmakers could take a lesson or two when it comes to the old-fashioned way of thinking that length equals importance and worth. It is certainly a way of thinking that has taken hold amongst Hollywood with Oscar-winners and box office hit comedies alike stretching their rather innocuous storylines to absurd lengths, diluting their product in the process. The short running time is only one of the strengths of Betbeder's film, but perhaps one of the most noteworthy in a festival scenario. It certainly doesn't outstay its welcome and that is something to be thankful for.

Read the rest at FIPRESCI
Apologies for getting this review up so late, but it's been sitting on the FIPRESCI website since I returned from sitting on the San Francisco jury. You can read about my experiences on the jury at Quickflix as well as a look at all the films in competition at The Film Experience if didn't get to read them at the time.

31 Horrors: Vampyr (#20)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

Well, it's easy to see why this has been deemed as so influential, isn't it? Per the Eureka! Masters of Cinema DVD sleeve, Carl Theodore Dreyer's Vampyr was deemed by Alfred Hitchcock as "the only film worth watching... twice", Vampyr is seemingly a very obvious inspiration to Psycho. Vampyr, also the inspiration to Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep in a far more obvious way, is about a man who leaves his life and descends into a fantasy horror upon arriving a motel in the middle of nowhere. What is Janet Leigh's Marion Crane is not a fantastical being on the run? Where does she end? A middle of nowhere motel. While Marion met a far crueller fate than Nicolas de Gunzburg's Allan Gray (the film's unofficial subtitle is The Strange Adventure of Allan Gray), Vampyr too descends into a mystery-solving horror ala Psycho, just with vampires instead of mummy-dressing psychotics. The similarities don't quite end there, however, as Hitchcock appears to have aped several slices of striking imagery too.

Vampyr is the first sound feature that Dreyer ever made, coming on the heels of The Passion of Joan of Arc. Having said that, Dreyer has stuck to a silent aesthetic for the most part and there is minimal dialogue as a result of the producer's wish to record the film in both French and Germany languages. Title cards are frequently used and many of the actors - unprofessional actors for the most part I've since discovered - work more in sinister glances than horrific speeches. Dreyer, too, uses static imagery more than the theatrical horrors of his international brethren. Vampyr's release was actually delayed in Germany so that Dracula and Frankenstein could be released first, certainly one of the earliest sign posts of the international film world working with a domino effect.

At only 72 minutes, Vampyr doesn't exactly dig deep into the vamp mythology, but it does manage to craft an excessively eerie atmosphere. As Allan Gray attempts to solve and break the vampire curse that has swept across his village without succumbing to it himself, Dreyer infuses it with enough images of wrinkled, doom-ravaged faces and sickle-wielding townsfolk to power several films. It's holds an incredible power, a spell if you will, that doesn't break until it's over. A bewitching and altogether stunning piece of brilliantly crafted cinema. A-

31 Horrors: Livid (#9)

Livid

Dir. Julien Maury & Alexadre Bustillo

Country: France

Aus Rating: MA15+

Running Time: 88mins

Lost in translation seems to be the theme I keep coming back to for Livid, the new spooky house horror thriller from the French filmmaking team of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside). Maybe this is genuinely new for French genre cinema, but nothing here comes off as remotely fresh or even particularly interesting. Perhaps there is stuff going on in this film that makes total sense to some people, but not me. And then there’s the look of the film, which is awash is murky digital aesthetic that lacks any warmth and depth. I wonder if it looked this bad and poorly lit when they looked at the action through the camera viewfinder?

Read the rest Trespass Magazine

MIFF 2012 Review: Le Tableau

Le Tableau

Dir. Jean-François Laguionie

Country: France

Aus Rating: N/A

Running Time: 75mins

An artist’s canvas is his universe. They can do whatever they like and there are no rules. What then happens if the artist decides they no longer care about what they created and leave their work to sit unfinished? This is the initial premise behind Jean-François Laguionie’s sublimely charming animation, Le Tableau. Made in sumptuously styled animation with a kaleidoscope of bright colours, this briskly-paced French production deals with themes of identity and imagination in a way that should entrance younger viewers, while also allowing adults to get enraptured in the gorgeous animation and lively action. Gorgeously animated – 2D, but accentuated with CGI – Le Tableau is a gem.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

MIFF 2012 Review: Maniac

Maniac

Dir. Franck Khalhoun

Country: France / USA

Aus Rating: N/A

Running Time: 100mins

Maniac does some things very well, but being a remake of William Lustig’s 1980 skeazy horror classic isn’t necessarily one of them. Sure, Franck Khalfoun’s film takes some of the bare bones of Lustig’s down-and-out slasher – the scalpings, the mannequins, the photographer – but repurposes them to a world that models itself more on the 1980s fetishisation from Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive than the claustrophobic universe of the original. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; of course, remakes should try and carve their own identity rather than merely aping the predecessor’s successes, but it is a shift of such tectonic proportions that it put me off balance and was never truly able to recover.

This film is far too slick, calculated, and neatly packaged to have any of the same impact as Maniac 1980 (which, I guess, is what we’ll call it from now on for the purpose of this review). There are many reasons why Maniac 1980 is a classic, but most of all it is because of the downright filthy representation of New York that director Lustig imbued his film with. One of the most true, and sickening, depictions of a dying city ever put on film, New York and its boroughs had never, and certainly hasn’t since, looked quite so oppressive. Maniac 2012 takes a different tact, switching the action (“action”) to Los Angeles and filming the city in a glowing light that is gorgeous in execution, but confounding in reason. Like the aforementioned Drive, from which Maniac 2012 borrows heavily (to put it mildly), as well as Michael Mann’s Collateral, Khalfoun’s film makes a menacing beauty of the city of angels at many times, but you’d be forgiven for finding the horror of its locale less effective. The crystal clear digital cinematography of Maxine Alexandre only further accentuates this.

Among the many differences to the original, this so-called remake shifts the action to a first person POV. It’s as if we’re seeing through the eyes of Frank – a deliberately robotic Elijah Wood – which should make for a more disturbing experience (the mind of a killer and what not), but it instead drains the film of dread and tension. In one scene that recalls the original, set amongst the subway of Los Angeles as Frank chases an attractive woman through the station, there is nothing in the way of heart-pumping suspense. By aligning the viewer with Frank’s field of vision, the girl is rendered more or less inessential to the proceedings, which is a worrying thought. The audience is being put inside Frank’s mind and being forced to experience what he experiences. That isn’t scary. There’s never any moment of relief and elation at a potential victim’s escape because the filmmakers never lets us experience it. It’s virtually impossible to feel what the women Frank stalk and kill feel because no effort is made to represent them.

I don’t necessarily think any of this makes Maniac 2012 a misogynistic film – certainly not as much as, say, VHS - however, the reaction of some of my 11.30pm crowd made me think that they themselves may indeed be misogynist. At least initially, there were whoops and hollers at the gruesome stabbing and scalping of an attractive, scantily clad woman. I worry about their motivations for seeing something like this. Or perhaps its more an indictment on the director who wasn’t able to make the victim anything other than a vacant vessel to be offed, so much so that the especially nasty way she is disposed of is seen as little more than a giggle fest. I certainly don’t think the film is played for laughs, but what does it say about it when it elicits them? I’m not sure, I’m conflicted myself.

There are indeed moments of this movie that frazzled me, but that’s probably inevitable for a film as gory as this. The scalpings are disgusting and brutal, although the hint of CGI blood spray is off-putting. If Maniac 2012 bests the original in any way it’s in the ending, which takes the original’s idea and adds a slice of imagery that’s awfully effective, both thematically and visually. Fans of the original will know it when they see it. The director has some other neat tricks up his sleeve, sure: Using Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses, immortalised by a dick-tucked Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs; a fabulous Délé Ogundiran as a dreaded, aviator-wearing policewoman (I want a 1980s-set Policewoman movie starring her, please); Wood replicating the poster of the 1980 original in the shiny, reflective surface of a car door, post-scalping. The Drive stylisations are initially very distracting – the opening scene, especially, had my friend and I scribbling the exact same note – but the score (by whom I’m not sure, there is no name listed) is a wonderfully retro throwback that recalls Jay Chattaway’s bustling relic of a musical score from 1980.

Is it interesting that Franck Khalfoun directed P2 all set within one location, and now he’s made Maniac, which is set all within one body? Maybe, but probably not enough to make the exercise a true success. Whereas Maniac 1980 sourced many of its chills from its dead set sense of place and palpable atmosphere of incoming dread, the remake takes a different path. It’s an admirable goal of Khalfoun, as well as his high profile producer Alexandre Aja (who also co-wrote with CA Roseberg and Grégory Levasseur), to take a more European sensibility to the original film, something that was made even more abundantly clear by the humorous (accidental?) inclusion of French subtitles for the first 15 minutes. Much of what you make of Maniac 2012 will depend on whether you think the story is strong enough to work being told in such a radically different fashion. At 100 minutes it is arguable too long – maybe one of the stalks could have been cut, or maybe just tightened up some of the bits between Frank and photographer Anne, rather than including repetitive sky-gazing POV shots and migraine-induced fogginess. It’s an interesting experiment, but it was always going to be hard existing in the shadow of such a great piece of cinema as Maniac 1980 and it’s a shadow it never truly comes to close to stepping out from. C

MIFF 2012 Review: Carré Blanc

Carré Blanc

Dir. Jean-Baptiste Léonetti

Country: France

Aus Rating: N/A

Running Time: 80mins

What does one make of Carré Blanc, an altogether confounding debut from director Jean-Baptiste Léonetti? Set in a dystopian future, this sort-of-thriller incorporates elements of experimentation, Greek new wave strangeness, Orwellian dictatorship, and even a penchant for distinctive architecture. Léonetti’s film will be a struggle for some purely due to its severe, barren screenplay and reserved performances. Nevertheless, it works a mesmerising, hypnotic trance that I found rather fascinating. Its oddness has a very rhythmic quality to it that works in harmony with the director’s playful attitudes to imagery.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

MIFF 2012 Review: Sister

Sister

Dir. Ursula Meier

Country: Switzerland / France

Aus Rating: N/A

Running Time: 100mins

Translating the original title of Ursula Meier’s film, L’enfant d’en haut, is “The Boy from Above”. A very literal title indeed that recalls recent films like The Dardenne Brothers’ The Kid with a Bike. That Meier’s film has been given the initially rather vague English title is surprising, but will soon make sense for viewers who take in this brittle family drama from Switzerland. Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, it comes with a story that is ripe for downtrodden doom and gloom, but ends up impressing with its playfulness and wonderfully devoted performances.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

MIFF 2012 Review: Holy Motors

Holy Motors

Dir. Leos Carax

Country: France

Aus Rating: N/A

Running Time: 115mins

Like the lyrics of the Kylie Minogue song that humorously pops up midway through this French odyssey oddity, I can’t quite get Holy Motors out of my head. Using this 2001 pop phenomenon on the soundtrack – especially for a film that errs so far from the mainstream that it will actually hurt some of the gay audiences who attend purely for the Minogue factor – was a particularly inspired choice and just one of the many moments that pepper Leos Carax’s wholly original return to cinema. Some 13 years after his last feature-length enterprise, Pola X, Carax’s much ballyhooed film is one that genuinely inspires claims of true originality and is done with such panache that it’s hard not to be impressed simply by pure virtue of its existence.

Holy Motors is many things: maddening, confounding, joyous, “the magic of the act”. It shares much in the realm of unexplained mysteries as David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive - and I don’t just mean the shots of limousines cruising around darkened boulevards – in that to find the “meaning” of the film is probably to go about watching it the entirely wrong way. And yet there’s fun to be had in extracting reason out of the series of events that Carax presents and just how the puzzle, and that’s most definitely what it is, fits together. It’s straightforward, but hardly straight, and that’s a pleasure to behold.

Denis Lavant stars as Monsieur Oscar, a man who, from the scant clues scattered about throughout Carax’s screenplay, spends his days being chauffeured around Paris in the back of a stretch limousine that is driven by the Céline, played by Edith Scob dressed in a white pantsuit from heaven. He sets out on a series of appointments where he portrays characters for the entertainment of invisible watchers, like a real world Big Brother. While it’s hard to determine what the sewer-dwelling Merde who kidnaps passive supermodels has to do with the father picking his daughter up from a party, all ten identities appear to represent facets of the human condition that somebody somewhere is apparently willing to pay to watch. It’s a fascinating concept that makes for fun real world considerations. Is that crazy person barking down the street at 11pm just an actor? What fun to imagine. Furthermore, the implications that Oscar himself is a performance begs the question of whether this man really exists. A prologue suggests that Carax’s entire enterprise is some grand cinematic prank, but who can really tell? Certainly not I after just a single viewing.

Soon enough it appears that Carax is playing his latest film as a sort of modern day Jacques Tati. Using the concept of this man adopting disguises and characters to shed light on the lunacies of the modern world, whether that be passerbys in the street ignoring a old beggar lady or the ridiculous nature of motion capture. The black and white silent film that occasionally pops up throughout the proceedings recalls the nostalgic notions of Hugo and The Artist as Carax uses a vast array of technical abilities from captivating and transformative make-up to perplexing visual effects to turn his vision into reality. Scob donning a mask ala Eyes Without a Face at film’s end feels like Carax turning cinema in on itself like a full circle, perhaps hoping for a blessed melding of the current and the modern with the vitality of the past. One of the most curious moments sees Oscar’s world turn into a ugly mix of pixellated nonsense, while another sees him (perhaps) showing genuine admiration for what computers can do.

It’s a film of juxtaposition and dichotomy and no more is this evident that in the way Carax turns his rather jovial and playful first half on its head and gives his post-musical interlude sequences a mournful sensibility. It’s almost as if Carax himself is doubting his own hypothesis as a splendidly cast Kylie Minogue croons lyrics of a torch ballad: “Who were we / when we were / who we were back then.” That Holy Motors’ final scene (one that must be seen to be believed) is a very definite indictment on the callous nature that film has been replaced by digital, the mere fact that Carax has been able to make such a beautiful, sumptuous, almost endlessly intriguing film using the digital medium is certainly a cause for thought. He certainly couldn’t have made this film with its playful take on structure and narrative in the so-called good old days, and Carax is surely aware of the irony to be found in the loss of one medium forging his own acceleration of creativity in its replacement.

In frequent collaborater Denis Lavant, Carax has found a wonderful partner in crime. Much like the film itself, Lavant never goes truly overboard in any of his portrayals, and yet the madness is most definitely there. Scob and Minogue are lovely, with the popette proving surprisingly well versed in her role as a mirror to Oscar. Jeanne Disson as an unpopular schoolgirl in one of the film’s more restrained sequences is particularly impressive, while Elise Lhomeau’s scene is perhaps the one that viewers should pay most attention to. It’s Holy Motors’ “Club Silencio” in a way.

As it stands, Holy Motors is sure to be the most maddeningly examined film of 2012. An experience in every sense of the word, and yet one that never tailspins into tiresome drivel. I don’t claim to know anything about the rest of Carax’s career – nor the personal life that I have since discovered finds a very definite place in the film’s narrative – but I found Holy Motors to be a very engaging film that will likely surprise people. It’s rich, but never extravagantly so, told from an important voice. A-

Holy Motors screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival (2 Aug-19 Aug) and is released theatrically on 23 August.

Review: Le Chef

Le Chef

Dir. Daniel Cohen

Country: France

Aus Rating: M15+

Running Time: 83mins

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.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Review: Café de Flore

Café de Flore

Dir. Jean-Marc Vallée

Country: Canada/France

Aus Rating: MA15+

Running Time: 120mins

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.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Polka Dots & Sunglasses: The Costume Design of Les Diabolique

With so many voices out there on the internet - the last thing we need is another one writing the same ol' retrospective review of the same ol' film that everyone already knows is a classic - I thought it might be interesting to begin looking at specific elements of some of the films I watch, both old and new. I hope it inspires me to write more about some of the great films I see, and inspires you dear readers to try and admire the unexpected.

This entry contains spoilers, granted for a film from 1955, but I successfully avoided any so maybe you should too if you've never seen Les Diaboliques! I can't recall any other films that actively end with text telling the viewer to be silent about what they just saw, that's how blind you should go into this film.

"Vintage". It's a word that gets thrown about a lot today in relation to fashion. Whether it actually is vintage, or just has the same musky, old-timey appeal of something that is, it's become an adjective to describe items of clothes that one would associate with another time and place. Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 noir horror, Les Diaboliques, isn't a period film at all - or, at least, I don't think it was at the time - but I couldn't help but think of this phrase, "vintage", whilst ogling the delicious costumes that appear throughout. Despite featuring no credited costume designer, the duds of Les Diabolique are a masterclass of (at the time) contemporary costume design, as outfits of various shapes, colours and designs help inform the characters that wear them. It was just one of many beautiful aspects to this French classic that impressed me upon watching Clouzot's film for the first time last evening.

A black and white checkered dress - with fan - worn by Véra Clouzot in Les Diabolique

The first costume I couldn't take my eyes off was the gorgeous checkered dress that Véra Clouzot wears, shown above. Almost like houndstooth in pattern, it's a stunning sundress that I can easily see being worn today with, perhaps, just a little less formal structure.The fan may be a bit much, but this outfit is just the beginning a trend for the meek Mme Delassalle whose wardrobe consists entirely of outfits that pair black with white. Utilising the good ol' concept of white representing good and pureness, whereas black represents evil and "the devil" (the translation of the title, Les Diaboliques), the costuming of Ms Clouzot is clearly a way of symbolising her character's dangerous dalliance between the two. Later on in the film she wears loose-fitting white shirt with deep v-neck and a long black dress, and then later a white dress shirt and skirt with black shall. Always conservative - Mme Delassalle is a school teacher after all - with her hair braided and tied at the back, she never full embraces the colour of white for her entire outfit until the climactic scenes in the school hallways once she has confessed to her crimes. It's a simple motif, and occasionally very literal - hello Star Wars - but given the very moral discussion of right and wrong, it's a motif that works.


A black and white polka dot dressing gown that even I want!
My favourite costume worn by Véra Clouzot is the black and white polka dot dressing gown warn at several occasions throughout the movie (I do love when a character rewears clothes, it gives a film such a sense of authenticity). Seen up above this paragraph, it's a simple piece of costume that is not only gorgeous to look at, but character defining as well. It's unassuming nature - no glimpse of sex appeal there - perfectly encapsulates the mademoiselle's attitude as a somewhat repressed woman who isn't interested in dressing for anybody other than herself. I admit that even I want a black and white polka dot dressing gown now, preferally one made of material that looks as smoothly elegant as the one shown here. The gloss and the reflection of light make me suspect it's made of a very luxurious fabric and, good grief, wouldn't we all want that on us morning and night?

Simone Signoret, as Clouzot's partner in crime, also gets the black = evil, white = good treatment, except she doesn't come out looking quite so rosy (er, mixing up my colour metaphors there, aren't I?) Pictured here to the left, she is always seen wearing outfits of black, charcoal and dark grey. Yes, I do realise I am discussing colours that are obviously in the spectrum of "black and white" and that the cinematography couldn't determine whether she's wearing crimson or purple or black or gold, but it's obvious to tell she has been deliberately given darker hues to Clouzet's Mme Delassalle because she is ultimately the far guiltier party of the two. Usually dressed in long body-hugging dresses that provide a sex appeal that her friend never does, Signoret's Nicole Horner is frequently the more mysterious of the two and given far less opportunities to show remorse through her costumes. She's a vixen and proud of it. I simply adore the sunglasses she wears in the early scenes at the school that make for effortless cool alongside her near bleach blond hair and dangling cigarette. It's a look I've seen replicated many times in recent years, although one has to suspect that those recreating this look - regular everyday women and celebrities alike - know what era they're basing their looks on.

"So Frenchy, so chic!" goes the saying - although does anybody make reference these days to a "Prince of Wales suit"? I doubt that - and Les Diaboloque proves that. Of the film that they inhabit? Divine. A tingly fright factory that garners scares out of our own imaginations, it's final scenes made my entire body freeze. Without a single peep of a musical score to telegraph the audience's fears and emotions (apart from the opening credits, that is - did Phantom of the Opera ruin organ music for everyone?) it obviously works best if you don't know the twists to come (so I hope you paid heed to that spoiler warning up top if you intended to watch it), but it's such a finely crafted piece of work that repeat viewings would hold such a delicious richness to them. Something the patently ridiculous-looking remake surely can't achieve. Unless Kathy Bates punching someone in the face is your idea of fine craftmanship... actually, maybe it is worth a look after all.

Review: The Artist

The Artist

Dir. Michel Hazanavicius

Country: France

Aus Rating: PG

Running Time: 100mins

It can be tricky watching a film like The Artist at this point in the game. Riding high on buzz from last year’s Cannes Film Festival, this charming French film from director Michel Hazanavicius (creator of the OSS 177 series) has a lot to live up to. Having steamrolled through award show season, and placing as the odds on favourite to win Best Picture at this month’s Academy Awards, Australian audiences finally get to see what all the fuss is about of this black and white, silent film. Don’t you worry, there’s reason to fuss.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

MIFF Blogathon: Day 15 (Don't Be Afraid of A Tribe Called Sleeping Sickness)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Bi, Don't Be Afraid
Dir. Dang Di Phan
Running Time: 92mins

A sumptuously detailed exploration of four different generations in Vietnam, Dang Di Phan's gorgeously lensed Bi, Don't Be Afraid [Bi, dung so!] slowly crept up on me and surprised me like another Vietnamese/French co-production from many years ago, The Scent of Green Papaya. Told generally from the point of view of Bi, a 9-year-old boy who live with his doting mother, alcoholic father, single aunt and dying grandfather. He associates with the lithe, teenage boys at a nearby factory more than kids his own age and watches curiously as they express their masculinity by stripping off in the turgid heat as much as possible. His aunt, meanwhile, develops a crush on a young student and his parents deal with their potentially crumbling marriage in the shadow of a dying patriarch.

The cinematography by Quang Pham Minh is divine, capturing the Vietnamese countryside in an assortment of lush greens, rustic golds and smoky greys while at the same time capturing great moments in picturesque ways. Two boys devouring a watermelon or the rain-soaked aunt cowering amongst reeds are just two that spring to mind as memorable, lasting images. The casual "slice of life" narrative drifts along in an almost dreamy manner and this debut film by Phan has a delicate balance that suckered me in. B+

Sleeping Sickness
Dir. Ulrich Köhler
Running Time: 91mins

A curious film is Ulrich Köhler's German/French co-production set in Cameroon. Split into two distinct halves, it always holds its cards very firmly to its chest. I was in constant thought of "where is this going?" and while it may not have gone somewhere I particularly understand, I appreciate it's ripe storytelling and visually arresting take on the tricky material.

Initially starring Pierre Bokma as a German doctor, Ebbo Velten, living in and running a treatment centre for the titular disease in Cameroon, Sleeping Sickness [Schlafkrankheit] takes a sudden detour and focuses of French doctor of Congolese descent, Jean-Christophe Folly as Alex Nzila, visiting Africa for the first time to conduct a report on Velten's study. The contrast of white man living in Africa and black man visiting for the first time is deftly handled by Köhler and the juxtaposition is never obvious. The final scenes, set amongst the deep black nighttime jungles, are mysterious and ambiguous. I was definitely perplexed by Sleeping Sickness, but found it constantly involving. B

Melbourne Shorts (Program 2)
Dir. Various
Running Time: 100mins (cume)

A much more entertaining batch of shorts than program 1 (although that may have to do with the fact that I was sitting with the incredible Mel Campbell, laughing our butts off!), this second collection of short films about Melbourne spans 1954 to 1979 and looks mostly at how the future (so, er, today) will look at the city of the past.

Beginning with Geoffrey Thompson's 1954 short Planning for Melbourne's Future (19mins) and the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop Authority's (so no actual director?) Loop (14mins) from 1973, the two films provide laughs a-plenty for Melburnians who deal daily with public transport fiascoes. As narrators explain the daily, worsening struggle of transporters cramming into trains and trams like sardines on their way to work and talking about how they need to make changes for the future I couldn't help but laugh. You can watch it at The Department of Planning and Community Development. Loop is particularly well edited and photographed (despite the poor quality of the print) and despite a truly bizarre lapse into comedic narrative that had my howling with laughter, they're wonderfully made shorts that really do provide a history lesson of this amazing city.


The City Speaks from 1965 was next, produced by The Housing Commission of Victoria and it was just as dull as the title and production house would allude to. I drifted off at some point during this 21min film and can't even really remember much about what I did see. The score was terrible, too. Far better was Gil Brealey's Late Winter to Early Spring (12mins) from 1954. A black and white silent film that follows several people - a grandmother and two kids, two women of different class waiting for their dates and a homeless man - around the botanical gardens. It's lovingly lensed and surprisingly creative in its compositions that bristle with humour and style.

Peter McIntyre's Your House and Mine (23mins) is a 1958 short that was produced in tandem with a local architectural digest magazine. It's horrible dated - "In [the late 1800s] during the dying days of the Aborigine" !!! - and, subsequently, hilarious short that examines what Australia's defining style of architecture and where it fits into the development of our ever widening cities. It's got a charming style, brisk editing and ridiculously comical narration. The program unfortunately ended on a bit of a dud note with John Dunkley-Smith's Flinders Street (11mins) from 1979. It's not much more than a curiosity, a document of what this iconic Melbourne landmark and its surrounding areas looked like at the time. I had no idea there used to be a cinema next door to the Young & Jackson pub on the corner of Flinders and Swanston! For what it's worth, the cinema was playing Superman, The Jungle Book and Saturday Night Fever. What makes the film especially bizarre is the presentation where two boxy 16mm screens are presented side-by-side. One has sound and is in colour, the other does not. The two screens more or less film the same stuff - walking from corner to corner around the area - with one a minute or so behind. It's curious stuff and I'm not sure it worked, but it was certainly interesting to see the big skyscraper that was demolished and replaced by Federation Square or the way the train station itself and the famous clock facade has changed so little.

You can read more about Flinders Street at Senses of Cinema.

Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
Dir. Michael Rapaport
Running Time: 98mins

Warning: Beats Rhymes & Life is dangerous to your health!

I dare anybody who see this film, Michael Rapaport's debut as director after a career in acting, and not want to investigate the entire recording career of A Tribe Called Quest. The groundbreaking New York hip-hop group of the late 1980s and early 1990s is given 98 minutes of love and affection in this documentary that is unfortunately conventional, but never boring. The music of A Tribe Called Quest - as well as the other assorted artists who are featured as inspirations of or inspired by the band - is so infectious and each song a masterpiece of construction and craft that I can easily forgive Rapaport's lacklustre direction. As the twentysomething white girl down the aisle said during the credits: "That was dope!"

Dope, indeed.

It's hard to see documentaries being made out contemporary hip-hop artists that would allow them to be portrayed as such funny, interesting people as Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed and the especially touching Jarobi White. These were men that never particularly flaunted their success and sung about pertinent issues. The live musical sequences are energetically captured, but like the rest of the film, they're hardly mindblowing. Fantastic animation throughout is about as close as The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest gets to being truly cinematic, but the beats, the rhymes and the life of A Tribe Called Quest make this film a delightful experience. B

MIFF TALES
The awesomeness that is MIFF was exemplified today when, after leaving Sleeping Sickness at The Forum, I ended up running into not one or two, three or four, but five wonderful fellow MIFF-attending critfolks. I see these people pretty regularly - well, not Simon from Quickflix since he lives in Perth - but there's something so metropolitan about just turning around and spotting someone you know.

I should also point out that with two days left of the festival, the end is coming right at the perfect time. My legs appear to have not adapted well to their almost perma-bend-in-uncomfortable-seat position and my dickey knee has been acting up big time. I injured it years ago and it hadn't bothered me in a very long time, but I guess 54 films in 15 days (two more on Saturday, four on Sunday will bring me to the magic 60!) has not been the best for it.

Meanwhile, I love that the "closing night" festivities (Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive and an elaborate party with drinks, drinks, drinks and probably some celebrities who discuss how great it is to see Melbourne filmgoers out in force seeing films whilst probably not letting slip that they didn't see any apart from their own. I love how completely and utterly Australian it is to hold the closing night festivities on a Saturday night when the festival doesn't actually end until Sunday night. Certainly gives people who aren't filming it up on Sunday the chance to get completely shit-faced and not have to worry about work in the morning. Well done Australia, you rock!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 10 (The Turin Tales)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

Tales of the Night
Dir. Michel Ocelot
Running Time: 84mins

After seeing Michael Ocelot's bright, candy-coloured 3D animation Tales of the Night [Les contes de la nuit] I described it as like being a collection of those 5 minute filler cartoons on ABC1 strung together. Turns out that's exactly what it is! As three people put on plays in their, I'm assuming, magic playhouse during the depths of the night, they invent fantasy worlds with princes and queens who fall in love in front of sets of yellows, greens, reds and blues. It's visually dazzling, but ultimately rather nothing.

The use of 3D is quaint and only in one or two of the stories does it actually serve any use to the story. The animation is quite lovely and found myself getting quite touched by the imagery of the Tibetan story as sun rises over the Himalayan mountain tops. The characters, all animated in silhouettes with slightly bulging 3D eyes, are odd creations, but there are moments of humour to distract and the backdrops are lovely to look at. I dunno, it felt inconsequential in the end. C+

The Turin Horse
Dir. Béla Tarr
Running Time: 146mins

The first potato arrives 20 minutes into Béla Tarr's latest - and apparently last - film. The potato motif continues throughout The Turin Horse [A torinói ló], as does everything else that Tarr decides to show us of the repetitive lives of two Hungarian farmers. We watch multiple times as they awake, put on their masses of clothes, fetch water from the well, decide whether or not to leave their windswept farm or not, boil potatoes, eat potatoes, sit at window, undress, go to bed. This father and daughter live the most humble of existences and this is clearly evidenced by the weathered faces they carry around. Their faces are like bust statues, they're so unmoving and stoney.

As a storm rages around them they must learn to cope with being cooped up inside. He grumbles a lot. It's all very hypnotic and the old cliche line "it's good if you're into that sorta thing" applies here a lot. I was surprised to find that after the disastrous The Man from London that I was, in fact, "into that sorta thing", as I got quite invested in their travails. The Turin Horse's idea of a thrilling dramatic twist is the arrival of gypsies to the land. It's a welcome surprise, dramatically, as well as a sign of Tarr's deeply wicked sense of humour.

The Turin Horse supposes to follow the final days of the horse featured in the tale of Friedrich Nietzsche's eventual insanity. The horse, beautiful creature that it is, does have a pained, powerful screen presence as its bulky frame with spotted fur takes up the majority of the screen. Erika Bók, the actress who plays the daughter, is also a fascinating study. Her face fraught with emotion - or, the lack there of as it sometimes feels like due to her muted actions.


The real star of the film, however, is Fred Kelemen's sublime cinematography. Sitting mostly still for long uncut shots for the majority of the film, Kelemen and Tarr continue to find new spots to place the camera and we eventually learn every nook and cranny of this homely residence. There's always something happening on screen if you allow your eyes to navigate; Kelemen and Tarr reward investigative viewers. Occasionally the camera drifts about the place or flows, following a character out to the well or to the barn, and it moves like magic. Picking focus on something unexpected and following it to its end place. It's a wonderful technical exercise that is perhaps only bettered by the claustrophobic sound design. The wails of the wind are a constant on the soundtrack and there's an oppressive feel to them, too, that almost made me feel like I was there. It attacks from all sides and its a marvel.

Of course, with a film such as this one is bound to find curious stuff to pick at. Like, how about why they don't eat all of the potato? They pick at it and then discard most of it! You spend all this time boiling potatoes without a lid on and then you eat a quarter of it? Seems like such a waste! But observations like that feel needlessly silly by film's end, which - from what I saw of it (more on that a bit) - is a deeply melancholic and troubling conclusion. B+

MIFF TALES
So much drama!

A two film day became a three film day became a two film day. I decided to cancel on Bullhead on Saturday evening due to exhaustion, and picked up Tales of the Night on Sunday to make it up. Alas, my train was late/cancelled and so I missed the beginning of my evening session - Florent Tillon's Detroit Wild City [Detroit, ville sauvage] - and was subsequently locked out. They'd given away my ticket to standby Miffsters. Dissapointing, but understandable I suppose.

However, the biggest MIFF tale of all came later in the evening at The Turin Horse. Much worse than the man a few seats down from me who appeared to be making a bad for himself to lie down on or the re-appearance of the scary wheezing death man for a very brief moment early on, last night's screening of The Turin Horse was fraught with unforgivable errors.

Firstly, the final reel was projected half off the screen for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Apparently everyone in the projection booth at The Forum was asleep because nobody would fix it! Even more annoying was that nobody towards the front of the cinema would get up off their lazy butts to tell the staff. It was eventually fixed to a round of applause, but by that stage the dramatic alien reveal was ruined and the horse's big moment was destroyed.

Shamefully, that wasn't the worst incident of all! You see, once they'd finally fixed the projection the final 15 minutes of the film was beset with a series of house light errors. First The Forum's weird blue heroin lights turned on and then they started flashing like a gay disco. Various other lights began to strobe and it was like being in several sequence of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (with thankfully less plastic)! From there on various lights throughout the cinema would flicker, strobe, dim up and down, turn on and off and eventually even a big flood light was turned on to the screen making it even more impossible to view what was going on on screen. Streams of people were walking out - 30 had walked out by the 2hr mark and I'd hazard a guess and say the same number walked out during those final 20 minutes out of pure frustration with the issues - and others were hootin' and hollerin'. None of the staff seemed aware of what was going on, either, although I did see one poor volunteer running up and down the stairs several times.

To make matters worse, the lights finally stopped with their impromptu light show and turned off DURING THE CLOSING CREDITS! Yikes. And on top of that, when I asked an usher if we were getting an apology of some kind he chuckled and said to "ask a supervisor". The staff apparently were more interesting in setting up a booth outside to take people's names and numbers than actually fixing the problem at hand. Apparently anybody at the screening can call 9662 3722 for ticket exchanges. Still doesn't help anything when the 2 and a half hour film's final scenes were ruined. The Turin Horse is not a film you should just watch a couple of scenes of. It's a mood piece and to watch the final 30 minutes without the first 120 would be dissatisfying to say the least.

Lastly, there's an all too brief rundown of the festival's days 5-9 by me at Trespass Magazine wherein I discuss my highlights of the period.

MIFF Blogathon: Day 8 (Top Floor Brother on the Sly)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

On the Sly
Dir. Olivier Ringer
Running Time: 77mins

"Cute, but slight" is a frequent criticism of films that play festivals. It could easily be said for Olivier Ringer's On the Sly [A pas de loup], a nicely made French drama about a girl who suspects she is invisible to her busy Parisian parents so, on a weekend trip to the country, she decides to become just that and vanishes before their very eyes. She then spends several days living in the forest behind the country home, fending for herself (she finds a berry - just one - and then eats worms), amasses several pets and takes care of a cluster of plant seeds.

Starring Wynona Ringer - I'm assuming the director's own daughter? - the film only ever shows the faces of those who can "see" her; a kindly old gent who offers her some seeds to plant and, later on, her father. The scenes set in her makeshift hut of sticks and fern leaves are quaint, but enjoyable, and the film certainly doesn't outstay its welcome, however, just like The Ugly Duckling yesterday, it feels quite long despite being less than 80 minutes. There's nothing overtly wrong with On the Sly, but it could have probably used a bit of fleshing out or a director with a few more tricks up their sleeve. B-

Top Floor Left Wing
Dir. Angelo Cianci
Running Time:

I feel like I would have enjoyed Angelo Cianci's debut feature Top Floor Left Wing [Dernier etage gauche gauche] if I had more rest behind me. From what I could gather from the film, however, it's a funny - if not as funny hah hah as the rest of the crowd seems to find it - film that is directed with vigour, features an energetic soundtrack and is acted with some real zest. Judging by the reaction it received post credits, and considering the similar storylines involving chaotic villains, Top Floor Left Wing is this year's Four Lions; last year's hilarious terrorist comedy from Chris Morris. B-

Experimental Shorts Program 1
Dir. Various
Running Time: 81mins

I attempted to make my way through the first program of experimental shorts, but - as I inevitably do with short films - I ended up frustrated, annoyed and left. I could handle the first of the four shorts, Nathaniel Dorsky's Pastourelle, even if it did kinda just remind me of 17 minutes of outtakes from ABC1's Gardening Australia, what with its out of focus close-ups of flowers and streams of sunlight. And with no soundtrack, either!


I decided to leave after the second short, Ben Russell's 10-minute Tryppes #7 (Badlands), which was, for the majority of its length, just a single shot of a woman as a bell rings every 60 seconds. These sort of films frequently lead me to query where they are going, but the answer is inevitably "nowhere" and I'm glad I left before the commencement of the 40-minute Slow Action, which was apparently dire and the title alone gave me the shivers!

Brother Number One
Dir. Annie Goldson
Running Time: 97mins

This New Zealand documentary follows famous sportsman Rob Hamill as he travels to Cambodia - with detours to Australia and his native New Zealand - to give a victim statement at a trial for an evil Khmer Rouge leader responsible for the death of his bother, Kerry. As any documentary about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge would be - you'll know of what I speak if you've seen Oscar-winning The Killing Fields from 1984 - Brother Number One (and not Number One Brother as I've been erroneously calling it all day!) is affecting and will wring tears from many.

It's such a shame then that director Annie Goldson's film isn't more a visually dynamic film. It's a very straightforward film, with little done to take it to the next level whether that be visually, structurally or within the material. While, thankfully, the story at its core is important enough to not necessarily need it, it just makes it hard to really say the film itself deserves the score I give it as opposed to the potency of its subject. B

The Black Power Mix-Tape 1967-1975
Dir. Göran Olsson
Running Time: 100mins

It's funny the things that can swing one's opinion of a film. Goran Olsson's The Black Power Mix-Tape 1967-1975 is a fascinating, and frequently enraging exploration of the black civil rights movement through the eyes of previously unseen Swedish news footage from the era. The film is definitely put together well and the interviews - both on screen from the 1960s and '70s to the audio interviews with the likes of ?uestlove, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli and so forth - are interesting and full of wonderful details that, for someone like me, are quite illuminating.

Unfortunately, for a film with the word "Mix-Tape" in the title, there is a distinct lack of music. In fact, apart from one Michael Jackson song at the very beginning and a recurring use of one track by The Roots that I can't recall the title of (it was a great song) there is no music whatsoever. Perhaps it was naive to think a movie with this title explored the rights movement through music? Perhaps. B

MIFF TALES
You know what I've discovered is a really good way to stop oneself from falling asleep during a movie? Sit at the back of the cinema and as you drift off your head will topple backwards and hit the wall! I did this tonight at the ever fancy Greater Union 5 and my head hit the wall with an almighty smack. The lady next to me even jumped. I had to apologise: "Sorry, I fell asleep and my head hit the wall." Only during MIFF could I say that and not be embarrassed. The amount of times I've dozed off during films so far this festival is embarrassing in itself! Tomorrow I have Ruhr, so I'm sure it'll be happening again.

Along with the sleepiness, I think I'm getting deep vein thrombosis in my legs and to top off that marvellous feeling my coughing fits are remaining hoarse and sore. Plus I feel like I've been wearing the same clothes over and over again (I have, at least, with my jeans, which are the most comfortable ones to wear whilst in public that still look like I'm not wearing "comfy jeans"). I think I'm gonna have to swing into Little Cupcakes tomorrow and cheer myself up! It's not like my resident cupcake cooking friend Suze is helping!

*waits for a basket of cupcakes all his own!*

No? Oh...

MIFF Blogathon: Day 7 (Winter's Ugly Furniture)

This blogathon is an initiative of MIFF for their 60th anniversary year. I am one of six bloggers given the mission of seeing 60 films in 17 days and writing, reporting, reviewing and wrangling my way through the tiredness and hunger to bring the festival experience to your computer.

The Ugly Duckling
Dir. Garri Bardin
Running Time: 75mins

This Russian adaptation of the famed "ugly duckling" tale is most certainly the only time in cinema history that we will ever be able to describe a movie as "Chicken Run meets Black Swan!" and have it be absolutely accurate. The Ugly Duckling [Gadkiy utyonok] is Garri Bardin's first feature after a career of short movies that spans 40 years. While at only 75 minutes and bare storytelling it's hard to really define it as a feature at all, but a feature we shall call it nevertheless. This adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's short story is lovingly crafted and features several charming songs, but it's hard to deny the slight nature of its being and that

As featured in the "Next Generation" section of the festival, The Ugly Duckling is most definitely a film that would appeal to a younger audience. While I got quite a bit out of it, especially marvelling at the wonderfully expressive and detailed character creations, the fact that its made for kids with little consideration of adults was somewhat off-putting. I can't imagine anybody other than children finding the shrill singing voice of the ugly cygnet hatchling to be hilarious - and in a frustrating turn, we don't even get to hear the redemptive beautiful singing voice of the swan once he has transformed. Seems like a missed opportunity, especially in such a short movie.


In fact, the film's golden egg to speak in terms of adults viewers has surely come about purely by accident. Bardin has used Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake music as the basis for the original songs and the score routinely swells into the decadence of the musical pieces that were recently made pop culturally significant again due to Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. The aesthetic is very 1980s TV Christmas movie - you know what I'm talking about if you grew up during the era - but that is another endearing quality that the film has in its plumage. The Ugly Ducking isn't particularly special, but curious parents could certainly do far worse (like, say, Cars 2!) B

Strangely, our print had both French and English subtitles on it. I've never seen this before! It was confusing at first.

Winter's Daughter
Dir. Johannes Schmid
Running Time: 92mins

It's about time I start using a thesaurus for words like "sweet" and "charming". The way I'm going, seemingly describing every second film as one or two of those adjectives, I will have well and truly burnt them out and they'll have as much meaning as "the Australian Liberal Party" or "Chris Brown: pop star". But, sometimes, they are the correct words to apply and in the case of Johannes Schmid's Winter's Daughter [Wintertochter], a wonderfully endearing tale of a two German women of different generations (who can tell where this one's going already, can't you?) driving through Poland to discover their lost and unknown families.

Nina Monka stars as 11-year-old Kattaka. She swims, is friends with the young boy next door and goes Christmas tree shopping with an elderly neighter, Ursula Werner's tough Lene. After being told by her mother (Katharina M Schubert) that the man she thought was her father (Maxim Mehmet) is not, but instead is a Russian trawler mechanic named Alexis, Kattaka and Lene travel to the Poland port town of Szczecin to meet him before segueing to the place Lene lived upon the breakout of WWII. It's hard to explain why Winter's Daughter was so good, but it really is just such a satisfying film that made me smile and feel a bit warm inside. The performances are uniformly excellent, especially Werner as well as Leon Seidel as a teenage boy who helps them on their way. The stark, wintery landscapes are wonderfully captured by Michael Bertl and the screenplay by Michaela Hinnenthal, Nora Lämmermann and Thomas Schmid is a restrained charmer. B+

True story: I actually wrote down "SEXY DAD!" in my notes. Add this Maxim Mehmet to the growing list of incredibly-sexy-i-hope-you-get-cast-in-staff-i-get-to-see-throughout-the-year MIFF actors.

Tiny Furniture
Dir. Lena Dunham
Running Time: 98mins

Could we have a new favourite of the 2011 film festival? Why yes, I think we do! Lena Dunham's extraordinary debut feature Tiny Furniture is a wonderful gem filled with hilarious insights into both twentysomething and adult life and a truly wicked outlook on all things "hipster". Many will take Tiny Furniture as being an actual hipster film - the "Mumblecore" movement of filmmaking does that to people - but I instead found Dunham's screenplay to be a vicious attack on the ideas of hipsters, as if pointing to the absurdity of it and cruelly jabbing it.

Following 23-year-old Aura (played by writer, director and - obviously - star Lena Dunahm) as a recently graduated, but emotionally and professionally questioning individual that I identified with greatly. As she moves back in with her mother and sister she finds it hard to identify what it is she wants and how to go about it. There are a lot of movies about this very topic, but it's the unique humour that Dunham brings to the material that stood out as well as the brittle deadpan delivery of she and her cast. My favourite bit was the line about watching reruns of Seinfeld. I watch reruns of Seinfeld! The way it came out of nowhere, much like most of the laugh out loud moments, elevated it beyond simple gag.


Curious to note that Tiny Furniture shares a cinematographer with my other best-of-the-fest title, Martha Marcy May Marlene since they look so different and do such different things with their surroundings (MMMM mostly exteriors, TF mostly interiors.) I adored the way Jody Lee Lipes framed Dunham's film. Major notice must go to art direction by Jade Healy and Chris Trujillo who were in charge of making this interior world amongst the New York suburbs of Tribecca and DUMBO look as refreshing and comical as it does. Dunham - also appearing in The Innkeepers this fest - is a wonderfully refreshing presence in front of the camera. Almost like a female Seth Rogen. Laurie Simmons, on the other hand, isn't so much refreshing as just deliciously lived in and natural as Aura's artist mother.

Whether Tiny Furniture classifies itself as Mumblecore is beyond my care, but what I really focus on is the precise and dedicated wit that Dunham brought to it. Tiny Furniture is a special, hilarious and deeply personal film that I will remember long after the festival. A

Beauty and the Beast
Dir. Jean Cocteau
Running Time: 96mins

Another retrospective title for MIFF and it's a wonderful one that I had never seen before. Jean Coteau's 1946 adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's 1756 tale is a sumptuously designed affair with elaborate, dreamlike sets that incorporate gothic design and inventive visual effects. Meanwhile, costumes by Antonio Castillo, Marcel Escoffier and an uncredited Christian Bérard are almost as equally divine.

As classic as the film is - and despite having never seen it before, I can easily say that it is indeed a classic - it's hard not to laugh at some of the overt theatricality of it all. And as much as I'd love to admit I didn't laugh when Jean Marais's bête appeared for the first (and second and third...) time dressed like a cross between David Bowie in Labyrinth and Bjorn from ABBA wearing Liza Minelli's favourite black sequin top, however that would be lie. A big fat lie! A-

MIFF TALES
This evening at the Kino Palace for Beauty and the Beast there was very almost an "incident". In fact, I thought for sure I was witnessing a man dying right there in the cinema. You could've fooled me because it sounded like actual like vanishing from a man. As this elderly gentleman wheezed, coughed and splattered upon himself towards the start of the movie it, at first, sounded quite humourous ("now that's a cough!") but quickly sounded as if it was becoming very serious. Those sitting around him leaned in and offer assistance, one woman went running out of the cinema for assistance, one man yelled that he "take it outside!" (!!!) And then when one woman who had moved across the isle to help him asked "Someone's gone for help, are you okay?" and just like that he stopped coughing, said "Yes" in an inquisitive 'why wouldn't I be okay?' tone and then resumed watching the film never to be heard of again. Curious.

Curiouser still because just moments early I had returned from my own cinema exit rush as I absolutely had to leave for a spectacular coughing fit. It sounded like someone had removed a vital internal organ it was that long and loud. Yikes.

I also attended a screening today - Winter's Daughter - that was attended by what I think was several school classes. It was so refreshing to go to a film with teenagers in attendance and not wanna smack them with their phones and because of their endless chatter. They even laughed and applauded the opening commercial with Geoffrey Rush and clapped at film's end, too. I hope that amongst that large group of MIFF attendees there is at least one person as batty as we cinemagoers seeing 60 films a festival.