Ah, Melbourne! Our home away from home. Once again we visited the southern state to discover a new slate of Australian and international films and add to our growing list of 2017 screenings.
We covered a whopping total of 52 films, including some seen at Sydney Film Festival, meaning that sleep was an optional extra in the month of August. We got to see first runs of MIFF Premiere Fund films like The Butterfly Tree, Jungle, and Three Summers, and more Hong Sang-soo than you can poke a stick at.
Speaking of which, our focus on Asian cinema yielded On the Beach at Night Alone, Claire’s Camera, In This Corner of the World, Oh Lucy!, Japanese Girls Never Die, Ancien and the Magic Tablet, Radiance, Hello Goodbye, Godspeed, and Tokyo Idols in addition to Blade of the Immortal, A Quiet Dream and Pop Aye that we saw in Sydney.
Links to the full reviews have been provided where available, but check out our full coverage of the festival at our 2017 Melbourne International Film Festival portal. Our tweeting throughout the Festival has also been saved on Storify. That includes this mini bit of virality about the Discover Victoria ads. Also check out our interview with Festival Artistic Director Michelle Carey.
Got a differing opinion? Sound off in the comments below.
★★★★½ – Super Highly Recommended
WONDERSTRUCK: A masterclass in visual storytelling, a love letter to cinema, and other hyperbolic catchphrases apply to Todd Haynes’ stunning adaptation of Brian Selznick’s illustrated novel. It’s rare that an adaptation can match the visual and emotional beauty of the source material, and with WONDERSTRUCK we have a rare beast that does both. Full Review >>
BPM: Focusing on the AIDS protest movements in Paris in the early 1990s, specifically Act Up Paris, this is one of those rare films that never feels quite long enough. A powerful and intimate collective experience that works as a study of activism and a slice of life story.
A FANTASTIC WOMAN: The basic premise, that a waitress/singer is struggling to recover from the death of her boyfriend, comes with the added dramatic powerhouse of tackling grief and prejudice in one of the most accomplished turns in a serious drama film. Fantastic performances. Fantastic script. Fantastic.
ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE: Hong Sang-soo delivers something that is part apology and part confessional in a glorious showcase for Kim Min-hee, once again turning the lens back on his private life for one of his most raw films to date.
BRIGSBY BEAR: A charming and disarmingly funny film about a person who is obsessed with a TV show made for an audience of one. This film, on the other hand, should appeal to just about everyone. The SNL and Lonely Island crew deliver a story about a fish-out-of-water (or bear-out-of-bunker if you prefer). It’s the kind of film that will leave you with a big sloppy grin on your face, and an overwhelming urge to do something positive. Full Review >>
THE SQUARE: “If you put something in a museum, does it make it art?” Ruben Östlund’s film is sharp, satirical, and hyper aware of itself. A true gem and worth the accolades. Some may struggle with the back half of the film, where the narrative takes a darker and more somber turn. The ‘ape’ scene is both hilarious and uncomfortable, which is probably the best description of the film in its totality.
★★★★ – Highly Recommended
ALI’S WEDDING: Original, hilarious and flat-out charming, Jeffrey’s Walker’s takes the conventions of a genre and uses them to hold up a mirror to a nation. It might have the trappings of a conventional comedy, but mocks them as much as uses them.If this isn’t huge at the local box office, there’s no justice. Full Review >>
IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD: A war film where the conflict is kept in the background, allowing a moving microscopic view of how it impacts people on the fringes. An aesthetically beautiful film, one that uses lead character Suzu’s artist eye to give an impressionistic view of events. Comparable to Studio Ghibli’s best. Full Review >>
THE GO-BETWEENS: RIGHT HERE: A gloriously shot summary of a troubled band with a sound like few others, with a lens that remains both objective and disarmingly intimate. The band may not quite have achieved the stardom they may have aimed for, but Kriv Stenders film gives them the legacy they deserve. Full Review >>
TRAGEDY GIRLS: A sharp contemporary satire on both the horror genre and the Instagram generation. As bloody as it is bloody marvelous. Would make an interesting companion piece to Ingrid Goes West (see below).
ON BODY AND SOUL: A beautiful and deeply contemplative study on the meaning of connection, and those two things that are up there in the title. Alexandra Borbély’s amazingly restrained performance plays off against the visible anguish of Géza Morcsányi. Such a powerful ending, a a deserved winner of this year’s Official Competition.
A QUIET DREAM: There’s echoes of Hong Sang-soo’s distinctive style in here, but this eclectic group of characters hold each other down, and prop each other up. Some may find this meandering, but think of it instead of a beautiful and lyrical slice of a floating life.
HAPPY END: It’s a Michael Haneke film, so don’t trust the title. Drawing on references to the filmmaker’s career to date, the Austrian director tackles the European refugee crisis in an inimitable fashion. This may not be Haneke’s most shocking, or even his most satirical to date, but it’s still a showcase of a master still working at the top of his game after four decades. Full Review >>
THE WOUND: A raw exploration of masculinity, closeted homosexuality in a tribal community, and initiation, John Trengove feature debut is confident enough to explore the small observational details and allow the subtext to speak for itself. The silent tension builds to a gut-punch of a finale.
THE UNTAMED: An intense, erotic, unnerving and wholly enveloping study about escaping cycles of violence and abuse glimpsed through the prism of sci-fi/horror. You may never look at tentacles in the same way again.
LIBERATION DAY: Ex-Yugoslavian cult band Laibach made headlines when they were chosen to play at North Korean anniversary concert. A terrific and bizarrely optimistic look behind the curtain of North Korea, where even the act of plugging in a microphone is a bureaucratic ordeal.
SAMI BLOOD: Set in Sweden during the 1930s, where a young Sami girl (that is, one of the indigenous Finno-Ugric people) experiences massive prejudice. A deeply moving character study on a period of history and an entire people that we knew nothing about. Amazing performance from the young Lene Cecilia Sparrok.
★★★½ to ★★★¾ – Better Than Average Bear
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO: Raoul Peck reworks James Baldwin’s unfinished book into a lightning branded cry about race in America. This might have had more of an academic focus that we were prepared for, especially coupled with Samuel L. Jackson’s measured narration.
BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL: For Takeshi Miike’s 100th film, the body count might just be the highest as well. While it gets a little episodic in the middle, it builds to a suitably bloody conclusion. Full Review >>
OH LUCY: Atsuko Hirayanagi extends her own short film in this honest but pleasant exploration of isolation and loneliness, filtered through a fish-out-of-water narrative and a terrific cast. Full Review >>
CLAIRE”S CAMERA: While this may not be Hong Sang-soo’s most original work, it has so many of the elements of his trademark best. After all, Isabelle Huppert and Kim Min-hee having a chat in the south of France can only be a good thing. Full Review >>
ANCIEN AND THE MAGIC TABLET (AKA NAPPING PRINCESS): An engagingly told youth fantasy that isn’t short on imagination, but nor is it short on tangling narrative threads either. may lose a few audience members, pushing a tonal imbalance for the sake of having all the toys out on the carpet. Full Review >>
RADIANCE: Naomi Kawase’s intimate narrative style questions what it means to experience a story and feel connection in her latest award-winning feature. Full Review >>
JAPANESE GIRLS NEVER DIE: Daigo Matsui’s much-needed take-down of Japanese gender structures in a pop-art explosion of energy that is equal parts satirical and chaotic. Full Review >>
HELLO GOODBYE: Pleasantly told and compelling tale of schoolgirl bullying, lost love and generational divides. A straightforward story that nevertheless attracts attention.
ALL FOR ONE: An exploration of Australia’s international cycling team, and the pains (literal and figurative) they went through to achieve their dreams. Who knew cycling was such an intense contact sport?
DAPHNE: The foul-mouthed and misanthropic titular character might be based on someone debut director Peter Mackie Burns knew, but there’s a universality to its themes. Emily Beecham is magnificent in the titular lead.
PATTI CAKE$: It’s got a good heart and a fun soundtrack, even if this story follows the narrative rules rather than breaking them. A hell of a performance by Australia’s Danielle Macdonald as the titular wannabe rapper, and an excellent supporting cast. It’s like Rocky for the New Jersey hip hop scene.
THAT’S NOT ME: Heartfelt and quirky Aussie comedy about finding your place in the world, with some great inside industry references for film fans and aspiring stars alike. Yet the film works best as a character study, and a showcase for star and co-writer Alice Foulcher’s talents. Full Review >>
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER: At times painfully good black comedy, and at others it is just painful. Colin Farrell is excellent, but this overstays its welcome by a few beats.
INGRID GOES WEST: The age of social media has spawned many essays on, spanning the emoji spectrum from 💕 to 🍆. Matt Spicer’s debut feature, INGRID GOES WEST, gets to the ❤ of how the platforms have become ubiquitous part of our culture. Finding the right tonal balance between parody and drama, Olsen is pitch-perfect as the fairweather #Instafamous friend while Aubrey Plaza embraces her starring vehicle by kicked her Wednesday Adams routine to the curb. #iamingrid #oneworld #blessed♥ #filmlife📽 Full Review >>>
OTHERLIFE: An Australian sci-fi film with a strong sense of visual style. An engaging narrative with an intriguing concept, albeit one that feels more than a little indebted to other high-concept classics. The cast is great, including Arrow’s Jessica De Gouw, and there’s an overall sense of energy. Worth a watch.
RUMBLE: THE INDIANS THAT ROCKED THE WORLD: Interesting examination of forgotten contribution of Native America to the music industry. Gets some pretty big names as talking heads. Drifts away from thesis occasionally, but great music choices and film grabs.
MY HAPPY FAMILY: Coming-of-age stories don’t need to be about teen angst, as 52-year-old Manana’s seemingly sudden design to burst free of her family indicates. Sudden to the audience at least, but carefully planned behind the scenes. Manana’s fierce determination to keep her reasoning secret reveals more about her family and friends and their attitudes towards “a woman’s place” than it does about the lead.
PACMEN: Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win, at least not with Ben Carsons in the running! Australian documentarian Luke Walker goes inside the world of Super-PACs and the millions spent to raise his ranks in the polls. It’s fascinating to watch people fall into the cult of personality, and the conscious manipulation of emotions behind the scenes.
THE PUBLIC IMAGE IS ROTTEN: John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) followed his tenure in the Sex Pistols with the alternative sound of Public Image Ltd. Peppered with tons of PiL clips and tracks from various line-ups and eras, it’s the story of an irrepressible personality who will not go away. A solid overview of an era.
★★★ – Worth A Look
JUNGLE: Director Greg McLean explores body horror and beautiful landscapes in equal measure in the true story of survival in the titular jungle. Full Review >>
LEMON: “I feel that we have a lot to offer each other socially.” An odd performance piece about a dysfunctional man (Brett Gelman) inside a dysfunctional family watching his life fall apart. It’s either so real it’s uncomfortable, or uncomfortable to the point of reality. Gelman and Janicza Bravo reportedly based it on their real life friends and family. Yeesh.
GODSPEED: Na-Da and a nice dramatic turn for Michael Hui in an interesting spin on the buddy crime genre. A cab journey across country gets dark indeed, in an often over-complicated series of events that overlap and overburden a slender story. Beautiful photography of Taiwanese landscapes and an ultimately satisfying conclusion.
TOKYO IDOLS: An eye-opening and often disturbing introduction to the world of idols in Japan, and the fans that follow them. So much more could be said about the implications of this culture, and what it says about its (predominantly male) audience.
POP AYE: A gently paced story that reminds us you can never go back home, but you can buy an elephant in a shady back alley deal that gets you close enough to it. Several missed opportunities in a narrative that wanders off and gets a little lost. Internet won’t tell us what the animal conditions were like, so we’ll assume everyone is OK.
BEATRIZ AT DINNER: Once we suspend disbelief that people see Salma Hayek as frumpy, there’s a beating heart of angry justice at the centre of this film. It doesn’t come to a satisfying ending, and loses its own narrative thread at several points, but maybe there is no satisfactory ending to be had here. This is what Madame would have been like if Madame had been better. Death to capitalist pigs!
PECKING ORDER: Largely billed as the ‘Best in Show for the chicken set,’ this will definitely be bizarre viewing to outsiders to the intimate world of the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club. Who knew there was so much infighting in the realm of bird breeding? Straightforwardly told, or at least as straightforward as this gets.
SPOOKERS: A fun and often touching look at life inside a ‘haunted house’ and the people who work there, including the need for community and how it helps people through their own issues. Yet it frequently loses direction and stretches the single location over too much film.
WINNIE: A powerful and important woman gets a fairly straightforward documentary, one that comes at us with some assumed knowledge. It doesn’t really get into fine details on some topics, nor does it give us a sense of the totality of Apartheid, the international response, and the importance of the Mandelas. That said, it works well as a summary.
★★½ – Wait For the DVD/Blu-ray
AUSTRALIA DAY: An ambitious attempt at a hyperlinked film in the style of Crash, and one that starts with a literal car crash. Kriv Stenders film often muddles its own powerful message in a sea of story and running. So much running. Ultimately there is just too much story packed into a small space, a package that doesn’t allow for depth or discussion, which is a shame given how important the issues explored are. Full Review >>
THE BUTTERFLY TREE: A coming-of-age film about loss mixes magical realism with fetishisation as it takes some odd thematic turns before pitching the entire kitchen sink of dramatic tropes at the audience. Full Review >>
THREE SUMMERS: Although Ben Elton’s film speaks regularly about the future, and its issue are very much about the present, its comedy is very much stuck in the past. Full Review >>
THE PARTY: A who’s who of British actors stars in a mercifully brief film that feels far too stagey, and featuring characters who never get beyond their affectations. The ending is telegraphed from a mile off. Or several kilometers for those of us on the metric system. Gunther (played by Bruno Ganz) is a classic though, and should probably appear in every film from this point forward.
PHANTOM BOY: An odd inclusion, especially given that it has been on the festival circuit for almost two years, and was released theatrically in France back in October 2015. The main issue this animated film faces it that it sits somewhere between a simple kids morality tale and a mean-spirited pulp crime tribute. A well-intentioned but unfortunately unrewarding adventure.
★★ – Rental for Sure
24 FRAMES: The last film of the late, great Abbas Kiarostami is like an art installation piece designed to test endurance and patience. Every numbered frame just became a countdown that was one step closer to the blessed end.
SONG TO SONG: There are moments of beauty in this film, but most of them are obscured by the painfully beautiful people pining away in the foreground. When one finds oneself contemplating the relative merits of the architecture, it probably means one is bored.
