Tag: 2021 Reviews

Review: A Writer’s Odyssey

Originally marketed as Assassin in Red, at least as recently as January this year, Lu Yang’s A WRITER’S ODYSSEY (刺杀小说家) confidently lands in cinemas as one of the Lunar New Year offerings for 2021. In the traditionally crowded season, this stands out for its unapologetic levels of crazy.

While there’s a lot going on in this film, the original Chinese title – which loosely translates to ‘assassinate the novelist’ – gets to the central layer of this tale. When we first meet Guan Ning (Lei Jiayin), he is a mysterious man desperately searching for his missing daughter, Tangerine. Given his ability to throw rocks and other small objects, he is hired by Tu Ling (Yang Mi) to assassinated a novelist (Dong Zijian).

Yet this is no ordinary writer. Yang Mi’s boss, a corporate giant of the fictional Aladdin Corp (which bears more than a passing resemblance to Alibaba), believes that the story he’s telling is killing him in real life. In the fantasy world of the story, a battle of good versus evil is being waged, and the worlds and characters begin to intersect and overlap. Guan Ning’s quest for his daughter leads him to some dark places in his world, but wonders if the novelist is the only one telling stories.

This layered special effects film is one of the more ambitious mainstream Chinese films we’ve seen in a while. Indeed, were it not for the large scale visual effects (if ever there was a film made for the big screen, it’s this), you’d think this was a throwback to the high concept actioners of the 80s or 90s. It’s not always clear what’s going on from minute-to-minute, but that hardly seems to matter when the storytelling is on a canvas this big.

The effects themselves are seriously impressive. Although somewhat reliant on computer generated imagery, Lu Yang – who is no stranger to period-inspired action with Sacrifice and the Brotherhood of Blades series – brings an inventive mix of high fantasy and slick modernity. There’s one stunning sequence where ornate floats and glowing hot air balloons form strings of dragons like an Orphean nightmare. Martial arts, swordplay, and armies of CG soldiers mix seamlessly with giant boss fights. It’s the kind of film where you almost want to rip the controller out of someone else’s hand and have a go.

Which would all be quite hollow if Lei Jiayin’s character didn’t ground the film. Recently seen in The Wandering Earth and My People, My Homeland, his angst when searching for Tangerine is tangible. Indeed, the parallel ‘real world’ story would make for a seriously dark thriller on its own accord, as Guan Ning nearly chokes out a gang member he suspects in involved.

All of this still takes a backseat to the spectacle, which is worth watching on as big a screen as you can manage during a pandemic. A fun and unashamedly batty giant, A WRITER’S ODYSSEY might just be the next Chinese franchise in the making.

2021 | China | DIRECTOR: Lu Yang | WRITERS: Chen Shu, Liu Xiaocao, Lu Yang | CAST: Jiayin Lei, Mi Yang, Zijian Dong, Hewei Yu, Jingfei Guo | DISTRIBUTOR: CMC Pictures (Global)| RUNNING TIME: 130 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 12 February 2021 (AUS/US)

February 14, 2021
Review: Space Sweepers

Space junk is a genuine problem. With humans shooting things and people into space since the 1950s, there’s an estimated 128 million pieces of manufactured space debris larger than 1 millimetre floating about in our orbit. It was the basis for the popular Japanese manga/anime Planetes, and a launching point for Jo Sung-hee’s (Phantom Detective) latest film.

SPACE SWEEPERS (승리호) takes place in 2092. Earth is no longer habitable, and the orbital utopia built by UTS corporation is only available to the elite. Other people try and eek out a living with what little they have, including the crew of the Victory, a space ship that collects junk for money.

When the ragtag group – who includes former space guards and special forces members Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri), drug king Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu) and a robot named Bubs (Yoo Hae-jin) – encounter a small girl named ‘Dorothy’ (Park Ye-rin), their fortunes change. They have either set themselves up for the profit or fight of their life, especially when UTS head James Sullivan (Richard Armitage) gets involved.

Jo Sung-hee had reportedly been working on the film for 10 years in some form or another, constantly looking for ways to differentiate it from similar genre films. There are the Korean elements, of course, with characters sliding in and out of languages depending on the context. Yet there’s also the effort that Jo and his team have put into world building, crafting something that is unquestionably futuristic but also lived-in.

Adding to this greatly are the stunning special effects and production design. The visual effects company Dexter Studios, who brought Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds and Ashfall to the screen on a similarly larger-than-life canvas, have outdone themselves here. Massive scale docking stations, ships and eventually dogfights fill the screen in true blockbuster fashion. It’s kind of like Moebius designed a Marvel film and infused it with pure Hallyuwood enthusiasm.

Yet to mistake this for a ‘mere’ effects film is to do it a great disservice. This is a animated film that just happens to be live action. Like the finest sci-fi, it’s a character drama in space, and each of these people comes layered with backstory, their own motivations and actual growth by the end of the picture. It really helps that in contrast Richard Armitage is basically an anime villain, joining a long line of bearded gaijin (or waeguk-saram if you prefer).

The cast is excellent as you’d expect. Song Joong-ki rejoins Jo after their previous collaboration on A Werewolf Boy (2012). Kim Tae-ri, who impressed us in The Handmaiden and Little Forest, is at her kick-ass best here. The award-winning Yoo Hae-jin (A Taxi Driver) is unrecognisable as the voice of a CG robot, whose character arc sees them saving up money for a gender reassignment procedure.

In any other year, we may have seen this hit global cinemas in limited release. Thanks to the wonders of streaming, the audience reach has expanded for this crowd-pleaser exponentially. So, if 2020 was the year that Korean cinema got global attention, then SPACE SWEEPERS might signal the breadth of what the nation’s film offerings might be.

2021 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Jo Sung-hee| WRITERS: Yoon Seung-min, Yoo-kang Seo-ae, Jo Sung-hee | CAST: Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu, Yoo Hae-jin, Richard Armitage | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix (Global)| RUNNING TIME: 136 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 February 2021 (AUS)

February 12, 2021
Review: Mayday

It would be very easy to say that Karen Cinorre’s stunning debut MAYDAY arrives in a timely fashion during the #MeToo movement. It does, of course, but this modern fable is also a surrealist repudiation of so many cinematic tropes.

We meet the ostensible lead Ana (Grace Van Patten) as a staff member at a wedding, where is is alternatively comforting the bride and being verbally and physically abused by her employers. During a terrible storm, she is transported like Alice down a rabbit hole (in this case an oven) and washed ashore an island.

This new reality is run by Marsha (Mia Goth) and her troupe of ‘lost girls’ in military uniform (Soko and Havana Rose Liu). They appear to be at war with a group of male soldiers, and use an old radio like a siren’s call to lure sailors to their doom.

Cinorre’s dreamlike structure doesn’t offer any easy answers, from the World War II trappings to the nature of Ana’s transportation. It vibes a little like Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy, another modern take on Peter Pan. Yet the duality of some characters – versions of Marsha and Juliette Lewis’s characters (a bathroom attendant/mechanic) appear in both realities – point more to Oz than Neverland.

Like the best speculative fantasy, Cinorre uses the setting to explore our society. Women make the best snipers, Martha surmises, because it requires being uncomfortable for hours and largely invisible. “You’ve been at war your whole life,” Ana is told, “you just don’t know it.” Left alone, Ana is still vulnerable to male violence, dubbing herself an “easy target.” Subtle it is not, but neither is the dominant male paradigm.

Working with cinematographer Sam Levy (Lady Bird, Francis Ha, Wendy and Lucy), Cinorre has crafted a film of beautiful visual contrasts. The shoreline and seaside vistas are often stunning, juxtaposed with the dark orange and red washes of the underground. It wouldn’t be a fantasy without a random musical sequence in there too, a moment of high levity in which Ana dances with soldiers. It prompts one of the girls to ask her if she’s “switched sides,” a line that’s only slightly laden with double meaning.

Working like a repeated meme, the titular ‘Mary Alpha Yankee Delta Alpha Yankee’ echoes through to the action-based conclusion. It can never hope to maintain its initial intensity for the duration, but one gets the feeling that we’ll be pondering and returning to this over the coming days, weeks, and months. This is not, after all, a film about going to war: it is about supporting each other. Ana’s choices in the final act are positive ones, and while it all might collapse like the dream she has built, it gives birth to something new.

2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Karen Cinorre | WRITER: Karen Cinorre | CAST: Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth, Havana Rose Liu, Soko, Théodore Pellerin, Juliette Lewis | DISTRIBUTOR: Mayday Pictures LLC, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 31 January 2021 (Sundance), 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 10, 2021
Review: Lone Wolf

If there’s two things that continue to adapt to our modern age, it’s surveillance techniques and Joseph Conrad novels. Jonathan Ogilvie, who we last saw behind the camera on 2008’s The Tender Hook, combines the two in an intriguing mystery set in Melbourne’s not-too-distance future.

In the film, loosely based on The Secret Agent, an enigmatic Police Minister (Hugo Weaving) is asked to review some surveillance footage of Winnie (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), an adult book store clerk tied to some potentially shady dealings with Conrad (Josh McConville). Thanks to her disabled younger brother Stevie (Chris Bunton) continuously filming on his phone, and the many cameras around Melbourne, there’s ample stock to construct a case.

Ogilvie reportedly spent five years developing LONE WOLF, and it’s clear that a lot of love has gone into this production. Originally conceived as a 2D/VR hybrid set in Sydney, it was decided to roll back to traditional 2D only following several tests. This part of the development is evident in the final cut, as the camera spends a long time on street corners or locations as establishing shots.

Which might be where the film loses some momentum. Ogilvie’s primary aim with this film was to build a narrative out of surveillance footage, sort of a fictionalised version of what Dragonfly Eyes did with real footage a few years back. You can totally imagine standing inside this VR world and looking at things unfold, much the way that short films like Bloodless left you feeling voyeuristic and complicit in a crime. However, by the end some of the lengthy cutaways tend to muddle the plot a little bit.

Yet thanks to some slick photography and a solid cast, Ogilvie’s film remains mostly engaging throughout. Coming off the back of I Am Woman, Cobham-Hervey is every ice queen that’s ever worked a book/record store. Ogilvie’s commitment to casting an actor with a disability in the part of Stevie pays off in Bunton, a young actor who already impressed audiences in last year’s Relic. Weaving doesn’t so much phone it in as Skype it, but he and associate Stephen Curry are welcome screen presences.

Although ultimately debuting at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, LONE WOLF was made under the auspices of the MIFF Premiere Fund. The themes of threatening surveillance are universal, but it will be interesting to see how this plays with audiences more familiar with the city. Meanwhile, Ogilvie’s next film is reportedly Head South, set during the New Zealand post punk scene of the late 1970s.

2021 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Jonathan Ogilvie | WRITER: Jonathan Ogilvie | CAST: Hugo Weaving, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Chris Bunton, Marlon Williams, Diana Glenn, Josh McConville, Stephen Curry| DISTRIBUTOR: Future Pictures/Level K, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 9, 2021
Review: The Witches of the Orient

The significance of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics continues to echo to this day. Following the delay of the 1940 games, they were a positive beacon for post-War Japan and marked a new period of global cooperation. For film lovers, they spawned Kon Ichikawa’s classic documentary.

Yet for all of this coverage, several stories remain largely untold. Julien Faraut’s new documentary THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (Les Sorcières de l’Orient) explores the fascinating history of the ‘Nichibo Kaizuka,’ the women’s factory volleyball team who gained their nickname from their spooky number of wins.

Formed in the 1950s, the factory team took to the world stage with victories at the FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship. They became known for their trademark kaiten reshību, a method of rotating on the court and receiving the ball while rolling. Their intense training regime under Hirofumi Daimatsu eventually earned them a place at the Tokyo Games. Following the devastating loss of the Japanese team in judo, national hopes were pinned on the Kaizuka team.

Faraut’s film aims to convey just how vital this team was to Japan’s national psyche. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Tokyo games, Robert Whiting emphasised the importance of the team’s win, arguing it “was seen to symbolize the dogged resurgence of the Japanese economy, short on resources but full of fighting spirit, in the wake of the games.” Essays, manga, anime and merchandise all followed the win.

One of those works was the anime Attack No. 1, a late 1960s show that contributed to the nation’s obsession with the sport and its new stars. Faraut splices this into outstanding vintage footage of the team training, largely presented without narration and set to discordant music. One sequence uses Portishead’s ‘Machine Gun’ seemingly apropos of nothing. It’s a unique use of sound and vision that skews the film away from being just another series of talking heads.

Yet this same style sometimes hampers the storytelling. Despite having access to a number of the surviving team members, Faraut really only uses footage of them eating or explaining their own nicknames. He fills the documentary with lifeless text cards, those really long montages intercut with anime, random stock footage, and disjointed narration. Perhaps this is indicative of a lack of enough film in the archives for a feature, as there is certainly a decent story at its core.

The team’s 258 consecutive victories ended in 1966, but it remains a standing record. Almost sixty years later, the world awaits a Tokyo games that has been delayed for very different reasons. While not the first document on the so-called Witches of the Orient, and almost certainly not the last, Faraut’s film arrives as a hopeful testament to a group of national heroes.

THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT had its world premiere at the 50th-anniversary edition of IFFR. The festival ran from 1 – 7 February 2021 on the IFFR.com platform. Check out the website for screening details.

2021 | France | DIRECTOR: Julien Faraut | WRITER: Julien Faraut | DISTRIBUTOR: UFO Production, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 9, 2021
Review: Earwig and the Witch

The animation loving world was devastated back in 2014 when Studio Ghibli announced that it was closing. With 2015’s When Marnie Was There, we thought we’d seen the last of new Ghibli, a fact compounded by Hayao Miyzazki’s retirement and the death of co-founder Isao Takahata.

Which made EARWIG AND THE WITCH (アーヤと魔女), Studio Ghibli’s first film in over six years, a highly anticipated prospect. Directed by Gorō Miyazaki, it’s based on the children’s book of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle). It’s also Ghibli’s first foray into a full 3D CG animated feature.

Earwig (voiced by Kokoro Hirasawa) is left as baby at an orphanage, unaware of her witchy heritage. As she grows into precocious childhood, she is adopted by the witch Bella Yaga, her demon boss Mandrake and a talking cat named Thomas. While she is promised a role as a witch’s apprentice, she gets stuck doing menial tasks and constantly threatened with worms.

EARWIG AND THE WITCH starts well enough, a mystery that always feels as though it is building to something. There’s a terrific opening chase sequence that establishes an enigmatic redhead, who we later learn was the lead singer of a band also called Earwig. Minor flashbacks signal that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, but the script – which also credits Hayao Miyazaki in the planning department – never quite gets beyond the second act.

Much of the film is spent with Earwig forcefully making her way around the mysterious house, neither ingratiating herself to her adopters nor the audience. It’s a very dark house, filled with odd corners, but we never get to see much of it beyond a cluttered chamber and Earwig’s spartan room. It’s a bit like a TV show where they’ve only built two sets and have a single camera.

Which is a real shame because there’s some genuinely interesting animation here. Katsuya Kondo’s character designs are delightful, from Earwig’s arched eyebrows to Mandrake’s perpetually smouldering eyes. Yet the rigidity of the CG movement, including stiff hair and occasionally unnatural motions, lacks the soft subtlety that the studio is known for.

In the absence of character development, we get out-of-the-blue decisions punctuated by set-pieces. Just when things are getting interesting – including an exciting sequence in which a portal is discovered between rooms – the film jumps ahead in time before coming to an abrupt stop. It’s almost as if a reel was lost in transit. (Indeed, at the session I went to, one parent pondered whether there was more story to come after the credits). At best, it’s an extended pilot, especially given its made-for-NHK-TV origins. At worst, it simply feels unfinished.

For the first time in Ghibli’s history, EARWIG AND THE WITCH operates like a follower rather than a leader. Thankfully, Hayao Miyazaki has joined the film loving world in finding his own retirement a bothersome prospect. The hand-drawn How Do I Live? is due out in the next few years, infused with the same painstaking attention to detail we’ve grown used to.

2021 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Gorō Miyazaki | WRITERS: Keiko Niwa, Emi Gunjii (Based on the the novel by Diana Wynne Jones) | CAST: Shinobu Terajima, Etsushi Toyokawa, Gaku Hamada, Kokoro Hirasawa | DISTRIBUTOR: Studio Ghibli, NHK (JPN), Madman Entertainment (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 82 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4 February 2021 (AUS)

February 8, 2021
Review: Drifting

Even the most casual viewer of Hong Kong cinema can speak to the population issues. From Fruit Chan’s subsidised housing drama Made in Hong Kong (1997) to the more absurdist The Sinking City: A Capsule Odyssey (2017), how people live and work in the island city is as much a part of pop culture as any of the blockbusters.

Based on a series of real life incidents in 2012, it follows Fai (Francis Ng Chun-yu) upon his release from prison. With nowhere to go, he finds a welcoming street corner where other people living rough have set up. When the police move them along and discard their belongings and identification, social worker Ms. Ho starts a legal process to earn some compensation.

“How does this tiny island hold them all?” ponders one of the central characters. “What’s so good about Hong Kong?” This basic paradox of Hong Kong is at the core of DRIFTING (濁水漂流), writer/director Jun Li’s follow-up to his debut Tracey (2018), another issue-based film tackling transgender rights. For every Stanley, Repulse Bay, high rise or shopping centre is another side to the city that’s not often exposed.

For the most part, Li is less concerned with the legal battles than he is with the personal lives of the central characters. Like Chloé Zhao’s films (The Rider and more recently, Nomadland), Li wants to scratch beneath the surface of the people we walk by every day. ‘Big Eye’ Fai, for example, laments that the media is only interested in his prison past or drug addiction.

Once the case gains attention, a parade of people float through – overzealous second year architecture students, youth orientation camps, hairdressers – but it is all fleeting. A judge is sympathetic but pragmatic. Real social change doesn’t come about until homeless citizens are treated as people, and Li aims to show that we’re all potentially a turn or two away from this life.

Which is where the film really shines: as a character piece. Francis Ng, the award-winning star of The Mission and more recently Line Walker 2: Invisible Spy, is a powerful anchor. There’s great turns from Chu Pak-Hong (My Prince Edward) and Tse Kwan-ho (Shock Wave 2) as well. There’s one heart-breaking scene in which a character connects with his son for the first time in decades via video call, and you just know that’s going to be the awards clip. Of course, a younger homeless man is developed much beyond his ability to play ‘Greensleeves’ on harmonica. Repeatedly.

It’s a handsome film as well, neatly showing the two Hong Kongs at their best and worst. On the one hand, the neatly assembled and small camps of homeless people are shot with dignity and warm light. Conversely, there’s some stunning shots of the city from a crane that show the contrasting Hong Kong. From this vantage, a pointed question is posed: “They build these expensive condos. Where can poor people live?”

At a time of great social upheaval and potential change in Hong Kong, Li’s film makes a persuasive case for remembering the most vulnerable citizens. While this particular case resolved almost a decade ago, for a matter of HK$2,000 (or about USD$260) per person, the problems depicted here are still very much a reality. So, while this film may not aim to solve the problems of the current decade, it might pave the way for some change.

2021 | Hong Kong | DIRECTOR: Jun Li | WRITER: David Verbeek | CAST: Francis Ng, Loletta Lee, Tse Kwan-ho, Chu Pak-hong, Cecilia Choi, Will Or| DISTRIBUTOR: mm2 Entertainment, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 8, 2021
Review: Dead and Beautiful

The romantic notion of the vampire has been explored within an inch of its life since the modern versions were birthed in the early 19th century. One always wonders if there’s any new blood left to draw out of the dusty body of work. Yet the genre endures.

The basic concept of David Verbeek’s DEAD AND BEAUTIFUL is solid: what if bored rich people became vampires? In a massive Asian city not unlike Taipei, five super rich friends return from a camping trip with fangs and a heightened sense of power. Alternatively apprehensive and keen to try out their vampiric leanings, paranoia creeps in and they start turning on each other.

In a time when the gap between rich and everyone else is institutionalised, our cultural fascination with the ultra rich is without limits. Still, a constant stream of reality television has taught us that all the money in the world does not automatically make you interesting. In Verbeek’s film, the photography and the setup is more refined, but the net effect is the same. The difference is that Verbeek’s script seems doggedly determined to sap any of the melodrama out of this reality.

It’s kind of like watching one of those social experiments where a rich person has to fend for themselves in a supermarket but doesn’t quite understand what it’s all about. For example, in any other film the exposition would take place in a dusty library or the like. Here, they use a converted warehouse to stage a TED Talk style explanation for each other. It would be fascinating if it weren’t so tedious. It seems rich vampire douches are still just douches.

Indeed, everything in Verbeek’s film keeps us at arm’s length. The locations and photography are stunning. The opening shot of a very expensive looking vehicle sets the tone, and the various Taiwanese locales are nothing less than stunning. Drone shots, expensive apartments and clothes all serve to hammer home the opulence.

We do get minor hints at something going on beneath the surface. One of the gang is seen calling himself pathetic in a mirror. There’s a flashback to one woman’s childhood trauma that ties into a third act reveal. Verbeek at leasts tries for some kind of commentary, a heavy-handed way of saying that if you’re rich, dead and beautiful you still expect everything to be handed over to your privilege. You are a monster.

Which makes you wonder who the audience is here. The ultimate point is not lost, but boy does it take its time getting there. The twisty conclusion is likely to be telegraphed by anybody who has seen a film in the last 30 years, but the final act is where things get really interesting. Still, if nothing else it proves that watching the rich and listless is a poor substitute for being on the inside. After all, everybody hates a tourist.

DEAD AND BEAUTIFUL plays on demand 50th-anniversary edition of IFFR. The festival runs from 1 – 7 February 2021 on the IFFR.com platform. Check out the website for screening details.

2021 | Taiwan, Netherlands | DIRECTOR: David Verbeek | WRITER: David Verbeek | CAST: Gijs Blom, Aviis Zhong, Yen Tsao, Anechka Marchenko, Cheng-En Philip Juan| DISTRIBUTOR: Indie Sales, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 8, 2021
Review: As We Like It

Shakespeare continues to show up in the most unlikely places, which is an impressive feat over 400 years after his death. AS WE LIKE IT (揭大歡喜) borrows some loose plotting from its namesake, but perhaps takes the bit about the whole world being a stage a little too liberally.

Set in a futuristic version of Taipei, writer/directors Hung-i Chen and Muni Wei use a hyperlinked approach to storytelling. Together with co-writer Sung Kuo Chen (Remmy Sung), they weave together vignettes of several would-be couples wooing for attention. The primary potential pairing is Orlando (Aggie Hseih) and Rosalind (Hsueh-Fu Kuo), who is actually disguised as a man named Roosevelt.

Gender has always been one of the central themes to As You Like It, with various critics dissecting and praising the playwright’s deconstruction of gender roles. Recalling the Elizabethan tradition of all-male casts, the directors have followed suit with an all-female cast. The resulting androgynous aesthetic is one of the film’s greatest strengths, although it occasionally runs the risk of novelty.

From the brightly coloured CG opening, Chen and Wei nod to some of the vivid style of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet more than once. Indeed, there are more direct quotes from that play in the first act that the actual source material. At other times, there’s a Scott Pilgrim inspired fight scene. The problem is that they seem so enamoured with this shopfront that the linking segments between seen get lost in the mix.

Take the two primary locations as examples. For some unexplained reason, the film principally takes place in an Internet-free neighbourhood. This allows the filmmakers free reign to introduce a kind of hyperkinetic cyberpunk, but doesn’t seem to serve the story. Letters are sent using huge typesetting devices, and there is a Legendary Google Bookstore. Meanwhile, there’s a new development underway called the Forest of Arden, a head-trip of a garden floating inside of a blimp. The whole thing looks like it is set inside Taylor Swift’s Lover.

If the aesthetic is confused, then the rest of the film is just confusing. While trying to figure out how any of the aforementioned plot points connect, or blink some of the vivid pink vistas out of your retinas, Chen and Wei throw in a mystic matchmaker, a cartoon snail and a kidnap subplot for good measure. Even if you are familiar with the original play, you may be hard pressed to know what’s going on at any given moment.

Thankfully the cast is pretty likeable. Popular drama star and singer/model Puff Kuo has a ball as playing with traditional gender roles. French-Chinese actress Camille Chalons, in the Celia role of modern day ‘royalty,’ floats gracefully above the whole thing, lighting up any scene she’s featured in.

Given Taiwan’s broader attitudes to LGBTQI+ issues have only recently progressed, AS WE LIKE IT may seem like a quantum leap. (Especially when compared with last year’s The Gangs, the Oscars and the Walking Dead). Yet as this chaotic, cheeky and often undergraduate collage of influences rolls into its statement denouement, one can’t help thinking what a bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

AS WE LIKE IT plays on demand 50th-anniversary edition of IFFR. The festival runs from 1 – 7 February 2021 on the IFFR.com platform. Check out the website for screening details.

2021 |Australia | DIRECTOR: Chen Hung-i, Muni Wei | WRITER: Chen Hung-i, Muni Wei, Sung Kuo Chen (Remmy Sung) | CAST: Aggie Hsieh, Puff Kuo, Camille Chalons| DISTRIBUTOR: Swallow Wings Films, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 7, 2021
Review: Friends and Strangers

There’s a suggestion floating about that we’re always in a state of crisis. From the moment we have to make our first decisions, the possibility of something else creates a longing for the theoretical other. The midlife crisis is the most classic of these, but as younger people find themselves adrift in a ridiculously complex world, a different kind of ennui settles in.

This is the feeling that Australian writer/director James Vaughan wants to capture in FRIENDS AND STRANGERS. Opening with colonial and botanical images of Sydney’s history, it almost seems to suggest a starting point for a line through to the contemporary aimlessness of middle-class city kids.

Which is where we first meet Ray (Fergus Wilson) and Alice (Emma Diaz), meandering around near the Darling Harbour end of the Western Distributor. The latter is driving back from Brisbane and hanging out with Ray while she tries to get “over someone.” They go camping together along the way, but Ray’s awkwardness in the face of any form of advance ends their companionship and leave the duo estranged.

The rest of the film is primarily taken up with Ray’s various non-adventures around Sydney, with Alice all but disappearing from the screen. Stuck in some kind of general malaise, he hangs with a mate, struggles after a car breaks down and winds up in the Eastern Suburbs in houses that overlook the sheltered waters of filthy rich. Each contributes to his sense of direction, something director Vaughans has likened to Kafka in its wandering and “oblique take on realism.”

Mostly listless and seemingly adlibbed dialogue. The latter really picks up at the house of a wealthy art owner and his young lady friend. He arguably hits the nail on the head about sweating the small stuff in a lengthy riff on the expression ‘not worth a hill of beans.’ Of the many terrific one-liners dropped in this sequence (“That’s bean thinking. That’s bean mind”) the pièce de résistance might just be a tiny cactus being called a “fucking spiky cunt.”

More than anything, FRIENDS AND STRANGERS has a firm sense of place, and Dimitri Zaunders’ photography sure makes Sydney a pretty city. Avoiding the obvious glory shots of the harbour and major beaches, his camera instead lingers on the bayside areas, city overpasses, or small details in the Botanic Gardens.

There’s a kind of full circle to the story in the last few scenes, but Vaughan also steers clear of any kind of packaged resolution. There’s no easy answers to a life crisis, but just like the titular friends and strangers you encounter along the way, it too shall pass.

FRIENDS AND STRANGERS plays on demand 50th-anniversary edition of IFFR. The festival runs from 1 – 7 February 2021 on the IFFR.com platform. Check out the website for screening details.

2021 |Australia | DIRECTOR: James Vaughan | WRITER: James Vaughan | CAST: Emma Diaz, Fergus Wilson, Victoria Maxwell, Greg Zimbulis, David Gannon, Jayden Muir, Poppy Jones | DISTRIBUTOR: Leitourgia Films, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 84 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-7 February 2021 (NL)

February 6, 2021