MIFF Day 8
Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me...
It's a great thing to have your birthday in the middle of a Film Festival. Even better when every year they manage to have a lineup of great films to see on the day.
Roy Andersson Shorts
Only two of the shorts here demonstrate Andersson's trademark style, the other three, while containing his wit are far more conventionally shot. You, The Living was a privately financed film, apparently due to his fractious relationship with various funding bodies. Given that the films they financed are the ones that don't really feel like him, I can understand why he doesn't like them much. All up, the man's a great talent and his films are great.
Moon
I've been looking forward to this film for a while, ever since I saw a trailer online. And it didn't disappoint. A taut film about a man, alone on the far side of the moon going crazy, possibly. Or maybe discovering something very sinister about his existence. It's notable for the way it plays with identity, perception and artificial intelligence. Knowing the audience reaction to a HAL like machine, the film surprises and is, in the end, a very moving story of men coming to terms with who they are. The score by Clint Mansell is very effective too, a slow drip drip of sound that builds the tension expertly. An impressive debut by Duncan Jones.
Hansel and Gretel
A supernatural inversion of the traditional Hansel and Gretel story, where three children live in a house in the forest and trap unsuspecting adults into playing the role of their parents. Anything the children wish for becomes reality, and they can wish for very nasty things. It becomes a story of abuse, cycles of violence and attempts to hide from the evil in the world. The fairytale made real style is creepy and effective, and the end is surprisingly hopeful for a story that is mostly grim.
Examined Life
Director Astra Taylor's previous film, Zizek! established her fascination with philosophy. Here she takes it further, trying to create a philosophical discourse on life inside 90 minutes of talking heads. She's grabbed a who's who of philosophers to discuss their ideas, some are awful, some are fascinating. Cornel West is a man I want to read more on now, his exuberance for ideas is infectious. Peter Singer remains an unsympathetic controversialist, though some of his ideas have merit. Kwame Anthony Appiah speaks about the global village in a way that does away with notions of cultural relativity. Judith Butler manages to not say anything stupid (she leaves that to her writing I guess). And Slavoj Zizek maintains his position as rockstar philosopher and self-described monster. It's hit and miss, but the hits are excellent and it's nice to have a film that requires you to wrestle with it.
An Education
Written by Nick Hornby, directed by Lone Scherfig (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself), this is a film of great performances and clever dialogue. It's a charmer, though at its heart there's more than a little bit of darkness. The story of a girl who is seduced by a much older man (she's 16, he's 34) who offers her the life she's always wanted to lead. There's a price to this, of course, and when it comes time to pay, it's a heavy one. The film never judges, never creates a sense of unease about a situation that could easily be viewed as more criminal than misjudged, and magically, it gets away with it too. It's an immensely enjoyable film that walks the line and does it adroitly.
Sauna
I'm not sure what I think of this film yet. I really enjoyed it, it was visually stunning and the fact it's a sort of horror take on Tarkovsky's Stalker had me engaged, but it's too short in the end. At 83 minutes, it never develops any of it's ideas fully, and they're great ideas. In the middle of a swamp lies a single white building, the sauna, nobody knows who built it but monks who built their monastery nearby believed it could wash away a man's sins. And Erik and Knut have things to be forgiven. The idea that the promise of forgiveness could drive a man to do greater evil is a potent one, and there are moments in the film that tease with the possibility, but in the end it collapses into a few creepy shots and a particularly horrific moment that feels lifted from a Silent Hill game. It's a creepy film, but frustrating because the material it throws up is far more interesting than the final execution.
It's a great thing to have your birthday in the middle of a Film Festival. Even better when every year they manage to have a lineup of great films to see on the day.
Roy Andersson Shorts
Only two of the shorts here demonstrate Andersson's trademark style, the other three, while containing his wit are far more conventionally shot. You, The Living was a privately financed film, apparently due to his fractious relationship with various funding bodies. Given that the films they financed are the ones that don't really feel like him, I can understand why he doesn't like them much. All up, the man's a great talent and his films are great.
Moon
I've been looking forward to this film for a while, ever since I saw a trailer online. And it didn't disappoint. A taut film about a man, alone on the far side of the moon going crazy, possibly. Or maybe discovering something very sinister about his existence. It's notable for the way it plays with identity, perception and artificial intelligence. Knowing the audience reaction to a HAL like machine, the film surprises and is, in the end, a very moving story of men coming to terms with who they are. The score by Clint Mansell is very effective too, a slow drip drip of sound that builds the tension expertly. An impressive debut by Duncan Jones.
Hansel and Gretel
A supernatural inversion of the traditional Hansel and Gretel story, where three children live in a house in the forest and trap unsuspecting adults into playing the role of their parents. Anything the children wish for becomes reality, and they can wish for very nasty things. It becomes a story of abuse, cycles of violence and attempts to hide from the evil in the world. The fairytale made real style is creepy and effective, and the end is surprisingly hopeful for a story that is mostly grim.
Examined Life
Director Astra Taylor's previous film, Zizek! established her fascination with philosophy. Here she takes it further, trying to create a philosophical discourse on life inside 90 minutes of talking heads. She's grabbed a who's who of philosophers to discuss their ideas, some are awful, some are fascinating. Cornel West is a man I want to read more on now, his exuberance for ideas is infectious. Peter Singer remains an unsympathetic controversialist, though some of his ideas have merit. Kwame Anthony Appiah speaks about the global village in a way that does away with notions of cultural relativity. Judith Butler manages to not say anything stupid (she leaves that to her writing I guess). And Slavoj Zizek maintains his position as rockstar philosopher and self-described monster. It's hit and miss, but the hits are excellent and it's nice to have a film that requires you to wrestle with it.
An Education
Written by Nick Hornby, directed by Lone Scherfig (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself), this is a film of great performances and clever dialogue. It's a charmer, though at its heart there's more than a little bit of darkness. The story of a girl who is seduced by a much older man (she's 16, he's 34) who offers her the life she's always wanted to lead. There's a price to this, of course, and when it comes time to pay, it's a heavy one. The film never judges, never creates a sense of unease about a situation that could easily be viewed as more criminal than misjudged, and magically, it gets away with it too. It's an immensely enjoyable film that walks the line and does it adroitly.
Sauna
I'm not sure what I think of this film yet. I really enjoyed it, it was visually stunning and the fact it's a sort of horror take on Tarkovsky's Stalker had me engaged, but it's too short in the end. At 83 minutes, it never develops any of it's ideas fully, and they're great ideas. In the middle of a swamp lies a single white building, the sauna, nobody knows who built it but monks who built their monastery nearby believed it could wash away a man's sins. And Erik and Knut have things to be forgiven. The idea that the promise of forgiveness could drive a man to do greater evil is a potent one, and there are moments in the film that tease with the possibility, but in the end it collapses into a few creepy shots and a particularly horrific moment that feels lifted from a Silent Hill game. It's a creepy film, but frustrating because the material it throws up is far more interesting than the final execution.
posted by Andrew Lee at 1:47 AM
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