BEN X
8/10

Awesome and powerful film. It’s about a teenager named Ben who suffers from Aspergers Syndrome, a form of autism. He’s a smart kid, but doesn’t really fit in as a normal high school kid, being unable to interact socially with others. As a result is he is horribly teased. However, when he plays his online games, his mind is freed and he can function in that virtual world just fine. This story is about how he’s treated and how he deals with it. Highly recommended.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
5/10
A disappointing vampire film from Sweden. Similarly to Ben X, the story revolves around a boy that is bullied, however in this case, his aide is in the form of a young Vampire. The shots were nicely done, but other than that it was a very patchy story, which just didn’t grab me at all, and was unable to give me any kind of idea as to what it was trying to say or be. Sometimes suspenseful, but it felt like there were a lot of subplots going on without a major actual plot to consider. Poorly constructed. It’s based on a book which is meant to be really good, so perhaps invest your time in reading it before you watch it.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
7.5/10
One of the few documentaries that I’m seeing this film festival. It’s by Werner Herzog, whose film ‘The Wild Blue Yonder’ was at MIFF a couple of years ago, and which I particularly enjoyed. It’s about a few of the base stations down in Antarctica. However, instead of the more typical documentaries which focus on historial expeditions to Antarctica, or the land itself, he primarily shows us what kind of people work down at the bottom of the world, and finds some real gems. The true quality though is in his narration, which is very humourous and makes the film.

WENDY AND LUCY
5/10

A few years ago I got suckered into seeing a couple of films by Andrew Bujalski, the ‘new indie darling of American cinema’ at MIFF (They were Funny, Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation. Both were atrociously bad IMHO.) This year it’s Kelly Reichardt’s turn. Now, admittedly this film wasn’t actually ‘bad’ – not like the two other films I mentioned, but anticipation was high for me that this may be the pick of the festival, so when it wasn’t to my liking it was all the more disappointing. I think the main problem I have with the film was the lack of enough content to make up the already short at 80 minutes feature length film. This should have been a short film and it would have been fantastic if it had been. I don’t mind slow pace (see my review for ‘Time to Die’), but this just didn’t deliver much. I don’t think I was alone in my low opinion given the number of people who I saw leave during the session, and the groans I heard when the credits came up at the end followed by uncertain applause.

TIME TO DIE
7.5/10

A Polish film about an old woman, living alone in her house of many years. Her son’s grown up and doesn’t pay attention to her, and her days are spent monitoring the neighbours and talking to her best friend, Phila, her dog. It’s filmed in black and white and beautifully done. The pace is quite slow, enough that I started to drift off. But if you’re happy to sit and watch as the film goes by, may be worth looking at.

CARAMEL
7/10
A comedy/romance set in Beirut, at a hair salon. It’s watchable, and probably would appeal to women more than men as it tracks the various relationships of the women hair stylists as well as a couple of others nearby. Favourite scenes were the ones involving the old mother of the seamstress across the road.

APRON STRINGS
7/10
This is a NZ film, but mostly set in a shopping strip that once was once primarily caucasian, but now has many minorities including Vietnamese and Sikh. It mainly tells the stories of two different families; a caucasian and a sikh one, and how they’ve experienced a family related trauma in the past that continues to have effects today. Worth seeing, and thankfully plays through without turning into a hollywood ‘everything turns out super in the end’ ending.

IN BRUGES
8/10
A dark comedy that tends towards violent drama at points, set in Bruges (which is in Belgium), and starring Colin Friels and Blendan Gleeson as two english hitmen who are sent by their boss (played by Ralph Feinnes) to Bruges to ‘cool off’ after a hit goes wrong. A funny and original story which keeps you entertained throughout. It’s getting a major release really soon, so if you miss it at MIFF you’ll certainly still be able to watch it. Fiennes does a great job at the criminal boss.

FROZEN RIVER
6.5/10
Not a terrible film, but not fantastic either. This film was about a mothers doing what they have to in order to make a better life for their kids – one, a Mohawk (American Indian/Native American) and the other a ‘white woman’ (as referred to by the aforementioned woman) who is trying to get enough money together to upgrade her trailer home to a kit home. In this particular case, she does so by delving into a somewhat ‘grey’ area of the law relating to people smuggling between the Canadian and US border. I must admit that I was jumping ahead in my mind to guess the plot, and what I predicted didn’t happen, so thumbs up there. It’s just that some of the acting was so poor by the small parts that it really jarred.