Holiday

Director Isabella Eklöf's Holiday is set in the bright sun and colours of a Turkish resort town. Bikinis, swimming pools, clubwear, nightclubs and colourful amusement parks. It is a film about power relationships.

Sascha is the trophy girlfriend of Michael, a Danish gangster more than twice her age. From Michael's point of view, there isn't much of a downside to this relationship. For Sascha, it is more of a trade-off. Endless leisure time and material benefits on one side and verbal, sexual and physical abuse on the other. Is it a reasonable trade-off?

Michael, family and close colleagues are on holiday at a coastal Turkish villa. Consequently, Sascha is isolated from anyone outside Michael's circle of friends, with only casual holiday contacts which she certainly can't rely on to counterbalance Michael et al. Understandably Sascha takes a cautious, timid and mostly passive role in proceedings though her most dramatic act is certainly decisive as is the subsequent decision. Sascha's passivity and her lack of lines leave it very much up to us to conjecture what is going on behind the sunglasses.

While ostensibly filmed from a Male Gaze perspective, the camera often shifts to view Sascha and what is happening to her in a non-glamourous way. There are also plenty of scenes to disturb (including a rape). There were 2 walkouts in the showing I was at (one loudly telling us what he thought).

My initial reaction was that the message of this message was that women should burn their pushup bras, miniskirts, bikinis and high heels and put on their baggy overalls and comfortable shoes. But on further consideration perhaps Isabella Eklöf wants us to consider our relationships and the relationships of those we might judge in all their facets, trade-offs and consequences. What do people get from their relationships? What is the downside? How easy is it for them to get out of situations?

After reading other reviews, I see I am not alone at finding this a difficult film to process.

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Ian's rating 2.5/5

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 Berlin Syndrome

Clare the Australian backpacker meets Andy the German school teacher out and about in Berlin. They hit it off, and meet up again the next day. He invites her back to his apartment, they have sex, she spends the night and when she wakes up in the morning  he's gone to work, and she's locked in. Not too perturbed, she waits for him to come home  and when he does, he takes the key he meant to leave her out of his pocket. They have more sex, she stays another night and when she wakes up she finds the key he left her doesn't fit the lock.

So now we're straying into nightmare territory. The windows don't open, and they're double glazed and reinforced. Andy appears to be the only occupant of an entire apartment complex. The apartment windows don't look out over the street, they look onto a courtyard. Andy has removed the sim card from Clare's phone, and there's no landline. When Andy returns he admits to detaining Clare on purpose, and we're definitely in nightmare territory.

The film moves into exploring the bad situation (augmenting the nightmare) and looking for the opportunity to escape. It's very tense and keeps us wondering what the outcome will be, particularly when we find out that Andy has pulled this stunt before. The Berlin Syndrome is not for the faint-hearted but I promise you won't be bored. It's well-acted and atmospheric. Just don't expect to drop off to sleep immediately when you get home.

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

Wind River

Wind River is a thriller, a western set in the snow, a detective story, a morality tale, a slice of life on an Indian reservation and an examination of life and death. It packs a huge emotional punch. It's the best film of the festival so far, but it does involve a rape which is not only unpleasant but does have terrible consequences and the contrast between how the victim's evening started and how it ended is particularly stark.

Set on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, the story revolves around Cory Lambert, a local hunter, who discovers a  young native american woman's body in the snow and Jane Banner, the FBI agent who is called in from Nevada to investigate. It's quickly  apparent that the woman was raped not long before her death. Aided only by one of the reservation police, Jane asks Cory to help investigate, and he does.

The process of solving the case showcases life on the reservation. We meet the victim's family, we see the local drug culture and we see the oil rig that her boyfriend worked on. We meet Cory's ex-wife  (also a Native American)  and we learn that they had a daughter who died in her teens. We learn about surviving  harsh weather,   a violent culture and grief.

Like a good Western, there are some impressive and shocking gun battles. And like in a good Western, the baddies get their come-uppances delivered with panache, but not with malice. The survivors are scarred emotionally and physically but they remember to be kind.  The relationship between the hunter and the FBI agent is positive and generous. And as the credits roll, we're reminded that many native american woman aren't even reported missing, let alone have the crimes committed against them investigated and punished.

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

Cold in July

Imagine you're an American and you believe in your right to bear arms. One of the reasons you want to do that is to protect yourself and your family from other gun-bearers. Now imagine an intruder breaks into your home and you get out of bed and grab your gun and apprehend  the intruder in your living room. You shoot and he dies. No matter how firm your beliefs you're going to be a bit taken aback at this point and you have to process the fact that you have killed another human being. And of course you'll be wondering about the legal consequences of what you've done.

This is the scenario in the opening scenes of Cold in July. Michael C Hall plays Richard Dane as the anxious leading man. To Richard's initial relief, there seems to be very little in the way of consequences for the murder  - the police tell him the dead man is Freddy Russell who is a  known criminal  and no loss to the community. Then Richard sees a picture of Freddy Russell, and he's pretty sure the person he killed isn't

Freddy. Now the film proper kicks off - Richard goes on a kind of personal pilgrimage to work out what happened. He comes across Freddie's father who is (at first) out to revenge his son's murder, but once the body in the cemetery is unearthed and isn't Freddy he joins Richard in the pilgrimage. They recruit a private detective to help them and they go on a kind of boys road trip to solve the mystery and take retribution.

There's lots of gore and shooting in Cold in July but this film is a great watch. It kept me gripped and if I didn't exactly empathise with Richard I could understand how he felt.The 1980's setting, particularly the big cars and the aviator glasses is done superbly It's very good- humoured for such a violent film  and there seemed to be cheerful camaraderie between the the three men who are the main characters. The acting is superb - Michael Hall can definitely compete with Jesse Eisenberg when it comes to being anxious convincingly and. Don Johnson plays the private detective with just the right amount of swagger. Cold in July isn't quite as classy or quite as much fun as In Order of Disappearance with which it shares some plot similarities but it's good entertainment nonetheless.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 3.5/5

The Angel's Share

One of The Angel's Share's claims to fame is that it's directed by Ken Loach, who is famous for gritty films with kitchen sink realism. There's a chance that grit and realism might not be what you're looking for in your evening's entertainment and so this might put you off and I do hope this isn't the case. Like Looking for Eric, (a film we both loved, also directed by Ken Loach),  The Angel's Share mixes grit with humour and charm and a slightly fanciful feel-good story.

Our story is set in Glasgow and features Robbie, a slight but good-looking troubled youth with a pregnant girlfriend who narrowly avoids going to jail at the opening of the film.He leads a somewhat desperate existence, plagued by beatings from some life-long rivals and his girlfriend's relatives who are less than keen on  the relationship. He's sentenced to community service and so makes the acquaintance of Harry the supervisor and Rhino, Albert and Mo, who are similarly troubled youths.

Harry gives Robbie a ride to the hospital when his son is born and then takes him home for a celebratory whisky afterwards. Robbie's appreciation of the subtleties of whisky inspire Harry to take him (and in fact the rest of the community service crew) to a  distillery and later to a formal whisky tasting. Robbie comes up with a cunning plan to steal some of a very rare single malt from an isolated distillery and  sell it to solve his financial woes. He conscripts Rhino, Albert and Mo to help him and the next part of the film is reminiscent of a Famous Five adventure with Scottish accents - it only lacks Timmy the dog. This is not a criticism - this is all rollicking good fun although the jolly life-affirming stuff is tempered with doses of violence.

You'll have to concentrate to make sure you catch all the dialogue which is delivered with broad Scottish accents and you'll have to be comfortable with plenty of four letter words but it's all worthwhile and the happy ending is most satisfactory

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

Killer Joe

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Killer Joe might not quite merit stylish (unless you find Texas trailer trash stylish), but it certainly qualifies on both cynical attitude and sexual motivations. Killer Joe also qualifies in terms of its plot about people forced into desperate situations, making decisions that put them onto the wrong side of the law and trying to find their own way out of the predicament.

Chis Smith is the sort of guy who is in debt to a drug dealer, has had his stash stolen and wakes everyone in the middle of the night to tell them about his plan to hire a hit man to kill his mother for the insurance money. Things go down hill from there as Chris enlists Ansel, his reluctant but equally dim witted father to help him. You would think a cop that is smart enough to moonlight as a hit man would run a mile once he caught a sniff of this penniless, incompetent duo; but Joe Cooper catches sight of Chris's apparently naive sister Dotty and his lust for the cute teenager sucks him into the Smith family intrigues. In complete contrast to Dotty's sexual innocence is Sharla, Chris and Dotty's stepmother, who is the voice of reason in this dysfunctional family but has her own secrets and schemes.

Juno Temple as Dotty

I seem to be watching a lot of films featuring bad cops lately, last week's Rampart, last year's Coup de torchon, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, Point Blank and 2010's The Killer Inside Me. Joe Cooper tops the list as the most blatantly and melodramatically evil cop. His immaculate clothes and patronising smarter-than-thou attitude belies the fact that he is as venal and feral as the trailer trash he is caught up with. Any misplaced admiration you may have had for him is undercut by the climatic fried chicken dinner scene, which includes violence and humiliation that polarised the critics. It is not the most violent scene in the film but it has a visceral shock value that is enhanced because it doesn't particularly seem necessary to the plot.

Despite its low rent locations Killer Joe is stylishly filmed, especially the night scenes. Matthew McConaughey (who also played the district attorney in last week's Bernie) plays Joe Cooper with oily charm and Juno Temple is disturbing as the enigmatic woman-child Dotty.

Ian's rating 4/5

Killer Joe was preceded by New Zealand short film Hitch Hike, about a young man hitch hiking the roads around Huntly looking for his birth mother - where there only seems to be one car.