MIFF Day 15
Dammit, somehow I've done my neck. Hopefully it goes away before tomorrow...
MY DOG TULIP
Anyone who has ever owned a dog should see this film. Gross and disgusting in the most charming way possible, it's magical the way it takes all the little things, the annoyances and the joys of pet ownership, and transforms them into something wonderful. J.R. Ackerley's fictionalised memoir of his time with his Alsatian Tulip (in real life her name was Queenie) is brought to life with an idiosyncratic animation style, mixing fully coloured scenes with others resembling pencil tests and notebook scribblings. It all works together seamlessly to evoke the different emotions or ideas of the novel, read aloud by Christopher Plummer. All the more impressive is the fact the film is almost solely the work of a husband and wife team, Paul and Sandra Fierlinger. This really is a gem of a film, visualising one man's account of the only constant and reliable relationship he ever seemed to have, and the joy it brought him.
THE BLACKS
Genocide is awful, even for the perpetrators, so this film tells us. It's an oppressive, claustrophobic story, detailing an illegal mission to kill some Serbians after a ceasefire has been decreed. The mission fails, and we then flashback to the events leading up to it. There's the leader, who kills people in his garage and hides it from his wife, a convict who has lied that he knows how to use explosives in order to be released from prison, and sundry others who are all traumatised in their own ways. There's not much to the story, just people being miserable yet unwilling to step out of the cycle of violence. The mood is expertly handled and conveys how trapped these men are. It doesn't ask for sympathy, instead showing how ordinary people are capable of awful things. Not a nice film, and not particularly enjoyable, but it's not a bad one either.
MY DOG TULIP
Anyone who has ever owned a dog should see this film. Gross and disgusting in the most charming way possible, it's magical the way it takes all the little things, the annoyances and the joys of pet ownership, and transforms them into something wonderful. J.R. Ackerley's fictionalised memoir of his time with his Alsatian Tulip (in real life her name was Queenie) is brought to life with an idiosyncratic animation style, mixing fully coloured scenes with others resembling pencil tests and notebook scribblings. It all works together seamlessly to evoke the different emotions or ideas of the novel, read aloud by Christopher Plummer. All the more impressive is the fact the film is almost solely the work of a husband and wife team, Paul and Sandra Fierlinger. This really is a gem of a film, visualising one man's account of the only constant and reliable relationship he ever seemed to have, and the joy it brought him.
THE BLACKS
Genocide is awful, even for the perpetrators, so this film tells us. It's an oppressive, claustrophobic story, detailing an illegal mission to kill some Serbians after a ceasefire has been decreed. The mission fails, and we then flashback to the events leading up to it. There's the leader, who kills people in his garage and hides it from his wife, a convict who has lied that he knows how to use explosives in order to be released from prison, and sundry others who are all traumatised in their own ways. There's not much to the story, just people being miserable yet unwilling to step out of the cycle of violence. The mood is expertly handled and conveys how trapped these men are. It doesn't ask for sympathy, instead showing how ordinary people are capable of awful things. Not a nice film, and not particularly enjoyable, but it's not a bad one either.
posted by Andrew Lee at 10:13 PM
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