Here, belatedly (by about six months!) are my notes on MIFF2016. Grouped in bite sized chunks. Despite my best intentions I saw far too many, but I enjoyed most of my fifty nine films and was completely swept away by many. Here are the ones I think most likely to get a commercial release and that I recommend. ACMI gets a lot of festival films (from MIFF and elsewhere so it’s worth keeping an eye on the ACMI website).
Paterson
I initially characterised this as an ode to loneliness. The lead character who is called Paterson and lives in Paterson (Adam Driver) is our Everyman. He’s an odd looking fellow; perfectly suited to this role. He’s a bus driver set in his weekly routine: wake at 6.30, kiss his sleeping wife, dress, breakfast, walk to the depot, have the much the same conversation with his supervisor, drive, walk home, straighten the post box, admire his wife’s latest passion, eat what she’s cooked for him, walk the dog down to the local bar, then home again. There are three variations to this schedule. His wife’s interests change daily. A lovely kooky performance from the wonderful Iranian actress Golshifteh Farani who I’ve only ever seen in much darker films (The Patience Stone). She’s beautiful and great in a difficult role as a whacky foil to her serious husband. There’s also a great performance by a gorgeous but very mean bulldog who provides some comic relief but also contributes to one of the few dramatic pivots. Paterson overhears conversations on the bus. He observes the regulars at the bar and has desultory conversations with the barman. So far a paean to the ‘ordinary ‘ life. But our bus driver has a rich inner life – he writes poetry – composing it in his head as he eats, drives and lunches. He eats overlooking a waterfall often visited by the American poet William Carlos Williams – who lived in Paterson all his life. The film is in fact an homage to Williams whose poetry in turn paid homage to so-called ordinary life. Our hero at one stage reads Williams’ famous poem about eating the plums his wife has left in the fridge. This is a slow film where not much happens. It’s about how we live and how our interior lives intersect with so-called ordinary life. Quite beautiful. Paterson’s poems are by a contemporary American poet, Ron Padgett. And very fine they are too.
Toni Erdmann
This much praised film provides an insightful look at contemporary family life. At inter-generational connectedness or lack of it. At the impact of global employee mobility impacts on personal lives. It also takes a hard nosed look into the soulless and sexist world of high end corporate culture – in this case a consultancy providing advice on international company mergers and plant closures. A father seeking to know and understand his daughter’s world gate-crashes her social events and work assignments. His disguise is ridiculous but this doesn’t matter. I was told by a festival-goer that both the disguise and the name of the film reference a famous German comedian but I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere so can’t verify that. These fatherly intrusions horrify the daughter but end up revealing important truths about her life: superficial friends, sexist work clients, false promises by work managers. Slowly, over 163 minutes none of which is wasted, these incidents build to a deeply affecting conclusion. Characters – friends, work colleagues – are multi-faceted. It’s interesting who succeeds surely one of the most challenging character tests set by anybody. This happens towards the end, when the daughter finally succumbs to the pressure her father’s antics have built up in her. This results in one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in a movie; it’s great to be in a cinema with hundreds of others laughing out loud. I wept tears of laughter. Amazingly this is followed by one of the most emotionally poignant scenes I’ve seen – more tears. Great performances by everybody but especially the daughter and father who you are emotionally engaged with from early on – after an initial rocky start. A neat conclusion which is neither sentimental nor too neat. A film that deserves all the plaudits coming its way.
11 Minutes
A sense of impending doom hovers over everything that happens in this relatively short Polish film. The sense of dread is heightened by multiple shots of an aeroplane flying low over the city. An actress meets a director in his hotel suite in the hope of scoring a film role. Is he intent on harm? Her husband thinks so. And we wonder; after he unplugs the telephone and brings out the champagne. A drug courier delivers his goods to different clients; zooming around town on his motor cycle all black leather and closed visor. visage. A hot dog vendor with a past is selling his wares in a square. First to nuns who laugh as they eat and then move on to wait at a to bus shelter. Then to a woman who has just collected her dog from an estranged lover; the dog is a beautiful but menacing German Shepard. A worker is suspended against the wall of a high rise building; beside the gas cylinder used in the welding he’s doing. A boy hiving off from school encounters a dead body and runs away in horror. He just manages to catch the bus. All of these characters come together in a spectacular conclusion. Beautifully shot film. Each scene beautifully framed. Lovely colours. And it has unexpectedly stayed with me even though I am unsure of the message it was seeking to convey. All of the disparate incidents and characters are captured on security screens being monitored in a central location in the city and the final image is of a single faulty pixel on one of those screens. Is the film-maker concerned about the implications of the surveillance state? Or the randomness of cause and effect in an age of paranoia about terrorism. Hard to say.
Mahana
This was a very beautiful and moving New Zealand film by the director of Once Were Warriors. Set in the nineteen fifties. The family patriarch played by Temuera Morrison also from Once Were Warriors, rules his family with an iron fist. His sons and daughters have allowed him to run things his way. Not so his bold grandson. A great performance from the young actor. All of the performances are strong. There’s a dark secret underpinning the rivalry between two sheep shearing families. And the young fellow is onto it early -“ what did you think Grandma?” he asks when he hears again the oft told family story of her being swept from the church by Grandpa on the day she was going to marry someone else. A bucolic setting – deep green rolling hills. A simple tale beautifully told. Very affecting conclusion. Here’s the trailer.
Personal Shopper
I enjoyed this very much. Largely because of the great performance by Kristin Stewart. It’s actually a ghost story – not my usual fare. Grabs you by the throat and takes you on a roller coaster ride. Exploring the supernatural. It’s achievement is getting you to believe there might be something out there. Towards the end, I was happy to accept that the automatic operation of lift doors and a hotel entrance could be caused by a ghost. Unsettling. Enjoyable glimpse into what it would be like to be a personal shopper. Selecting, collecting and delivering high fashion pieces and expensive jewellery for someone who has everything – except time and any personal connection with her employee. Our heroine gets instructions impersonally via post it notes or texts. Texts play a pivotal role in a growing sense of dread. Its the first time I’ve seen modern technology used to great effect in story telling. Our personal shopper has a medical condition she shares(d) with her now deceased twin brother. Suspense builds. Our personal shopper is being used – but by whom? A person or a spirit? I loved it. Alternatively it could be complete mumbo jumbo which was the view of a friend and fellow festival goer to whom I recommended it.
The Handmaiden
Absolutely exquisite to look at. Every frame perfect. Sumptuous setting, costumes, beautiful actors. Great story based on the novel Fingersmith about which I knew nothing except that it involved a lesbian relationship and a double cross of some sort. The film transfers this to a Korean setting. A beautiful mansion set in an exquisite garden. The great house is lushly appointed but there is a bedroom in a cupboard for the maid and something monstrous in the basement. Secrets – lots of secrets held by everybody. We see the same events unfold from three different perspectives. Who is in charge of this story? The bespectacled lord of the manor? The swashbuckling, self made charmer intent on winning a fortune? The beautiful heiress? The innocent maidservant? No-one is quite what they seem. A couple of scenes are not for the fainthearted. There is a lot of very energetic sex. I closed my eyes for a good bit of the penultimate section – when you find out exactly what is in the basement. This meant I couldn’t see the subtitles but I got the drift. A very satisfactory ending. And a very entertaining romp overall.
Things To Come
A quiet meditation on life, family and loss. Isabel Huppert is wonderful in her portrayal of a middle aged woman facing the ‘things that come‘ at her. A series of crises – the sorts of things faced by lots of people – divorce, mother’s death, her professional work falling out of fashion. No pat resolutions. Just ordinary life. A woman just has to keep going whatever life throws at her. Keeps on managing work and family matters through the shock of divorce. Manages the business of leaving behind the things acquired in a life as a couple- saying goodbye to the house by the sea, dividing the carefully acquired and much loved books. It means developing new relationships with her children and, later, a grandchild . This time as a woman alone and not as half a couple. It means dealing with other changes alone – your work self, your professional standing – for her a life devoted to understanding and teaching philosophical concepts. It means going to the cinema alone. It means exploring new relationships – for her this means with an admired former student, which, lifelike, remains platonic. It means managing a mother’s decline, first the painful transfer to a nursing home, looking after her cat. Finally, a funeral. All the quiet detritus of life. It concludes, really fittingly, with a Christmas celebration being prepared from which the now divorced husband is, rightfully, excluded. Life goes on – “whatever is to come“. Quite lovely.
The Childhood of a Leader
Amazing music sets this film off to an exhilarating start – heart-thumpingly loud, ‘industrial’ in tone if that can be a musical descriptor. Extraordinary. I thought later it tended to be overused and lost its shock value. A beautiful looking film – each scene reminded me of a Rembrandt painting. Beautiful actors and pitch perfect performances. It’s the Versailles peace conference and we are in the home of an American participant on the outskirts of Paris. Beautiful home, beautiful surroundings. Beautiful wife. Angelic looking boy. All long blonde hair – “are you a girl?” All filmed in dark, rich tones. But there’s not enough material to give meaning to the title. Self centred mother, absent father, monstrous child. Who, one felt, just needed a good thrashing! Hired help who made things worse by pandering to every tantrum. Responses to bad behaviour frankly unbelievable, as was expecting good behaviour at a final grand dinner during which the boy slaps the mother. So loses the thread of believability on which all films depend. The final scenes take us to the child as adult. Now a fascist leader – blonde curls gone – making his way through the screaming, adoring crowd. Scary.
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