MIFF 2016 - Day 15

Our Huff and Puff Journey

Daigo Matsui is clearly fascinated by teen obsession. Following up Wonderful World End, he's crafted another film about teenagers obsessed, this time with a band called CreepHyp, and the delusions that come from their imagined intimacy. Four girls run away from home to ride to Tokyo for a gig, they all have their own issues and these boil over as things don't exactly go to plan. The girls are extremely believable, both in their conflicts and their innocence. They come so close to peril so often and seem vaguely oblivious to it all. It's a great examination of their relationships, and their milieu.

Life, Animated

Owen Suskind has severe autism, but his love of Disney films gave him a path to language, and gave his family a way to communicate and engage with him. This is a beautiful story of a love of cinema creating a bridge between people and offering a way to connect. I think it's the best doco I've seen this festival.

Life After Life

When a man's dead wife takes possession of their son's body, she asks her husband to move the tree in their yard. Nobody so much as blinks at this, and as he asks for help, we travel the Chinese countryside and see industrialisation and deserted towns, forced relocations to make way for mines and factories. There's a key line early on when they look at how to move the tree, cut the roots and the tree will wither. And that's what we're shown. A slow and meditative look at what's been lost in China's modernisation. A lot of people didn't like it, and I can see why, but I found it a gently moving ghost story with something to say. It would make a great double feature with Old Stone.

Seoul Station

Friggin awesome animated film about a zombie outbreak. Like the best zombie films, it uses them for political metaphor. Here, it's the homeless and dispossessed rising up. And it starts because nobody will help "patient zero". Everyone ignores him because he's inconvenient. The main plot is a runaway girl trying to reunite with her boyfriend and father, but since this is by the director of King of Pigs, things end up very dark and all is not as it seems. Layered and tense, it's a ripper.

Train to Busan

Ok, Seoul Station was awesome, but it was just the appetiser. This is the live-action companion film, and OMG! Best zombie film in years. So inventive and ruthless. Barely anyone survives and they all go out in spectacular ways. And the scale of it... Some of the set pieces are massive. I don't think I've enjoyed a zombie film this much since 28 Days Later. There are a few issues here and there with the script, and it gets a bit mawkish at the end, but it's still brilliant, and the most fun I've had in the cinema in ages.