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
Monday, August 07, 2017
Friday, August 04, 2017
The Nile Hilton Incident
Set in Cairo but mostly shot in Casablanca, The Nile Hilton Incident is a noir police procedural written and directed by Egyptian born Tarik Saleh.
Q: How does a corrupt police force investigate crime?
A: They chase the money.
You need an invitation
You don't want to see my invitationMade with Swedish, Danish and German money and only partly filmed in Cairo. It is vaguely based on the murder of Suzanne Tamim. I don't think that The Nile Hilton Incident will get shown in Egypt because of the negative depiction of the Egyptian police and government and the sex scene.
Ian's rating 4/5 Anne's rating 2/5
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
Western
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet brought us British tradies in Germany. Playing the situation for laughs. Western brings us German construction workers in Bulgaria played completely straight. In both cases lack knowledge of the other's language and customs brings the locals and construction workers into conflict.
Western also employs elliptical storytelling: brief, disconnected scenes, fragmentary dialog, no overall plot, camera angles that often look accidental. It requires the audience to work out what is happening (which mirrors the confusion and dislocation as the work gang get to know each other and as the work gang and the locals size each other up).
Western also employs elliptical storytelling: brief, disconnected scenes, fragmentary dialog, no overall plot, camera angles that often look accidental. It requires the audience to work out what is happening (which mirrors the confusion and dislocation as the work gang get to know each other and as the work gang and the locals size each other up).
Eventually, the protagonists arise out of the mass of characters. The new digger driver (Meinhard) and his foreman on the German side and an entrepreneurial villager and a young woman who can speak a bit of German on the Bulgarian side. Arrogance, frustration, and machismo motivate the German workmen. Pride, jealousy, and machismo motivate the Bulgarians.
Some of the story fragments have a bit of tension and others contribute to Meinhard's growing relations with people he can't talk to. While I guess the elliptical storytelling style is intended to feel natural it actually feels contrived and usually unnecessary.
Ian's rating 2/5
Ian's rating 2/5
Thursday, August 03, 2017
Jasper Jones
Jasper Jones is not the protagonist in this film. Bespectacled Charlie Bucktin, who may be 13 but looks 11, the new kid in town, is the protagonist. His best friend is Jeffrey Lu, who is also trying to fit in. The town is Corrigan, Western Australia and the year is 1969. The Vietnam War is on. Prejudice is commonplace. Kids ride around on bikes.
One night Charlie is woken by Jasper Jones the town's half-cast bad boy knocking on his window begging for Charlie's help and for Charlie to come and see something.
While Charlie is anxious, but his strong sense of adventure and righting wrongs trumps this. Jasper's secret quickly puts Charlie offside with his parents, especially his mother (Toni Collette) and with Eliza, a pretty girl who tries to befriend him. It turns out that Jasper's secret is not the only one and Charlie quickly becomes privy to a host of different people's secrets. The subsequent adventures remind me of Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five and the friendship with Eliza is like Moonrise Kingdom with some emotion added.
Jasper Jones is a jolly romp and bildungsroman with a dark edge. The acting by the young actors is believable and I felt that I could over look the plot holes and unresolved story lines. It is based on a 2009 novel.
Ian's rating 5/5 Anne's rating 4/5
One night Charlie is woken by Jasper Jones the town's half-cast bad boy knocking on his window begging for Charlie's help and for Charlie to come and see something.
Ian's rating 5/5 Anne's rating 4/5
New Zealand’s Best 2017
New Zealand’s Best 2017 are the 6 short films shortlisted for prizes in NZIFF 2017. Audience members get to vote for the people's choice award (25% of the box office for showings in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin). This year the 6 films differed hugely in quality. I've ordered them from best to worst as I voted on them:
Predictable but funny, with good timing and acting. Though the title might set you thinking of a different ending. (Funding story)
Do No Harm
A surgeon protects her patient during an operating theater invasion. Who needs more than 12 minutes for a kick-ass action thriller? Director Roseanne Liang is better known for My Wedding and Other Secrets.Laundry
Mum wants to have sex, but...Predictable but funny, with good timing and acting. Though the title might set you thinking of a different ending. (Funding story)
The Dregs
A period film on the formation of an Auckland high school punk band. Basically a view of high school from a misfit boy's perspective. Dreams, bullying, and girls that are too cool to talk to.Untitled Groping Revenge Fairytale
This film could have done with a better title, even leaving the first word off would have been better. The concept was good, though the selection of men seemed like untargeted revenge.
Thicket
From the elliptical style of storytelling, exacerbated by the fact that the characters barely talk to one another, we see a boy standing up to his dairy farmer father. A very long 16 minutes.
Waiting
Two boys wait outside a suburban dairy for a phone call. How to make 12 minutes feel like 12 hours.
The first two films are straight forward audience pleasers by directors who obviously know what works.
The second two are reasonably well made. One with a slightly tame story, the other slightly flawed.
The second two are reasonably well made. One with a slightly tame story, the other slightly flawed.
The last two would only appeal to other film makers.
Announcement
Waiting won the Madman Jury Prize.
Thicket won the Wallace Friends of the Civic Award.
Do No Harm won the Audience Award.
What can I say?
What can I say?
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
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
Wednesday, August 02, 2017
Hostages
Many people tried to leave the Soviet Union. In 1983 seven people tried to hijack Aeroflot flight 6833 which was flying from Tbilisi, Georgian to Leningrad via Batumi (which is close to the border with Turkey) with the aim of forcing the plane to go to Turkey. Hostages is a thriller about that hijacking.
Most of the film is scene setting, showing the lives of some of the would be hijackers and some of their preparations. The first act finishes with the wedding of Ana and Nika whose honeymoon is the cover for the group flying to Batumi. The second act is the flight and hijacking. Here the tension starts to mount as things don't go to plan and they hesitate and improvise. Then the shooting starts. There are a couple of time jumps during the hijacking with events left unexplained. It seems like the real events as to who shot who, and when, are still controversial.
The repeated message from the Soviet authorities is that the hijackers (which include an actor and 2 doctors) have had every advantage that the Soviet system can give them so why are they so ungrateful?
The final scene deals very briefly with their parents 8 to 10 years later.
Unfortunately despite most of the film being devoted to scene setting I didn't feel like I knew the hijackers by the time they get on the plane (apart from Nika perhaps). In fact I had more empathy for their parents. So I watched the hijacking from a somewhat detached point of view. The takeoff and beginning of the hijacking is by far the best bit of the film. The tension is ratcheted up and up and the emotional reactions are believable.
One odd thing about this film is that it opens with some of the would be hijackers on a Black Sea beach before moving seamlessly onto their everyday lives in Tbilisi, which might fool the unwary into thinking Tbilisi was near the Black Sea.
Ian's rating 2/5
The repeated message from the Soviet authorities is that the hijackers (which include an actor and 2 doctors) have had every advantage that the Soviet system can give them so why are they so ungrateful?
The final scene deals very briefly with their parents 8 to 10 years later.
Ian's rating 2/5
Kiki, Love to Love
Some people are turned on by the oddest things. Other people prefer to come up with fancy names for such paraphilia. Kiki, Love to Love is a Spanish comedy composed of a number of short stories about people coming to terms with their or their partner's kinky quirks.
Of course sexual hangups are a staple of comedy and it seems that the Spanish are as reticent as English speakers when it comes to talking about sex. Some of the characters know what their kink is and just need to find some way of indulging it, others find out that they are kinky during the film. For instance, only when someone dies does one woman find out how much she is turned on by seeing her husband crying (Dacryphilia). She spends the rest of the film trying to make him cry again.
Despite the subject matter, the choice of kinks is unlikely to make most people squeamish and the body exposure doesn't go beyond young firm breasts and implied nudity. Overall the message is it is OK to be kinky and the final fiesta scene emphasises this.
Ian's rating 3.5/5
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
In the early 21st century the easing of mortgage criteria led to bigger mortgages and a housing bubble. Massive lobbying by the finance industry to ensure banking deregulation, lack of enforcement of remaining banking regulations, bonus payouts to reward of risk taking, lack of consequence for failure, the reselling of sub-prime mortgages as high credit rating investments, overrating of investments and banks by ratings agencies, insurance policies on these investments, fraud and sub-prime ethics in banking and finance industry led to the financial crisis of 2008. A lot of the largest companies involved declared bankruptcy. These companies were considered too large to fail and were bailed out by the US government. 🎥
Many people were expecting those companies that broke the rules and regulators that failed to do their jobs would be prosecuted. In 2012 New York prosecutors indited a bank on fraud charges relating to mortgages, the only US bank prosecuted in relation to the global financial crisis. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is the story of that prosecution.
Abacus Federal Savings Bank was formed in 1984 by Shanghai born lawyer Thomas Sung, who arrived in New York in the early 1950s. After a successful legal career, he saw a gap in the market where existing banks in New York were reluctant to lend to Chinese people. In 2010 Abacus fired a loan officer for asking for large tips for processing a mortgage application. They uncovered other falsifications on loan documents and reported to the banking regulator. The New York District Attorney's Office brought charges not only against the loan officer but against many other staff from the loan office and the bank itself. The investigation lasted 5 years.
This film is more than a story of a legal case about mortgage fraud. It is a family film. Two of Thomas Sung's daughters worked at the bank and another worked for the New York District Attorney's Office. The whole family has strong opinions about the case, which they often voice at the same time. They took the fight seriously and many of the interviews are with the family as they ate takeaways at the office or at local Chinese restaurants.
While the film is from the point of view of the Sung family and Abacus the prosecutors including Cyrus Vance Jr give their points of view as well.
Ian's rating 4/5
Many people were expecting those companies that broke the rules and regulators that failed to do their jobs would be prosecuted. In 2012 New York prosecutors indited a bank on fraud charges relating to mortgages, the only US bank prosecuted in relation to the global financial crisis. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is the story of that prosecution.
Abacus Federal Savings Bank was formed in 1984 by Shanghai born lawyer Thomas Sung, who arrived in New York in the early 1950s. After a successful legal career, he saw a gap in the market where existing banks in New York were reluctant to lend to Chinese people. In 2010 Abacus fired a loan officer for asking for large tips for processing a mortgage application. They uncovered other falsifications on loan documents and reported to the banking regulator. The New York District Attorney's Office brought charges not only against the loan officer but against many other staff from the loan office and the bank itself. The investigation lasted 5 years.
This film is more than a story of a legal case about mortgage fraud. It is a family film. Two of Thomas Sung's daughters worked at the bank and another worked for the New York District Attorney's Office. The whole family has strong opinions about the case, which they often voice at the same time. They took the fight seriously and many of the interviews are with the family as they ate takeaways at the office or at local Chinese restaurants.
While the film is from the point of view of the Sung family and Abacus the prosecutors including Cyrus Vance Jr give their points of view as well.
Ian's rating 4/5
Monday, July 31, 2017
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
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
The Love Witch
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
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
Sunday, July 30, 2017
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
Ian's rating 3/5
Risk
Risk is a documentary about Julian Assange and Wikileaks. It consists of interviews with Julian Assange and some of his associates plus some fly-on-the-wall footage of Julian and others at work and it is punctuated with bits of history of Wikileaks and voice over of the film maker's views of Julian. 7 years of filming Wikileaks is condensed into 93 minutes. Because the film is covering such a long period of time it doesn't cover any aspect in detail.
The title of the film comes from a conversation where Julian Assange gives his views on the risks various people are prepared to take to try and right wrongs and go up against the powers that be. He declares that he takes a pragmatic view of what risks to take and understands if people are willing to take more risks or fewer risks than he is. The film does a good job of showing his level of paranoia and justifying it.
Hanging over the whole film is the Swedish sexual assault allegations. While there is no detail on what happened in Sweden there are some glimpses into Julian Assange's attitude to the complainants.
While Assange is the main focus of the film Sarah Harrison (who seems to act as his personal assistant) gets almost as much time in front of the camera. The other thing that gets a lot of focus is Julian's hair (which itself is almost a trademark for Wikileaks).
Ian's rating 2.5/5
The title of the film comes from a conversation where Julian Assange gives his views on the risks various people are prepared to take to try and right wrongs and go up against the powers that be. He declares that he takes a pragmatic view of what risks to take and understands if people are willing to take more risks or fewer risks than he is. The film does a good job of showing his level of paranoia and justifying it.
Hanging over the whole film is the Swedish sexual assault allegations. While there is no detail on what happened in Sweden there are some glimpses into Julian Assange's attitude to the complainants.
While Assange is the main focus of the film Sarah Harrison (who seems to act as his personal assistant) gets almost as much time in front of the camera. The other thing that gets a lot of focus is Julian's hair (which itself is almost a trademark for Wikileaks).
Ian's rating 2.5/5
Saturday, July 29, 2017
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
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
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