A white white day

When someone you're close to dies, maybe you go through a "process",  or the seven stages of grief, or maybe grief is different for everyone. A white, white day is a depiction of a grief-stricken man named Ingimundur. He's an retired policeman (or maybe he's on extended bereavement leave - it's hard to tell), and he's recently widowed. On the surface, he's doing everything right.  He has a project  (converting a rural building into a house), he spends meaningful time with his grand-daughter, he catches up with his old colleagues, sees his friends and his brother and plays football. He goes to weekly grief-counselling, organised by the police.

Unfortunately, he discovers that his wife was being unfaithful, and this leads to,  firstly, a period of detective work, and secondly to a period of madness where he attempts to deal with the discovery.

During the period of madness, Ingimundur attacks his old work colleagues and puts them in the cells which has to be one of the most amazing fight scenes I've watched. And he kidnaps the man he thinks his wife was having sex with , and makes him confess at gunpoint. He reduces his eight-year old grand-daughter to tears more than once. By the end of the film, there's been true catharsis but surprisingly,  I was left with the sense that Ingimundur will be ok, and that no-one will hold his madness against him.

Ingimundur is on the screen practically every moment, and his grand-daughter Salka is on it about eighty percent of the time. They're both completely convincing and compelling. The film is a great watch, and there's an incredible tension,  created by wondering how far over the edge Ingimundur is going to go.

An added bonus is seeing cute Icelandic ponies, and some completely dreadful Icelandic children's TV.

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 3.5/5

A Kid Like Jake

Jake is the only child of professional parents in the suburbs of New York City. He's five and his parents are looking for a primary school for him. The kind of primary school they'd like to send him to probably costs more than they can afford, and only takes a limited number of children anyway, so it's quite a source of anxiety.

One of the significant things about Jake is that he's quite effeminate for a small boy. He likes to dress up, has moderately long hair and likes pastel colours and movies about unicorns. His kindergarten principal suggests that his parents should emphasize this in their primary school applications, since schools like to think they're accepting a diverse range of students and that he might even get a scholarship as a token gender-diverse child.

A Kid Like Jake is about his parents response to this idea and the effect that this has on their relationship with each other, their friends and with Jake.The dilemma of how much emphasis to put on an aspect of your child's personality and identity is portrayed convincingly and is easy to relate to. Life can always throw something at you that you weren't expecting and it's interesting to see a couple dealing with the unexpected.It's quite a talky movie but it is entertaining and it's nice to look at, especially since Jake's parents are played by Claire Danes (Alex) and Jim Parsons (Greg). And although Alex and Greg don't agree on everything, it's not at all harrowing to watch.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 2.5/5

Ava

Ava is an sixteen year old high school student in Tehran. She plays the violin, hangs out with her friends, experiments with make up and has a bit of thing for her friend's brother, with whom she plays duets. The high school she goes to is girls only and somewhat repressive. A harmless afternoon spent with the aforementioned brother results in her being taken by her mother to the gynaecologist for a virginity assessment, which she's naturally pretty upset about, particularly when she discovers that her mother was pregnant when she got married. Her supportive and seemingly fairly liberal parents are suddenly part of the repressive and paranoid regime that operates at her school.

So Ava the movies paints a picture of a society that most Westerners are uncomfortable with. We mourn that Ava has to go through what she does, and that her parents are complicit in putting her through it. Unfortunately, Ava the girl isn't a very charismatic character and the whole film is a bit grim. Watch the trailer so you get the gist, but don't bother to go to the film.

Anne's rating 1/5

Foxtrot

It was back to Israel for Foxtrot, but this time for was a Jewish Israeli film, Like Wajib it was a family drama, but unlike Wajib it features Jewish Israelis and we're talking a funeral rather than a wedding.

Foxtrot centres on a middle-aged Israeli (Michael) who lives with his wife  (Dafna) and two young adult children (Jonathon and Alma) in a high-rise apartment in Tel Aviv. Jonathon is currently serving in the IDF and is stationed in the north of Israel. The film opens with a knock on the apartment door and it's two soldiers, announcing that Jonathon has been killed. They're coy about the details, and suggest that viewing the body is unnecessary and undesirable. They act with impressive efficiency - you get a sense of the IDF being an unstoppable well-oiled machine

So we view the family's different reactions to the news, get to meet a few other relatives and get to know people a bit better. Michael's mother is a holocaust survivor who's losing her memory, Michael served in the IDF himself.

Then the first plot twist - the soldiers are back, announcing they got things wrong, and although a Jonathon Feldman has died, it isn't their son. So now there are different kinds of angst to go through. Initially Michael and Alma are fighting, later they find some  mutual consolation in their joint confusion and anger.

Then it's off to the north of Israel and seeing Jonathon's  day-to-day existence. He and three fellow solider live in a container and monitor an isolated checkpoint. There's very little going on but there's some drama when they're inspecting a carful of young Arabs and they mistake a beer can for a grenade and open fire, killing all the occupants. In an almost surreal scene, the ever-efficient IDF sends a massive truck with a bulldozer on the back and the car and everyone in it is buried
 forthwith.And then we have a second plot twist which you can see for yourself if you go to the film.

One of Foxtrot's main messages is that serving in the IDF is bad for you - mentally and physically. You get caught up in. it, and it changes you forever. A sub-message is that surviving the holocaust blights your relationships. And while these are not the cheeriest messages, it was a pretty engrossing watch. Foxtrot was directed by Samuel Moaz who directed Lebanon (set inside an Israeli tank in the 1982 war with Lebanon) which we have also seen,

Anne's rating 3.5/5

The Reports on Sarah and Saleem

We've seen quite a few movies about Palestinians who live in the West Bank (Paradise Now, A Wedding in Ramallah, Omar, Private, The Zoo) but few about Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. So  The Reports on Sarah and Saleem broke some new ground in terms of both that and interaction between Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens.

So in this movie, Sarah is a Jewish Israeli cafe owner, and Saleem is a Palestinian who delivers croissants to her cafe. They move in different circles but they both live in Jerusalem. They both have distracted spouses - Sarah's husband David is an officer in the IDF and is often away and Saleem's wife Bisan is pregnant and is declining sex because it's bad for the baby. So they have motive, proximity and opportunity for the affair they embark on. The bakery van provides a handy venue. You could say their affair was bound to lead to trouble but it seemed harmless enough initially.

The event that really starts the trouble is a late-night trip to Bethlehem. Despite the plan to pretend Sarah is foreign by having her only speak in English, she's rumbled as Jewish and some unhappy Arabs not only give Saleem a hard time, they report him to the authorities, and things escalate from there.

Any affair has potentially troublesome ramifications and I guess the plot revolves around the many ramifications that this affair had, in this politically and racially charged part of the world. Many of them were unexpected, and I was never bored and never knew quite what was going to happen next. This movie is quite woman-centric for a Middle-Eastern film and I liked how Sarah and Bisan didn't just roll over and do what their husbands wanted. I liked how interesting and well-acted some of the lesser characters were - Saleem's lawyer Maryam and the bald Israeli security guy in particular..

Jerusalem looked beautiful as always and the similarities and differences between Jewish and Arab Israelis were nicely highlighted.

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 4.5/5

The Guilty

The detectives who feature in crime novels, particularly Scandinavian ones, are usually troubled souls. They're a bit too devoted to their jobs, and as a result their relationships fail. They're a bit prone to cutting corners to get a result in a case, and so are often in trouble with their bosses but they inspire complete loyalty from their work partners.

Asger Holm, the star character in The Guilty is just such a Scandinavian police officer. He's been suspended from regular police duties since he shot a criminal and has been reassigned to working in the call centre answering 112 emergency calls. A routine evening in the centre is coming to an end when a woman who has been abducted by her husband phones in and we see Asger's detective and organisational skill at work despite him never leaving the desk.

Asger is a huge character and he features in every scene. He's compassionate and thoughtful, persuasive, determined  and unwavering. He's a classically flawed hero and he is totally worth watching - both for his character and his hugely expressive and largely flawless face.

The film is very clever, with the plot detail  unfolding with each phone call between Asger and the woman  (Iben), and Asger and Iben's daughter, a Asger and the staff who dispatch offices and cars around the city . (The instant nature of the dispatches is truly impressive if you've ever been made aware of New Zealand's rationing of police resources). Despite being filmed entirely in the call centre, the Guilty keeps you on the edge of your seat, as a thriller should, and the realisation that things are not exactly as you first thought is nicely gradual.

Anne's rating 4/5, Ian's rating 4.5/5

Jirga

I was really looking forward to Jirga but  watching it was a disappointment. It has a great trailer but you don't get anything more from the film than the trailer gives you. The basis for the story is an Australian soldier returning to Afghanistan to compensate the family of a civilian he shot in error. I thought we might get some insight into what motivated him to come ( is that the only civilian he's ever shot, is that a common problem, does the army help you deal with that?)  but we didn't. And the leading character came across as a bit of a wet blanket, and not like someone who has been in the military. I mean , how many people are on a car journey in a hot country without a bottle of water in hand?

The director did a Q and A at the showing and it seems there were various aspects of Afghanistan he wanted to showcase including the lakes of the Band-e-Amir National Parkand the supportive and communicative relationship that groups of Afghani men enjoy. It feels like the plot is an afterthought and the story doesn't live up to the scenery or the actors.

I suggest you watch the trailer and then go to a different film

Anne's rating  2/5

The Other Side of Hope

The war in Syria and the Syrian refugee crisis have been such a big thing for Europe in recent years that it's not really a surprise that it's the inspiration for a film. It's a little surprising that it's set in Finland, but I guess that just illustrates the point that nowhere in Europe was or is unaffected.

The Other Side of Hope has two main characters and initially they're part of separate narratives. Eventually their paths cross, though that took rather longer than it should have - long enough for me to wonder if was ever going to happen.

Character A is Khaled, a Syrian mechanic who arrives on a coal ship, having stowed away from Poland. He goes through official channels and applies for asylum, and is housed temporarily in a refugee centre. When his application for asylum is declined, he absconds.

Character B is Wikstrom, a travelling clothing salesman who gets disenchanted with his lot, sells his stock, uses the proceeds to win big in a local poker syndicate and buys a small restaurant with the proceeds.

Khaled and Wikstrom meet up when Wikstrom discovers Khaled sleeping rough beside the restaurant's dumpster, and employs him to solve the problem of what to do about him.

So as an examination of the treatment of refugees and an examination of the oddities of the Finnish character, the Other Side of Hope is a perfectly pleasant watch but not a must-see. There are some funny bits but mostly it's droll and deadpan rather than funny. There is visually humourous content - for example the policeman  typing Khaled's application for asylum on a typewriter - as if it's 1965 not 2015. And the staff at the restaurant wouldn't be out of place at Wes Craven's The Grand Budapest Hotel. The trailer promises "torrents of laughter" and that it's "screamingly funny" and I don't agree, so I was disappointed. I'm not inspired to go to Finland either.

Anne's rating 2.5/5

The Teacher

Set in Bratislava in the 1980s, The Teacher could be subtitled "portrait of a bully and a blackmailer" because the protagonist, Maria Drazdechova, is indubitably both, and the practiced ease with which she performs those two additional roles while working as a teacher is quite startling.

Her routine is this; at the beginning of the school year, Maria introduces herself to the class and gets the pupils to introduce themselves and state what their parents do for a living while she makes careful notes.  As the term progresses she asks the parents for favours when the favour is received she tells them what the children should be studying for the next class. Those children receive good marks in class and the children whose parents don't give favours don't, whether they've got to grips with what they're learning or not. She's the school Communist party representative, which gives her extra clout.

Things start to come unstuck when it becomes apparent that three of the ablest students have parents who are the least able to do useful favours for Maria. Their consistently poor marks at school prompt those parents to make a formal complaint about Maria and there's a meeting at the school for all the parents and the head teacher. Naturally, the parents of children who are doing well, don't want to rock the boat. The meeting is the dramatic centrepiece of the film, and to our surprise [ spoiler alert ] the complaint against the teacher is upheld. Sadly for Czechoslovakian school kids, the consequence for the teacher is like that of paedophile priests last century - she gets transferred rather than disciplined.

The acting in The Teacher is superb. Zuzana Maurery who plays Maria is completely convincing and her character never misses a beat. She appears completely without conscience and feigns ignorance of her manipulative and unkind behaviour. She devotes every evening to making phone calls to parents and continuing to feather her nest. The anxious parents are also very convincing.

The drawback with this film is that it's slightly too straight and slightly too dark. While Maria's lack of self-awareness and her indefatigability is somewhat humourous, the suffering she causes isn't. The Teacher lacks the warmth of Jan Hrebejk's other films, especially Divided We Fall.

Anne's rating 3/5 Ian's rating 3/5

Argo

Although I created the draft for this post after we saw Argo, I find myself writing most of it three years later. Unusually, my recall of the film is good, and I remember how it made me feel, which seems like the hallmark of a good film or at least a memorable one

Argo tells a story based on actual events. In November 1979 the US Embassy is over-run and occupied by revolutionaries and the embassy staff is taken hostage. Six of the staff manage to escape, and are given refuge at the Canadian Ambassador's residence. The American Government and the CIA come up with an elaborate plan to rescue them, and the execution of the plan takes  up the rest of the movie.

Ben Affleck plays Tony Mendez, (the hero), the CIA exfiltration (isn't that a great word?) specialist who comes up with idea of giving the the six escapees a new identity - Canadian film makers who are scouting for locations for a science fiction film. Given the go ahead ("of the bad ideas we've had for this mission this is the best bad idea") he recruits some help in Hollywood to give the fake film some substance, including a script.John Goodman and Alan Arkin feature is this part of Argo, and it's pretty funny.

Armed with the script, Tony sets of for Iran and meets the six Americans and explains his plan Understandably, they're a bit dubious but realising their options are limited they agree to participate. They go out into the city, ostensibly as film crew which is a pretty tense outing but not as tense as the day they attempt to leave the country on a commercial flight. My knowledge of the original incident was sketchy but I was pretty.sure the hostages made it out of Iran. This didn't stop the edge-of-seat-tension watching the scenes at  the airport, particularly when the immigration officials attempt to ring the film's headquarters in Los Angeles.

Argo is a great watch - absorbing, exciting and very, very tense.  It did a very good job of illustrating what it would be like to be in a building that was being besieged. It also illustrates why you should have a shredder that shredder that shreds into short bits and not long reconstruct-able strands.It seems like the kind of film that should win a best picture award, and it it did.

Anne's rating 4/5

Tanna

Our last film of the 2016 film festival, Tanna was one of the best. It's a Romeo and Juliet style love story filmed on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. Tanna is famous for its live volcano, Mount Yasur, and for still having some villages where the traditional lifestyle is practised. The inhabitants are self-sufficient, live in huts and  women still wear grass skirts and the men just penis sheaths.


In the village of Yakel, our Juliet is an attractive teenager named Wawa. Dain is our Romeo. Their romance is mostly in secret, although it doesn't escape the notice of Wawa's little sister Selin  Wawa is just coming of age, and is expected to marry someone of her parent's choosing, although she maintains she wats to marry someone she loves. The villagers have a long-running feud with a neighbouring tribe,the Imedin. Dain's parents were killed by Imedin many years before. In the film, Dain's grandfather (the vlllage shaman) is attacked by the Imedin because they think he made their crops fail. Dain itches for for revenge.

Since inter-tribal relations are at an all-time low and killing and violence are making everyone's life difficult, a council meeting is scheduled  Pigs are exchanged and dialogue takes place. Imagine Dain's dismay when Wawa is offered as a bride to the Imedin and they accept. The Imedin leave the meeting, to return tomorrow to collect the bride.

Unable to contemplate a separate future, Dain and Wawa escape overnight. Like Romeo and Juliet, they enjoy a brief period together while they are pursued both by Wawa's family (who eventually catch up with them) and the Imedin,. Seemingly persuaded to comply with the tribes' wishes they commit mutual suicide by eating poisonous mushrooms while camped out on Mount Yasur,

Despite the tragic ending, this film is so worth watching A convincing romance is always heart-warming and Wawa and Dain's enthusiasm for each other's company is endearing. A glimpse into a lifestyle completely different to our own is fascinating - it seems a very physical existence and the characters raced through the forest and up the volcano at the  drop of a hat, seemingly without raising a sweat. The children were a  particular pleasure to watch as they  played games in the forest and in the waterhole and they seemed happy, carefree and cute.

Selin

Selin is a delight and her parents struggle to get her to do what she's told, The scenery is lovely and was nostalgic for us since we've been to Tanna, climbed Mount Yasur and been to a kastom village. Take a break from your life and experience what it's like to be on Tanna - we recommend it.

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 3.5/5

Thithi

Century Gowda's death is the first event in Thithi and is preceded by a brief snippet of his life. This seems to consist of haranguing and insulting everyone he comes across. Century Gowda is described as a cantankerous centenarian but I'd call him a miserable old git. I think I was supposed to find him (and many of the characters) endearing, but I didn't. Century's main relevance to the plot is the five acres of farm land that he owned.

Century is survived by three generations - his son Gadappa, his grandson Thamanna and his great-grandson Abhi. The five acres technically belong to Gadappa but he's a bit of a free spirit whose favourite hobbies are drinking, smoking and playing games and he's not interested in the land. Nor is he interested in signing the land over to his son, who is chiefly interested in selling it. Abhi  leans more towards the free spirit side of the family - his hobbies appear to be playing cards and pursuing the girl of his dreams.

A thithi is a kind of post-funeral ceremomy which takes place 11 days after the death and cremation. The local astrologer says five hundred people must be invited. and and it's expected that they are fed very well. The film covers the eleven days leading up to the thithi and the family machinations that take place. Thamanna decides to fake Gadappa's death so he can sell the land. He borrows money in anticipation of the sale and pays Gadappa to disappear. He gives Abhi some of the money to buy three sheep for the thithi feast. Gadappa does a poor job of disappearing and Abhi loses the sheep money gambling on cards. I struggled to care. In the right circumstances this would be a comedy of errors but it just seemed like a bunch of mean-spirited people (nearly all the characters spent the whole movie complaining) got what they deserved. Avoid.

Anne's rating 1.5/5 Ian's rating 3/5

A Perfect Day

A slice-of-life drama, a Perfect Day is just what its title suggests - a day in the life of some aid workers in the Balkans in 1995, a day when a lot of the things that could go wrong, do.  The story centres around the search for rope to remove a body from the local well. Benicio del Toro and Tim Robbins star as the hardened long-time aid workers with Melanie Thierry playing a recent recruit. Olga Kurylenko plays a conflict evaluator. They have assorted adventures together including getting lost and having to spend the night in their utility trucks.

The film's not especially deep but does give realistic insights into potential hazards of that kind of work - lack of equipment, bureaucracy getting in the way of progress, weapons doing the talking and unexpectedly gruesome sights. The characters are likeable, the scenery is excellent, the dialogue (and indeed the film) is darkly comic. I enjoyed the recurring cow theme, the soundtrack and the journey the film took me on.

Anne's rating 3/5 Ian's rating 5/5

Les Innocentes

Like Land of Mine, Les Innocentes deals with another little-known slice of the aftermath of World War 2 but takes place in a convent in Poland rather than on the Danish Coast. It's also set in 1945, but towards the end of the year. Around nine months earlier, the retreating Russian army had paid repeated unwelcome visits to the convent and as a result a number of the nuns were pregnant As the film opens, a second nun is in labour.

Pregnancy in the convent was problematic on many levels. The Mother Superior was particularly worried about the convent being publicly disgraced so she was all for dealing with issue in-house and, for the most part, pretending it wasn't happening. Some of the other nuns were worried about their sisters dying in childbirth and, the babies being homeless. The film didn't really feature the perspective of any of the pregnant nuns, but they certainly weren't talking about their plight, and were mortified by their condition. An environment where you're discouraged from looking at or nurturing your own body would hardly make for an easy pregnancy, and there was certainly no ante-natal care.

The film opens with one of the nuns taking the initiative. Upset by distress of  her sister in labour, (the screaming echoes round the  building) she leaves the convent through a hole in the fence and walks through the forest in the snow to the nearest town to seek help from the French Red Cross. They're reluctant to help (it seems they're there to assist injured French soldiers) and want her to ask the Poles which she refuses to do since the possibility of the aforementioned public disgrace is so much greater. She manages to persuade a woman doctor (Mathilde) to come to the convent, and Mathilde ends up performing a C-section to deliver the baby

Keen to provide some post-natal care (and puzzled by the reluctance of the Mother Superior to allow it), Mathilde becomes aware of the existence of the other pregnant nuns and gets involved in trying to provide ante-natal care and of course assisting with the deliveries. She conscripts one of her male medical colleagues to assist.

Other reviews of Les Innocentes criticise the film appearing to be a docudrama about the unusual   circumstances that Mathilde finds herself working in and not presenting a viewpoint on the situation.to shape the film. I don't really agree with that - I felt that it was examining the contrasting attitudes of the Mother Superior and  her right hand woman Maria, They featured partly because they were the ones who could speak good enough french to communicate with Mathilde, and partly because they represented authority. The Mother superior was more concerned about the convent's reputation and about upholding its routine and Maria was more concerned about the welfare of the sisters and their babies. One of the film's defining moments is the Mother superior leaving one of the new babies out in the snow (leaving it to "providence" to decide the child's fate) while telling the sisters she had taken it to the mother's family. I can't really reconcile what seems like pre-meditated murder with being a bride of  Christ but I'm prepared to cut her a little slack since she had contracted syphilis from the Russian soldiers and probably wasn't on top of her game. Ditto for the decision to turn down Mathilde's offer of antibiotics to treat the syphilis. Certainly the routine life of the convent doesn't lend itself to  dealing with unforeseen circumstances like pregnant nuns, and the Mother superior has found herself in a situation she has had no experience with.

Whether or not you feel the film has a viewpoint, there's plenty of room for forming your own, particularly if you have a working knowledge of Christian doctrine and there's lot to think about afterwards. Equally you may just appreciate having your attention drawn to another group of people who suffered as a result of the war despite not fighting in it and to the people who helped alleviate that suffering. The ending is unexpectedly positive which I appreciated but some critics have felt was contrived.

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

Land of Mine

Land of Mine dramatises a little-known slice of post-World War 2 history -  German POWs were assigned to clearing mines from the Danish Coast in 1945. This has a sort of poetic justice since it was the German Army that laid the mines if the first place, but if Land of Mine has anything to teach us, it's that war is generally unjust and that it brutalises both sides.

The small group of POWs in Land of Mine are only teenagers and they are scared of their job, and scared of their Danish sergeant. They're billeted on a farm on an achingly beautiful stretch of coast with white sand and turquoise water. The woman farmer is being paid by the Danish Army to feed the troops, but she just pockets the money. So the boys are hungry and the work is dangerous but on the other hand they're outdoors,the weather is ok and they're not being shot at.

 It's hard to explain why a film about clearing mines from Danish beaches is my favourite of the festival so far and why you should see it, especially since a significant number of people do get blown up. I think it's the contrast of youth and and beauty (both the landscape and the soldiers) and age and brutality. And the paradox of the sergeant bawling his charges out for minor misdemeanors (such as apologising) one minute and playing football with them on the beach in another. I can't promise you a happy ending exactly but let's say there are enough acts of human kindness to leave you with a sense of hope.

Anne's rating 4.5/5, Ian's rating 4.5/5

Equity

Equity is a Wall-Street Drama with men in sharp suits and women in tight black outfits and high heels.Anna Gunn (who I know and love from Breaking Bad) plays an investment banker named Naomi, She manages Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) which involves finding institutional investors for privately held companies that are about to list on the stock exchange in order to guarantee a healthy initial share price. She's a very driven character who is under a slight cloud because the most recent of her IPOs didn't go very well. Her lover (Michael) works in a different part of the same bank, and he mingles socially with hedge-fund high flyers who are always looking for the next tit-bit of insider information.

The film is about the latest IPO, for a social media company called Cachet, Naomi and her underpaid and slightly resentful assistant Erin secure the contract and jet-set about the place looking for investors. Meanwhile, back in New York  Samantha (an old friend of Naomi's who works for the district attorney's office investigating white collar crime) is trying to dig dirt on Naomi's lover and a disaffected Cachet employee is trying to cause some trouble for the company's reputation.

So the action is all very tense and all very Wall Street. There lots of cab-catching, cocktail drinking, meetings in flash offices and watching graphs on computer screens. There's bossing people about and fishing for information. There's betrayal and undermining and each woman ( or man) is out for her or himself.

One of the things the film is trying to tell us is that no woman is an island. You can work hard, and make sure never to talk about your work to the wrong person, and keep all your passwords secure but because you don't work by yourself your co-worker failing to do all those things can cause you a big problem. And so can your customer not liking your manner or your clothes.Clothes did seem quite important. It struck me that on Wall Street men definitely get to wear the more comfortable clothes and that perhaps the next drama needs to feature someone who is both ugly and badly dressed

It was interesting seeing a drama of this kind where most of the major characters were women.   I felt we were being asked to look at the personal cost of this kind of career for women in a way we wouldn't have been asked if the major characters were men.

Equity is as much about the people as it is about the plot, so the viewer has to like the human interest angle. And since the human interest and human interaction is done really well, it's a pretty good watch,

Anne's rating 3.5/5

Looking for Grace

Grace is a teenager, who steals $13 000 from her parents' safe and runs away from home, leaving a note saying "sorry Mum"  Looking for Grace tells this not-very-complicated story from  five different viewpoints - those of Grace herself, her Mum Denise, her Dad Dan, retired detective Tom and a  truck driver called Bruce.

The description in the film festival programme suggests the film is about her parents enlisting the services of a retired detective and following clues to find their daughter but this credits the film with a great deal more plot than it actually has. Rather than relating the solving of a mystery, Looking for Grace is more an empathetic look at five  individuals. who have somewhat dysfunctional relationships.The writer/director (who was at the screening we went to) said the film has " a very Australian sensibility" and that it would be interesting to see whether New Zealand audiences warmed to it. I'm not sure what very Australian sensibility she meant but I'm guessing that she was referring to the not-very- demonstrative and not-very-communicative nature of the interpersonal relationships.All the characters had major secrets that their nearest and dearest didn't know about - an extra-marital affair, a child from a previous relationship, a business that wasn't financially viable to name just some. The characters, their flaws and their relationships  are conveyed sympathetically and humourously and they're pretty likeable but the film lacks much of a plot and much of a point so it's ultimately frustrating. And we never do find out why Grace's note says "sorry Mum" The trailer is a quick version of the film without the frustrating element.

Anne's rating 2.5/5 Ian's rating 3/5

Our Little Sister

It was off to the Embassy yesterday for the first festival film of the year. Our little sister is a pleasant family drama. Three twenty-something sisters attending their estranged father's funeral meet the fourteen-year-old half-sister they didn't know they had. The three of them thought their father was "useless" whereas their half sister Suzo was much more attached to her father than to her mother.Their mother left when they were in their teens, so they're used to sticking together. They suggest Suzo comes to live with them in the house they inherited.

Suzo moves towns to move in with them and the film covers the year following the move.We the audience get to know the sisters, their routines and the flavour of their lives and relationships.We think about the influence of your upbringing and your position in the family on how you turn out as a person. 

The film has some the same flavour as Like Father Like Son  which is probably because they're made by the same director, something I've discovered since I watched it.The characters are very likeable, so it's an easy watch. The scenery is pretty and so are the actresses, but seeing it on the big screen isn't really vital.

Anne's rating : 3/5

Love is Strange

I always find movies set in Manhattan a refreshing change from movies set in the rest of the US, which almost always involve people living in large fenceless two-storey  homes set well back from the leafy streets they're in, with some large shiny vehicles parked in the driveway. In Manhattan space is at a premium, so people live in apartments. That lack of space is a major driver of the narrative in Love is Strange.

The protagonists of Love is Strange are a gay couple ( Beplayed by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) who have been together almost forty years .It's hard not to think of John Lithgow as Dick Solomon from Third Rock from the Sun and he maintains that larger than life presence in this film. As his husband,  Alfred Molina provides a low-key contrast.  Ben (John Lithgow) is retired and George teaches music at a catholic school, and has some private pupils. When he's fired from his school job they can't afford the mortgage on their apartment, so are forced to bunk down (separately) with relatives. The movie examines the effect that this has on their relationship with each other and with their relatives. It's gently humourous and an easy watch.

Anne's Rating 3/5

Charlie's Country

 It's fair to say I am likely to go to any film that David Gulpilil , the star of Charlie's Country, is in. It's a particular pleasure to watch him walk - he has the most upright carriage of anyone I can think of and a light springy step. It's a bit like the pleasure you get from watching a dancer. Having committed to going to this film on that basis, there was the trepidation that comes with going to a film about indigenous Australians about whether it's going to be unbearably depressing.

Happily, this depiction of life in the Northern Territory (set in an aboriginal community and in Darwin) is

painted with light strokes and we see both good and bad aspects. Charlie is the main character and he is in almost every shot. In the community Charlie lives in a bivouac and has the opportunity to dabble in the traditional lifestyle - although the local cops take exception to him carrying a spear through the village and confiscate the buffalo that he and a friend shoot because their firearms are unregistered. Going walkabout results in pneumonia and he is med-evac'ed to Darwin. Discharging himself from hospital he lives rough in town, gets jailed for supplying alcohol to  people he shouldn't and is eventually released back to the community.

The film touches on the nature of friendship, the beauty of the landscape, the mostly patronising but usually well meaning nature of authority (the police, the housing officer, healthcare workers) and the community's residents' awareness of their health issues. There are moments of great humour ( Charlie doing some tracking for the police is one that stands out) and also ones of great pathos. Charlie's Country was an enjoyable watch.

Anne's rating 3.5/5