MIFF 2012 - Day 10
I spoke to a guy today that I've seen at MIFF every year for 12 years. Until this year we'd never even said hi to each other. For the life of me I can't think why we've never compared notes before. Nice bloke.
Headshot
Pen-Ek Ratanaurang has made some great films in his time, Last Life in the Universe and Invisible Waves spring to mind. And he'll always be remembered for the awesome drunken introduction to his film he and Chris Doyle gave at MIFF years ago. But his more recent films like Ploy and Nymph haven't felt quite as punchy, though they've been interesting experiences. Headshot feels like a bit of a throwback to Invisible Waves. The cinematography is gorgeous, but the plot slowly becomes more and more nonsensical and it's central conceit isn't really explored very much. The idea is that Tul, an ex-cop turned assassin for a shadowy organisation is shot in the head and now see the world upside down. The metaphor is clear, but Tul doesn't seem to have too much trouble with his new perspective. That would be because his secret power is that he fights better in the dark, when the senses of his opponents are reduced while his are heightened. It means we get some pretty cool and snappy action sequences, but overall this didn't really come together for me. It's an enjoyable ride, but while it's clearly reaching for the philosophical strength of his earlier works, it never quite grasps it.
A Monster in Paris
I have a hunch someone read Save the Cat before making this. I reckon the beats would follow pretty closely to those laid out by Blake Snyder. That's not a dig, it shows that effort went in to structuring the tale. But while it hits the beats in near perfect time, the notes themselves are a bit off here and there. But it's a kids film, and the kids in the audience ate it up. It's not up to How To Train Your Dragon levels of accomplishment, but it's a reasonably solid story with a lot of nice visual gags.
The Suicide Shop
Patrice Leconte tries his hand at animation, and the result is a musical about suicide. It's awesome. Everyone is depressed, and killing yourself in public is illegal, so a shop exists that sells everything you need to do away with yourself in the privacy of your house. They even do home deliveries. It's a family business, but it all comes unstuck when the youngest child turns out to be a happy little kid who loves to bring joy to other people and determines to put a stop to it all. Mirroring the same Hollywood structure I just mentioned above, it doesn't flinch from showing an awful lot of self-inflicted death along the way to the eventual redemption and triumph of joy. It's a dark parody of the feel good family film, and well worth a look.
Vulgaria
Pang Ho-Cheung is one of my favourite filmmakers. I've never seen a film of his I didn't like, and that hasn't changed. But gee he wasn't kidding about the title. This is a crass and vulgar film that honestly doesn't hold back from anything. When the hero of the film has to shag a mule in order to get funding for his next film, well... Kevin Smith would be proud of how far this goes to get a laugh. The end hits a bit abruptly, but the payoff is clever and the final punchline is both vile and hysterical. I don't think Pang has ever done a comedy this broad and lowbrow, which is saying a bit. And this has to be the first screening I can think of at MIFF where the jokes jumped off the screen. We were given Pop Rocks before the screening, which was puzzling, then all was revealed. Oh dear.
Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Frederik Gertten made a film called Bananas!* about the plight of Nicaraguan workers who were poisoned by pesticides used on the banana crops they tended and the resulting lawsuit against a food company named Dole. I'd never heard of them, but I'm allergic to bananas. They're apparently one of the largest food companies in the world. When they heard about the film, they went on the offensive. This film documents all the dirty tricks and legal shenanigans they used to try and bury the film and its message. It also documents the moral cowardice of large sections of the media and the film community in the US. The good news is Gertten won in the end. But I think the bad news is that this story kind of overwhelms the actual story of the farm workers. Either way it's depressing, as you begin to see how far a company is willing to go to bury a story. And even after beating them, nothing changes.
Headshot
Pen-Ek Ratanaurang has made some great films in his time, Last Life in the Universe and Invisible Waves spring to mind. And he'll always be remembered for the awesome drunken introduction to his film he and Chris Doyle gave at MIFF years ago. But his more recent films like Ploy and Nymph haven't felt quite as punchy, though they've been interesting experiences. Headshot feels like a bit of a throwback to Invisible Waves. The cinematography is gorgeous, but the plot slowly becomes more and more nonsensical and it's central conceit isn't really explored very much. The idea is that Tul, an ex-cop turned assassin for a shadowy organisation is shot in the head and now see the world upside down. The metaphor is clear, but Tul doesn't seem to have too much trouble with his new perspective. That would be because his secret power is that he fights better in the dark, when the senses of his opponents are reduced while his are heightened. It means we get some pretty cool and snappy action sequences, but overall this didn't really come together for me. It's an enjoyable ride, but while it's clearly reaching for the philosophical strength of his earlier works, it never quite grasps it.
A Monster in Paris
I have a hunch someone read Save the Cat before making this. I reckon the beats would follow pretty closely to those laid out by Blake Snyder. That's not a dig, it shows that effort went in to structuring the tale. But while it hits the beats in near perfect time, the notes themselves are a bit off here and there. But it's a kids film, and the kids in the audience ate it up. It's not up to How To Train Your Dragon levels of accomplishment, but it's a reasonably solid story with a lot of nice visual gags.
The Suicide Shop
Patrice Leconte tries his hand at animation, and the result is a musical about suicide. It's awesome. Everyone is depressed, and killing yourself in public is illegal, so a shop exists that sells everything you need to do away with yourself in the privacy of your house. They even do home deliveries. It's a family business, but it all comes unstuck when the youngest child turns out to be a happy little kid who loves to bring joy to other people and determines to put a stop to it all. Mirroring the same Hollywood structure I just mentioned above, it doesn't flinch from showing an awful lot of self-inflicted death along the way to the eventual redemption and triumph of joy. It's a dark parody of the feel good family film, and well worth a look.
Vulgaria
Pang Ho-Cheung is one of my favourite filmmakers. I've never seen a film of his I didn't like, and that hasn't changed. But gee he wasn't kidding about the title. This is a crass and vulgar film that honestly doesn't hold back from anything. When the hero of the film has to shag a mule in order to get funding for his next film, well... Kevin Smith would be proud of how far this goes to get a laugh. The end hits a bit abruptly, but the payoff is clever and the final punchline is both vile and hysterical. I don't think Pang has ever done a comedy this broad and lowbrow, which is saying a bit. And this has to be the first screening I can think of at MIFF where the jokes jumped off the screen. We were given Pop Rocks before the screening, which was puzzling, then all was revealed. Oh dear.
Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Frederik Gertten made a film called Bananas!* about the plight of Nicaraguan workers who were poisoned by pesticides used on the banana crops they tended and the resulting lawsuit against a food company named Dole. I'd never heard of them, but I'm allergic to bananas. They're apparently one of the largest food companies in the world. When they heard about the film, they went on the offensive. This film documents all the dirty tricks and legal shenanigans they used to try and bury the film and its message. It also documents the moral cowardice of large sections of the media and the film community in the US. The good news is Gertten won in the end. But I think the bad news is that this story kind of overwhelms the actual story of the farm workers. Either way it's depressing, as you begin to see how far a company is willing to go to bury a story. And even after beating them, nothing changes.
posted by Andrew Lee at 1:40 AM
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