THOROUGHLY MIFFED - PART IV: THE ROARING TWENTIES

When I made the decision to review every film I saw at MIFF this year, I can only conclude that a very Australian mindset captured me, because a stiff shot of "She'll be right, mate" can be the only reason an otherwise sane person would battle through reviews to 59 freaking movies. Last two years, I saw and reviewed 21 and 27 pictures respectively, and they'd been a breeze! How hard could this be, really? It's only more than those two combined, right? *cue deadpan look to camera*

Lunacy. Fucking lunacy. And I'm in too deep now, and have no choice but to forge ahead... Thankfully, the films are gradually improving. Without further faffing about:

30th - WENDY AND LUCY

A small, sparse, well-executed, 'meat & potatoes' American independent film about an indigent young woman (Michelle Williams) traveling the country with her dog, Lucy, on her way to Alaska to find work and freedom. We find her on the day her little life unravels; down to her last dollar, her car breaks down, she gets arrested for shoplifting and loses her dog. Light on for story, sure, but story is never the point for these kinds of films, it's all about mood, reality and capturing a slice of life, all of which this film actually does pretty well. Williams is terrific, the film is shot and edited with extreme subtlety and Wendy's actions and interactions all have the ring of truth, and at a slim 80 minutes, doesn't outstay its welcome. WENDY AND LUCY won't set anyone's seat alight, and it's nothing we haven't seen before, but in terms of its modest aspirations -- a snapshot of a woman staring her life in the face as it falls apart around her -- it succeeds beautifully.

29th - CELEBRITY: DOMENICK DUNNE

An Australian-made documentary taking us through the high and low life of famed Los AngelesVanity Fair columnist Dunne, this is a snappy little effort. Kept humming along by the now-81-year-old subject's willingness to share, his very much intact sense of humour and talent for observation, and the circus of events and personalities involved -- plus some damn good vox pops from such reliable luminaries as Robert Evans and Dunne's actor-producer son Griffin -- the film is constantly engaging. If anything, it threatens to drown in its own L.A.-ness, its sense of self-importance, the feeling that Los Angeles is the centre of the universe. The dreadful revelation which changed the course of Dunne's life -- his daughter being murdered at just 23 -- and the metamorphosis it triggered in him, from celebrity gadfly and budding Fitzgerald to professional celebrity court reporter, adds some much-needed gravity to proceedings. Overall, a colourful, entertaining docu about a colourful, entertaining man.

28th - BRANDO

Befitting the man, this is a mammoth (165 minute) record of the life and times of the Actor Who Changed Everything, particularly in terms of American screen acting. Produced by the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) network, this is a fairly loving portrait, as you'd expect, chock full of entertaining interviews with many who knew, loved, worked with or were influenced by him, and incredibly light on criticism or objectivity. Nobody wants a character assassination, but a deeper look into his later-life eccentricities and anguish would've provided a touch more edge. It does provide a terrific illustration of what impact Brando's arrival had on Hollywood and, most crucially, his fellow actors, and packed with terrific anecdotes. It's always entertaining, but very much a made-for-cable-TV affair, and overlong by about half an hour. Sometimes the line between exhaustive and exhausting can be incredibly slender, and BRANDO isn't always on the right side.

27th - REDACTED

Despite all the hate heaped on top of the guy, I always find Brian De Palma an interesting figure among American film directors. Capable of true genre greatness (CARRIE, SCARFACE, THE UNTOUCHABLES and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE... and I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen many of his 1970s flicks like SISTERS, THE FURY or OBSESSION), highly entertaining camp nuttiness (PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, RAISING CAIN) and the odd intelligent exploration of society's big questions (GREETINGS, CASUALTIES OF WAR) -- as well as, yes, many misfires -- De Palma has had one of the more varied (and variable) careers of his contemporaries, so I'm always intrigued by what he'll do next. REDACTED, indeed, is something different again, caught somewhere between CASUALTIES and his avant-garde beginnings -- if in experimental spirit rather than content. A comment on today's proliferation of mixed media messages and how their subjectivity further compromises the truth rather than propagates it, it tells the story of the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family by American peacekeeping soldiers through video blogs, a fictional documentary, news footage, CCTV, taped military psychology sessions and so forth. It sounds like a mess, but it actually gels together rather well, progressing in a surprisingly linear fashion. The actors do a great job being as real as possible and blending into the background... but De Palma, as writer more than director, lets the dog run off the leash in the final quarter, as his characters start saying and doing things that feel more like the actions of movie characters than the flesh-and-blood archetypes they were previously. Added to that, the movie traverses well-well-worn territory, and when the 90 minutes is done, you're left with the feeling that, while told in an interesting and innovative way (some may say "gimmicky"), it hasn't told us anything new or shown anything particularly enlightening. Still, it's well executed and, while not to everyone's taste, is quite good as a piece of preaching-to-the-converted antiwar polemic.

26th - LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

Oskar is twelve, slight, sickly, lives in a freezing Swedish commission flat with his mother and gets bullied at school. One reason for the latter is his interest in the macabre, which gets him labeled a freak of sorts. However... this interest is very much piqued when the new girl next door (also twelve... and then some...) turns out to be a vampire. Elegantly shot, leisurely paced and bursting with terrific ideas, this is one of those films that's A-L-M-O-S-T there, but not quite. Unfortunately, it's also bursting with too many extraneous plotlines which take up slabs of valuable screen time and distract from the intriguing central dynamic. However, I'm always up for any new or unexpected twists on the Vampire genre, and on this count, the picture delivers. Oh, and the second-to-last-scene is killer.

25th - OLD FISH

An aging policeman working and living in the slums of China is kept around by the force almost as a monument; his fellow cops call him "Old Fish" and treat him with a mixture of respect and amusement. But the old man has one edge over his more technologically advanced fellow officers: after the war, he specialised in disarming land mines left by the Japanese, and by default has become their resident explosives expert. So when a rash of home-made explosive devices pop up at dilapidated housing flats across town, Old Fish is The Man. Some incredible suspense is created as we watch this old fella -- he'd be pushing 60 -- struggling to stay his hands and slow his heart as he takes apart device after device, as his slightly smug colleagues can only watch in fear. Director Gao Qunshu ratchets up the tension beautifully, and creates an evocative portrait of the grimy, desolate slums not so far from China's urban centre -- I'm sure this isn't a place the Chinese authorities would want foreigners to see. However, after you've seen Old Fish disarm the first four bombs, it becomes clear the filmmakers don't have much more up their sleeve (there is an interesting suspicion that Old Fish may be planting them himself, but this idea is quickly discarded) and the action eventually becomes monotonous, padding out the film to an overlong 113 minutes, and it's a little hard to swallow this force don't have a single officer trained in explosives. It eventually builds to a nice ending, which leaves you wondering how much more fulfilling the film could've been with some judicious second-half editing.

24th - BEST MIFF SHORTS

Thankfully, a remarkably subdued and decidedly not cringe-inducing award session preceded a selection of six of the award winners.

First was JOHN AND KAREN, a cute English animation about an awkward, all-too-human conversation between a polar bear (John) and a penguin (Karen). Amusing anthropomorphic antics, but hardly stunning or gutbusting... as good as it was, it's hard to believe this was the best animated film on offer.

Secondly was the ambitious, attractive, but massively dull HELL'S GATES, based upon the cannibalistic exploits of 1790s Australian convict Alexander Pierce and his increasingly starving fellow escapees. With such effort put into evoking the period (on an incredibly low budget apparently, kudos) and building mood, this had the potential to be genuinely fearsome, but goes nowhere and unforgivably ends up a thunderous bore. Unfortunately, at 21 minutes, it was also the longest short on offer, not helping its cause.

Then came 296 SMITH STREET, which agonisingly evokes a day in the life of Ahmed, a Collingwood (or is that Fitzroy?) pawnbroker and his customers: occasionally ingratiating, often agitated, and always on a knife's edge. Shot in black and white yet bleeding realism, sometimes amusing and increasingly nerve-wracking, considering the clientele are always a heartbeat away from violence, this was one of the best for mine.

Just as great was Irish short NEW BOY, a simple yet punchy and painfully real story (based on a short story by Roddy Doyle) of an African boy's first day at school after emigrating to Ireland. Nervous, affecting and ultimately funny, this is beautifully done.

Next up was the Aussie JERRYCAN, fresh of winning the top short film prize at Cannes. It's a spunky, beautifully shot film, with a really strong sense of place, about two kids in a country town trying to stave off perennial boredom and find something to amuse themselves, eventually coming across the titular petrol-filled item... naturally, explosive hijinks ensue.

Finally, there was the actual grand prize winner, the Danish short DENNIS. Living with his domineering mother, Dennis is a hulking bodybuilder who exists in a state of abject loneliness. He calls up a girl from the gym for a date and, to his surprise, she accepts. However, the painfully shy big guy finds that's only half the battle as the date goes in an unexpected direction. By turns amusing and painful, this is a nicely told little tale.

In some way or another, all six displayed the possibilities of the short film format to positive effect, much more than the utter dreck Tropfest routinely serves up year after year.

23rd - LA ANTENA (aka THE AERIAL)

A visually stunning homage to silent German expressionist cinema, or a family film co-directed by Guy Maddin and David Lynch: take your pick, as either description can be applied to -- yet not fully explain -- this odd little fantasy concoction from Argentinian cinematographer-turned-director Esteban Sapir. Set in a world where no-one can speak aloud, but can project visible words (like subtitles) into the air, where a nefarious media magnate named Mr. TV -- the man who stole their voices in the first place -- controls all television and music output, even much of the food the silenced citizens eat. This isn't enough for him, though: he wants to steal their words, too. Enter a recently sacked network employee and his daughter, and the only two people in town with voices (a torch singer without a face known only as “The Voice” and her son, born without eyes), as they discover Mr TV’s plan and plot to stop him. Charming at times, downright bizarre at others, this is one of the more inventive films I’ve ever seen, and although it has that fuzzy, soft-light look shared by such all-CGI films as SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, it is stunning to look at. Plot-wise, it takes a while to get going, but it is so unique and frankly whacked-out you can’t help but be hooked.

22nd - SEVEN DAYS SUNDAY

The winner of this year's Jekyll and Hyde Award. The story of two disaffected youths, living in the slums of Leipzig, who spend their days staving off boredom by drinking stolen booze, chatting up local girls and, for one of them anyway, mugging the odd passer-by. In minute detail, we watch these two go through their day and into the night; one of the guys fancies a girl, the other one contrives to get off with her just for something to do, there's a misunderstanding, they end up at the most boring-arse party in the history of humanity... and all the while your eyes are glazing over, realising that, no, nothing is actually going to happen. At a slim 79 minutes, you wouldn't think the film would have a chance to grow boring, but there I was, at the 40 minute mark, falling asleep, peering at the clock on my phone and actually contemplating leaving... something I never, ever consider, let alone do. It was that bad. Suddenly, one of the boys tells the other, "I want to kill somebody"... and the movie turns on its head in every conceivable way. We can only watch helplessly as these two stalk the streets, waiting for some poor unsuspecting bloke to murder for their own pointless gratification. It's horrible, agonising stuff, and merely watching their disaffected behaviour enraged me. What's more, when the killer is caught, he makes no attempt to hide what he's done, almost as if he's disconnected from the world. The actor who plays him, Ludwig Trepte, perfects the bottomless, permanently blank stare of a youth who is both utterly unrepentant and completely uncomprehending of the tragedy he has wrought. As the main characters -- including the girl -- all struggle to deal with the aftermath, the film takes on a genuinely sad tone and it just shatters your soul. Amazingly, yet tellingly, this was the film school graduation film for its writer-director Niels Laupert, who promises big things on the back of this. Notable for being one of the few films at the festival to really get a strong emotional reaction out of me, I was left wondering what might have been, had the entire film been that good.

21st - DIARY OF THE DEAD

The catalyst for this year's welcome retrospective, George A Romero's newest film is, like his other DEAD films, a rumination on a social theme. This time, like De Palma's REDACTED, it focuses on the YouTube generation, the proliferation of personal cameras and the need to film everything: is this the pursuit of truth, or mere exploitation? What's more, if you shoot a disaster and don't help, are you in some way complicit? Romero goes some way to answering these questions, but often it's at the expense of any kind of interesting character work, as the young filmmakers at the heart of this story -- we find them making a low-budget horror movie when the zombie outbreak occurs -- are as uninspiring as any in the filmmaker's entire oeuvre. Making up for this shortfall somewhat are some highly effective zombie scenes (considering the film's relatively low $2 million budget -- and Romero DID invent the genre, after all), a hilarious encounter with a surprisingly hardy Amish fellow (the film's highlight), and the director's trademark swipes at the modern human condition. Even when they're flogging their theme over and over to the point of exhaustion, Romero and his editor keep things moving along at a fine pace, and throw the characters some interesting curveballs along the way. Not as effective as NIGHT, DAWN or even LAND OF THE DEAD, DIARY still does enough well to not embarrass the franchise, and in this age of dull, brainless studio horror remakes, it's nice to have guys like Romero out there, still proving time and again that the genre is worth a damn.

Next up: we get to the good stuff... the back end of my TOP 20 OF MIFF '08! Come join me, if you've got the stamina. I dare ya.

TSIK