MIFF 2013 - Day 4
STOKER
It would be cheap to say Park Chan Wook decided to pick this as his first English language feature because of the undercurrent of incest that worms its way through the story, but since he made his name on an incest themed thriller, well... Dripping in southern gothic eroticism, this is a striking film about young India Stoker. Her father died on her 18th birthday, and her rather intense uncle Charlie turns up at the funeral and decides to stick around. He's fascinated by India, and she is puzzled and intrigued by him. It's one of those films you're better off seeing without knowing too much, as there's some very bold choices made that are best left unspoilt. It's not that it's surprising exactly, but how they reveal the "surprises" is provocative. It's a surprisingly focused effort from a director whose past few features have been little more than indulgences in trick shots and sloppy storytelling. Definitely a spectacular return to form.
THE END OF TIME
You can spot them a mile off. The writeup in the MIFF program tries a bit too hard to convince you this will be great. You know it's going to suck, but you go anyway, because they promise to show you inside the Large Hadron Collider. For about five minutes at the start of a two hour ordeal. The director's intent is to explore the nature of time, but with only one good interview with a couple of scientists he pads it out by asking a bunch of dull hippies to spout empty cant and pretend that it's insight. The time lapse photography is beautiful, and footage of lava flows make for arresting viewing. But you can't help but wish they'd interviewed more intelligent people to theorise on the nature of time. It needed more discipline, more thought and more meditation. It also has the distinction of being the first film this year where I've seen walkouts enter the double digits. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
It would be cheap to say Park Chan Wook decided to pick this as his first English language feature because of the undercurrent of incest that worms its way through the story, but since he made his name on an incest themed thriller, well... Dripping in southern gothic eroticism, this is a striking film about young India Stoker. Her father died on her 18th birthday, and her rather intense uncle Charlie turns up at the funeral and decides to stick around. He's fascinated by India, and she is puzzled and intrigued by him. It's one of those films you're better off seeing without knowing too much, as there's some very bold choices made that are best left unspoilt. It's not that it's surprising exactly, but how they reveal the "surprises" is provocative. It's a surprisingly focused effort from a director whose past few features have been little more than indulgences in trick shots and sloppy storytelling. Definitely a spectacular return to form.
THE END OF TIME
You can spot them a mile off. The writeup in the MIFF program tries a bit too hard to convince you this will be great. You know it's going to suck, but you go anyway, because they promise to show you inside the Large Hadron Collider. For about five minutes at the start of a two hour ordeal. The director's intent is to explore the nature of time, but with only one good interview with a couple of scientists he pads it out by asking a bunch of dull hippies to spout empty cant and pretend that it's insight. The time lapse photography is beautiful, and footage of lava flows make for arresting viewing. But you can't help but wish they'd interviewed more intelligent people to theorise on the nature of time. It needed more discipline, more thought and more meditation. It also has the distinction of being the first film this year where I've seen walkouts enter the double digits. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
posted by Andrew Lee at 12:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home