MIFF 2013 - Day 10
MOON MAN
Parents, keep an eye out for this one at the DVD store. A really unusual and very sweet story about the Moon Man, who catches the tail of a comet and rides it to Earth because he's bored and lonely. The President of Earth, having just conquered the last remaining holdout, looks to the Moon for something new to conquer, and the Moon Man as something new to fear. At its core it's a story about what friendship is, with a very simple moral. And it's got a killer soundtrack too.
VALENTINE ROAD
A 14 year old boy murders another kid in his class in cold blood, because the boy was transgender and had asked him to be his valentine. Charged as an adult, and facing a life sentence for a hate crime, a couple of lawyers rally to save the boy from life in prison. But he murdered someone for being different, and it turns out he was a white supremacist with a fascination for Hitler and severe issues with violence. But the defense argued that he was the victim, bullied by a trans kid and humiliated by him to the point where the only solution he could see was killing him. And you see from this wonderfully made film how so much bullshit is thrown up to avoid a simple fact. He murdered a boy in cold blood. Lots of people are homophobic, and teachers and jurors aren't excluded from that unfortunately, and will go to great lengths to defend their opinion. The fallout of this case is genuinely depressing. Hopefully this film will start a conversation about the appalling behaviour of those who tried to defend an act of murder as an acceptable response to prejudice.
TIP TOP
This feels more like the failed pilot to a television series than an actual film. The basics are it's a typical French farce, where two Internal Affairs detectives are sent to investigate the murder of a police informant. Did someone on the force rat him out? Yes, and that stuff plays out as a sideline to the sexual kinks of the two detectives. One is a compulsive peeping tom, the other likes to be hit. It's a bit of a nothing film, not exactly boring, but never particularly engaging either. Disappointing.
CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915
I saw this for the simple reason that the director's previous film was Outside Satan, a film I love for reasons I can't articulate or fully understand. And I'm stuck in much the same place here. Juliette Binoche plays Camille, the former mistress of Rodin and an artist in her own right, locked up in an asylum by her brother and wracked by persecution complexes including a belief that Rodin wants to murder her and steal all her work. Not much happens, but it's arresting viewing. The rhythms of the asylum are interesting, and Binoche is painful to watch as someone who is probably insane but still very lucid, making it hard to tell what's really going on.
MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS
This is not a documentary about The National. This is a documentary about what it's like to have your older brother be the lead singer of The National. Tom Berninger is 9 years younger than Matt, and gets invited to be a roadie on The National's tour around the world. He films the experience, including getting sacked halfway through the tour, and pulls it all together in a fairly spectacular way. Incredibly funny, touching and lightly peppered with insights into the band themselves, it's a unique experience you should seek out.
Parents, keep an eye out for this one at the DVD store. A really unusual and very sweet story about the Moon Man, who catches the tail of a comet and rides it to Earth because he's bored and lonely. The President of Earth, having just conquered the last remaining holdout, looks to the Moon for something new to conquer, and the Moon Man as something new to fear. At its core it's a story about what friendship is, with a very simple moral. And it's got a killer soundtrack too.
VALENTINE ROAD
A 14 year old boy murders another kid in his class in cold blood, because the boy was transgender and had asked him to be his valentine. Charged as an adult, and facing a life sentence for a hate crime, a couple of lawyers rally to save the boy from life in prison. But he murdered someone for being different, and it turns out he was a white supremacist with a fascination for Hitler and severe issues with violence. But the defense argued that he was the victim, bullied by a trans kid and humiliated by him to the point where the only solution he could see was killing him. And you see from this wonderfully made film how so much bullshit is thrown up to avoid a simple fact. He murdered a boy in cold blood. Lots of people are homophobic, and teachers and jurors aren't excluded from that unfortunately, and will go to great lengths to defend their opinion. The fallout of this case is genuinely depressing. Hopefully this film will start a conversation about the appalling behaviour of those who tried to defend an act of murder as an acceptable response to prejudice.
TIP TOP
This feels more like the failed pilot to a television series than an actual film. The basics are it's a typical French farce, where two Internal Affairs detectives are sent to investigate the murder of a police informant. Did someone on the force rat him out? Yes, and that stuff plays out as a sideline to the sexual kinks of the two detectives. One is a compulsive peeping tom, the other likes to be hit. It's a bit of a nothing film, not exactly boring, but never particularly engaging either. Disappointing.
CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915
I saw this for the simple reason that the director's previous film was Outside Satan, a film I love for reasons I can't articulate or fully understand. And I'm stuck in much the same place here. Juliette Binoche plays Camille, the former mistress of Rodin and an artist in her own right, locked up in an asylum by her brother and wracked by persecution complexes including a belief that Rodin wants to murder her and steal all her work. Not much happens, but it's arresting viewing. The rhythms of the asylum are interesting, and Binoche is painful to watch as someone who is probably insane but still very lucid, making it hard to tell what's really going on.
MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS
This is not a documentary about The National. This is a documentary about what it's like to have your older brother be the lead singer of The National. Tom Berninger is 9 years younger than Matt, and gets invited to be a roadie on The National's tour around the world. He films the experience, including getting sacked halfway through the tour, and pulls it all together in a fairly spectacular way. Incredibly funny, touching and lightly peppered with insights into the band themselves, it's a unique experience you should seek out.
posted by Andrew Lee at 12:21 AM
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