MIFF Blogathon: End Credits

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 17 days of the Melbourne International Film Festival were a hectic, inspiring, memorable, festive, exciting, taxing and exhausting time. I saw some ungodly number of films - I'm counting that terrible 44-minute Louis Garrel film as a full title and bumping my number to 60 - and averaged 3.5 a day, although some days were 5 films long, others a more manageable at 2 a day.

I was surprised to find that so many of the films I saw were actually quite good. Throughout my 16 daily blogathon entries (mostly all written at Midnight after a long day of filmgoing) the number of films rated C+ or lower was thankfully rather low as law averages would suggest at a third of all titles. While, unfortunately, many of the ones I didn't care for I really didn't care for, there were also a whole lot that I not only loved, but really loved. And I even found plenty to enjoy in the films that didn't quite live up to the praise that had been heaped upon them here and around the world (13 Assassins for instance.)

Let's take a look at all the films I saw (plus a few extras that I saw in preview media screenings before the festival) in order from #1 to #60. Each embedded link leads to what I originally wrote on the film, and bear in mind that my opinions on these films will surely fluctuate over time and, in the case of something like The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, already has. So what I wrote after seeing a film in the midst of a 60-strong onslaught might not necessarily reflect what I would think about a film if seen free of the festival arena.

1. Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
2. The King of Comedy (dir. Martin Scorsese)
3. The Third Man (dir. Carol Reed)
4. Tiny Furniture (dir. Lena Dunham)
5. Martha Marcy May Marlene (dir. Sean Durkin)
6. How to Die in Oregon (dir. Peter Richardson)
7. Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier)
8. Natural Selection (dir. Robbie Pickering)
9. Ruhr (dir. James Benning)
10. Neds (dir. Peter Mullan)
11. Jane Eyre (dir. Cary Fukunaga)
12. Jiro Dreams of Sushi (dir. David Gelb)
13. The Innkeepers (dir. Ti West)
14. Tyrannosaur (dir. Paddy Considine)
15. Beauty and the Beast (dir. Jean Cocteau)
16. Pool Party (dir. Beth Aala)
17. LennoNYC (dir. Michael Epstein)
18. Winter's Daughter (dir. Johannes Schmid)
19. Senna (dir. Asif Kapadia)
20. The Piano in a Factory (dir. Zhang Meng)
21. X (dir. Jon Hewitt)
22. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
23. Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (dir. Michael Rapaport)
24. Submarine (dir. Richard Ayoade)
25. Falling for Sahara (dir. Khoa Do)
26. Tomboy (dir. Céline Sciamma)
27. The Turin Horse (dir. Bela Tarr)
28. Bi, Don't Be Afraid (dir. Dang Di Pan)
29. Brother Number One (dir. Annie Goldson)
30. Top Floor Left Wing (dir. Angelo Cianci)
31. Kill List (dir. Ben Wheatley)
32. The Eye of the Storm (dir. Fred Schepisi)
33. Sleeping Sickness (dir. Ulrich Köhler)
34. The Ugly Duckling (dir. (Garri Bardin)
35. 13 Assassins (dir. Takeshi Miike)
36. Living on Love Alone (dir. Isabelle Czajka)
37. Beauty (dir. Oliver Hermanus)
38. The Forgiveness of Blood (dir. Joshua Marston)
39. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (dir. Göran Olsson)
40. Page One: Inside the New York Times (dir. Andrew Rossi)
41. On the Sly (dir. Olivier Ringer)
42. The Future (dir. Miranda July)
43. Tales of the Night (dir. Michel Ocelot)
44. Toomelah (dir. Ivan Sen)
45. Swerve (dir. Craig Lahiff)
46. Littlerock (dir. Mike Ott)
47. Bobby Fischer Against the World (dir. Liz Garbus)
48. Clay (dir. Giorgio Mangiamele)
49. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (dir. Werner Herzog)
50. Attenberg (dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari)
51. Tatsumi (dir. Eric Khoo)
52. The Triangle Wars (dir. Rosie Jones)
53. I Wish I Knew (dir. Zhangke Jia)
54. Familiar Ground (dir. Stéphane Lafleur)
55. A Useful Life (dir. Federico Veiroj)
56. Michael (dir. Markus Schleinzer)
57. The Little Tailor (dir. Louis Garrel)
58. Norwegian Wood (dir. Anh Hung Tran)
59. Wasted Youth (dir. Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel)
60. Innocent Saturday (dir. Aleksandr Mindadze)
- Post Mortem (dir. Pablo Larraín) - walk out

I also saw three short film packages, but they're hard to rate in a list such as this so I left them out. Nevertheless, the "Melbourne Shorts Program 2" was the best, following by "Melbourne Shorts Program 1" and "Experimental Shorts Program 1".

And in the coming weeks we have titles like Beginners, The Woman and many others getting a theatrical release so who knows how many of the 250+ titles that screened I will eventually get to see?!? Tomorrow I'm going to do some fun little awards and citations for best performances and things like that, my own MIFF Oscar's if you will, but to end this entry I'm going to thank all the people I met along the way this year that helped pull me through my flu-riddled MIFF adventure! It was wonderful to meet all of these people, whether I knew them before the festival or if I was only just finally putting a real life face to a Twitter handle or blog name. So many of these people inspired me to keep chugging along and making me want to write better and with more energy and vigour than I probably would have mustered otherwise. You could say they put the "festive" in the Melbourne Interntaional Film Festival!

Thank you to my Beauty and the Beast death march partner Mel Campbell, that mysterious festival lounge lurker Syms Covington, those marvellous Sydneysiders Alice Tynan, Beth Wilson and Simon Anlezark, the team from AtTheCinema.net including Melburnian Julian Buckeridge, Brisbanite Sarah Ward (plus her husband Darren) and New Zealander in the Cosby cap Greg Bennett. Thanks to the esteemed intelligence of Cerise Howard and Richard Watts for walking out of Post Mortem as well, thanks to Tara Judah and Josh Nelson of Plato's Cave for enlivening many a conversation, thanks to Lee Zachariah and Paul Nelson from Hell is For Hyphenates for being fabulous organisers and seat-savers respectively (as well as fantastic conversationalists, obviously) and to the representatives of Sharmill Films, Potential Films and Umbrella Entertainment, Kate McCurdy, Coreen Haddad and JoJo Warrener respectively. And then, of course, there's Myke Bartlett and Rhett Bartlett who share a name and a similar awesomeness.

Thanks to the master of Greater Union cattle-herding Dave Lamb (and his magic hat), that other amazing MIFF volunteer Suze Stein, the two men from Geelong aka Anthony Morris and Guy Davis and to newcomers Tom Clift, Rich Haridy, Ben Buckingham, Kwenton from Twitch, Goran, Paul Ryan, Ian Barr and anybody else who I spoke to, anyone who tapped me on the shoulder and asked "are you Stale Popcorn?" and anyone who commented here on the blog. You made the experience incredible.

However, the biggest thank you of all must go to my fellow blogathon buddies: Luke Buckmaster, Thomas Caldwell, Jess Lomas, Simon Miraudo and Brad Nguyen. Five of us gave each other daily re-assurance that we were not in fact mad, but merely dedicated cinephiles. I never actually got to meet Brad, which was curious since you'd think seeing 60 films would mean crossing paths once or twice? Yesterday, upon waking up from my near 14 hour slumber I actually was hit by a tinge of sadness that I wouldn't be seeing these wonderful people every day. Alas, now as we somehow crawl back to our past lives of work and film screenings for movies like The Green Lantern, I will look back upon the experience fondly, even if certain aspects of it give me a wobbly stomach.

Click on the "more" label below to see some fun post-MIFF awards to wrap this sucker up!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 16 & 17 (Driving to Page One with Sushi & Attenberg)

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.

Page One: Inside the New York Times
Dir. Andrew Rossi
Running Time: 88mins

Unfortunately I had to leave this screening of Andrew Rossi's year inside the news offices of the "paper of record" The New York Times due to an emergency (er, an emergency known as "needing to earn money"), but I have a screener on the way so I'll be able to properly assess then. However, from what I did see I found Page One: Inside the New York Times to be a rather unfocused and haphazardly pieced together documentary.

It's a fascinating topic, and for a New York tragic like myself there should've been plenty to interest me, but it lacks a solid backbone. There are several different movies in Page One: a look at the Wikileaks scandal as seen through the eyes a newsroom; a documentary biopic of an acclaimed writer (David Carr) whose life is much like a film script; an investigation on the dying form known as the hardcopy newspaper and the way technology has both hurt and saved journalism. Unfortunately, instead of simply focusing on one, Rossi chooses a free-flowing structure and never settles. The Wikileaks issue is raised early on and then forgotten, while one scene sees many seasoned journalists being made redundant and either being fired or retiring and yet it never packs much of a punch because we haven't been given enough time to get to know these people. I won't grade it just yet, but will return to it once I've seen the entire film.

Drive
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Running Time: 100mins

I'm going to review this film with a much larger word length sometimes in the future (probably once I've seen it for a second time), but I feel like I need to just say this: Drive is perfect. An excellent choice (however secondary it was after the initial selection, Red Dog, had to be swapped) for a closing night film as it races right to the heart and injects it full of adrenalin and noir-tinged style. It's stylish, cool and gorgeously rendered as it pulsates to that stunning electro synth score by Cliff Martinez and pieces with Los Angeles photography that is the best since Collateral in 2003.

Nicolas Winding Refn is a director that has never particularly been on my radar. Bronson never appealed to me and I wasn't even aware of his Pusher trilogy, but now I think it's an absolute must to catch up with them if they are at all even half as good as Drive. This film is like some wild mix of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, William Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA (hello Wang Chung!), Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (those night time sequences!) and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. And yet, thankfully, it feels like entirely its own film and never succumbs to mere copycat filmmaking or obvious homage. I'm lucky if I find just one movie a year to make me feel so giddy that I want to dance. And dance I did. A+

Attenberg
Dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari
Running Time: 95mins

You know what? I think I would've been absolutely as perplexed by Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg no matter what the circumstances. That I saw it on a dreary-eyed Sunday morning after the "closing night" festivities of the night before and was battling a debilitating hangover (and brain-draining embarrassment) surely did not help matters. Was I just on the wrong wavelength to the crowd, who seemed the be laughing with startling frequency? Or am I just on the wrong wavelength to Greek cinema altogether? Ever since I saw Dogtooth two years ago at MIFF I haven't come across a Greek I've liked! Hmmm.

Starring Venice Best Actress winner Ariane Labed as a - here are those words again! - socially awkward young adult named Marina. She asks her dad inappropriate questions about sex, imitates animals that she sees on David Attenborough documentaries and does kooky dances with her friend, Bella (played by Evangelia Randou). The idea of quirk for quirk's sake surely went through my mind when thinking about Attenberg, since there are multiple scenes that feel as if they are there simply to be weird, but which I will surely be told actually, in fact, "mean something". Yeah, okay, whatever, but when a character (played by Dogtooth director Giorgos Lanthimos!) tells the lead that she is annoying and that he'd like her to shut up you're kinda bringing this rating on yourself. C-

Clay
Dir. Giorgio Mangiamele
Running Time: 85mins

Recently restored and looking stunning, this is the first film by Mangiamele that I have seen. He was a prolific filmmaker "in his day" and this 1965 drama about a man on the run from the law is certainly "of its day". Filmed in incredible black and white, Clay follows the small number of members of an artist's commune in the Victorian countryside who take in a stranger, knowing nothing of his past. He falls for the girl, she falls for him, but the other pointy end of a love triangle has other plans.

To say Clay is dated in its acting and writing style is be kind. The actors here are certainly a curious bunch, often looking bored or confused. The dialogue they have to speak isn't much better as Jean Lebedew's Margot narrates in excessive and increasingly long-winded platitudes about life and stuff ("life and stuff" is as much as I could gather) and speaks in slow, breathy whimpers when she's not laughing hysterically in the irritating manner that she does. George Dixon and Chris Tsalikis both have the "strong, silent type" routine to a tee, but it could also be confused with "strong, silent, seriously this is my first time acting!" (which it was). Gorgeous to look at, but where other old films' classic filmmaking methods still ring true, Clay's are stilted and hard to push through. C+

Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Dir. David Gelb
Running Time: 81mins

As refreshing, elegant and deceptively simply as the food it so exquisitely documents, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a delectable and mouthwatering Japanese documentary that explores the life of famed sushi master Jiro Ono and his 10-seat, yet 3 Michelin Star-ed, restaurant. David Gelb's gorgeous film is as much an ode to the Japanese cuisine as it is Jiro Ono, but Ono is such a delightful presence that it's nigh on impossible to not be charmed by the man. Same goes for his several employees and former apprentices who reel off humourous tales of their experiences working alongside this intimidated pint-sized man.

A lot of the film's success must be placed at the feet of editor Brandon Driscoll-Luttringer who keeps the film to a brief running time and superbly placed. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is such a narrow subject that the editing must be fiercely blunt in order to make sure the film doesn't get bogged down in repetitive nothingness. Unnecessary? Get rid of it! As a piece of "food porn" Gelb's documentary certainly passes the grade with the cinematography framing the neatly packaged bite-sized morsels in such a saintly light that everyone viewing the film will crave sushi afterwards.


What really makes Jiro Dreams of Sushi such an exceptional slice of filmmaking, however, is the rather melancholic way it presents the life of Ono's eldest son. Being the older of two means that he is the one to take over the business, but what is he to do with, at 85 years of age, Jiro shows no sign of slowing down? Has his father's success and subsequent shadow prevented Takashi from living the life he wanted to live or are the seemingly still rigid Japanese cultural norms to blame for stunting Takeshi's life from taking a different path that it is hinted Takeshi wishes he had taken? Either way, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a rather exceptional documentary and one that will make you think twice about how much work went into that California Roll you snack on at lunch. A-

MIFF TALES
The MIFF "closing night" festivities certainly were a roller-coaster. Starting off with meeting the one and only David Stratton - for all you non-antipodeans out there, David Stratton is Australia's answer to Roger Ebert - who, let's face it, didn't particularly care to be talking with a bunch of no-name critics such as myself and fellow blogathon partners. Nevertheless, we got a Lars von Trier rant out of him (he famously hates the man and gave Dancer in the Dark 0 stars whilst his TV show reviewing partner Margaret Pomeranz gave it 5) and that's pretty much the greatest thing ever. For the record, Stratton is a fan of the start and the end of Melancholia, but thinks the rest is rubbish. So that's that then.

After that as well as a brief tasting of truffle-infused popcorn (hint: it tastes just like regular popcorn, but with the aftertaste of money) we were filed into cinema 5 at the Greater Union on Russell Street to watch Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. As uncomfortable as it is to be in the GU in general, let alone whilst wearing a suit and tie, the film was - as you've surely figured - brilliant and a work of genius. We later found out that the festival's director, Michelle Carey, thanked us bloggers in her speech. I saw "later found out" because, lo and behold, we were not in the much larger cinema 6. Oh sure, I got to sit right in front of Wolf Creek director Greg McLean (obviously a late RSVP or else he'd be over in cinema 6, I'm sure), but I find it somewhat ironic that we got shafted to the lesser cinema whilst people across the way who'd probably barely even seen one or two films got awards and nice speeches and Drive exhibited on a screen double the size. Crikey blogathon member Luke Buckmaster has a much more acid-tongued response the whole situation.


The closing night party was glorious, apart from the rather embarrassing Gosling clones out the front who were wearing the wrong costume and chewing on toothpicks with all the coolness of Kathy Bates. While the night was filled with amazing '80s tunes, fabulous dancing and incredible people, it ended on a truly bizarre note that I shall not go into on here. Honestly, I never could have predicted the direction that night took me on and even though I had a sore head in the morning (and sore ego/bank account) I guess it was all worth it. Yeah? Any night where I get to dance crazy Kate Bush dance moves mere minutes after discussing the inherent sexiness to be found in Timothy Olyphant with a knife (something Jason at My New Plaid Pants certainly agrees with) is a-okay by me!

I will be doing one or two more MIFF pieces to bring this crazy blogathon to a close. I will rank all the films I saw, hand out my own awards and give all the required thank yous. Hopefully we'll be back on regular programming once that's all done and dusted.

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 14 (Familiar Triangle Wars of Tyrannosaurus X)

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.

Familiar Ground
Dir. Stéphane Lafleur
Running Time: 88mins

A film of such little consequence that when I tried to tell fellow MIFF attendees what I had seen earlier that day the title of this film, and in fact much of the plot too, had mysteriously exited my brain. I had only chosen it as filler and it's brief 88-minute run time sounded like heaven for my 11am brain. Still, Stéphane Lafleur's Familiar Ground [En terrains connus] is quite an airless experience. It drifts along doing its own merry thing, never so much as raising the temperature of its cold, wintery Canadian backdrop. It never raises a sweat because it never does anything, or even attempt it, with any weight to it.

Francis La Haye and Fanny Mallette star as Benoit and Maryse, still dealing rather unsuccessfully with the death of their mother five years earlier. I only know this because that's what the MIFF guide tells me. The guide also tells me there's something about "a man from the not-to-distant future", but, in all honesty, I think I drifted off during the one minute he was on screen (one minute according to fellow attendee and blogathon-er Jess Lomas). Apart from a somewhat intriguing ending, there's just nothing in Familiar Ground to mull over. I can't even be enthused to use the title in a witty pun. D+

Innocent Saturday
Dir. Aleksandr Mindadze
Running Time: 99mins

Remember when I labelled Wasted Youth as worst of the festival? Well, step aside Wasted Youth, for Aleksandr Mindadze's terrible Innocent Saturday [V subbotu] is here to claim the title. Not just worst of the festival, mind you, but one of the worst films I have ever seen, period. It's a frustrating and muddle account of the Chernobyl reactor disaster as told through the eyes of some of the stupidest film characters you will ever lay eyes on. Why yes, the nuclear plant across the river is on fire and about to explode, but you know what? I need to shop for shoes! Or, even better, I need to join a rock and roll wedding band and play for tips until the wee hours of the morning. This all makes complete and perfect sense, doesn't it?

I could look up who the actors were in this drivel, but I'd rather not. All I know is that the lead actor looks somewhat like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Diego Luna and that I can't fathom why he would want to remain in the film's setting to try and save these horrible, retched characters. Outside of How I Ended This Summer I can't think of any more idiotic beings than these. The apparent love interest is, to put it bluntly, a dumb, pathetic shell of a real woman. Superfluous and superficial to the nth degree, I feel comfort in knowing this wicked character probably died a slow and painful death due to radiation poisoning. Same goes for all the rest, really. They're idiotic dolts and clearly all the years of living near a nuclear reactor has fried their brain cells into not wanting to evacuate a city on the brink of disaster. The MIFF guide tells me that this represents the complacency that nuclear powered countries seem to find themselves in (hello Japan putting nuclear plants on active fault lines!) but this reading is incredibly hard to decipher out from the nauseating hand-held cinematography and loud, incessant barking of dialogue. It's a disaster all right! F

The Triangle Wars
Dir. Rosie Jones
Running Time: 90mins

The world premiere of The Triangle Wars happened today at MIFF to an overwhelmingly positive response! What more would you expect, however, from a theatre full of viewers who are obviously on the same side of the filmmakers? I went into Rosie Jones' documentary The Triangle Wars not knowing all that much about the redevelopment of the St Kilda foreshore area known as "The Triangle" - I've never lived in St Kilda, nor do I ever visit there, so I didn't particularly follow - but now that I've seen this film I can safely say that I still don't know all that much because Jones and her collaborative producers have gone out of the way to present their film as biased as possible.

Now this was surely their intention all along, but I find it somewhat discouraging to find a documentary to be so blatantly one-sided. I sat there wondering what all the fuss was about over this triangle of land. I understood the objections by St Kilda residents, but I also started to consider the hundreds (thousands?) of jobs that the development would create, the business it would stir amongst the area and the tourism it would entice. Of course, Jones doesn't explore any of that, instead wishing to merely document the rabble raising that the so-called "UnChain St Kilda" action group caused.


Now, don't get me wrong - I more or less agree with the idea that giant malls would dilute the sunny charm of the St Kilda foreshore, but when presented in the manner that it is here I actually began to turn against it. The rally sequences have a sort of chest-thumping energy to them that sparks memories of my own protest attendances and there are some eye-opening talking head style interviews, but a bland television aesthetic - this will look much better on the TV than the highly-pixellated look that the cinema exhibition gave us - and lousy, dull narration (was it by Rosie Jones herself?) harm it greatly.

Almost everyone seen on screen in this documentary looks like the upper-class, privileged arty folk that I find so hard to relate to. It must be nice to just decide to become a council-member on a whim. Do these people even have jobs? The weird, creepy demonisation of the film's "villains" was also particularly off-putting, including a meanspirited and insulting slow motion take of one councilwoman dancing at a function. There was something that irked me about The Triangle Wars far more than it's rather inoffensive premise would suggest, but as audience members around me laughed and jeered as their enemies strutted about I couldn't help but feel there isn't much to the film for those who aren't St Kilda radicals. C-

Tyrannosaur
Dir. Paddy Considine
Running Time: 91mins

On day 11 of the festival I was privy to Peter Mullan's Neds, in which he had a small role as a drunk, abusive father. In Paddy Considine's directorial debut, Tyrannosaur, Mullan takes the lead role of a drunk, abusive man. It's a stretch, I'm sure, but he does it so well that we can forgive the typecasting. Thankfully, the film around him is equally impressive as Considine has written and directed this film with solid aplomb. Where it could have easily descended into true, honest miserebalism, Tyrannosaur explores the way damaged souls can connect through not only their collective anger, but through spicy humour and barbs of steel.

Starring Mullan and Olivia Colman as oddly connected souls - he a former abusive husband, she a currently abused wife - who help each other deal with the demons that dwell inside them. Colman is truly stunning here as Hannah and she tops it off with a climactic scene of dramatic power that tore my heart out and stomped on it, wringing tears in the process. Can the best actress Oscar campaign start right now, please? The film is beaming with compassion in the face of enraging violence with surprisingly clean cinematography by Erik Wilson, Tyrannosaur is a dark study, but it's dinosaur title is apt: it's a monster. B+

X
Dir. Jon Hewitt
Running Time: 85mins

"From the director of Bloodlust" is certainly an opening line that should spark wide-eyed fear in anyone, however I found myself curiously entertained by Jon Hewitt's lurid, sex-drenched tale of hookers on the run. I will be reviewing this in full at some later stage, but for now let me just say how much fun I had with X! It's bathed in flesh and neon with over-the-top flashiness to mask over the utterly ridiculous screenplay ("you're now a bowling ball!") by Hewitt and actor Belinda McClory (she was "Switch" in The Matrix!)

X features a great lead performance by Viva Bianca, wonderful cinematography by Mark Pugh as well as stunning sound design and music, plus electric editing by Cindy Clarkson. The Sydney locations are captured with glorious vividness and the nudity is frank and upfront. If the violence gets too much then, well, it is set in the underworld although any call of misogyny can be easily counterclaimed: these women get their own back! I had a blast with X and it's the best Australian film I have seen during the festival. B+

MIFF TALES
It can be amusing getting the reactions from others after a screening. I've been in the minority on a few occasions throughout the fest - including, to some degree, X which many seem to have tolerated, hated or moderately enjoyed - but the universal hatred for Innocent Saturday has been refreshing and unlike anything I've experienced so far this festival. I haven't spoken to a single person who liked it. Not even a little bit! I sat next to Greg Bennett of Sounds Like Cinema and we both let out exacerbated sighs are numerous point and once out on the street there was uncontrollable laughter in between loud proclamations of "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Several others, including a stranger who waltzed over to myself and Jess Lomas after the screening, were all baffled by the degree of awful we'd just witnessed.

With only three days left of the festival, it really is sinking in that after Sunday I won't absolutely have to see three of four or (like today and tomorrow) five films throughout the day. I won't have to arrive home at some terribly late hour and somehow fit it blogging, eating, watching Masterchef (of course) and general relaxation. In fact, I'm surprised I made it through today so well with only some brief microsleeps during that movie I saw first that I've forgotten the title of again since I'd been up since 8am for reasons that I will explain later (it involves interviewing someone and WOW what an interview!)

And now it's 2:05am and I am so incredibly tired. Good night!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 13 (Once Upon a Time in Uruguay)

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.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Running Time: 158mins

At 160 minutes, the first film I have seen by acclaimed Nuri Bilge Ceylan is certainly a long-haul flight of a movie. For at least two acts of Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia [Bir zamanlar Anadolu'da] I was more or less entranced. Featuring stunning night time cinematography by Gökhan Tiryaki the gorgeous look of the film is matched by buoyant performances by actors who wrap their tongues around the twisty dialogue almost with relish. The central story of the police driving around two men charged with murder as they try to find the location (amongst a countryside full of identical locations) of a buried corpse is handled with deft skill. The screenplay by Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan and Ercan Kesal weaves non-sequitur conversations peppered with light comedy throughout that strikes a wonderful balance.

It's a shame then that Ceylan takes a different tact with the final third of the film and amps up the comedy. Shifting tones with the rising sun, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia ends up feeling somewhat disjointed with broken rhythms. A lengthy autopsy sequence at film's end, while a fascinating study of the sound editing craft, feels superfluous, although the very final moment is great. It's a hard film to observe, but ultimately a rewarding one. B

A Useful Life
Dir. Federico Veiroj
Running Time: 67mins

A tiresome, dreary and dull look at a Uruguayan cinema, A Useful Life [La vida útil] is as slow a snail's pace and features one of the most sour-faced lead performances I've ever witnessed by Federico Veiroj. What a load of garbage! There is so little to this film that I don't even know how to write it up. At less than 70 minutes I actually don't even know if this technically counts as a film, but a film it gets called. I mean, it was certainly made on film and features actors and there is music in the background so if that's what constitutes a movie then A Useful Life is a movie! Success!

Everybody walks around in this movie at such a slow pace and does their terribly menial jobs with all the enthusiasm of a corpse. By the time Jorge's playdo-faced cinema employee finally escapes the dungeon that is his career the proceedings become somewhat more loose and free-flowing, but then he's more just an idiot doing idiotic things. And do I have to mention the radio sequence? I know the whole scene is meant to be a joke, but good grief... A Useful Life is certainly in love with cinema - of that I have no doubt - but the filmmakers seem to have no idea as to what actually makes cinema so great. There's none of the innovation, energy, dynamism, explosiveness or sumptuousness that so many classic films have. In the end it just ends up as a forgetful nostalgia trip. Terrible. D-

A Useful Life screened alongside Louis Garrel's 44 minute "short" The Little Tailor [Petit tailleur]. This was a grinding faux-new wave film with dishclanger acting and idiot characters. I snoozed through a lot of it, but what I saw was flat. D


I also saw Beauty [Skoonheid], but can't discuss it right now. I really haven't the time this evening to think about it so hopefully I'll include it amongst one of the packages in coming days.

MIFF TALES
It was so great to see a nearly sold out crowd at this morning's 11am screening of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. It really does give one a peppy bounce at that time of day to see so many people who aren't seeing 60 films during the festival taking the time out at that horrendous time of day for an 160 minute European film. I found my seat right at the back, where I prefer, in an empty row and throughout the film's running time found myself in almost any position you could possibly consider to make myself comfortable. My knees don't work at the best of times, let alone when I've been sitting down for over 40 films in a barely 2 week period!

MIFF Blogathon: Day 12 (Falling for Wasted Tatsumi)

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.

Falling for Sahara
Dir. Khoa Do
Running Time: 81mins

Turns out there really is a first time for everything! Finally a Khoa Do film I actually like! I never saw last year's Mother Fish, but The Finished People is the worst kind of let's-use-non-actors-and-people-won't-notice-the-bad-filmmaking filmmaking and the less said about Footy Legends, perhaps the worst Australian film I have ever seen, the better. With Falling For Sahara he has assembled a charming cast of African teenagers to tell his rather sweet tale of refugees experiencing first love.

Following three boys who live in the housing flats of Flemington (the ones along the Upfield line for those who do or who have lived on that particular train line like myself) who all have eyes for a girl who moves in, albeit briefly, and whose stunning beauty has seen her scheduled to be shipped back to Ethiopia for an arranged marriage. Most of the characters here are thoughtfully written and even if the acting is a bit hit and miss - the young debut actress that plays Sahara, Mekdes Getachew, lights up the screen - the film is largely more successful than Do's previous films due to its combination of the sweet without the overt saccharine.


Despite an occasionally negative look at the life that refugees find themselves in, this actually gives it a unique place in Australian films. Never grungy and depressing in its representation of refugee life, it's ultimately hopeful and smile-inducing finale make Falling for Sahara a welcome addition to Do's career. Also of note to local AFL fans is that the film was partially funded by the Essendon Football Club and one of their players, the quite good looking Andrew Welsh has a small role as a footy coach. B+

Natural Selection
Dir. Robbie Pickering
Running Time: 90mins

One of the finest surprises of the festival by far is this delightfully funny film from debut writer/director Robbie Pickering. Rather than trading in tired quirk like so many American indie comedies, Natural Selection instead fills its thankfully short (perfect comedy runtime of 90 minutes!) with genuine jokes and, at key moments, sweet pathos. I'm not ashamed to say that I actually shed a few tears at the end of this film as the wonderful Rachael Harris - an actress that has mostly worked on TV and improv, but who is probably known by most as from The Hangover and Diary of a Wimpy Kid - realises her truest needs.

Natural Selection takes a great many potshots at religion, class and mismatched romantic comedies, but never feels like it's allowing a mean-spirited voice from overtaking the material. Harris is particularly wonderful in one of my favourite performances of the festival, revealing layers to this sad, lonely woman. Matt O'Leary, too, is good for many laughs as the son Harris' Linda never knew her husband had fathered. Natural Selection won seven awards at this year's SXSW festival and I can see why. I can only hope that it is allowed to venture outside of the arthouse that it's thorny subject matter suggests it could be relegated to. A-

Wasted Youth
Dir. Argyris Papadimitropoulos & Jan Vogel
Running Time: 99mins

There came a moment in the late stages of Greek drama Wasted Youth when yet another scene began of its dull lead characters boozing and skateboarding where I quite visibly and audibly sighed. My viewing partner turned, chuckled, and nodded in agreement. Earlier in the film he had awoke from his act one slumber, looked over at me and noticed that I, too, had drifted off into the land of forty winks. For you see Wasted Youth is the worst film of the festival so far. An absolute misfire in every way, enlived only by some interesting visual and music choices. Wasted Youth is a big fat dud.

Vogel and Papadimitropoulos' film follows two storylines that, as dictated by the laws of cliched screenwriting, must intersect by film's end. One storyline follows a husband and father who works night shift in his job as a police officer on the streets of a rowdy Greek town. The second storyline follows a group of teenagers as they traverse the city from one scintillating encounter to another. Many of these adventures involve girls, drinking, skating or sweating in the balmy Greek sun.


That the filmmakers thought that audiences really needed to be told that the youths of today (or, ya know, any day) like to rebel and drink and have sex and all sorts of dangerous stuff is not the biggest worry of Wasted Youth. No, the biggest problem is that there is no electricity to the film, no energy. It just flaps about from one tiresome scene to another, before finally limping to a ridiculous - and, might I say, offensive to the principals of storytelling - ending of indulgent "importance". Seriously? Another scene of these kids skating? Enough already! D-

Tatsumi
Dir. Eric Khoo
Running Time: 98mins

An animated biopic of a renowned manga artist, Tatsumi is Eric Khoo's ode to Yoshihiro Tatsumi who excelled in the art of gekiga manga. Despite it's stunningly gorgeous animation of various styles and forms, Tatsumi is an omnibus film of sorts that is diluted with each subsequent tale. It took me a while to actually figure out what on Earth was going on, but I know for certain that it opens with a wonderfully done World War II sequence that is evocative in its pained drawings (did the animation team take their cues from Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 for the Hiroshima bomb victims?). Unfortunately, later segments range from lovely to the dull to the downright uncomfortable.

Perhaps those "in the know" of manga and specifically Yoshihiro Tatsumi, but I suspect many others will find it as difficult to crack open as I did. C

MIFF TALES
I had a discussion this evening after Wasted Youth about the nature of applauding films. MIFF audiences are good at clapping for films, even if somebody involved in the creative process isn't there. They like feeling like the screening means something and so applauding their approval is, I guess, an extension of that. But as we discussed the curious nature of anybody applauding that woeful film we'd just seen, we recalled that nobody clapped after the extraordinary Martha Marcy May Marlene. Were people just too numbed by the experience to clap? I was all set to clap, but then nobody else did so I chose to keep my hands apart (wait, what?)

Speaking of creative people being in the house for their film, two of the cast from Falling for Sahara gave a Q&A afterwards and, curiously, it was the debut actress Mekdes Getachew that came off most natural of all. She could do quite well for herself in this business if she keeps that natural charm.

MIFF Blogathon: Day 11 (Futuristic NEDs)

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 Future
Dir. Miranda July
Running Time: 91mins

YouTube. Miranda July loves it. She probably also loves LOLcats. These are suspicions I had after after watching The Future, her first film since Me & You & Everyone We Know in 2005. The Future feels more like the work of a director who has spent too much time watching YouTube videos of animals playing pianos and gifs of cute cats with injuries saying "can i c doctor clooney now plz" than of an artist who so delicately navigated the sad, vaguely connected lives of the characters in Everyone We Know six years prior. And it's a shame, really.

July, again working as writer-director-actor, has some pertinent things to say regarding the life of creative types and artists who have entered that troublesome era of life where it's near impossible to start up a new career out of fear that they'll never get anywhere. Alas, coming from someone such as July who has the ability to take six years between films and who makes YouTube videos and gets hailed as genius feels curiously out of touch. Unfortunately, the first half of The Future is tricky to peruse as her lead characters, including Hamish Linklater as her boyfriend of four years Jason, go about their dull, yet vaguely hipsterish lives do frustrating things like quit their jobs and yet never once mention that they have rent to pay.


Things become considerably more in tune with human emotions in the more brittle second half, as Jason's ability to stop time (yes) brings about delicate feelings of hurt and sadness, brought on by Sophie's cruelty. The parallel stories of the film's latter half are melancholic and at times even sweet, ending with a hopefulness that no matter the age or lifestyle there's always something out there that will allow you to connect to another human soul. If that other human soul just happens to have a matching curly mop haircut and wears beautiful vintage clothing despite working lousy jobs then so be it.

Unfortunately, July's bizarre dalliances with irksome preciousness are the film's major undoing. Most predominant of all is the utterly bizarre and crazy idea of having the film narrated at intervals by an injured cat that Jason and Sophie plan to adopt. As voiced by July herself it has the distinct waft of LOLcats: The Movie and does a major disservice to the overriding themes of the film. It's a shame because it actually made me want to revisit her prior film to find out if I actually like it as much I remember or if six years of American indie quirk genre titles has diminished its power. The Future is not somewhere I care to revisit any time soon. C

NEDs
Dir. Peter Mullan
Running Time: 124mins

A rough and tumble, yet deliciously energetic take on the well worn tale of youths gone wild, Neds - it's a local Scottish term for Non-Educated Delinquents - is propulsive and altogether fabulous filmmaking. Directed by part time director and full time actor (he appears on screen here as a drunken father as well as another MIFF 2011 title Tyrannosaur) Peter Mullan, his first time behind the camera since the sublime The Magdalene Sisters in 2002, Neds is - much like that film - a look at how abusive elders, those kids and teenagers are supposed to look to for guidance, can turn people onto the wrong path. That the teachers of young John McGill assume he's a violent thug like his older brother is somewhat partly to blame for his off the track veering several years later once he falls into the wrong crowd. The wrong crowd being the kind who carry knives and spike their own drinks whilst goading fellow neighbourhood gangs into fights.

As played with fierce focus of Conor McCarron in the majority of the film, John is both dizzying in his teenhood cockiness and bravura with slivers of bubbling nerviness. The scene where he and his father share rowdy glances at one another from opposite ends of the stairs is a determined slice of acting and the sight of John parading around his lower-class neighbourhood with butcher knives strapped to his hands is one I won't soon forget. McCarron gives the best performance I've yet seen at this festival, and that it's by a novice on his first film is even more impressive.


Mullan's directorial choices are, at times, messy and desperate to replicate Shane Meadows' even more magnetic masterpiece This is England, but when he's not simply imitating he's coming up with vibrant set-pieces and vividly imagined character exchanges. While a running time in excess of two hours is pushing it, especially when the thick Scottish dialogue is in desperate need of subtitles, Neds is a compelling and tribal look at a bleak country's violent thuggery. A-

MIFF TALES
While I am glad to report that this evening's screening of Neds did not feature a strobe light show for our effect during the final act like last night, but it did feature an annoying black shadow in the bottom part of the screen and poor focus. The Forum has quickly become this festival's disaster venue and I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to go there once during tomorrow's four film schedule.

Still, today was lovely for the fact that local writer and actor Lee Zachariah organised a wonderful tweet and greet for a large number of film writer folk who live in Melbourne (or who were visiting town). It was great being able to see some people who have been absent for the festival for a number of reasons and even those who have seemingly been around every corner of the festival. Being able to put faces to Twitter handles is always nice, especially when they're as pale-faced and protein-deficient as writers tend to be. Wait, I lie. There are actually some very attractive members of the writing community out there, but let's not perpetuate that idea because people will start to get the wrong idea about us and expect us to be pretty. That's something none of us want nor need.

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.