Ah! Sydney Film Festival! Bringer of rain, achey backs, sniffly noses, late nights, early mornings, long lines, and outspoken audiences. In other words: my favourite event of the calendar.
Here’s my annual round-up of all the films I saw – almost 50 of them – with a bit of a difference from previous years. It’s now visual! #WordpressPro
For the record, my top picks are: PAIN & GLORY, PARASITE, MONOS, and THE THIRD WIFE.
Links to the full reviews have been provided where available, but check out our full coverage of the festival at our 2018 Sydney Film Festival portal. Our tweeting throughout the Festival has also been collected as a thread. Got a differing opinion? Sound off in the comments below.
Features
PAIN & GLORY (★★★★★): A transportive feature from Almodóvar: a magical and personal film, with liberal doses of comedy and pathos, shades of Fellini, and an idiosyncratic charm that will leave a smile lingering on your face. Not that I’m trying to tell you how to feel. Also: Banderas is at his peak here, in an award-winning performance. Read full review 
THE THIRD WIFE (★★★★½): Ash Mayfair’s controversial feature is a hauntingly shot and moody affair that envelops the viewer from start to finish, commenting on patriarchal structure of today through the lens of 19th century Vietnam. Read Full review 
MONOS (★★★★½): A completely immersive and harrowing experience. This is not one you watch so much as survive. Now I’m cold and west and waiting instructions. May we all think fondly of Shakira the Milk Cow as we journey through this life together. 
PARASITE (★★★★½): Bong Joon-ho draws on his considerable talents to explore the divide between rich and poor. Or as Bong put it at SFF: “It’s a family movie. It’s an R-rated family movie.” One of those films that I’ll be digesting for a while. I certainly plan to see it again. But you know what they say about plans… 
OUR TIME (★★★★): There is a lot to digest in this film. Is it excessively long? Yes. But it also deals with emotions and aspects of a relationship rarely seen on screen. Beautifully shot and lyrically told, Carols Reygadas continues to solidify his reputation. 
CLEAN UP (★★★★): Director Kwon Man-ki’s debut feature is a moving and austere film, and it treads a delicate line in exploring guilt, redemption, and culpability. Read full review. 
SO LONG, MY SON (★★★★): A sprawling multigenerational story about decades of social and economic change in China told through the sometimes-tragic lives of a group of friends. It’s powerful, but as the title would imply, it’s long. Read full review. 
MANTA RAY (★★★★): A hypnotic film that feels at times like a documentary (think: Kazuhiro Sôda) blended with existentialist wandering (think: good Malick). One of those films that will leave you with much to ponder. Read full review. 
THE DEAD DON’T DIE (★★★★): A Jim Jarmusch film that effortlessly and instantly slides its way into the cult classics lists with its deadpan sense of humour, riffs on iconic zombie flicks, and meta-textual conversations with the audience. Read full review. 
DARK PLACE (★★★★): Australia’s first Indigenous horror anthology is a remarkable collection of perspectives that not only gets to the heart of (what Sarah Maddison would call) the “colonial fantasy,” but are ripping good yarns too. Read full review. 
HIGH LIFE (★★★★): Claire Denis’ film is equal parts entrancing and baffling, Pattinson is a strong lead of an excellent cast. Like the best sci-fi, it asks the big questions and doesn’t insult you with answers. You might even say it has a fluid narrative. *Cough* 
YESTERDAY (★★★½): The march of nostalgia porn continues its unrelenting journey into our hearts, minds, and wallets. But hey: it’s the Beatles by way of Danny Boyle, man. I can’t hide my love away. 
LADYWORLD (★★★½): Amanda Kramer’s delightfully insane take on Lord of the Flies. The young cast shines when as their sanity starts to disintegrate, and paradigms shift, although the disjointed back half may not be for all. 
HEARTS AND BONES (★★★½): A tender exploration of trauma and grief, it’s backed by some great performances, the debut narrative feature of this Australian filmmaker may not be the film you expected. 
JUDY AND PUNCH (★★★½): An inky black absurdist comedy with some properly dark turns, it might not always been consistent but has a hell of a lot of fun getting there. Read full review. 
JESUS (★★★½): Debut director Hiroshi Okuyama won the €50,000 Kutxabank New Directors Award at the 66th San Sebastian Film Festival last year and it’s not hard to see why. Fun fact: a more literal translation of I Hate Jesus, is an offbeat dramedy that views faith through the contemporary lens of a small child. Read full review. 
HER SMELL(★★★½): A series of long takes and a smoke-filled attention to detail gives this an immediacy rarely seen. The soundscape is all the more powerful when you notice its absence. The ending doesn’t quite stick the landing, but there’s a great set of performances at the core. 
I AM MOTHER (★★★½): Gorgeous to look at. The production design on this thing is amazing.A superior first half doesn’t quite pay off in the back, but it’s one of the more impressive local sci-fi films I’ve seen in quite some time. 
MY NUDITY MEANS NOTHING (★★★½): Had assumed that this would be a bit of navel gazer, but while there’s elements of that, there’s a really interesting mixed narrative (part doco/part something else entirely) that really gets to the heart of the way we think and feel about our bodies (especially as we get older). 
OFFICIAL SECRETS (★★★½): About a decade or so overdue, but is a smart political thriller that works best when it concentrates on journalistic process and finer legal points. Other bits tend towards melodrama. Nevertheless, it’s becoming increasingly relevant again. 
BEST OF DORIEN B (★★★½): A heartfelt dose of reality that makes the most of the wonderful Kim Snauwaert in the titular role. 
GOD EXISTS AND HER NAME IS PETRUNYA (★★★½): Lessons learned: if you’re ever in Macedonia, leave the crosses to the naked men. 
DIRTY GOD (★★★½): A quietly compelling character study about a young woman dealing with trauma and scarring. Vicky Knight is remarkable, and the photography of Ruben Impens is slick. 
THE WIND (★★★): While it doesn’t always hit the right marks, this western-cum-psychological thriller is still fascinating to watch. A beautifully shot and haunting scored film, the leaps are occasionally jarring, but that’s kind of the point. It’s no Repulsion, but it’s still a distant relation. 
ANGELO (★★★): Impeccably shot and performed, this absurdist look at privilege and colonialism drifts a fair bit in the third act (marked with a giant 3). 
HERE COMES HELL (★★★): While not as sharp or as delicately crafted as something Anna Biller would make, for example, this recreation of a 1930s horror film by way of Sam Raimi is a hell of a lot of fun. Where else are you going to see one of the undead with a dinosaur for a hand. 
CHILDREN OF THE SEA (★★★): Some of the psychedelic animation was amazing, and totally did my head in. Which might explain why I had no idea what was going on half the time. It might also be this Festival Flu I’ve come down with. 
EMU RUNNER (★★★): A simple and effective story about a young girl’s coming of age. The principal cast clearly don’t have an acting background, but the film takes its own gentle pace to get to a satisfying conclusion. 
THE WEDDING GUEST (★★½): What starts as an intriguing premise with a whole lot of mystery fails to develop any real tone or tangible stakes. In the end, it plods along to a fairly predictable conclusion that still manages to muddle motivations.
Documentaries
MYTSIFY (★★★★): An intimate and floating portrait of an artist filled with the voices of friends and family that builds on Lowenstein’s previous work without retreading existing ground. Read full review. 
APOLLO 11 (★★★★): While the images may be familiar, the restoration of this large format footage is amazing: it could have been shot yesterday(ish). An important document and a good argument for why we need to preserve our heritage collections. 
THE FINAL QUARTER (★★★★): Pulled together entirely from archival footage, this look at the last few years of the career of Adam Goodes becomes a disturbing examination of not just how the media treats race, but the undercurrent of racism that is inherent in our nation’s structures. Will be interesting to compare this with Daniel Gordon and Stan Grant’s forthcoming The Australian Dream. 
AMAZING GRACE (★★★★): Was the first credits sequence at a Sydney Film Festival screening that turned into an audience participation revival moment. Testify! What an amazing archive. Aretha remains the queen. 
LEFTOVER WOMEN (★★★★): A fascinating doco, but every time the audience collectively laughed at something that seemed antiquated or alien in terms of attitudes to marriage and children, I couldn’t help but feel we recognised something in ourselves. 
MILES DAVIS: THE BIRTH OF COOL (★★★★): I’ll admit that the gap in my musical knowledge is jazz, so this doco provides a solid primer for a career and has done an amazing job by getting me to go and seek out more of his albums. 
TRIXIE MATTEL: MOVING PARTS (★★★½): A pretty good tour doco that anyone with imposter syndrome will relate to. At times it’s like a gentler version of Untucked. While the last 20 minutes or so starts to (wait for it) drag, fans and new friends will still have a ball. 
MINOR HISTORY (★★★½): This is why you should listen to your elders. You know this guy. Perhaps you’ve worked with him, or sat next to him on the bus. Azad Raza’s guy is his eccentric 90-year-old uncle, taking us through all the changes and things he’s seen in his life. 
UP THE MOUNTAIN (★★★½): A beautifully shot and lyrically told series of vignettes of village life, full of contrasts, colours, and shifting seasons. Sitting somewhere between documentary and drama, either way it uses an observational approach that envelops and lingers. Voting for this as the Chinese version of The Hills. 
THE HEART DANCES (★★★½): From the point of view of a process junkie, this really gets into the difficult landscape that a ballet production based on The Piano has to navigate. It’s beautifully shot, although I found the ballet director less than engaging in his somewhat arrogant approach to cultural sensitivities. 
ROLLING THUNDER REVUE (★★★½): Martin’s Scorsese’s second dip into Bob Dylan territory. Scorsese blends fact, fiction, and furphy in this concert film with a twist. Kudos for trying something different with the well-worn retrospective documentary/music archive, although I’m not entirely sure what the fabrications added. Perhaps it’s just more fuel to the fire of the legend of the Rolling Thunder Revue. As a casual fan of Dylan, the best thing about this are the mounds of archival footage showcasing life on the stage and on the road. 
LILI (★★★): A straightforward documentary about a family born in abundance of inherited sadness.
Shorts
LITTLE MISS SUMO (★★★★): Great storytelling and photography in a compact form. You feel every inch of this one. Believe it or not, female sumo wrestlers are still struggling for recognition in their native Japan. 
BLUE (★★★★): An experimental short that really burns a hole in your soul. A Thai short that I watched as part of Asia in Focus, the wordless vision of scene on fire is universal. 
HOW TO BE ALONE (★★★½): Impeccably shot and gorgeously staged thematic update on Repulsion that gets right into the heart of anxiety. Maika Monroe is excellent in the lead role. 
DOUG THE HUMAN (★★★½): Was treated to the world premiere of a film about (what else?) ‘Doug the Human’, a short film made by Australian director Gary Hamaguchi. Some fun sci-fi concepts and looking forward to what the team has in store next. 
SKIN (★): This short film, which resolves in ‘death by blackface,’ did not only attempt to “solve racism,” but cured us of loving cinema as well. For those who thought that Green Book was too subtle.
