Melbourne Film Festival
Its that time of the year again. These are the movies I will be going to this year, if you are interested in any of these just book a ticket (at http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au) and come along.
Summer '04 (Germany)
The Descent (UK)
Through the Forest (France)
Our Daily Bread (Austria)
Summer Palace (China)
The Betrayal (France)
The Willow Tree (Iran)
Seven Swords (Hong Kong)
A Scanner Darkly (USA)
13 (Tzameti) (France)
The Book of Revelation (Australia
Sheitan (France)
The Aura (Argentina)
Summer '04 (Germany)
Thursday 27th July 7pm
At 40, Miriam radiates serene beauty and tranquility, a confidence and self-assurance as vast as the sea close to her summer home. There are no taboos in the polished, urbane life she shares with her partner André and their 15-year-old son Nils; there is understanding and tolerance. If Nils invites his 12-year-old girlfriend Livia to spend the holidays with them, fine. But when the brazenly sensual Livia begins flirting with an older man, Bill, Miriam feels it is her responsibility to stop the questionable relationship. But as she does so, it is she herself who falls for the shy and charmingly insecure Bill. Miriam forges ahead, seducing him, seeing him secretly. But it is Livia that Bill loves, not Miriam. And suddenly the vast horizons of her life vanish in a fog of jealousy and rejection - emotions that prove to be far less controllable than she thought...
The Descent (UK)
Thursday 27th July 9pm
After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive the creatures and each other.
Through the Forest (France)
Friday 28th July 1pm
Through the Forest conveys the bliss of romantic love and the misery of permanent separation, intimately charting the grieving process of Armelle, months after her beau’s death in a motorcycle accident.
The seeming naturalism we witness of two lovers’ sensuous relationship is a fantasy concocted by the distraught young woman, who is convinced that her deceased boyfriend returns to her from beyond the grave each night.
Succinct and unquestionably stylish, Through the Forest is an elegy exploring the territory of longing and remembrance through a narrative that’s elusive, even illusory, but never less than intriguing.
“From the first of its 10 mesmeric single takes, French filmmaker Jean-Paul Civeyrac conveys a sense of the eerily seductive territory to be traversed in Through the Forest… What follows encompasses both the realistic and mystical in ways you don’t immediately question, borne along by the sublime elegance of the images washing over you and the propulsive flow of a distinctive internal logic.” - Reverse Shot
Our Daily Bread (Austria)
Thursday 3rd August 3pm
“Some will see a horrifying indictment of the industry's cruelties, others a realistic depiction of mechanized farming, and some a soft-spoken tribute to manual labor. Meanwhile, precisely composed lensing and painstaking sound design create moments of sublime beauty” - Variety Our Daily Bread is a wide-screen tableau exposing the brave new world of industrial food production and high-tech farming. As evocative and (seemingly) futuristic as any sci-fi work, the film looks at how food is now produced for the developed world: an industrial environment in which people, animals, crops and machines play a supporting role in the logistics of a super-efficient system. Eschewing interviews and voiceovers, Our Daily Bread presents the monumental spaces, surreal landscapes and bizarre sounds that are an unspoken (and generally unsighted) but integral part of our lives. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas. Winner of Special Jury Award, IDFA Amsterdam.
Summer Palace (China)
Thursday 3rd August 9:15pm
With Summer Palace, Lou Ye establishes himself as the first Chinese filmmaker to use the 1989 Tiananmen Square student uprising as his backdrop, earning him, unsurprisingly, the ire of the Chinese authorities.
However, far from being a political diatribe, Lou’s film is a sensual and complex epic of two star-crossed lovers who play games with each other’s hearts almost as dangerous as the social unrest raging around them.
The Cannes Film Festival described Summer Palace as “An ambitious work, which, like his (Lou’s) preceding film (Purple Butterfly) blends the torments of the heart with those of history.” Lou says of his motivations and the autobiographical nature of the film, “What I wanted to say is that personal feelings are far more complicated. Exterior chaos is more easily resolved.”
Sure to generate a lot of heat, as much for its frank sexuality as its historical context, Summer Palace is a vital and potent recognition of often unspoken personal and public issues in China.
The Betrayal (France)
Monday 7th August 3pm
During the Algerian Civil War in 1960, a French officer named Roque is exhausted and exasperated with the meandering conflict. While his public role is to convince those in the small, isolated village where he’s stationed of the ‘good intentions’ of the French presence, the main goal is to dismantle the Algerian undercover army of liberation (FLN). Torn between resentful locals and the soldiers, Roque is confronted with the possible betrayal of his own men, many of them young North African recruits, themselves torn between notions of patriotism and independence. The absurdity of war and the latent racism of the French soldiers are themes that speak strongly through the sober and unrestrained story-telling style of The Betrayal. In these modern times, Phillippe Faucon’s film hits a strikingly immediate and resonant chord.
The Willow Tree (Iran)
Monday 7th August 7pm
University academic Youssef appears to have it all, except his sight. When through an unexpected cornea transplant he sees the world around him for the first time since childhood, the joy of sight eludes him; instead he now views his life as a series of experiences stolen from him by years of blindness.
Revealing intense pathos tinged with melancholy, this powerful film signals another level of accomplishment in Majidi’s artistic evolution. As the director explains, “I realised that when a man becomes deaf to his inner dialogue and ignores the positive messages the world sends him, the only actions he could do would be selfish, violent and destructive.”
Seven Swords (Hong Kong)
Wednesday 9th August 9pm
Hong Kong’s grand master of the martial arts film/definer of the wuxia genre, Tsui Hark, returns to prestige filmmaking with Seven Swords. Gritty and epic in every conceivable way, this film pays obvious nods to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai with its group of 17th century swordslingers banding together to defend a village against a murderous posse of bandits. It is also based on the much-read novel, Seven Swordsmen from Mount Tian, by Liang Yu-sheng.
Hark departs from his signature style, replacing the supernatural ballet of battle with grunting realism. While very R-rated with its fair share of decapitations and other disfigurations, Seven Swords is more physical than violent - tactile, dirty and cold, where the mud and grime triumphs over fancy wirework. Fans will not be disappointed with Hark who continues to surprise with his clever genre bending.
A Scanner Darkly (USA)
Thursday 10th August 7pm
Adapted from a seminal Philip K. Dick novel, Richard Linklater’s strikingly animated and trippy sci-fi film, A Scanner Darkly, couples an eclectic cast with the filmmaker’s extraordinary inventiveness in new animation techniques.
Furthering the same labour-intensive animation process pioneered in Waking Life, Linklater effectively creates a graphic novel come to life, the actors performing their scenes then the film footage painstakingly animated, requiring up to 500 hours to create just one minute of screen-time.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder,
A Scanner Darkly follows an undercover
drug agent who becomes a little too acquainted with the drug he’s meant to be policing. So begins his hallucinogenic journey, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. The cops, his supposed friends, and even the walls are closing in on him.
Says Linklater, “In ‘77 when the book came out, it was seen as conspiracy, paranoia.
This is a science fiction movie but we all looked around and said, ‘We are living in science fiction right now.’”
13 (Tzameti) (France)
Friday 11th August 5pm
“Shot like the grunge version of a ‘50s noir thriller from France (or Soviet Georgia), the black-and-white 13 (Tzameti) turns into a shocker of Tarantino proportions in protracted sequences of explosive violence that leaves viewers quaking.” - Variety
Marking the feature debut of its young filmmaker, Géla Babluani (son of well-known Georgian director Temur Babluani), 13 (Tzameti) is the morality tale of a man, Sébastien, embroiled in a grim quest after following instructions intended for someone else. What begins as a lark soon sees Sébastien teetering on the very brink of human decency. There is no turning back, however, and he finds himself having to rely on his only tools for survival: His luck and his wits.
“May instantly rise to the rank of cult classic… a satisfying adventure, building slowly, drawing us in, and ending with a white-knuckle ride into the surreal.” - Sundance Film Festival
The Book of Revelation (Australia)
Friday 11th August 9pm
Part mystery, part thriller, erotic and dream-like, this uncompromising work from filmmaker Ana Kokkinos is, in the director’s own words, “not easily categorised and defined”.
A dancer at the peak of his powers is mysteriously abducted by three women, abused then thrown back into the world 12 days later. A broken spirit, he then struggles to renegotiate his place in his former life in light of the unimaginable circumstances he’s just gone through.
Starring Tom Long (in a revealing performance), Greta Scacchi and Colin Friels, The Book of Revelation is based on a novel by British author Rupert Thomson, which was described by The New York Times Book Review as “a premise made terrifyingly real by a hugely talented writer.”
One thing is for sure, it’s guaranteed to divide audiences. As for Ana Kokkinos’ interest, she says, “The story fascinated me because of the reversal at the heart of it. Man as victim, women as perpetrators. The simple reversal invites us to look at the situation through new eyes.”
Sheitan (France)
Sunday 13th August 7:15pm
“A foxy young temptress, a trio of horny guys, a creepy rural manse and a slightly demonic caretaker are the classic building blocks that get reassembled French-style in Sheitan.” - Variety
Combining anarchic, knockabout comedy with nerve-shredding suspense, jet-black humour and gut-wrenchingly bloody horror, Sheitan is not for the faint at heart.
In a Paris nightclub on Christmas eve, a group of hot-blooded young men meet a couple of gorgeous girls who invite them to spend the weekend at a remote country holiday house. Of course, the fellows accept this generous offer but they are unprepared for what greets them - some menacing caretakers and a series of diabolical circumstances that ensue as Christmas day rapidly approaches.
Kim Chapiron, who marks his feature film directing debut with Sheitan, is a member of Kourtrajmé, a loose collective of vibrant, cutting-edge French filmmakers championed by Vincent Cassel, who also produces the film and stars in the sinister role of the caretaker.
The Aura (Argentina)
Sunday 13th August 9:15pm
“Bielinsky is a meticulous craftsman. Every moment has a payoff… A meticulously conceived and executed heist pic that is equally concerned with character.” - Hollywood Reporter
An introverted taxidermist who fantasises about pulling off the perfect crime finds his dreams unexpectedly a reality while hunting deer in Argentina’s Patagonian forest. In order to save his skin, he must turn his highly analytical mind to outwitting everyone, including his accomplices.
The jigsaw puzzle-like nature of The Aura is reminiscent of filmmaker Fabian Bielinsky’s first feature, Nine Queens. Complex and shrewd with palpable tension maintained throughout, this film satisfies on all filmic fronts - character, cinematography and plot. The aura of the title refers to the ‘frozen’ instance the taxidermist experiences before an epileptic attack; just one of the intertwining metaphors and themes that give this film a rewarding sense of wholeness.
Summer '04 (Germany)
The Descent (UK)
Through the Forest (France)
Our Daily Bread (Austria)
Summer Palace (China)
The Betrayal (France)
The Willow Tree (Iran)
Seven Swords (Hong Kong)
A Scanner Darkly (USA)
13 (Tzameti) (France)
The Book of Revelation (Australia
Sheitan (France)
The Aura (Argentina)
Summer '04 (Germany)
Thursday 27th July 7pm
At 40, Miriam radiates serene beauty and tranquility, a confidence and self-assurance as vast as the sea close to her summer home. There are no taboos in the polished, urbane life she shares with her partner André and their 15-year-old son Nils; there is understanding and tolerance. If Nils invites his 12-year-old girlfriend Livia to spend the holidays with them, fine. But when the brazenly sensual Livia begins flirting with an older man, Bill, Miriam feels it is her responsibility to stop the questionable relationship. But as she does so, it is she herself who falls for the shy and charmingly insecure Bill. Miriam forges ahead, seducing him, seeing him secretly. But it is Livia that Bill loves, not Miriam. And suddenly the vast horizons of her life vanish in a fog of jealousy and rejection - emotions that prove to be far less controllable than she thought...
The Descent (UK)
Thursday 27th July 9pm
After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive the creatures and each other.
Through the Forest (France)
Friday 28th July 1pm
Through the Forest conveys the bliss of romantic love and the misery of permanent separation, intimately charting the grieving process of Armelle, months after her beau’s death in a motorcycle accident.
The seeming naturalism we witness of two lovers’ sensuous relationship is a fantasy concocted by the distraught young woman, who is convinced that her deceased boyfriend returns to her from beyond the grave each night.
Succinct and unquestionably stylish, Through the Forest is an elegy exploring the territory of longing and remembrance through a narrative that’s elusive, even illusory, but never less than intriguing.
“From the first of its 10 mesmeric single takes, French filmmaker Jean-Paul Civeyrac conveys a sense of the eerily seductive territory to be traversed in Through the Forest… What follows encompasses both the realistic and mystical in ways you don’t immediately question, borne along by the sublime elegance of the images washing over you and the propulsive flow of a distinctive internal logic.” - Reverse Shot
Our Daily Bread (Austria)
Thursday 3rd August 3pm
“Some will see a horrifying indictment of the industry's cruelties, others a realistic depiction of mechanized farming, and some a soft-spoken tribute to manual labor. Meanwhile, precisely composed lensing and painstaking sound design create moments of sublime beauty” - Variety Our Daily Bread is a wide-screen tableau exposing the brave new world of industrial food production and high-tech farming. As evocative and (seemingly) futuristic as any sci-fi work, the film looks at how food is now produced for the developed world: an industrial environment in which people, animals, crops and machines play a supporting role in the logistics of a super-efficient system. Eschewing interviews and voiceovers, Our Daily Bread presents the monumental spaces, surreal landscapes and bizarre sounds that are an unspoken (and generally unsighted) but integral part of our lives. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas. Winner of Special Jury Award, IDFA Amsterdam.
Summer Palace (China)
Thursday 3rd August 9:15pm
With Summer Palace, Lou Ye establishes himself as the first Chinese filmmaker to use the 1989 Tiananmen Square student uprising as his backdrop, earning him, unsurprisingly, the ire of the Chinese authorities.
However, far from being a political diatribe, Lou’s film is a sensual and complex epic of two star-crossed lovers who play games with each other’s hearts almost as dangerous as the social unrest raging around them.
The Cannes Film Festival described Summer Palace as “An ambitious work, which, like his (Lou’s) preceding film (Purple Butterfly) blends the torments of the heart with those of history.” Lou says of his motivations and the autobiographical nature of the film, “What I wanted to say is that personal feelings are far more complicated. Exterior chaos is more easily resolved.”
Sure to generate a lot of heat, as much for its frank sexuality as its historical context, Summer Palace is a vital and potent recognition of often unspoken personal and public issues in China.
The Betrayal (France)
Monday 7th August 3pm
During the Algerian Civil War in 1960, a French officer named Roque is exhausted and exasperated with the meandering conflict. While his public role is to convince those in the small, isolated village where he’s stationed of the ‘good intentions’ of the French presence, the main goal is to dismantle the Algerian undercover army of liberation (FLN). Torn between resentful locals and the soldiers, Roque is confronted with the possible betrayal of his own men, many of them young North African recruits, themselves torn between notions of patriotism and independence. The absurdity of war and the latent racism of the French soldiers are themes that speak strongly through the sober and unrestrained story-telling style of The Betrayal. In these modern times, Phillippe Faucon’s film hits a strikingly immediate and resonant chord.
The Willow Tree (Iran)
Monday 7th August 7pm
University academic Youssef appears to have it all, except his sight. When through an unexpected cornea transplant he sees the world around him for the first time since childhood, the joy of sight eludes him; instead he now views his life as a series of experiences stolen from him by years of blindness.
Revealing intense pathos tinged with melancholy, this powerful film signals another level of accomplishment in Majidi’s artistic evolution. As the director explains, “I realised that when a man becomes deaf to his inner dialogue and ignores the positive messages the world sends him, the only actions he could do would be selfish, violent and destructive.”
Seven Swords (Hong Kong)
Wednesday 9th August 9pm
Hong Kong’s grand master of the martial arts film/definer of the wuxia genre, Tsui Hark, returns to prestige filmmaking with Seven Swords. Gritty and epic in every conceivable way, this film pays obvious nods to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai with its group of 17th century swordslingers banding together to defend a village against a murderous posse of bandits. It is also based on the much-read novel, Seven Swordsmen from Mount Tian, by Liang Yu-sheng.
Hark departs from his signature style, replacing the supernatural ballet of battle with grunting realism. While very R-rated with its fair share of decapitations and other disfigurations, Seven Swords is more physical than violent - tactile, dirty and cold, where the mud and grime triumphs over fancy wirework. Fans will not be disappointed with Hark who continues to surprise with his clever genre bending.
A Scanner Darkly (USA)
Thursday 10th August 7pm
Adapted from a seminal Philip K. Dick novel, Richard Linklater’s strikingly animated and trippy sci-fi film, A Scanner Darkly, couples an eclectic cast with the filmmaker’s extraordinary inventiveness in new animation techniques.
Furthering the same labour-intensive animation process pioneered in Waking Life, Linklater effectively creates a graphic novel come to life, the actors performing their scenes then the film footage painstakingly animated, requiring up to 500 hours to create just one minute of screen-time.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder,
A Scanner Darkly follows an undercover
drug agent who becomes a little too acquainted with the drug he’s meant to be policing. So begins his hallucinogenic journey, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. The cops, his supposed friends, and even the walls are closing in on him.
Says Linklater, “In ‘77 when the book came out, it was seen as conspiracy, paranoia.
This is a science fiction movie but we all looked around and said, ‘We are living in science fiction right now.’”
13 (Tzameti) (France)
Friday 11th August 5pm
“Shot like the grunge version of a ‘50s noir thriller from France (or Soviet Georgia), the black-and-white 13 (Tzameti) turns into a shocker of Tarantino proportions in protracted sequences of explosive violence that leaves viewers quaking.” - Variety
Marking the feature debut of its young filmmaker, Géla Babluani (son of well-known Georgian director Temur Babluani), 13 (Tzameti) is the morality tale of a man, Sébastien, embroiled in a grim quest after following instructions intended for someone else. What begins as a lark soon sees Sébastien teetering on the very brink of human decency. There is no turning back, however, and he finds himself having to rely on his only tools for survival: His luck and his wits.
“May instantly rise to the rank of cult classic… a satisfying adventure, building slowly, drawing us in, and ending with a white-knuckle ride into the surreal.” - Sundance Film Festival
The Book of Revelation (Australia)
Friday 11th August 9pm
Part mystery, part thriller, erotic and dream-like, this uncompromising work from filmmaker Ana Kokkinos is, in the director’s own words, “not easily categorised and defined”.
A dancer at the peak of his powers is mysteriously abducted by three women, abused then thrown back into the world 12 days later. A broken spirit, he then struggles to renegotiate his place in his former life in light of the unimaginable circumstances he’s just gone through.
Starring Tom Long (in a revealing performance), Greta Scacchi and Colin Friels, The Book of Revelation is based on a novel by British author Rupert Thomson, which was described by The New York Times Book Review as “a premise made terrifyingly real by a hugely talented writer.”
One thing is for sure, it’s guaranteed to divide audiences. As for Ana Kokkinos’ interest, she says, “The story fascinated me because of the reversal at the heart of it. Man as victim, women as perpetrators. The simple reversal invites us to look at the situation through new eyes.”
Sheitan (France)
Sunday 13th August 7:15pm
“A foxy young temptress, a trio of horny guys, a creepy rural manse and a slightly demonic caretaker are the classic building blocks that get reassembled French-style in Sheitan.” - Variety
Combining anarchic, knockabout comedy with nerve-shredding suspense, jet-black humour and gut-wrenchingly bloody horror, Sheitan is not for the faint at heart.
In a Paris nightclub on Christmas eve, a group of hot-blooded young men meet a couple of gorgeous girls who invite them to spend the weekend at a remote country holiday house. Of course, the fellows accept this generous offer but they are unprepared for what greets them - some menacing caretakers and a series of diabolical circumstances that ensue as Christmas day rapidly approaches.
Kim Chapiron, who marks his feature film directing debut with Sheitan, is a member of Kourtrajmé, a loose collective of vibrant, cutting-edge French filmmakers championed by Vincent Cassel, who also produces the film and stars in the sinister role of the caretaker.
The Aura (Argentina)
Sunday 13th August 9:15pm
“Bielinsky is a meticulous craftsman. Every moment has a payoff… A meticulously conceived and executed heist pic that is equally concerned with character.” - Hollywood Reporter
An introverted taxidermist who fantasises about pulling off the perfect crime finds his dreams unexpectedly a reality while hunting deer in Argentina’s Patagonian forest. In order to save his skin, he must turn his highly analytical mind to outwitting everyone, including his accomplices.
The jigsaw puzzle-like nature of The Aura is reminiscent of filmmaker Fabian Bielinsky’s first feature, Nine Queens. Complex and shrewd with palpable tension maintained throughout, this film satisfies on all filmic fronts - character, cinematography and plot. The aura of the title refers to the ‘frozen’ instance the taxidermist experiences before an epileptic attack; just one of the intertwining metaphors and themes that give this film a rewarding sense of wholeness.