God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya

In Macedonia, on 19 January they celebrate the Baptism of Jesus Christ (Vodici or Epiphany), priests throw a cross into a river or lake and the person who gets it first is blessed. In Stip in 2014 a woman got to the cross first, it was grabbed from her by a male contestant and the police were called. This was the inspiration for God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya.

Unfortunately, due to writing the wrong time on the calendar, I missed the first 25 minutes of the film and arrived at the point where Petrunya is in the river having had the cross snatched off her. While filmed by a TV crew the priest intervenes and she gets the cross back from the crowd of angry young men who think it is wrong for a woman to have participated and more importantly got to the cross first. Petrunya takes the cross home, has a fight with her mother and locks herself in her room to gloat over her victory (perhaps her first since graduating with a first-class history degree 10 years earlier). The police arrive and take her to the police station to "sort things out" - which takes the rest of the film.

The priest is there, insisting that Petrunya has broken "the rules", privately the police chief points out that the priest's "rules" aren't the same thing as the Law. The police chief attempts to brow-beat Petrunya about breaking "the rules" anyway while admitting that she is not under arrest but at the same time insisting that she has to stay. The arguments (or lack of them) go round and round, with Petrunya taking a passive but defiant stance and gaining in self-confidence. Outside a mob of angry young men and a TV reporter are trying to get into the police station.

Unfortunately having reached an interesting intersection of girl power, patriarchy, secular power, tradition, religion and angry youth (youth unemployment is over 40% in Macedonia) God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya can't find a satisfactory way forward, ending anticlimactically - which may be the point.

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Ian's rating 2.5/5

Woman at War

Hella is a much-loved choirmaster and secret eco-warrior. She also has a 3 piece band that appears wherever she is to provide a soundtrack for her life and when they aren't available there are 3 Ukranian women in national costume to sing instead. These are slightly surreal aspects to Woman at War, this year's Icelandic comedy. Hella's eco-warrior activities mostly revolve around shorting out high-voltage powerlines feeding a steel (or aluminium) plant. Her life is complicated when an application to adopt a Ukranian orphan four years earlier is suddenly accepted. Our quixotic heroine is undaunted by the forces of the government and nature.

This is a laid back, light hearted shaggy dog story, which will teach you a couple of new uses for dead sheep and how to shoplift a typewriter. There is also an unfortunate Spanish speaking cycle tourist who is always in the wrong place at the wrong time and you will see and hear a Helicon.

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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

Rafiki

Your dad and my dad are rivals, is it Okay for us to be friends? This is the first question confronting Kena and Ziki in Rafiki. Their fathers are rival candidates in the upcoming election. But the initial attraction between the skateboard riding, soccer playing Kena and Ziki with her huge earrings and pink and blue dreds, moves onto kissing. Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya and the local pastor regularly preaches against it, so coming out as a lesbian is dangerous. But the two girls can't keep away from each other.

Rafiki is a simple story set in a colourful Nairobi suburb. The passion the two girls have for each other is communicated by their recklessness. The charm of the film is not only stubbornness of Kena contrasting with the flirty Ziki but also the colourful exotic setting (to non-Africans) but also the directness and emotional expressiveness of the dialogue. I was left with slight disappointment at the end at how little plot there was, a feeling of is-that-all-there-is? But remember that this is an issue film which wants to communicate is message in a positive feel-good way rather than a complex drama.

The film is adapted from a Ugandan short story and has been banned in Kenya.

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Ian's rating 3.5/5 Anne's rating 3/5

A Date for Mad Mary

Mary is getting out of jail just in time to be maid of honour at her best friend's wedding. Mary has a take-no-nonsense, never-back-down, have-a-good-time attitude to life and she really misses her best friend Charlene. But while Charlene has organised a fast food job for Mary, she is super busy organising her wedding and has no time to go drinking with her buddy. Everyone also assumes that because Mary has been in jail and has never had time for boyfriends, that she won't be bringing a +1. Mary is of course outraged that people including her best friend assume she won't have a +1 in time for the wedding.

A Date for Mad Mary is an Irish romcom set on the wrong side of the bus shelter. Mary (known from a safe distance as Mad Mary) lives with her mother and grandmother. The latter giving us a clue to the origin of Mary's personality by dropping the line "even a sniper wouldn't take you out" into casual conversation.

The film is punctuated by Mary writing and rehearsing her maid of honour speech about Charlene which provides the only clues to what their relationship was like before Mary went to jail. Which is necessary as there are no signs of the inseparable good-time-girls now, with most communication done by text message and voice mail.

If A Date for Mad Mary was only about the ever more desperate attempts to find a man to go to the wedding with her and pretend to be her boyfriend, or her attempts to get past the bouncers at her favourite night club it would be funny but there wouldn't be any character development. Though Mary is happiest dancing to loud music while drunk she has also been tasked with wrangling the somewhat unreliable wedding photographer, who unwittingly sets Mary on a path of self discovery.

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

The Beguiled

The Beguiled is a remake of a 1971 film 🎥 starring Clint Eastwood, and based on a 1966 Southern Gothic novel. The synopsis is that during the American Civil War a wounded Union soldier ends up in an almost closed girl's boarding school behind enemy lines. The title could have been Seven Southern Belles Capture a Soldier or perhaps more coyly Our Toy Soldier. I haven't seen the 1971 version of the film but director Sofia Coppola says she was creating a version of the story from the women's point of view (which I gather was also the case with the novel).

Nicole Kidman is Martha Farnsworth the head mistress of The Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies which she runs in her family estate. While most of the girls have gone home to escape the nearby fighting, there are 5 left of varying ages from 12 up plus another teacher Edwina Dabney (Kirsten Dunst). Colin Farrell is John McBurney the Irish born Yankee corporal with a handful of shrapnel in his left leg found in the nearby woods by one of the younger girls. Miss Farnsworth decides to hand him over to the next Confederate soldiers who pass the front gate, but not before she treats his wound.

The conflict between duty to their own side in the war, mercy for a wounded person and sexual desire drive the women and girls to varying degrees. These conflicts, the existing school hierarchy, politeness and good manners of Southern women, a big old candle lit house, and long dresses mean the film teeters on the border between bodice ripper and sexual farce without coming down on either side.

Corporal McBurney is of course initially worried about being made a POW, but as he recovers he reassesses his situation and begins to see the attraction of his new situation. The middle section of the film slows down but the final climax happens suddenly, with McBurney making a couple of decisions that take the women by surprise and seem out of character but raise the question of how well did they know him?

If you are attracted to that Southern antebellum vibe, with polite sexual conflict from a female perspective then The Beguiled may be the film for you. This is light romp in long skirts with a frisson of danger, rather than a deep film. The more cynical might wonder at the luck of a good looking man finding himself trapped with so many good looking women 🎥

Ian's rating 3/5

Una

Una has never come to terms with the end of her first love affair which was brought to a sudden and unexpected halt. Years later she comes across a photo of her ex-lover and tracks down where Ray now works to confront him. He is shocked by her unannounced arrival at his workplace and the subsequent confrontation takes all day (though it is interrupted by a meeting he has to go to etc).

Una is not only looking for answers, she is also needy and very angry with Ray and as the day wears on increasingly vengeful. Ray is initially defensive but gradually they talk though most of unresolved issues between them in a way that the professional help has been unable to resolve for Una.

Rooney Mara portraits Una as a highly believable mercurial woman who is damaged goods. Ben Mendelsohn probably has the easier job as Ray. A man with a secret who is hiding from things.

Una is not an easy film to like because the love affair that is the genesis of the film is one between Ray and Una when she was 13 and he was the man you lived next door. We are not supposed to think of such a relationship as a love affair but as child abuse. Both Ray who spent 4 years in jail and Una who had professional help once the police were involved have been schooled to regard it as child abuse but film suggests that neither completely believes this. 🎥

Ian's rating 4/5

Belle de Jour

While most films at the NZIFF have been released in the last 12 months, there is usually at least one old film brought back for nostalgic reasons. This year it is Belle de Jour, a French film from 1967 with the risque premise that there are a small number of middle class Parisian housewives who secretly work in brothels.

From what little I'd read about the film and what I've seen of other French films of the era I was worried that it might consist of elaborate set-pieces with little in the way of coherent story line. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is a narrative tying it all together.

Séverine Serizy (played by Catherine Deneuve) is a young, beautiful and always elegantly dressed wife of Pierre, a hansom doctor (Jean Sorel). Séverine is aloof and vacant both in public and equally in private with her husband. It is clear that they rarely have sex, which frustrates him but he respects her wishes. But Séverine day dreams elaborate sadistic sex fantasies usually involving her husband. When a friend of hers mentions that a mutual acquaintance is secretly working in a brothel her interest is piqued, and later when another friend of Pierre's mentions brothels she questions him until he mentions an address. At the brothel the equally elegant Madame Anaïs gives her the double entendre name of Belle de Jour and overcomes her reluctance to have sex with the clients by realising that Séverine responds to orders rather than requests.

While her work at the brothel is more exciting than her domestic life it isn't as exciting as her fantasies. But she does begin to show a tiny bit more affection toward Pierre. Séverine secret desire to be dominated (and possibly humiliated) is completely at odds with the burgeois conventions of her marriage. There is no indication that her fantasies reflect how she would really like to be treated or if they are just an extreme, and exciting version of what she really wants contained within the safe confines of her mind.

The eroticism of the film is based more on what is implied than what is shown. Fashions, hairstyles and makeup change over the decades and by today's standards Catherine Deneuve looks 30 something (but was actually 24), while Jean Sorel looks almost 10 years younger than her (but was actually 33).

Ian's rating 3.5/5

A Gentle Creature

The Soviet Union lasted far too long, and so did A Gentle Creature. The message of the film was brilliantly conveyed in the first 5-10 minutes where a Russian woman who lives in the middle of nowhere takes the bus to town to pickup a care parcel she had sent to her husband who is in jail and which has been returned with no reason given. The next 2 ¼ hours is used to repeat the message that modern Russia is an inhuman place for those audience members who are slow on the uptake.

The Russia of A Gentle Creature is a crumbling version of the Soviet Union populated by people who at best are sadly nostalgic for past glories, but who mostly are getting on with their lives in a way that is uncaring of their fellow citizens. The protagonist receives lots of unhelpful advice and offers of help none of which are delivered. Most of the people we meet are sullen and angry but not as bitter as one might expect. Those that are in charge of things wield their power arbitrarily and callously with sadistic effect if not sadistic motive (people trying to save things from damaged buildings after the Christchurch earthquake will understand). Those on the receiving end are generally grumpy, while some of those people who are uninvolved take advantage of the situation for their own gain. I expect things were just as bad back in the USSR, though some of the infrastructure would have been newer.

Director Sergei Loznitsa has the talent to make a 2 hour film feel like a 3 hour one, he also shares Peter Jackson's indecision on how to finish a film, with several potential finish points overlooked in the search for a finale.

Ian's rating 0/5 Anne's rating 0/5

Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is not based on Shakespeare's Scottish Play. It is an adaption of a Russian novel (Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District) reset in rural Yorkshire. It is a Shakespearean style tragedy, where the protagonist takes action to escape from a bad situation but then feels forced into a series of increasingly worse actions culminating in their ultimate doom.

Katherine finds herself in an arranged marriage to colliery owner, who lives in a country house with his domineering father. She is dismayed to discover her husband is not interested in having sex with her, while her father-in-law blames her for the lack of a grandson. Both father and father-in-law command that she stay in doors despite her protestations that she likes fresh air. We are expected to sympathise with Katherine. Opportunity arrives when both her husband and father-in-law are away on business and she gets to meet the male outside staff and finds mutual action in Sebastian, the groom. The return of her father-in-law leads to the next fateful decision as Katherine asserts herself further. At some point we begin to question our initial sympathy!

Shot in a limited set of locations with high production values (except for an out of character staircase that gets repeatedly used) and with a smallish cast this feels a bit like a play rather than a film. There are a couple of weak plot points to be glossed over but overall while the pace is slow the action when it happens often packs a punch.

Ian's rating 3.5/5

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

Sami Blood

What? Those wonderful Swedes are racist? Well when it comes to the Sami people, otherwise known as Laplanders, that live across the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the adjacent part of Russia, they suffered racism across all 4 countries.

Sami Blood is a film inspired by the director's grandmother's life story and expands on an earlier short film on the subject called Stoerre Vaerie (Northern Great Mountain). Bookended by modern segments about an old woman going to her sister's funeral, the bulk of the film is set in the 1930s and is about Ella-Marja a bright and stubborn teenage Sami girl who outgrows her one room school and decides to cross the divide between Sami life and Swedish life. While not illegal, her decision is considered wrong by both her family and almost every Swede she meets.

Ella-Marja's determination and the condescension and hostility she meets among the Swedes are the defining themes of the film. This could have been a depressing film but as none of the characters are completely good (even our heroine) and the scenes of her trying to fit in are played with gentle humour (as is the sex scene), it is on the balance an upbeat film, which should make you a little bit angry.

Ian's rating 3/5

Tragedy Girls

In any horror film, you need a good premise for all the blood and mayhem. Often American films only seem to require a country location and an old house but Tragedy Girls is a little more imaginative and gives a high school movie (with the requisite corridors lined with lockers, cheerleaders and a prom)  more than a touch of blood and guts. Teenagers are renowned for being self-centred, and more obsessed with social media than the rest of the planet and the central characters of  the movie (McKayla and Sadie) take these characteristics to sociopathic levels. A couple of grisly murders in their small town inspires them to start a blog called Tragedy Girls but soon they feel compelled to create more fodder for their blog - firstly by capturing the murderer and putting him to work, and later committing some murders themselves. Improbably, they don't get caught and neither do they appear to have any twinges of conscience.

As you'll have guessed, this isn't a movie that wants to be taken seriously, and the makers have played with (and added to) some classic movie tropes. There's a particularly imaginative murder in the school workshop, with circular saws and hoist chains that bring James Bond movies to mind. The girl who discovers the body drops her takeaway coffee and the coffee mixes artistically with the blood on the floor. Another murder takes place in the gym where Mykayla manages to kill one of the town s firefighters who's at least twice her size.

At one point, Sadie starts dating the local sheriff's son, and it seems like she might be putting him first and giving up her evil ways, but her relationship with Mykayla wins out and the boyfriend and most of their high school class comes to a grisly end. Watch the film, and find out how.

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