2007 Film Festival, Day 9
There were some complications on Saturday and Sunday because Jenni thought I hadn't bought tickets for her and Lee for the films within the block of lost tickets. This wasn't as big a deal for some things like Jesus Camp, because my tickets to the Embassy were much better than what they'd managed to get, so they just sold them on; but in the Paramount (for Tekkonkinkrete), their seats were in the comfy area, so I ended up having to explain the whole "lost ticket pass" thing to slightly dubious Japanese couple... the fact that I had only five minutes to get there from my previous film further complicated the situation, but at least I was fairly sure that I wasn't depriving the couple of a better seat, even if the other person in the row was a chap I eventually decided to call "Mr Wiggles". But I'm getting ahead of myself.
* * *
Animation for Kids was the usual mix -- mostly good, with one or two duff ones thrown in. And even the duff ones were pretty, for the most part. I think that it's a lot funnier to draw your own morals from them -- for example, the moral of "At Home WIth Mother Hen" is apparently that if you don't eat your dinner and play outside, your mother will go and have a baby, while you're forced to eat out of the rubbish bin. I think that's an important lesson for children to learn.
There was even a short that mentioned Island Bay -- Fatcat & Fishface's "The Wreck of the Diddley", all about pirates singing a storm where they thought they'd die-diddly-die. I must see if it's online anywhere, so I could show Mum.
"Toy Artist: Papa & Baby" was good, as was "Jaime Lo, Small and Shy"; I liked "The Night Watchman", and "Caffinches", and "Moutons" was good, if weird (though a bit upsetting if you thought the fisherman was going to eat the sheep that the black sheep helped him catch). On the other hand, "Tzaritza" didn't do anything for me, and while the animation in "A Mouse's Tale" was good, the story was terrible -- especially the end, where the narrator actually says "Then he realised the Mother Knows Best", even though there's nothing that we were shown that supports that. Bah.
* * *
Then it was the first of the movies that I had to get a lost ticket pass to with Jenni -- My Best Friend. And what a farce that was -- the pass said that the seats were in row "M"... but as it turns out, the people who wrote the pass were reading the info screen wrong, and the "M" that they had seen was for Film Society "M"ember. So... it was lucky I went in early, so that I was able to get the correct seats, in row "L", before the movie started. One startling thing -- I went up to one of the festival organizers (who I'd never spoken to before), and she said, "Oh yes, you're the one who goes to everything." Is that a good kind of fame? :)
(I'm that Jenni hadn't bought tickets for this film -- I feel really bad for the amount of hassle Jenni and Lee (and C) have had to go through because I didn't notice the missing tickets earlier.)
Anyway, the movie itself was fun, as I'd hoped. It starts with the main character attending a funeral... but only to talk to the widow about a piece of antique furniture that the deceased was going to sell him. He then goes to a dinner with associates, and jokes that there were only seven at the funeral, including the widow; but then one of the others at the table rather unkindly says that there won't be anyone at his. This leads to a bet, where the main character declares that he'll produce a best friend in a week's time.
Complications, as they say, ensue.
This was a fairly simple French farce, but fun. I liked the portrayal of the main character -- the insistence that there is some formula or trick to being sociable; his painful attempts to learn it, and his eventual redemption on national television (though not in front of the camera) were well worth it to me.
I'd happily watch this again.
* * *
I then hurried off to the Paramount to sort out my other lost ticket passes, and arrived back with about ten minutes to spare... at which point I discovered that the reason that they had given us seats in the "A" row is because they were looking at an "A"dult ticket; after some tense moments, we eventually got shunted into the house seats.
I'm glad that C & I got to see This Is New Zealand, which consisted of three parts -- a short from 1969 encouraging Australians to come and visit NZ (entitled "C'mon to New Zealand!", a documentary from 1970 about New Zealand's presence at big overseas trade fair, and the movie that was shown (using three projectors; it had been remastered to one for this showing) in the NZ pavilion.
Someone commented to the filmmaker (who was there) that it was all very white, and very male. He agreed, but said that you had to remember that it was a product of when and where it was made... and that at that time, New Zealand society was predominantly Muslim, so most women were kept in purdah... This got a good laugh from the audience.
These films really were from their time -- not just in terms of fashion, or how "modern city" seemed to mean "show us knocking down old buildings, and putting up new, 'fashionable' ones", or even how the tourism short for the Aussies showed that yes, we have nightclubs and stripshows. What was really noticeable was that not everything was polished and on-message: plenty of people weren't smiling as if they were having the most awesome time in their lives, glasses had lipstick marks and smudges, and not everyone was fit and beautiful.
It was an interesting set of films, and an interesting talk afterwards.
* * *
Just so you don't don't think that my dealings with the Festival staff are an endless litany of woe, not only did the Paramount sort me out properly, they also placed Jenni and I together, so that we could comment to each other about Maggie Gyllenhaal's general lack of, erhm, "feminine support".
(Is "feminine support" a real euphemism for bras? If not, it should be.)
Anyway, SherryBaby was a movie about a woman coming out of prison, and wanting to reconnect to her daughter (who was a baby when she went in). She is, unfortunately, quite selfish, and craves the spotlight -- not just from her daughter, but her whole family. She had been put away for stealing to support a drug habit, and she is still struggling to stay clean; but she's quite prepared to use sex to get what she wants, as well as just for fun. We definitely get hints that something might have been very wrong in her home growing up; but she also shows that she's able to grow.
Jenni made the interesting observation that broken women are generally shown as having something horrible in their upbringing (such as rape, or parental abuse), whereas men are more often allowed to be intrinsically broken (though there are exceptions to this, such as Mysterious Skin). This probably says a lot about the myths that society tells itself about men and women, both their relative agency, and their "innate purity" (for want of a better term).
I liked this movie, but I don't think I need to see it again any time soon.
* * *
I was fully prepared to deal with the uncomfortable seat that I booked for the next movie... and then my seat basically lurched over when I sat in it, with the screws clearly pulled out of the floorboards. I felt very sheepish bothering an usher about it, given all the bother I'd been to the staff that day, but I didn't think I could comfortably balance the whole movie -- and so I got to see this movie from the comfort of the house seats as well. Yay!
Paprika is definitely the best anime I've seen this Festival. I liked Tokyo Godfathers (by the same guys) enough to buy it last year, and I had no problem with following what was happening... except when I wasn't supposed to. (There's a point where I'm reading the subtitles, and thinking, "What the heck? 'The pillow of the tamarin is rigid with taco sauce'?'" (or something similar). And then it's like -- oh, I see, he's bonkers. That's fine.
The basic plot? Psychotherapists have developed a machine to enter people's dreams, to help them deal with their problems. Someone has stolen some of the equipment, and started to use it for their own nefarious ends.
I really liked this movie, and fully plan to buy a copy.
* * *
Animation for Kids was the usual mix -- mostly good, with one or two duff ones thrown in. And even the duff ones were pretty, for the most part. I think that it's a lot funnier to draw your own morals from them -- for example, the moral of "At Home WIth Mother Hen" is apparently that if you don't eat your dinner and play outside, your mother will go and have a baby, while you're forced to eat out of the rubbish bin. I think that's an important lesson for children to learn.
There was even a short that mentioned Island Bay -- Fatcat & Fishface's "The Wreck of the Diddley", all about pirates singing a storm where they thought they'd die-diddly-die. I must see if it's online anywhere, so I could show Mum.
"Toy Artist: Papa & Baby" was good, as was "Jaime Lo, Small and Shy"; I liked "The Night Watchman", and "Caffinches", and "Moutons" was good, if weird (though a bit upsetting if you thought the fisherman was going to eat the sheep that the black sheep helped him catch). On the other hand, "Tzaritza" didn't do anything for me, and while the animation in "A Mouse's Tale" was good, the story was terrible -- especially the end, where the narrator actually says "Then he realised the Mother Knows Best", even though there's nothing that we were shown that supports that. Bah.
* * *
Then it was the first of the movies that I had to get a lost ticket pass to with Jenni -- My Best Friend. And what a farce that was -- the pass said that the seats were in row "M"... but as it turns out, the people who wrote the pass were reading the info screen wrong, and the "M" that they had seen was for Film Society "M"ember. So... it was lucky I went in early, so that I was able to get the correct seats, in row "L", before the movie started. One startling thing -- I went up to one of the festival organizers (who I'd never spoken to before), and she said, "Oh yes, you're the one who goes to everything." Is that a good kind of fame? :)
(I'm that Jenni hadn't bought tickets for this film -- I feel really bad for the amount of hassle Jenni and Lee (and C) have had to go through because I didn't notice the missing tickets earlier.)
Anyway, the movie itself was fun, as I'd hoped. It starts with the main character attending a funeral... but only to talk to the widow about a piece of antique furniture that the deceased was going to sell him. He then goes to a dinner with associates, and jokes that there were only seven at the funeral, including the widow; but then one of the others at the table rather unkindly says that there won't be anyone at his. This leads to a bet, where the main character declares that he'll produce a best friend in a week's time.
Complications, as they say, ensue.
This was a fairly simple French farce, but fun. I liked the portrayal of the main character -- the insistence that there is some formula or trick to being sociable; his painful attempts to learn it, and his eventual redemption on national television (though not in front of the camera) were well worth it to me.
I'd happily watch this again.
* * *
I then hurried off to the Paramount to sort out my other lost ticket passes, and arrived back with about ten minutes to spare... at which point I discovered that the reason that they had given us seats in the "A" row is because they were looking at an "A"dult ticket; after some tense moments, we eventually got shunted into the house seats.
I'm glad that C & I got to see This Is New Zealand, which consisted of three parts -- a short from 1969 encouraging Australians to come and visit NZ (entitled "C'mon to New Zealand!", a documentary from 1970 about New Zealand's presence at big overseas trade fair, and the movie that was shown (using three projectors; it had been remastered to one for this showing) in the NZ pavilion.
Someone commented to the filmmaker (who was there) that it was all very white, and very male. He agreed, but said that you had to remember that it was a product of when and where it was made... and that at that time, New Zealand society was predominantly Muslim, so most women were kept in purdah... This got a good laugh from the audience.
These films really were from their time -- not just in terms of fashion, or how "modern city" seemed to mean "show us knocking down old buildings, and putting up new, 'fashionable' ones", or even how the tourism short for the Aussies showed that yes, we have nightclubs and stripshows. What was really noticeable was that not everything was polished and on-message: plenty of people weren't smiling as if they were having the most awesome time in their lives, glasses had lipstick marks and smudges, and not everyone was fit and beautiful.
It was an interesting set of films, and an interesting talk afterwards.
* * *
Just so you don't don't think that my dealings with the Festival staff are an endless litany of woe, not only did the Paramount sort me out properly, they also placed Jenni and I together, so that we could comment to each other about Maggie Gyllenhaal's general lack of, erhm, "feminine support".
(Is "feminine support" a real euphemism for bras? If not, it should be.)
Anyway, SherryBaby was a movie about a woman coming out of prison, and wanting to reconnect to her daughter (who was a baby when she went in). She is, unfortunately, quite selfish, and craves the spotlight -- not just from her daughter, but her whole family. She had been put away for stealing to support a drug habit, and she is still struggling to stay clean; but she's quite prepared to use sex to get what she wants, as well as just for fun. We definitely get hints that something might have been very wrong in her home growing up; but she also shows that she's able to grow.
Jenni made the interesting observation that broken women are generally shown as having something horrible in their upbringing (such as rape, or parental abuse), whereas men are more often allowed to be intrinsically broken (though there are exceptions to this, such as Mysterious Skin). This probably says a lot about the myths that society tells itself about men and women, both their relative agency, and their "innate purity" (for want of a better term).
I liked this movie, but I don't think I need to see it again any time soon.
* * *
I was fully prepared to deal with the uncomfortable seat that I booked for the next movie... and then my seat basically lurched over when I sat in it, with the screws clearly pulled out of the floorboards. I felt very sheepish bothering an usher about it, given all the bother I'd been to the staff that day, but I didn't think I could comfortably balance the whole movie -- and so I got to see this movie from the comfort of the house seats as well. Yay!
Paprika is definitely the best anime I've seen this Festival. I liked Tokyo Godfathers (by the same guys) enough to buy it last year, and I had no problem with following what was happening... except when I wasn't supposed to. (There's a point where I'm reading the subtitles, and thinking, "What the heck? 'The pillow of the tamarin is rigid with taco sauce'?'" (or something similar). And then it's like -- oh, I see, he's bonkers. That's fine.
The basic plot? Psychotherapists have developed a machine to enter people's dreams, to help them deal with their problems. Someone has stolen some of the equipment, and started to use it for their own nefarious ends.
I really liked this movie, and fully plan to buy a copy.