What Mark Saw

THE TAKE
8/10
The Take is another documentary about globalisation and the little guy standing up to The Man. Luckily, these can still be highly entertaining, and this one was certainly one of the better ones I’ve seen. This particular film is about how workers in Argentina are taking over deserted factories, and re-starting the businesses themselves as a co-operative. I found it interesting that most people think of activist/protesters as younger upstarts with dreadlocks or hippies, etc etc – in this case it was literally silver haired seamstresses, and other people of all ages who were trying to fight the system to give themselves employment, and trying to regain a sense of self-worth. Avi Lewis one of the film makers was present and gave a great little talk before the film started. Highly recommended.

FORGIVENESS
7/10
This film is about a white ex-policeman in South Africa who, ten years after killing a black activistist, is still trying to overcome his guilt over the matter, and what happens when he goes to the village of the boy’s family to try and work through the matter. I was a little unsure whether to see this film or not – it looked like it might have potential, but sometimes one can’t tell. Often these can turn out to be the pearls of the festival, but in this case it was just a fair to okay experience. Don’t you hate it when 30 mins into a film you guess how the plot will proceed, and then you turn out to be right? That happened to me on this one. I suppose the audio commentary from the guy sitting next to me didn’t help make the experience any better either. I’d highly suggest checking out the podcast from the Film Buff’s forecast from last week (not the latest one) as they discuss the film with the filmmaker and that’s a lot more interesting than anything else I could say about it :-).

One thing I thought I’d mention – this was my fifth day at the festival, and I must say I am pretty happy so far with the quality of the films! I’m sure I’ll catch some tragic ones yet, but really, the ratings I’ve been giving aren’t because I’m a softie. I’ll be sure to let you know what I think if this year’s ‘Goodbye Dragon Inn’ shows up somewhere along the way…

Very tired tonight so may not be as verbose

DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE
7/10
Frightening indeed. In a nutshell, Africans starve to death while working to feed the first world. Not an ‘up’ film at all. I think everyone knows the world is a bit shit, and I wonder what can be done to actually fix it. I guess if the answer were that simple, it would already be done. :-(.

OSCAR
7/10
Quick and nice. I’m amazed how this guy creates new art out of existing billboards without being arrested. Most interesting to me was watching the scenes where the advertising company wanted to chat to him, and to see his internal ethics working as to whether he would accept working with ‘the enemy’.

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
7.89/10
A quirky rating for a quirky film. I actually really liked it, so it really should be an 8/10 I guess. It had some great scenes – The only thing that kind of raises a flag in the back of my mind is that eventually quirky films like this are going to be so run on the mill that they won’t be quirky anymore. Don’t think we’re quite there yet, so I give this one ranking amongst my favourites of the festival so far. Best bit is the creation of this into the greater public consciousness: ))((. Oh! and big ups for using a great Spiritualized song in the soundtrack 🙂

A WORLD WITHOUT THIEVES
7/10
Yeah. So, key point of the day is that my mind begins to numb and I get tired after being in the city for 12 hours, even if only 8 of it was watching films.. This was actually quite enjoyable for the most part, centring around two thieves (mostly) protecting a naive guy with truckloads of cash from a gang of other professional thieves. It was great really until the last 20 mins or so where it seemed to go off the rails a bit (pun intended, haw). They spent a reasonable time creating a relationship between Dumbo (the naive guy) and the Wangs, but all of that is virtually forgotten at the end as the story twists into a cops vs thieves story. Admittedly I began to get a bit tired towards the end so maybe my lack of satisfaction rests on missing some subtitles…

GUNNER PALACE
5/10
Gunner Palace was a documentary which sounded like it had a lot of potential – the filmmaker spent a couple of months over two trips to Iraq with American soldiers after major combat was finished to see what was going on over there. Unfortunately, I walked out not really feeling like I’d seen a good representation of what it actually does feel like to be there. Instead, I saw American soldiers being very American; enjoying the swimming pool, making rude/lewd comments, writing and performing rap music throughout, and talking about how much they love ‘real food’ like Burger King… I suppose I was hoping to see a little more about what the Iraqis thought about the war, and their interaction with the forces there. A little disappointing.

KUNG FU HUSTLE
7/10
Anyone who liked Shaolin Soccer when they saw it at MIFF a couple of years ago (or before or after it) will pretty much be happy with this film. It’s heavy on the special effects and has plenty of humour and some great fight scenes. The opening scenes promised more style to the film than it actually offered, but I thought it was great fun. I particularly liked the ‘capone-era chicago-esque’ feel. Definitely worth seeing if you like kung fu/action films. I’m only giving it a 7/10 rather than a higher score because it didn’t really feel like it broke any new ground… I suppose one can’t expect too much more than what it offers. If you are a fan, the Director/Writer/Producer/Actor (phew), Stephen Chow, will actually be at the next showing and will be doing a Q&A type thing at the festival club on Sunday July 31 at 9:15pm.

LITTLE FISH
7.5/10
I liked this film, which showed the various ways that drugs have affected a family living in Sydney – the relationships between the different members was also interesting. And, of course, it starred Dustin Nguyen who I last saw in 21 Jump Street :-). I think I liked this film because it didn’t push edges too hard – it wasn’t depicting utter human waste stages of addiction, it wasn’t overly soppy/emotional and didn’t have particularly sensationalised over-dramatisations, which would probably be easy in a film like this. Of particular note though, was the description of Vancouver by Jonny, which I found a little ironic – in the film, he describes Vancouver as a city where people work or sleep, and that they don’t get much sleep. (or something along those lines). Having lived in Vancouver, Melbourne and Sydney, I don’t believe this to be true – Vancouver’s the closest city to Melbourne that I’ve been to. Sydney on the other hand *is* a city where careers seem to be the ‘guiding light’ and quality of life outside one’s career is generally more lacking. Again, my opinion, which I’d say is worth about this much in the greater scheme of things; –>

On another note, the Film Buff’s Forecast folks plugged this blog on their weekly mail out, so cheers to them! They’ll be doing their radio show live from the festival club on Sat 23 July from noon till 2pm.

FROZEN
not rated
I was really looking forward to this one – unfortunately it started about 15 minutes late, and I ended up having to leave before it finished, so I don’t feel that it’s fair to give it a score. I’ve been told that the last 20 mins or so of the film does tie up a lot of what’s been going on which is good to hear ;-). The first chunk was very nicely shot and I did enjoy its lazy pace, but after over an hour of watching a woman who was obviously very much still in mourning for her missing (presumed dead?) sister wander somewhat aimlessly through her existence, I did begin to yawn a bit. Given I didn’t see it all, I can’t suggest whether it’s worth going to the cinema for if it gets a local release, but I’d certainly recommend it as a DVD rental.

DARK HORSE
8/10
I really liked this one and I suspect it will eventuate into one of my faves of the festival. Shot in Black and White, it has a great sense of humour with some laugh out loud moments during the first ‘chapters’ of the film (of which there are 12). It did tend to drag towards the end, but redeemed itself by the closing credits. Highly recommended!

HIDDEN
7/10
A french film starring Juliette Binoche is difficult for me to pass up. This was a soft thriller/stalker/drama, and I doubt that you’ll see a ‘No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of this Picture’ line in the credits… Was certainly watchable, and had a cryptic enough ending that had everyone looking at each other when it was over to see if they missed something or not. (Well at least our group did that anyway). Would be interested to hear what others thought though. I never claimed to be a brainiac when it comes to cinema, so subtleties go over my head on many an occasion :-). It certainly wasn’t an awful film by any stretch, but it didn’t really give me enough satisfaction to say it was anything better than okay to good.

If you’ve seen any of the above films, please feel free to add your thoughts or comments. Or, if you’ve seen something else or have other comments, that you’d like to contribute to me, please feel free to get in touch by emailing me.

BROTHERS
7.5/10
I liked this film – it had some humour to it, but also had some quite dark tones and violent scenes that I didn’t really expect. It’s an interesting Danish film about two brothers who lead very different lives, and how after a particular event, they begin to switch roles. Makes you question how much a ‘good’ or ‘evil’ person is decided on the circumstances you’re dealt.