Border

Tina works in customs at a Swedish ferry terminal. She is a valuable member of the team because she has an amazing sense of smell. Tina is particularly ugly. One day she processes a passenger she finds fascinating and the attraction is mutual. This has a knock-on effect on Tina's relationships with both her boyfriend and her dad. Tina, who has been bullied all her life, blooms as a result of this encounter. Border is another film that should have been categorised in the NZIFF's Incredibly Strange section and I can't say much more about what happens without giving too much away.

Border is a film about the marginalised in society and different strategies for those people to deal with the rest of society. It is also brings some old Scandinavian ideas up to date, by incorporating them into a modern story.

After reading other reviews I see that some reviewers are shocked by seeing ugly people having sex on screen.

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Ian's rating 3.5/5

Good Manners

Good Manners is misfiled outside the NZIFF's Incredibly Strange section. It is an urban Brazillian horror film among other things, which starts with pregnant Ana interviewing nannies in an upmarket apartment. She hires Clara who moves in to work as a housekeeper prior to to the birth. The impassive Clara contrasts with the flighty, impulsive, Zumba obsessed Ana. Despite the difference in social class and personality the two develop a close bond, which holds them together when odd things start to happen.

When the story of Ana and Clara came to an end and I expected the credits to roll, but there is jump of 8-10 years and a new plot starts. Good Manners is like a double feature, two stories back to back, with Clara as the linking character. This time Clara is in charge, running her own pharmacy and looking after her son.

I didn't know there were home ultrasound kits

There is more humour than horror in Good Manners and some stylish set pieces. It is also one of a surprising number of films at this year's festival which are either lesbian centric or with lesbian content.

Ian's rating 3/5

Thelma

Thelma is starting university in Oslo. She is from a strict, religious, rural family. So this is a culture shock. Though having an epileptic-style fit when a pretty girl sits next to her in the crowded library is an even bigger shock. The doctor who treats her is pretty sure it isn't an epileptic fit, suggesting psychogenic seizures. No-one notices the simultaneous bird strikes on the windows.

The contrast between the clean, modern Scandinavian university, the student world of Facebook and iPhones and the unnatural events make them more startling. These students even find the idea of fellow students who believe in God difficult to process. They expect things to be rational.

Thelma is a quiet, reserved girl, trying to live up to her parents' expectations and her religious upbringing, while also trying to fit in to student life. Underneath that reserved exterior there are alot of emotions wrangling for control: confusion, fear, lust, guilt. The more she tries be unnoticed the more she attracts attention to herself. It's interesting to contrast the timid Thelma with the much brasher and younger Mia in Blue My Mind though both girls are physically similar; pale, slim with long hair, placid expressions and perfect skin.

Thelma evolves from being the victim of her fits to being in control and in the penultimate scene, she strides from her family home in triumph.

There is enough ambiguity in the film to view what happens as either supernatural with Themla's telekinetic powers being successfully repressed during most of her childhood and resurfacing at university or as Thelma's imagination, dreams and unreliable guilt-ridden childhood memories.

Equally the final scene, which on the face of it feels like a cop-out in this otherwise dark, sinister Scandinavian movie, could also be interpreted in a couple of more sinister ways.

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Ian's rating 4/5

Blue My Mind

Teenage years are a time of change, perhaps more so for girls than boys. It is also a time in life where identity and fitting in are important. In Blue My Mind Mia is starting a new school at age 15. Eager to fit in she steps out of her comfort zone and tries to join the bimbo clique. The clothes maketh the bimbo. Well, actually more than the clothes there is also the smoking, drinking, an overt interest in boys etc. The more she fits in with the new crowd the more distant she becomes from her parents.

She also has her first period, something that her parents haven't prepared her for*. Things go from awkward to worse as the next day 2 of her toes are stuck together, a portent for more change. So what starts as a teen angst movie develops another angle. How Mia copes with these changes is like the stages of grief: she goes through bewilderment, challenge, denial, anger and finally acceptance.

One thing that works well in this film is that the filmmaker avoids the trap of exposition. Things are left unexplained.

For me, it is difficult not to draw comparisons between Blue My Mind and Ginger Snaps from 2000. Both are movies about teenage girls coping with unnatural changes beyond their control. Blue My Mind has a lot less gore and more teenage angst. In fact, unlike Ginger Snaps, it is not really a horror film. It is also much prettier, with better camera work. In both films, the protagonist eventually embraces the changes, but Mia resists the changes happening to her for much longer than Ginger, she also has less support from friends and family.

This is one of those films where the trailer gives too much of the plot away.

* I think the first period at age 15 and lack of parental preparation were just thrown in to make other bits of the plot work.

Ian's rating 3.5/5

Mandy

I'm a lumberjack and I'm Okay. Until the night some drug-crazed biker, hippy, Jesus-freaks showed up at my cabin in the woods and killed my woman.

Given how little dialogue or plot there is in this film, there are some details writer and director Panos Cosmatos thinks it is important that we know such as the character's names and that it is set in 1983. But the only name you need to know is Nicolas Cage, whose revenge rampage is what this film is all about. His transformation from a mild-mannered lumberjack living blissfully with Mandy, a new age artist/shopkeeper, to raging homicidal maniac is what we paid to see.

Mandy is a self indulgent visual orgy of 1970s and 80s imagery with an incessant soundtrack of fog horn and bass guitar. Each scene (and this film rarely moves smoothly from one scene to the next) is lit in an appropriate colour: green woods, yellows and oranges for the interior of the happy couple's cabin, blue as they sleep, red for the sky filled with oversized planets borrowed from the front cover of a science fiction novel. In addition to the occasional CGI, there are some old-fashioned animation clips to "link" things together and remind us of the dead Mandy. This film certainly qualifies for the Incredibly Strange section of the NZIFF. It seems like Panos Cosmatos was trying to create a movie for a cult following and so far he has wowed the critics.

Mandy is not without humour. The chainsaw duel with its nod to India Jones is my favourite set piece in the film.

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Ian's rating 1.5/5

The Untamed

I don't understand why The Untamed isn't Ant Timpson's Incredibly Strange section of the NZIFF, because there is no doubt that this is a very strange Mexican film. Most of the film is a family sexual drama between bi-sexual Angel, his wife Alejandra (and 2 little boys) and Fabián his homosexual brother-in-law. Angel is in denial about his sexuality and acts as a crass homophobe in public. Circling the family and precipitating the crisis is free spirit and outsider, Veronica. Veronica is obsessed by an alien creature that we don't get to see for most of the film and that not directly related to most of the action.

Veronica is treated in hospital by Fabián for a "dog" bite to her abdomen and she later entices him to experience something amazing in the woods (that she refuses to describe). The alien lives in a darkened room in an off the grid house in the woods owned by a middle aged scientist and his wife. (We all know to be wary of the cabin in the woods, don't we?). They don't mind people visiting the alien and are happy to provide refreshments and advice.

It turns out that while visiting the alien is an amazing experience for some people it can be less so for others. The consequences tear Angel and Alejandra's family apart, but Veronica's role in the matter remains secret. Undeterred (or perhaps obsessed) Veronica takes Alejandra to visit the house in the woods too.

While it is not mentioned in the film it seems that the alien has a sexual preference but even if it likes you it can be risky to visit, hence the title.

Despite the labels, there is very little science fiction in the film and even less horror. It is mostly a realistic drama about adult relationships with a slightly horrifying, yet enticing alien hiding in a dark corner of a house in the woods and a fair bit of sex. Pleasure and violence are the main themes of the film, especially how sexual pleasure motivates people's actions.

Ian's rating 3/5

The Evil Within

Do you wonder where the ideas behind some of your dreams come from? Did you ever have a dream or nightmare so weird that it must have come from someone (or something) else's mind?

Apparently, Andrew Getty thought so when he was a child. Written and directed by billionaire Andrew Getty, The Evil Within is the story of a nightmare plagued young man who actions are increasing directed by a demon who manifests itself in his dreams and later in his reflection in a mirror.

Dennis suffers from brain damage and lives with his irrepressibly cheerful older brother John. Most of the story is told from Dennis's point of view and while his dream sequences are weird, they take a back seat to his reflection in a mirror that John gives him. His reflection begins to talk to him, urging him and blackmailing him into increasingly psychopathic behaviour.

This isn't a jump horror movie, nor is it a splatter movie (despite the death toll it is surprisingly bloodless), it is mostly a creepy psychological horror with plenty of special effects. The dim house, dark dream scenes, and darker basement all contrast with John's relentless cheerfulness, the bright sunshine outside and Susan the bikini clad worker at Dennis's favourite ice cream parlour.

The Evil Within throws us into the weirdness from the beginning, using up many of its best ideas in the first few minutes. This means that like a lot of horror films it gets a bit repetitive before the finale. For light relief, there is a sprinkling humour throughout the film especially from the female supporting characters and a brief encounter with a laid back Cosmo Kramer inspired character.

Ian's rating 2.5/5

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

The Lure

The band that hunts mermaids together, stays together.

Or perhaps not. The link between pop music, mermaids and Warsaw is not fully explained by Disney, but The Lure fills in those gaps in your knowledge, plus it goes into their eating habits.

The Lure is very much a musical film. It is centred around the two mermaids and the pop band they join. Not only are there musical performances at the night club (of which they are a permanent feature) but also any of the main characters may burst into a song and dance routine in any scene, rather like a 1940's musical or Bollywood film. I don't know if the songs are typical of Polish music but the lyrics invoke some crazy imagery e.g.

Holy moly, bitter tastes can be delicious as hell
Picking at love’s cracked-up shells

The story line is dream like, with scenes that don't make sense, sudden jumps and characters that don't serve any plot purpose. It feels like a bunch of amazing ideas thrown together around the basic concept of two mermaids leaving the Vistula to work in a Warsaw night club. But given that the action is centred around a nightclub it is not unreasonable that things make as much sense as you would expect from that sleep deprived, addled world. It is also a horror film with a bit of gore and some radical surgery in the second half. It is hard to pigeon hole this crazy musical horror. It is better to just let its madness wash over you and go with the tide.

Ian's rating 4/5 Anne's rating 3/5

High-Rise

Dr Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) moves into his 25th floor apartment as a successful man on the way up in life. Three months later he is barbecuing a dog on the balcony. High-Rise attempts to explain this by telling us that our physical environment (the apartment building in this case) affects our behaviour, which in turn determines the structure of our society. This doesn't quite ring true as everyone has arrived in the building with a clearly recognisable place in the British class system, and the building just amplifies that class system to a ridiculous extent. It is like an adult version of Lord of the Flies. As one of the characters puts it: "What has happened when someone can fall from the 39th floor and not a single policeman turns up. Where are the sirens?" ABBA's SOS plays a prominent part in the sound track.

High-Rise is a visual riot of a film, with the apartment building in question surrounded by a sea of 1970s British cars. The building in question is post-war brutalist in and out, though some apartment dwellers have managed to recreate other interiors to try and disguise where they are living.

High-Rise has enough components (interesting premise and characters, amazing visuals, good actors, a risk taking director and a political message) to deliver a great film but it doesn't achieve its potential. Instead of an overarching plot there is an overarching idea and bunch of little sub-plots. Instead we get a surreal mishmash with recognisable bits of the 1970s presented in a (bad) dream like fashion.

Ian's rating 2.5/5

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

Under the Skin

Inexplicably Under the Skin escaped from the Incredibly Strange section of the Film Festival programme to the Thriller section.

The opening scene is a drawn out arrival scene, which is more than reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then suddenly we are in Scotland, following a motorcycle. That dramatic contrast between the alien images, and the mundane and familiar is a shock. But just because we are in a recognisable place doesn't make the film any more understandable.

The bulk of the film is of a nameless beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson) cruising the shopping malls and streets of Glasgow eyeing up men, occasionally striking up conversations. While the concept of the camera lingering and following women is common place in cinema, the opposite is striking and sinister. She is inquisitive about where the men are going and who they are meeting, and she freely offers lifts to those who aren't intending to meet anyone. This is a quiet and gentle film. There is no screaming (except of the motorbike sort). These men are seduced freely and happily to their doom.

If this isn't enough, their reactions to a tragic accident underline the fact that she and her motorcycle riding compatriot are not empathetic in the way we expect humans to be. Eventually she goes off book and abandons her successful modus operandi, indulges in a little experimentation (with cake and public transport) which is the only time the mood is lightened. This finds the tables turned on her.

Very little is explained or even hinted at. For instance the relationship between the male motorcyclist and Scarlett Johansson is unclear, as is how they communicate. Is she his boss or vice-versa or is one of them a robot?

While parts of it are mesmerizing: the busy urban scenes in Glasgow, the beautiful, bleak winter countryside, the seduction scenes. But mostly this film feels painfully slow. There is barely 15 minutes worth of ideas, which has been stretched to a mind numbing 108 minutes of film. I wanted either more ideas to think about (and/or more plot) or a much shorter film.

You will like this film if you like your sci-fi films strange, beautiful, unexplained and glacially slow.

Other reviewers raved about Under the Skin.

Ian's rating 1/5 Anne's rating 2/5

Klown

The Incredibly Strange section of the Film Festival programme is usually a bit hit and miss, and this year it seems to be more miss than hit - the other things we've seen being The Cabin in the Woods and Sightseers. I bravely went to Klown by myself, inspired the "blisteringly funny" description. My hopes were further raised immediately beforehand by the review on the TV 3 website, which said "I have not laughed so hard while watching a movie in a very long time. In fact, a friend and I managed to sustain the giggles right through the closing credits and were still guffawing out onto the street afterwards, sides aching, tears rolling down our cheeks".

Klown has a reasonably amusing premise. Two men (Casper and Frank), who appear to be in committed relationships with very nice women, go on a "boys own" canoe and camping trip without their girlfriends. At the last minute, Frank decides he will take his girlfriend's 11 year old nephew Bo along because he wants to demonstrate his potential as a good father. Since the purpose of the trip is debauchery, you can see this isn't going to turn out well, and Casper is justifiably upset.

Anyhow, off they go and Casper tries hard to have sex as often as possible. The trio gets thrown out of a camping ground, capsize their canoe, eat a lot of pancakes, visit a music festival and a brothel and smoke pot. Casper and Frank give Bo a hard time because he has a small penis. And....that's about it. Some of Klown is funny, and some (like Mr Bean), is painful and some is in poor taste. One of the things that annoyed me is that, like lots of American comedy, one of the basic premises of the movie is that men are more stupid than women and I think that this is lazy, and inaccurate. Klown seemed like "Tool Time" or "Malcolm in the Middle" with rude bits. It's always hard to say why something does or doesn't seem funny, but I'll go on record saying I don't find men doing stupid things while women pick up the pieces intrinsically funny. Perhaps I like my comedy to be equal opportunity. I laughed a bit, but not hard and not often. Disappointing.

Anne's rating 1/5