GINGER & ROSA ★★☆

Accidental viewing. I had a ticket for something at Hoyts, and showed up at Kino instead, so I wound up watching this film. It’s about two teenage girls growing up in post-war Britain, set during the Cuban missile crisis. The set design was incredible, the acting was great, but somewhat like the opening night film, not really a film that’s to my taste, so I’m possibly unfairly rating it at 2.5 stars here.

DAPHNE ★★★★

Debut feature length film by a very amusing director, Peter Mackie Burns, who was present to introduce the film and do a Q&A afterwards. It’s an extension of his short film ‘Happy Birthday to Me’ which can be streamed for free on Vimeo, and is about a 31 year old woman who’s life isn’t really heading anywhere, and who tends to be fairly self-centred. Despite not being a particularly kind person, she is likeable and the director does a great job at creating empathy for her. For fans of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s stuff (Fleabag, Crashing).

CLAIRE’S CAMERA ★★☆

Person One: This was a Korean film starring Isabelle Huppert and set in Cannes.
Person Two: Yes, it was a Korean film. Set in Cannes, about a young film industry girl who’s fired and who meets up with a French Woman played by Isabelle. Who is a great actress.
Person One: Isabelle is a great actress. She might have picked a dud with this one though
Person Two: Yes, she might have picked a dud.
Person One: Picking a dud. That’s no good.
Person Two: No, it’s not good. It’s not good that Isabelle Huppert who is a good actress picked this film. It was a bit of a dud.

I can only assume that the director used Google Translate to work on the script for this. Given that the characters are Korean and French, and choose to use English as a middle ground, it was disappointing that it didn’t achieve more.

UNREST ★★★

I liked this documentary about chronic fatigue syndrome (aka myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)). It’s an illness that as I learned, isn’t very well understood, and which afflicts millions of people. And, unfortunately, due to the fact that the sufferers are unable to be visible in public, very few people know more about it, and its impacts. Congratulations to the film makers on this who open their lives to show how this can affect people fairly suddenly, and with little reason to understand why. If you want to help contribute to spreading the word, you can see their kickstarter campaign for more info via http://unrest.film

BEATRIZ AT DINNER ★★★

Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s Beatriz, not surprisingly, an alternative medicine health care giver played by Salma Hayek. After assisting a rich family with their unwell daughter, she’s continued to maintain a ‘friendship’ with them (as in, they have continued to use her services privately after their daughter is better). When Beatriz’s car breaks down, she winds up joining the parents for a dinner party they are hosting for some business contacts of the husband. This definitely has a lot to say in today’s times of Trump and the 1%ers, and I think it does a pretty good job of showing both sides and beliefs. The final couple of scenes though worked against everything that came before it, and unfortunately cost this film one star in my opinion. Worth a watch, but try and pretend the ending was better if you do.

A QUIET DREAM ★★★

A (mostly) black and white Korean film about a half-Chinese woman who moves to Korea after her mother’s death to find (and care for) her incapacitated older father. She runs a small, quiet bar, which is frequented by three self-confessed ‘losers’, all of whom wish to win her heart. It was pleasant, though I felt that perhaps a lot of symbolism went over my head, either due to cultural differences, translation, or maybe I’m just not bright enough. Slow, but pleasant enough.

A LIFE IN WAVES ★★★

This documentary is about Suzanne Ciani who was one of the first people to experiment with using synthesisers and computers to make music. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she did not become a household name for her efforts. The documentary wasn’t bad, but I would have liked more details on the area she was clearly knowledgeable about – how the machines that she was using were able to be used to generate sound. Her existence did seem familiar to me, and I realised while watching that it was because she was shown on the kids’ science show ‘3-2-1 Contact’ which I used to watch in the 1980s. I’ll be interested to check into some of her music in the future

GOOD TIME ★★★★

A Safdie brothers film, set in New York. I’ve not seen any of the other films by these two, as far as I can tell, despite there being a retrospective at MIFF a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed this action story about two brothers, one who is a person with an intellectual disability, and the other who’s moral compass is probably a little broken. They rob a bank, and the brother without disability gets away; the brother with is not so fortunate. And thus the story goes on, showing how over one night the brother who escaped attempts to help the one who was caught. I liked the filming at night, and the soundtrack, as well as how the scenes were edited for impact. I’ll be trying to find their other work in coming months.