BULLETPROOF – ★★★☆

I knew I would feel my blood pressure rising watching this documentary about how American high schools are taking measures to protect their students from mass shootings and gun violence. And it did. I liked how this film was made without any narration, merely presenting various scenes and talking heads discussing the concerns and how they were doing what was needed to protect kids. Here’s a clue though: how about removing the weird fixation on guns in the first place? That might help save a lot of lives, expense, and time on reactive measures like bulletproof whiteboards and hoodies.

SMOOTH TALK – ★★★

Great to see Laura Dern early in her acting career, and as this is from 1985 some of the scenes at the mall for historical sake. It’s about a 15 year old girl who is starting to realise that she’s attractive to men, and her balance between being a girl and a woman. Worth watching for the above reasons, but otherwise okay to miss.

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE – ★★☆

Documentary that investigated the use of vision and cameras throughout the ages, and discussed the flaws and concerns amongst that. Whether it was tracking the path of Venus against the Sun in the late 1800s, or modern body cam technology used by the police. It posed some interesting questions, and was very creatively put together. You could see how much work went into making it something a little different. I appreciated that. However, I found it a little cerebral at points, and felt like I was missing some of the message it was trying to portray. It could be that I was just a bit tired though.

AZOR – NO RATING

Couldn’t finish it. I love many Argentinian films, and was looking forward to this one, but it was just too much talking without context. I couldn’t piece together who the characters were, or what the story was. I probably didn’t give it a fair enough chance. Maybe lockdown fatigue is setting in and just becoming fatigue.

PALAZZO DI COZZO – ★★★

Documentary about Franco Cozzo, the Melbourne king of gaudy handmade Italian furniture. Growing up in Melbourne his ads were pretty famous, but I never desired owning a piece, nor did anyone I know. I suspect that in a sense, he was a meme before Internet memes were a thing. It was easy to watch, but I felt like there were some opportunities lost. It felt like there might have a been a story that could have been a universal interest story for an International audience, but ultimately it didn’t really deliver on that. All we really got was that he was famous for the ads, and that to some extent time had moved on and the demand for his style of furniture has dissipated. I’d have liked the documentary to dive a little deeper, but instead it kind of felt like an advertisement for the man and his furniture store.

THE MACALUSO SISTERS – ★★☆

An Italian film about five sisters. I was a little bit tired watching this, so maybe I missed some key points, but it felt like huge chunks of story were missing. I’m not clear where their parents were, but due to a tragic event at the beach while they were young, we see the how the event had a destructive result on the family over three eras of time. Didn’t really grab me.

LUZZU – ★★★★

It’s odd how there seem to be themes that occur during MIFF. This year fishing seems to be one of them, with this being the third film featuring it (the others being ‘CODA’ and ‘Gaza Mon Amour’. Luzzu is a beautiful Maltese film with plenty of heart. It tells the story of a fisherman whose lineage goes back generations, finishing from the same boat. He’s faced with several challenges, from his infant son needing medical care, to the challenges of modern fishing, shady dealings by others for out of season fish, and natural decline of fish in the sea due to global warming. A pleasant surprise.

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS – ★★☆

Documentary about women and their place in the history of electronic music. It was narrated by Laurie Anderson, and I was pretty excited to watch this. It wasn’t a terrible film, but I felt it was a little bit dry, and generally found the most interesting parts were relating to Suzanne Ciani. There was a previous documentary about her at MIFF in 2017 (‘A Life in Waves’) though. So, this was worth checking out, but I preferred A Life in Waves.