LOVE EXPOSURE
5/10
I’ve always thought that Japanese culture is about as alien as you could find compared to that of the West, and this film couldn’t come from anywhere else. It’s a four hour marathon that amongst other plot points includes a Japanese boy who is trying to find a girl that is his ‘virgin mary’ by using martial arts moves to take upskirt photos of girls. Add priests, cults, cross dressing and the severing of at least one penis, and there you go. I walked at the 2.5 hour point having had my fill, believing that I’d seen as much as was needed. After consulting with a couple of others who made it through to the end, it appears that I was right :).

AMREEKA
7/10
A fish out of water story about a mother and teenage son who move to America from Palestine. It’s a comedy/drama and never hits an extremely serious or overly dramatic note, but does provide some nice greys in the characters. For example, even the school principal makes mistaken generalisations about the mother, despite his best intentions.

AN EDUCATION
7/10
A highly polished film set in 1960s London. I wanted to see this mainly because the screenplay was done by Nick Hornby, and in my opinion, he’s done some great books (High Fidelity, Fever Pitch) amongst some duds (How to Be Good). The story centres around a young girl in her last year of high school who has plans to go to Oxford. She begins to question these plans when meeting a playboy roughly twice her age who introduces her to a world of art and culture, which up to then, she’d only experience through books. I had a couple of problems with believability of some of the plot points, but overall enjoyed it. If you liked the Gilmore Girls, you may enjoy it, too. An intro and Q&A was done by the star actress, Carey Mulligan, and credit must go to her for one of the most articulate and to-the-point introductions I’ve seen at the festival.

IT MIGHT GET LOUD
5/10
Documentary from the producers of An Inconvenient Truth. It’s about the love of guitars, told from the point of view of three generations of guitarists; Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, The Edge from U2 and Jack White from The White Stripes. Time is spent talking to each artist separately to discover a bit about their background, and also spent in a warehouse where the three artists meet to discuss guitars, music, etc. Unfortunately, the whole thing doesn’t really work very well. You get the feeling that there’s a degree of respect for each other amongst the three musicians, but at the same time, they each have their views on the world, and they’re all different. I think it would have worked better as a four part tv series, where one episode was spent with each of the three guitarists and the fourth was made up of the artists meeting and discussing music with each other. I like all three bands to some degree – enough to have CDs by each, but not enough to be a major fan of any. If you’re a big fan of any of the three, you might get more out of this than I did.

One of my marathon days at the festival!

PARDON MY FRENCH
4/10
Well acted story about an author with writers block and a school girl fan who is obsessed enough with her to try and assist her in any way possible. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to have any direction, and the author spent the film wandering around in her self-centred world while being pandered to by those around her. Not worth the time.

I NEED THAT RECORD! THE DEATH (OR POSSIBLE SURVIVAL) OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE
6/10
I’m into technology and I’m into music. As someone who has spent waaay too much on records and CDs in the past 20 years, and watched with interest how the independent record stores struggle to survive. They’re competing with the Internet (both for online ordering and online music distribution, both legal and illegal) and major record companies who clutch to extinct models for doing business as long as they can. This documentary gets full marks for trying and half marks for execution. While it was interesting to see the point of view from record shop owners who were closing down for one reason or another, I didn’t really feel that all sides of the story were explored. We heard a lot of musicians and record shops bitching about the majors, but never did we get to hear the opinion of someone from a major. Furthermore, the cause of closure of one of the shops was a landlord who’d booted them. We never got to hear why they didn’t just re-open somewhere else. Some arguments were flawed too I think – they were arguing how ‘big box stores’ like walmart only carry rubbish music, not a full range, but then go one to complain how the big box stores sell CDs at below cost. The idea of an independent record store being a community type experience is fair, but I don’t think it just applies to music. Finally, the quality of this film was not cinema-grade. Hopefully they’ll show it on TV soon, but I wouldn’t recommend spending the money seeing it at a theatre. I’ve not been there yet, but as I departed the theatre staff from Sunshine and Grease, a record shop at 117 Little Bourke St were handing out flyers, so go check them out. And buy the music you love, in whatever media type and style you happen to choose.

AWAY WE GO
9/10
Ken Loach was a massive whiney sook and pulled his film from MIFF for political reasons, not before he agreed for it to be shown at MIFF. Nor was it before the guide was printed or tickets on sale. Nope, it wasn’t even pulled before before both sessions of his film sold out. That’s right, he waited until after all that before deciding to go all Sting on us. This is for you, Mr. Loach.

Anyway, the silver lining was that Away We Go was the replacement film for the session, and is my favourite of the festival (though MOON was still great!). This Sam Mendes film was the replacement for Ken Loach’s film, and tells the story of a young couple who are expecting their first child. When they realise that they have no reason to stay where they’re living, they decide to set out on a trek to find a better home to raise their unborn child. Along the way, they meet with various friends/family/ex-co-workers, and get a good dosage of the range of philosophies and beliefs parents choose to raise their children by. It’s often hilarious and always entertaining. With a slightly different ending, I’d give it 10/10.

TREELESS MOUNTAIN
7/10
Cute Korean film about two young girls who are being raised by their mother. The father has been out of the picture for some time, and when the mother decides she needs to go and find him, she leaves the girls with family. She gives the girls a piggy bank and says that if they’re good, they’ll be given a coin each to put in the bank, and promises she’ll return when the bank is full. The film takes on the perspective of life from the girls’ point of view and offers many different slices of Korean life as the film unfolds.

STILL WALKING
7/10
A family drama from Japan that was very well written and enjoyable. It was a good representation of family and the dynamics that can occur when a family who doesn’t spend a lot of time together gather for a meal. This can apparently be bought on DVD quite cheaply (around $15), and is worth considering.

KISSES
7/10
Cute story about a couple of pre-teen Irish kids whose home lives aren’t going so well. When the boy angers his father enough and the girl finds a bit of cash, they run away to Dublin. The film was fun and enjoyable – some of the accents were very thick and I missed some of the lines as a result. I might not have wanted subtitles throughout, but it would have helped in parts.

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
5/10
Watchable low-ish budget film by Steven Soderbergh about a high class call girl. Didn’t really go anywhere and the acting was very patchy by some of the stars, who generally were non-professionals as far as I can tell. Many scenes felt ad-libbed, but not very successfully.