Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Just some thoughts on the films I’ve caught for the Melbourne International Film Festival 2009. I know it’s long after the fact but I’ve never been good at churning out things!

White Night Wedding

Icelandic film exploring the notion that with remarriage comes a second chance at life. I found the film hilarious as I tend to enjoy quotidian themes with a touch of the magic realist. It’s a pretty age-old tale – older man attempts to recapture lost youth by dating a younger woman. Naturally, he learns that such redemption comes with its own caveats and baggage. Interwoven in the tale of his relationship with his younger bride-to-be Thora, we learn of his tumultuous marriage to his psychologically disturbed wife. A major criticism I have of the screening, rather than the film is that the English subtitles were appalling; surely it would have been easy enough to find a native English speak to correct them? After all, if this is to be a film festival of international repute, then such details should be spotless.

The Karamazovs

Sadly, I missed this film due to sleeping in.

Dead Snow

I’m not overly fond of zombie flicks and the way the popular culture has embraced it of late, but this film contained many elements I’m partial to – I love horror that focusses its action in enclosed spaces as I find it to be highly suspenseful and terrifying. This Norwegian film was understandably extremely well-received: a bunch of medical students head out to a cabin in the winter to have a bit of a lark. An old local barges in on their fun and they predictably dismiss his folkloric slant on World War II history of the area. Without giving too much away, gore and Nazi zombies ensue.

Hansel and Gretel
I love fairytales and how grotesque they are, so I was keen to see this Korean take. Beautiful cinematography and stunning, lush visuals, but sadly storytelling was limp and lacklustre in the remaining two thirds. The first third sustains momentum very well but it doesn’t continue throughout the film. I do love the exploration of the creepiness of things that look so perfect and…’pretty’. Thought-provoking, but not entirely successful artistically. Perhaps too dependent on mimetic devices – sometimes that which is left unsaid or unhinted can make for more powerful impact or storytelling.

Morphia

Russian film exploring a provincial doctor’s practice in Russia at the time of WWI. Apparently based on the autobiographical stories of Mikhail Bulgarov, and I must say, this film has induced me to chase up this author. It’s a pretty bleak tale exploring the nature of drug addiction and what desperation it can drive its victims to. Perhaps because I know very little of class and revolutionary struggles in Russia, the history was lost on me. Nevertheless, highly enjoyable and well crafted. The viewer is almost an accomplice and we are not induced to feel sympathy or empathy for the protagonists but this is a general observation of non-Hollywood films.

The Sky Crawlers

Japanese animated film with ‘real’ footage, CGI, and then more conventional animation techniques. Sadly, this film failed to capture my attention throughout, it seemed very long and laboured, and reliant upon too many noir cliches. The world is at war and the pilots are a genetically modified race of people called ‘Kildren’ who do not go past a certain age. So much promise but didn’t explore the more interesting elements of the story enough.

Bluebeard

Aside from Dead Snow, I’d say this is the festival highlight for me. Sumptuous mise-en-scene, engaging, innovative storytelling and just so beautiful to witness. Two girls are exploring a country house and the younger one starts to read Perrault’s version of ‘Bluebeard’ to her older sister. As well as treating us to a retelling of Bluebeard, the film explores the dynamics of the relationships between sisters, and to a lesser extent to their mothers and authority figures. Even though the tale is known to many, there is still room for the unknown at the end of the film.

A L’Aventure

French film on the typical theme of a woman’s self-discovery. I expected a lot more from this and while the main female protagonist has to be commended on what she did (or didn’t do) in order to find herself and sometimes alienate herself from society, the film was quite disappointing. My favourite scenes were the conversations she had with an older man who would appear on a park bench she frequented – he would impart so much knowledge in such a casual, conversational manner. It reminded me a bit of the fisherman who claims he has learnt all he knows by watching the river in which he fishes, from Hesse’s Siddhartha without the Eastern mystic pontification. If you were looking to be challenged by the BDSM element in A L’Aventure, then you would be sorely disappointed, as myself and my companion were.

The Maid

Alas, another film I missed due to sleeping in.

Antichrist

First up – I will confess outright that I slept through a sizeable portion of this film. I’m not proud of it, but I feel it fair to disclose that to anyone who might be reading this.

Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg were fantastic in this film, and are pretty much the entire film. Lars von Trier attempts to make a film which explores grief and abuse and its traumatic manipulations. Personally, I think he tries far too hard to shock his audience (and judging by the audience’s response, he achieves this) and I don’t think that it does him any favours as a filmmaker. It’s a highly confronting film. I also think the hints of mythology and use of archetypes (as in the three animals that reappear constantly, as motifs) are poorly handled. To be brutal, if you’re going to expect I give your film my time, then don’t insult me by making it gratuitously confronting. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect consummate storytelling.

Briefly, I want to thank my dear friends Colin, Ryan, and Tristan for pretty much supporting my manky starving artist arse – if it weren’t for them, I would not have been able to see as many films as I did, or eat and drink between films!