At the end of Season 3 viewers were left wondering not only where the line between “good” and “evil” lay with relation to key characters but also who exactly would make it back alive for Season 4. Well, I’m not going to spoil things by answering those rather excellent questions but what I will say is that you needn’t worry because – one way or another – all your favourites will be returning and, as has been the case all along, the “plot” (I think we can just about call it that) thickens. There are important updates afoot with regard to The Guild of Calamitous Intent, The Sovereign, budding romances between certain young characters, the mental health of various other characters and of course, the very complicated, legal minefield that applies to the world of Arching.

If everything I wrote in the last paragraph means absolutely nothing to you then I suspect you are unfamiliar with the best cartoon ever made, in which case, you really ought to start with Season 1 and catch yourself up. Don’t worry, this recommendation is about as iron clad as anyone’s sanity, so if you have a sense of humour (and particularly if things that are a little bit not quite right so happen to tickle your fancy) go buy Seasons 1-4 NOW.

The only negative thing to be said about this DVD is that once you’ve finished watching the eight wonderful episodes it boasts, you’ll no doubt wish you had the next eight at the ready (sadly, they are not yet available over here). But, on the up side, you can go back and watch those eight episodes all over again which, so far as I’m concerned, is actually pretty bloody exciting because if Seasons 1-3 taught me anything, it’s that The Venture Bros. only gets better with repeat viewings.

The Venture Bros. Season 4 Part 1 was released on DVD on Thursday February 16 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Of course, as is often the case with a director box set, there are one or two films that seem to be at slight tonal odds with the rest of the collection. However, for anyone who cares to take even a moment to reflect, these anomalies are only really bound by the confines of genre and narrative; their thematics and auteuristic world view more than consistent with their company. To this end, the Douglas Sirk: King of Hollywood Melodrama box set offers a gentle critique of American aspirations; all the way from early settlement to the at the time modern-day model of white, heteronormative, familial life. It suggests, rather boldly for its time, that defining one’s own aspirations against and attempting to achieve them within such relational societal constructs is anything but simple, anything but stark, and, never – even when the picture itself might be – black and white.

No Room for the Groom (1952)

A classic example of screw-ball comedy, No Room for the Groom sees Alvah Morrell (Tony Curtis) try desperately to consummate his too much trouble marriage to Lee Kingshead (Piper Laurie). A quality comedy that is short and to the point, No Room for the Groom plays with gender stereotypes and the pressures of marrying into a family when all you want is to be in love. Humourously acknowledging and explaining its own causal paradigm, “It’s called cause and effect”, and displaying just enough cynicism to rouse a giggle out of its audience, “marriage is keeping your mouth shut”, Sirk skillfully shows both parties in a marriage to be annoyingly and endearingly constricted by social pressure, “Should a girl have to tell a man when she wants to be kissed?” A fantasticly light-hearted start to an epic journey of melodramatic discovery.

All  I Desire (1953)

This is as close to perfect as film gets for lovers of romance. Barbara Stanwyck is simply sensational as Naomi Murdock, a woman who has left her family to fruitlessly pursue her personal dreams and to escape the scandal of an affair in a small town. One of many of Sirk’s films to show how deeply an individual can wrestle with their own complex emotions and conflicting desires, All I Desire a beautiful story that allows things to somehow work themselves out. It is also surprisingly progressive for its time, exploring the subjectivity rather than the guilt of a woman whose choices may not have always been entirely moral or selfless.

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Helen Phillips (Jane Wyman) is model woman, wife, (step)mother, friend and professional. In fact, even when life is cruel to her, she remains poised, gracious and strong. Losing her eyesight she is lured into a love affair that she actively refused when she could see. Her ultimate lesson, and the lesson that her suitor Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson) learns too, is that true enlightenment in such a dark world can only come from shutting off your expectations of others. When you are willing, even blindly so, to let others in and to behave towards them truly selflessly, only then will you find in yourself profound peace and happiness. A moving, heartwarming tale.

Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)

Although Taza, Son of Cochise is a generic diversion for Sirk (predominantly it is a western), it doesn’t fail to reiterate his concerns for familial obligation and the complexities of love. Taking things a psychoanalytic step further, Sirk explores ideas of totem and taboo within a tribal context as they pertain to the increasingly obtrusive All-American way of life. Stars Rock Hudson as Taza and Barbara Rush as Oona.

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Probably Sirk’s most famous melodrama and the primary inspiration for Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven (2002), All That Heaven Allows is a remarkable film that uses colour and lighting to exemplarily create mood, silhouettes and shadows to express subtle subtext and overt reference to psychoanalysis (namely Freudian) to explain character motivation and action/inaction. Heavily critical of American upper class social decorum and the sort of repression such false exclusivity necessarily harbours, All That Heaven Allows is a stunning, deeply affecting and astute cinematic work.

There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)

The mesmerizing Barbara Stanwyck returns in There’s Always Tomorrow as the spirited Norma Miller Vale  who has chosen career over family. Still in love with Clifford Groves (Fred MacMurray) who is under appreciated and somewhat unfulfilled, the two attempt to bring their disparate lives together but soon learn that the confines of morality and the boundaries of their emotions can never allow for such a union. Easily the most heartbreaking film in the box, There’s Always Tomorrow leaves a stunning air of desperation, hope, inevitable resolve and disappointment in its wake: “Darling, if life were always an adventure it’d be exhausting.”

A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)

The second generically anomalous work in the set, A Time to Love and a Time to Die is still a melodrama, but is set against the very real backdrop of post World War II Germany. Wistfully explicating how the past absolutely permeates the present, A Time to Love and a Time to Die is as much about ethical behaviour as it is morality; always suggesting that the two are in no way necessarily linked: “Murderers are never murderers twenty-four hours a day.” Ultimately, Sirk seems to posit that love and death – natural drives and inevitable occurrences in human life – present themselves in relation always to anOther.

The Tarnished Angels (1958)

Exploring both the limits of friendship and the product of loyalty, The Tarnished Angels examines the types of social contracts individuals enter into and what happens to those contracts at the hands of the passage of time. Suggesting love is built upon so much more than just emotion and desire, The Tarnished Angels is another fine example of Sirk’s ability to produce performances of great depth and dimensionality. Stars Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Jack Carson and Dorothy Malone.

Imitation of Life (1959)

Well, if the eight fantastic films that came before it didn’t win you over (who are you and how is your heart colder than mine?) then Imitation of Life most certainly will. A story loaded with issue and inference at every turn, Imitation of Life reveals a plethora of absurdities that constitute “life” through performativity. From the overt (literally acting) to the ideological (gender, family, class, race), Imitation of Life breaks down many of the ways in which life is constructed and the “roles” each individual assumes; sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes born of personal desire. Constructing life through the dot points that are “the great events of life” such as marriage and death, Sirk shows how we “measure” abstract notions such as “achievement”, “happiness”, “fulfillment” and “success”.

Though there is infinitely more to be said about Sirk and each of these films, the very best way to discover such sound, intelligent and genuinely marvelous films is to open up your own very beautiful box set and let the melodramatic bliss wash over you like so many emotions and so much of life itself. Not just a gift for Valentine’s Day, this is an absolute must-have for cinephiles and cine-lovers alike. Darling, do yourself a favour and let Douglas enlighten you.

Douglas Sirk: King of Hollywood Melodrama is released through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

For a film about a man who gets stuck in a cave, his arm crushed under a firmly lodged boulder, it might seem a little odd that the opening credit sequence should show several images on a split screen where hoards of humans appear to heard themselves about like animals. Of course, this is a Hollywood film, so it isn’t long before these images are adequately explained as an insight into our protagonist’s view of the world. Aron Ralston (James Franco) is a man who prefers the company of the outdoors to others. Independent to the point of apparent neglect (he fails to tell anyone where it is that he’s going so that in the actual event something does happen to him, no one is able to even think about looking for him), Aron is as self-sufficient and individualist as they come. Suggesting with the split screen that our being surrounded by others does not necessarily forego fragmentation, Boyle sets up the film’s primary “message” and “concern” in a fairly standard and easily digestible manner.

After a few more establishing scenes where the stylistic choices add a sense of franticness to the film’s tonality, somewhat exploring human impact/interaction on/with natural spaces, our protagonist takes the inevitable plummet that will serve as the real life premise for the remainder of the film: with his arm crushed by a now firmly lodged boulder that came loose upon his free fall descent, Aron is condemned to the proverbial ’127 hours’ where survival and solace seem unlikely. Unfortunately, where Boyle could easily have constructed the rest of the film as a tense, even terrifyingly sublime exploration of one man’s true isolation, the use of flashback, hallucination and overwrought visual and aural additives often detract from the true severity of the focal situation. An initial panic communicated to the audience after his fateful fall, where one genuinely thinks the rest of the film could well be James Franco screaming in agony for near on a hundred minutes (something that would undoubtedly have been more terrifying and visceral to watch), Boyle employs popular music and fast paced camera movement with far too short ASLs (average shot length) to even come close to adequately communicating a sense of prolonged pain.

Though occasional lines of dialogue reconfirm the idea that stillness is an illusion and that movement is constant; “Everything is moving all the time” and “Everything just comes together”; the film itself is not so fortunate so as to benefit from the illusion of stillness which, sadly, detracts from its overall tension. And whilst the most critical sequence in the film does show how style and sound can increase visceral affect, it does so in isolation as it is the one sequence that actually builds to crescendo. Certainly the majority of the time that Ralston is onscreen would have been communicably improved by a slow build in tension and a sense of suture style claustrophobia, akin to the likes of last year’s Buried (2010) which successfully managed such a feat by never expanding upon or leaving the confines of the diegetic world.

Ending with Ralston relenting that he does in fact “need help”, the film re-confirms the idea that we all need others and that connections between humans is an imperative to every individual’s survival. Moreover, Boyle takes it a bit too far when he then goes on to end the film by pointing specifically to Ralston’s now wife and kids as if familial life were some sort of epiphanic salvation. In terms of making a truly horrific life-threatening and, no doubt life-altering, event into a piece of entertaining filmic fare, Boyle has succeeded but in terms of communicating any sense of true gravity of the situation or even the fascinating and compelling temporal dimension to his experience which even operates as the film’s title, Boyle remains dismissive and reduces the scope and terror to a mere cavalcade of visual and aural superfluouity. It’s not so much the case that Boyle preferences style over substance, rather that his use of style operates as an overwhelming distraction from audience access to substance, an active choice that I find far less palatable.

127 Hours is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday February 10 through Twentieth Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The tag line elusively reads: “A suburban fantasy inside a remote reality.” On first viewing it might occur to the viewer that here is a presentation of a strange, dysfunctional and, for wont of a better word, “bogan” family. Of course, they would be the reactions of a presumably middle class viewer who considers him/herself to be “well-adjusted” and “well-bred”. Reactionary responses aside, The Skellys is in fact a view of a family from their own perspectives and, instead of being a condemnation of their interaction, the film is actually pushing for the “suburban fantasy” and its “remote reality” as a sacred psychogeographical space; access to which is exclusive, closed to outsiders.

The Skellys is a short rendered as if it were a “home video”, complete with tracking issues and a lack of smooth transition between sequences. Whilst their home is semi-dilapidated and their activities “strange” – to a stranger -their dynamics are shown as “honest”. It is always inferred that behind the camera is a family member. Furthermore, although the film is set up as the young girl’s “video for class”, it is suggested that the actions and interactions of her family as shown are neither censored nor edited. Affection, anger, fantasy, fear, destruction and togetherness are all shown in equal and adequate measure.

Subtly bringing the viewer and his/her assumptions and accusations against Others into question, The Skellys is far more thoughtful than it might at first appear.

The Skellys is a Prorevolution Films production

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Opening with an incredibly beautiful shot of a diver floating through an abyss of water the film offers first a notion of disembodiment. Reflecting well the content that will follow, Sanctum suggests already that the physical human body and its connectedness to other weighted objects or entities is not a given: constancy and attachment both psychological rather than physiological constructs. Cutting to a village in Papua New Guinea (although the film was actually shot in Australia on the Gold Coast), Sanctum briefly, and I dare say too flippantly, establishes its premise and characters: a diving expedition into a system of underwater caves soon becomes a fight for survival after storm waters flood and collapse the entrance, leaving a small group of individuals, ranging from veteran to first-time divers, with the challenge of working together for the grand prize of their lives.

Like many Australian productions before it, Sanctum is somewhat concerned with the relationship between human development and the persistence or resilience of the natural world. Illustrating this with ease, our most expert diver Frank (Richard Roxburgh) is sure to explain the wonder of the natural world by visual experience in the first instance; “Let me show you.” There is also the suggestion that the natural world is itself a force to be reckoned with and that human affinity with it is far from established, the “unknown” and compelling harsh beauty it presents formidable; “This cave’s not going to beat me.” Inauspicious as it is, the natural world is also posited as sublime; the overwhelming beauty and awe in which it inspires God-like. The unexplored areas our protagonists discover become the “sanctum” in question, and several sequences reference the bible, religious undertones resonating throughout, most notably towards the film’s end when our Christ-like Son of God performs a sort of baptism as he forgives his Father.

But even with these moments where subtext and visuals come together to achieve something worthy of serious and contemplative reflection upon issues pertaining to the human condition, the film constantly falls apart due to clumsy dialogue – dialogue that jars terribly with the visuals and abrasively halts any meditative aspects the film might otherwise champion. Moreover, its crisis of generic and tonal identity mean the films flits far too often and too disjointedly between being a serious drama, a tense horror/thriller and a light-hearted blockbuster action/adventure flick.

Forgiving its pitfalls proves difficult. Disruption in the natural flow of both the narrative and the visual story leave Sanctum a film with a great deal of promise and some truly magnificent moments but, most unfortunately, too confused for its own good.

Sanctum 3D is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday February 3 through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The film opens, confrontingly, in the middle of a session. Shot mostly in close-up or extreme close-up, it is initially unclear if the woman (Imedla Staunton) is visiting social services or a GP. As both the frame and the scene expand, it becomes clear that she has come to see a doctor in the hope that some prescribed sleeping pills might plaster over her problems and assure her with at least one decent night’s sleep. Her GP, the heavily pregnant Tanya, refers her to a counsellor to help find the root of her anxiety and depression after concluding that her insomnia is merely a symptom of a deeper issue. When Tanya asks this woman, “What is the one thing that would improve your life apart from sleep?” The woman’s only response is “A different life.” Indicating already here that what time leaves behind is so permanent that only another life could be free of its piercing effects, so begins Leigh’s examination of the determinism behind the formation of a group of individuals and their now lives.

Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are as absolutely middle class as they come. They live in a comfortable yet not exceptional home and spend considerable time tending to their allotment. Their relationship is strong and loving, built upon the very fabric of the time passed in their lives. Having met in college, been apart and then reunited, they have lived “shared lives” including the raising of a son, Joe (Oliver Maltman), their now existence built of age. As they quite literally reap the benefits of the time they have put in to cultivating their love – aptly mirrored through their tending to an allotment – their friends conversely suffer at the hands of time and its cruel reminder that contentedness is far from instantaneous.

Further demonstrated through the birth of Tanya’s son, Spring brings new life and with it new joy, but only through the passage of “natural time”. Gerri’s work colleague and friend Mary (Lesley Manville) understands better than anyone the results of poor cultivation, having lost her home and partner, now living a temporary existence in a rented property and without companionship. But like the woman in the opening scene, Mary is impatient and plasters over the problems brought by time with temporary relief: drinking and smoking, clumsily asking, “Everyone needs someone to talk to, don’t they?”, Gerri replying in earnest, “Yes, they do.” Mary feels time has been unkind to her and instead of attempting to understand and deal with her past – its memories too painful – she favours a quick fix, unable to accept that the permanence of her past is inescapable.

When Tom and Gerri’s other friend Ken (Peter Wight) comes to London to visit, he too is beginning to feel the weight and force and time. Another character who, like Mary, plasters over his problems with great indulgence; eating, drinking and smoking to excess, Ken’s greatest fear of all is the sprawling time he will be left with if he retires. When asked, “What would you do with your time if you retired?” He wearily answers, “Pub. Eat, drink and be merry.” Having lost someone close to him the expanse of time is merely a reminder of his now loneliness and the thought of being confronted with its scarring effects ad infinitum is too much to bear, and so, Ken breaks down at the very mention of such a reality.

The juxtaposition of Tom and Gerri with Ken and Mary is stark but it operates not to vindicate those who have found a way to share their time and to victimise those who have not. Rather, it is there to illustrate the way in which we are all a product of the effects of our own experience of time, howsoever that time may come to pass. With winter, Leigh brings death and another character, Ronnie (David Bradley), whose loss of lifetime companionship has left him as a shadow without its casting.

In the most “Mike Leigh” of all the scenes in the film, Tom begins to voice some of the misanthropic auteur’s world views, suggesting that bosses are fascist and by discussing the importance of lowering one’s carbon footprint and caring about the imminence of catastrophic climate change. Tom speaks to the issues and to himself when he says, “The older you get the more relevant it seems.” But it’s not just the exponential rate at which capitalism, its greed, exploitation and negative impact upon our environment (physical, social and psychological) are advancing that Leigh is here referring to, it is also the fact that having seen and experienced the accumulative damage of these things affords it with greater weight. To the same end, it is hardly coincidental that the film should be set in London with Northern ties: the psychogeographical palimpsest of the country’s heartbeat city contrasts starkly and effectively with the nation’s grim and neglected townships.

The myriad of conflicting emotions brought out by the cast and Leigh’s craft in this film are at times uplifting and at times depressing. Gerri’s exemplary English resolve that, “We stay cheerful. We don’t let things get us down.” contrasts beautifully with Mary’s constant feeling of being hard done by, “Life’s not always kind, is it?” It’s not so much that cognition versus fatalism here but rather that outlook results from those physical, social and psychological piercings of time passed. Examining the way in which one individual can’t not affect another if their time is shared, and the various ramifications of each person’s actions and attitudes, Another Year is an incredibly thoughtful and masterfully poignant work. Offering an examination rather than an explanation, Leigh has created a world that does in its duration for its audience exactly what its characters do for one another: traverse and effect, piercing with the very permanence of time.

Another Year was released  in Australian cinemas on Wednesday January 26 through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

At first Mattie is introduced to us as precocious. Following her father’s murder at the hand of his employee – one Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) – Mattie intends to “settle” his affairs and “attend” to his business. Armed only with the sense of justice bestowed upon her by a now dead patriarch, Mattie tries to make sense of the order of things with its pinnacle now forcibly removed. Proving herself more than capable of bargaining with grown men (notably merciless ones at that), Mattie constantly refers back to “the force of the Law” to support her gumption. But once she earns her place on the actual physical journey that makes one a man, she begins to learn that both the Law and the Name-of-the-Father associated with it can only take her so far and that to truly attend to her father’s “business” she must prove herself worthy of true grit, instead of relying on a strong male role model to provide it for her.

To this end, Mattie is told early on that “the world is vexing enough as it is” and she is later told how to fire her own gun – the phallic weapon being almost all she has left to represent her father and something she knows about only about in theory yet has no command over until the proverbial moment of truth finally dawns. Her presence is constantly challenged and there is even a sequence where an outsider questions her directly, “I’m puzzled by this. Why is she here?”

Mattie learns ultimately that the Law does not always apply outside of the town and that in the country proper she must adhere to an altered version of it deciding what is “an act that is wrong to itself” and what is “wrong according to your laws and morals.” Bit by a snake (another phallic signifier) Mattie undergoes a type of castration and we then learn that she never marries. Unable to meet either the requirements of a lady or a man, Mattie is neither assimilated into or bound by the rules of the patriarchy. She now has something infinitely more important: the grit she so desperately searched for all along. Still presenting a formal (visual) version of her gender however, Mattie is sure to chastise a man for failing to stand when she presents herself before him. Less about her role as a woman and more in condemnation of his failing to acknowledge her well-earned grit, Mattie has more than settled her father’s business, she has reclaimed it as her own. A bold and encouraging achievement.

True Grit is released in Australian cinemas on Wednesday January 26 through Paramount Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Half-brothers Dickie Ecklund (Christian Bale) and Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) are both fighters from a poor neighbourhood in Lowell, Massachusetts. Dickie, now a washed up crack addict, is known locally as “The Pride of Lowell”, owing to his past success where he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard (July 18, 1978) in a Welterweight championship (Welterweight being a category that sits between Lightweight and Middleweight). Boasting an unlikely “comeback” Dickie trains his younger brother Micky who shows more promise and discipline – and let’s not forget that all important quality known as “heart” – than his older brother. His manager is also a family member, mother Alice Ward (Melissa Leo) and the film is sure to emphasise the great importance of “family” from the outset. Things that have always been a certain way begin to change when Dickie finds himself incarcerated and Micky meets no-bullshit love interest Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams).

Whilst the story is centred around Micky’s rise to fame as a fighter it is just as much – if not more – Dickie’s story, and unsurprisingly Bale manages to outshine Wahlberg in just about every scene. But what is really at stake here is the believability of the characters as based on real life people and whether or not the often troubling interaction of their family dynamics is indeed authentic. To this end there is a lot “documentary style” footage and great effort goes into contrasting the aesthetic quality of both this and the “televised footage” with the slickly shot main drama in the film. As a result the documentary and televised sections add credence to the central drama, positing the stylistic differences as fragments of a whole; the “story” of these individuals and their lives.

Of course, even with such successful visual direction there are unanswered questions and, largely, these spring from the film’s scripting. Light-hearted and even comedic at times, the dialogue is often a little too witty to be entirely believable and by that I mean that the exchanges between characters are often too close to sitcom-like sparring which makes their interaction with one another subsequently less plausible. And of course, comedy can’t help but come at the cost of communicable emotion and felt empathy which arguably posits these people closer to caricatures than characters. As such, it is at times difficult to buy the story as a complete package; the visual style coming across as successful but notably deliberate even if it doesn’t feel forced.

Adding footage of the “real life” brothers during the end credit sequence gives further weight to the “truth” of the story and yet one can’t help but wonder what the story would look like if it were these two who featured onscreen for the two-hours just passed. Perhaps a little ironically even, the final thought goes to brother Dickie whose performed character in The Fighter experiences the disappointment of seeing himself (mis)represented onscreen. Could it be that Russell has knowingly indicated the distance between self-perception and what makes a good cinematic story? Either way, The Fighter is an enjoyable enough film that occasionally errs a little too heavily on the side of feel-goodery. For better or worse, The Fighter, with all its might, is sure to revise public perception of “The Pride of Lowell”.

The Fighter was released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 20 through Roadshow Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Starting with a very personal memory, The Green Hornet establishes the imperfect father-son relationship between Green Hornet-to-be Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) and his father, local newspaper mogul James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). Britt leads a decidedly laddish lifestyle, partying hard with fast cars and loose women, much to his father’s chagrin. When James dies unexpectedly, Britt finds himself in charge of a paper he hasn’t the patience, skill or remotest desire to run. So how does he become the Green Hornet? Well, it is actually all down to one very bad cup of coffee that the film manages to advance forward in any kind of causal narrative trajectory. The absurdly bougie pivotal point from which the action then springs forth tells you just about everything you need to know about the focus of what is yet to come. Teaming up with his father’s employee, barista extraordinaire Kato (Jay Chou), the unlikely duo recklessly find themselves fighting crime after immaturely committing crime. From here, the Green Hornet and his nameless partner/sidekick unwittingly take on the city’s apparently poorly dressed, not quite menacing enough, and largely misunderstood crime lord Chudnofsky (expertly played by Christoph Waltz).

Chudnofsky is an old school gangster and the rise of Gucci-clad wannabes is beginning to get under his skin. Having already settled a few local issues it is only when the Green Hornet appears that Chudnofsky fully realises the extent to which the new generation, whose reputations rely largely upon aesthetics and public image as opposed to his own years of strategic planning, have no respect for tradition or the past. But Britt didn’t learn to be a twat without his father’s help and likewise it is affluence and class as well as his generational standing that are responsible for his appalling attitude towards life. Impressed upon him from an early age, Britt thinks “Trying doesn’t matter if you always fail.”  Concerned with results rather than effort, the destination rather than the journey and, above all else, the present irregardless of its history, Britt charges forward in a childish pursuit of fame and glory.

Far more of an anti-hero than a superhero (the closest thing he has to a superpower is the ability to be an almighty asshole), the Green Hornet is not actually a likeable figure in quite the usual way Hollywood protagonists tend to be. But, partner/sidekick Kato is. Balancing out assholery with endearment the duo work decidedly well: structure and subversion standing side by side.

Visually it is a veritable feast, and The Green Hornet takes Kristin Thompson’s theorising of cinematic excess to its farthest extreme: to the point where style actually becomes a character in the film – a mocking, self-reflexive one at that. Revealing artifice as substance for an entire class of insolent wankers, The Green Hornet is stupendously entertaining at every turn. Blatant in its depiction of bougie blasé, it is no coincidence that the costume for our wealthy dumb-ass is quite so literally the colour of money. Outstanding stuff.

The Green Hornet is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 20 through Sony Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Natalie Portman gives her finest onscreen performance as Nina Sayers, a young ballerina who has, until now, always been a great technical dancer with incredible dedication and discipline. Straight-laced, and having lived a sheltered life at the hands of her controlling mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), Nina is also ambitious. Like any performer, she is driven by the desire to not only achieve but also to embody perfection. When long-standing prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) is to be replaced – an inevitable fate for an aging ballerina – the company’s artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassell) casts Nina in the leading role, but, not without hesitation. Although he believes she absolutely embodies the White Swan; elegant, innocent, graceful; he labels her “too frigid” to play the darker side of the Swan Queen, the Black Swan. As such, Nina is, from the outset, anxious about the role and determined to achieve something in self-discovery that will prove her skeptics wrong. When the equally beautiful and certainly as talented Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the ballet Nina becomes irrationally scared of being replaced (a symptom of her guilt felt in replacing Beth) and begins to project the manifestation of all her anxieties onto Lily; slowly, and then psychotically. Whilst in reality Lily poses little threat to Nina and if anything, offers only friendship and support, this is the first of many in Nina’s erratic and delusional interpretations of events.

Though it is certainly true that Aronofsky paints with broad strokes in terms of the motifs to indicate light and dark, rigid and free, it is a very detailed and accomplished contrast that is drawn. From the pastel pinks and delicate jewellery Nina wears, right down to how tightly she secures her bun, she is always shown as a picture of aspiring perfection. Conversely, Lily wears black, adorns herself with chunky bangles, bags and an iPod, and lets her hair down even in rehearsal. But it is not so simple as Nina being “good” and Lily being “bad”. Far from it, Lily is actually a beacon for what Nina must aspire to: a freer, more natural self. In fact, even with Nina’s sexual awakening and her performative journey blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, her taking on the role of the Black Swan is a positive, emancipatory experience. Finally freeing herself from the little girl who turns to mummy for every little thing and finally engaging in something of a life outside of her own discipline and rigidity, Nina’s partial submission to her binary opposite, though difficult and even traumatic, is both healthier and liberating.

For the viewer, as it is for Nina onscreen, the certainty of what is real and what is imaginary becomes increasingly indistinct. This lack of clarity is Aronofsky’s presentation of the grey area. As Nina allows chaos into her life the previous order begins to break down. However, it is not the case that she ever truly gives in to it and ultimately the rigid version of herself, driven to perfection, still reigns. She says early on in the film, before her encounter with the opposite, “I just wanna be perfect”. Dancing the White Swan she stumbles; dancing the Black Swan she flourishes. Returning to both her real self and the White Swan, reality is restored. Nina realises that the freedom she experienced from herself existed for only a moment onstage and that she is now, as she ever was, incarcerated in a prison she built for herself. Achieving, however fleeting, the culmination of two binary opposites working at so beautifully both against and with one another, Nina reached the summit of perfection: “I felt it. I’m perfect. It was perfect.”

The last note is bittersweet: perfection is reached through destruction. The break down of hierarchy within these binary opposites creates an internal implosion whereby union can only result in the annihilation of one. The White Swan, Nina’s troubled, ill self is tragically what persists and though she is content, having reached perfection, its resonant lesson is deafening: perfection is imperfect. An engaging and visceral presentation of thoughtful thematics, Black Swan is as ambitious, and as perfect, as its lead.

Black Swan is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 20 through Twentieth Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

As “Survival Guides” are dropped from helicopters with less physical but equal psychological impact upon the people and the landscape, Maria (brilliantly and effortlessly performed by Isabelle Huppert) maintains her resolve and insists that her family stay and fight to harvest their crops. The political situation is beautifully and perfectly mirrored by the volatile landscape, elucidating the idea that the white colonial inhabitants will “grow mediocre coffee that we’d [Indigenous Africans] never drink” and that “It was already too late when you [white French colonialists] built it.”

The titled “white material” is explained twice in the film and, for a land metaphorically castrated the “material” in question, it is understandably displaced (in a distinctly Freudian way) onto an object: a lighter in this instance, described as “just white material”. The second explanation comes via a radio broadcast that re-directs this earlier displacement back onto the people whose culture and objects have impressed, negatively, upon the land, “As for the white material, the party’s over. No more cocktails on shaded verandas while we sweat water and blood.” The contrast here between natural elements such as “water and blood” and constructed materials such as the lighter and then the cocktails and shaded verandas successfully communicates the way in which Indigenous culture is at odds with forced occupation and the seizing of natural resources, namely the now irrevocably altered landscape.

Furthermore, the film brilliantly weaves in an incredible exploration of melancholia (again in a Freudian understanding of the term), whereby the response to the loss of something one never really had ownership of and that hasn’t actually died, but has nonetheless been lost, produces psychosis. This psychosis is explored through the character Manuel (Maria’s son), a boy born in Africa but of French identity; his masculinity and his identity symbolically stripped.

The subtle and respectful ways in which Denis explores such explosive and complicated issues is admirable; her stylistic and narrative choices always carefully crafted with aplomb. A tonally masterful film, White Material‘s communicable affect is at once devastating and poignant. Posing a series of ethical questions yet never so arrogant as to answer them, this is an astounding piece of work that deserves both attention and acclaim.

White Material screens in Melbourne from Friday January 14 – Wednesday February 2, 2011 at ACMI.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Taking into consideration Mulvey’s theoretical exploration of how scopophilia (looking as a source of pleasure) and identification (recognition/misrecognition and the viewer’s subjective formation of the “I” predicated upon Lacanian psychoanalysis) are significant in understanding spectatorial positionings, it is curious as to how the female viewer (and here I am specifically concerned with the alignment of the heterosexual female gaze) might access a contemporary film such as Burlesque.

Following the same fame-seeking story you’ve no doubt seen before (most notably Coyote Ugly, 2000), Burlesque follows a young waitress as she escapes the boredom of a small-town and buys a one-way ticket to the magical world of glitz and glamour in L.A. Stumbling upon a struggling, independent burlesque joint she starts waiting tables, watching and learning the routines of the other young women who are already erotic objects, valued for their “to-be-looked-at-ness”. Having looked at them long enough to quite literally mimic them, she is finally allowed to audition. From here, our scrawny white girl protagonist, Ali (Christina Aguilera), wins over ice-maiden and burlesque mama, Tess (Cher), first with her watchability, then with her body, then her incredible pipes and lastly, her indomitable spirit.

Whilst the premise is both simple and formulaic it is also a little disturbing, not least because it perpetuates the current myth of celebrity culture suggesting that the female viewer align themselves with Ali because we all want to be “special”, “talented” and to achieve “fortune and fame”. It’s not that I am advocating the crushing of dreams exactly, but it ought to be said that the majority of us, by very definition, are not “special”, many of us are far from “talented”, and we most certainly will not all reach the dizzying heights of “fortune and fame”. With this statement of relatively plain fact and an understanding of how women are rendered passive for an active male gaze it is difficult to see how a female viewer might “identify” with either of the film’s female leads.

Ali, certainly an erotic object in the first instance, undeniably present for her “to-be-looked-at-ness”, described as having “a body that could stop a truck” and dressed, made-up and performing her gender at every visual opportunity, is hardly successful based on her “talent” alone. Furthermore, her “success” progresses at an equal rate to her appeal to the male characters onscreen. For a heterosexual female viewer who cannot align her gaze with that of the onscreen male characters nor identify with a character who harbours vocal and visual talents, and who has little to no interest in themselves becoming a spectacle, access to the images beyond bemusement seems impossible.

Absolutely fitting Mulvey’s critique, Burlesque is not dissimilar to early musicals of the ’40s and ’50s insofar as the role of “woman as spectacle” is concerned; “Women displayed as sexual object is the leit-motiff of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to strip-tease, from Ziegfeld to Busby Berkeley, she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire.” As a decidedly erotic object for screen characters and viewers alike, “the device of the show-girl allows the two looks to be unified technically without any apparent break in the diegesis.” And yet there is still nowhere for the female viewer to look during the film’s two-hour run-time.

Resultantly it stands to reason that the film hopes to capture the standard male gaze and likely too the queer gaze. But wait, isn’t this film aimed at women? As I have already alluded to, with the advent of celebrity culture, the female gaze has become displaced and so, a generation of female viewers concerned with body image and a form of success that comes from embodying the spectacle, align themselves with Ali, who looks first at the women performing their gender with envy and admiration, and who then steps into her own gaze. Thus, the intended female gaze for Burlesque is narcissistic in the first instance as the viewer is invited to desire their own gaze. This is essentially what Teresa de Lauretis theorises as a “double-identification” whereby the female viewer identifies simultaneously with the active male gaze (voyeurism, fetishistic scopophilia) and the passive female image (her “to-be-looked-at-ness”), so that they are actually “seduced” by the female image onscreen. Cruel and coercive in its seduction, it seems to me that this is precisely how celebrity culture and fame fascination work which is why Burlesque will face no obstacle in finding and seducing its target audience.

However, being myself a female viewer who is certainly and most happy to accept being average, I have no idea how to access the presentation of a series of images that intend to render me passive. A self-professed cognitivist, and with no personal desire to ever become an erotic object or spectacle for either the male or female gaze, my own viewing experience of Burlesque was one of first bemusement and second curiosity. Simultaneously fascinated and alienated by the experience, the most interesting thing this film throws up is the idea that the contemporary female gaze is narcissistic in the first instance. And whilst I still look most forward to when Hollywood find a way to capture the active female gaze, I suppose I ought to take as my consolation their admittance that it even exists.

Burlesque is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 13 through Sony Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The Dilemma (2011) is one such film that parades itself as a typical Hollywood comedy, yet really is far more concerned with communicating heartfelt conservativism. That is to say that the film promotes typically conservative values through a guise of unconventional emotive integrity with the occasional bit of light comic relief thrown in – something that acts as an intermittent distraction from its, at times, questionable central politics.

The premise is straight forward: Ronny Valentine (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Brannen (Kevin James) are best friends and business partners, they are on the verge of the single greatest deal of their professional lives but, just as Ronny is about to pluck up the courage and committment to finally propose to girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly), he learns that Geneva (Winona Ryder) is cheating on best friend Brannen. What to do? Tell him and risk the emotional impact of what could be the deal of a lifetime, or, stay quiet until things quieten down and hope Geneva will come clean first? Where the premise provides only a simplistic dilemma, the film’s moral project assumes the responsibility of a far more difficult one: conservativism or comedy?

Constantly reinforcing the value of honesty and the sanctity of marriage, The Dilemma is concerned with the contemporary demise of such values and the instigative motivators at play. With dialogue that confirms the significance of such institutions as, “Pop the question or you’re going to lose her” and “You’re forty years old and not married, go fix yourself”, The Dilemma surprisingly doesn’t place blame on infidelity alone, and rather takes into consideration extraneous factors such as professional pressures and personal issues.

Beginning with a conversation about how well you can ever truly know someone and exploring the idea that everyone keeps something secret from the loved ones around them, The Dilemma wants to expose the personal in favour of the public. Suggesting full disclosure is the only acceptable route for personal happiness and ultimate resolution, it seems that we are to take from the film, insofar as moralising goes, that relationships are the pinnacle of a contented life and that if you can resolve issues that disrupt those sacred bonds then you can achieve just about anything.

Disappointingly, the film goes on to normalise heterosexuality and unfortunately uses the term “gay” in a derogatory way as if it were an equivalent term for “lame”. There are also some rather uncomfortable scenes with Queen Latifah whose racial stereotyping acts as a strange allowance for the white people in the film to “understandably” be at first taken aback by her approach and finally endeared to it in an overwhelmingly patronising way; the “acceptance” of her difference ultimately provided through a sort of “tolerance”.

Finally, and this is to the film’s credit, The Dilemma allows its female characters a certain ounce of agency and the performances given by both Connelly and Ryder are both convincing and demonstrative of their exemplary talents. There are too, scenes in the film that are genuinely well executed such as the “intervention” scene where successful dialogue and strong performances come together well. These scenes however, are inconsistent within the context of the film as a whole and there are equal instances where greater editing would have saved onscreen rambling from becoming communicable awkwardness (namely the scenes where Vince Vaughn is overdoing the “Vaughn” he has so labored over the years).

An occasionally affecting and an at least thoughtful presentation of albeit conservative politics, The Dilemma thinks outside the typical buddy or bromance parameters, though it ultimately leaves little else than heteronormative propaganda in its wake.

The Dilemma is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 13 through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Yogi Bear (2010) follows a simple enough storyline whereby the selfish, feckless Mayor  Brown (played to great comic effect by Andrew Daly) has impoverished city funds through dodgy personal expenses and now needs to find a quick cash injection to cover his ass before the upcoming election. Deciding to sell-off the beautiful but too empty too often Jellystone Park to loggers, Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh), along with; nature enthusiast/documentary filmmaker and love-interest Rachel (Anna Faris), Yogi (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) and his loveable sidekick Boo Boo (voiced by Justin Timberlake); must find a way to stop them. The “message” in the film is both simple and acceptable enough as it promotes the preservation of natural wildlife, suggesting natural environments and sustainability are preferable to primarily capitalist concerned city spaces. It may not have the subtlety or nuance of a Studio Ghibli film (whose “messages” are similar) or even the technical nouse of the admittedly more adult-aimed Where the Wild Things Are (2009), expressly using CGI for the two lead bears, but, as kids’ film, it is certainly harmless and entertaining enough.

What’s most interesting however, is that the film is presented in 3D. With so many recent 3D presentations being children’s films it is evidently the case that studios are indeed serious about continued use of the technology. The only reason they would continue to pitch it at children is if they are hoping for its longevity. Whilst many adults (and critics) remain suspect about the success of the medium, an entire generation are already being trained to see in this way. It is also worth noting that they manufacture a smaller size in 3D glasses now to cater specifically for young children. Whilst my own nephews failed to keep their glasses on for the duration (it was after all their very first time in a cinema and the film itself is short and sweet with a run-time of just eighty minutes), it certainly seemed that a majority of the children in the audience did so with aplomb. And whilst a far cry from the cartoon of my own, now all but forgotten childhood, Yogi Bear, insofar as capturing its target audience is concerned, seemed to me, smarter than the average film.

Yogi Bear is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 13 through Roadshow Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The opening credits combine atmospheric framing of large freight trains and slowed camera work to infer stilted time. Here, it is made clear that temporality in Unstoppable will be subject to both ellipsis and screen-time manipulation. This is probably the film’s most disappointing undoing. Trains, and “railway time”; being the literal vehicle through which the Victorians actually set social order with regard to standardising time across Britain; it is a great loss to see a film whose subject matter is primarily concerned with a race-against-the-clock premise, fail to make effective use of temporal tension. A “real-time”, or even just a better defined screen-time, explanation of the gathering momentum of the runaway train might have afforded the film with tighter, and therefore more gripping, parameters.

Whilst there is some indication that “age” and “time” are significant, illustrated through the contrasting of the “old timers” who work at the rail yard and the fresh out of training enthusiastic but wet behind the ears kids, the contrast fails to achieve much beyond a nod to existence. Similarly, a group of small school children about to enjoy a train journey scream out in unison, “What time is train time?!!” and yet, again, this is far as the inference goes. Ultimately, each time the film indicates or alludes to the importance of time it fails to operate as anything beyond acknowledgement. Subsequently, the film is very much lacking in interesting subtext and insofar as theoretical content is concerned, the film is entirely empty.

That said, there is definitely a superficial thread that is concerned with the way in which automated operating systems and corporate moguls pose a considerable danger to a physically laborious profession. This is well illustrated through juxtaposing incompetent characters against the proverbial old-timers whose years of experience and good old-fashioned know-how is the only thing that can possibly slow and stop the train. Under-appreciated and facing redundancy, the old-timers prove to be the backbone of the industry and, working with a new generation, they can apparently achieve astounding results.

Finally, it’s all a little too heartwarming and there are a couple of side narratives established to support the central characters’ back stories, but neither are engaging enough to warrant more than a mention here. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine do a decent job performing almost two-dimensional characters and Rosario Dawson deserves credit for remembering to act even in the moments where the film abandons tone. If you’re interested in trains, time or engineering this film will likely disappoint but, if you want to see a short, loud explosive journey with character depth and thematics as an optional sideline, then it absolutely reaches its planned destination.

Unstoppable is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 6 through 20th Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Where audiences once went along to cinemas to see subversive content and innovative, artistic aesthetic modes of expressing that content, they now seem to go along in the hope that they can “ironically” enjoy something that is “so bad it is good”. Considering the original “midnight movies” (George A Romeo’s Night of the Living Dead 1968, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo 1970, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos 1972, Perry Henzell’s The Harder They Come 1972, Jim Sharman & Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975, and David Lynch’s Eraserhead 1977) and their strong anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-segregation aesthetic and moral projects, it almost seems as though contemporary efforts at cult are closer to being subject to a universalizing neo-liberalism than they are to counter-cultural intent.

As was the case with The Room, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009) is a film that has little to “say” and unlike the “bad taste” aesthetics attributed to the likes of John Waters, the “bad taste” here is bad “bad taste” and the only pleasure that an audience can derive from the viewing experience comes from derision in the first instance. Whilst low-budget aesthetics and a lack of formal sophistication might well be consistent with early forms of cult cinema it is difficult to reconcile that what was traditionally set up in opposition to the mainstream is now consumed very much in accordance with the mainstream. Certainly it is a lot harder to go along to a screening these days where you risk arrest than it was in the early 1970s and there is always in affording the resistant past with such intense nostalgia the risk of subsequently romanticising the oppression that it necessarily fought against, neither of which I am suggesting are desirable. However, what I am suggesting is that the risk only came because audiences were engaging in an actual act of subversion which is something that seems now to be entirely lost.

To return to the film at hand, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus is a low-budget, bad bad taste film that ultimately has as little subversive imagination as it has production values. And where this film has its greatest success is in itself becoming a type of ideological state apparatus. To explain that: in selling itself as a cult film that offers a contemporary version of cult cinema, the “event” of viewing this film appears to give audiences an outlet for revelry (much like Chaucer describes the annual revelry allowed to the masses during medieval times). However this outlet only further acts as an oppressant as it allows audiences to engage in the belief that they no longer need to rebel.

Now, what this means for audiences who want to attend Cinema Nova’s “Cult Cravings” remains to be seen. Certainly with enough alcohol and surrounded by good friends this can no doubt be an entertaining and enjoyable cinema experience. But as enjoyable or even as raucous as it has the potential to be, there is no doubt in my mind that without any real political or social subversion at play, it can never really satiate the true appetite of a “cult craving”.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus screens exclusively in Melbourne at Cinema Nova through Sharmill Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Whilst it is undoubtedly true that the music itself stands strong “against time” (so to speak), it is also true that The Doors are a band, and that their music is an output, that captures something significant of its own time. Perhaps the very reason it resonates still today is that what it captured was a transient and hopeful moment never fully realised; its relevancy today, therefore, permeating and immovable.

Refreshingly for a documentary about so famous a group as The Doors, Dicillo doesn’t go down the tired and frankly rather fruitless line of “talking heads” and instead uses fine filmmaking craft to find the most piercing way to start a story: “The sixties began with a shot.” Tracing from here the events and awakenings of the time, Dicillo moves from the assassination of John F. Kennedy through the Civil Rights Movement and up to the Vietnam War. Commenting upon whilst chartering these significant events, When You’re Strange is as much about historically significant values and moments of cultural change as it is the band. Dicillo doesn’t just pose history as a backdrop for their advent to fame but rather as the symbiotic, organic relationship that evolved between the two; “The establishment exists but a genuine counter-culture is growing.”

Making full use of remarkable stock footage of the band playing gigs as well of their fans and contemporaries, When You’re Strange is told simultaneously through voice-over narration and musical progression. A surprisingly rare feat for a music documentary, When You’re Strange actually considers the quality and aspects of their music and why that was not only unique but how it engaged and informed their displays of revelry and the carnivalesque in relation to the emerging counter-culture of the time. There is of course a tendency towards focus on Jim Morrison above other members of the band, but at no time does the film ignore the other three members; John Densmore, Robby Krieger,  Ray Manzarek; in preference of the notorious front man, always ensuring the focus is in relation to his effect on the group as a whole.

Contemplating violence as an American tradition and with the advent of Richard Nixon to the presidency, the film culminates in an extraordinarily moving montage set to “Riders on the Storm”. Contrasting war footage and an all-American child on the home front swinging like a monkey set perfectly to the lyric “let your children play”, When You’re Strange highlights how mimicry can lead to devastation. Revealing how political unrest ebbs and flows between counter-culture and conservatism just as artistic expression moves between its own motivating forces, When You’re Strange is never over dramatised or condescending to its audience and allows the incredible imagery and music of its subject to do so much of “the talking”. That said, the film is still scripted and operates as an “informative” documentary in the first instance, the dulcet tones of Johnny Depp narrating and guiding the experience. A fantastic documentary that reveals compelling subject matter, this is certainly one to make time for.

When You’re Strange: A Film About the Doors is screening exclusively as part of an ACMI’s long-play season from December 27 2010 to January 3 2011 and is distributed through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Grey, cold and misty, the film successfully creates a visual environment that mirrors the isolated, unfulfilled emotions of its lead. Unable to conquer his own subconscious blocks and break free from his debilitating speech impediments, King George is about ready to give up and, with the advent of his elder brother to the throne, hope for a life free from public speaking. Despite his lack of ambition and overcompensating inhibitions, wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), is far from ready to give up and has found an unconventional Australian man who thinks he can cure the future King.

Demonstrating blatant disregard for formal etiquette, calling the future King by his familiar name “Bertie” and refusing to do not only as is advised, but often as he is told, Lionel speaks audaciously but honestly, “I need total equality”, to which Bertie quite frankly replies, “If we were equal, I wouldn’t be here.” Reinforcing the formal structures the monarchy is built upon, we further learn the royals do not even consider themselves a “family” in the traditional sense most of us might understand the term; “we’re not a family, we’re a firm.”

With his brother renouncing the throne due to scandal in his personal life and in accordance with George’s increasing confidence, the film works towards not only the proverbial “King’s speech”, but the events that follow as war breaks out first across Europe and then the world. The tension in this respect builds brilliantly and culminates in an incredibly moving final sequence not because of the difficulty the King has in making the speech but because of the weight of his words and the known atrocity of what will follow.

Brilliantly paced throughout and leaving its viewer with no uncertain understanding of the prescribed order of things, The King’s Speech is an achievement in subtlety and communicable affect. Ironically and wonderfully the film indicates how those in positions of power can’t ever be considered our equals as they must, in the very least, appear stoic and strong for the social classes they appear to deny. When such inhumane horror strikes a nation, there must be someone to look to for strength and guidance, irregardless of their being a construct of ideology and semiotics. Engaging viewing with brilliant performances across the board.

The King’s Speech is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26 through Paramount Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Opening with a drawn-out static look at part of a race track where a black Ferrari intermittently speeds past, Somewhere establishes that location is not important and that our protagonist lives life in a quite literal “fast lane”. From here, the film follows a slow week or so in Johnny’s life (the exact period is inconsequential as Coppola is clearly interested in distilling time to mirror the listlessness of her central character), where he reveals himself to be just as uninteresting as the visual of his car repeatedly and pointlessly driving cyclically by.

Receiving occasional anonymous text messages that ask questions akin to “Why are you such an asshole?”, we are to take from this film that Johnny’s conscience, and possibly even his subconscious, are finally catching up with him. Unsurprisingly this is explored through a popular, technological medium seeing as he is – once again and all together now – detached from humanity, included in that, himself.

Whilst there are wonderful formal moments within in the film, including a sound scape so crisp that you can literally hear the embers of a cigarette catch light as it is inhaled, these moments feel artificial. And they continue to fail to pierce the viewer, resulting in an experience that provides ultimate appreciation for craft but remains unaffecting on either emotional or cognitive levels, rendering the film passive in reception.

The sadness and superficiality of the strip-teases he repeatedly pays to fall asleep whilst watching, contrasted with the warmth and natural affection of his time spent with his daughter, is all too easy and forces the viewer to “watch” rather than “engage” with the content of the film. Far from fond of Sofia Coppola’s oeuvre for its preferencing of style over, or rather in place of, substance, Somewhere is yet another film that demonstrates remarkable technical craftsmanship but leaves very little (much like her subjects) to be desired. But perhaps this is her intention and the absolute lack of engaging content is her way of demonstrating the full extent of the vacuity of her subjects. Either way, the film invites a passive rather than active cognitive viewing process and as such communicates its vapid intent far too entirely.

Somewhere is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26, through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

With opening credits that offered artistic vision and an interesting take on constructed images, it seemed at first glimpse as though this might actually be a film filled with charming panache. Sadly, what follows is a peculiar rendering of crass comedy mixed with odd storytelling and more pointless than poignant pop culture referencing, ad nauseam.

Gulliver (Jack Black) is an immature and pop-culture obsessed regular kinda guy who works in the mailroom at the New York Tribune. Quietly and shamefully in love with the beautiful, confident and successful Darcy (Amanda Peet), he somehow stumbles upon a three-week travel writing assignment to the Bermuda Triangle (after failing to ask her out and by applying for the job with plagiarized writing samples no less). Forgiving the set up and accepting the suspension of disbelief (if you’re able) you then find yourself transported to an alternate reality and the miniature kingdom of Liliput. Here Gulliver undergoes a series of failures and successes in a weak exploration of an uninventive and far from engaging character arc.

Leaving the particulars of the “plot” at that to focus more on the peculiarities of its execution, there is little about this film that lives up its epic title. Aside from its impressive set design, Gulliver’s Travels leaves little to be desired. From a close-up 3D vision of Jack Black’s bum crack to his pissing out a fire, this film can’t honestly be aimed at adults. Not quite a kids’ flick and not even a “dude flick”, Gulliver’s Travels is quite likely aimed at the stoner audience who enjoyed last year’s Land of the Lost (2009).

With a central relationship that neither works nor makes sense and with Emily Blunt either forgetting or not caring how to act, it is nothing short of a Christmas miracle that this film found its way to the big screen. The use of 3D starts off relatively well but somewhere along the way appears to have been abandoned like so much interest in engaging an audience. Unsure as to exactly what it was I had just watched, Gulliver’s Travels left me utterly bemused. Strange, if inconsequential, viewing.

Gulliver’s Travels is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26, through 20th Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The premise adheres to a standard rom-com paradigm whereby a beautiful, rich, young woman, Juliette Van Der Becq (Vanessa Paradis) is about to marry “the wrong man”; an equally rich and charming young man named Jonathan Alcott (played by This Life‘s Andrew Lincoln). Juliette’s father then hires our “heartbreaker” in question, Alex Lippi (Romain Duris) to put a stop to their impending nuptials. As you would expect, Lippi, who breaks up unseemly couples for a scant living with the aid of his sister and her husband, falls for sweet Juliette and a great, comic romance ensues. This all sounds decidedly standard, so why exactly did I take to this film when I so dislike other films of this ilk?

Well, that would be down to the “Frenchness” of it all. Firstly, our “wrong man” character is English and, as someone who can sort of lay claim to Englishness, I found the French dislike of this seemingly perfect, yet far too upper class, Oxbridge-humanitarian-toff-like man immensely amusing. Furthermore, Lippi’s “job” as a heartbreaker is so loaded with excessive cliché that it actually reaches the realms of self-reflexivity from time to time (an early scene involving white doves illustrates this beautifully). It is also the specific absurdities of the film that caught me pleasantly by surprise; the idea of eating Roquefort for breakfast and the incomprehensibly unkind yet still silly slapstick treatment of Juliette’s slutty best friend.

Finally, what’s best about this film is Romain Duris’ quality comic timing. Far better suited to intense, gritty roles in films such as Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrêté, 2005), Duris’ goofy smile is so wildly out-of-place here that it is almost impossible not to stifle at least a wee giggle if not a galant gaffaw every time he flashes his pearly whites.

Certainly not a film with too much intelligent subtext, Heartbreaker is a refreshingly funny rom-com that provides the kind of foolish entertainment any half-way decent comedy ought.

Heartbreaker is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26, through Hopscotch Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Opening with a young girl – who clearly represents innocence and honesty – screaming for her lost dog it is clear from the outset that this film is concerned with love and loss. Comforted somewhat by her father, her protector and friend, the young girl can still be shielded to some extent from the bitter truth life holds. The same however, cannot be said for the child’s mother who is the unfortunate party to later find the dog laying dead by the side of the road. With the parameters for pain and protection now set, Blue Valentine pulls its focus from the child, and even the “family unit” it has established, and sets in upon the relationship that tenuously still exists between partners and parents Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams).

Carefully and subtly looking at the unequal and uncontrollable ways in which love, romance, stability and necessity move in and out of a relationship, each alternately becoming the driving force, Blue Valentine‘s greatest achievement is in its telling of such a story from simultaneously within, and outside of, their relationship. As their love begins to break down its temporal trajectory is ruptured and the entire relationship folds in upon itself, disrupting notions of time and memory. To this end, the “flash back” sequences to the early days when they began dating are not so much there to contrast an earlier hope with their now despair but rather operate just as one’s living memory does: simultaneously and often abstractly informed, but never restricted by, the confines of linear time.

As the film progresses and the fabric of their connection deteriorates the wonderfully written dialogue echoes the complete lack of understanding that comes along with an unwanted break-up, “How do you trust your feelings when they just disappear like that?” But what really drives this film, and what is an absolute credit to the very craft of acting, are the central performances from Williams and Gosling; their connection amongst the most believable I have ever seen onscreen. Their passion – all the way from love to hate – is so affecting and even palpable that it would be impossible not to feel for the characters even if you are (arguably) fortunate enough never to have had a relationship like theirs.

From the discarding of past memories; shown beautifully through the characters’ relationships with elderly people who have to leave some of their affected belongings behind; to the bleak and depressing vision of their “future”; painfully rendered through a sequence where the pair attempt to repair their damaged love via a stay in a cheap hotel where they literally gain a glimpse of how things would continue in their stay in the aptly named “future room” – the film successfully demonstrates how a relationship, even in its demise, remains subject to “feeling”, however fleeting and returning that may be, rather than any linear construction of events. A wonderful portrayal of emotive content crafted through innovative film form, Blue Valentine is set to become the greatest contemporary love story of recent times.

Blue Valentine is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day – Sunday December 26 through Palace Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

What interests me most about IMAX 3D is its relationship to the historical real and the way in which it uses immersion to enhance the comprehension of filmic content rather than just offer an entertaining experience in the first instance. With the recent spate of 3D films including a lot of crappy 2D to 3D conversion and an inordinate number of kids flicks I’ve been concerned for some time now that the medium would be lost to gimmick and glamour forever, subsequently failing to explore its more fascinating and significant relationship with tracing the historical real. Thankfully, Tron: Legacy has, in a compelling and incredibly innovative way, restored its trajectory to thinking through the links between history and experience and how any visual representation of the former requires comprehensive formal consideration to elucidate the theoretical and narrative ideas it holds.

The original Tron (1982), in addition to being a childhood favourite for many a now adult who grew up in the ’80s, is an incredible vision, and subsequent historical document of what I like to call the “future past”. The “future past” in film is a depiction of futurism that documents a contextual comprehension of what the future might either look like or the capabilities they are expected of it, and thus, necessarily, it becomes immediately after depiction, itself a document of the past. Tron: Legacy is one film that I am absolutely certain will, like its original, come to be a document of its own contextual “future past”. However, with Tron: Legacy (and indeed even Tron to some extent) the depiction of the “future past” is not so much in theorising how we might live in the future or what technological advancements might mean to society so much as it is a continuation of the contemplation surrounding interactivity and where it is that escapism intersects with real life.

The idea that both films are predicated upon concerns sharing of or access to information. Given the technological revolution called the Internet that has arrived in homes during the time spanning the two films’ release dates, notions of sharing and access have never been more relevant concerns. The issue addressed however is mostly to do with the relational converse: control. All systems of power are built upon a relational set up and so for there even to be a question of “sharing” or “access” there must first be a structure that prevents this.

Mirroring so very many times throughout the film are the structures of the real world  - where corporations and authoritative figures are in control – and the structures of “the Grid” (itself a mirror image of the “games” played in the real world) where multiple mirror imagings occur; its own creator up against an image of himself. But perhaps most significant is his inability to return to the real world and even to any longer engage in the confines of his own creation. Set aside and decidedly “off the grid” both Kevin Flynn and his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) occupy liminal spaces between reality and fantasy. Prior to entering the Grid, we have seen Sam as an outcast who has made a “home” for himself based upon extraction from the human world and their prescribed rules. The company in which he is the major shareholder, Encom, is nothing more than a bankrolling joke to him. In a wonderfully indicative bike chase sequence early on we see Sam ride in the real world as he will once he enters the Grid: recklessly and with enough balls and abandon to physically ride off an overpass, breaking the established barriers.

Just as Sam breaks through established barriers within the narrative; hacking into Encom’s system and posting their technology for all the world to see and passing through the boundaries between the real world and the digital one; Tron: Legacy itself repeatedly breaks cinematic boundaries, creating yet another mirror between form and content. From using the most visceral and immersive thirty or forty seconds of 3D I have ever seen in cinema as its opening shot (this honestly feels more like a simulator ride than a static viewing experience), to seven times in the film expanding the dimensions of the IMAX screen to allow for an enhanced and enlarged view of the spectacle, to seamlessly switching between 2D and 3D as and when the effects call for it yet never appearing gimmicky or clunky in doing so, Tron: Legacy is an exemplary exercise in experimenta.

But returning to the narrative of the film and its relation to an historical real, there is one character in the film, Quorra (Olivia Wilde) who represents a new phase in the human/digital (r)evolution. Her role and what she represents suggests an internal evolution within gaming and the digital world. The implications of this are astronomical, particularly as she transcends the barrier between the real world and the Grid, leaving the film with “integration” as its final frontier. What Tron: Legacy is tracing here is the fascinating move from an historical document (Tron) to its conceived progression (Tron: Legacy) which then charters the transcendence of the real to computer generating and digital enhancement, through an onscreen evolutionary event and back to the real (diegetic) world. Both spatially and temporally this is an entirely new way of viewing historical representation and yet so wonderfully is in and of itself an historical document as it suggests to us; its own vision of the future for “user interactivity”, human/digital integration and a move beyond understanding history as a series of “events” and into understanding history as a constant, evolving process that occurs across a multitude of platforms and instantaneously through communicable affect. Whilst I appreciate it can be said of any film that it is in and of itself an historical document of one form or another, Tron: Legacy is unique in that its central call for viewing and experiencing cinema is as an onscreen process of evolution in interactivity, not just technologically speaking, but also with regards to the very linear understanding we hold towards historical discourse.

“Sometimes life has a way of moving you past life and hope.” is what Kevin Flynn tells Sam towards the film’s end and I would venture that sometimes cinema has a way of moving its audiences past traditional and expected viewing experiences and the hope for what they might achieve. Tron: Legacy is not only an incredible and deeply affecting experience in immersive IMAX 3D (and it would remiss of me not to at least mention how truly awesome the Daft Punk soundtrack is at achieving a large proportion of that affect), but it is also a pioneering film for our continued understanding not only of modes of viewing experience, but also the way in which they construct contextual comprehension. Aware of itself to the last, Tron: Legacy is a signpost for what cinema can be and it is one of the most beautiful visions I have ever seen.

Tron: Legacy is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday December 16 but despite wherever else it might be playing there is only one way to see this film and that is in immersive IMAX with 3D. For Melbournian readers of LV, you can see Tron: Legacy at the Melbourne Museum IMAX in Carlton and I implore you to do so.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

• Matthew Crompton
• Martin Steers
• Sarah Ward
• Joe Kim

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Below is an excerpt from my MIFF review of Splice (you can access the full review here.)

“Two young, top of their game, and very much in love scientists, Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), ignore the forbidding from their superiors and the “moral implications” of it all, and go ahead and splice together human and animal DNA. But motivated by more than just the science of the thing, the resultant spawn, Dren (Delphine Chaneac) becomes more like a deformed daughter to them than the subject of a scientific experiment, culminating in a whole lot more than they bargained for during her “coming of age” style awakening…. At its best a form of flattery for the likes of Peter Jackson and David Cronenberg in its comic gross-out moments … Splice (2009) is a successfully commercial, fun horror-schlock flick.”

To win one of 2 DVDs and 2 Blu-rays of this film please send an email naming your favourite David Cronenberg film to midnightmovies@live.co.uk with your full name and postal address and the word ‘Splice’ in the subject header – don’t forget to please also indicate whether you would prefer DVD or Blu-ray. Winners will be picked at random, at the author of this blog’s discretion and all decisions are final.

DVD Special features include; “The Making of Splice”, “The Director’s Playground” and an interview with acclaimed director Vincenzo Natali.

Splice will be available 15 December 2010 (on DVD $29.95RRP and Blu-ray $39.95RRP) through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

In spite of the film being formally very good; from cinematography to effects the film is highly successful in creating a cohesive “world” via aesthetic atmosphere; and whilst the idea for the story is joyously wicked, I couldn’t help but feel that the film was tonally flat. Tone, not always the easiest to describe element of a film, as it necessarily pertains to affect and experience, is probably still one of the most significant factors in terms of a film’s communicable success. The problem for Rare Exports then is that a slightly askew demographic affords the film with a bizarre dual-tonality that ultimately wrestles with itself rather than achieving the balance between its dark and heartwarming moments.

Having seen the promotional trailer and posters for the film first I admit I already had it in my head that this was a Christmas film for adult audiences. Expecting a subversive horror/thriller in the first instance, I hadn’t, until about five minutes into the screening, even considered that this might be a kids’ flick. Then, as the film progressed, I realised it wasn’t quite that either. Sitting somewhere between family friendly and mature content I spent the remainder of the film trying to align myself with one of these viewer positionings but sadly, to no avail.

Half of the time Rare Exports is a straight up comedy and during these moments it is most certainly aimed at a young audience. Moreover, its central protagonist is a young boy and in focusing on the question of who or what Santa truly is, both its thematics and identificatory standpoints further suggest a young audience. Fine. However, and conversely, the film is for the most part subtitled, includes strong language, has some full frontal male nudity and low-level violence as well as what might be considered “dark” or “sinister” themes – all of which suggest it’s probably a film for more mature audiences. The problem of course is that it flits between the two making the closest thing to a clear target audience: fifteen-year-olds – and that’s one almightily exclusive audience.

Perhaps then the film is, at least in intent, leveled at both (what I suspect to be the “truth”.) And whilst there are moments of genius in the film - hundreds of naked Santa elves running across the snowscape with their tackles dangling in the bitter Lapland breeze is one joyously shocking highlight, as is the film’s allusion to the role mythology plays in establishing collective “truths”, an element I would love to have seen elaborated on – the overall effect is neither chilling nor comforting and, like the fifteen-year-olds I suspect will constitute its greatest fan base, it’s really just that little bit awkward and underdeveloped.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday December 2 through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Writer/director Patrick Hughes’ first feature film Red Hill (2010) is all about the problematic existence of an introduced species in an Indigenous landscape. There have been reports of “phantom panthers” in Victoria, NSW and WA ever since the end of WWII when an unknown number of black panthers supposedly escaped into our enormous land mass. The panthers are supposedly further responsible for the disappearance and deaths of numerous domestic animals and livestock. In Red Hill the “phantom panther” operates in parallel to the white Europeans (now considered “Australians”) who have also been “introduced” to the land. Like the panther, they too are responsible for the disappearance and deaths of numerous Indigenous people and, also like the panther, have been held relatively unaccountable for their violent and destructive actions.

Primarily and thematically, Red Hill is a revenge thriller where a single physical embodiment of our country’s severely wronged Indigenous people comes back, very much like the Freudian “return of the repressed”. For Freud the repressed can never truly be destroyed and will always re-emerge, something we see clearly from one character’s inability to live with himself as the persistent memories of past events haunt his conscience/unconscious. Moreover, when the repressed returns for Freud it is distorted, almost unrecognisable, and our single physical embodiment of this returned repression, Jimmy Conway (Tommy Lewis), is physically disfigured (something that also operates as a literal historical scarring.) Considering Jimmy thusly provides at least a somewhat more preferable understanding as to why protagonist Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) is entirely exempt from the rampage of revenge that ensues. Jimmy (as a symptom of the repressed) only takes his revenge on the men personally responsible for the rape and murder of his pregnant wife and his subsequent incarceration as it is their collective unconscious that recall him and his suffering in the first instance.

Whilst I don’t think anyone would argue that the white men gunned down in this film aren’t absolutely deserving of their ill fates, there might be some viewers who find the depiction of Jimmy to verge a little on the dangerous side insofar as he is less humanised than Cooper who, despite being an example of yet more useless white people rapidly breeding, appears to be the “hero” of the story. Cooper is characterised as the moral centre of the film and as such the audience is aligned with him as a primary point of identification. A police officer who has moved from the fast pace of city life to a small, quiet country town, he is both slightly inept as an officer – he misplaces his own firearm and is late on his first day of work; and more compassionate than his country folk – he shows ethical resistance to actually pulling the trigger on his gun when faced with a “criminal” hoping that perhaps other, more passive measures can be taken.

However, in characterising Jimmy as less humanist than Cooper I would suggest the film is further illustrating the continued prejudice and adversity our Indigenous people face in what is left of their own country. At the film’s end Jimmy is still held accountable for his actions by white man’s law. The incredible injustice of this inevitability really resonates as we come to realise that the only person for whom there will ever be a future in this country is the white man. Whilst this is not a particularly hopeful ending it is, dare I say, somewhat accurate.

Finally, a shot of the panther looking out onto the vast landscape it finds itself king of reminds us with bitterness that once a species is introduced it is almost impossible to eradicate and certainly its effect on the landscape is absolutely irreversible.

An engaging drama and an important commentary on the horrific history this country will always be haunted by, Red Hill is an impressive film for a first time filmmaker from whom I hope we will see a great deal more.

Red Hill is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 25 through Sony Pictures.

The Last Exorcism opens with protagonist and exorcist Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) shaving and talking to camera (which is already self-consciously visible from the bathroom mirror reflection) to establish a “documentary aesthetic”. The first section of the film continues in this stylistic manner as it reveals a little about our fraudulent hero. The majority of the Cotton talking to camera sequences operate to establish both him and Him as imposters, often to great comic effect. Cotton tells us, “If you believe in God you have to believe in the devil. Jesus Himself was an exorcist.” And, on contemplating this one last “exorcism” he is about to perform – his way out of what he calls a crisis of faith, “I’m gonna miss this. Maybe I’ll sell real estate.”

Then the film shifts up a gear (much like the aforementioned Behind the Mask) and crosses over from its comedic mockumentary style and becomes an actual horror film for the remainder of its duration. The shift is timely and welcome as, irregardless of how amusing the mockumentary elements are (and they really are, especially the sequence where we are shown the process behind many standard effects used in horror), there is only so long such a technique can sustain itself and its audience’s attention. That said, there are still plenty of laughs to come even within the “horror” scenes themselves.

The performed exorcisms and the possession sequences that follow are suspiciously like the ones seen in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) (particularly the barn sequence) although the results and the level of tension pitched in this film are much less severe or serious. The final scene in the film (a tonally fitting end for a horror/comedy) is where The Last Exorcism confirms that it was interested primarily in adjusting the levels of tone and pace with the hope at altering well-established, predictable and arguably tired paradigms of audience expectancy. Whilst far from “scary” and not exactly definitive in execution, The Last Exorcism is a lot of fun and comes with an appreciable knowledge and respect for horror-literate audiences.

The Last Exorcism is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 25 through Hopscotch Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

One of the greatest ways to ensure an audience buys the authenticity of a film is to use documentary or stock TV footage. This technique is especially successful when the footage is woven into the thematic fabric of the film and harmoniously matched with visual graphics (exemplarily explicated at the very end of the film where Liman cuts in graphic match from Naomi Watts’ performance to “real life” footage of Valerie Plame Wilson’s testimony in court.) In the opening titles for the film we are presented with news footage of George Bush and an aural mash-up of non-diegetic music from the Gorillaz layered on top of a spate of diegetic key words that alliterate and are accumulatively onomatopoeic; “scare”, “threat”, “substance”, “security”,  ”terrorist attacks”, “terrorist networks”. Set less than one month after September 11 and engaging in the media frenzy that followed these events, such formal techniques allow audience awareness from the outset; this film is interested in exposing the Bush administration as hysterical and fraudulent. Furthermore, the film is clearly and explicitly aligned with an anti-Iraq occupation political point of view.

In addition to the use of such footage, the drama itself is filmed in two distinctly different styles that play off one another to great effect. When we see Valerie (Naomi Watts) and her husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) at home or in a familial/social environment the camera work is static implying peaceful, steady and stable foundations. Conversely, when we see Valerie or Joe in governmental or field agent settings the camera work is often shaky and intrusive which is consciously interrogative implying a great deal of uncertainty and erraticism. This juxtaposition is used to both frame the Wilsons as “good” people of integrity and simultaneously cast doubt over the systems of power that employ them.

Selective use of famous quotations further ads to the communicable incredulity of certain US office holders and their role in the events that led to the West’s invasion of Iraq. From Saddam’s “I would rather kill my friends in error than let my enemies live” to the Bush administration’s “The responsibility of a country is not in the hands of a few” Liman is questioning the way in which the media present high-profile conflict to the public. In lieu of this it is clear that in presenting another perspective on Valerie Plame Wilson’s case, Liman is interested in visual media’s ability to communicate and manipulate viewers. Rousing and provocative in the first instance, Fair Game is a fascinatingly self-reflexive accusal of popular discourse in its ability to skew fact and create polemic.

Fair Game is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 25 through Hoyts Distribution.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Serving more as a backdrop than a narrative (in this sense the film is post-classical as it relies on characters rather than events for causal motivation), our two protagonists – newspaper photographer Andrew Kaulder (the adorable Scoot McNairy whose performance in 2007′s In Search of a Midnight Kiss remains one of the most honest I’ve seen in recent years) and Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) – must make a physical journey back to the US across the “Infected Zone”; an area that covers almost half of Mexico following the crash of a NASA probe carrying samples of recently discovered alien life forms from within Earth’s solar system.

From here the film follows a typical romantic arc as the emotional interaction and connection between our unlikely duo deepens in accordance with the progression of their physical journey. And whilst it may be true that the backdrop of South America speaks to social/racial issues these are merely indicated rather than fully explored in the film. Furthermore, Samantha’s repeated question, “Do you feel safe here?” has less to do with infection, quarantine, social, racial or political difference than it does their relationship. That is to say that Sam, who asks the question of Andrew more than once, feels unsafe because has entered a liminal space between being on her own (as she was in Mexico) and returning home to her supposedly contented life and fiancé.

But that’s not to say that this film isn’t interesting or engaging, on the contrary, it absolutely is. The landscape itself, set up to enhance the atmosphere and heighten tensions in their relationship is also curiously sublime, and here I’m referring to Jean-François Lyotard’s interpretation and analysis of the Kantian sublime (for more information see Lyotard’s excellent Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime.) For Lyotard there is something within the Kantian sublime that defies cognitive comprehension insofar as the aesthetics of the represented thing are able to produce an indescribable, incomprehensible feeling. This thought within itself is self-reflexively sublime for it is a simultaneously beautiful and terrifying realisation. Moreover, Lyotard finds something sublime in the feeling of suspension that such imagery can invoke; the incognisable explication of waiting for “it” to happen, whilst not knowing or being able to explain exactly what “it” is.

Whilst not all viewers will find the backdrop for Monsters so sublime themselves it is clear that this is how our protagonists experience their own setting and is, furthermore, why at the film’s end our couple are left so entirely devastated. Theoretically jumping from aesthetics to psychoanalysis now, their sublime experience is so intense and affecting that it is akin to the experience of one’s greatest desires, an experience that Lacan tells us results only in severe trauma and a break with the Real.

Returning somewhat abrasively to that Real, Sam and Andrew are thrust back into the world of consumerism, convenience and sustainability. Having seen alien life forms in the infected zone live because of their connection to the natural world (they “grow”, for want of a better word, on the side of trees) the Real world – destroyed as it may be – sees this motif quite literally outgrown and the “monsters” (we humans) draw on unsustainable sources such as electricity in order to continue to flourish.

Likely proving either strangely compelling or overly sentimental, Monsters is a film that will divide opinions dependent upon individual sensibilities. Well rendered if a little reliant upon emotive response, it is perhaps best described as a humanist film in the first instance.

Monsters is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 25 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Following Warner Bros’ announcement in early October that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 would not be presented in 3D as “they will not have a completed 3D version of the film within the release date window”, I wondered whether or not the sections of the film intended to maximize use of the 3D would seem silly or out-of-place in its 2D counterpart. With this in mind, I went into the IMAX Melbourne Museum looking for missed 3D opportunities and considering its effect on the presented film as a whole.

Melbourne’s IMAX museum has the third largest IMAX screen in the world. Seeing a film in that auditorium is as a result far more visually and even experientially impressive than a trip to your local multiplex. Furthermore, much like Melbourne’s Astor Theatre, when you go to the IMAX you are always watching film and not some digital file with flatter, lower resolution and poorer colour and sound quality. Further to this, there is a much smaller chance that something will go wrong in the projection booth because 1) film is a more reliable and predictable format and 2) it is a single screen cinema which means it is constantly monitored by a fully trained film projectionist. Taking these points into consideration, the IMAX made for the perfect environment to notice what was missing in terms of the abandoned 3D.

One of the problems in shooting a film for 3D conversion rather than shooting it in 3D in the first instance is that it lends itself to the gimmicky, ephemeral use of the medium. Shooting a film in 3D (as, by way of example, is most often the case with the IMAX natural history documentaries) affords the film with a cohesive depth of field whereas conversion tends often to add a layer rather than a dimension to an image that already exists (it is a matter of perception and some viewers less versed in 3D may not always notice the difference, but there is one.) Moreover, the gimmicky “coming out of the image” that you see with so much popular fare is actually a little counter-intuitive as it detracts from the “immersive” intent of the technology.

In Deathly Hallows there are two types of images that the filmmakers most likely thought would “benefit” from the technology: the ones where things do indeed come out at the audience (most notably here a snake, pictured above left) and the ones where the environment is supposed to reflect the mental and emotional states of its protagonists, by which I mean the shots of the cold, empty English countryside which I have no doubt would have felt even more barren and endless with the added depth of field. Further to this, elements informed by physics like the ‘dirigible plums’ would have been afforded with a more fitting spatial and gravitational visual rendering and the fast-paced chase sequence at the film’s beginning would too have had far more haptic effect with the layering of a third dimension.

There is also an animated story-telling sequence in the film that would have been fascinating in 3D. As it stands the imagery is already losing a dimension to its very form and as such feels a little displaced amidst the narrative. Adding a third dimension to a flat image of shadow puppetry would have given the sequence another layer which, as a story being re-told through an imaginative visual would certainly have added to the acknowledgment of the “problems of history” critical concern that necessarily comes with retelling and reimagining mythological folk-lore. Its relationship to its origins would then have been at yet another level of remove which, in the pursuit of historical truth (something the quest narrative is always concerned with) is not only significant but poignantly so.

Taking these points into consideration how then does Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hold up in 2D? I’d say surprisingly well. For me, whether it’s 2D or 3D there is something to be said for “the IMAX experience”. The very dimensions of the screen along with its slight curvature and the perfect incline of seating in the auditorium mean that the viewer is always positioned in such a way that optimizes dimensional perception. If you are going to see Deathly Hallows (and be honest, you already know whether or not you are) do yourself a favour and see it at the IMAX.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released in Australian cinemas and is playing at the Melbourne Museum IMAX from Thursday November 18.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Our protagonist is Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), daughter of Theon (Michael Lonsdale) and a woman who has no interest at all in taking up romantic relations with any potential suitor. Instead, Hypatia is interested only in the natural philosophy of the universe and teaching its endless wonders to the prefects of Alexandria. Refusing the advances of one most forward student, Orestes (Oscar Isaac), and later her own slave boy Davus (Max Minghella) as he turns against her in a violent uprising against Roman paganism, Hypatia quietly toils away in her quest to answer the true mathematical workings of the solar system.

Heavy on the cyclical motif and with religious uprising operating much like a solar or lunar eclipse, Agora explores Hypatia’s (for the time) radical ideas and arguments with pleasing reflection upon contextual political events. The positing of religious groups against one another weaves in a little contemporary conflict in its characterisation of the “bad” Christians who just so happen to look as though they are of Arabic descent. Further to this, and just in case you weren’t sure who to side with, the groups are conveniently draped in colour-coded robes; Pagans in cream, taupe and beige; Christians in grey and black, Jews in a mixture of colours that sit somewhere in between the two, and often err on the blue side of the colour spectrum. Not quite the black / white binary opposites one might expect from an historical epic, there is certainly a fair shade of grey to show that religion and the philosophy of science aren’t necessarily entirely distinct: both start with sacred literature and (in theory) persist with the pursuit of knowledge. The fundamental difference of course being that where natural philosophy is open to anyone (even Davus is allowed to speculate on its theoretical validity) religion is not (specifically here for women).

Hypatia, whose vast works have been lost to history, was persecuted because of her gender in the greatest display of relational power against an individual who has been quite literally and figuratively stripped of her own. The difference, so perfectly demonstrated right at the beginning of the film, is that Hypatia is only ever concerned with ethical encounters; guided by scientific truth rather than theoretical faith. After Theon whips her slave boy Davus for admitting to being “of the Christian faith”, Hypatia, despite her pagan ways, tends to his wounds much like Mary, sister of Lazarus did Jesus in the bible.

The film’s execution of such broad thematic concerns is relatively simplistic and though it feels somewhat clumsily edited at times (there is a terribly distracting intermittent zoom in and out of planet Earth that is strangely jarring amidst an otherwise seamless visual narrative), the performances, attention to detail and mise-en-scene are all exemplary. Perhaps it is the disjointed focus that affords the film with so undefinable an atmosphere and subsequently lets down what would otherwise be a very engaging work. These points notwithstanding, Agora is an enjoyable enough example of historical mythology and its failing to answer so many of the questions it raises is actually a strength rather than a weakness.

Agora is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 18 through Transmission Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Josh Fox’s new documentary film Gasland (2010) is one such film whereby the very seed of hope and a genuine effort to incite positive activism hold the power to shake an otherwise often too apathetic core. We all have an ethical responsibility to each other and to our environment. That seems to be a simple enough statement and one that we might all take as a given. But apparently “we” humans are more interested in industry and commerce than health and environment and the result is water that catches on fire and individuals who die slow, painful and unvoiced deaths. Thankfully, filmmaker Josh Fox still holds an optimistic view for our ability to find real, workable solutions, his opening voice-over announcing, “I’m not a pessimist. I’ve always had a great deal of faith in people.” And it is from this admirable perspective that Fox begins his investigative documentary project on the processes, lies and effects of the act of “fracking”.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of pumping water and a veritable cocktail of chemicals (known as frack fluid) into the ground to cause a sort of mini explosion that cause the land to crack and fracture, releasing the earth’s natural gases which is, according to some people in positions of authority, a real “sustainable” energy source . But, as we all know, and as one of the aforementioned authoritative folk tells Fox in his film, “There is no such thing as a perfect source of energy.” A clever statement because 1) it’s indisputable and 2) it’s so definitive in and of itself that it almost denies the counter argument which is that just because there is no “perfect” source, doesn’t mean there aren’t some sources which would be preferable to others, or indeed other solutions that might involve humans cutting down on energy use rather than using with wild abandon and hoping the pursuit of something to replace it will just work out somehow.

With so many incredibly negative side effects, it’s difficult to decide what exactly about “fracking” is most troubling; that long-term exposure to the gases and contaminated water can lead to irreversible brain damage; that the people working on extracting the gases don’t know the truth about close-quarter effects; that the corporations involved refuse to divulge the full list of “chemicals” used in the process; that the process leaves behind “produced” water which further contaminates the earth; that the government are involved in ignoring their own clean air and clean water acts and are thus implicated in an almighty cover up; that even if it wasn’t dangerous the civilians who complained about their contaminated water were refused even an investigation; or that no one other than a filmmaker seems to care enough to try to stop it from happening. Is the only solution then to stop focusing on the problems already caused and start thinking about finding a solution that might stop it from continuing/happening elsewhere?

Fox’s film is highly contemplative and has fantastic and admirable intent but ultimately; against global corporations including Shell, Exonn, Mobil, BP, Halliburton (all of whom quite clearly and understandably declined to interview for the film) and governments; what chance does the common man have? There is certainly an element of hope that he/she has some and there are various websites set up for subsequent community action (including ones relating to fracking in Australia too)*. But the one thing that Fox fails to acknowledge in his film is that the whole orchestration of these events comes down to that one dirty word we just can’t escape: capitalism. In a system that controls and effects everything (truly everything) it will never be the case that we get the “best” or even the “less bad” of the supposedly available energy sources. Fox’s film finishes on imagery of wind turbines but with so many positions in authority voting against them for purely aesthetic objections (as is the case in the UK) it’s absolutely clear that the deciding motivators aren’t necessarily the same for farmers as they are councillors.

Moving, infuriating, incredulous: Gasland is a film of much merit. Unfortunately it will likely preach (as so many of these films do) to the already converted or, worse still, long time apathetic anti-activists who cogitate and leave it at that. Further to this, the quality of filmmaking, due largely to and absolutely forgivable for its one-man low-budget constrictions, is really rather poor. But these points notwithstanding I’d still hope everyone go out and see the film, because the cause and the fight are important.

With the extraction of an energy source contaminating arguably the most important resource on our planet (water) perhaps the most significant question Fox asks is at the very end of his film, “How much water could you replace?” If we’re lucky, those proverbial “powers that be” will find a way to convert the very tears of humanity into an energy source – because that’s probably the most “sustainable” source we’ve got.

Gasland is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 18 through Palace Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

* Western Downs Alliance / The Basin Sustainability Alliance / The Hunter Valley Protection Alliance

Ree Dolly is only seventeen but with her father officially “missing” and her mother near catatonic, she quickly becomes head of the household and the only hope her younger brother and sister have for survival. Tired, down-trodden and understandably pissed, Ree learns that her father’s disappearance could cost them their family home if he doesn’t show for trial in a mere matter of days. Forced to assume responsibility for her entire family and their situation Ree sets about tracking her father down, or, in his absence, anyone who can help her to prove to the authorities that he can’t show for trial because he’s dead and buried.

Ree’s quest to find her absent father bears both Freudian and religious connotations. With the paternal structure breaking down and without a maternal figure to look to for help the only official avenue available to Ree is the Law – who she outright refuses – and, failing that, her “community”, which itself is run by a iron fist form of paternal Law. Denying all forms of social and political authority, Ree stands up to everyone with a sort of blind faith that propels her in her quest to find her maker. The only way for Ree to save her family is through an act of near martyrdom, proving her faith in her Father’s death and existence is not misguided; that he must have been murdered because he wouldn’t abandon them in their time of need. An incredibly beautiful sentiment that is simultaneously hopeful and despondent, Ree’s fears push her faith to its limits as she exclaims, “He ain’t anywhere.”

In a final act of baptism gone awry Ree must trust in her enemies that they will lead her to her Father, a moment that reveals terrifying truth and beauty in the most visually explicable demonstration of the Kantian sublime I have ever seen onscreen.

Finishing with the song “In The Palm of His Hand” performed by Dirt Road Delight, the film’s final words, “May He lead you to salvation/Whatever he has against you/May He blaze a path to glory/To the promised land” resonate wonderfully with our protagonist’s hardship and suffering on her arduous journey to prove God exists. The whole film reads like a exemplary literary classic, complete with the rich symbolism of fire and ice. The layers are so well established that instead of subtle complication the whole film is propelled by an internal logic that is crisp, cohesive and complete.

A more perfectly paced dramatic thriller I cannot recall; every detail right down to the sound of leaves crushing underfoot is impeccably executed, the tension in absolutely every scene heart-racingly palpable. The performances are amongst the most naturalistic and believable to be found: not so much as a bit-parter failing to sustain the necessary balance of energy and reserve. Each shot is beautifully composed and the environment so well captured that the Ozark woods themselves play a character in the film; dark and foreboding. The combination of these elements create a most incredible and piercing tonal quality which is ultimately the greatest of Granik’s many achievements. And of course the story itself is intense, gripping and so brilliantly layered that one constantly needs to remind oneself to exhale and catch breath.

Winter’s Bone is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 11 through Curious Film.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Just like the proverbial spy, Jack (George Clooney), an assassin and weapons specialist, wants to retire his profession and come in from both the literal and metaphorical cold. Hiding out in a secluded lodge in wintry, snowed in Sweden, Jack attempts to live as a semi-recluse. Jack’s folly of course is in trying to “hide-out” with someone else for, much like the spy, coming in from the cold is never so simple a pursuit. Following a grim end to his idyllic hideaway in Sweden, Jack takes nothing more than his unshakable past and runs with it to a small, warmer town in Italy.

But Italy isn’t exactly an easier location within which to hide. Jack, not “an American”, but “the American” is situated in the film as a signified representative for a nation and, with that, a type of universalising neo-liberalism that doesn’t quite fit with the authentic and historic European locations he attempts to inhabit. His arrival in Castel del Monte is an immediately alienating experience that jars with his distinct and undeniable American culture; he is not fluent in their language and though he tries to use his limited Italian vocabulary to get by it is ultimately the case that the local populace must make most of the effort and use their English language skills to communicate with him; despite being in Italy (where arguably the best coffee in the world is made) he orders “an Americano” when frequenting their cafes and restaurants; religion is both overt and celebrated as part of their culture and community and yet he continues to deny the Catholic church, questioning the very morals of the city’s priest even though his own actions and sins amount to far worse.

His placement within an environment so vastly foreign seems at best counter-intuitive and Jack constantly stands out- a thread that is further signified by the employment of a butterfly motif throughout. The motif itself is a somewhat trite and the metaphor weak but – anomalously so – it operates successfully to further resonate Jack – the American’s – own undeniably anomalous position amongst European cultures and societies.

Beyond Jack’s existence in a physical and cultural geographic space that indicates his difference and signals his alienation, he seems intent upon trying to shake his own identity as “the American” and assume instead one that is more to both his liking and his environment. Although Jack is a weapon’s specialist he constantly claims “I’m no good with machines” and, ironically, though he maintains he has no interest in the past and is concerned only with living for the present, it is precisely his past that prevents him from assimilating in the first place. Finally, he denies religion and confession yet repeatedly seeks counsel from the local priest who, aside from his prostitute/girlfriend, is the closest thing he has to a “friend” in the world.

Here the film contemplates a fascinating theoretical paradox: if a man can’t come in from the cold, how can he survive and adapt to his environment without imposing upon it his own negative attributes? The answer of course is that he cannot. Despite his finest efforts, an individual can no more escape or deny his/her own past than a country can its national identity (informed as it is by history.) Ultimately, the very presence of “the American”, and the universalising neo-liberalism he represents, stains upon the cobbled streets of Castel del Monte both physical and metaphorical stains of blood.

A slow, tense build and a fantastically authentic film for its visual representation of small town Italy, The American is one this year’s finest films and George Clooney is nothing short of brilliant in his measured and considered portrayal of an individual whose desires to escape himself and what he represents are futile.

The American is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 11 through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is a young soldier who is but three months away from the end of his military service. Recovering from injury and post-traumatic stress syndrome (though he notably denies suffering this) he is forced to serve out his time as a messenger for their Casualty Notification Service (a very official way of saying that he tells people their loved ones are dead.) His job, and thus the film’s central message, is simple and clear: the military is about protocol not emotion, following orders not empathizing, and carrying out difficult and trying tasks for the supposed greater good, not for individual or personal reasons. And whilst both SS Will Montgomery and his superior Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) have served long enough to have learnt this lesson already, there is something about the experience of mediating between the military and the civilians they purportedly fight for that makes this lesson all the more piercing.

Upon assignment to the Casualty Notification Team, Montgomery is told two things; 1) it’s a “special assignment” and 2)  ”This mission is not simply important, it is sacred.” From here he is further taught by his slightly misguided but well-meaning recovering alcoholic mentor and partner Stone the subtle differences in both phraseology and terminology that must be used; “killed” or “died” are acceptable, but “deceased”, “body”, “expired”, “lost” and “passed away” for example, are not. Furthermore, and most significantly, they must always name the soldier. The ethics at play here would be best described as respectful as they intend to honour the soldier who has died, but never is the communication to extend beyond this most elementary of ethics and certainly it is forbidden to ever enter into moral obligation.

The soldiers who have died have done so because they were “doing their job”, just as, unpleasant though it may be, Montgomery and Stone are doing theirs, back on US soil. The parallel is indicative of the difficulties and adversities that soldiers encounter once they’ve enrolled; everything they do is the result of an order that has been carefully prescribed, the inference that they are in no way subject to “free will”. But Montgomery proves himself to be less than a model soldier; he doesn’t just “do his job”, he “feels”. Breaking all the rules, he becomes personally involved with a widowed woman and her son, physically hugs and makes personal apologies to family members who are distraught and angry with him for delivering the news, and even extends his humanity to his superior – Stone. Protegé to mentor, Montgomery teaches him the value of human life through the retelling of his own war experience, its simplistic lesson that there is still hope: “The sun came up and I didn’t feel like dying anymore.”

Set against an often stark mise-en-scene and carefully lit to show both Stone and Montgomery as heroes hurt in plight, The Messenger wants its audience to know that the “war effort” hasn’t been entirely in vain and that the individuals who are fighting, though numbers and workers on the one hand, are also just ordinary people on the other. The majority of the families they visit are from lower socio-economic backgrounds and belong to disparate races and religions. From this the audience may glean that many who enlist do so for personal reasons despite the fact that the military as an organisation remains disinterested in individuals’ motivations, and indeed we are told; “Sometimes the army has to be concerned with something bigger than the truth.”

But what exactly is bigger than the truth? I suppose that would be the promise they give which turns out to be a lie: signing up for service is not about each individual, it is not about freedom any more than it is about survival, it is about service and, one way or another, service is finite. It is no mistake that this film is released in Australia on Remembrance Day and that it hopes to remind people what individuals give in the name of a greater good.

The Messenger is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 11 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Firstly, our protagonist is Bill Nighy, a man whose entire career is built upon a cornerstone of stiff-upper-lip English gentlemanliness. He plays a refined assassin; from an upper-middle class family, as well-educated as he is well-mannered, suave, discreet and with just enough reserve to be charming, Victor Maynard is the type of assassin you’d want if someone put a price on your head. He is, of course, “the best” and, in line with true English stoicism, he never lets emotion or altruism get in the way. That is, until he is hired to take out a beautiful, sassy young woman who is, by her very name, the epitome of the English Rose. The kind of girl who’d steal your sandwich whilst applying lipstick, Rose (Emily Blunt) is savvy and charming as the OTT scamster damsel in distress. For a well rounded comedy trio add to the mix some poor bystander kid, Ferguson (Rupert Grint), who unwittingly gets himself involved in a car park shoot out and only sides with our two unlikely heroes after making a judgement based on 1) class and 2) decorum; “I’m going to give the gun to him [Maynard], he’s got a tie on. And I didn’t shoot him so he’s not as pissed off with me.” With a humorous and dysfunctional family unit of sorts in place, peppered with Maynard’s overprotective over-English Mother (Eileen Atkins), a few East End thugs working for another upper crust villainous sort (Rupert Everett), a second rate smart-arse assassin (Martin Freeman) and a red morris mini a la The Italian Job (1969), you have yourself the makings of an awfully English film indeed.

But best of all, in order to escape the madness and mayhem of central London where crime and killing are as common as the lower classes, they leave the magnificent backdrop of alleyways and art galleries in favour of the good old rolling hills that so wonderfully characterise the English countryside. Finding solace in Maynard’s family home and its surrounding greenery, the three almost immediately sit down to a traditional roast dinner, complete with yorkshire puds. With their pursuers temporarily thrown off track, Maynard sets about training Ferguson in the art of assassination and, in the meanwhile, attempts to tame the proverbial shrew who, as a representative of a younger generation and its values, is desperate to escape the old fashioned values and serene isolation of rural England to return to the bright lights and constant thrill of big city life.

But there’s something wrong with this vision of both England and the English. Dangerously nostalgic for a picture of Englishness that ought by now, to have been abandoned many moons ago, Wild Target is nostalgic for old-time manners but brings with it old-time prejudices. Set in the present day it seems grossly out of place for there to be cheap jokes leveled at a social confusion between good English breeding and latent homosexual tendencies. It is also seems out of place for our “heroes” to be shown driving away from the “East End” when they were never in it; the majority of the film being shot in Central or West London. Filled with an overwhelming whitewash of the upper-middle classes, Wild Target seems to have taken a leaf out of the Richard Curtis book of Imaginary White London.

Verging on annoying and offensive rom-com territory Wild Target is strangely saved by its mediocrity and Englishisms that though misguided are more often than not at  least a little endearing. Enough fun to sustain its run time but missing the mark when it comes to substance and intrigue, Wild Target is at once enjoyable and instantly forgettable.

Wild Target is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 11 through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

It is well established within the world of writing that there are only seven basic plotlines in narrative storytelling and from those plotlines evolved an economics of predictability that provides the very foundations upon which film genre theory is built. In lieu of this it seems almost absurd to talk about this film’s “story” in a context that compares and contrasts it with the Coens’ film Blood Simple (1984), or for that matter The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) upon which Blood Simple itself is based. That’s not to say that the story is unimportant or superfluous, it is of course integral, especially as this film fits a classical narrative paradigm whereby narrative progression is very much motivated by causal events. But seeing as the story is familiar or known to audiences, both its visual style and its contextual setting bear greater significances as they inform said “story” to an entirely new end.

A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop is set in a non-specific period of Chinese feudal society. Quite literally deserted, the story is of inexplicably wealthy Wang, his wife, and their servants – one of which Wang’s Wife is having an affair with. With little to do and no customers other than hawkers and the Law, Wang’s Wife fantasies about killing her cruel, abusive husband and taking up with her lover full-time and so, buys herself a gun. Our title provocations now successfully established; who, what, where, the Law arrive to search the premises for a canon, setting in motion the causal events to follow.

This surprise visit from the Law being the only instance in the film where Wang’s noodle shop has any customers to speak of (and they aren’t paying customers either), the inference is that Wang’s wealth is the product of corruption rather than business. On learning that his deceitful wife has armed herself, he then enters into a “contract” of sorts with The Captain, paying him to take care of the situation, which further clarifies that the Law is also corrupt. Though I am far from an expert on Chinese history, I have seen and know enough, even just of Yimou’s oeuvre, to understand that in positing lovers against the rich and powerful in society, Yimou is highlighting the adversity that faces the proletariat in China and, in setting the time somewhere in China’s feudal past, is commenting upon the resonances of so oppressive an history.

Add to this the incredible and vibrant colour palette that Yimou is famous for; where reds and blues don’t “feature”, rather they own the frame, positing communism and conservatism against one another to great effect. The lighting is so carefully and soundly executed in every shot that the actual colour and role of the landscape seamlessly changes from day to-night, hell to haven, as our brightly dressed protagonists become anomalous, animated individuals trying to survive a harsh and unnatural environment rather than its natural inhabitants. A stunning reflection of thematics and a credit one comes to expect of Yimou.

Telling its tale in a manner that feels deeply Shakespearean; a tragicomedy with sound resolution and some restoration at its end; A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop illustrates perfectly how a story is just the beginning of storytelling and how artistic direction and contextual content can transfer a well-known story into brand new territory. The two English language titles the film has been given demonstrate this with aplomb: just like the children’s game of Cluedo, there are few things you need to set up plot and intrigue: who, what and where. Furthermore, the story itself is simple; A Simple Noodle Story; for even if its particulars become convoluted it is the simple canvas upon which a cinematic artist can paint his/her masterpiece. And how beautifully Yimou does.

A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop is screening exclusively in Melbourne at the Cinema Nova.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Straight forward and straight up, British directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas’ filmmaking style gets to the point quickly and clearly, just like Hicks did when he addressed an audience. Charting a simple but sound trajectory of Hicks’ physical and mental journey from his deep southern roots in Houston, Texas to an international stage across Canada, the US, Australia and the UK, American shows how someone who really cared about the words that came out of his mouth built a career out of progressive thought.

Not exactly a stranger to controversy, Hicks was more than just a “comedian”. Probably more politically astute than the entirety of any western country’s governmental administration, Hicks was on a militant mission to change the minds of the masses and, if he could, to quite literally shake consciousness into a populace who, at least in his early days, weren’t expecting to learn something when they turned up to hear his “routine”. But with such great intellect and wit there comes a price. It is not anomalous for someone so perceptive and affected by the problems of the world to find solace in substance abuse and self-destruction and so, we see too a side to Hicks we might prefer to forget, but it is one that we most certainly shouldn’t.

Inter-cutting interview footage of Hicks’ closest family and friends with the stock footage of his stand up routines, American gives its audience – newcomers and veterans alike – a view of how Hicks’ personal life simultaneously informed and was informed by his measurable successes and failures. A product of his own mythology, Hicks couldn’t abide the self-destructive nature of a society so filled with fear and hate.

Demonstrating perhaps more perfectly than even his own words were able, Hicks’ life – at least insofar as it is presented in the film – outlines a wonderful “how-to” guide for reaching enlightenment:  first look at yourself and where you come from, then examine the influences and the surroundings of which you are – whether you like it or not – a product, and finally, look and examine again. One thing that is always present in Hicks’ stand up is the central idea that everything in life, including life itself, is subject to limitation – except of course for the critical use of the human mind.

If you love Bill Hicks then get off your lazy ass and leave your living room to learn a little more about the man’s life and journey as it informed his work. And if you don’t know who Bill Hicks is – well, I’d still implore you to get off your ass and go see it. It doesn’t matter if you know everything or nothing about this man before you see this film: whatever Hicks’ material you come to first is the right one, because believe me, everything this man ever said is enough to change something in you for the better.

American: The Bill Hicks Story opens in Melbourne at ACMI Thursday November 4 and screens until Tuesday November 23.

The film opens with Brent Mitchell (Xavier Samuel), a seemingly happy teen, driving along a highway with his father. At this point Brent fits the stereotype of a young, carefree, plaid-shirt wearing, country boy-next-door. But when an ill omen appears in front of them in the form of a blood-drenched young man, causing Brent to swerve suddenly and crash into a nearby tree, killing his father, there is a clear break with this idyllic presentation of reality and Brent undergoes a deeply Freudian experience of trauma. Blaming himself for his father’s death, and becoming increasingly distant from his own “loved ones”; a grief-stricken mother and a concerned girlfriend; some six month later Brent is displaying early signs of “emo” behaviour and from here we are introduced to a group of teenagers who each perform hyper-real stereotypes of misplaced teen angst and overzealous sexual desires.

In addition to “emo” protagonist Brent there is; goth Mia (Jessica McNamee), stoner Jamie (Richard Wilson), pretty, popular girl Holly (Victoria Thaine) and invisible wilting wallflower Lola (Robin McLeavy). Each teen carefully performs both their stereotype and their gender in order to establish their individual “role” and “function” in an environment where identification and semiotics are everything: high school. In order to judge, categorise and somewhat misguidedly “understand” one another it is acceptable for teens to almost over-perform these roles in order to establish a clear, unspoken order, and from that order derive a set of acceptable and unacceptable social codes. Once established, we see these codes at play in almost every scene as gender and type conversely allow and forbid the various social and sexual encounters that take place in the narrative film world.

Stoner Jamie is emo Brent’s best mate, acceptable within the established social code because 1) they are both gendered male and 2) they are both in roles that operate as counter to popular or mainstream teen stereotypes. Each of our male protagonists then performs his straight heteronormative sexuality by taking up with a performed female counterpart. Jamie, nervous and introverted (qualities becoming of our typical stoner friend) asks gorgeous goth Mia to the school dance. She accepts with little enthusiasm with confirms her goth stereotype through 1) nonchalance and indifference and 2) by taking up with a stoner who is an acceptable date for a goth as they, again, both occupy positions counter to the popular majority.

Due however to Brent’s transition from a happy-go-lucky boy-next-door type to outsider emo, we see two very different female gendered performances present themselves to him and, in lieu of their rivalry, a truly fascinating break down of these established social codes ensues. Brent already has a girlfriend: an attractive, fun-loving girl-next-door type. She is compassionate and caring and even though Brent’s recent emo behaviour has put a strain on their relationship it still functions because 1) she operates as a nurturer, intent on “saving” her wistful, broken partner and 2) because their relationship presumably pre-dates Brent’s performative change it can supposedly withstand it. But, unbeknownst to Holly, Lola has read Brent’s present emo performance as a coded opportunity to ask him to be her date for the school dance. Of course he declines, in a kind but dismissive way which one would ordinarily assume, from Lola’s performed wallflower exterior, would sadden and probably even humiliate her. But what no one could have predicted is that it would anger and provoke her own change in performativity. And when Lola’s shy violet facade fades, it reveals a terrifyingly promiscuous pink psycho-killer in its wake.

Abducting Brent and inflicting her pent-up psychotic desires upon him, Lola performs the stereotype she would rather embody: a perfectly pink prom queen. Outside of the coded grounds of high school, Lola is a “Princess” who gets whatever she wants; the spoilt, brattish embodiment of “Daddy’s little girl”. Dressing Brent in a tux she tries to force him to perform the available role of prom king to her queen, and failing thus his resistance is met with bloody violence.

The violence that then takes place, though I am sure many will crudely call it torture-porn, actually operates as a manifestation of misplaced and misrepresented teen angst and sexual desire as well as a subtle indicator for the breakdown of cohesive, functional familial structure – Lola’s relationship with her father, known disturbingly only as “Daddy”, being decidedly less than kosher. Not wanting to give too much away, the most interesting violent act Lola exacts is the attempt to home-labotomise her victim using a power drill. The required removal of Brent’s agency is demonstrative of the intense break-down of Lola’s performed fantasies and her failed need for an implicit co-performer.

With the pinkest of pinks you could possibly imagine (and probably pinker), Lola is a vision in satin, glitter and lip-gloss, which, set against the cruel and unforgiving mise-en-scene of rural depravity offers up a kitsch backdrop for the tremendous splashes of blood that homage a plethora of horror films from the ’70s and ’80s. In lieu of this, and as the only central teen character not shown to be sexually active, Lola’s excess in blood-spill make her an exemplary model for Barbara Creed’s “monstrous feminine” or Laura Mulvey’s “bearer of the bleeding wound”. A modern-day Carrie if you will, Lola abjectly performs and embodies the inverted object of the male gaze, she who  ”can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it.” (Laura Mulvey)

Intercutting between our stoner and goth couple getting it on whilst Princess tortures her victim, there is also an interesting juxtaposition of Freudian life and death drives whereby alternating actions intended towards creation and calm represent a terrifically twisted view of teen survival. Fantastically shot against devastating and pathetic surroundings of; a tackily decorated school gym, the unromantic, unmemorable car park setting for a sexual encounter and the disturbingly child-like bedroom of our femme fatal, right up to the final moments where the highway plays cyclical host to the horror at its very heart; The Loved Ones offers a fantastically kitsch aesthetic and is nothing but pure unadulterated entertainment from beginning to bloody end.

The Loved Ones is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 4 2010 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

It’s worth saying right away that the majority of viewers will likely err on the side (for in lieu of its lawsuit foci, it is about sides) of Zuckerberg’s co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who is the more endearing and certainly emotive of the two. However, I would like to look at the film from the viewer perspective of alignment with Zuckerberg as I found Saverin, though appealing if one is connecting to the film passively and/or emotionally, is actually a far less interesting character. Conversely, despite his social awkwardness, lack of tact and all round asshole behaviour, Zuckerberg is the true hero in the film and it’s because of his annoying but deeply humanizing traits that his character deserves the greatest attention.

Unable to relate to the “average” (in every sense of the word) person, Zuckerberg is a misunderstood and often misguided genius. Dumped in the opening scene by girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) because of his incessantly insulting and inconsiderate nature, Zuckerberg isn’t heartbroken, he is perplexed. Here is a problem for which his inordinate aptitude and IQ cannot even fathom let alone solve. His reaction? To deflect the problem onto someone (or someones) else. In creating an impromptu website called facemash.com, where students can rate the hotness of their female peers against one another, this is exactly what Zuckerberg does. He transfers his anger, frustration and what might even be a little bit of upset into a clever endeavour undermined only by its petty, crude exterior. This is how Zuckerberg copes: we all have our mechanisms, some more favourable than others, but what’s so interesting about Zuckerberg’s is that his coping mechanism combines itself with his intelligible talents, an ability that is really rather admirable.

Aside from the insane amount of money the site eventually comes to generate and be valued at, the most significant achievement of Facebook is its reach: over 500 million users worldwide. And to think that all this began in a wee Harvard dorm room born of inebriation. Having myself been at university during the mid 2000s I can actually remember when UCL (University College London, of which my university, King’s College London is a part of) “got Facebook”. It was some time in 2005 and you had to have a college email account to join and you had to be invited by another user. So fast-moving was its reach that I can recall walking along the Strand with a friend who, upon passing a total stranger, yelled “Facebook!” as we passed. It seems, even though the two individuals didn’t know each other and had never before met, they had, through pictures and links online, a very real connection. More than just Zuckerberg’s dream of “the entire social experience of college, but online”, Facebook simultaneously created a new social experience of college life offline.

But I digress. This anecdote is only mentioned to illustrate the momentum with which the site moved and, despite my not joining Facebook until but a few weeks ago (I have my reasons), it has come to change the way in which we – not just university students now, we everyone – have come to communicate, promote, share, socialize and interact. Yet here is the story of a man who, insofar as the film would have us believe, could not communicate, promote, share, socialize or interact successfully with his peers. Still, he is the impetus behind the revolution. The film then posits the idea that it is only someone who struggles with the restrictions of their own social context who can successfully create and implicate a new one. And this is why, despite the reasonable grounds held by Saverin, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) and their business partner Divya Narenda (Max Minghella) for filing lawsuits against Zuckerberg the film still posits Zuckerberg as the rightful inventor of Facebook, his own cutting remarks the final word on the subject: “If you were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”

Narenda and the Winklevei (as Zuckerberg so calls them) claim Zuckerberg stole their idea after agreeing to work with them on their own social enterprise The Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg, maintaining that “They had an idea, I had a better one.” leaves them behind not because their idea is no good but because he isn’t interested in anything that they represent. Painfully aware that he is not a part of the college elite Zuckerberg knows that where you can’t assimilate, you surpass. When the Winklevei and Narenda physically arrive in the UK, Zuckerberg is already there – online. While the other students are revelling in college life from parties to one night stands; Zuckerberg is already there, playing host to their antics – online. The film regularly juxtaposes the social aspects of other students’ extroverted lives with Zuckerberg’s introverted college life, which, for the most part, involves sitting at a computer typing endless lines of code. Why? Because who wants to be the puppet when you can be the puppet master? Zuckerberg doesn’t create Facebook because he wants to share his college experience online and it’s not because he wants to access anyone else’s either. Zuckerberg creates Facebook because his intellect is superior to his peers and so, instead of just involving in social activity, he has the ability to evolve social activity.

But what of all this recognition, fame and fortune if our “hero” ends up rich but alone? Especially seeing as we are constantly reminded throughout the film that Zuckerberg isn’t really interested in the money. Add to this that he never (at least insofar as the film’s narrative is concerned) successfully manages to enter into another romantic union, he loses anyone he could once have called his friend, and is ultimately as he began: alone, alienated but intelligent. Despite the final words from his counsel, “You’re not an asshole Mark, you’re just trying so hard to be”, the majority of audiences will still likely come away thinking he’s a bit of a tool. Sorkin and Fincher then would have us all believe Zuckerberg isn’t too bad of a guy, but that he’s still a bit of an asshole who you probably wouldn’t want to “friend” (so to speak). But this is the film’s wonderful irony. The man who services us all with a platform where we can share, promote, like and comment on our own and each other’s statuses, activities and achievements has no place in it.

He doesn’t get the girl, he doesn’t reconcile with Saverin and he doesn’t appear to live happily ever after. But that, in my humble opinion at least, is a far more relatable and more endearing “hero” than is found in the vast majority of Hollywood narrative cinema. Here is a hero narrative that necessarily can’t end with complete and tidy resolution because human life and its interconnectivity, much like Facebook, is an ever-evolving process that will never in effect be “finished”. A hero shouldn’t “overcome” adversity, he/she should continually be working through it. Zuckerberg’s character then is much like his creation: it is constantly in flux. So if we all like Facebook, and it’s imperfect, shouldn’t it follow that we like its founder?

The Social Network is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 28 2010 through Sony Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Heidi (Rachael Taylor) who returns to Mildura for her estranged father’s funeral meets Michael (Alex Dimitriades) when he picks her up hitchhiking along an all but deserted highway. As we learn more about Heidi and Michael it becomes increasingly clear that they are both experiencing a musical (artistic and creative which leads then to emotional) block whereby playing their instruments (or in another sense being in control of their own life score) becomes almost impossible as they are inhibited by their respective personal losses; the grieving process metaphoring their musical codas (a musical coda is a passage which brings conclusion through prolongation, essentially what the film is all about).

Heidi experiences two musical struggles before she meets Michael; first at home in Nevada where playing her dead father’s violin causes the first block and motivates narrative causality, bringing her back to Mildura; the second at the Roadhouse (roadside cafe) where Heidi stops for refreshments and where Michael first sees her as she tries again with her violin to move herself forward (busking for money). The violin stays in its case from here until the pair stop once again for refreshments, this time at a pub, where the violin is again brought out of its case. Here however, it is by a provoked hustler who plucks at its strings angrily and antagonistically, causing Heidi visceral emotional pain and jarring the narrative aurally for the audience.

Heidi’s very connection to her father is through music and what she wants more than anything else is to simply “see” his record collection, in particular, one record that holds deep sentimental value: her truest memory of her father. Following the funeral, when her step-mother forbids this, it is a personal affront and another block towards the final resolution of her pain or closure to the coda. Her step-brother Lachlan eventually reaches out to her and lets her see the record, a familial link that brings one conclusion to a very difficult chapter (or score) in her life. Similarly, Michael, who was previously unable to play the piano, referencing it as “just for show”, is finally confronted by Heidi about his own past. Once he actually begins to deal with his loss, he finds he is able to play the piano again, no longer just “looking” at it filled with pain, regret and remorse. A musical instrument, like a life, is to be played or played out and when abandoned, left to sight, dust and the passage of time, mirrors death and resounds in deafening silence.

The coda plays out over the summer and its conclusion is not one that could have been reached any sooner. Through teaching one another how to grieve, Heidi and Michael work through their personal pain and their prolonged resolution is bittersweet; beautiful and moving, in perfect rhythm with the film’s soft soundtrack.

Summer Coda opens in Australian cinemas Thursday October 21 through Sharmill Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The finished product is “a gift to the public” and the thought behind the giving of this gift is a collective, tireless pursuit of perfection. From hand-beading seamstress to cafeteria chef, everyone who works at the Paris Opera Ballet is part of a greater whole striving for the absolute best; for both themselves and for the audiences who will come to witness the final product. Very much like a carefully constructed building (and we are reminded of this intermittently as Wiseman shows us the corridors, staircases, exterior architectural design and other foundational elements of the literal building that houses the company), the whole is only so strong as its individual parts. Not quite a socialist outlook, but certainly an argument for the prevailing presence of the body politic as a whole and how its strength is derived of its solidarity, La Danse offers a glimpse into how individuals can be stronger as a group and how they can, if they work for it, reach collective goals.

France is a progressive nation when it comes to the arts and their strengths across many artistic disciplines from literature, to dance, to film and fine art (to name but a few forms) is testament to this. Their success in this area owing largely to the standard that must be met in order for further resources to then become available. Both a matter of public and private funding, France maintains its word standard and reputation by ensuring each individual falls in line with the shared goal of absolute artistic excellency.

It is no coincidence either that Wiseman has chosen ballet as the subject for a documentary on the strength of the artist; the physical strength required for ballet is immense and both the poise and elegance with which the dancers move in rehearsal as in production is truly incredible; their physical strength a manifestation of their stoical disposition as they continue to strive for excellence and reject complacency in lieu of their already outstanding achievements. The director of the company tells her dancers, “the continuity of the ballet will help you”, meaning that the standards of excellency filter down to individual strength. Furthermore, in their pursuit of a better “retirement system” (most dancers retire much younger than other professionals, often at forty, younger even than most artists in other disciplines due to the physical demands of the work), their “special differences” which stem from “the consciousness formed in our school” is ultimately what they must both rely on and continue to fight to produce.

An engaging and enlightening documentary, La Danse includes rehearsal and performance footage from Paquita, The Nutcracker, Genus, Medea, The House of Bernarda Alba, Romeo and Juliet, and Orpheus and Eurydyce.

La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 21 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

LET ME IN: Aesthetically, thematically and narratively faithful to its source, Let Me In is the American remake of last year’s release of Swedish gem Let The Right One In (2008). Carefully shot and well-observed, the cinematography is strikingly similar to its inspiration and with so little narrative divergence it is almost impossible to separate the two. Well cast, Let Me In sees Chloe Moretz in the role of Abby (Eli in LTROI), a vampire who looks and acts for the most part like a pre-adolescent girl, and Kodi Smit-McPhee in the central role of Owen (Oskar in LTROI) who is a young boy trying to survive the harsh realities of an underprivileged socio-economic upbringing paired with incessant and cruel bullying at school. The relationship between the two is the true lynchpin in the original and the remake certainly achieves the same level of intimacy through its convincing and moving depiction of their shared relegation to “otherness”; from both familial and peer surroundings.

Aside from some superfluously sped-up and slightly clumsy looking CGI vampire action as well as the addition of an incredibly overwrought soundtrack that distracts from the otherwise quite beautiful imagery onscreen, Let Me In is a very decent remake indeed. With so little divergence from its original however, it will unfortunately be ultimately inconsequential to audiences who enjoyed LTROI and, given it retains certain visual and thematic art house sensibilities, might not appeal to those audiences who don’t like to read in the cinema either. A film of fine quality, it is most suitable for audiences who sit somewhere in the grey area – between Hollywood and Art House which, if nothing else, suggests filmmakers and studios are at least (and at last) aware that the idea of a “target audience” is a none-too easily definable concept.

Let Me In opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 14 through Icon.

CHLOE: Being ‘remakes’ is just about where the similarities between Chloe and Let Me In begin and end. Chloe, Atom Egoyan’s recent remake of French psychological thriller Nathalie… (2003), takes the premise and little else with it. Clear from the get-go that this he has no intention of adhering to the parameters of the original, Chloe opens with images of its title character (Amanda Seyfried) redressing after an encounter with a client set to her internal dialogue in voiceover. Already, we know the film is not so much about watching or desiring its title character as it is about its title character. This marked difference is also, unfortunately, the crux upon which the subsequent success – or indeed failure – of the film rests.

Wealthy, intelligent, attractive couple Catherine (Julianne Moore) and David Stewart (Liam Neeson) have reached breaking point in their marriage: the trust has gone and Catherine suspects David is cheating on her. Feeling alienated from her husband and consumed with irrational fear, Catherine hires Chloe – a beautiful, sexy, youthful high-class escort – to tempt her husband and likely confirm her suspicions. Naively thinking herself to be in control of the situation, Catherine develops a dangerous relationship with Chloe that soon threatens her home and her family.

Choosing the well-trodden path of “crazy lesbian threatens heteronormative familial unit”, Chloe swiftly spirals into implausible and unconvincing territory with wild abandon. Not nearly so sultry as Emmanuelle Béart (Nathalie…), it is Julianne Moore who carries this film; her performance consistently strong. Often too melodramatic for its own good, Chloe lacks the tension its source material so successfully achieved and as a result it leaves little more than disappointment in its wake. The remake then is a new take on the original and no doubt will do well amongst illiterate audiences despite its crisis of identity; in Nathalie… it is quite clear that we are to align ourselves with Catherine; voyeurs who learn they are not at all in control of what they see, but in Chloe the identification is split between the two female leads which creates an unnecessary distancing from the film and therefore a high level of viewer inaccessibility.

Chloe opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 14 through Roadshow.

Above all, the recent swathe of American remakes of films not in the English language (“foreign” is such a loaded term), open up debate surrounding the question of access in the first instance; a film’s ability to communicate and engage its audience. Weighing the two against one another (although crude, seems justifiable given this is what audiences quite frequently do when choosing which film to pay to see), Moretz is the favourable of the two Chloes and when faced with a vampire or Amanda Seyfried, one would be well advised to take a moment to pause, and then let the right one in.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Picking up where Resident Evil: Extinction (2007, the third in the film franchise) left off, Resident Evil: Afterlife begins with Alice clones (Milla Jovovich) fighting the evil Umbrella Corporation. After an almighty shoot-out and a fair spill of blood, Alice escapes the underground lair just before it implodes in a moment of unparalleled CGI spectacular. Having snuck onboard with her nemesis – and our suitably arrogant and self-serving “bad guy” for the duration - Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), Alice is stripped of her super strength and regenerative powers for which she appears to be surprisingly grateful in the wake of an apocalypse; “Thank you – for making me human again.” When their plane then crashes the two are somehow separated (explanation unnecessary due to the already entered into suspension of disbelief) and from here on in it’s back to the original premise and a one-woman show: Alice versus Evil.

Searching in desperation for true solace after hearing over an emergency broadcast offering sanctuary – “free from infection” – somewhere called Arcadia, Alice is determined to find her friends and other humans unaffected by the outbreak. Encountering the usual Benetton rainbow of potential survivors, the group includes; a black male (Boris Kodjoe), an Asian male (Norman Yeung), a non-specific Latino or Hispanic male (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) – and female (Kacey Barnfield), a likely but ambiguous Jewish male (Kim Coates), an old and weak miscellaneous white man (Fulvio Cecere) and the stock standard smouldering all-American white military male (Wentworth Miller) and hard-ass sexy, all-American, white woman (Ali Larter) one has, through an economics of predictability, come to expect. In addition to the type of banter and causal narrative anticipated in such an action/thriller/horror/sci-fi there is an amusing byline of sarcastic jokes made at Hollywood’s expense (although ultimately these serve as self-accreditation) and a nod towards an indeed more interesting exploration of an almost Foucauldian nature as the humans lock themselves in a prison to keep the infected, braindead masses out.

Aesthetically and aurally the film is a treat: if you want to see and experience the money you paid for admission, the good news is that with this film, you undoubtedly will. A fantastically relentless soundtrack from tomandandy accompanies excessive bullet-time cinematography and some fairly decent, if at times synthetic looking, 3D. With the addition of a giant “Axeman” who steps in for a showdown with fatal femme duo Alice and Claire (Larter), the film retains the pace, feel and aesthetic of a computer game. Certainly not the end – indeed, just another level - Resident Evil: Afterlife is high-octane of the highest order – and it seems level four has been set to “disavow”.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (3D) is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 14th through Sony Pictures Releasing.

Omar stands at the precipice of his academic career; the funding for his fellowship to write a biography of late Latin American writer Jules Gund pending as he awaits authorisation from Gund’s estate. When Gund’s family deny him authorisation, Omar is at a loss for what to do. Luckily, his fantastically tactless and uber pragmatic German girlfriend Deirdre is at hand to quite literally push him towards realising his dream; encouraging him to visit the Gund estate in Uruguay and plead his case to Jules Gund’s three executors. Once there, Omar discovers a great deal more than just the material for his thesis.

Protagonist Omar is a relational character, by which I mean that the particularities he is afforded operate in direct relation to other characters in the film. Most notable is his relationship with girlfriend Deirdre. The two function as a fascinating representation of a psychoanalytic rupture between fantasy and reality. Where Omar is fatalistic and romanticises life, Deirdre is the cold harsh voice of reality, constantly trying to return him to the established Order of things, always questioning his interpretation of events. This is illustrated early on when Omar loses a shoe to a gurgling mass of what he perceives to be quicksand, Deirdre promptly corrects him: “For you it’s quicksand, and for everyone else it’s a puddle. It’s like you have a subconscious desire to fail.” Following a sharp exchange that makes it increasingly clear the two cannot co-exist, Omar declares, “I have to be more independent. Like other people.” Even in his efforts to break free from the o’erbearing presence of the Real (Deirdre), Omar cannot function within the established Order and from here his journey becomes a symbolic re-entry into the world as a child.

Arriving in Uruguay and unable to communicate properly due to language barrier (language in Lacanian psychoanalysis being the way in which the child enters into the Symbolic Order), Omar must take the school bus with the local children to reach his proverbial final destination. The school bus, a vessel which transports subjects to their educational location, indicates the innocence and naiveté Omar is accompanied by on his journey in pursuit of academic knowledge. Moreover, his being surrounded by children – one of whom is notably related to Jules Gund: his granddaughter – indicates the elusive concept of the “future”; certain only insofar as it is inextricably linked to both the past and the present.

Upon reaching the Gund estate, Omar meets the gatekeepers to the historiography of Jules Gund: brother Adam (Anthony Hopkins), widow Caroline (Laura Linney) and mistress Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg). The three represent Jules’ psyche; Arden, who is happy to grant Omar authorisation for the biography operates as Jules’ Id (the instictual drive); Caroline who sternly opposes it operates as the Super-ego (the conscience and moral voice) and Adam, who is willing to grant authorisation at a tradable price, operates as the ever-mediating Ego (a conscious effort at integrating the instincts of the Id with the prohibitive motivations of the Super-ego). Omar, our symbolic stand-in for fantasy, hopes to convince the three components of Jules’ psyche (physically manifested by their inhabiting of his beautiful overgrown and idyllic estate) that he will treat the subject matter with respect and sensitivity, but his efforts, at least at first, are futile.

When an accident places Omar in a coma, girlfriend Deirdre (and representative of the Real) journeys out to the estate for the sake of both Omar and his academic pursuit. Clashing violently with every aspect of Jules Gund’s psyche – unable to understand as Omar does the dialectical relationship between historical “truth” and historical “myth” – Deirdre is rendered impotent as Omar favours a blossoming romance with the key to Jules’ personal historicity, that is, the beautiful physical incarnation of his Id: Arden.

After separating himself from the Real (Deirdre) and choosing a life driven by fatalism and instinct (Arden), Omar replaces his previous persuit of what was presented as a dry, academic biography with a more intimate and personal account of Jules’ historicity; learning as much about the life and relationships Jules led as he already knows of the man’s literary output. Finally, the Super-ego (Caroline) leaves the psyche (the estate) which, in this Freudian paradigm, ends the neuroses and leaves a sound and peaceful subconscious (the film’s final resolution) in its wake.

With more poignant references and inferences than this review has the space to explore, The City of Your Final Destination is a rich tapestry of cultural studies and critical theory represented in engaging and affecting visuals. Its only let-down being some occasionally clunky dialogue (although I dare say this is most likely a deliberate and even Brechtian technique for reminding the viewer of the synthetic nature of the film); The City of Your Final Destination is an absolute sensory pleasure and a true cerebral treat.

The City of Your Final Destination is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 14 through Potential Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is a thirty-four-year-old all-American guy. Working “just a job” as a truck driver for an American company based in Iraq, Paul, like so many others, is only there “for money”; no political agenda in sight. But irregardless of the motivations of the individual, the government, and their companies and corporations, are there for political reasons and as such the soldiers and workers who go to Iraq are often implicated in life-threatening conflict.

The film opens with a black screen and the faint sound of wheezing; a man desperate for air. The tension is palpable as the breathing slowly intensifies until a Zippo lighter is finally lit. Surveying his surroundings in as close to “real-time” as a film that uses multiple camera angles and editing (necessarily creating temporal ellipses, albeit fractional) can, Conroy discovers he is trapped inside an old-style, simplistic wooden coffin, gagged and bound, presumably buried somewhere underground. Following a small anxiety attack Conroy passes out and the screen returns to black. Awoken by a vibrating cell phone, Conroy comes to realise that all hope is not lost and there might just be a way out after all… Calling his loved ones, his employer, US emergency services and the FBI, Conroy is as resourceful as he can be – even if his own hysteria does him a great disservice when he far from calmly tries to communicate to countless unwitting others the true gravity of his situation. Slowly recalling the events which preceded his current surroundings, Conroy deduces he has been kidnapped by insurgents or terrorists, who, unfortunately for him, want “money” in exchange for his life.

Portraying the US government and a whole host of corporations as a large faceless (they are only ever voices heard via Paul’s cell) matrix of bureaucratic red tape who share in common little to no concern for one individual’s mere humanity amidst the air-conditioned confines of their own “just jobs” – which they too presumably do solely for the constantly mentioned motivator of “money”. So ludicrous is their emphasis on logistics and protocol that they continue to ask the type of questions someone who is buried alive (time-sensitive) shouldn’t really be expected to answer; best of all when they respond – notably always free from emotion or empathy – with company lines such as “Sir, I understand your frustration”.

The key to the film comes when Paul first begins to accept the likely inevitably that he is going to die in this wooden box, somewhere in Iraq, alone. Talking to someone from a “Hostage Working Group” Paul confesses, “I just wanna do right by my family. I didn’t know it was going to be like this out here.” to which the response comes “None of us did.” Despite the inference of the slogan “War on Terror”, it seems the reality of the situation was absolutely unanticipated by so many naive young men and women who shipped out – soldiers and workers – only by the time they’ve understood it is of course too late. Conroy is left with nothing but the will to live which is stretched to its very limits by the constant demands of his kidnapper and the lack of support from the people to whom he turned for help.

On the other side of it, the kidnapper (presumably Iraqi insurgent) is also faceless and motivated by “money”. The only difference is that in place of Westernised bureaucracy, he (standing in for “they”), is deliberately cruel and even when Conroy takes instruction and acts against his own (and his government’s) will, he is still punished. The most interesting provocation Cortés highlights here is the Western world’s understanding of the word “terrorist”, as our faceless, nameless (it is worth mentioning that he is the only nameless character in the film) insurgent asks, “Because you are terrified, I am a terrorist?” It is even alluded to that anyone put in the situation of the Iraqi people; hungry – starving, poor and desperate, would probably do the same. Conroy denies this and claims he would never kill anOther even in such a situation but the ethical questioning, despite his answer, remains.

Incredibly well shot, carefully lit and superbly acted, Buried is communicably claustrophobic and palpably tense. The run-time is possibly a little longer than is needed to successfully explicate the film’s central moral project and there are occasional “dramatic events” that the film could even do without as they disrupt the otherwise well-sustained and bleak tone of it all. But these points notwithstanding the film is decent enough and will no doubt play on your mind for some time after the house lights come up and you hurry out for air.

Buried opens in Australian cinemas today – Thursday October 7 2010 - and is distributed through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

This, it seems, was the greatest problem in life and in writing for French novelist/playwright/screenwriter Françoise Sagan. At just nineteen she had her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse (1954), published under a pseudonym (her real name Françoise Quoirez) to shield herself from bourgeois peers and contemporaries who would no doubt find its content shocking. Most often when one hears the word “shocking” sexual themes or violence come to mind but what is so shocking about Quoirez’s writing – so shocking that it required her to publish under a pseudonym – is that it portrays the bourgeoisie as over indulgent, whimsical, spiteful, vacuous, indignant and most terrifying of all: so fanciful and self-righteous that they are unconstrained by even the limits of bourgeois control. The characters Quoirez creates are selfish, naive, rueful little girls; their written attributes and feelings subtly alluded to at every opportunity in this beautiful biopic; an opulent, pained picture of a remarkable yet deeply flawed woman: Sagan (2008).

Claiming from the outset that “What is most feared in secret is what always happens.” Sagan (brilliantly played by Sylvie Testud) fears the inevitability of dying alone. Living her life beyond even her own privileged means; “I loved excess”; Sagan spends and loves with careless abandon. Having had a full life of success and riches – believing herself to be free and able to do as she pleases from one impulse to the next – it is of no comfort to her when she is left with nothing but her vices and herself; and the words of her late lover which hauntingly resound, “You’re a prisoner.” A prisoner to her own misguided ingenuity, her cerebral affairs leave her with nothing but solitude. Weighting questions of interiority against fond and foul memory, she is no freer at the end of her life than she was when she started out, insolently declaring, “The law must adapt to us not the other way. Enough. How I destroy myself is my business.”

Centred around themes of isolation and self-destruction the biopic is less of an insight into a remarkable woman’s life and career (her work merely mentioned rather than explained in the film) than it is a reflection and meditation on the content and nuance of her writing; the final irony that her induction into the life she led is exactly how she must greet its end, “Bonjour Tristesse” (Hello Sadness). For anyone coming to the film without prior knowledge of her work, it may come across as yet another biopic about a famous person whose artistry manifested into a masochistic spiral of self-destruction. But to have read her words- the biopic is simply beautiful, portraying with great poignancy the essence of her early novels and the shocking themes that turned into a tragic life.

Sagan is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 7 2010 through Hoyts Distribution.

Rivers is only careful when it comes to cataloguing. her jokes.

For a woman who has been acting and doing stand-up since 1966, Joan Rivers already has more than enough to show for a life in show biz. But it’s just not enough.Still as hungry for it at 75 as she was 44 years ago when she started out, Rivers is dissatisfied with the thanks she receives for opening the proverbial door to women comediennes, barking back with “Fuck you, I’m still opening doors!” Refusing to fade into the distance and with about as much determination as she’s had plastic surgery, Rivers takes no prisoners.With absolutely no intention of going anywhere even slightly left or right of the limelight Rivers isn’t interested in retiring into an ordinary existence, “I could stop and live carefully but that’s ridiculous. I don’t want to live carefully.”

Considering herself “a small industry” with a staff that supports her claim, Rivers categorises and catalogues her jokes - all of them, on speech cards. Proud of her body of work and the performances that were so shocking for their time that Jack Lemmon famously walked out on one, Rivers makes no apologies and no concessions for the affect her biting satire is responsible for; her only weakness being her need to be loved and her genuine disappointment that “No one will ever take me seriously as an actor.”

While it’s difficult to believe that someone so brazen as Rivers could be disappointed not to be taken seriously, the documentary works hard to show her softer side (or at least it explores the idea that she might have one.) Filming and focusing on the present, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work includes just mere glimpses of a coloured past, hoping to build up the story of Joan now: on the rise to become a *star*. Again. From a blank calendar to a fully booked diary the film builds its tension along with the trajectory of Joan’s (re)career. Re-building block by block, day by day, until the grid is full, Rivers clearly won’t rest even when she is back on top; self-achievement too important; “in spite of being a woman, in spite of being 75 and in spite of being black-balled by NBC.”

Does Rivers have a softer side?

With comedy so clearly fuelled by anger and defiance, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is the first installment of a come-back PR propaganda campaign. Pushing her clout in equal proportion to her humility (if, as the film would have us believe, she actually has any), it hopes to gain her the respect and empathy of an entirely new audience whilst simultaneously re-kindling a lost love affair with the old. There are moments in the film where Rivers even makes attempts to tear-up, but her face just won’t allow it, oftentimes making it difficult to determine just how sincere she really is being. But, she is a funny woman, and even if her face won’t crack up, no doubt you will.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Blade Runner: Director’s Cut will run at the Astor Theatre from Thursday September 30 – Sunday October 3 2010.

Blade Runner: Director’s Cut simply refuses to fade into the vast catalogue of forgotten film history. Its persistence as film’s pedestal sci-fi owing to its innovative and intelligent contemplation over ontological questions of authenticity and artificiality as they pertain to a rapidly, and terrifyingly, techno-advanced, mechanized, global future society.

Set in Los Angeles in the year 2019, Blade Runner depicts, through its neo-noir aesthetic, a dystopian future where humans have created their own robotic slave-race known as Replicants. In one sense the Replicants act as soldiers, in a time of hyper-universality on “Off-world” human colonies of other planets. Four dangerous Replicants have returned to earth in the hope of confronting the corporation responsible for their very questionable existence: Tyrrell Corporation. Alerted to their illegal activities in a hyper-modern police state, Blade Runner Unit enlist Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to find and “retire” (kill) the four who are merely desperate to prolong what they think are their “lives”.

That the film is set in Los Angeles is far from incidental. Although New York is America’s foremost “global” city with regards to economic and cultural growth/wealth, LA is its “expansive” counterpart in that its spatial development and the sheer scale of its urban planning exemplifies the artificial “constructedness” that the film is concerned with in the first instance. As such, the dark, seemingly boundless sprawl of the dystopian LA landscape operates in the film as a psychogeographical reflection of the labyrinthine, almost indistinguishable cerebrally sound constructs of the Replicants’ cognitive minds.

Beyond their declared “at least equal intelligence to the genetic engineers who created them”, the Replicants, also described as “virtually identical” to humans, are suggestively “evolved” rather than “constructed” beings. The implication of their proverbial “evolution” affords the Replicants with organic rather than robotic capabilities, creating from the outset a distinct atmosphere of ambiguity; blurring the boundaries between the human/non-human attributes they are imbued with, rendering them, in some advanced cases, as liminal beings even unto themselves. Furthermore, following the “bloody mutiny” on Off-world colonies, Replicants have been “declared illegal on earth, under penalty of death”. In light of a Derridean comprehension of binary oppositions the very notion of “death” here suggests “life”, providing further substance to the idea that the Replicants are “living” beings. Moreover, the final two sentences of the prologue to the film read; “This was not called execution. It was called retirement.” The two sentences appear onscreen isolated from one another and from the paragraphs that came before. In using “called” twice in such close proximity Scott emphasizes the semiotic construction of a concept based upon two otherwise abstract things. That is to say that we (human viewers) comprehend the action as one thing and not another through a system of signifiers and signifieds that links the action to its name. This subtle note at the outset is designed to make the viewer think through the implications of the Symbolic Order itself, and therefore the constructedness of everything human, including something that mistakenly considered natural: language. The reminder so early on that almost everything is constructed and/or performed already alludes to Scott’s overarching provocative contention.

But what exactly does it mean to be “living” and where does that leave the boundary between legitimate “born” human beings and illegal “created” Replicants? For the purposes of distinguishing between the two (primarily so as not to accidentally “retire” a human), the Blade Runner Unit have created a test that is “designed to provoke emotional response” from its recipients, measuring their levels of empathy through indicators such as response time and pupil dilation. The only obstacle here being the fear that after a few years they would – in line with the aforementioned process of evolution – “develop their own emotional responses” and it is, for this reason, that their life-span is restricted to a short four years. Moreover, the more advanced and indeed “experiment” Replicants of which Rachael (Sean Young) is one, are given greater access to the concept of humanity through programmed memories which act as a “cushion” for their own subjectivity helping them to believe they are human. It is at this moment in the film that the true nature of every character, including Deckard himself, is brought into question.

Ignoring the extensive implications of this revelation, Deckard denies Rachael’s inference when she asks him if he has ever taken the test himself. Clearly hurt by the determination that she is a Replicant, implanted with memories from Tyrrell’s niece and believing them to be her own, Rachael sheds a solitary tear, displaying clear and unmistakable human emotion. Following this display the two become romantically involved which, if he is human and she is a not is dodgy ethical ground at best, but, if (as Scott certainly intended it to be) they are both Replicants who merely believe themselves to be human is an equally consensual union. The inclusion of this scene operates as reiterative of the Replicants’ ability to experience human desire and also to provide a strong ethical questioning of the resultant actions of a Replicant who considers him/herself to be human.

Like Deckard and Rachael, Roy (Rutger Hauer) and Pris (Daryl Hannah) are “coupled” Replicants, only in this case they know themselves to be so. The difference here is that along with their knowledge of what they truly are comes another human desire: the will to live. Their mission is to have their lives extended at any cost, their fear of death very human indeed. But it is Roy who goes to see Dr Tyrrell, leaving Pris to defend their newly acquired “home”. His presence at Tyrrell Corporation is met with a combination of kindness and cruelty as Dr Tyrrell lovingly refers to him as the Prodigal Son returned. At this moment Roy becomes Jesus to Dr Tyrrell’s God and Roy’s anger towards his maker results in a murderous crime of passion – yet another decidedly human action. Dissatisfied and disillusioned with the God who created him, Roy returns home to find Pris has bled to death, and Scott lingers on her blood to reiterate yet again the very human qualities of the Replicants.

In the final showdown between Roy and Deckard, Roy makes an ultimate sacrifice of himself, accepting the inevitability of his life cycle. Mirroring his surroundings, like the rain that gushes into the house, Roy is in many ways an organic being trapped into a constructed environment. As he forces a nail through his hand and then his own head through a tiled wall, he further blurs the boundaries between natural and unnatural, removing the confines and limitations that one necessarily holds over the other. In this way the final scenes of the film move towards breaking down Derridean binary oppositions, suggesting that there are grey areas and ultimately that humans are the result of both organic evolution and the extraneous influences and input that are responsible, at least in part, for their existence.

The Directors’ Cut in particular, is the version of this film that led to the discussion surrounding whether or not Deckard was human or Replicant. Ridley Scott has himself professed that Deckard is a Replicant and if we take this reading at its word then he is, by his own admittance, justified by the system: “Replicants are like any other machine: they’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem.” Ultimately serving the system and its self-perpetuating myth surrounding the significance of authenticity versus the threat of artificiality, Deckard is the exemplary product of a well governed police state; unwittingly serving its needs to his own detriment; ignorant of its ideology and only able to see through its constructedness so far as it allows him to. If we however, do not take Scott at his word and allow Deckard to remain ambiguously human then the film does not fail, it merely suspends itself and its determination in the liminal space that it so brilliantly creates.

Written by Tara Judah for the Astor Theatre E-Newsletter; reproduced for Liminal Vision.

Following on from the trauma of the first film, which was largely informed by the persistent horrors of the Holocaust, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi  Rapace) is shown in new, plush surroundings, stripped bare of personal effects. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has returned to investigative journalism with a new protégé, and a story that will expose a number of influential men and their exploitative actions against countless women who have been consistently failed by the country’s social welfare system. When three murders, linked to Blomkvist’s exposé and to Lisbeth, take place, she is assumed by the authorities to be the responsible party and as such, goes into a form of hiding. Blomkvist, sure of her innocence, embarks upon yet another highly dangerous search for the truth. Moving on to reveal links with Soviet foreign intelligence agency, the GRU, Played With Fire builds on the historical resonance created in Dragon Tattoo suggesting that the contemporary failures of the state (concerning welfare in this instance) are intrinsically linked to the problems of a complex and damaging history at unrest.

Perhaps the most interesting and provocative contemplation the film throws up lies in a Deleuzian reading of its spatial and temporal motivations. According to Deleuze, cinema was, pre-WWII, spatially motived by what he terms “the movement image”, that is to say that physical movement onscreen motivated the forward trajectory of the film through; 1) perception images (what is seen), 2) affection images (what is felt) and 3) action images (onscreen action). With WWII as the single event that created a “rupture” or “shift”, post-WWII film became, according to Deleuze, motivated by temporal advancement: “the time image”. In addition to the spectacular car chase that takes place (an obvious manifestation of the movement image) there is a scene in which Blomkvist, talking to a “source”, wanders around a garden; the image  strangely motivated by his slow physical action rather than the “race-against-time” of its thriller narrative. That the nature of their discussion harks back to the complex history pre-dating the time image subtly suggests that the ability to move in a forward trajectory following such traumatic historic events is itself fractured. In this way the film is suggesting that these still living histories create a contemporary rupture or shift of their own whereby resolution can only be achieved through a combined space/time motivator. That our two protagonists Lisbeth and Blomkvist are separated for the majority of their time onscreen; that Lisbeth must constantly move so as not to be caught by the authorities and that Blomkvist must constantly travel sometimes great distances to follow-up on a lead (this was also the case in Dragon Tattoo) further support the idea that movement is at least equal in motivation to its temporal counterpart. This is not to suggest that time is of any lesser importance within the film(s); both films in fact reveal their key crimes to have been taking place for decades gone by yet the sense of urgency, the generic “race-against-time”,  is always present.

But Lisbeth and Blomkvist face obstacles of literal and figurative enormity in Played With Fire, namely, a sort of uber-Aryan who suffers congenital analgesia (insensitivity to pain) and as such is virtually invincible; impervious to the pain inflicted upon him by other “feeling” human beings. His role is symbolic as he stands in for a physical reminder for the past. The type of “numbness”  he experiences situates him appositely as a physical incarnation for the shameful act of denying or forgetting the scars such an horrific history has left in its wake. Whilst much of the world has come to concern itself with contemporary issues, here the resonance of history indestructibly persists.

Although much of the historically significant content in the film evokes theoretical contemplation; failure of social systems as a result of a damaged state motivated by an Althusserian model of ideological and repressive state apparatuses; the final chapter, and thus any true conclusions to its provocations, is yet to come. In the hope that the final chapter, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, will fully elucidate these ideas, The Girl Who Played With Fire offers a fine and fascinating pit stop for now. Certainly deserving of greater appreciation than just being labeled a decent dramatic-thriller with a TV aesthetic, Played With Fire is highly engaging, and often intelligent, fare.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday September 23 through Rialto Entertainment.
Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

It seems a shame that the film is tainted by so much hyperbole surrounding the authenticity of the subject matter when in fact that seems to me just  about as important as the PR spin that claimed The Blair Witch Project (1999) was “real”. Whether or not Phoenix has actually retired from acting and whether or not he is “serious” about focusing on “his music” doesn’t actually change the fact that I’m Still Here is a fascinating picture of a man who is – one way or another – at the precipice of his sanity and of his career. Not exactly an advertisement for future employment of any kind, I’m Still Here gives a damaging view of Phoenix (honestly, hoax or not) and reveals a couple of truths about the world of celebrity in its wake.

On the question of the film positing itself as an observational documentary, one can of course, stay until the closing credits cease to roll to see that Joaquin’s father is in fact played by Casey Affleck’s father in the film and other such “non-authentic” roles the thanks yous and acknowledgments “expose”. But given that myths surrounding observational documentary’s necessity to literally and objectively observe of its content have been both academically (see any of Bill Nichols‘ excellent and extensive writing on the subject) and popularly (with the emergence of self-reflexive documentary discourse, the use of re-enactment, animation, CGI and other “stand-in” modes of communicative visuals that have become equally as acceptable as the more subtly manipulative formal elements of shot-composition, lighting, music, editing etc) dispelled, it seems pointless to dwell on this issue. Furthermore, I’m Still Here is directed by Casey Affleck (Joaquin’s brother-in-law), so it is pretty much a given at the outset that the film’s POV is intended as an “intimate” (even familial) view to Joaquin’s life rather than as an objective omniscient recording thereof.

So accepting the merits of the film at face value and taking into consideration that staging certain scenes doesn’t necessarily negate the overarching project of the film, the question really comes down to: exactly what is the film’s project? It seems to me at least that one of the things this film is most interested in doing is showing a Hollywood star as a flawed and “real” human being in the first instance, and revealing a popular industry for the damaging environment it really is in the second. Sure, this isn’t exactly “breaking news” but what it is, irregardless of its “constructedness”, is honest. And it is this element of honestly which ultimately affords it with documentary merit. Moreover, if the film is in fact a hoax then its revelatory project is only further emphasised by its then ability to confoundedly manipulate ordinary cinema-going audiences.

Phoenix says at the outset of the film, “Think whatever you want. Hate me or like me, just don’t misunderstand me.” His words serve as a segue into dispelling a myth created by the industry: the persona the public know to be Joaquin Phoenix is an actor, not a man. So, watch and listen because the bullshit of the film industry is extreme and, as we are to later learn, exactly the same as the bullshit of the music industry. In fact, the film would have its audience believe that all artistic endeavour as it operates within the confines of an industry is essentially pointless. Moreover, Phoenix is saying that when you live in the public eye you aren’t allowed the human privilege of making mistakes; of saying something and later reneging on it; that there are certain expectations people have of you that must be live up to. The film is asking here what happens when you are in the public eye and then fail to live up to those expectations? Nay, it is not just asking, the film itself is an exercise in not living up to those expectations, something beautifully and humourously demonstrated by the filming of inanity, Joaquin asking Affleck, “Are we really filming just driving in a fucking car?”

Often uncomfortalbe, but also incredibly funny, Phoenix presents an unlikeable version of himself that is cleverly empathetic and as such, ironically, likeable. Who doesn’t like a flawed, misunderstood individual? Although his hip-hop (if it may even be so-called) absolutely sucks and he even rhymes Joaquin with spleen at one time (no word of a joke), but this only further operates to endear him to his audience. Don’t ordinary people try and fail? Doesn’t this make an A-list Hollywood actor an ordinary person therefore? Perhaps this is just another industry tool to suggest that we, as “ordinary” people, are all essentially alike and that our failures suggest we can also have great successes – if we just walk the proverbial line and adhere to the terms of the system’s stern social contracts?

Before insulting Ben Stiller who comes to Phoenix to offer him a part in the recently released art house film Greenberg (2010), Joaquin says “I’m going to try not to make us all look like asshoes.” which he, of course, is yet another thing he fails to do. But one thing here is clear: the “industry” is charged as guilty of self-perpetuating myth. Phoenix admits his uncertainty at the outset as to whether or not the industry said he was complicated and so he was, or whether he was complicated and so the industry said he was and he further played to it. But either way, he or industry have now said that he is not only complicated but a complete fuck-up and resultantly he feels pressured to continue to play to it. Self-perpetuating myth is a dangerous thing and hoax or no hoax Phoenix finds himself at the centre of a black hole: a man, like any other, whose job security is now in the very least uncertain and whose failures, true or not, have been widely exposed.

I’m Still Here opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday September 16 and is released through Roadshow Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Dolphins and Whales 3D does three things: 1) it educates audiences on a variety of species of the aforementioned dolphins and whales by giving an extreme, close “view” to their lives undersea; 2) it offers experiential cinematic engagement founded upon haptic, immersive theoretical discourse and 3) it reveals its moral project (cautioning against the farming and polluting of sea life) through a thematic thread that is enhanced and reiterated by its technology’s unique ability to inherently reference an historical real.

Ocean life is threatened by the continued human slaughter of dolphins and whales and by human pollution of the earth which in turn severely damages and endangers their habitat and food resources. Told, by Daryl Hannah no less (she of Splash (1984) fame) that many of these remarkable creatures “may soon become a ghostly shadow of the arctic, a mere memory”, the film highlights both the real threat that we pose to their existence whilst indexing their historical and anthropological significance.  Furthermore, the documentary also suggests in its concluding remarks that “we can change our way of life” which resonates so much more as it is being communicated through a pioneering technology that quite literally changes the way in which we see these (often hidden from plain view) mammals.

With the assistance of a heavily emotive score the images figuratively (and sometimes literally) wash over its audience like to a wave of consciousness, imploring those in the auditorium to take an active role in “viewing” so that it develops into “perceiving” and ultimately therefore an experience in educational comprehension. Upon leaving the theatre audiences will find themselves amidst a museum environment which is hardly incidental; the experience as it occurred in the auditorium fully intended to be built upon back in the “real” (temporally at least) world. In just 45 minutes the experience of IMAX 3D could truly alter your perception, a far greater feat than Cameron’s 162 minutes of “blue people” (IMHO!)

Dolphins and Whales 3D is playing now at the Melbourne Museum IMAX 3D theatre in Carlton. Click here to view the trailer.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

When young dandy Louis Ives (superbly performed by Paul Dano) is fired from his respectable teaching job at Princeton for inappropriately mishandling a colleague’s “undergarments”, he decides it might just be the perfect catalyst for him to take a risk and move to New York, a decision with which his late employer decidedly, judgementally, agrees, “I think New York would be the perfect place for a young man – like you.” Already situating provincial ivy league townships in the US as oppositional to the big smoke, New York is presented as somewhere inclusive or, at least, cosmopolitan and diverse enough in its acceptance of people who might otherwise find themselves anomalous amidst their surroundings.

Upon arrival in New York however, Louis comes into almost immediate contact with one eccentric old man, Henry Harrison (faultlessly performed by the flamboyantly fantastic Kevin Kline). Harrison serves as both Louis’ landlord and societal mentor, based in part upon a shared longing for the style of writing, and indeed the style, of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, most notably, his construction of masculinity in The Great Gatsby. At this stage, still optimistic about his journey through subjectivity, Louis is told in no uncertain terms by his “mentor” what is to become his most important lesson in life, “You won’t find yourself in New York.” That Louis would even conceive of such a thought is practically unbearable, for it is not the role of the individual that is of significance in this film, it is the city. In a manner of speaking, Harrison’s first lesson to Ives is that small-minded people look to find themselves – something easily done in a small town – but broad-minded, interested (distinct from interesting) individuals are drawn to interesting cities where subjectivity gives way to greater questions of anthropology.

As Louis attempts to contend with the city he also wrestles with himself but ultimately the city holds a far greater sense of history than the individual. That the characters in the film appear at times to be caricatures of extreme stereotypes speaks to the film’s strong sense of awareness regarding the individual’s inherent need to find an identificatory connection to the past; a connectedness that the city already, and inherently, holds. What’s left at the end of the film is a young man and a older man who, despite their disparity and despite their incompatibility, co-exist with a strange sense of cohesion, much like the contradictory contexts and content of NYC.

The Extra Man is an exclusive Cinema Nova release and sessions start from Thursday September 16.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Condemned offers an extremely artful glimpse into the damaged psyche of a young woman we presume is on death-row. Through her internal dialogue we are able to construct a full enough narrative to piece together the potential events that led to her imprisonment. But the narrative becomes secondary to the stunning visual style and incredibly affecting tone which afford the film with the surprising weight and substance that it holds.

It is clear from the short fourteen minutes that Condemned runs for that Shai is an accomplished filmmaker who is adept at using the formal qualities of film to elucidate its content. Beautiful, thoughtful and hopefully a first look at what’s yet to come.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Catherine Keener heads up a brilliantly selected cast as Kate, a wealthy woman who makes her living selling vintage furniture – that she buys “from the children of dead people” no less – in partnership with her overweight, unashamedly capitalist glutton of a husband Alex (Oliver Platt). Trying desperately to “give back” to society and teach her spotty, bratty fifteen-year-old daughter Abby (Sarah Steele) a lesson in the interim, Kate spouts guilty mantra such as “Forty-five homeless people are living on our block” so often one might think it were in danger of going out of fashion. Concurrently, Abby tries desperately to get Kate to shell out for a facial and a pair of $200  jeans that might just get her caught up with fashion, refuting the homeless’ need for cash, “What do they care? They don’t want jeans.”

Things go from bad to worse and Kate finds herself at the brink of her guilt threshold when they invite elderly next-door neighbour Andra (whose apartment Kate and Alex have bought with a view to renovate when she dies) and her two miserable granddaughters Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet) for dinner one night. Mary, who is probably the most awfully perfect embodiment of self-centredness and tactlessness the big screen has recently had the pleasure to play host to, blatantly addresses the enormous elephant in the room and asks Kate point-blank what her plans for Andra’s apartment are when she, stubborn old bag that she is, eventually kicks the bucket.

Full of fantastic and, quite often outrageous one-liners, Please Give pushes the boundaries of what’s funny constantly inviting its audience to wonder if it’s okay to laugh at what they just laughed at. Although the film does give its audience permission to laugh as well as permission not to indulge too heavily in societal guilt in answering its own question several times throughout the film; Kate: “Alex, how come you feel so okay about it [buying & profiting from the children of dead people]?”, Alex: “Because it’s okay.” it never truly lets its audience off the hook. This exchange must be taken with at least a pinch of conscience-ridden salt as Alex, the enabler of “it’s okay” is also the character whose morals are what might be considered a little “fast and loose” at times, his judgement and honesty not necessarily “aspirational”.

And ultimately it is these well measured characters to whom the film owes its achievement as they pretty much all strike the fine balance between being intensely likeable and abhorrently obnoxious all at once: essentially, they’re human.

Please Give is released in Australian cinemas today – Thursday September 09 2010.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

For all intents and purposes the idea is actually quite good: a young woman is abducted by two profession criminals who intend to hold her for ransom from her incessantly wealthy father. The focus is, in the first instance, placed heavily upon attention to detail and in this the film succeeds opening with a beautifully, carefully constructed sequence in which the two men “set-up” to stage a kidnapping. But the initial pace of the film is, disappointingly, unsustainable for the feature-length of the film and moreover for the type of “twist and turn” content that follows.

Without giving away too many of what might be considered “plot developments”, it is fair to say that the “relationship developments/revelations” between the two kidnappers, Danny (Martin Compston) and Vic (Eddie Marsan) and their female victim, Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton), are the lynchpin upon which the success or failure of this film ultimately rests. At first these are provocative and even a little original, but as they continue to pile upon transparent layers of unnecessary and often unconvincing back story the tower falls into a mess of implausibility. Add to this a couple of average if not poor performances by Arterton and Marsan and you have yourself an hour and thirty-six minutes of awkwardness and heavy sighing.

There were moments when it almost felt as though something a little exciting or deeper might be boiling beneath the surface and indeed I contemplated a Freudian reading of the psyche as the film’s true exploration but ultimately the reading fails. Comparably it seemed too at one point that perhaps the insipid lies and betrayal was class commentary against the unfair discriminatory role of inheritance laws in the UK, but again, this reading eventually fails. Beautifully shot and formally competent there is talent amongst the filmmakers and perhaps, with more comprehensive content, a decent drama would have ensued. The film best surmises itself through Vic’s dialogue when he barks at Danny “I don’t want a narrative.” No, but maybe the audience might.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday September 9 and is distributed through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Having visited most of its Australian city destinations already, Message Sticks concludes its 2010 tour at Carlton’s Melbourne Museum with screenings showing this Saturday 4 – Tuesday 7 September. Showcasing mostly shorts, the program are well framed by two feature documentary sessions that offer a contrasting real life and reel life context for the recurring themes within the festival program.

Lani's Story

Lani’s Story: Followed by a Q&A with Lani Brennan, Lani’s Story is a documentary about a woman who suffered an horrific spate of repression and self-loathing due to the persistent combination of substance abuse, small community, extreme domestic violence and a failed justice system. Experimenting with alcohol as early as eleven, Lani was a self-professed “daily drunk” at just thirteen. Having grown up with alcoholism and domestic violence as something that just occurred but wasn’t openly talked about, Lani quickly fell into a destructive pattern that continued to feed on her personal shame. It was only after sobering up and meeting someone else, a man who finally showed her the kindness and support she deserved, that Lani was able to throw off the shackles of her own fear and speak out against her perpetrator.

Nin's Brother

Shorts: From the nine shorts (ranging in duration from between 5 min to 52 min) at the heart of the festival, Message Sticks brings disparate filmmakers (from New Zealand, Canada, the USA and, of course, Australia) and diverse subject matter to create an overarching narrative of untold Indigenous tales. Nin’s Brother sees one young woman search for a connection to and the truth surrounding suspicious events in her family’s past; Big Fella documents one man’s struggle to overcome mental illness and its symptomatic morbid obesity; Nundhirribala’s Dream is a gentle rendering of subconscious spiritual connection; Shimasani is the beautifully shot story of a young woman who wants more from the world; The Cave quite literally shows the proximity between the living world and the spirit world; Barngngrnn Marrangu Story gives a heart wrenching view of the confines of the reserve; Redemption is a sad, prophetic tale about the bleak future for a young, apathetic generation; Daniel’s 21st reveals a desperation that spurs denial; and Boxing for Palm Island is a tale about fight and survival. Each of these shorts do, in the first instance, the same two essential things; 1) they tell an untold story 2) they communicate just how important it is that the untold story gets told.

Reel Injun: “Hollywood has made over 4000 films about Native people; over 100 years of movies defining how Indians are seen by the world.” Whilst a vast majority of film-goers will already know, Hollywood is, to some relative degree, responsible for the construction of what’s often known as “collective memory” or “social memory” and, moreover, that a considerable proportion of it is either undesirable or just plain untrue. Certainly their representations of Indigenous people have always been misrepresentative in their stereotyping as a result of their being driven by greater social/political agendas that in turn continue to perpetuate prejudice.

Reel Injun is the film that takes the time to sift through these representations and talk about them – openly and honestly. Holding nothing back; from the “great American plains” as backdrop, to altered historical accounts turning battle into myth to the ludicrous US summer camps that keep the Hollywood notion of a “noble savage” “alive and well”; this documentary tells it like it is – and how it’s always been. With commentary from the likes of Clint Eastwood and Jim Jarmusch, the taking to task of iconic westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), and with some pretty damn sarcastic comedy, “Chuck Conners as Geronimo – it’s like Adam Sandler as Malcolm X”, Reel Injun is the film of the festival – and if you do only have the time to go see one thing, make sure it’s this – because it’s absolutely brilliant.

Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival takes place at Melbourne Museum in Carlton from Saturday September 4 – Tuesday September 7. Admission to all screenings is FREE.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Beyond Biba: A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki - It’s thirty-five years since the doors closed on Biba for good and designer/founder Barbara Hulanicki is now quite comfortably situated on the other side of the world immersed in her latest creative design endeavour on Miami’s South Beach: hotel and nightclub interiors. Looking back over a life and a brand, Beyond Biba concentrates largely on the woman Hulanicki has become today as owing to the experiences that shaped her iconic foray into fashion and later, interior design.

Broken up into six main segments the documentary begins where it ought; Childhood, with Hulanicki talking about her memories of living in Warsaw, Poland and later in Palestine; it then moves on to her main passion which, perhaps surprisingly for some, is not “fashion” as such, but rather Drawing; the act of which leads to her infamous “big start” starring The Gingham Dress as featured in the Daily Mirror; but it wasn’t just Hulanicki’s passion for drawing and keen eye for fashion that led to the great success of Biba, it was – as with most profitable business endeavours – the product of a dream partnership with a man who simultaneously became her lover, Fitz; this led to The Shops: Abingdon Road, Kensington Church Street and finally, the coveted Kensington High Street; but creative differences between Hulanicki and her financiers was what ultimately put the nail in the coffin on Biba in 1974 when Hulanicki walked away from her once booming business, something she now views with deep Nostalgia.

Watching the woman “who gave us high street high fashion” as comfortable and passionate in her new life as an interior designer to the likes of Chris Blackwood as she was giving ordinary English women in the late 1960s the opportunity to look chic and sophisticated without breaking the bank, is as warm as the woman herself.

Beyond Biba: A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki screens at ACMI on Sunday August 29 7.30pm, Wednesday September 1 2.30pm and Thursday September 2 8pm as part of their Fashion Icons on Film 2010 Melbourne Spring Fashion Week season.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Any film that leads with a “film in film” narrative, as Father Of My Children does, draws attention to the craft of filmmaking, most often with a view to comment on its significance to the reception of the finished product. With this particular film however, the emphasis is placed upon the idea that the juxtaposed “moral projects” of an artistic process and its financial viability creates two distinct final pictures and, moreover, pictures that do not necessarily share any common ground. Without saying too much about the story itself (the affect of the film works best if you know only a little), it is fair to say that if you remove one individual’s interiority and subjectivity from a project it does in no way mean that the picture will not persist. On the contrary, what Løve is offering is the idea that one’s internal conflict can affect the image up unto a point and, ultimately, the image(s) will live a new life separate from their creators and most significantly that they will come to mean something else to someone else (the viewer).

Father Of My Children is the story of independent film production company, Moon Films. Despite financial difficulty and emotional strain, Grégoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), owner and founder of Moon Films, gives a significant proportion of himself to supporting and producing independent films and filmmakers whose often indulgent and arrogant ways he puts down to “artistic genius vision”. Constantly placing the needs and desires of others before his own, Grégoire reaches desperation, his own family unable to intervene. With wonderful subtle reserve, the supporting cast (with special mention of Chiara Caselli in the role of Sylvia, Louis-Do’s onscreen wife) who constitute his family and professional colleagues, convey a strong sense of stoicism in the wake of one man’s lost subjectivity.

Filled with “metaphysical worry” and emphasis on integrity above fulfillment; Sylivia tells Grégoire, “I’d like you to decide to be happy”; Løve takes on a variety of complex issues pertaining to both filmmaking and life in a wider more inclusive sense. An intelligent film with a carefully split vision between that which is onscreen and that which is not: one reflecting or imitating the other ad infinitum yet still somehow ultimately distinct, persisting perhaps in spite of, not necessarily because of, each other.

Father Of My Children is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday August 26 through Palace Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision

The film’s title character, known plainly as ‘Boy’, professes from the outset that in addition to having quite the extended family he is also a huge Michael Jackson fan. His adoption of an androgynous pop icon as ‘male role model’ goes some way to explaining the flawed absent father he so desperately longs for. At an uncertain age where learning about life and girls are equally weighted, Boy is ecstatic when his father turns up unannounced with his so-called “gang”, The Crazy Horses. Learning a variety of all important lessons from his father; how (not) to treat a lady, how to steal and, most importantly, “don’t get into the Nazi stuff”; over his summer holidays, it is clear that his foray into a patriarchal structure is nothing more than a flirtatious summer fling.

Too eager to take on the advice of others, Boy’s impressionability often gets him into trouble. But when the best “advice” he receives is, “It’s better to risk your money on something big, be really poor. It’s better than being a bit poor.”, it isn’t difficult to understand when, why and how things take a turn for the worse. The crux of the film comes when Boy realises (in a wonderfully Freudian moment) that the reality of satiating his desire (for a “father figure” in this instance) was ultimately traumatic and disappointing. In fact, when so-called “memories” of his father turn out to be fabrications of his own imagination, the return of the head of the matriarch (his grandmother) at the very end of the film marks the restoration of order, nurture and survival to the lives of Boy and his extended family.

That the film and its title character are already gendered by their very naming indicates the wider prevalence of gender roles at play in the film. Thematically engaging, and certainly an endearing tale when taken at face value, Boy offers a gentle view from its warm filmic heart.

Boy is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday August 26.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision

Although Aaron’s writing is applicable to and engages with all modes of visual media, it bears particular relevance to two films I wish to discuss here and that are featured in the upcoming program for The Other Film Festival; a festival of “New cinema by, with and about people with a disability.” What It’s Like To Be My Mother (2007) and Blind Loves (2008), both focus – though in remarkably different ways – on the question of assuming responsibility, in equal measure, for the content of that which we do and do not see.

What It’s Like To Be My Mother: More than just raising an awareness surrounding what it is like to live with disability, What It’s Like To Be My Mother actually asks the viewer to think about what it is like to live being seen by Others as disabled. Featuring a film within a film, What It’s Like is knowing in its express implication of the viewers’ role in constructing a notion of “otherness”.

When  Julia’s film about her disabled mother Monika qualifies for a Warsaw festival of “disability and art” she soon learns that the ownership of the film is not entirely her own; the subject, her mother, claiming equal if not primary concern for its exhibition, tells her daughter that exhibiting the film is not her decision to own “because you’re not disabled.” Being made to feel “naked” as viewers look on but importantly do not experience her disability it becomes clear that whilst Monika attributes the ownership of film as object to her daughter, “It’s her masterpiece, not mine”, she is painfully aware even before Julia verbalises the sentiment, that the film only exists in lieu of Monika’s indomitable spirit, “But you’re the masterpiece.”

Often using humour to distract attention from herself as a “disabled woman” in the first instance, Monika opens up to her daughter and, vicariously to us. Through her honestly we might begin to understand the complexity and contradiction within the limitations of what we see, “I would be happier if people didn’t notice me…You see when you look, but you don’t look.” Through Monika filmmaker Norah McGettigan successfully conveys the complex ethical implications involved in seeing an Other, specifically as it pertains to the way in which they are conveyed or shown on film; Monika’s honest answer to the question, “Did losing your legs change your life?” being that it is “a feeling”, and moreover, “one you won’t capture on your camera.”

Blind Loves: Broken up into four vignettes each focussing on an interpretation of love and “blindness” (both as a physical and metaphorical affliction), Blind Loves interpolates the space between screen and viewer, providing an acute awareness of the act of watching individuals who themselves cannot see.

Peter is a music teacher who is blind to obstacle and whose love for music allows him to create his own liminal space between fantasy and reality. Miro is passionately in love with Monika but he is blind to her parents’ concerns for their interracial relationship in a small village where people talk. Elena is blind to the power of how much love she is capable of giving to the life she has created, questioning her own ability to mother and afraid her newborn will be taken away from her. Zuzana loves being a regular teenage girl but her kindness is a form of naiveté and she is blind to the prejudice of Others.

In simultaneously highlighting “sameness” and “otherness” as it exists in individuals with disability, these films ask something significant of their audience, something far more piercing than “acceptance” or “awareness”. What these films are asking is The Ethical Question. Not just our responsibility to the Other, but also in viewing, our responsive responsibility to the images we have just seen.

“An ethics of spectatorship requires us to think about how we are positioned, and interpellated, with regard to the morality, immorality and amorality of film. It does not just acknowledge how we consent to our submission to the spectacle, but asks us to consider how we are rendered accountable or not to what we have consented to, and part of the contract of spectatorship, of course, is that we do not renege on the deal.” – Michele Aaron, Spectatorship: The Power of Looking On (2007)

The Other Film Festival runs Wednesday August 25 to Sunday August 29 at the Melbourne Museum. The festival is in association with Arts Access Victoria and as such all films screened during the festival will be captioned or subtitled and audio described and all public areas are wheelchair accessible.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision

Phobidilia: The question surrounding what it is we as individuals need from life can take more than a lifetime allows to determine. And yet, the young man telling his story in Phobidilia seems to think he already had it all; food, sex and twenty-four hour televisual entertainment; a selection of consumables he could “enjoy” without even leaving the house; “I had everything a person needs to be happy.” But moving from soap opera to internet porn is only so fulfilling. When the vivacious young Daniela appears at his door one afternoon, it slowly becomes apparent that the value of connecting with another human being has not entirely escaped him. There are however two problems that threaten to destroy his newfound happiness and connection with Daniela: 1) “Grumps”, an old man acting on behalf of his landlord and who thinks he is doing our protagonist a service in attempting to coerce and then in forcibly evicting him from the confines of his home, and 2) his own inability to know what is “real” anymore.

1) “Grumps” is a Holocaust Survivor but instead of standing in as a reminder of the horrors of the past, his role in the film is to act as the beacon for the horrors to come. “Get out before it gets worse” he tells the young man, his survival teaching him that a situation can always worsen and a statement that reinforces the contention that opting out and waiting in hiding is no way  to resolve a situation, no matter how grave it may be.

2) “When you’re alone for too long, nothing seems real.” Our protagonist has locked himself away from the “real” world, preferencing a mediated experience of it, shut off for such a time that he can no longer distinguish between the two. Answering “Bill Cosby” when asked who raised him and reeling off popular film dialogue when confronted with his phobia, our protagonist actively annihilates the Other through his passive unwillingness to acknowledge that “they” too “exist”; “I can see you on my screen but it doesn’t mean you’re real.”

But his great revelation comes: “It’s not what I saw, it’s what I didn’t see.” A generation turning their backs on the responsibilities they are to inherit – no matter how understandable – is not the appropriate course of action because in not seeing what is really there, ignoring so crucial a problem is in itself a form of political attack.

The Loners: When young naive soldier Sasha Blokhim loses his rifle under embarrassing circumstances he becomes too scared to tell the truth at his military “hearing”. Failing to admit to the crimes of foolishness and improper conduct he finds himself, along with the friend who “helped” him out of the whole mess, placed in a Northern Israeli military prison, sentenced to four years incarceration, for the somewhat more heinous crime of selling arms to Hamas. Unable to persuade officials to give them a re-trial, or even to convince their own welfare officer of their innocence, the two young men are repeatedly beaten and persecuted for their alleged betrayal. Unable to accept the shame he is now burdened with, Sasha becomes so desperate that he allows his friend Glori to once again take “control” of the situation in what is yet another foolish attempt to have themselves absolved of their treasonous crime and released from the emotional oppression they experience at the hands of their own militia, “They keep calling you traitor, you’ll start believing it.”

There is something of an inevitability to the siege they stage, and when the elder generation do intervene with force and conviction it feels truly fatalistic: as if it really couldn’t have played out any other way. Persecuted for being imperfect soldiers despite their commitment to and blind faith in the system they were defending, it is only after it is too late that the two come to realise their anomalous presence in a compulsory military service that will never truly change, “That’s the problem. It’ll always be the way you people see it.”

Phobidilia and The Loners are both highly engaging dramas that each represent an aspect of the greater contemporary political angst existing amongst a new generation of Israeli filmmakers. A far cry from the apathetic Gen X & Gen Ys of the western world, these films speak to the very real problems facing the future of a conflicted nation.

The AICE Israeli Film Festival takes place in Melbourne 17-22 August at Palace Cinemas Como & Brighton Bay, and in Sydney August 31-5 September at the Palace Verona Cinema.

Operations:

After one or two hiccups over the opening weekend, sessions almost always ran as scheduled and with little exception (The Ghost Writer) accurately reflected the advertised run times. Again, although it took a couple of days, details of director Q&As and other festival guests scheduled were eventually added to the website so that punters would know in advance if the session was likely to overrun. The box office staff and especially the volunteers were commendably always pleasant and helpful, my only real gripe was having to pay another additional booking fee on top of the alteration fee when changing a session over the phone or online (as I live a long way from the city I couldn’t always manage to do it in person at the Box Office.) The daily e-mailout of Widescreen was a welcome effort for both informative last-minute updates and also for the opportunity to win tickets to additional screenings (thanks to which I was able to fill a festival gap with the incredibly entertaining Innerspace.)

Atmosphere:

I must give a shout out to the two poor bastards who spent the festival running around town dressed as the oversized and overzealous Choc Top and Popcorn mascots from the festival promo vid, “It’s a Matter of Taste”. I particularly enjoyed the mockumentary short played at closing night ahead of Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and sincerely hold out hope for it being a legitimate documentary in next year’s official program. The contemplation of which brings me to the advertisements – I do wish we could either have the ads play when the doors are opened for admittance (after thirty odd sessions they become a little tiresome) or perhaps MIFF could run a competition for filmmakers’ 30 second shorts ads on festival sponsors?

Finally, to the festival lounge. I can’t stress enough how incredibly useful it was having the Macs set up in the lounge when faced with excess time between screenings, the only issue being the actual opening & closing hours of the venue itself: almost always closed before the final sessions ended during the week and sometimes closed off for invitation only events, preventing festival goers from catching up over a cold beer between screenings. Speaking of beer, Coopers were the official festival sponsors this year, a beer that doesn’t phase me either way, I’ll happily admit that I’m hardly picky when it comes to beer and so long as there’s a lager or a pilsner of some variety in the mix I’m a happy camper, and the Coopers 62 sufficed.

Program:

Obviously I didn’t see even anywhere near half of the films shown in the festival so clearly whatever I write here has to be taken with a proportionate viewing pinch of salt. That said, I thought the program was successfully diverse and catered to a healthy balance of mainstream and art house cinema. I would however have liked to have seen more experimental works showcased beyond the one screening there was. And in lieu of that one screening, perhaps the programming staff might consider not scheduling the sole festival screening of experimental film for exactly the same time as the sole retrospective session of Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar? It seems likely to me that fans of a mode of short cinema often theorised and popularly thought of as ‘art’ might also be fans of the mode of feature cinema that is also theorised and popularly thought of as ‘art’. My other complaint is one that I don’t imagine will ever be resolved due to the understandable economic implications for festival organisers, BUT, I would like to put in a request for lengthy sessions – namely The Movie Orgy (280 mins duration) - being scheduled a little earlier in the evening so that one isn’t expected to stay awake till four thirty in the morning mid-festival. Of course, I do understand that this would mean the film would take up more than one slot during the regular programming thus meaning the festival would lose money having one instead of two or three sessions’ admission fees. In my defense though, they managed to do it for World on a Wire and a lot more people turned up to that in comparison to the too late screening of once in a lifetime opportunity screening The Movie Orgy.

There seemed to be a fair few films that I thought would have worked really well as shorts rather than features; Air Doll, Rubber and Catfish spring to mind and even more that were “good” but not “great”; The Killer Inside Me, Paju, The Tree, Uninhabited, Splice… that one truly outstanding film in the festival seemed to evade me this year (it was from what I hear either I Love you Philip Morris, Lebanon, Nostalgia for the Light or Winter’s Bone.) But, overall and my final impression of the festival was positive and inspirational nonetheless. Instead of heading to the GU to see Scott Pilgrim vs the World, I headed for one last stint at the Forum where Apichatpong Weerasethakul commandeered my senses with his latest in stunning slow cinema: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives:

“My past lives as an animal and other beings rise up above me.” A tethered bull sheds his ties and wanders off into the forest only to be re-called by a human being. Such is the nature of our lives as we are all recalled by Others, our individual subjectivity second to our connectedness to all other “life” on earth.

“Aren’t you afraid of illegal immigrants?” We often fear that which is Other when really we ought to accept and embrace difference as being a minority player in the concept of our existence as a whole.

“Heaven is overrated.” Instead of searching for a life beyond this one we ought to make connections and act sincerely now as the way in which we go on living is through the memory, affect and effect we have on Others during our lifetimes.

“I was born in a life I can’t recall.” We move easily between one life and another and forget at whim the events of what has come before. We are intrinsically linked to our histories and are responsible for the actions of all humans.

There is a great deal of provocative ethical questioning in Uncle Boonmee and Weerasethakul is on top form in creating a beautiful and contemplative reflection upon the way in which we conduct ourselves individually within a greater, philosophical understanding of “life”. There is a complex ease with which we move between worlds and cultures that he is interrogating in the latest of his masterful and meditative feature films. An instant classic amongst his oeuvre, Weerasethakul once again asserts himself as one of the most poignant and insightful filmmakers of our time.

Due to the somewhat schizophrenic subject matter, the film’s formal set up attempts to follow suit rebounding between cartoon-like cut and paste collage, populist slo-mo, the occasional bit of experimental editing, and then 180s all the way back to straight-up “mainstream drama” cinematography. Although the change of pace seems to accurately reflect Dury’s own unpredictable nature and unwieldy approach to balancing his personal and professional lives, it is also wildly distracting.

The strength of the film comes solely from Serkis’ performance, which is, absolutely faultless. The supporting cast is ‘good’ but unfortunately constantly pale in comparison to Serkis’ lead, making most of the other characters in the film feel a little underwhelming at best. But despite being decidedly messy as an end product, the era appropriate art direction and the music content are both excellent, contributing to the vibrant (if inconsistent) mise-en-scenes. One to see – but then move on from - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll offers the rollicking good time its title would suggest.

Noé is truly a modern-day enfant terrible if ever there was one: his films more an annoying exercise in challenging traditional modes of viewing than engaging or entertaining viewing in and of themselves. Though personally not averse to such a premise (heck, I love experimental cinema probably even a little more than the next person) there is an arrogance that goes along with Noé’s version of experimenta that ventures beyond slight abrasion and arrives at raw irritation. But personal feelings aside, Enter the Void is indeed an interesting film (albeit at least an hour overlong) for what it says about the way in which we are accustomed to receiving cinematic visuals.

Starting with the most incredible title sequence I’ve ever seen, Enter the Void is high-octane at the outset but, as its protagonists descend into a drug-fuelled liminality between life and death, so too is the viewer induced into a trance like state, receiving a lengthy and repetitive succession of seedy images that straddle a strange space between stimulating and sedating. Without any access to the usual outlets of spectatorial identification and devoid of the type of affect that encourages an active engagement in a narrative, Enter the Void never asks its audience to disavow and constantly reminds them that they are at the mercy of a (somewhat sadistic) filmmaker (for two long hours and thirty-four even longer minutes, I might add.) This does however produce a poignant line of questioning, particularly as it pertains to the idea of feature-length film within the realm of counter-cinema (most experimental film is short in duration, one of the many usual ways in which it counters the mainstream cinema it is necessarily situated against.)

But even after being coerced by Noé into contemplating the merits of identification and considering the artifice of cinema as highlighted through cinematic excess (see Kristen Thompson’s “The Concept of Cinematic Excess” and then Jeffrey Sconce’s “Trashing the Academy: Taste, Excess and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style”), I couldn’t help but feel as though he were sat right behind me, laughing at my gullibility whilst counting his bulging pay packet. I’d like to say that Enter the Void deserves the appreciation and attention it will undoubtedly get, but in reality all I really hope for is to see an editor take a pair of scissors to it like a dog in heat.

Narrated by Maria’s eldest daughter, Maja, but dramatically aligned with Maria’s POV, Everlasting Moments is formally set up to offer differing perspectives on a single narrative to further reiterate its emphasis on the importance of personal perception and the resultant visual memory it creates. From the most elementary of lessons in light refraction; which we are taught in accordance with Maria’s innocence, “I just don’t see how a picture comes about”; to understanding the significance and emotion with which humans afford an image that might just “capture” the essence of a person or a moment in time; “photography” is contextualised within its greater historical narrative reflecting the “true events” (as we are told they are), always in an effort to self-authenticate. As such, the film continually refers to its own medium’s theoretical underpinnings.

An otherwise incredibly engaging and involved drama, Everlasting Moments doesn’t appear to be interested in saying anything decidedly “new” about the medium of photography or its transformative effects in an historically transient time. More interested however in an exploration of the “personal as political”, the film at least nods to the social issues of its time and the impending Great War which made it possible to conceive that “soon Europe will no longer have borders”. At a temporal and spatial intersection in history where borders are threatened, the continued introduction and advancement of the photographic medium subtly and poignantly indicates its own liminal place within the film. Strong and meditative, Everlasting Moments is a fine film indeed.

Everlasting Moments is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday August 12 through Icon.

Attributed to the “mumblecore” movement (though I personally prefer the term “Slackavetes”), Beeswax is less the story of white middle-class twins meandering their way through modern life and relationships than it is a filmic contribution to the still prevalent existence of a Linklater-esque “Gen X”. Just because it’s not new doesn’t make it untrue. In this way, Beeswax offers a snapshot of the apathetic hangover that the 2000s have inherited. We may well have reached the 21st century, but that doesn’t mean that the sensibilities of young adults has necessarily changed along with the times.

Interesting in and of itself rather than for its “story” in the first instance, Beeswax is a highly enjoyable film about an awkward, intelligent, “real” set of individuals who are ruled and conflicted by their own ignominy. Simple and brilliant.

One of the more coveted films for me in this year’s festival line-up, Life During Wartime has been a long time coming and, moreover, after the disappointment that went with both Storytelling (2001) and Palindromes (2004), was hopefully going to be something of a saving grace for Solondz in his otherwise enjoyably nihilistic, yet increasingly overlooked, oeuvre. Despite a large proportion of the popular response post-screening being negative (many disappointed when the same dizzying heights of Happiness didn’t ensue), Life During Wartime is actually a very good sequel and still indulgently dark humoured fare.

Told from the outset that “sometimes it’s better not to understand” one could be forgiven for thinking that Solondz was excusing his last feature release, Palindromes, a film which many found confusing and irreverent.

The stark, biting dialogue that Solondz is known for is ever-present as he showcases the hysteria of traditional “family values” and an innate human inability to communicate and connect on any truly meaningful or remotely honest level. The use of colour (and the mise-en-scene more generally) is bold and telling; each shot perfectly framed, each character’s flaws further explicated through their harsh surroundings. The stereotypes are well overdrawn and the replacement cast perform brilliantly, Ally Sheedy deserving a special mention for absolutely nailing Lara Flynn Boyle’s already fantastic version of Joy Jordan.

Thematically contemplative about the ability of individuals to “forgive and forget”, the film thinks through the characters lives as comparable to enduring wartime: the constant ethical questioning of moral judgements. There is a strong suggestion from the film that we ought to “just keep pretending” as ultimately “nothing works, it just goes on forever.” And if to “forgive and forget” is like to “freedom and democracy” then indeed it is a justified suggestion of Solondz’ that we do, and ought to continue, to pretend. Intelligent, thoughtful, dark and depressing, Life During Wartime isn’t Happiness but it is a damn good film.

Documenting filmmaker Ariel Schulman’s brother Nev, a twenty-four year old photographer, and his incredibly funny yet incredibly sad experience of taking a Facebook “friend” to the next level, Catfish is about the fundamental desire we have to connect with other human beings. Now, the idea of finding interesting people via social networking sites and later meeting them in real life isn’t exactly foreign to me (hi to the many friendly twitter folk I’ve met during MIFF), however, Nev’s “connections” happen in a very different – and far more intense – manner than most of us (I at least speak for myself here) are familiar with.

Connecting first with an eight-year-old girl named Abby who is a talented painter, followed by correspondence with her mother Angela and finally “friending” Abby’s beautiful, older, dancer/singer-songwriter sister Megan, Nev has found himself a “Facebook family.” A seemingly great connection with an interesting and artistic family, Nev is happy to call, email and Facebook the entire family and their friends - until Megan records and posts a song that sounds suspiciously similar to a professional post on YouTube – suddenly it becomes clear that at least one of member of the family isn’t all she says she is…

Exposing a sad individual for the pathological liar she is comes across as a fault that resides ultimately with both parties; Nev’s involvement being implicit despite his naiveté to the contrary, “They didn’t fool me, they just told me things I didn’t care to question.” Handling the apparent situation with more than the appropriate level of tact and kindness it warrants, Catfish is a film that hopes to warn the gullible and lecture the weak. Entertaining if inconsequential viewing.

The film focuses predominantly on the lead up to the election in the country’s capital city, Tehran. A place that is home to some 17 million people and has been fighting for its freedom for 100 years, Tehran is described as “A city full of tears.” A continuous cycle of hope and deflation is subsequently expressed as both clinically depressing and infinite as, “Every four years we all get our hopes up…[then[ we lose everything.” Much of the documentary is informed by a young woman’s (Ava) disillusioned perspective through her search for medical help to ” Please stop this nightmare.” In a country where women can’t become president and where Ava’s work as a theatre director is politically banned, she is left to feel both politically and emotionally deflated. Proclaiming “Happiness is forbidden here”, Ava continues to work on her theatre pieces regardless, strongly reiterating the crime against humanity that is an endless cycle of hope (rehearsing) without victory (performance).

Essential but not easy viewing, Green Days is a brave piece of filmmaking that everyone who considers themselves remotely humanist really ought to see.

Only minutes in, the theoretical foundations for the film were heavily and self-consciously laid: the copy leads to the original which certifies its value. Fine. Certifying the authenticity of a work is paramount yet “It’d be stupid of us to ruin our lives for an ideal.” Thus commenced the intense, yet still somewhat empty, one and three-quarter hour romantic/painful exchange between lovers/strangers Elle (Juliette Binoche) and James (William Shimmer). Whether or not their relationship with one another is an “authentic original” or a mere “certified copy” of one is absolutely irrelevant as either way it is valuable and bears connection to the original. In this way Kiarostami seems to be saying that all human relationships are authentic, insofar as they bear connection to an original through their very existence. An interesting and provocative idea indeed, but not wildly complex. It is at this point where the film begins to fall apart. Having coffee, wine and incessant conversation, Certified Copy resembles a bad blind date and, what’s worse, wades into the realm of sedative cinema.

Formally the film is excellent; production values are high all round, it’s visually stunning and polished to a T. Still, there is not enough left to mystery, ambiguity, rendering the film somewhat one-dimensional and ultimately therefore, a little cold. A good film for all intents and purposes, and not at all without merit, Certified Copy is worth a look but it’s just not all that it ought to be.

From simply trying to get by in poverty-stricken rural China to accepting illegal activities as her necessary financier, then fighting the infinite red tape of bureaucratic Old Blighty and ultimately accepting the alienation of her new life; not belonging to country, culture or diaspora; She, A Chinese (2009) offers one individual’s story which speaks for many; each of Mei’s encounters troubling and trying, leaving sadness and bitterness in their wake.

Beautifully shot, scored, and paced, She, A Chinese is an exceptionally well executed piece of contemporary cinematic realism, stunning and affective through its sombre tone and stark mise-en-scene. A subtly provocative film.

There is an entire generation who believe that the greatest achievement in life is fame and furthermore that being seen on television is a form of validation because it means others will “remember” you – rendering you (in a manner of speaking) “immortal”. Belief in this ludicrous notion is what continues to keep those of low social-economic standing repressed, something the likes of Silvio Berlusconi and Lele Mora know all too well. Berlusconi, the current Prime Minister of Italy, also owns 90% of Italian television media, a devastating conflict of interests, but one that helps to successfully breed the controlled climate that produces such questions from ”average citizens” like, “Why should I have to be a mechanic all my life?” By giving the masses an “aspiration” of this kind, those in power distract and mask the corruption within the political system, focussing the masses on achieving within it rather than challenging it.

Filled with a plethora of dirty facts such as “the minister for gender equality was a former showgirl”; and a ream of baffling ideologies; “I’m like Robin Hood, I rob from the rich, but instead of giving to the poor, I give to myself”; Videocracy is an important and blunt reminder that we are far from “free”.

• Jury Special Mention: Out of Love (2009)
• Melbourne International Film Festival for Best Experimental Short Film: Long Live the New Flesh (2009)
• Melbourne International Film Festival for Best Animation Short Film: Angry Man (2009)
• Melbourne International Film Festival for Best Documentary Short Film: The Mystery of Flying Kicks (2009)
• Cinema Nova for Best Fiction Short Film: Autumn Man (2009)
• Melbourne Airport Award for Emerging Australian Filmmaker: The Kiss (2010)
• Film Victoria Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film: Franswa Sharl (2009)
• City Of Melbourne Grand Prix for Best Short Film: The Lost Thing (2010)

Somewhat disappointingly they didn’t quite have enough time to show all the shorts (although I dare say that if they’d cut some of the comedy intro – no offense to Colin Lane intended – along with the absolutely pointless “montage” of shorts’ opening credits that some poor bastard spend time needlessly editing together, then they could have fit them all in), but the majority of those shown were of a very high standard.

First up was The Kiss, a well observed Australian “coming of age” dramatic short that was well shot and suitably atmospheric.

Next was the fascinating documentary surrounding the act of “shoe tossing” which illuminates a number of global theories on the “origin” and “meaning” behind the phenomenon. Amongst the reasons cited are; marking the loss of one’s virginity; signaling a crack house; indicating gang territory; a sign of bullying and performance art. Using mixed media and with a strong but not omniscient voice, The Mystery of Flying Kicks is a tidy little film with peculiar yet intriguing subject matter.

The less said about Franswa Sharl the better – let’s just leave it at this: sometimes it seems Australian filmmakers don’t know where the line is – no matter what the motivation, an intentionally comedic character who “blacks up” is wildly inappropriate and always offensive.

Finally, The Lost Thing: a sweet, endearing, well animated tale about individuality and imagination. A kind, subtle metaphor for the anomalous nature of pure imagination within an industrial cityscape: “A place you wouldn’t know exists.”

Thomas Caldwell said it best in his brief intro when he urged the filmmakers present, “Please continue to make films that are true to your own visions because they’re going to be the good ones.” Just so long as they can leave the racial offenses aside, I wholeheartedly agree.

At a wee fifty-seven minutes long, Nakamats is just about as short and sweet as it gets. The documentary follows Japanese inventor Dr Nakamatsu whose thousands of patents include just about everything from the bizarre (but apparently effective) Love Jet (a type of “Viagra spray”) to the well-known and widely used Floppy Disk. Indeed the descriptions and demonstrations of his inventions are entertaining and fascinating in and of themselves, but really it’s the man who makes the movie…

Dr Nakamatsu is one of those incredibly endearing individuals who just about maintains the right kind of balance between genius and insanity. Keeping himself “active, aggressive, strong” through the use of many of his own crackpot inventions, an absolute maximum of four hours sleep a night and an unparalleled belief that 0.5 seconds before death is the optimum moment for brain activity and thus invention, Dr Nakamatsu reaches the ripe old age of 80 and not only hopes, but honestly anticipates, living to around about 143.

For some of the strangest yet most wonderfully wild mantras you’ll ever hear, including his “criteria” for buying a camera; “I smell the camera. Good smell is good camera. Bad smell or no smell, that is bad camera.”; The Invention of Dr Nakamats is an absolute must-see.

The Invention of Dr Nakamats is screening as part of the Flawed Geniuses strand of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again Sunday August 08 7pm at Greater Union Cinema 4.

Flyscreen (2010) / Richard Tuohy / Australia /8 min.

Working with 16mm film using the rayogram technique and optical sound, Richard Tuohy (part of the Artist Film Workshop) creates a successfully claustrophobic and atmospheric work. The flyscreens themselves simile the individual frames that make up the moving image and the optical sound of the screens emulate both the buzzing of an actual fly and the low drone of a film projector. It’s refreshing and exciting to see that there are still filmmakers out there who care about and are interested in experimenting with actual film.

Friedl vom Groller  (2009) / Austria / 8 min.

Passage Briare: A silent, black and white document of a middle-aged heterosexual couple reveals the simplistic beauty behind the human experience of (an)other.

Hen Night: A group of six women staring at the camera represent the reflected artifice and construction that appear in cinema and everyday life alike.

Wedding: A naked couple sit by one another facing the camera in what is shown to be a moment of “honesty”, transcending “seemlessness”. Simple yet beautiful.

Kitchen Horror (2009) / David Short / Australia / 4 min.

Using science and mathematics to inform its representation of the horrors hidden within a typically domestic space, Kitchen Horror is most interesting for its use of sound in illuminating the extraction of spacial ideological anomalies.

Palm D’Or (2009) / Siegfried A Fruhauf / Austria / 9 min.

The blurring of a fractured, fragmented crowd of people and places set to a sort of “white noise” soundtrack disorient and remove the viewer from a process of identification with the subject in this well executed black and white short.

Parallax (2009) / Inger Lise Hansen / Austria & Norway / 5 min.

A simply yet cleverly inverted image shows how the earth struggles to achieve its “natural movement”; suffering under the unnatural weight of human industry.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog (2009) / Johann Lurf / Austria / 3 min.

Through framing film frame and showing sound, Lurf confronts his viewer with the very nature of the object they are viewing.

Long Live the New Flesh (2009) / Nicolas Provost / Belgium / 14 min.

Using CGI (computer generated imaging) to alter and enhance visceral sequences from famous horror films, Provost creates a new texture – or “flesh” – for the image. From conventional suspense horrors such as The Shining (1980) and Drag Me to Hell (2009) to Cronenberg body-horrors like Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986), Provost takes an experimental art form and makes it both contemporary and accessible to wider audiences. Although some of the images are quite beautiful the medium itself is disappointng; pixelation and computerised sound ultimately render it more like to a computer game than “film”.

Flag Mountain (2010) / John Smith / UK / 8 min.

Presenting a strong image of a liminal border space, Flag Mountain looks at a literal and ideological imprinting of nationhood upon the physical landscape.

Strips (2010) / Felix Dufour / Canada / 6 min.

Segmenting the image into “strips” we watch a woman “strip”. The cutting up of the woman and the image hark back to Laura Mulvey’s seminal article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Nothing new, but effective nonetheless.

Still in Cosmos (2009) / Makino Takashi / Japan / 19 min.

Matched to a soundtrack by Jim O’Rourke, Still in Cosmos shows scratched and deteriorating images that reflect the universe. Distorting the original photography it slowly reveals glimpses of nature and straddles the boundary between a Kantian understanding of beauty and the sublime.

Finally, whilst the program could be described as Austrian-heavy (hardly surprising when Austria is where pretty much most of the most interesting and cutting edge experimenta comes from), what was (pleasantly) surprising for me was to see Australian experimenta not only feature but contend in such an established program.

Behind the opening credits are pieces of history; postcards written in English from inside Nanking by John Rabe (a member of the Nazi party who tried to protect many Chinese refugees during Japanese occupation through the establishment of the “Nanking Safety Zone”.) The handwritten words on the postcards reflect desperation but not hopelessness. Sadly, the images and events that follow unravel so as to leave no room for hope; merciless and relentless in their revealing of many truly horrific crimes against humanity. Like a tide pulling out from the shore, waves of Chinese civilians are massacred; shot, beheaded as a form of trophy-ism, buried alive. In addition to the massacres, thousands of women were repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers. Even hope itself is symbolically taken from the Chinese citizens of Nanjing when Kadokawa (Hideo Nakaizumi) – the most likely soldier to have a moral and ethical conscience – takes away Mrs Tang’s rosary beads.

Visually the film is incredibly convincing, the attention to detail and the texture of the images deeply affecting. It is occasionally let down by intermittent overly melodramatic exchanges which unfortunately can’t help but recall that overwrought final scene in Schindler’s List (1993).Considering at its heart the notion that, “Life is more difficult than Death” and contemplating the finiteness of the “death drive”: “Everyone dies in the End”, City of Life and Death shows how a war zone necessarily becomes a liminal space – suspended between life and death – leaving only victims in its wake. Brilliant filmmaking and essential viewing.

City of Life and Death screened as part of this year’s MIFF.

Now this is the bit where I admit to not having read the book, an admission I imagine is met with a plethora of “tsks” and shaking heads from the pedants amongst LV’s readership. But to your “tsks” and shaking heads I say this: it is irrelevant for two basic reasons; 1) the film was not made with the intent of being seen by only the relative number of people who have read the book (even with wide readership this is limiting when one considers that it is the primary aim of film distributors to make money, ergo this would be counter-distributor-intuitive) and 2) because a film has to be able to stand up on its own regardless of its “source material”. So, despite my being assured that for the most part the film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel (I have pedant friends who keep me well-informed I’ll have you know), I have it on good authority that the one thing evading the film is the novel’s successfully “oppressive, sweaty, horrible tone” (Anthony Morris.)

The atonal tale itself is of Lou Ford (expertly performed by Casey Affleck), a self-professed “man and a gentleman” who happens also to harbour sociopathic and insatiably sadist desires that confuse pleasure and pain with love and vengeance. And whilst this makes for a fascinating premise, its execution is only successful up unto a point. Preferencing aesthetics above tone, The Killer Inside Me is occasionally brutal in its visual violence though never actually dark in depiction. But perhaps leaving the audience as cold as what witnessing the narrative actions of a sociopath ought is the intent behind the adaptation- in which case I’d say choosing Winterbottom to direct was an absolutely smashing idea.

The Killer Inside Me screens as part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Monday August 02, 9.15pm at the Forum Theatre.

As someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy what might be considered “passive” cinema, I find the challenge of unpacking something so incredibly dense, theoretically and philosophically loaded to be a rewarding, yet still arduous, task. If there was even an inkling of doubt in anyone’s mind as to the complexity of the ideas in Film Socialisme, these were immediately dispelled as the title credits flashed up on-screen, revealing the involvement of one Alain Badiou. It was clear already that this film would at the very least contemplate the role of individual subjectivity within its greater contemporary global social context. Heavily layered and somewhat aesthetically manic, Film Socialisme is a commentary on the way in which we negotiate our global existence and a question over the ethics of our actions and experiences.

It begins on a cruise ship and follows a type of segmented forward trajectory that explicates Godard’s Euro-centric view on the ethics of international tourism. The partial, stilted, subtitled translation throughout employed to further implicate and alienate western audiences, put perfectly through the sarcastic words of a child, “It’s true if it’s in English.” There are three main “chapters” to the film; Des Choses comme ca (Such Things), Notre Europe (Our Europe) and Nos Humanites (Our Humanities) and six specific locations; Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona. The “chapters” separate the three main themes in the film; human interest in indulgent, superfluous and postmodern activities; the conscience of Euro-centric socialism; and the ethical question as it pertains to a philosophical consideration of “humanity”.

Film Socialisme opens with conversation surrounding “white Algiers” against visuals of a tumultuous sea; the frothing white at the surface looking markedly out-of-place in an otherwise natural, calm environment. This level of subtle metaphor is sustained throughout the film and, even if your French is so pitiful as my own, the correlation between dialogue and image is always apparent, though visual tone certainly takes precedence in the context of the overall “moral project” of the film. There is constant reference made to “currency” and the notion of “exchange” that capitalist success is built upon as well a clear critique of the consequences of misunderstanding and misinterpretation due to a global preference and reliance upon language rather than images and actions. Certainly in my mind at least, it seems Godard’s latest film is informed by a Levinasian ethics of the Other and the “face-to-face” encounter he speaks of (see Colin Davis’ Levinas: An Introduction).

Featuring images from Sergei Eisenstein’s famous and acclaimed Battleship Potemkin (1925) amongst a plethora of other historical and archive footage, the film culminates in a succession of bold imagery that homages Soviet montage and aims to shock its audience into consciousness. Claiming “smiles dismiss the universe”, Godard is claiming in no uncertain terms that we shouldn’t approach places and people of historical significance with such flippancy and personal pleasure as is attributable to the act of tourism for it inherently denies historical comprehension and unethically annihilates the Other.

Anything but easy viewing, Film Socialisme is a lot of things – and not all of them are necessarily good. Demanding its audience participate in an “active” viewing experience, it is in my mind an achievement in contemporary cinema (even if it is occasionally flawed and pretentious.) But most importantly, if you’re going to see it, I urge you, don’t walk out! In doing so you’re only confirming Godard’s condescension. Great film, smug bastard.

Film Socialisme is screening as part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again Friday July 30, 2.30pm and Saturday August 07, 4.45pm in ACMI 2.

But for those of you who can disavow deep enough to let this detail slide, the film will be fairly decent. It’s a straight forward drama offering a grim picture of UK social care that is in some ways fair but also very one-dimensional, failing to properly explicate or elucidate issues surrounding resources and infrastructure. Welfare in the UK is not strictly social issue as it is inherently linked to greater political and economic concerns.

The strongest performance (and indeed character) in the film is Lauren Socha who is both believable and compelling in all her scenes, the only problem then being her constant outshining of the other cast members. Originally made for TV in the UK (and best left there), The Unloved is disappointingly less informative or moving than a simple stroll around pretty much any council estate anywhere in England. One for the middle-classes, innit.

The Unloved screens as part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Monday August 02 2010, 7pm at The Forum.

Homecoming (2005, 58 mins)

This is the most relentlessly self-conscious and blatantly subversive zombie schlock flick I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing. Featuring sensationally drawn republican sycophants up against a bunch of military soldier “zombie dissidents” whose motivation to return undead has absolutely nothing to do with the desire to eat people or even to “infect” them, but comes rather from the great compulsion to exercise their democratic right to vote against the very administration that needlessly sent them to their deaths in the search for a bunch of made up WMDs. With a script so incredibly sassy that you’ll barely have time to finish laughing at one line of dialogue before you starting cracking up at the next, Homecoming is a film where one cheap shot constantly and hilariously supercedes the last.

It ‘s a Good Life (1983, 26 mins)

This might in fact be the very best thing I’ve seen at the festival so far. When the film started up I began to experience a pang of nostalgia and some kinda creepy deja vu. Then I realised that here was a film I have seen somewhere around twenty or thirty times (at least) in my childhood and that used to absolutely scare the crap out of me. The opportunity to see it on film, and on a big screen, well, that sure was something. The story is a simple one; Helen Foley is a school teacher whose life is ruled by “sameness” and who endlessly waits “for something different to happen”. Following an “accident” outside a highway diner, Helen drives the young boy involved home, stopping in to meet his “family” for just a moment… But Anthony is no ordinary boy and his “special powers” stretch the limits of reality in this imaginative and terrifying installment of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone series.

Lightning (1995, 31 mins)

This was, unfortunately, the weakest film in the program. Not all together terrible but certainly paling in comparison to the two films that came before, Lightning is an old-fashioned tale about greed and comeuppance. Very straight forward, narrative and moral, Lightning ought to be daytime tele fodder programmed alongside the likes of Little House on the Prairie (1974-1982).

Homecoming, It’s a Good Life and Lightning are screening as part of the Joe Dante retrospective program of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Saturday July 31 2010, 4.45pm in ACMI 2.

Mun-Kyeong and Jung-Sik are old friends who meet up after not having seen each other for a considerable period of time. Taking turns to tell “their” stories, they relay tales of women and events that have recently shaped and affected their respective lives; a rich tapestry of an image building, slowly revealing a greater overarching narrative.

Highly self-conscious, the film constantly makes reference to history and historical comprehension; the way in which an image is afforded with qualities according to its viewer’s contextual understanding; how “history is full of fabrications”; how mythology and folklore are born with words that “spread like wildfire”; the impossibility of ever really seeing things “as they truly are”, and so on.

But for all its worthy rhetoric, Hahaha isn’t a strictly cerebral film. In fact, it best suits the generic and entertainment label of “comedy” in the first instance. Well developed characters performed by some very clearly talented comedy actors in accordance with an incredibly witty script make this a genuinely funny, laugh out loud film. As enjoyable as it is intelligent, Hahaha is a sure festival highlight.

Hahaha screens as a part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Saturday August 07 2010, 2.30pm in Greater Union Cinema 3.

The story centres around the complex relationship between a timid young woman Eun-mo and her emotionally wrought brother-in-law Joong-Shik. Their character flaws and personal failings set against the backdrop of a poverty-stricken city run by corrupt “gangsters” that is physically falling apart at every cornerstone. The political content is certainly not absent and the city plays as large a role in the film as its two leads; their actions and afflictions dialectically linked.

A film that holds more than enough to benefit from second and possibly even third viewings, Paju is as involving as it is moving, leaving an eerie yet somehow necessary emptiness in its wake. A fine filmic example of contemporary psychogeography.

Paju screens as a part of this year’s MIFF and is screening again on Friday July 30 2010, 4.45pm, Palace Kino.

Dawn O’Neil (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a strong-willed woman left emotionally devastated and physically alienated in the Australian countryside following her husband’s sudden heart attack and subsequent death. On top of it all she has four kids to consider. When only daughter, and self-professed “dad’s favourite” Simone confides in her mother that she’s found a way of communicating with her dead father, Dawn’s outlook alters. The two then spend much of their spare time sat in the tree confiding in the supposed spirit of their lost loved one. As the family try to move on and rebuild their lives the tree and the memory they hold all too dear becomes a hinderance; literally and figuratively destroying their home and tearing the cohesion of their family unit apart.

Charlotte Gainsbourg gives a fantastic performance as always in what is essentially a very decent drama. Centred around a gentle metaphor (though occasionally erring on too sentimental) the vision is beautiful and the character relationships genuinely compelling. Not a film to change your life but an engaging enough effort and a well observed view of the rural landscape it’s set against.

The Tree screens as part of this year’s MIFF and is screening again on Saturday July 31 2010, 4.45pm in Greater Union cinema 3.

When Cheryl’s boyfriend Stew finally pops the question, her happiness is put on hold after she entertains the idea of telling her entirely too enthusiastic mother who has incidentally been scouring garage sales for years collecting crass second-hand items (including particularly tacky miniature garden gnome place settings), for her only daughter’s much-anticipated “big day”. Forcing her fiance, father and friends to keep schtum about it until she is melodramatically ”ready”, her mother Jill unwittingly finds out about both the engagement and Cheryl’s embarrassment at her mother’s bargain basement booty (of course) from an arch nemesis style work colleague. What ensues is the necessary breakdown of mother/daughter relationship followed in quick succession by its antithetical rebuilding.

Although this film is aimed towards mother/daughter duos in the first instance, it does transcend this boundary somewhat in its entirely humanist and enjoyably good-humoured approach. It manages on occasion to situate itself slightly left of field so as to avoid becoming an otherwise all too standard sentimental genre film. The premise is less interesting than its execution and the performances are suitably strong making this indie popcorn flick an entertaining romp but not a whole lot more.

Second Hand Wedding will be released in Australian cinemas through Potential Films on Thursday July 29 2010.

As the inexplicable sheriff points out, a lot of great cinema is predicated upon a basis of “no reason” and apparently Rubber is “an homage to the no reason; a powerful film of style.” This is absolutely true and what follows is the ridiculously self-conscious and self-reflexive “story” of a killer tyre. From water bottle to glass bottle to bird, this tyre is out to kill with its incredible telekinetic capabilities.

It is indeed a matter of substance over style but it is also acknowledged ad nauseum so you can’t exactly critique it based on that one issue alone. My only real reservation is that the film becomes a little tedious, too acutely aware of itself and yet still somehow not quite aware that it would have worked somewhat better as a short. Certainly one for the cult audiences, Rubber is an entertaining exercise in contemporary counter-cinema and, simultaneously despite and because of its flaws, it’s worth what it requires of your attention.

Rubber is screening as part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Monday 02 August 2010, 9.15pm, Greater Union cinema 4 and Saturday 07 August, 11pm, Cinema Nova.

Young couple Beth (Geraldine Hakewill) and Harry (Henry James) decide to take a ten-day break where they can truly relax, and where better for a romantic love-in than a remote island sans communicado? At first their holiday is great but as the night’s close in it becomes increasingly clear that they are not on the island alone. The discovery of an eerily hidden hut that colonial history left behind and its in tact visitor book filled with entries motivated solely by fear, the couple find themselves up against a relentlessly vengeful spirit determined not to let them get off the island alive.

Visually stunning and a thematically thoughtful dramatic-thriller, Uninhabited displays and confirms many of Bennett’s filmmaking talents. It is however disappointingly let down by a weak script and some not so hot acting from its leads. An interesting development in Bennett’s oeuvre and one for his fans to catch, Uninhabited ultimately plateaus at average.

Uninhabited screens as part of this year’s MIFF and is screening again as part of the Late Night at Nova Program 2 on Saturday July 31 2010, 11pm

Moving with ease and precision from an aesthetic of the real to a more seemless, airbrushed view, The Housemaid offers an immediate illustration of Korea’s dramatic socio-economic disparities; a sombre picture indeed. Eun-yi (Do-yeon Jeon) is a young woman struggling to get by until she is taken on as a “housemaid” (or nanny) by an obsequiously wealthy young family. The tragedies truly begin when a naive Eun-yi’s clear lack of social sophistication and presents itself to her cruel employers. 

Operating perfectly on every level, The Housemaid is an engrossing drama, a successful allegory and, at times, a haunting black comedy. Im Sang-Soo directs outstanding performances from all of his actors, their acute emotion so intense it’s almost palpable. The mise-en-scene is accurately and carefully detailed, revealing the intense decadence and abhorrent waste of the social elite. Shown alongside an earnest but bleak depiction of Korea’s extreme poverty, the film is appropriately rousing, the demonstration of power abuse absolutely chilling. A stand-out achievement in its truly affecting tone and style, The Housemaid is one to make time for.

The Housemaid screens as part of this year’s MIFF and is screening again Monday 26 July 2010, 9.15pm at The Forum.

Occasionally clumsy but when at its best a form of flattery for the likes of Peter Jackson and David Cronenberg in its comic gross-out moments (though they are too few and far between), Splice (2009) is a successfully commercial and fun horror-schlock flick. To be taken with a generous pinch of salt, Splice sustains its duration with good humour. A sure highlight is the sight of their jarred and pickled failed experiments in a lab cabinet, the names of which include; Sid and Nancy, Bonnie and Clyde and Bogie and Bacall. This, just after they’ve bickered over the naming of their newest progeny; Fred or Marvin and Ginger?

The early imaging of Dren is fantastic; her foetus stage resembling the sick “baby” from David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1976); something like a chicken crossed with a penis. As she matures however she grows to look very much like a full human, which reveals the limitations (and no doubt expenses) of CGI as much as it does the make-up artistry. But it’s nice to see Sarah Polley return to a genre she suits and Adrien Brody certainly makes for a perfect nerdy nice guy. Great entertainment, although not a whole lot more, it’s well worth your time and the admission.

Splice screens as a part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Sunday 01 August 2010, 9.15pm, Greater Union Cinema 6.

Unfortunately the metaphor for an empty life and even the secondary layer of film being a substitute for experience, is just a little too straight forward and the doll’s role as a “substitute” is annoyingly reiterated at every opportune moment throughout the film. Perhaps if it had been more explorative of the notion of animation and if the subtext were subtler it would have had something of a fighting chance; as it stands the film is sweet and thoughtful at best. There are one or two stand out narrative developments that border on interesting but ultimately return to safe ground, the result of which is that the it often feels as though it is consciously trying just a bit too hard to fit an established mould of “meditative” and “well-observed” art house cinema, which to be honest, is tiresome.

The idea itself is indeed a good one and immediately recalls the sweet, sensitive feel-good success of Lars and the Real Girl (2007), but unfortunately Air Doll is just not as altogether tidy nor as tonally endearing in execution. There are a series of secondary characters in the film that just don’t need to be there because they aren’t developed well enough and the result is that many of the scenes involving them tend to feel slow and unnecessary. I suspect that if it had have been a thirty minute short it could have been brilliant. Not at all a complete waste of time, but certainly not all it could be, Air Doll has moments of beauty and occasional originality.

Air Doll screens as a part of this year’s MIFF and will be screening again on Saturday 01 August 2010, 9.15pm, Greater Union Cinema 3.

The Kids Are All Right opens to a track by Vampire Weekend and the rhythmic pace of a couple of teenage boys skateboarding and bmxing around suburban streets, already an indication that Cholodenko’s return to celluloid is going to be vibrant and energetic. And it absolutely is, her style matured rather than changed, but enough for the film to be considered by many (including IMDB and Hopscotch) as a comedy in the first instance (although really it’s far better described as a drama with a witty script) and significantly, to welcome new and more mainstream, heteronormative audiences to her viewership.

It is with good humour that Cholodenko throws an occasional line to her critics, having Julianne Moore comment upon the “inauthenticity” of lesbian representation by straight women in porn films and she hasn’t given up her much criticised use of overly intelligent and thoughtful dialogue neither; “It hasn’t risen to the plane of consciousness yet for you” and “We just talked conceptually.” (Although there isn’t so much mention of the likes of Roland Barthes in this one!)

Personally, I love how much time she takes with the “real” moments between her leads; the awkward, uncomfortable, and sometimes complete lack of sexiness, that comes with undressing to fuck in a hurry. Also, the tension is so fantastically explored that it becomes palpable, even in a packed theatre. It is with earnest that I say this is the first film to bring a tear to my eye in years; its penultimate scene incredibly moving.

The premise for the film centres around lesbian couple Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) who each gave birth to a child using sperm from the same donor. When the eldest child reaches eighteen she makes contact with her biological father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Paul’s presence in both the kids’ and the mums’ lives complicates and changes things for everyone dramatically. If you have a sense of humour and a heart then you ought to make sure you see this film because it’s absolutely bursting with both.

The Kids Are All Right is distributed through Hopscotch Films and is released in Australia September 02 2010. But if you can’t quite wait that long then you can catch it at MIFF Saturday 24 July 2010, 2.30pm and Tuesday 27 July 2010, 9.15pm

The official launch for the program was held last night at Melbourne’s Loop Bar (and it ought to be said that their screening room, whilst small, houses some unbelievably comfortable sofas) where Episode 2 rather than Episode 1 was screened. Although this might sound like a strange decision it really only acted to further cement, in my mind at least, that the creators of the show are appropriately bonkers enough to have created a product that is as honest as it is left-field. And if there was remaining even a fraction of doubt as to the sincerity of the project, a humble to the point of almost non-existent introduction to the screening only further confirmed my suspicions that the show would be anything but contrived.

And it wasn’t. Morningshines consists of a series of studio skits performed by “Steve and Mike” who are satiristically posited as incompetent television hosts intercut with a healthy number of sketches that act as “segments” in its parodic ”morning show” format. Clearly influenced by the likes of Armando Iannucci, Chris Morris and Alan Partridge; the humour is simultaneously sharp, ballsy and self-effacing. A welcome change to the typical trite you see on terrestrial tele, Morningshines is fresh and dynamic and I highly recommend tuning in when it airs.

Morningshines will air Fridays at 10pm from August 6 2010 on Channel 31. Click here  to watch the official teaser trailer.

You can view the trailer here:

This ruling has been awarded and made public not two days before the festival gets under way, and in fact, just one day before opening night celebrations. But beyond the outrage and affront that film fans and critics across the city are no doubt feeling this morning (myself included) the decision seems completely baffling and, what’s more, an absolute embarrassment. In the official MIFF festival program, under Admission Conditions, it clearly states, “The Classification Board has granted MIFF special customs and censorship clearances. Except where indicated, it is forbidden to allow anyone under 18 (including infants) to attend sessions.” (MIFF festival program, page 7.) So, according to the OFLC and MIFF, no one under the legal age of 18 could possibly see the film in question, already giving it an R rating of sorts. Furthermore, according to the OFLC, the film festival is considered to be a “special” event thus requiring “special customs and censorship clearances”. Presumably this is due to film festivals attracting, for the most part, critics, cinephiles and cine-literate audiences who a) are able to decide for themselves what content is suitable for their own personal viewing and b) who wish to sample some of the most diverse and challenging modes of cinema from around the world. Yet McDonald’s decision to ban L.A. Zombie seems to tear these very principles apart, ironically, with the same mindless ferocity one can only imagine (as we sure as hell aren’t going to be allowed to see it) a zombie corpse doing to its prey.

Finally, as if it even needed defending, the good people at MIFF have had the presence of mind to provide a disclaimer and warning, in bold no less; “Contains scenes that will offend“; just in case you’re a somewhat delicate flower who hopes to watch nothing but rainbows and sunshine at this year’s festival and you somehow stumbled across the section entitled Night Shift yet were still unaware that this might be where confronting cult cinema resides.

So just in case there was any doubt in anyone’s minds that Australia was a back water two-bit hicksville mass of land full of bigots and tories, the OFLC have kindly stepped up to ensure everyone that we are. Thanks very much Mr McDonald, you’ve certainly done your bit to make sure this great country is considered, far and wide, completely culturally bankrupt. You cunt.

But first you must make a choice (as if selecting a limited number of screenings to attend weren’t hard enough) and pledge your allegiance to your favourite movie snack. That’s right, movie snack. You ought to already know that this year’s official MIFF trailer is a They Live (1988) alleyway style battle between  the two loveable rogue MIFF movie mascots, Popcorn and Choc Top. In fact, unless you’ve managed to somehow stay away from social networking sites for the past few days then you must have noticed their popping up all over the likes of twitter and facebook.

Personally, I don’t even see it as a contest. Popcorn vs Choc Top? Pfft. Allow me to provide you with five simple but sound reasons why Choc Top is clearly preferable to Popcorn.

1. Popcorn is crunchy and as such constitutes a noisy cinema snack. You gonna take popcorn with you when you go see Au Hasard Balthazar next Friday? I didn’t think so.
2. Popcorn kernels are often hard and fibrous causing ’bits’ to get stuck between your teeth. You gonna spend the hour following your screening of Enter The Void in the bathroom flossing or in the pub with your friends (talking it through therapy style)?
3. Having served my time as a cinema usher back in the day I am privy to what goes into making both popcorn and choc tops and I can’t speak for everyone but I’d rather a movie snack that was made with love to one that was made with eerily yellow fat and salt components.
4. The choc top is patriotic. No matter where you go in the world cinemas have popcorn, it’s standard. But only in the land of Aus (so far as I am aware at the time of publication anyway) can you get yourself a choc  top, it’s that special.
5. Finally, if you’re with friends (or just sat near someone you want to strike up a little conversation with) then you’d have to at least offer if not share your popcorn. But even a date wouldn’t dare ask for a bite of your choc top.

So now that you’ve heard it from the Choc Top lover’s mouth, go and vote already!

It is difficult to ascertain whether or not McCarthy’s choosing India as the location and “backdrop” is incidental or politically motivated. Purportedly based on “a number of Australian adoption experiences in India” (Screen Daily) it is entirely possible that the film is just very poorly timed in terms of the recent controversy surrounding Australian violence against Indian people in Victoria and NSW.  But whether or not there is a connection I dare say that the often generalised view of Indian people the film offers; charming yet somehow amusing and entertaining for their idiosyncratic naivety; admirable and yet somehow still puzzlingly simplistic in culture and thus outlook; is likely to be something of a sore point in its wider viewer reception. But when you really get down to it, India is just the film’s backdrop against which a white heteronormative couple face their only real problem in life: that they cannot procreate – a problem, as it so turns out, that they have themselves created.

Fiona (Radha Mitchell) and Ben (Joel Edgerton) Simmons are a married couple who are a) travelling to Kolkata to adopt a child and b) suffering a crisis in their relationship. Fiona is a highly strung, always preoccupied, almost-uber-bitch, business minded lawyer and Ben is a failed musician; the two extremes set against each other as a thinly veiled guise for how indulging in any extreme – be it corporate or creative – is an essential human fault. The premise of the film is that through the process of “waiting” (the pace of life and bureaucracy in India being much less efficient than in the converse western world) they find more of themselves and ultimately therefore, each other. The film is heavy on not so subtly suggestive dialogue, free spirit Ben telling Fiona, “Go on, jump in” at the poolside when she nears the precipice of loosening up, allowing life to “happen”, and undergoing a transparent, simultaneous wardrobe/life change.

Essentially, the two learn from their experience abroad that life is a journey rather than a destination, which, is absolutely fine, but not exactly insightful when even last week’s episode of Glee managed to draw this apparent life conclusion. Perhaps the biggest point of contention is whether or not the viewer is supposed to align him/herself with the two clueless, cliché ridden protagonists? If the answer is yes (which I strongly suspect it is) then the film is as uninteresting and impertinent as I’ve indicated. If however the answer is no, then it’s just possible that the film is attempting to (negatively) comment upon the well established stereotype of annoying westerners who go abroad to “find themselves” (certainly, at the very least, the character Scarlett so irritatingly played by Isabel Lucas must fit this mould.) However, it seems overall more likely that the viewer is “supposed” to identify with and have empathy for Ben and Fiona.

As it ebbs and flows between being respectful of Indian culture; showing, not laughing, at wedding tradition one minute then having Fiona literally and figuratively try on a culture as she veils herself to dance in front of a hotel mirror the next; so too does it sway between being something of a decent drama and a somewhat xenophobic piece of trite. Not one that I’d really recommend, its flaws ultimately outweighing its merits, The Waiting City is a disappointment in the first instance and it verges on being an embarrassment in the second.

The Waiting City will be released in Australia on July 15 2010 through Hopscotch Films.

There are two editions of the Festival Program: Popcorn & Choc Top

If for some reason you haven’t already got your hands on a copy (or worse yet, you are somehow unaware) then rush down to your local milk bar or supermarket and go pick up a copy of today’s The Age newspaper because inside is your free festival program and, depending on just how obsessed you are by the whole festival circuit and culture that it breeds, this is pretty much going to be your bible as you book and re-book in the coming days and weeks leading up to the festival.  

Of course it is practically impossible to predict what’s going to be worthy of one’s “best of the fest” just yet, but, brash as I’m feeling , I’d like to go ahead and give anyone who wants it my personal tips for selecting sessions from the guide. I am not however feeling foolishly brave enough to go through everything in the program, so do forgive me if I neglect a particular strand you’re personally passionate about. 

Special Events: 

As the title suggests, these events are special. Even if you can only make one, I would always recommend indulging in something from this unique selection because these kinds of opportunities are more often than not what make the individual year’s festival stand out in your mind. This writer is definitely excited about the Drive-In sessions that are going to take place down at Shed 4, Melbourne Docklands, specifically Program 1 as it includes Machete Maidens Unleashed (Mark Hartley, 2010), “Featuring interviews with Roger Corman, Joe Dante, John Landis, Eddie Romero and a host of filmmakers, actors and critics, each with a story about a genre with no scruples, no scripts, no boundaries and – more often than not – no clothes.” (MIFF festival program, page 13.) 

New Releases: 

The most important factor when booking sessions from the selection of ”new release” films, I believe, is to consider how long you will have to wait for its national release if you don’t go see it during the festival. For example, Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, 2010) doesn’t yet have an Australian release date set and is likely to get a limited release, so this is a great opportunity to see a film that might otherwise pass me by. Conversely, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright, 2010) is a more mainstream film that will no doubt get a general release and is due to hit cinemas just days after the festival closes on August 12 2010. But not all decisions are quite so simple, The Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom, 2010) which is due for release August 26 2010, not at all long after the festival closes, has certainly caused me some deliberation because I just can’t bear to wait even two weeks more for what looks like the most exciting film of the year. 

The Big Screen Factor: 

It is undoubtedly true that all films are better on the big screen, and yet, as we are often forced to choose between what we fork out for in cinemas and what we are willing to tolerate on our home systems, there has to be some consideration for films which are more deserving of the “big screen experience”. For example, it’s neither a “new” film nor a festival only type of screening, but I find myself desperate to see Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) as it screens at the Forum in this year’s Wild Things strand of the program. I have never seen this film and despite its being widely available to me, I have had no interest in watching it on either my laptop or television screen in a not entirely dark, inescapable room. On the flip side, my unwavering love for Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) and Gremlins 2 (1990) doesn’t actually mean that I will go see them during the festival: as awesome as they are, I am more than happy to watch them tucked up in bed on a small screen with the ability to pause and resume as and when I see fit. 

“Festival” Films: 

There are some films that are ONLY available to see within the confines of a film festival and you will not only not be able to track them down once the festival has come and gone but will most likely never even hear of their existence ever again (unless of course you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to see them at another film festival elsewhere in the world). These are predominantly, though not limited to, the Animation, Docos and Shorts strands of the festival. When and where else will you be able to see 85 minutes of international Experimental Shorts? For the gen Y out there I hear you say YouTube, but let’s be brutally honest, do you really want to watch something like flicker on your iPhone? 

Passion: 

At the end of the day, all the tips offered above matter little in comparison to what constitutes cinema for you. ’Cause if you don’t really want to see it, have an absolute passion for it, then it doesn’t matter if it’s a special, new, big or festive. Picking one’s sessions for a film festival is a deeply personal process and your final print-out of films ought to reflect that. 

Of course, that’s not going to stop this writer from cautioning the reader against going to see Chris Morris’ Four Lions (2010), because it’s probably the most disappointing film I’ve seen all year. With nothing but positive reviews from almost all of the British press upon its release, I was surprised to find that rather than satire it’s just one sort-of-funny (though more often offensive) joke poorly sustained for a 101 minute run-time. But this of course is just my humble opinion and, if you do decide to go see it during the festival, and what’s more you think it’s the most sophisticated satire of its kind, then come find me either in the bar, or comment on my blog, and we can hash it out because film festivals are, after all, about opening up discourse and conversation on film, and that’s what’s really exciting. 

It’s a Matter of Taste: If you want to get excited, you can watch the official festival trailer here:

Melbourne International Film Festival runs July 22 – August 8 2010 and tickets are on sale now.

Originally a series of five-minute episodes shown in blocks of fifteen to thirty minutes on television, the Belgium stop-motion claymation animation distributed by Aardman certainly makes a decent spinoff that successfully sustains its seventy-five minute feature-length run time.

The protagonists of the picture are Coboy (Cowboy), Indien (Indian) and Cheval (Horse), the three of whom live together with a dynamic something like The Odd Couple (1968), only with Mr Ed (1961-1966) thrown into the mix. Introducing its characters one by one, the film opens with individual house visits from the postman; the character who distributes and links the townsfolk to the outside world; a world shown clearly in the title sequence to be distinctly separate and apart from Panique, its form of animation one-dimensional and hand drawn; Panique a myriad of mad stop-motion claymation figurines, tangible and malleable in the first instance. After the characters have been introduced, the “story” begins.

Coboy and Indien have forgotten Cheval’s birthday and, as they panicking (though with purpose and apparent method) go about ordering 50 bricks to make him a BBQ, things begin to go awry. Their order, accidentally for 50 million bricks, arrives in time but its unnecessary and awkward excess soon ensconce their home and sets in motion a ludicrous set of causal problems beginning with the sinking of their house. What follows is a highly imaginative and amusing – almost anecdotal – account of the rebuilding of their home and, through that, the reinforcement of both the all important sense of community that the film is predicated upon as well as the entertainingly ironic central thread that panic and instinctual reaction which come from that community-first ethos set in motion the poorly thought out issues that ensue.

With everything you could possibly want from an animated feature; a giant penguin-mobile that throws massive snowballs at unsuspecting targets just for shits and giggles, operated by lazy, juvenile scientists (whose churlish sensibility juxtaposed against exceptional skill no doubt stands in for creators Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar); a central love story founded upon a shared passion for beautiful music; and unabashed though untranslated comical expletives that appear in what is supposedly a children’s film. Ultimately, it all comes down to one question: is there anything funnier than a stupidly high-pitched voice standing in for a claymation cowboy with ridiculously red lips screaming to excess, “Où est Cheval? Où est Cheval? Oh, merde!” My answer: I don’t think so. Any opportunity you get to see this spectacular animation, make sure you do it because it’s a real rare, raw pleasure.

Farewell is based upon true events and real life KGB defector Vladimir Vetrov whose information about Soviet intel of Western technology was given to NATO via French intelligence service DST, who allotted him the code-name ‘Farewell’. Vetrov’s name has been altered in the film to Sergei Gregoriev (expertly played by Emir Kusturica) as have, of course, some of the details of his life, particularly as they pertain to the circumstances surrounding his arrest. But factual details aside, what writer/director Christian Carion is clearly trying to achieve in the first instance is some semblance of compassion and empathy for the individuals who are so absolutely implicated in activities such as “exposing” other human beings, divulging information about “security” and “defense” in their pawn-like, yet pivotal, roles within the sticky web of international espionage.

Gregoriev’s direct, and significantly physical, tangible, animate contact is unassuming French amateur spy Pierre Froment (Guillaume Canet), a man whose methods and motivations are so naturalistic they are considered absurd within the world of espionage and, he is, as a direct result, seen to be “above suspicion”. His actions so juvenile that his first experience with top-secret documents leads to ridicule from his wife, “It’s not your concern. I married an engineer, not James Bond”; and subsequently to his building of a child-like fort in his own living room so as to photograph the documents privately and separately from said wife; the first of many marital betrayals, a form of deception and secrecy both men struggle to come to terms with throughout the film.

Farewell moves at a slowly escalating pace so that the deeper in the two men get, the more sensitive and revelatory the intel they gather and the more risk involved, the further out in the cold they become, both literally and figuratively. The film moves between seasons climaxing at the crux of winter; the blanket of snow now representing the absolute inescapability of their situations, its coverage too awesome for either one of them to defect or escape without being granted such a privilege from the powers that be. Estranged from their own families and able to talk to no one but each other – as they meet, ”out in the cold” - their only solace comes from the comforting words of European lyrics and poems (their enjoyment of Euro-centric culture and indulgences well-played against the younger generation’s fascination with western culture and imperialist capitalism), their only connection to the present moment and time one another.

Their relationship is so intense that Froment is unwilling to deal with the DTS without a guarantee that both he and Gregoriev will be safely allowed to live their lives as free men. Froment is granted a pass for him and his family to live in New York, America being the proverbial “land of the free”, but Gregoriev is none so lucky. In a perfectly shot sequence revealing double identities (pictured above) Froment confronts CIA officer Feeney (Willem Dafoe) questioning his ethical standpoint for allowing Gregoriev - the man who risked his life and gave everything to NATO – to be captured by the KGB. Spouting such clichés as “There can be no change without sacrifice” and “No democracy can survive without the trust of its institutions” Feeney lets Froment know in no uncertain terms that the concept of “Western Democracy” is indeed deeply hypocritical – and even deplorable when deconstructed to the level of implication for the individual – yet still, Feeney shows no remorse.

A carefully considered and well observed dramatic thriller, Farewell leaves its audience in a state of palpitation and reflection over its provocative moral project exploring the ethical implications for many individuals involved in the construction of fundamentally fascistic concepts such as “state security” and “national defense”. A fine film indeed.

Farewell is released in Australian cinemas on July 1 2010 through Hopscotch Films.

A young girl of just fourteen has consensual sex but is not of a legal age to be guardian to the child she carries. Naturally, it is her own mother who acts as legal guardian, putting the child up for adoption, believing it to be for the best. Everything that follows comes back to this moment, this decision, this choice. Mother and Child, carefully, yet decidedly, advocates the absolute and unquestionable bond between a mother and her biologically carried child, implicating in its wake that relationships not born of this physical connection are somehow inherently less significant and consequently more easily dissolved. Resultantly, the male figures in the film are there only as enablers for the women, whose relationships of worth are solely with their female offspring.

Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) is a self-assured woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. Her forward nature and abundance of confidence make her terrifyingly attractive to men and incredibly intimidating to other women. As I have already indicated, the men in the film are there strictly as enablers; Elizabeth proclaims that her quest for her biological parents concerns only the finding of her biological mother, “There is no they. A father’s not a part of my imagination.” As such, her boss, and lover, Paul (Samuel L Jackson) is submissive and easily coerced by whatever shots she calls; so it is the notion of a woman intimidating other women that is of interest here. Later, when Elizabeth visits a female doctor who tries (and fails) to endear herself, we learn that Elizabeth has had her tubes tied illegally, across the border, many years ago as a minor.  The hostility that follows makes apparent that it is her role as woman-who-cannot-procreate that truly terrifies the women who encounter her, reiterating her own declaration from the beginning of the film, “I’m not in the sisterhood, I’m my own person.” The  somewhat contentious point being that woman are not to be their “own” person in a singular way, rather, they are “naturally” heteronormative procreative beings defined through their gender as both mother and child. 

Karen (Annette Bening) is socially awkward and carriers her guilt, regret, pain and suffering around like the latest item of fashion. Her social ineptitude so extreme that she is at times comedic, though her character is for the most part understandably damaged and definitely pitiable. Her whole life is explained as a process of intense grief over the loss of her daughter coupled with the irreparably destructive relationship she had with her own mother; her existence deeply flawed and empty because these relationships were not cherished, the bond between mother and child destroyed.

Finally, Lucy is a woman who cannot have children and as such turns to adoption for hope of raising a child. The process of adoption is constantly called into question as is her ability to be a mother – the implication that becoming a mother is a “natural” occurrence and not a constructed relationship between two people. There is often mention of the theory that it is the “time spent” rather than the biological connection that marks the bond between mother and child, though this mention is always by someone whose credibility has already been undermined and whose authority and motivation for utterance is questionable at best. Subtle and careful in execution the final word is certainly that adoptive relationships are more difficult than “natural” ones and indeed that such relationships require a greater effort to work – the inference being that the best case scenario for a young mother is to keep her offspring and for blood line relatives of a child to be present in the experience of one’s life.

Then, at the crux of the film, returning to Elizabeth, she struggles with her earlier resolve to live an independent life and embarks upon a simultaneous search for mother and child. The moment she truly breaks down is when she stands in as Garcia’s authorial voice: inside a lift, Elizabeth’s blind neighbour Violet enters and Elizabeth remains hidden despite her being particularly and overwhelmingly upset by the sight of Violet trying to fend for herself, gently metaphoring the tragedy Garcia sees for children who are let out into the world without the guidance of a strong maternal figure.

It feels very much as though Garcia’s narrative aspires to the dizzying postmodern heights of Viriginia Woolf’s seminal text Mrs Dalloway, though it falls short due to both aesthetic and tonal choices that serve to maintain a strict level of commerciality. That said, the film is engaging and thoughtful in equal measure; its pitfalls forgivable when considering the work as a whole. Beyond the sometimes controversial and frequently contemplative motivational plot developments, it is the performances that drive the narrative forward: a sense of anticipation from Annette Bening’s perfectly hysterical yet believably remorseful role as the woman who was wronged by her mother and consequently wronged her own daughter; and Naomi Watts’ understandable remove yet forcibly strong resolve as the abandoned daughter, an individual from an early age struggling to come to terms with her own wants, needs and suggested purpose as a vessel for “giving life”. Slow-paced and cautious in its inference, Mother and Child offers a complicated yet somehow simplistic view of women’s role in life as pertaining to some responsibility as well as capacity for giving and producing. Most likely a film to divide viewers, Mother and Child is well worth the watch – even if only to see which side of the white picket fence you stand on.

Mother and Child was released in Australian cinemas on June 17 through Hopscotch Films.