MIFF opening night film for 2026. For the third year in a row MIFF did a great job. Great cast line-up including a favourite in our household, Olivia Colman, this is a film based on short story about a woman in a small village who casts aside expectations around marriage, and is treated like an outcast by her community. After having enough, she engages the service of a wicker maker to create a husband for her. Aside from the great cast, the cinematography and special effects were all top notch as well. If I rated films out of 10 this would be a 7.5.
Melbourne International Film Festival is nearing, and as I’ve done in several previous years, I’ve scoured the guide to select which films are either ‘Can’t Miss’, ‘Want to See’, and ‘Might be worthwhile’. I will not make it to most, but hope to see as many as possible. This year, the films are:
Documentary about librarians in the US in the more backward states who are being forced to remove books from their libraries, and are being ostracised in their communities. Somewhat predictable situation, and well enough told, but I find myself being less and less surprised about things like this in the current US environment. The two main thoughts I had was that: 1) This documentary is likely to effect little change – the left wing people will be outraged, and the right wing people will not change their minds. I’d probably prefer a harder journalistic investigation into where the money comes from to support these backward initiatives, and who is financially benefiting from them. And, 2) it’s a real pity that libraries are being told to pull books off shelves due to the fragility of the right wing religious folk, but in 2025, it’s going to be super-easy for any student to get access to the content in other ways if they want it. Aside from the copyright infringing options which are very easy to access, it’s not hard to get membership to libraries with digital collections outside the area you live in. It’d actually be cool if (say) Californian public libraries promoted themselves to students in Texas/Florida/etc and allowed them to get easy access to the material.
Beautiful film about an ageing woman who is suffering from dementia and is put into an aged care facility by her son. She’s comparatively lucky to have a caring son, the financial means to be in a nice place, and surrounded by friendly staff who seem to have endless time and patience, but it still paints a pretty depressing picture of old age. Having lost a parent in recent years, there were moments that hit me emotionally. Between this film and the documentary yesterday (Careless), I felt gratitude that my mother didn’t have to have a particularly long drawn out stage between independent living and her passing.
THE BALTIMORONS – ★★★★
A Jay Duplass (of the Duplass brothers) film, though I believe both are credited as producers. These two are pretty prolific, and don’t always hit the target, but I really enjoyed this film set on Christmas Eve in Baltimore. It begins with an ex-comic who’s six months sober visiting his future parents-in-law with his fiance for a family meal, but is quickly diverted when he has a dental emergency and thus starts a humourous adventure. Being a Duplass film, it had darker comedy tones, but mostly hit the right notes. Excellent performances by the leads as well. A nice end MIFF weekend two for this year.
