FACING
THE MUSIC (Australia) Directed
by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, this is a gripping documentary
about cuts to the funding of higher education. Centred in the
Music department of the University of Sydney, the film focuses
on eccentric educator, Professor Anne Boyd. This film gets under
the skin of academics and angel-faced students, as they fight
for the survival of their beloved department. It reveals both
the political facts as well as the dysfunctional individuals who
live in the cloistered seraglio of academia, unable to cope when
reality bites hard. Worth watching just for Boyd’s animated rendition
of Beethoven as a wild man feral.
LOST
AND DELIRIOUS (Canada) An
adaptation of Susan Swan’s novel ‘The Wives of Bath’. Some tragic
little rich girls find sapphic love, a solace from the chilly
embrace of socialite parents. Set in an exclusive boarding school,
pouting post-pubescent chicks with honey bee-stung lips make this
a very sentimental story. Full of implausible plot lines, ‘Lost
and Delirious’ is a catalogue of ‘sexual awakening’ cliches. If
you want a real challenge about young girls’ first lust, you can’t
beat Catherine Breillat’s controversial ‘a ma soeur’, now screening
at the Chauvel.
PROMISES
(USA) is an emotionally wrenching documentary filmed over
five years in and around Jerusalem. Film-maker B.Z. Goldberg is
an integral presence within the film itself as he befriends seven
children — Moslems, secular Jews and Orthodox Jews — delving into
their prejudices, fears and learned hatreds all seen in the context
of their childish innocence. When a group of these children meet
the film reaches its emotional peak, and the impossibility of
sustaining that connection is what leaves us feeling exasperated.
Excellent film-making.
TREMBLING
BEFORE G-D (USA) is a bold attempt to locate a place for homosexuality
within Orthodox (Hasidic) Judaism. It’s a heart-breaking portrayal
of gay men and lesbians who can’t turn away from the culture that’s
in their blood which nevertheless teaches that their ‘sin’ is
an abomination punishable (for men) by death. A probing examination
of the failure of faith and the hypocrisy of a religion which
preaches love but can’t deliver it.
LIKE
FATHER, by the UK’s Amber group, falls into the genre of bleak
UK realism and features first-time actors in the principal roles.
Created around the actual story of the lead actor, the film traces
the rift and reconciliation of three generations of men (a father,
son and grandfather) in a somewhat heavy-handed and sentimental
fashion. The moments of symbolic significance are overstated and
deflect attention from the more subtle textures of this realist
film.
LA
CONFUSION DES GENRES (France) is almost what it says, veering
between absurdism, high farce and romantic comedy. Director Ilan
Duran Cohen has been rightly dubbed ‘the French Hal Hartley’ by
the French press — the same sense of discontinuity, dislocation
permeates his wintry Parisian landscape and its characters. The
ambiguous but insistent sexuality of Pascal Gregory’s Alain —
and the film’s ‘je m’en fous’ attitude towards marriage and cross-generational
sex — are tantalising. What is even more tantalising is the way
the film refutes sentimentality, in stark contrast to Hollywood-made
films dealing with similar themes.
THE
WERCKMESITER HARMONIES (Hungary/France/Germany) requires that
the spectator slow to its rhythm of interminable tracking shots,
of shots that linger long after the action has stopped, of a narrative
you can never quite put your finger on. Those who manage to enter
the poignant, eerie, troubling world of this film are however
richly rewarded — it is a masterpiece. Filmed over five years,
Bela Tarr’s dream-like work about chaos brewing in a Hungarian
village is a filmic poem, subtle and profound.
SILENT
PARTNER, Australian director Alkinos Tsilimidos’s second feature,
was impressively shot in seven days on a budget of almost nothing.
It focuses on the relationship between two down-and-outers, Bill
and John (played at the dangerous edge of caricature by David
Field and Syd Brisbane). The fact that they are drunk and infantile
in almost every scene is amusing at first but ultimately prevents
an empathetic response. The possible complexity and even homoerotic
dynamic of their relationship is not really allowed to manifest.
PELLET
(EL BOLA) is a first feature from Spanish director Achero
Manas. The central theme of child abuse is portrayed with startling
maturity by the impressive cast. Unfortunately the film doesn’t
move far beyond well-executed TV drama — the single issue which
drives the narrative unreels just as we expect it to, and to keep
things black-and-white the film falls back on cliché — such as
the unproblematised contrast of ‘bad father’ against ‘hard but
good’ father. EL BOLA begins to look as though it will move into
unexpected areas but turns out to be surprisingly simplistic.
MAELSTROM
is an imaginative feature from French-speaking Canada (set in
Montreal). Realism is dispersed with and the film is narrated
by an enormous, grotesque fish. What helps this film along are
its morbid sense of humour and vibrant cinematography; drawbacks
are the oddly uncompelling presence of its central character (25
year-old Bibiane) and the slightly unconvincing meeting of grotesque
fairytale and Sliding Doors-style fatalism. Quaint.
THE
SORROW AND THE PITY (Germany/Switzerland) Directed by Marcel
Ophuls, this four-and-a-half hour film documents the Nazi occupation
of France during WWII. It contains interviews with persecuted
Jewish politicians, French Resistance fighters and the women who
were publicly humiliated by the French for dating the enemy. Excellent.
ME,
YOU, THEM (EL TU ELES) (Brazil) Dolores has a libido to die
for. She makes mockery of her irascible old husband, Osias, by
seducing multiple paramours. Uplifting, quirky with a sensuous
soundtrack.
THE
CIRCLE (Iran/Italy) In
Iran, its illegal for women to smoke, travel, have an abortion
or go out in public without wearing perda. Even simple liberties
are denied. Jafar Panahi creates this slow-moving portrait of
life as a second class citizen.
LAST
RESORT (UK) A
black comic tale of Tatiana, a beautiful Russian woman who arrives
in England with her son, only to be stood up by her English fiance
at the airport. She searches for love, but instead find Brit-boy
crims, pimps and eventually some plastic cutlery for her Indian
takeaway at the shabby immigrant accommodation. Keep your eyes
out for this film’s release; it’s an astute and wry invocation
of life as an outsider.
SOUTHERN
COMFORT (USA) In drastic need of editing, ’Southern Comfort’
centres on the life and loves of a female-to-male transsexual
suffering ironically from ovarian cancer, due to the refusal of
the American health system to treat him. Lola is his male-to-female
lover. It is not a very illuminating portrait of life between
the borders of gender.
FASSBINDER:
YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE (Germany) Reminiscence is never as good
as the real thing. This film about Werner Rainer Fassbinder’s
friends, colleagues and sexual partners (the latter category has
mostly been lost to suicide or tragedy) attempts to unravel his
mysterious charisma through a series of interviews. The best footage
is that of the man himself, which is frustratingly sparse. We’re
not so sure about the super close-ups of discoloured teeth and
open pores as the poor interviewees try to tell their intriguing
stories. Suicide, sadomasochism and twisted genius.
TIME
FOR DRUNKEN HORSES (Iran/France) Set in the bleak white snow,
this astonishing feature from first-time director Bahman Ghobadi
depicts the hard life of poverty-stricken Kurds. They live as
an ethnic minority in portions of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq.
Slow moving and painfully emotional, the bleakness rarely lets
up as a small boy faces hard realities as he tries to save his
disabled brother.
THE
SECRET SAFARI (Australia) Tom Zubrycki won the Best Documentary
Category at this year’s Dendy Awards for this humorous film about
a serious subject. In the early 1980’s a company called Africa
International, created by ANC exiles, took tourists on safaris
while smuggling ammunition under their seats.
