Following the announcement of the Official Competition awards on Sunday, the 2016 Sydney Film Festival, the folks at SFF have announced the winners of the Foxtel Movies Audience Awards.
Winner for best narrative feature went to MUSTANG directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven; and winner for best documentary went to ZACH’S CEREMONY directed by Goldstone star Aaron Petersen.
MUSTANG was also the winner of a Cannes Directors’ Fortnight prize, four Césars and an Oscar nomination, and this Turkish film is described by the festival as “a powerful portrait of sisterhood.” ZACH’S CEREMONY was shot over six years, and is a portrait of a young man struggling with identity and his father’s expectations, as he heads towards adulthood.
“Cinemas were full again this year with an average of 73% capacity across all sessions and more sell-outs than ever before. Final attendance figures will exceed last year and reach almost 180,000. We were particularly proud to present even more filmmaker and curator hosted screenings; and to see the introduction of the Lexus Short Film Fellowships.”
MUSTANG is released in Australia on 23 June 2016 from Madman Films in limited release.
Often over-the-top, but also gorgeously shot and erotic to the point of parody. In other words, it’s the latest masterpiece from Park Chan-wook.
THE HANDMAIDEN has one of the most threatening and inventive uses of an octopus since Oldboy. This is unsurprising given that South Korean director Park Chan-wook is the unique voice behind both, delivering his first feature film since 2013’s Stoker. Adapting Welsh writer Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, previously brought to screen as a BBC series set in its native Victorian England, Park effortlessly shifts the setting to 1930s colonial Korea in a version that is no less inventive, sexy or aware of its own turning cogs.
The first thing that will strike audiences about THE HANDMAIDEN is just how unreal the colours look. Before we know a thing about plotting or characters, Park and cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon establish the hyperreality of the piece, a necessity as they continue to push the narrative into more unbelievable places. Con man Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo) recruits street pickpocket Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) to work at the estate of the mysterious heiress Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) in an attempt to take her fortune. Yet as Sook-hee and Hideko grow closer, best laid plans take an interesting turn. Divided into three distinct chapters, the film is constantly shifting perspectives, partly to obfuscate the truth, but also to translate something distinct English into a piece that is mostly Park’s.
Excess is the name of the game in Park’s adaptation, true of many of his works, here shifting it from modern violence to sexual encounters. From the first glimpse of the manor house that forms the primary location of the film, a blend of an English Victorian opulence and Japanese elegance, iconography from both cultures pours off the screen. What amounts to a lavish ‘heist’ or ‘sting’ structure doesn’t fall to the rapid-fire editing of the genre, replaced instead with long lingering takes that allow the viewer to soak in the mise-en-scène. When Sook-hee first meets the obsessive book collector (Cho Jin-woong) that keeps Hideko captive, there’s an impressive tracking shot that pushes past a guardian ‘snake’ as the camera envelops the entire space. This slavish attention to the details of the production design would undermine the story, if not for the sense that Park and his crew have placed each thread there deliberately.
All of which might just be a well-dressed delivery capsule for the intensely erotic and equally excessive lesbian sex scenes that commence between Sook-hee and Hideko in the second and third chapters, ones that would take on a pay-per-view porn quality were they not also highly aware of their own farce. What will undoubtedly be referred to universally as the prolonged “scissoring scene” is an extended vision of two writhing female bodies exploring each other, spouting incredulous dialogue that could have be ripped from a paperback piece of purple prose, except it’s so (literally) tongue in cheek that it’s impossible to take it seriously, and nor does Park seem to want us to. Park even returns to the sequence from a different point of view in the third act, an even more heightened version of the original scene, and it’s here we realise how important the traditional roles that Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee have been playing. The innocent and mysteriously repressed archetypes have been hustling the audience, just as much as their intended targets of the sting.
THE HANDMAIDEN straddles the fine line between pointed satire and male fantasy, but also embraces its comic outlandishness at every opportunity. While diverging from Sarah Waters’ setting and plot at various key points, Park’s relocation of the film to something akin to home territory ensures that commentary on class structures and female empowerment remain firmly intact in the translation. So too does Park’s penchant for a ripping vengeance yarn, but the focus remains wholly on the individuals at the heart of the story. At times completely insane, THE HANDMAIDEN is a true cinematic experience.
2016 | South Korea | DIR: Park Chan-wook | WRITERS: Chung Seo-kyung, Park Chan-wook, adapted from the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters | CAST: Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong, Kim Hae-sook, Moon So-ri | DISTRIBUTOR: DreamWest | RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | RATING: ★★★★½ (9/10)
There was something a little bit different about the Sydney Film Festival this year. Dashing between screenings at the State Theatre, the Event Cinemas on George Street, the Dendy Opera Quays and Newtown or even the Cremorne Orpheum, there was a distinct lack of rain. Normally you can set your watch by the deluge that opens up as soon as the festival starts, but it valiantly held off until the final weekend. So our driest SFF on record might also be one of our most fun.
We managed to fit in around 40 films this year, and while we reviewed quite a number of them, you can find out thoughts in brief on all the contenders below. Some were outstanding, others barely rate a rental. Many of the films were completely divisive, such as PERSONAL SHOPPER, CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER or IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD. Which is terrific thing about the Festival: everyone has an opinion, and they are all completely right.
This represents our journey through the 12 days of the Sydney Film Festival. Our festival was a week off day jobs, sleeping in, getting up early to write, catching the bus in seconds flat and hurriedly swapping films as we heard about something new. It was packed lunches, day bags, cheeky desserts, bottles of water and lozenges for the inevitable sore throat. There were nights when the fourth film of the day, starting at 9:15pm, seemed like madness. There were days when every film was a transcendent experience. This is a personal reflection on the Sydney Film festival, tweeted and everything.
Links to the full reviews have been provided where available, but check out our full coverage of the festival at our 2016 Sydney Film Festival portal. Our tweeting throughout the Festival has also been saved on Storify.
★★★★★ – Certified Bitstastic
LOVESONG: A bittersweet love story that defies convention, focusing on the intimate moments between two strong female leads. With strong performances by Riley Keough and Jena Malone, it doesn’t always provide us with the expected happy endings that are expected of such narratives, but nevertheless serve as a testament to the notion of enduring love. Our pick for favourite of the festival. Full Review >>
GOLDSTONE: Ivan Sen’s follow-up to Mystery Road is grander and more intensely exploratory than its predecessor. Filled with plenty of nods to Sen’s beloved Western genre, there a few moment in this film where the stakes feel anything less than high. Slick, darkly comic, and always thrilling, this is the best of what cinema has to offer. Full Review >>
UNDER THE SUN: One of the most creative solutions to filming a documentary in the closed system of North Korea, Vitaly Mansky’s essential film exposes how real a staged scenario can be. accompanied at all times and told where to shoot, suggesting that very little ‘reality’ could come of this documentary. Yet Mansky cleverly leaves the camera rolling, capturing the literal men behind the curtain who “suggest” what the various participants will say next. Full Review >>
★★★★½ – Super Highly Recommended
CERTAIN WOMEN: Kelly Reichardt’s deliberate pace emphasises the strength of the characters in this measured study. Following vignettes of four women, Reichardt’s film simply lays out these stories in a row as lasered character studies. She once again leaves us with no conclusive answers to her character’s dilemmas, and like all things she does, allows us to come to our own conclusions at a distinct pace. Full Review >>
TICKLED: Truth is stranger than fiction in a head-shaking, hilarious and ridiculously tense doco about the world of competitive tickling that’s full of twists. Narrated by Farrier’s wry and comical attitude, a mixture of Louis Theroux’s bullshit detector and John Oliver’s outsider observations, TICKLED is nevertheless an often terrifying examination of cyber-bullying and intimidation. Full Review >>
FIRE AT SEA: An observational documentary about the refugee crisis on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, Gianfranco Rosi’s Golden Bear winning film contrasts tradition with the passage of the mostly Syrian refugees. Not using any narration or much on-screen text, it simply lets us watch the reality of the refugee tragedy. If you are running (or voting) in the upcoming Australian or US elections, FIRE AT SEA should be mandatory viewing.
THE RED TURTLE: Direct from winning the Un Certain Regard Special Prize at Cannes, Studio Ghibli’s co-produced film is masterclass in visual storytelling. Without using any dialogue, it tells the story of a man who washes ashore on an isolated island, but his repeated attempts to escape are stymied by an unseen force. Oftentimes abstract and lyrical, the story unfolds in a gentle and dreamlike fashion, and director Michael Dudok de Wit has ensured that the Studio Ghibli legacy will continue outside of Japan and into a new generation of filmmakers. Full Review >>
THE HANDMAIDEN: Often over-the-top, but also gorgeously shot and erotic to the point of parody. In other words, it’s the latest masterpiece from Park Chan-wook. The adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith takes a distinctly different turn in this Korean/Japanese period thriller, built around stunning visuals, captivating performances and one of the most menacing uses of an octopus since Oldboy. Full Review >>
★★★★ – Highly Recommended
PATERSON: Jim Jarmusch returns with a quiet and literally poetic portrait of a bus driver (Adam Driver) and his wife (Golshifteh Farahani) in New Jersey. Similar to the work Jarmusch produced between Permanent Vacation and Night on Earth, there is an unhurried minimalism to this film. PATERSON finds the poetry in the everyday, and it’s just a wonderful way to pass the time. Full Review >>
LETTERS FROM WAR: A stark yet romantic look at the Portuguese Colonial War, finding beauty and transformative language against hardship, using lilting and poetic (you guess it) letters back and forth between a serving medical doctor and his pregnant wife. Sharply reminiscent of Tabu, and not just because of the stunning black and white photography from João Ribeiro, the thematic dissection of Portuguese colonialism and the follies of war carries an equal amount of gravity to it. Full Review >>
HIGH-RISE: Transplanting J.G. Ballard’s 1970s treatise on modernism, Ben Wheatley’s adaptation is as beautiful as it is terrifying. Hiddleston comes into the film as a detached creature already, his stiff upper-lip Britishness contrasting with his bemused observations of the rich. As global politics increasingly divide rich and poor, and these structures are now commonplace, Ballard’s tale has even more weight than it did forty years ago. Full Review >>
LAND OF MINE: An incredibly tense film set in the aftermath of the Second World War, as a group of teenage German prisoners of war are forced to undergo the painstaking task of removing thousands of land mines from Denmark’s coastline. In some ways, director Martin Zandvliet follows a horror movie structure, as various members of the cast are slowly picked off by a nameless enemy, but it’s just a more melancholy version of that. An important slice of history made real. Full Review >>
IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD: Another divisive one at this festival and Cannes earlier in the year. Despite those infamous Cannes reactions, this slow burn film puts the close-up on subtle character moments, in an intense cinema experience, asking audiences to stare raw emotion quite directly in the face through a series of continuous tight shots and heightened music cues. Full 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. Built around a coming-of-age story for socially awkward Greta Driscoll (Bethany Whitmore). GIRL ASLEEP is ultimately an empowering film for young women, with a positive message about self-image and refuting male entitlement. Full Review >>
★★★½ to ★★★¾ – Better Than Average Bear
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. Full Review >>
MAGGIE’S PLAN: Wholly conscious of its own pretentiousness, and embracing it in such a way that it is almost a satirical look at the indie genres, Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore star in Rebecca Miller’s comedy that recalls some of Woody Allen’s “funny, early” films in its approach.
OYSTER FACTORY: An observational look at life in a small Japanese town, where change is more rapid than the people’s way of life. hot 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. Full Review >>
SWISS ARMY MAN: Paul Dano dragging the bloated and farting corpse of Harry Potter through the wilderness is a vision that speaks to the strength of the independent film scene at the moment. A film that will take a little time to digest for some, while for others it will soar majestically, like so many jet-propelled bodies. Strangely touching musing on depression and disorder, even if there’s a creepy stalker vibe by the end. Full Review >>
GIMME DANGER: Jim Jarmusch’s second film in the festival is a chronicle of Iggy Pop and the Stooges, beginning with their downfall in 1973 and going back to see how the band came together, fell apart and went on to influence rock and roll for the following forty years. Told through interviews with Iggy Pop, Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, James Williamson, Steve Mackay, Mike Watt and more, archival and stock footage, it’s a very different document to other rock profiles. Essential for Stooges fans, although others may have to do some rock homework in advance.
CHEVALIER: A fun bit of absurdism from the director of Attenburg, one that waves a pointy finger at male pissing contests. In the incredibly simple yet layered premise, a group of six men on a fishing trip compete to see who is ‘the best’ at everything, based on a series of arbitrary tests that cover everything from singing to literally measuring erect penises. Full Review >>
VIVA: A soulful crowd-pleaser of a film that is equal parts music and social commentary. Jesus (Héctor Medina) struggles to make ends meet as a hairdresser, but dreams of showcasing his fledgling talent in the local drag club turn south with the return of his estranged ex-boxer father Angel (Jorge Perugorría). 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. Full Review >>
MEKKO: 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. A gritty yet observational experiment that marks creator Sterlin Harjo as a strong storytelling voice. Full Review >>
WHAT’S IN THE DARKNESS: 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, mirroring writer-director Wang Yichun’s memories of her childhood. A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a murder mystery is both intimate and chilling. Full Review >>
NOTES ON BLINDNESS: Like an incredibly sober version of Drunk History, this unique docu-drama from UK filmmakers Peter Middleton and James Spinney has actors actors Dan Skinner and Simone Kirby to lip sync to actual audio recordings theologian John Hull, as he gradually went blind in the early 1980s. It’s an amazing insight into the world of blindness, told in a deeply philosophical (albeit occasionally academic due to the nature of its subject) manner.
FUKUSHIMA, MON AMOUR: Taking it’s title from Alain Resnais’ post-War Hiroshima Mon Amour, Germany’s Doris Dörrie explores a snapshot of the aftermath of the devastating 2011 tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident. Recovering German Marie (Rosalie Thomass) and geisha Satomi (Kaori Momoi) find each other, and through the rebuilding of the latter’s home, they hope to exorcise ghosts both personal and figurative. Told in black and white, it’s a curious film, but one that ultimately leaves with a much-needed sense of hope.
BARAKAH MEETS BARAKAH: A rare Saudi Arabian film, from writer/director Mahmoud Sabbagh, about the titular municipal work (Hisham Fageeh) who meets stylish and wealthy Instagram maven Bibi (Fatima Al Banawi). Their chemistry is difficulty to follow-up on, as public dating and physical contact is strictly forbidden. The most pointed moments come as Barakah ponders how they got to this point through a series of archival images before religious law took over. it follows traditional rom-com structures, but few have as much social commentary as this.
★★★ – Worth A Look
CUCKOLD: A South African tale of an unconventional love triangle is perpetually on the cusp of going somewhere. 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. Full Review >>
THE LURE: The box says “vampire mermaid musical,” and that’s precisely what you get with this ’80s Polish throwback. 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. 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. One thing is for sure: there is nothing else on this planet quite like THE LURE. Full Review >>
AQUARIUS: The winner of the Official Competition at the Festival this year, it’s about a retired music critic played by Sonia Braga who resists the development of her apartment block by being the last holdout against the developers. A quiet character-based exploration of changes in a beachside area of Brazil, it’s a strong showcase for the nuanced Braga. Full Review >>
THE ENDLESS RIVER: Opening with a sweeping overture and old school Hollywood titles, Oliver Hermanus’ spin on the Western genre is framed around the bloody murder of one family, and two lost souls trying to find a reason to reconnect in rural South Africa. Beautiful shot with commentary around race relations that still exist in South Africa, the uneven back half keeps this from soaring, even if the soundtrack often does just that.
APPRENTICE: Fun fact! Much of this Singaporean film was written in Surry Hills Library in Sydney. Taking 5 years to make, and being a co-production between as many countries (Singapore, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Qatar), the examination of the capital punishment system in Singapore, concentrating on the impact it has on families through Aiman, a 28-year-old prison guard whose father was hanged, but is asked to step up as the apprentice to the chief executioner in a Singaporean prison. A focused character study.
LOVE & FRIENDSHIP: The Jane Austen novel upon which this was based, Lady Susan, is a mere slip of a thing at 60 pages. Whit Stillman’s all-star British society comedy is full of rapid dialogue and quips, and like the people it depicts, is always aware of its coyness. Nevertheless, it’s fancy free and full of words and phrases you’ll be mimicking for weeks. Impress your friends with a classy put-down!
★★½ – Wait For the DVD/Blu-ray
KIKI: The thematic sequel to Jennie Livingston’s seminal 1990 documentary, Paris Is Burning. The modern Kiki scene is a subset of that original ballroom, yet we can see how it has evolved over time as well. Jumping around from interview to interview, the viewer neither gets a sense of what the current culture is all about, nor is there line-through for any of the people featured. KIKI is a snapshot in time, but fails to achieve the legendary status of legacy it follows. Full Review >>
LIFE AFTER LIFE: This winner of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Firebird Award misses the tonal mark in an unconventional ghost story. Leilei (Zhang Li) is possessed by the spirit of his deceased mother, and matter of factly tells his father Mingchun (Zhang Mingjun) that she has returned to transplant a tree that she planted when she was younger. In one scene, the duo try to load the uprooted tree onto the back of their truck. Copying a method they’ve seen of a group aimlessly moving a rock, they slowly twist and turn the tree up a plank, but just as they are about to reach the top, the tree falls off and forces them to start again. It might be speaking to the cycle of death and rebirth, but it’s a perfect way of describing the viewing experience of LIFE AFTER LIFE. Full Review >>
PERSONAL SHOPPER: There’s a lot to unpack in PERSONAL SHOPPER. Too much in fact. Indeed, the winner of the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival is difficult to even categorise. At times a tense thriller, but this ghost story has too many ideas going on at once to be effective. Full Review >>
★★ – Rental or Streaming For Sure
TEENAGE KICKS: Another coming-of-age drama, this one is set against Sydney’s inner city angst, specifically that of Miklós (Miles Szanto) as he tries to make sense of his own sexuality and the responsibility he feels for the death of his brother Tommy. It could be readily re-titled A Series of Unfortunate Decisions for all the bad ones Miklós makes, in an uneven set of incidents that exchange heavy-handed metaphor for character. As a Sydneysider, we just want to point out that these people are in no way able to afford a flat that close to the centre of King’s Cross.
CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER: Yet another polarizing film, Brady Corbet’s portrait of a bratty child might be gorgeously shot, but has all the enjoyment of watching a kid throw a tantrum in a supermarket. Set during the negotiations around the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 and 1919, the rise of power of the leader is told through three chapters chronicling three “tantrums” the boy throws. The severe jump at the end is literally disconcerting for viewers. It took all of our energy to not stand up and shout “Look at me, Damien! It’s all for you!” before leaping from the Mezzanine. Watch the first three Omen films instead.
PSYCHO RAMAN: Also known as Raman Raghav 2.0, being a completely reinvented version of Raman Raghav, a real-life 1960s serial killer who terrorised India. Director and co-writer Anurag Kashyap wears the influences of David Fincher’s Seven on his sleeve, from the stylish titles to the pumping soundtrack, but leaves us with a difficult film to watch. A brutal film, even if the violence is mostly off-screen, it loses track of its own horrible subjects, including a corrupt cop that makes the serial killer seem nice.
Once again, links to the full reviews have been provided where available, but check out our full coverage of the festival at our 2016 Sydney Film Festival portal. Our tweeting throughout the Festival has also been saved on Storify.
AQUARIUS, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s quiet character-based exploration of changes in a beachside area of Brazil, has won the Official Competition at the 63rd Sydney Film Festival, appropriately taking a $63,000 prize as its reward. The award was given out as part of a Closing Night Gala ceremony emceed by none other than Margaret Pomeranz at the State Theatre in Sydney.
AQUARIUS is about a retired music critic played by Sonia Braga who resists the development of her apartment block by being the last holdout against the developers. Our full review of AQUARIUS is available on The Reel Bits, a film we described as being “a showcase for the strong performance of a nuanced Braga.”
“The jury was unanimous in its admiration of a strong competition this year, and wishes to award Kleber Mendonça Filho as the recipient of this year’s Sydney Film Prize, for his film Aquarius,” said Jury President Simon Field. “Aquarius is a compelling and relevant statement about contemporary Brazil, and the power of an individual standing up for what she believes,” he said.
Other films in contention this year were Apprentice (Boo Junking, Singapore), Certain Women(Kelly Reichardt, USA), The Childhood of a Leader (Brady Corbet, USA), The Endless River (Oliver Hermanus, South Africa), Goldstone (Ivan Sen, Australia), It’s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan, Canada), Land of Mine (Martin Zandvliet, Denmark), Letter from War (Ivo M. Ferreira, Portugal), Notes on Blindness (Peter Middleton and James Spinney, UK), Psycho Raman (Anurag Kashyap, India) and Viva (Paddy Breathnach, Ireland).
Other prize winners announced
Of course, it wasn’t the only award given out on the night. Sydney filmmaker Dan Jacksonwas awarded the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary, a $15,000 cash prize, forIn the Shadow of the Hill; with a special mention going to Destination Arnold directed by Sascha Ettinger Epstein.
The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films were announced; awarding Slapper, directed and written by Luci Schroder, The Dendy Live Action Short Award; The Crossing, directed and written by Marieka Walsh, The Yoram Gross Animation Award; and Goran Stolevski, the Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director, for You Deserve Everything.
The Event Cinema Australian Short Screenplay Award was awarded to Spice Sisters, written and directed by Sheila Jayadev, who received a $5,000 cash prize, with a special mention to Matthew Vesely for MyBest Friend Is Stuck On The Ceiling.
The new annual Sydney UNESCO City of Film Prize was awarded to Ms Lynette Wallworth, who received $10,000 prize awarded by Screen NSW.
Previous Sydney Film Prize winners are: Arabian Nights (2015); Two Days, One Night (2014); Only God Forgives (2013); Alps (2012); A Separation (2011), which went on to win an Academy Award; Heartbeats (2010); Bronson (2009); and Hunger (2008).
Now we begin the long wait for the 2017 festival. Revisit our full coverage of the Sydney Film Festival.
Direct from winning the Un Certain Regard Special Prize at Cannes, Studio Ghibli’s co-produced film is masterclass in visual storytelling.
During the screening of THE RED TURTLE, several groups of families came in late, as is the case with every cinema. Yet animator and short film director Michael Dudok de Wit’s feature debut is structured in such a way that the purely visual language can be understood at any drop-in point. One wouldn’t expect less from anything that the legendary Studio Ghibli touches, although this is distinct from anything they have been involved with before.
With When Marnie Was There, Ghibli concluded an era of classic story-first animation. THE RED TURTLE, a co-production with Wild Bunch, is definitely the work of a different voice, but with some Ghibli charm in its DNA. Without using any dialogue, it tells the story of a man who washes ashore on an isolated island, but his repeated attempts to escape are stymied by an unseen force. The story unfolds in a gentle and dreamlike fashion, complete with whimsical moments, and helpful wandering crabs that are reminiscent of the Susuwatari (“soot sprites”) that populated My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away.
What is most striking about THE RED TURTLE is how simple every aspect of the film is. It’s like a storybook, featuring character designs that resemble children’s author Tohby Riddle’s, with no more detail than dots for eyes. The narrative follows a very unencumbered style of animation, the lush tropical forest a seemingly unending collection of green lines, and the rest of the island is a wonderland punctuated by a relaxing body of water. As the man’s life unfolds on the island, he and some new companions deal with at least one major drama, but the straightforward tale is unburdened with overwrought speeches or heavy-handed morality. The absence of dialogue, beyond the occasional “Hey!”, allows audiences to soak up the imagery and let the gentle musings on an uncomplicated existence sink in.
Oftentimes abstract and lyrical, de Wit has ensured that the Studio Ghibli legacy will continue outside of Japan and into a new generation of filmmakers. His previous short films, including one drawn entirely with tea, indicated innovation, but his first feature shows that he is capable of the type of storytelling that has captivated animation fans around the world for decades. THE RED TURTLE is beautiful and lyrical journey through life – without even saying a word.
2016 | France, Belgium | DIR: Michael Dudok de Wit | WRITERS: Michael Dudok de Wit, Pascale Ferran | DISTRIBUTOR: Transmission Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 80 minutes | RATING: ★★★★½ (9/10)
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.
A stark yet romantic look at war, finding beauty and transformative language against hardship.
Set against the Portuguese Colonial War in the harsh East Angola during the 1970s, LETTERS FROM WAR (as the title would imply) is structured around a series of letters between medical doctor António (Miguel Nunes) and his pregnant wife Maria José (Margarida Vila-Nova) back home. Maria José is rarely seen, but for angelic glimpses of her filtered through memory, but she is constantly present. It is her lilting voice that narrates the melancholy series of poetic letters, filled with passionate and stirring language, even as the vision shows us the horrors of what António is seeing. As António’s optimism and politics being to change and darken, and his camp starts to go a little mad in the repetition of combat, it’s the letters that are the only marking of the passing of time. “Words are little,” muses one missive, “while absence is long.” Sharply reminiscent of Tabu, and not just because of the stunning black and white photography from João Ribeiro, the thematic dissection of Portuguese colonialism and the follies of war carries an equal amount of gravity to it. The music swells and falls, taken from composers like Gyorgy Ligeti, betraying the inner angst of António’s inner turmoil against his heartfelt language. As the film and its lead comes to a resolution, the elaborate mix of shades and textures will continue to wash over the viewer, much as the spectre of colonialism still hangs over Portugal.
2016 | Portugal | DIR: Ivo M. Ferreira | WRITERS: Ivo. M. Ferreira, Edgar Medina | CAST: Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ricardo Pereira | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes | RATING: ★★★★ (8/10)
At times a tense thriller, but this ghost story has too many ideas going on at once to be effective.
There’s a lot to unpack in PERSONAL SHOPPER. Too much in fact. Indeed, the winner of the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival is difficult to even categorise. Maureen (Kristen Stewart) works in Paris as a personal shopper for a celebrity. She’s also a medium trying to communicate with the spirit of her recently departed twin brother. If the concepts seem like an odd mix, they do on screen as well, lurching between the supernatural and Olivier Assayas’ penchant for the artwork of Hilma af Klint. When the film takes a sharp turn into something more terrestrially sinister, Stewart – returning for another collaboration with Assayas following Clouds of Sils Maria – takes on the role of the hapless victim. It then spirals into more standard thriller fare, with any tension dissipated by what feels like hours of text messages being exchanged between Maureen and a mystery third party. After floating into a listless third act, PERSONAL SHOPPER ultimately doesn’t have the courage of its own convictions, with a head-smacking ending that is far too clever-clever for its own good.
2016 | France | DIR: Olivier Assayas | WRITERS: Olivier Assayas, Christelle Meaux | CAST: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz | DISTRIBUTOR: Rialto Distribution (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes | RATING: ★★½ (5/10)
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)
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)
