The Art of Self-Defense

You are an American guy that has been mugged.

A) Do you buy a gun?
B) Do you enrol in a self-defence class?

Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) faces this decision on his voyage of self-improvement and recovery. Option A is represented by a gun shop salesman with a disturbingly honest sales pitch.

The risk of accidental death drastically increases with a gun in the home. … In a violent confrontation, an armed victim is much more likely to be killed than an unarmed victim. Suicide is more common with gun owners too.

You’re really going to love owning a gun.

Option B is a small Karate Dojo with rituals, 11 rules and students ranging from small kids to intimidating macho brown belts.

The Art of Self-Defense is a remarkably dry, dark comedy populated by everyday, normal characters who are completely over the top. For those that like their comedies to have a serious message, this is not one of those films. This is a film of absurd situations and deadpan one-liners, with the best delivered with impeccable timing and seriousness by Alessandro Nivola as Sensei of the Karate Dojo, but even Casey's answerphone gets in on the act "No one else left you a message". Eisenberg's face, mask-like one moment and quivering with emotion the next plays well against Nivola's impenetrable seriousness.

The Art of Self-Defense has been my favourite film of the 2019 film festival so far and the audience reaction in the Embassy suggests that I wasn't the only person to enjoy it.

🎥

Ian's rating 5/5

The Love Witch

The Love Witch opens with a glamorous young woman driving a red Mustang convertible up the Californian coast, and in voice over she tells some of her back story. The background is obviously being projected on a screen behind the car. That, the aspect ratio, the blue eye shadow and prominent cigarette unsubtly suggest the 1960s or early 1970s. The perfect make-up, the dialog and acting scream old day-time soap opera. But we are being taken for a ride here. Satire is the name of the game and a number of film and TV genres and tropes get sent up, along with renaissance fairs, harps and cake.

Elaine, the self proclaimed Love Witch is escaping from San Francisco to a sleepy small northern California with luggage that matches her coat, shoes, lipstick and car. She is looking for love, she is not into internet dating. She finds that her stare is enough to attract a man, but uses a love potion to make sure they stay attracted. Like commercial drugs there are unfortunate side effects. But Elaine is relentlessly positive and never mopes over her failures. Time to put on a new outfit and move on the the next victim man.

The plot doesn't make sense, there isn't a clear message, but it is an over the top visual feast that you'd expect from Ant Timpson's Incredibly Strange section. And it does have the best line so far in this year's film festival:

Tampons aren't gross. Women bleed and that's a beautiful thing. Do you know that most men have never even seen a used tampon?

Ian's rating 3/5

Housebound

Housebound was one of the festival films I was really looking forward to and it didn't disappoint  - all the elements of a classic horror film, with large dollops of comedy thrown in.

 Housebound's main character, the recalcitrant Kylie, is sentenced to home detention for her part in robbing and destroying an ATM. It's not her current home, it's her childhood home, where her mum and step-dad  live. It's not an ordinary suburban home, it's a big old two-storey wooden house that's a bit isolated.What's more, the house has a history - it used to be a residential home for teenage girls with mental problems, and Kylie's mum thinks it's haunted. For a horror film to be authentically nightmarish, there should be no escape, and the home detention scenario fits the bill perfectly.

Not long into her detention, Kylie comes to realise her Mum could be right about the house being haunted. Light flicker, there are strange noises and sometimes food goes missing. Some of the noises come from the  basement (where would horror movies be without the basement?) where there'a bunch of paraphenalia from the house's previous owner including a statue of Jesus. The next door neighbour is a wierdo. Kylie tries to put two and two together with the help of Amos the security guard who is monitoring her detention.

There are quiet spooky bits ( the toilet scene is one of my favourites) and full on fights with lots of splatter. There's a  variety  of weaponry and I bet you've never seen a cheese grater used in anger before. Housebound  has great acting, good music and a great location  and its just such good fun. Go and enjoy.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 4/5

The Mule

Ray is one of those well meaning guys whose life hasn't gone anywhere. Living at home and dominated by his mother he admires Gavin, a childhood friend with a lad-about-town lifestyle. At the end of the footie season celebration Ray unexpectedly wins player of the year and is offered a free ticket on the team holiday to Thailand. It is left to Gavin to explain to Ray the reason for his inclusion. To swallow 20 condoms of heroin that Gavin is smuggling back to Melbourne for club benefactor and nightclub owner Pat Shepherd.

This wouldn't be much of a movie if everything went well. This is 1983 and all Australia is obsessed by the America's Cup. It also means that Ray can refuse a rectal exam and the police are only able hold him 7 days or 2 bowel movements. Ray decides to hold on. As the days drag on both the police and drug world become increasingly desperate. The only chink of light for Ray is his young court appointed lawyer, but she is clearly out of her depth.

Angus Sampson, writer, director and star of The Mule does a convincing job of playing the passive, uncommunicative Ray and convince us that he is trying hard to avoid going to the loo for 7 days. Hugo Weaving has a ball playing Detective Croft, well outside official police procedure and John Noble is suitably creepy as the local crime boss. Georgina Haig as the lawyer plays well against Hugo Weaving's crass macho posturing.

Like The Castle, The Dish and Muriel's Wedding; The Mule is an example of what Australian film makers do well - a funny film centred on a simple story staring ordinary people.

Ian's rating 3.5/5 Anne's rating 3.5/5

Borgman

I don't have much luck with surreal films. Most of them turn out to be much worse to watch than to read about. Luckily Borgman is a rare exception. Borgman himself is a vagrant. The film starts with him on the run from armed hunters, he warns confederates, Pascal and Ludwig, before hitching a ride to an affluent leafy suburb. There he tries to beg a bath and gets beaten up for his troubles. Sympathy from Marina (his attacker's wife) is his key into their house.

Much of the surrealism comes from the abnormal, unexplained and anti-social behaviour of Borgman and his accomplices. Though unusual and unexplained coincidences abound (why do whippets keep popping up?). The shifting relationship between Borgman and Marina is the core of the film. Marina moves from sympathy, to curiosity, to longing, while Borgman alternates effortlessly between victim and aggressor.

Our society works to a huge extent because in any given circumstance almost everyone behaves in one of a limited number of ways. This gives someone who is willing to ignore these strictures on behaviour the opportunity to get away with doing the most outrageous things (though perhaps only once). Borgman plays with this characteristic of society just enough to shock us from time to time while making most of the film seem plausible.

The humour in Borgman is dark and motivations of Borgman and his pals are obscure. None of the characters, not even the children, are innocent. There is a plot to this film even though some aspects are unexplained (and probably unexplainable). The balance between the 'real' and the surreal was just right for my literalist tastes.

Ian's rating 4/5

Still Life

Still Life is a tale of a man who is more interested in the recently dead than the living. His job is to bury people who have no-one to arrange their funerals. When a neighbour dies alone, he comes to realise what we have already seen - that he will die the same way.

How you cross the road defines your personality

Actor Eddie Marsan is very effective as a civil servant of strong principles and very little awareness of his life and the changing world. John May is the sort of civil servant whose concept how his job is to be done is completely foreign to modern life. The idea that a council worker should be interested in the dignity of the dead, and reuniting families and friends who have lost contact with a loner who has died is something his manager doesn't understand. His colleges, clergymen and undertakers all treat him with respect, understanding the principles he stands for, though realise that he is dinosaur. With change from above and his own situation dawning on him, John May tries in small ways to experience more of life and even other people. This is a slow comedy about one man's awakening self-awareness, which also has a social conscience.

Still Life felt like it should have been set in the Thatcher era. The idea that jobs and people like John May have survived into the 21st century is difficult to believe. The idea that local government should look after the welfare of the unfortunate with the rates we pay is crazy.

While the film maintained an admirable balance between sentiment, distance and humour, that balance slipped in the final few seconds, and I'll try hard to forget that flaw.

Ian's rating 4/5 Anne's rating 4/5

Life After Beth

Your girlfriend comes back from the dead, looking as good as ever and eager to make out. You can now tell her all the things you should have said before. You can both do those things that she so wanted to do before she... um died. Resurrection is in the Bible so it must be good, right? Life After Beth has taken a turn for the better.

OK there are a few problems: what do you tell your family? Or her family? Or say to girls that hit on you, knowing Beth died?

Aubrey Plaza's deadpan style is perfect for the briefly deceased Beth. I'm not sure what she ever saw in the neurotic Zach (Dane DeHaan). Occasional flashes of violent exasperation aside, Beth takes Zach's twitchiness in her stride and is keen to get on with their relationship. The supporting cast enjoy their roles as: sceptics, believers and white knight.

Life After Beth is romantic comedy in what is becoming a new sub-genre of rom-com. While teasing us with our expectation of the genre, director Jeff Baena eventually takes us there briefly before circling us back around to the one-on-one story of Zack and Beth.

Ian's rating 3.5/5 Anne's rating 3.5/5