Tag: 2015

Review: The Idealist (Scandinavian Film Festival 2016)

A taut journalistic procedural, shining a light on a troubling part of US-Danish relations.

In 1968, a US B-52 bomber carrying hydrogen bombs crashed at the Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. While the majority of the crew members ejected safely, the conventional weapons aboard exploded, causing the radioactive materials to leak and cause contamination. However, with the government claiming nothing was wrong with the area, hundreds of workers were sent in as the clean-up crew. THE IDEALIST (IDEALISTEN) picks up 18 years later, with radio journalist Poul Brink (Peter Plaugborg) uncovering some suspicious circumstances that connect to the accident.

Like the journalistic films that have come before it, including last year’s Oscar winning Spotlight or the classic All the President’s Men, THE IDEALIST is a hard-hitting investigatory drama that rarely lets up for the duration. Brink is the kind of journalist who is like a dog with a bone, and in the tradition of those earlier films, the issue becomes rapidly personal for him. The one-man Woodward and Bernstein soon faces veiled threats from government officials, as the procedural drama ticks off documents, interviews and survivor testimony. For what ultimately comes down to a war of words over redacted memos, it’s a taut thriller that is heavily accusatory of both the US and Denmark’s governments.

Despite dealing with a nuclear disaster, and frequently showing footage of bombs going off as interstitials, the film slowly built to its ultimate climax. Using a combination of original and archival footage, THE IDEALIST plays like a docudrama, except the vintage footage is used as punctuation to underline the drama. Constant threat created throughout, thanks to shadowy appearances of figures while Poul is jogging or at home with his wife and child, not to mention the notion that there is possibly an actual hydrogen bomb (or at least part of one) laying at the bottom of the ocean near Greenland. A droning and atmospheric score is provided by Jonas Struck, having previously done so for a Danish documentary The Newsroom: Off the Record (in that instance, following a tabloid newspaper), and this only adds to the dramatic realism of the piece. Plaugborg’s dogged performance holds the film together, although Søren Malling (Borgen, A Royal Affair) as the head of the victims’ movement gives a transformative turn that provides much of the film’s pathos.

We may not like to think that cover-ups and government conspiracies still occur, and Denmark is certainly not the first place one thinks of when we thin of secret US deals. While THE IDEALIST may not revolutionise the genre, it is an excellent example of it, and it reminds us to always be questioning of official lines if they don’t add up. Brink died suddenly of a heart attack in 2002, and we don’t have his thoughts on this film’s accuracy. Nevertheless, the film serves as a testament to his journalistic integrity, and is a lesson mass media everywhere could learn from.

THE IDEALIST is playing at the Scandinavian Film Festival 5 July – 3 Aug around Australia. Check scandinavianfilmfestival.com.au for times.

2015 | Denmark | DIR: Christina Rosendahl | WRITERS: Lars Andersen, Simon Pasternak | CAST: Peter Plaugborg, Søren Malling, Thomas Bo Larsen, Arly Jover, Jens Albinus | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Entertainment | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RATING: ★★★★

June 27, 2016
Review: Mustang

A beautiful and heartbreaking observation of repression and loss of innocence, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s debut feature has universal meaning.

“…Then everything turned to shit.” One of the most awarded films of the last year almost didn’t get made. When Deniz Gamze Ergüven announced to her female producer that she was pregnant, especially when the latter already struggling to finance the film, the producer left. Describing juggling filming duties during her pregnancy as “about as quintessentially female as you can get,” it’s an important anecdote, because it also speaks to the wider themes of MUSTANG, a film that points a razor sharp finger at the repression of women in rural Turkey, but one that also acknowledges global issues around women’s rights.

Following some perceived “scandalous” behaviour of playing on the beach with boys, five sisters (Günes Sensoy, Tugba Sunguroglu, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Elit Iscan and Ilayda Akdogan) are placed under virtual house arrest by their conservative uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) and their grandmother (Nihal Koldaş). As the youngest, Lale (Sensoy) comments in her omnipresent narration, the house became a “wife factory” that they rarely leave. The film chronicles the emotional and sexual coming of age of these five girls as they deal with this sudden loss of freedom, and the realities of their new lives slowly sink in.

The heavy topic and rapid loss of innocence that the film explores is balanced by the impeccable casting Ergüven has selected for her first feature. Very early in the film the conservative aspects of Turkey are contrasted with the otherwise carefree childhood the girls were experiencing, and it sets the tone for the rest of the film. The strength of MUSTANG, therefore, is in the building of its characters, an impressive feat considering the actors’ relative inexperience. In fact, all but one of the leads had no prior screen acting experience (save for 21-year-old Elit Iscan, in the beautifully tragic role of Ece), and its this realness that translates a rage-inducing tale of oppression to something more relatable. Told through the narrative lens of Lale, our incredulous response is not so different to hers, and the firebrand 13 year-old newcomer Sensoy, someone who is just as likely to lock her elders out of the house than submit in resignation like her two eldest sisters. It’s her enthusiasm that gives the film its brightest moments of levity, as she leads all five girls to briefly escape to a soccer match in town. By the same token, the dark moments of the film (dealing with molestation and abuse) are also glimpsed through Lale’s eyes, giving us one arm’s length of removal but adding to overall sense of innocence lost.

With the exception of a handful of scenes that take place outdoors, the majority of the film is a single-set environment. Thanks to David Chizallet and Ersin Gok’s photography, there’s a terrific use of light. Most scenes take place within shot of a window or some other light source, acknowledging the outside world while never allowing the girls a chance to get close to it. Later in the film, when Ece starts behaving “dangerously” in Lale’s words, a scene of Ece inviting a boy into a locked car to sleep with her is glimpsed from the outside in, so that even in the outside spaces there’s a notion of being trapped. Bad Seed and Dirty Three member Warren Ellis provides the atmospheric and César Award winning score, steering clear of manipulatively emotive music and giving the actors space to explore their characters on their own terms.

Far from being a Virgin Suicides for the Turkish set, MUSTANG carries a topical message while maintaining a compelling narrative, mostly thanks to the phenomenal cast. While it also offers a glimmer of hope for a better life, it’s a hope that comes with the preceding despair, shining a light on something that must be spotlit until tales like this one are no longer contemporary.

MUSTANG screened at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2016. From 23 June 2016, it plays in limited release in Australia from Madman Entertainment.

2015 | France, Turkey | DIR: Deniz Gamze Ergüven | WRITERS: Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Alice Winocour | CAST: Günes Sensoy, Doga Doğuşlu, Tuğba Sunguroğlu | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Entertainment | RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes | RATING: ★★★★½ (9/10)

June 24, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Viva

A soulful crowd-pleaser of a film that is equal parts music and social commentary.

The 20th century history of LGBT rights in Cuba has been one of systemic and institutional homophobia and bigotry. Between 1959 and 1980, gay men in particular are said to have suffered targeted discrimination from street sweeps to detention in labour camps, and any effeminate behaviour was targeted. VIVA is both a story set in the legacy of this machismo, and an affirmation of the modern Cuban scene.

Jesus (Héctor Medina) struggles to make ends meet as a hairdresser, but dreams of showcasing his fledgling talent in the local drag club run by Mama (Luis Alberto García). However, when his estranged ex-boxer father Angel (Jorge Perugorría) returns into his life, having not seen him since he was three, Jesus is confronted by old-school male bigotry, forced out of the night life while his rum-soaked father wallows in his own failed dreams.

In VIVA, writer Mark O’Halloran and director Paddy Breathnach (I Went Down) spends some time ticking off some of the tropes of the genre. Everyone takes advantage of Jesus; he is forced to turn tricks for money; and his father’s reasons for returning is telegraphed fairly early on in the piece. So too is the manner by which they reach their ultimate resolution. Regardless, the film is bolstered by strong central performances from Medina and Perugorría, alongside an understated strength in García’s Mama character. There’s a scene in the third act where Medina sincerely professes to his father his reasons for wanting to perform, and it sums up the plight of Cuba’s gay community for the last few decades. Cathal Watters ground-level photography of Cuba’s poorer districts adds to the reality of the film, yet there’s also some stunning vistas of what Angel refers to as a one of the most “beautiful slums” in the world. Featuring music by Stephen Rennicks (Room), VIVA is at its strongest and most emotional during the drag performances, where the stars give it their all. VIVA rises about its occasionally predictable genre leanings, and it’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

2015 | Ireland | DIR: Paddy Breathnach | WRITER: Mark O’Halloran | CAST: Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ricardo Pereira | DISTRIBUTOR: Transmission Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes | RATING: ★★★½ (7/10)

June 18, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Girl Asleep

Delving into territory dominated by Wes Anderson and Spike Jonze, director Rosemary Myers brings a touch of magical realism to Australian sensibilities, blending theatre and film effortlessly.

After debuting at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2015, where it was incubated under the Hive Fund program, GIRL ASLEEP is a film that should charm the pants off everybody who encounters it. Based on the play by Matthew Whittet, who adapts his own script here, we follow the socially awkward Greta Driscoll (Bethany Whitmore) as she reluctantly turns 15 and is forced to start leaving parts of her childhood behind. Myers marks her aesthetic choices early on with title drops emerging from people camouflaged to look like walls, and doors and posters that subtly change their wording in lieu of on-screen text. It’s no mere gimmick, as Myers and photographer Andrew Commis (The Rocket, TV’s The Slap) draw the viewer into the swirling surrealist imagery via locked-off shots and vivid colours that imply the fantastic elements – from joyful synchronised dance sequences to the more overt totemic visions – are all simply in Greta’s head. Or are they?

The casting of age-appropriate leads gives a very different vibe to sometimes erotic implications of the play: they’re still there, but filtered through the wide-eyed Whitmore as she brilliantly transitions between increasingly strange sequences. Initially giving off a Mean Girls vibe, thanks to a trio of ‘plastic’ sisters who taunt and publicly deride Greta, the breaking point comes at a party where her best friend Elliot (Upper Middle Bogan‘s Harrison Feldman) confesses he wants ‘more’ from their relationship. Here the film takes on more of a nightmarish dream quality, catalysed by her inner anxieties and strengths, represented by a fur-clad warrior woman (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), people in animal masks, a slimey living swamp of a man, and a lounge singer version of her sister’s boyfriend (Eamon Farren), who attempts to seduce her with Elliot’s voice. It demonstrates the film’s stage origins, but with the heightened nature of artificial production design, it reads better as a darker Mighty Boosh for the coming-of-age set. Yet with a distinctly Australian flavour, thanks to the unaware classlessness of Greta’s mother (Amber McMahon, reprising her role from the play) and father (Whittet), GIRL ASLEEP is ultimately an empowering film for young women, with a positive message about self-image and refuting male entitlement.

2015 | Australia | DIR: Rosemary Myers | WRITERS: Matthew Whittet | CAST: Bethany Whitmore, Harrison Feldman, Matthew Whittet, Amber McMahon | DISTRIBUTOR: Umbrella Entertainment (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 77 minutes | RATING:★★★★ (8/10)

June 17, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Mekko

A gritty yet observational experiment that marks creator Sterlin Harjo as a strong storytelling voice.

What’s immediately striking about MEKKO is that it is an examination of the connections between Native American incarceration and homelessness that we should probably be seeing more of. In fact, according to a paper submitted by Richard Martel (cited in a 2012 report on homelessness amongst indigenous populations in America), “dysfunction is instilled intergenerationally and contributes greatly to an inability to function and thrive in the seemingly overwhelmingly complex society created by the dominant culture.”

Set in Oklahoma, the worst place in the world to be homeless (as one character puts it) because “even the rich are poor,” Mekko (Rod Rondeaux), a native Muscogee, has just been released from almost two decades behind bars. No longer having a home or a family to return to, he finds a new family in the city’s homeless. However, a violent man (Zahn McClarnon) in his new community forces him to return to some of the trouble paths he thought were behind him. Director Sterlin Harjo describes the film as “an experiment,” casting real people from the homeless community in the area, and on this level the film takes on an incredible degree of gritty realism. Rondeaux, previously known as a stuntman and on screen in Meek’s Cutoff, gives a central performance that is both charismatic and weighty, completely inhabiting the titular character and drawing in the energy of the film around him, especially in his relationships with a waitress (Sarah Podemski) and fellow street people. There’s a laid-back observational approach to much of the film, which makes some of the incongruous music jarring, especially with the sometimes awkward flashbacks to memories of a more spiritual time in Mekko’s life. Even at a taught 84 minutes, the final act loses some of its momentum. This indie feature definitely wears its lack of budget and time on its sleeve though, and it’s undoubtedly a significant marking of Harjo as a storyteller to follow.

2015 | US | DIR: Sterlin Harjo | WRITERS: Sterlin Harjo | CAST: Rod Rondeaux, Zahn McClarnon, Sarah Podemski | DISTRIBUTOR: Vendetta Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 84 minutes | RATING: ★★★½ (7/10)

June 16, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Alice in Earnestland

An inky black comedy take on the South Korean revenge genre, as one woman goes down the metaphorical rabbit hole.

South Korea has a particular penchant for revenge films, most notably through Park Chan-wook’s stylish and violent “Vengeance Trilogy” and Bong Joon-ho Mother, and Ahn Gooc-jin’s debut feature film aims to be a comedic skewering of those conventions. There’s a touch of Misery as Soo-Nam (Lee Jung-Hyun) ties up a therapist (Seo Young-hwa), kicking off a tangible thread of of the dark comedy/sinister mix that permeates the first half of the film. As Soo-Nam recounts the descent of her fortunes, never getting a break from her first choice in high school, through to meeting her future husband Kyu-Jung (Lee Hae-young), him suffering multiple accidents and winding up in a coma. Working tirelessly to afford the house Kyu-Jung insisted on buying, ALICE IN EARNESTLAND can be oppressive in the sheer amount of trouble the film puts its lead through. It’s mean-spirited and over-the-top too, as the second half abandons the fast-cutting, cartoonish stylings of the first act, giving way to bloody moments of torture and relentlessly beating down Soo-Nam, quite literally in the case of protester ‘Sergeant Major’ Choi (Myung Gye-Nam). Yet the virtual and individual obstacles in Soo-Nam’s path add to the satisfaction of the revenge fantasy, even if the film never completely finds the balance between black comedy and the typical tropes of the medium.

2015 | South Korea | DIR: Ahn Gooc-jin | WRITERS: Ahn Gooc-jin | CAST: Lee Jeong-hyun, Lee Hae-young, Seo Young-hwa | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes | RATING: ★★★¾ (7.5/10)

June 16, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: What’s In the Darkness

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a murder mystery is both intimate and chilling.

Writer-director Wang Yichun’s debut feature mirrors memories of her own childhood, as she recalls the murder of a girl her own age in the Hebei province in the early 1990s. Following the discovery of a body by the lake, Jing (Su Xiaotong) herself is drawn into her detective father Qu Zhicheng’s (Guo Xiao) investigations. The moment is a lightning rod of awakening for Jing, signalling her transition out of childhood as she experiences both a sexual and emotional metamorphosis.

The film is ostensibly a police procedural, but written by Wang in her early 20s, it is most about looking back at a specific period in time with the immediacy of youth. Indeed, much of the film’s focus becomes less about the murders and more about Jing’s growing awareness of her own body and sexuality. This in itself is commentary on the sexually repressed nature of the country, one with a firmly established patriarchy, with Qu’s constant reminds to Jing that he would have preferred a boy and his antiquated insistence that Jing can’t have a male friend. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Jing both follows and fears her consciously sexual friend Zhang Xue (Lu Qiwei), held back a few years at school, from comparatively innocent activities like buying a bra to watching porn through tears in a darkened theatre.

Nevertheless, the procedural elements still form a backbone running through the film, with a pall of menace perpetually hanging over the film. There’s unexpected humour too, of course, with Qu’s early forensic methods mocked and clumsy attempts are courting just as sweet as they are charming. Yet the final message seems to be one of Jing’s realisation of a woman’s powerlessness in her province. It is, after all, coupled with a foreboding that comes with her early association between sex and death. With WHAT’S IN THE DARKNESS, Wang Yichun is not simply suggesting her own coming of age, but that of an entire country as well.

2015 | China | DIR: Wang Yichun | WRITER: Wang Yichun | CAST: Su Xiaotong, Guo Xiao, Liu Dan, Lu Qiwei | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes | RATING:★★★★ (8/10)

June 15, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: The Lure

The box says “vampire mermaid musical,” and that’s precisely what you get with this ’80s Polish throwback.

Before Disney made her part of our world, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid was filled with some dark turns where the titular character’s very soul was at stake. Poland’s THE LURE draws on the basic elements of this original tale, then takes its own weird journey through a sexy and violent landscape, one that is sharply reminiscent of the outlandish VHS favourites that populated the video stores of the 1980s. Not for nothing, as director Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s bizarre new musical is not only set in that era, but also borrows many of the conventions of the decade.

Two siren mermaids, Silver (Marta Mazurek) and Gold (Michalina Olszanska), emerge off the coast of Warsaw, and are lured into civilisation by the bass playing of a local nightclub band, kind of a washed up strip club version of Blondie. Silver begins to fall for a human, while Gold’s vampiric bloodlust can no longer be held in check. THE LURE is a bit of a conundrum. It’s gorgeously shot by photographer Kuba Kijowski, including a cavernous pool from another period entirely. Yet it contains clashing elements such as a big dance sequence in a department store, and then later the body horror of a human-mermaid organ transplant. The convoluted mash of motifs might just be a boob delivery system, with the back half of the film making no literal sense or following a traditional structure. Gold joins a punk rock band with the surface dwelling Tryton (Marcin Kowalczyk), and there’s a convoluted plot around various affairs happening within the band. Yet there’s an intangible quality that is sure to make this a cult hit, with a romantic element thrown in that brings it full-circle back to Hans Christian Andersen. One thing is for sure: there is nothing else on this planet quite like THE LURE.

2015 | Poland | DIR: Agnieszka Smoczynska | WRITERS: Robert Bolesto | CAST: Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska, Jakub Gierszal | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes | RATING: ★★★ (6/10)

June 12, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Oyster Factory

An observational look at life in a small Japanese town, where change is more rapid than the people’s way of life.

A lingering shot of a sleeping cat, surrounding by idyllic vistas of the area known as Japan Aegean Sea, belies the tragedy that has fallen Japan since the 2011 tsunami and nuclear accident. Watanabe is one such person who forced to relocate from the affected Miyagi to the small town of Ushimado, where he runs the oyster business for an elderly owner until the latter is ready to retire. Shot in the style of director Kazuhiro Soda’s other documentary films, and simply titled “Observational Film #6” in the opening credits, OYSTER FACTORY follows the local decline in the industry, and the need to hire cheaper Chinese labourers to complete the manual shucking work. The repetitious chronicle of daily life may seem monotonous, but this is the best observation of them all. Indeed, the most drama that the film sees is fishing a man who has fallen into the bay back onto dry land, and even he is smiling benignly the whole time. The observation goes both ways as well, as the subjects mock the cameraman and the subjects at various points throughout the shoot. Comments from interviewees on how the Chinese have a “different way of thinking” never feels like a judgmentally racist remark either, but simply another piece of evidence of how removed this small town is from the bustle of Tokyo. For viewers, even if the world on display is foreign to them, they will feel the inevitability of the change hanging over the people. There are no major revelations or crises to be had by the end, but rather the day’s work comes to an end, flagging a new one to begin. Or as the subjects of the film put it: “The job of the sea is done.”

2015 | Japan, US | DIR: Kazuhiro Soda | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 145 minutes | RATING: ★★★¾ (7.5/10)

June 11, 2016
SFF 2016 Review: Cuckold

A South African tale of an unconventional love triangle is perpetually on the cusp of going somewhere.

Smanga (played by the film’s writer director Charlie Vundla) is not a likeable character. When he’s introduced, he is at the bottom end of an alcoholic, self-destructive cycle as the result of his wife Laura (Terry Pheto, Tsotsi) leaving him for another man. His inability to move on gives the audience plenty of opportunities to witness his self-loathing, through prolonged shots of a sedentary Smanga in his underwear drinking from the bottle. There is no sense of urgency to the narrative, not even when a man claiming to be an old schoolmate, Jon (Louis Roux), enters his world as a “life coach.” From here there’s a constant sense that CUCKOLD is building to something, either between the two men or between Smanga and Laura’s new beau. Yet when his ex-wife returns, the triptych of Smanga/Laura/Jon form an awkward threesome, but even this simply wallows in the same nihilistic pattern that the rest of the film does. Shot in a straightforward fashion on a shoestring budget, the deliberate pace and repetitive scenery and lack of goal is perhaps the point, the suggestion being that no good can come of this cycle now. While CUCKOLD might shoot for being a critique of male entitlement, it lands on being a lingering examination of it, and they are definitely not the same thing. The genuinely tense scenes come in the last moments of the film, never giving the viewer the satisfaction of a resolution, and we are left only with a hint of what that embedded entitlement might lead to.

2015 | South Africa | DIR: Charlie Vundla | WRITERS: Charlie Vundla | CAST: Terry Pheto, Louis Roux, Charlie Vundla | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes | RATING:★★★ (6/10)

June 9, 2016