MIFF 2014 - Day 17
I survived, sort of. A hacking cough remains, but I saw out the final day with my full quota of films. On reflection, MIFF is a marathon and the past year has seen me fall out of shape, so it's unsurprising I ended up being struck down so harshly. Lesson learned. Now it's time to get fit for next year.
Wish I Was Here
If you wanted to sum this film up in one word, it would be earnest. For all it's quirk and humour, the emotion on display is wholly genuine, there's not an ounce of cynicism to be found. Zach Braff's belated followup to the indie hit Garden State is a more complex affair, dealing with the relationship of Aidan and Sarah, a couple both unfulfilled in their work. Aidan is a mostly-failed actor, still auditioning for bit parts, Sarah supports the family working at an office. When Aidan's father gets cancer, he can't pay for their private schooling, so Aidan ends up home schooling them. Then there's his brother Noah, a brilliant but forever roaming mind who can't seem to complete anything. It's a relationship drama with some very intelligent things to say, but it's also overlong and features one in-joke cameo too many. Braff famously went to Kickstarter to raise funds for the film because that would allow him to retain final cut over his film. His instincts may have been correct on a simpler film like Garden State, but here, with a lot more moving parts, he could have done with some help pruning back and pacing things better. Still, it's a worthwhile film.
Giovanni's Island
Thankfully not as grim as Grave of the Fireflies, this Japanese anime deals with the postwar Russian occupation of Shikotan through the eyes of two children. Junpei and Kanta. Junpei befriends Tanya, the daughter of the Russian Commander of the occupation, but his own father is the village leader and is smuggling rice to feed the people. Things come to a head and Junpei and Tanya's friendship is destroyed. About halfway through I got irritated at the film, Junpei and Kanta's uncle Hideo says he knows where their father is being held and they run away to find him. But when Hideo finds them, instead of grabbing them and dragging them back to safety, he helps them, quite irresponsibly. But then I remembered that Hideo is constantly doing irresponsible things. It's in character, even if it's an obviously cheap setup for tragedy. I dunno, I'm left a bit conflicted. It's a really good and affecting film, but there's a few plot points that feel like lazy manipulation. But overall, the charm of the piece wins out.
Hard to be a God
I deliberately chose this to be my final film of the festival. A 170 minute long Russian black and white epic based on a novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, the authors of Roadside Picnic, adapted (incredibly loosely) into the amazing film Stalker. I didn't know what to expect, other than that the advance word was it was an incredibly grimy experience. They weren't kidding. It opens up on a couple of peasants smearing themselves in human faeces, and gets worse from there. I haven't seen so many people walk out of a cinema in ages. By the end of the first hour I'd estimate roughly 10% of the audience had left, by the end of the second hour, maybe 20%. But their loss. This isn't a film for everyone, but it was one for me. It's the story of Don Rumata, or at least that's what we know him as. He's one of 30 scientists from Earth now on this new planet, observing a society stuck in the middle ages, where a renaissance seems impossible due to the fact that educated men are routinely executed. Rumata is rumoured to be the son of a god, and is the greatest fighter in the land. Initially, he seems to have abandoned his scientific observation to become a dissolute rogue, antagonising the local church, etc. But slowly, it becomes clear that he is trying to achieve something, though maybe not with much success. The narrative I supposed was that all the scientists had gone native, and were now warring with each other for control of this world. Rumata being the only one with any kind of a conscience. Apparently that's not the plot of the book, but it was what the experience of watching this film created for me. It's not an easy film to watch, but I was almost completely absorbed by it. Quite a remarkable thing to sit through, though I'm not sure I'd have the stamina to do it again. In many ways, those qualities describe the perfect festival film. Something you wouldn't normally seek out, but when presented to you turns out to be an incredible experience.
Wish I Was Here
If you wanted to sum this film up in one word, it would be earnest. For all it's quirk and humour, the emotion on display is wholly genuine, there's not an ounce of cynicism to be found. Zach Braff's belated followup to the indie hit Garden State is a more complex affair, dealing with the relationship of Aidan and Sarah, a couple both unfulfilled in their work. Aidan is a mostly-failed actor, still auditioning for bit parts, Sarah supports the family working at an office. When Aidan's father gets cancer, he can't pay for their private schooling, so Aidan ends up home schooling them. Then there's his brother Noah, a brilliant but forever roaming mind who can't seem to complete anything. It's a relationship drama with some very intelligent things to say, but it's also overlong and features one in-joke cameo too many. Braff famously went to Kickstarter to raise funds for the film because that would allow him to retain final cut over his film. His instincts may have been correct on a simpler film like Garden State, but here, with a lot more moving parts, he could have done with some help pruning back and pacing things better. Still, it's a worthwhile film.
Giovanni's Island
Thankfully not as grim as Grave of the Fireflies, this Japanese anime deals with the postwar Russian occupation of Shikotan through the eyes of two children. Junpei and Kanta. Junpei befriends Tanya, the daughter of the Russian Commander of the occupation, but his own father is the village leader and is smuggling rice to feed the people. Things come to a head and Junpei and Tanya's friendship is destroyed. About halfway through I got irritated at the film, Junpei and Kanta's uncle Hideo says he knows where their father is being held and they run away to find him. But when Hideo finds them, instead of grabbing them and dragging them back to safety, he helps them, quite irresponsibly. But then I remembered that Hideo is constantly doing irresponsible things. It's in character, even if it's an obviously cheap setup for tragedy. I dunno, I'm left a bit conflicted. It's a really good and affecting film, but there's a few plot points that feel like lazy manipulation. But overall, the charm of the piece wins out.
Hard to be a God
I deliberately chose this to be my final film of the festival. A 170 minute long Russian black and white epic based on a novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, the authors of Roadside Picnic, adapted (incredibly loosely) into the amazing film Stalker. I didn't know what to expect, other than that the advance word was it was an incredibly grimy experience. They weren't kidding. It opens up on a couple of peasants smearing themselves in human faeces, and gets worse from there. I haven't seen so many people walk out of a cinema in ages. By the end of the first hour I'd estimate roughly 10% of the audience had left, by the end of the second hour, maybe 20%. But their loss. This isn't a film for everyone, but it was one for me. It's the story of Don Rumata, or at least that's what we know him as. He's one of 30 scientists from Earth now on this new planet, observing a society stuck in the middle ages, where a renaissance seems impossible due to the fact that educated men are routinely executed. Rumata is rumoured to be the son of a god, and is the greatest fighter in the land. Initially, he seems to have abandoned his scientific observation to become a dissolute rogue, antagonising the local church, etc. But slowly, it becomes clear that he is trying to achieve something, though maybe not with much success. The narrative I supposed was that all the scientists had gone native, and were now warring with each other for control of this world. Rumata being the only one with any kind of a conscience. Apparently that's not the plot of the book, but it was what the experience of watching this film created for me. It's not an easy film to watch, but I was almost completely absorbed by it. Quite a remarkable thing to sit through, though I'm not sure I'd have the stamina to do it again. In many ways, those qualities describe the perfect festival film. Something you wouldn't normally seek out, but when presented to you turns out to be an incredible experience.
posted by Andrew Lee at 10:33 PM
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