Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition 1
The Extraordinary Life of Rocky (Bel) - Poor Rocky is cursed so everyone who he has a love for (including his unfortunate pet dog meets with a gruesome end. Hiding himself away from the world to stop any more accidents, can he ever find happiness? A bittersweet narrative tale. 7.5/10
Men of the Earth (Australia) - Ever wondered why there are sometimes groups of workmen at the roadside, seemingly doing nothing while holding traffic up? This film, which includes a very long choreographed scene, attempts to answer the question. 7/10
Frozen Stories (Pol) - Two young supermarket workers find their lives made immeasurably worse when their boss punishes them for bad work, having to go on the popular 'unhappiest man of the month' reality show, and treats them accordingly to make sure they win. An interesting concept, but executed coldly and with some stupid dialogue. 5/10
Matador on the Road (Spa) - An elderly matador is forced out of retirement and flown to America to take centre stage in the country's first bullfight, but an unrehearsed, unexpected bovine encounter on the way brings back troubling memories. Good, but nowhere near as brilliant as the many awards flashed up at the start seemed to suggest. 6.5/10
My Sweetheart (Fra) - Estelle is taking her sister Romaine to see her boyfriend Laurie on their big day. They both have learning difficulties and have been allowed out of their care home on a holiday, and they intend to take their relationship to the next stage. But the complexities of love are a strain on their fragile tempers and it isn't long before Estelle is very much needed to help out, and the confidentiality of sisterhood is tested to the limit. A sensitive look at the complications of love. 7.5/10
Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition 2
Beatitudes (Gre) - An old man is reminded of the past as be prepares to join the streets once more in the street protests. One by one, ghosts haunt his mind and sit beside him, challenging the decisions that he took. Mysterious and beautiful. 7.5/10
My Bow Breathing (Ita) - An archer takes a trip out at night, complete with her equipment, determined to seek revenge on those who wronged her. Bloody and direct. 7.5/10
Fireworks (Fra) - The union workers of a massive steelworks come together under a rallying cry of the latest person to suffer loss, to put an end to the company's safety record and chemical spills. Some pretentious dialogue spoils it. 6/10
House Party (Rom) - After a spell away with her husband in hospital, housewife Moni returns to her little flat which appears spotless, but when her chattery neighbours start to weigh in, a story about the antics of her son, left alone in the house over the weekend, starts to form. Featuring possibly the most dialogue-intense subtitles I've ever read. I was out of breath! 6.5/10
Nasty Bitter Sweet (Bel) - A spate of 'metro pushings' - where innocent tube-goers have been pushed in front of the trains has left one woman out of her mind with worry about her partner. But when he turns up OK afterwards, it's not relief but anger she feels. A mysterious man on the tube system - lank and with unkempt hair takes an interest, and in her confused state she responds, but the stranger seems to hang around the tube a lot, is she too blind to see? A French mystery with the usual random philosophising. 6.5/10
All Men are Called Robert (Fra) - A naked man runs through the woods, carried along by the sweet but vulnerable voice of a woman calling him for help. But there are also hunters on his tail. A short film with a quick twist. 7/10
Alois Nebel (Cze/Ger) (site)
In the high Jeseniky Mountains, Alois Nebel works in peace. It's 1989, that year used so often in films from this area, and the upheavals of regime change are a world away as he works out his final pre-retirement years as a station guard on a remote platform. That changes when a stranger passes through the area on the way to the border, chased by dogs and men. He has something to hide by running, and the forces that be will have that information.
Captured but silent, everyone the man talked to is questioned; and Alois' quiet demeanour is mistaken for something to hide. This jolting out of a stable position brings back memories of the past, and the end of the second world war when young Alois and the stranger seem to be linked somehow.
Bleakly animated in black and white using a rotoscoping technique, Alois Nebel's snowcovered grounds and perpetually black skies, and the dark and seemingly hopeless situation he is in, is entirely suited to the animation style. But there is just something, maybe the robotic not-quite-right bodily movements, or the coldness and lack of compassion shown by just about every character, that makes it hard to embrace fully. Technically accomplished, and I'm certainly glad I saw it, I just can't recommend it enthusiastically. 7/10
World Animation Award 2012 Part 1
There was meant to be ten films here, but the projection equipment began to croak as we hit number seven.
Fear of Flying (Ire) - A cute and cheerful tale of Dougal, a bird that can't fly, but gets a good reason to try when he catches the eye of Lucy, who is about to fly south for the winter. Fresh and humerous, well worth the time. 8/10
Dr. Breakfast (US) - Two deer attempt to look after a man, unable to move as the hunger monster within him escapes and eats everything in it's path. A crazy, energy-packed animation with a style very similar to Spongebob and Ren and Stimpy. 8/10
The Pub (UK) - Using a rotoscoping technique to get the main forms of the characters, and then finishing off with pen lines to create expression, The Pub shows us a day in the life of a landlady, and all the stick she has to put up with from the idiots that crawl into her pub. Depressing but interesting. 7.5/10
Deep Shit! (Ned) - The band Deep Shit is in deep shit after making a pact with the devil to get some of the best songs he has lying around. Loud and colourful and energetic, similar in style to Sita Sings the Blues, but a little messy story-wise. 7/10
Fly Mill (Est) - In a creepy world inhabited by scary-eyed dolls, a baker uses dead flies to grind up into flour and make bread for his ducks, who are hunted down as soon as they take flight, but the baker has a surprise in store for the hunters. Grim and icky. 7/10
Red River, Song Hong (Fra) - A mix of computer generated character models overlaid onto the busy streets of Hanoi, Vietnam, makes for a beautiful, if confusing story of a young boy going to the city to work with his brothers, who busk for money. Left alone with his dog and a few supplies under a bridge, it doesn't take long before a cow, a lost ball and a furtive soldier trying to get his end away with his girlfriend makes for a dangerous combination for him. 7/10
The Great Rabbit (Jpn) - I'm not even going to score this - the equipment made it unwatchable - the video kept freezing but the sound gallopped along so the last half of the film was in complete silence. It didn't look that good, but it would have been better if we could see it properly.
The Last Bus (Slo) - This was just about watchable but with a nasty drone in the background (not the films fault I'm sure). A group of assorted humanoid forest creatures hurry to board the last bus out of the forest before the hunters come for them. The mix of live action and animal heads and a stop-motion feel to the frame rate gave this a creepy, atmospheric feel. 7.5/10
LIFF 2012 Day 11
Got a day almost completely full of anime today. One disturbing, one crazy and two action-packed.
Asura (Jpn) (site)
In feudal Japan, many lost their lives in the chaos as lords vied for power, and the villages were the ones on the receiving end. An unnamed mother staggers out of the fireball that used to be her village. She is heavily pregnant, and her waters have broken.
Bringing up a child in the aftermath is hard. Food and water are scarce, so when the desperate mother chances upon the rotting flesh of a corpse, she feeds herself, and her child on it. So little Asura learns the taste of human flesh.
Somehow surviving past his mothers' death, Asura lives feral like a beast, attacking what is left of the village, killing indiscriminately for human food. His humanity lost, and never knowing a mothers love he knows not how to handle young Wakasa, a girl who finds him and shows kindness where all others would fear or attack him,
Based on the 40-year old manga by George Akayama, this big screen adaptation attempts to capture some of the raw emotion dealing with love, humanity and savagery. Some considerable time has been spent with the animation and background work, which are exceptional, even though the character design, a sort of standard 2D anime style wrapped around 3D models to create a Corpse Bride style, takes a little getting used to. Story-wise, the film's seemingly hopeless world continues it's tale slowly but surely, with a half-half mix of heartstrings-pulling and fighty action scenes to keep both sides happy. I don't think it will stand up so well against a good read of the original (I haven't) but in it's own right, it's a pretty powerful example of an emotional anime. 7.5/10
Vanishing Waves (Lit) (wiki)
Today would have been completely anime'd up were it not for a repeat screening of Wolf Children next weekend, so in it's place I took the opportunity to see Vanishing Waves. Winning the Golden Melee at Sitges this year, Vanishing Waves takes place mostly in the world of the subconscious. Lukus is a doctor and volunteer in a pioneering experiment to link two minds together. His double-blind partner is a woman in a comatose state after a car crash, and taking advantage of the reduced neural traffic she is volunteered in the hope they might be able to bring her out of it.
But once inside her mind and over a series of 'connections', Lukus falls completely and passionately in love with her. Unaware of how his mental revelations will affect the continuation of the experiment, he plays down the results to keep the experiment going, but the doctors are suspicious, and each time he dives, the fantasies turn darker and hint at the reasons for the crash, and why she doesn't want to wake up.
Vanishing Waves' provocative and darkly erotic episodes sit starkly against the tightly controlled conditions of the laboratory. Cleverly using the idea of a motiveless, consequence-free dream world for Lukus and Aurora to indulge in a number of sexually explicit fantasies, this film won't be one you would want to watch with your parents. It may even be necessary for the men in the audience to bring a book with them and not to read, if you know what I mean (seriously, actress Jurga Jutaite spends most of her time naked and even when she isn't, is extremely pleasant on the eye). Apart from a little bit of cardboard English-spoken-by-foreigners though, the film creates and imaginative fantasy world, is very well acted, and even if it doesn't always make sense (as dreams tend not to do) it does deliver a powerful and life-affirming story, with some scenes staying in the mind long after the credits. 7.5/10
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning (Jpn) (wiki)
In a Japanese vision of a future America, superheroism has become a commercial sport. X-Men style mutants, the NEXTs of the world are few and far between, but when they are discovered, they typically find good money to be had in the crimefighting/saving people business. Around this has grown an industry, a JRPG-type scoring system based on perps dispatched or people saved, with bonuses for things such as being first on the scene means that the heroes are constantly competing with each other, for a large cash prize at the end of each season. A dedicated Hero TV station broadcasts the ensuing crimefighting (and directs most of it for good ratings) and beams it straight into people's homes. Unsurprisingly, the big companies have got on board, and their costumes are splattered with logos for soft drinks and fast food chains.
Wild Tiger is one such hero, but with a downmarket sponsor and a rubbish costume, his points tally is near the bottom. His insistence on saving people and fighting for justice also gets in the way of the big bonuses, but he's also stubborn. A merger with a large faceless corporation gives him a new boss, and a mysterious new partner, Barnaby for the new season. But even though the new guy wows the audiences, he won't play ball and the forced partners end up predictably at loggerheads.
Tiger and Bunny is a playful anime, taking the mick out of itself and also anime in general, from the loud and colourful opening, feeling just like any standard big robot anime series, to the little girl heroes and the improbable hero suits. Playing with the formula, you get akira-style bikes with humiliating sidecars, unreliable special powers and a swipe at the use of gratuitous crotch shots, with the use of, er, gratuitous crotch shots.
It's a few years since I had a good anime binge, and the technology has moved noticeably forward. The computer graphics route is now standard but (as with Asura before it) is much more naturally integrated with the traditional cell-drawn animation as to feel much more satisfying than, say Sword of the Stranger a couple of years ago. Tiger and Bunny is a colourful, action-packed laugh, a blast of fresh air after the raw emotion drain of Asura. 7.5/10
Berserk: The Golden Age Arc 1 - The Egg of the King (Jpn) (wiki)
The Berserk saga has been told in both manga and anime form, I remember the original series as one of the old Manga Video titles from back in the 90's. This, the first in a double-bill of Berserk films at the festival marks the latest retelling of the mercenary Guts and his blood-soaked journey through medievel european lands.
Showing up alone at a castle siege with nothing but his bloodied, oversized sword, Guts dispatches Bazuso, an armoured mental case and proves his worth, so capturing the eye of Griffith, the leader of the Band of the Hawks, a mercenary group. After a good deal of pointy-stabby persuasion, Guts reluctantly suppresses his lone wolf nature and joins the group, to the disgust of just about everyone in it, including Corcus, a spunky young woman more than able to hold her own in a swordfight, who becomes jealous of the time Guts' gets to spend with her beloved leader.
Mercenaries for hire, the effective combination of Guts' strength and Griffiths agility mean gainful employment in the Midland-Chuder wars some years later. The Midland king has dissenting voices among his ranks, however, and General Julius, the second in line to the throne doesn't want any ignoble blood rising through the ranks to kingship.
I was blown away by the quality of Berserk; the animation was flawless, and you can't see the joins where computer meets traditional cell painting (if that is still happening at all). The style is on the realistic side of the anime scale, ensuring the viewer isn't given any reason to be distanced from the meaty plot, and aside from the main characters all looking eastern while the grunts are more western in appearance, they do an excellent job of recreating an olde worlde England of sorts.
It's an adult anime; so there is plenty of blood, severed flesh, naughty words, and the odd naked body (not to mention the homoerotic overtones), but it never feels gratuitous, rather surprisingly visceral and human, given the amount of spit and polish applied to it. I can't wait to catch the next episode. 8/10
Berserk: The Golden Age Arc 2 - The Battle for Doldrey (Jpn)
Straight after the first, came the second film (theres a third arc due at the end of the year). Though Griffin is making progress through the ranks, he still hasn't attained nobility, or a kingdom. The hundred years war between factions looms on and presents him with an opportunity for both - the castle of Doldrey, thought impregnable remains a last stranglehold of the Chuder side, and the king promises much if it can fall. But a 5000 strong army is surely no match for one six times the size, even with Guts near the front. But Guts has his own issues. A lone mercenary, his closeness to nobility is reminding him of it's stench and questions begin to form in his mind - why is he following Griffin in pursuit of his dreams?
The quality of te animation doesn't dip, in fact you could argue it improves. The story rushes on apace, and the action never lets up and by the end I wanted to see the final instalment but unfortunately I'm going to have to wait. Fingers crossed for Bradford. 8/10
Asura (Jpn) (site)
In feudal Japan, many lost their lives in the chaos as lords vied for power, and the villages were the ones on the receiving end. An unnamed mother staggers out of the fireball that used to be her village. She is heavily pregnant, and her waters have broken.
Bringing up a child in the aftermath is hard. Food and water are scarce, so when the desperate mother chances upon the rotting flesh of a corpse, she feeds herself, and her child on it. So little Asura learns the taste of human flesh.
Somehow surviving past his mothers' death, Asura lives feral like a beast, attacking what is left of the village, killing indiscriminately for human food. His humanity lost, and never knowing a mothers love he knows not how to handle young Wakasa, a girl who finds him and shows kindness where all others would fear or attack him,
Based on the 40-year old manga by George Akayama, this big screen adaptation attempts to capture some of the raw emotion dealing with love, humanity and savagery. Some considerable time has been spent with the animation and background work, which are exceptional, even though the character design, a sort of standard 2D anime style wrapped around 3D models to create a Corpse Bride style, takes a little getting used to. Story-wise, the film's seemingly hopeless world continues it's tale slowly but surely, with a half-half mix of heartstrings-pulling and fighty action scenes to keep both sides happy. I don't think it will stand up so well against a good read of the original (I haven't) but in it's own right, it's a pretty powerful example of an emotional anime. 7.5/10
Vanishing Waves (Lit) (wiki)
Today would have been completely anime'd up were it not for a repeat screening of Wolf Children next weekend, so in it's place I took the opportunity to see Vanishing Waves. Winning the Golden Melee at Sitges this year, Vanishing Waves takes place mostly in the world of the subconscious. Lukus is a doctor and volunteer in a pioneering experiment to link two minds together. His double-blind partner is a woman in a comatose state after a car crash, and taking advantage of the reduced neural traffic she is volunteered in the hope they might be able to bring her out of it.
But once inside her mind and over a series of 'connections', Lukus falls completely and passionately in love with her. Unaware of how his mental revelations will affect the continuation of the experiment, he plays down the results to keep the experiment going, but the doctors are suspicious, and each time he dives, the fantasies turn darker and hint at the reasons for the crash, and why she doesn't want to wake up.
Vanishing Waves' provocative and darkly erotic episodes sit starkly against the tightly controlled conditions of the laboratory. Cleverly using the idea of a motiveless, consequence-free dream world for Lukus and Aurora to indulge in a number of sexually explicit fantasies, this film won't be one you would want to watch with your parents. It may even be necessary for the men in the audience to bring a book with them and not to read, if you know what I mean (seriously, actress Jurga Jutaite spends most of her time naked and even when she isn't, is extremely pleasant on the eye). Apart from a little bit of cardboard English-spoken-by-foreigners though, the film creates and imaginative fantasy world, is very well acted, and even if it doesn't always make sense (as dreams tend not to do) it does deliver a powerful and life-affirming story, with some scenes staying in the mind long after the credits. 7.5/10
Tiger and Bunny: The Beginning (Jpn) (wiki)
In a Japanese vision of a future America, superheroism has become a commercial sport. X-Men style mutants, the NEXTs of the world are few and far between, but when they are discovered, they typically find good money to be had in the crimefighting/saving people business. Around this has grown an industry, a JRPG-type scoring system based on perps dispatched or people saved, with bonuses for things such as being first on the scene means that the heroes are constantly competing with each other, for a large cash prize at the end of each season. A dedicated Hero TV station broadcasts the ensuing crimefighting (and directs most of it for good ratings) and beams it straight into people's homes. Unsurprisingly, the big companies have got on board, and their costumes are splattered with logos for soft drinks and fast food chains.
Wild Tiger is one such hero, but with a downmarket sponsor and a rubbish costume, his points tally is near the bottom. His insistence on saving people and fighting for justice also gets in the way of the big bonuses, but he's also stubborn. A merger with a large faceless corporation gives him a new boss, and a mysterious new partner, Barnaby for the new season. But even though the new guy wows the audiences, he won't play ball and the forced partners end up predictably at loggerheads.
Tiger and Bunny is a playful anime, taking the mick out of itself and also anime in general, from the loud and colourful opening, feeling just like any standard big robot anime series, to the little girl heroes and the improbable hero suits. Playing with the formula, you get akira-style bikes with humiliating sidecars, unreliable special powers and a swipe at the use of gratuitous crotch shots, with the use of, er, gratuitous crotch shots.
It's a few years since I had a good anime binge, and the technology has moved noticeably forward. The computer graphics route is now standard but (as with Asura before it) is much more naturally integrated with the traditional cell-drawn animation as to feel much more satisfying than, say Sword of the Stranger a couple of years ago. Tiger and Bunny is a colourful, action-packed laugh, a blast of fresh air after the raw emotion drain of Asura. 7.5/10
Berserk: The Golden Age Arc 1 - The Egg of the King (Jpn) (wiki)
The Berserk saga has been told in both manga and anime form, I remember the original series as one of the old Manga Video titles from back in the 90's. This, the first in a double-bill of Berserk films at the festival marks the latest retelling of the mercenary Guts and his blood-soaked journey through medievel european lands.
Showing up alone at a castle siege with nothing but his bloodied, oversized sword, Guts dispatches Bazuso, an armoured mental case and proves his worth, so capturing the eye of Griffith, the leader of the Band of the Hawks, a mercenary group. After a good deal of pointy-stabby persuasion, Guts reluctantly suppresses his lone wolf nature and joins the group, to the disgust of just about everyone in it, including Corcus, a spunky young woman more than able to hold her own in a swordfight, who becomes jealous of the time Guts' gets to spend with her beloved leader.
Mercenaries for hire, the effective combination of Guts' strength and Griffiths agility mean gainful employment in the Midland-Chuder wars some years later. The Midland king has dissenting voices among his ranks, however, and General Julius, the second in line to the throne doesn't want any ignoble blood rising through the ranks to kingship.
I was blown away by the quality of Berserk; the animation was flawless, and you can't see the joins where computer meets traditional cell painting (if that is still happening at all). The style is on the realistic side of the anime scale, ensuring the viewer isn't given any reason to be distanced from the meaty plot, and aside from the main characters all looking eastern while the grunts are more western in appearance, they do an excellent job of recreating an olde worlde England of sorts.
It's an adult anime; so there is plenty of blood, severed flesh, naughty words, and the odd naked body (not to mention the homoerotic overtones), but it never feels gratuitous, rather surprisingly visceral and human, given the amount of spit and polish applied to it. I can't wait to catch the next episode. 8/10
Berserk: The Golden Age Arc 2 - The Battle for Doldrey (Jpn)
Straight after the first, came the second film (theres a third arc due at the end of the year). Though Griffin is making progress through the ranks, he still hasn't attained nobility, or a kingdom. The hundred years war between factions looms on and presents him with an opportunity for both - the castle of Doldrey, thought impregnable remains a last stranglehold of the Chuder side, and the king promises much if it can fall. But a 5000 strong army is surely no match for one six times the size, even with Guts near the front. But Guts has his own issues. A lone mercenary, his closeness to nobility is reminding him of it's stench and questions begin to form in his mind - why is he following Griffin in pursuit of his dreams?
The quality of te animation doesn't dip, in fact you could argue it improves. The story rushes on apace, and the action never lets up and by the end I wanted to see the final instalment but unfortunately I'm going to have to wait. Fingers crossed for Bradford. 8/10
LIFF 2012 Day 10
Ernest and Celestine (Fra) (review)
The madcap A Town Called Panic is showing as part of the retrospectives section, but you wouldn't be able to guess that it's by the same people behind this film. A completely different artistic style and medium, Ernest and Celestine is aimed at a younger audience and based on the books by Gabrielle Vincent.
Celestine is a little mouse, growing up lonely in a mouse convent and having to suffer the constant drill of the sister in charge, Like the others, she is tasked with going above ground to the world of the bears above, where discarded bear teeth are a valuable commodity. But Celestine's mind wanders and she paints and draws instead, much to the ire of her peers. Ernest is a large, permanently hungry bear. When not sleeping or eating, he's earning a few pennies with his one bear band, something that gets him into trouble with the police above ground.
When the two meet during one of Ernest's night-time garbage looting they quickly become inseparable, but the world of the mouse and the bear do not belong together, as forever told by both sides, and they are exiled from both societies.
Much less wacky than their previous film, Ernest and Celestine is a beautiful, half-finished watercolour masterpiece, still bearing some of the slapstick from A Town Called Panic, but tempering it for the more sedate and heart-warming story of learning to get along. It's squarely aimed at children, but there is much for the accompanying mums and dads to enjoy here too. An easy recommendation. 8/10
British Short Film Competition 2012
I Am Tom Moody - Tom Moody is on stage at his first gig with a bad case of stage fright. His inner voice, Tom Moody the child is telling him he can't go on. Very funny animated film with the voices of Mackenzie Crook and his son Jude. 8/10
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - A jolly, colourful Sesame Street-esque childrens show about being creative, gets a little too creative. Totally unexpected and crazy, employing several visual mediums to embrace the chaos. 8/10
Firewater Dreams - In a similar vein to yesterdays Apocalypse, this mini biography of Leeds-born guitarist and homeschooled folk singer Michael Chapman as he pays a return trip to the Count House, the site of his first big break many years ago. Nice and everything but I didn't feel the connection to the man and it went on a little too long. 6.5/10
Dylan's Room - A single mother (The Thick Of It's Joanna Scanlan) mills around the untidy bedroom of her globetrotting (and maybe missing) son. Thanks to his medicinal compounds and a nearby lighter, she imagines him there again, and the conversations she might, and would like to have had. 8/10
Walk Tall - You don't see many 85-year olds standing at the top of a 30ft tree, but 1948 olympian George Weedon remains spritely and spirited. Here he shares with us whether we like it or not, the keys to a supple body and healthy spine into old age. An affectionate and very funny semi-animated look at the life of a formidable man. (go here for the full film) 8/10
Return of the Sun - A short but concise mini-documentary about the lives of Greenlanders, focusing on the period of the year when they come out of perpetual winter night, and the effects of global warming on their livelihoods. 7/10
Porcelain - The secret life of a drinking mug is exposed in this part-animated short film. Murray the mug shares his daily routine, his sugar addiction and the existential worries about being broken or replaced. It's pretty funny but the joke wears a bit thin midway through. 7/10
Worm - Still a little emotional after his the funeral, an encounter with a worm with hallucinogenic properties convinces Phillip that it is the reincarnation of his late father. Amusing but macabre. 7/10
The Hyperwomen (Bra) (mubi)
All cultures are affected by the new ousting the old. The opening scenes of The Hyperwomen demonstrate this well; elderly Kanu, aunt to many of the younger members of the tribe, is the only one left who has in her memory the songs of her people. She lies naked but for a tribal belt around her waist in a hammock, seriously ill. Her husband, similarly letting it all hang out sits concerned nearby. By contrast, her nieces and nephews work the fields in modern clothing, travelling by truck and using modern technologies we all take for granted today.
But all of that is about to change with the upcoming Jamurilkamalu festival, an extra-tribal get-together to remind the people of their roots and strengthen the social bonds that keep them together. Several tribes of the Brazilian rainforests come together, and there is much preparation to do.
And we get to see. The process of the whole tribe re-learning the songs falls to Kanu to pass the knowledge on to her immediates, who go into the community and spread the word; but the songs are not complete, and a pile of old cassette tapes must be dug out and listened to. This contains one of the most enjoyable scenes, where Amazonian tribesmen and women have to do that thing we have all had to - use their fingers to wind the tape back in.
It takes a little time to get going, but interest in The Hyperwomen builds as the songs go from nondescript mumblings of a single voice to an entire tribe, kitted up in colourful headgear and the crests of their parents painted over their bodies. The festival (and the raucous night before) is worth the wait, and the privileged footage must have come as a result of many months of footage, and god knows how much preparation beforehand to get so intimately within the tribe. 7.5/10
Jason Becker's Not Dead Yet (UK/US) (site)
Jason Becker is the mega rock star you have never heard of. Archive footage from the 1980's shows a formidable talent, entirely self-taught around the electric guitar. Proficient with the guitar by 14, and by the late 80's he was getting recognised by some of the major labels of the day. In 1990, after a gold-selling album with his band Cacophony and a solo period, no lesser talent than David Lee Roth had signed him up as a replacement to the outgoing Steve Vai.
Unfortunately - and devastatingly - the degenerative motor-neurone disease ALS, the same condition that affects Stephen Hawking, struck him down before they could release anything. Within a year, he went from walking, to hobbling with a crutch, and after losing the ability to play his beloved chords, lost most of the rest of his bodily movements. It hit the man very hard and lesser people may have given up.
Obviously, Jason Becker is Not Dead Yet, hence the title, Though ALS often results in death, it is as much down to the will to fight of the sould trapped inside as it is to maintain physical health. Becker never lost his will to continue writing music, and even though he can no-longer directly play, a specially adapted computer and some proprietry eye-sign language allows him to communicate his compositions, slowly but surely, note by note.
Though initially suffering from similar 'who-he?' issues to Apocalypse, this story of the man who came back from the brink and continues to do his thing against all odds, and the dedicated family and friends who help him acheive it is inspiring and noble. Becker was and is immensely likeable and the film does a very good job of communicating the emotional bonds between those who care for him. 8/10
The madcap A Town Called Panic is showing as part of the retrospectives section, but you wouldn't be able to guess that it's by the same people behind this film. A completely different artistic style and medium, Ernest and Celestine is aimed at a younger audience and based on the books by Gabrielle Vincent.
Celestine is a little mouse, growing up lonely in a mouse convent and having to suffer the constant drill of the sister in charge, Like the others, she is tasked with going above ground to the world of the bears above, where discarded bear teeth are a valuable commodity. But Celestine's mind wanders and she paints and draws instead, much to the ire of her peers. Ernest is a large, permanently hungry bear. When not sleeping or eating, he's earning a few pennies with his one bear band, something that gets him into trouble with the police above ground.
When the two meet during one of Ernest's night-time garbage looting they quickly become inseparable, but the world of the mouse and the bear do not belong together, as forever told by both sides, and they are exiled from both societies.
Much less wacky than their previous film, Ernest and Celestine is a beautiful, half-finished watercolour masterpiece, still bearing some of the slapstick from A Town Called Panic, but tempering it for the more sedate and heart-warming story of learning to get along. It's squarely aimed at children, but there is much for the accompanying mums and dads to enjoy here too. An easy recommendation. 8/10
British Short Film Competition 2012
I Am Tom Moody - Tom Moody is on stage at his first gig with a bad case of stage fright. His inner voice, Tom Moody the child is telling him he can't go on. Very funny animated film with the voices of Mackenzie Crook and his son Jude. 8/10
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - A jolly, colourful Sesame Street-esque childrens show about being creative, gets a little too creative. Totally unexpected and crazy, employing several visual mediums to embrace the chaos. 8/10
Firewater Dreams - In a similar vein to yesterdays Apocalypse, this mini biography of Leeds-born guitarist and homeschooled folk singer Michael Chapman as he pays a return trip to the Count House, the site of his first big break many years ago. Nice and everything but I didn't feel the connection to the man and it went on a little too long. 6.5/10
Dylan's Room - A single mother (The Thick Of It's Joanna Scanlan) mills around the untidy bedroom of her globetrotting (and maybe missing) son. Thanks to his medicinal compounds and a nearby lighter, she imagines him there again, and the conversations she might, and would like to have had. 8/10
Walk Tall - You don't see many 85-year olds standing at the top of a 30ft tree, but 1948 olympian George Weedon remains spritely and spirited. Here he shares with us whether we like it or not, the keys to a supple body and healthy spine into old age. An affectionate and very funny semi-animated look at the life of a formidable man. (go here for the full film) 8/10
Return of the Sun - A short but concise mini-documentary about the lives of Greenlanders, focusing on the period of the year when they come out of perpetual winter night, and the effects of global warming on their livelihoods. 7/10
Porcelain - The secret life of a drinking mug is exposed in this part-animated short film. Murray the mug shares his daily routine, his sugar addiction and the existential worries about being broken or replaced. It's pretty funny but the joke wears a bit thin midway through. 7/10
Worm - Still a little emotional after his the funeral, an encounter with a worm with hallucinogenic properties convinces Phillip that it is the reincarnation of his late father. Amusing but macabre. 7/10
The Hyperwomen (Bra) (mubi)
All cultures are affected by the new ousting the old. The opening scenes of The Hyperwomen demonstrate this well; elderly Kanu, aunt to many of the younger members of the tribe, is the only one left who has in her memory the songs of her people. She lies naked but for a tribal belt around her waist in a hammock, seriously ill. Her husband, similarly letting it all hang out sits concerned nearby. By contrast, her nieces and nephews work the fields in modern clothing, travelling by truck and using modern technologies we all take for granted today.
But all of that is about to change with the upcoming Jamurilkamalu festival, an extra-tribal get-together to remind the people of their roots and strengthen the social bonds that keep them together. Several tribes of the Brazilian rainforests come together, and there is much preparation to do.
And we get to see. The process of the whole tribe re-learning the songs falls to Kanu to pass the knowledge on to her immediates, who go into the community and spread the word; but the songs are not complete, and a pile of old cassette tapes must be dug out and listened to. This contains one of the most enjoyable scenes, where Amazonian tribesmen and women have to do that thing we have all had to - use their fingers to wind the tape back in.
It takes a little time to get going, but interest in The Hyperwomen builds as the songs go from nondescript mumblings of a single voice to an entire tribe, kitted up in colourful headgear and the crests of their parents painted over their bodies. The festival (and the raucous night before) is worth the wait, and the privileged footage must have come as a result of many months of footage, and god knows how much preparation beforehand to get so intimately within the tribe. 7.5/10
Jason Becker's Not Dead Yet (UK/US) (site)
Jason Becker is the mega rock star you have never heard of. Archive footage from the 1980's shows a formidable talent, entirely self-taught around the electric guitar. Proficient with the guitar by 14, and by the late 80's he was getting recognised by some of the major labels of the day. In 1990, after a gold-selling album with his band Cacophony and a solo period, no lesser talent than David Lee Roth had signed him up as a replacement to the outgoing Steve Vai.
Unfortunately - and devastatingly - the degenerative motor-neurone disease ALS, the same condition that affects Stephen Hawking, struck him down before they could release anything. Within a year, he went from walking, to hobbling with a crutch, and after losing the ability to play his beloved chords, lost most of the rest of his bodily movements. It hit the man very hard and lesser people may have given up.
Obviously, Jason Becker is Not Dead Yet, hence the title, Though ALS often results in death, it is as much down to the will to fight of the sould trapped inside as it is to maintain physical health. Becker never lost his will to continue writing music, and even though he can no-longer directly play, a specially adapted computer and some proprietry eye-sign language allows him to communicate his compositions, slowly but surely, note by note.
Though initially suffering from similar 'who-he?' issues to Apocalypse, this story of the man who came back from the brink and continues to do his thing against all odds, and the dedicated family and friends who help him acheive it is inspiring and noble. Becker was and is immensely likeable and the film does a very good job of communicating the emotional bonds between those who care for him. 8/10
LIFF 2012 Day 9
UK Short Film Panorama
I was late for the start of this, and consequently missed the first two features, The Search for Inspiration Gone and The Half Light, which I can maybe catch next year.
Pitch Black Heist (imdb) - Two safecrackers (Liam Cunningham and Michael Fassbender) come together as hired hands in a plot to steal some swag. The loot is in a room where the alarms go off if any light enters. They rehearse the steps together to get to the safe and slowly become friends. Everything looks to be going to plan, until their new friendship naturally lends itself to going down the pub and getting drunk. Filmed in artsy grinyvision, it's a good little film even though you do spend a couple of minutes staring at a blank screen. 7/10
All That Glisters (site) - A beautiful stop-motion animation film using fabric dolls to play the parts of a daughter-father pairing, as they make the most of the few moments they have left together. Some simple but effective music, but the little movements in the animation make it special. 8/10
Beginning (imdb) - Told in a style where present and future scenes are mixed together until they combine, a shy woman ventures outside for the first time and meets a young and disarming man. A gently affecting film about recovery. 8/10
Walking the Dogs (site) - Emma Thompson plays the Queen, who in 1982, thanks to some low walls and inattentive servants, is paid a visit by a strange man (Tyrannosaur's Eddie Marsan) in her bedroom. The back and forth of the conversation that ensues is pitched just right, telling an improbable but plausable story that actually happened. 8/10
The Eternal Breasts (Jpn) (imdb)
It's easy to guess that a film titled The Eternal Breasts, originating from Japan, is going to be one of those films where half-naked and/or angry schoolgirls get superpowers from their chest area, and go off and do wacky superhero things against a drooling pervert in a giant rubber suit. Plenty of examples from the crazy isle support this line of thought.
But The Eternal Breasts is nearly 60 years old, and not remotely pervy. Based on a real-life story, female director Kinuyo Tanaka tells a story of Fumiko, a young woman in an unhappy relationship, living a modest life in the beautiful Hokkaido hills. Left to fend for herself and her children when her husband leaves, she gets a second knock with the onset of breast cancer, shattering what dreams she still clung onto for a happy life. Her sole remaining outlet is haiku poetry, which thanks to a submission by old friend Hori is getting noticed. As Fumiko's state worsens, a Tokyo reporter comes into her life, and trying to convince her he is there for more than her final poetry, begs her to live.
Kinuyo Tanaka, a famous actress and later director (women directing films is a rarity amongst Japanese filmmakers, even today) is the focus of a LIFF retrospective, unfortunately this is the only one of her films I could make. That's a shame because it really does stand up well to films of today and makes me curious to see more of her work. The copy we saw was pretty worn but still very watchable, and the quality of the film itself was surprising; lots of modern pan and zoom shots, and some beautiful cinematography. It's a proper weepie too. 7.5/10
Jumbo Records Presents
Jumbo Records is an independent record store in the heart of Leeds, and they have teamed up with MusicFilmWeb to bring a double bill of films on the subject of independent music.
Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film (US) (review)
Given the whoops in the audience I guess Bill Callahan is quite well known but he had passed under my radar until now. He's an American indie artist, whose output is a sort of drawn, velvety vision of a Johnny Cash dystopia on the move. This film is a very minimal revue of a recent tour around the US, treating us to a handful of his songs on guitar and harmonica, interspersed with a small amount about the man in his own words, although if you are hoping to hear more about the man behind the mic, you might be disappointed. I enjoyed the music (although the extended versions he played sometimes got stretched too far) and it's straightforward nature worked well for a late night, half-asleep viewing. 7/10
Last Shop Standing (UK) (site)
Author Graham Jones was present at the event, an indiegogo-funded film version of his book of the same name, in which he contributes to the story of the rise and fall, and subsequent rise again, of the small independent music shops, seemingly against all the odds in our disinfected world of supermarket shelves of CDs. The film interviews a large number of independent store proprietors, some a hundred years old or more (the shops, not the props), and throwing in the odd concerned artist such as Billy Bragg and Paul Weller, reminiscing about their days flipping through the vinyl.
Incredibly, due to the slow realisation by music lovers and music producers, of the value that these independent music shops gave, and the tactile experience you get from playing a vinyl record - two things that were close to being lost thanks to the industries' attempt to kill the medium off dead - were instrumental in getting people to come back through the door and having a whole new generation interested, with a little help from new technologies, of course. Last Shop Standing is a punchy, energetic piece, and its short run time is enough to do the people and the cause justice without becoming staid. 8/10
Beyond the Black Rainbow (Can) (wiki)
I knew I was pushing my luck. An 11pm showing of a film described as 'making 2001 look like The Kings Speech' should have rung alarm bells but, well, I was there, so I stayed for it.
Trying to bring back the 1980's vision of the future, both in sound and picture, this abstraction of a film attempts to tell the story of a mad scientist holding a young girl captive. The scientist is stary and says weird things, and the girl is mute and slow-moving and she doesn't like light-up pyramids - it makes her face go all blurry but then she can use the power to change the channels on a TV. The scientist is also quite slow moving, but his eyes and hair come off and he has a monster in one of the rooms that likes to lick things. Eventually the girl escapes and the evil scientist goes after her and catches her but then trips and hits his head and then dies. Two hours of my life have gone by.
You can tell my heart wasn't in it. Strange, random things happened, very slowly and with all of the budget spent on a square car and some distinctly 2001-style sets, there seemed little time or money left to do an acting course. It did pick up a little bit once the girl escaped but not so much as to recommend the 90 minutes it took to get there. It wasn't tense, it wasn't scary, and it wasn't satisfying. And the cut we got kept freezing up. 3/10
I was late for the start of this, and consequently missed the first two features, The Search for Inspiration Gone and The Half Light, which I can maybe catch next year.
Pitch Black Heist (imdb) - Two safecrackers (Liam Cunningham and Michael Fassbender) come together as hired hands in a plot to steal some swag. The loot is in a room where the alarms go off if any light enters. They rehearse the steps together to get to the safe and slowly become friends. Everything looks to be going to plan, until their new friendship naturally lends itself to going down the pub and getting drunk. Filmed in artsy grinyvision, it's a good little film even though you do spend a couple of minutes staring at a blank screen. 7/10
All That Glisters (site) - A beautiful stop-motion animation film using fabric dolls to play the parts of a daughter-father pairing, as they make the most of the few moments they have left together. Some simple but effective music, but the little movements in the animation make it special. 8/10
Beginning (imdb) - Told in a style where present and future scenes are mixed together until they combine, a shy woman ventures outside for the first time and meets a young and disarming man. A gently affecting film about recovery. 8/10
Walking the Dogs (site) - Emma Thompson plays the Queen, who in 1982, thanks to some low walls and inattentive servants, is paid a visit by a strange man (Tyrannosaur's Eddie Marsan) in her bedroom. The back and forth of the conversation that ensues is pitched just right, telling an improbable but plausable story that actually happened. 8/10
The Eternal Breasts (Jpn) (imdb)
It's easy to guess that a film titled The Eternal Breasts, originating from Japan, is going to be one of those films where half-naked and/or angry schoolgirls get superpowers from their chest area, and go off and do wacky superhero things against a drooling pervert in a giant rubber suit. Plenty of examples from the crazy isle support this line of thought.
But The Eternal Breasts is nearly 60 years old, and not remotely pervy. Based on a real-life story, female director Kinuyo Tanaka tells a story of Fumiko, a young woman in an unhappy relationship, living a modest life in the beautiful Hokkaido hills. Left to fend for herself and her children when her husband leaves, she gets a second knock with the onset of breast cancer, shattering what dreams she still clung onto for a happy life. Her sole remaining outlet is haiku poetry, which thanks to a submission by old friend Hori is getting noticed. As Fumiko's state worsens, a Tokyo reporter comes into her life, and trying to convince her he is there for more than her final poetry, begs her to live.
Kinuyo Tanaka, a famous actress and later director (women directing films is a rarity amongst Japanese filmmakers, even today) is the focus of a LIFF retrospective, unfortunately this is the only one of her films I could make. That's a shame because it really does stand up well to films of today and makes me curious to see more of her work. The copy we saw was pretty worn but still very watchable, and the quality of the film itself was surprising; lots of modern pan and zoom shots, and some beautiful cinematography. It's a proper weepie too. 7.5/10
Jumbo Records Presents
Jumbo Records is an independent record store in the heart of Leeds, and they have teamed up with MusicFilmWeb to bring a double bill of films on the subject of independent music.
Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film (US) (review)
Given the whoops in the audience I guess Bill Callahan is quite well known but he had passed under my radar until now. He's an American indie artist, whose output is a sort of drawn, velvety vision of a Johnny Cash dystopia on the move. This film is a very minimal revue of a recent tour around the US, treating us to a handful of his songs on guitar and harmonica, interspersed with a small amount about the man in his own words, although if you are hoping to hear more about the man behind the mic, you might be disappointed. I enjoyed the music (although the extended versions he played sometimes got stretched too far) and it's straightforward nature worked well for a late night, half-asleep viewing. 7/10
Last Shop Standing (UK) (site)
Author Graham Jones was present at the event, an indiegogo-funded film version of his book of the same name, in which he contributes to the story of the rise and fall, and subsequent rise again, of the small independent music shops, seemingly against all the odds in our disinfected world of supermarket shelves of CDs. The film interviews a large number of independent store proprietors, some a hundred years old or more (the shops, not the props), and throwing in the odd concerned artist such as Billy Bragg and Paul Weller, reminiscing about their days flipping through the vinyl.
Incredibly, due to the slow realisation by music lovers and music producers, of the value that these independent music shops gave, and the tactile experience you get from playing a vinyl record - two things that were close to being lost thanks to the industries' attempt to kill the medium off dead - were instrumental in getting people to come back through the door and having a whole new generation interested, with a little help from new technologies, of course. Last Shop Standing is a punchy, energetic piece, and its short run time is enough to do the people and the cause justice without becoming staid. 8/10
Beyond the Black Rainbow (Can) (wiki)
I knew I was pushing my luck. An 11pm showing of a film described as 'making 2001 look like The Kings Speech' should have rung alarm bells but, well, I was there, so I stayed for it.
Trying to bring back the 1980's vision of the future, both in sound and picture, this abstraction of a film attempts to tell the story of a mad scientist holding a young girl captive. The scientist is stary and says weird things, and the girl is mute and slow-moving and she doesn't like light-up pyramids - it makes her face go all blurry but then she can use the power to change the channels on a TV. The scientist is also quite slow moving, but his eyes and hair come off and he has a monster in one of the rooms that likes to lick things. Eventually the girl escapes and the evil scientist goes after her and catches her but then trips and hits his head and then dies. Two hours of my life have gone by.
You can tell my heart wasn't in it. Strange, random things happened, very slowly and with all of the budget spent on a square car and some distinctly 2001-style sets, there seemed little time or money left to do an acting course. It did pick up a little bit once the girl escaped but not so much as to recommend the 90 minutes it took to get there. It wasn't tense, it wasn't scary, and it wasn't satisfying. And the cut we got kept freezing up. 3/10
LIFF 2012 Day 8
Now, Forager (US/Pol) (site)
The Kiskstarter website is full of all sorts of strange and wonderful projects trying to get off the ground, and many of them are for films that might otherwise never get off the ground. Well, this is the first one I know of that has made it to a festival, hopefully to be joined by others soon.
The directors, real-life foragers and filmmakers, present to us a vision of themselves. Lucien and Regina live hand to mouth on the money they can get from foraging for edible funghi in the forests around the city, and then selling it on to a few contacts at fancy restaurants. Bad summers, closing businesses and a tempremental 4x4 mean that at any moment their income could be removed from beneath them with little or no safety net. They have got this far purely on Lucien's intimate knowledge of the wild, and his single-minded focus on what he thinks is the 'right' thing to do.
So when Regina takes a job as a preparer at a local restaurant - a good job that can bring some stability, Lucien's sugar-glass world and the straight path through it is threatened, and a gap begins to grow between them.
Rather than the telling of a horrible and messy breakup, Now Forager is more humane with it's protagonists than, say Stormland, using gentle pillow scenes between the chapters where Lucien reflects on the state of his relationship via the medium of mycology. It never resorts to grandiose tragedy or melodrama, remaining within the bounds of the non-sensational drifting apart that can happen as a couple learn about how their wants and needs diverge from their partners'. Lucien personally rings a bell with his pent-up-tight and inflexible nature, his attitude to the slow wearing away is rather too familiar for me to ignore.
Enjoying Now Forager will depend on whether you can identify with the sort of character and relationship being applied on screen; it's the quiet, considered type of film rather than the screamy shouty type, which doesn't make for much action, but to me at least that makes it feel genuine. 7/10
Alps (Gre) (wiki)
Director Yorgos Lanthimos enjoys putting his favourite lead actress Aggeliki Papoulia through the mangle. In the inspired but divisive Dogtooth, her unnamed daughter character was on the receiving end of a video tape to the face, and knocked her own teeth out in the name of freedom.
Here she plays the almost mirror opposite from before - a similarly unnamed nurse at the local hospital who has a mysterious second job. She is a member of a small group whose purpose is to inhabit the lives of others who have lost a loved one and are struggling to cope.
Dropping into the lives of a couple whose teenage daughter is badly injured in a car crash, she emulates her behaviour to the parent's satisfaction as much as possible. But the job calls for some pretty intimate acts, and before long she is beginning to prefer her new existence to the frustrations of her true life. Rather than a character aching to escape a fantasy land into the real world, she is trying to deny her existence and escape into the realm of make believe.
Dogtooth was one of those films where if you didn't tag on to what the film was really about, it would be merely a confusing abstract mess. I (like to think) I 'got' Dogtooth, and consequently found it to be one of my favourites of 2010, but Alps is far more opaque, almost mocking the viewer as the film progresses that it keeps the deeper meanings (of which I am sure there is one) just around the next corner. I felt the same sense of abstraction, a story hiding behind a story, but I never had the eureka moment where it all came clear to me. I want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I found myself in similar company to the rest of the (packed out) audience, who gave a collective and bewildered 'huh?' when the screen went black. 7/10
The Kiskstarter website is full of all sorts of strange and wonderful projects trying to get off the ground, and many of them are for films that might otherwise never get off the ground. Well, this is the first one I know of that has made it to a festival, hopefully to be joined by others soon.
The directors, real-life foragers and filmmakers, present to us a vision of themselves. Lucien and Regina live hand to mouth on the money they can get from foraging for edible funghi in the forests around the city, and then selling it on to a few contacts at fancy restaurants. Bad summers, closing businesses and a tempremental 4x4 mean that at any moment their income could be removed from beneath them with little or no safety net. They have got this far purely on Lucien's intimate knowledge of the wild, and his single-minded focus on what he thinks is the 'right' thing to do.
So when Regina takes a job as a preparer at a local restaurant - a good job that can bring some stability, Lucien's sugar-glass world and the straight path through it is threatened, and a gap begins to grow between them.
Rather than the telling of a horrible and messy breakup, Now Forager is more humane with it's protagonists than, say Stormland, using gentle pillow scenes between the chapters where Lucien reflects on the state of his relationship via the medium of mycology. It never resorts to grandiose tragedy or melodrama, remaining within the bounds of the non-sensational drifting apart that can happen as a couple learn about how their wants and needs diverge from their partners'. Lucien personally rings a bell with his pent-up-tight and inflexible nature, his attitude to the slow wearing away is rather too familiar for me to ignore.
Enjoying Now Forager will depend on whether you can identify with the sort of character and relationship being applied on screen; it's the quiet, considered type of film rather than the screamy shouty type, which doesn't make for much action, but to me at least that makes it feel genuine. 7/10
Alps (Gre) (wiki)
Director Yorgos Lanthimos enjoys putting his favourite lead actress Aggeliki Papoulia through the mangle. In the inspired but divisive Dogtooth, her unnamed daughter character was on the receiving end of a video tape to the face, and knocked her own teeth out in the name of freedom.
Here she plays the almost mirror opposite from before - a similarly unnamed nurse at the local hospital who has a mysterious second job. She is a member of a small group whose purpose is to inhabit the lives of others who have lost a loved one and are struggling to cope.
Dropping into the lives of a couple whose teenage daughter is badly injured in a car crash, she emulates her behaviour to the parent's satisfaction as much as possible. But the job calls for some pretty intimate acts, and before long she is beginning to prefer her new existence to the frustrations of her true life. Rather than a character aching to escape a fantasy land into the real world, she is trying to deny her existence and escape into the realm of make believe.
Dogtooth was one of those films where if you didn't tag on to what the film was really about, it would be merely a confusing abstract mess. I (like to think) I 'got' Dogtooth, and consequently found it to be one of my favourites of 2010, but Alps is far more opaque, almost mocking the viewer as the film progresses that it keeps the deeper meanings (of which I am sure there is one) just around the next corner. I felt the same sense of abstraction, a story hiding behind a story, but I never had the eureka moment where it all came clear to me. I want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I found myself in similar company to the rest of the (packed out) audience, who gave a collective and bewildered 'huh?' when the screen went black. 7/10
LIFF 2012 Day 7
Stormland (Ice) (wiki)
As a blogger, I occasionally feel a sense of egotism in my efforts to populate my little corner of the internets. I often make the excuse that my shoddy memory necessitates a blog to act as an external hard drive so I can record the things I have done in my life with a little more accuracy than some choppy neurons, but actually there is probably more going on than that; it's also a need to make an impression on the world; to be noticed and have your thoughts laid bare and have people listen.
Boddi is in a similar position (and thanks to an on-off desire to do a movember, a comparable amount of unruly facial hair). He blogs day and night - somewhat unaware of the irony - about the terrible onslaught of technology on our lives and how the culture of consumerism has made the people he sees greedy, self-centered idiots. The world owes poor Boddi a favour, he thinks, although with a comfortable teachers job, a promisingly interested girlfriend and a nice warm home to keep the Icelandic winds out, he has it a lot better than his constant Nietzsche-inspired grumbling suggests.
But he might not for long. His obsession for educating the ignorant masses with a genre-defining new book on how life should be lived, and to encourage them to aspire to his personal idols is starting to spill out of cyberspace. One by one, his actions rip up the comfy anchors to the real world, although he is too blind to see the connection between cause and effect. As his reasons for living begin to work free, the hyenas and vultures move in seemingly intent on destroying what remains to be happy about on purpose, and Boddi moves closer and closer to the edge of sanity.
Iceland is a constant outlet for these desolate personal tragedies (see Vikingland, Volcano, White Night Wedding) and though Stormland is beautifully shot and with excellent performances, especially from lead actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, it takes a long time for the slide to reach it's inevitable end, and there isn't quite enough in between to keep the audience enthralled, only interested. That turns it from a great film into merely a good one. 7/10
Seven Psychopaths (UK) (wiki)
Martin McDonagh, director of In Bruges returns with Colin Farrell and a handful of other famous faces, to try and bridge the gap between the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. Farrell plays Marty, a writer struggling to find his muse. He has a vague idea about his new, titular film, but has no idea beyond some mindless killing, who the psychopaths really are. Worse still, the pacifist inside him wants it to be a film about peace, love and romance.
Finding he has to force his brain to come up with half-baked stories of made up nutjobs, (acted out brilliantly in cutaway scenes) his inspiration is about to get some help when, thanks to his unhinged friend Billy (Sam Rockwell, who looked like he enjoyed every minute) and his friend Hans (Christopher Walken), he ends up in the middle of a dognapping scheme, where the latest dog to get napped happens to belong to the local crime boss (a very in-character Woody Harrelson), who has lots of guns and is missing his mutt.
Seven Psychopaths occasionally has the spark of brilliance seen in the films it clearly takes it's cue from. A bit of Resevoir Dogs here, a pinch of Pulp Fiction there, maybe some No Country for Old Men, but the film has an identity of it's own. The snappy dialog between the characters (especially when Rockwell is involved) crackles with personality and attitude and this mixes well with the carefree, almost comedy violence. McDonagh plays around with the rules of those sort of films where all the good guys say clever things and the bad guys do bad things and don't play fair, and wrong-foots not the audience, but the characters themselves, to the pleasure of the viewer.
So I enjoyed it thoroughly; it felt as if it was a laugh for the actors and it comes through in the way the film gleefully bounces along to the end, taking detours along the way to explore situations to get the most out of them. I would happily go watch it again (it's structure ensures that it benefits from a second viewing) and look forward to seeing if the director can be coaxed into the directors chair again in five years or so. 8/10
As a blogger, I occasionally feel a sense of egotism in my efforts to populate my little corner of the internets. I often make the excuse that my shoddy memory necessitates a blog to act as an external hard drive so I can record the things I have done in my life with a little more accuracy than some choppy neurons, but actually there is probably more going on than that; it's also a need to make an impression on the world; to be noticed and have your thoughts laid bare and have people listen.
Boddi is in a similar position (and thanks to an on-off desire to do a movember, a comparable amount of unruly facial hair). He blogs day and night - somewhat unaware of the irony - about the terrible onslaught of technology on our lives and how the culture of consumerism has made the people he sees greedy, self-centered idiots. The world owes poor Boddi a favour, he thinks, although with a comfortable teachers job, a promisingly interested girlfriend and a nice warm home to keep the Icelandic winds out, he has it a lot better than his constant Nietzsche-inspired grumbling suggests.
But he might not for long. His obsession for educating the ignorant masses with a genre-defining new book on how life should be lived, and to encourage them to aspire to his personal idols is starting to spill out of cyberspace. One by one, his actions rip up the comfy anchors to the real world, although he is too blind to see the connection between cause and effect. As his reasons for living begin to work free, the hyenas and vultures move in seemingly intent on destroying what remains to be happy about on purpose, and Boddi moves closer and closer to the edge of sanity.
Iceland is a constant outlet for these desolate personal tragedies (see Vikingland, Volcano, White Night Wedding) and though Stormland is beautifully shot and with excellent performances, especially from lead actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, it takes a long time for the slide to reach it's inevitable end, and there isn't quite enough in between to keep the audience enthralled, only interested. That turns it from a great film into merely a good one. 7/10
Seven Psychopaths (UK) (wiki)
Martin McDonagh, director of In Bruges returns with Colin Farrell and a handful of other famous faces, to try and bridge the gap between the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. Farrell plays Marty, a writer struggling to find his muse. He has a vague idea about his new, titular film, but has no idea beyond some mindless killing, who the psychopaths really are. Worse still, the pacifist inside him wants it to be a film about peace, love and romance.
Finding he has to force his brain to come up with half-baked stories of made up nutjobs, (acted out brilliantly in cutaway scenes) his inspiration is about to get some help when, thanks to his unhinged friend Billy (Sam Rockwell, who looked like he enjoyed every minute) and his friend Hans (Christopher Walken), he ends up in the middle of a dognapping scheme, where the latest dog to get napped happens to belong to the local crime boss (a very in-character Woody Harrelson), who has lots of guns and is missing his mutt.
Seven Psychopaths occasionally has the spark of brilliance seen in the films it clearly takes it's cue from. A bit of Resevoir Dogs here, a pinch of Pulp Fiction there, maybe some No Country for Old Men, but the film has an identity of it's own. The snappy dialog between the characters (especially when Rockwell is involved) crackles with personality and attitude and this mixes well with the carefree, almost comedy violence. McDonagh plays around with the rules of those sort of films where all the good guys say clever things and the bad guys do bad things and don't play fair, and wrong-foots not the audience, but the characters themselves, to the pleasure of the viewer.
So I enjoyed it thoroughly; it felt as if it was a laugh for the actors and it comes through in the way the film gleefully bounces along to the end, taking detours along the way to explore situations to get the most out of them. I would happily go watch it again (it's structure ensures that it benefits from a second viewing) and look forward to seeing if the director can be coaxed into the directors chair again in five years or so. 8/10
LIFF 2012 Day 6
Room 237 (US) (site)
This film started with a large disclaimer. Some legalbot must have got a whiff of this film and made sure that we knew the estate of Stanley Kubrick, all the actors and anyone else to do with The Shining, had nothing to do with this film.
The Shining is certainly a mysterious film. Kubrick is getting a mini-retrospective of his works, with 2001: A Space Oddessey, Barry Lyndon and The Shining returning to the big screen during the festival, and this documentary goes nicely alongside, focusing on the many theories about the deeper, hidden meanings behind the film's various incidental moments, in the corner of shot or hiding in plain sight.
Told entirely by voiceover by several theorists, using footage of many films including several Kubrick ones, but of course concentrating on The Shining, they share with us their revelations about what they think Kubrick was trying to say. The many arguments put forward pick apart the film to it's very threads, and variously claims range from the film being about the faking of the Apollo moon landings, the Nazis and the Holocaust (Kubrick never finished Aryan Papers, his own holocaust film), and killing of Native Americans during the colonisation of the US. The film skips between the points of view, filling in the gaps between with observations and incidentals, some of which are quite compelling (such as some continuity errors so big that Kubrick must have put them in there deliberately), and some are distinctly tinfoil hat, such as the coincidental juxtaposition of characters and places when the film is shown backwards, overlaid on top of it running forwards.
It's natural for the human brain to search for patterns in things; that's why so many people play the lottery convinced that because their numbers have never come up, it must be their turn next time. But these people have elevated Kubrick's genius as a filmmaker to godly levels, and though it's all entertaining it becomes a tad worrying that it can be obsessed over like that.
Still, for a film which essentially takes another film apart and looks at it with tweezers, often revisiting the same scenes several times, it rarely becomes tiresome and it's interesting to see the imagination that can be stirred by a film that, by the end of this one, is quite a lot deeper than you think it is, and now I wish I had caught The Shining as well. 7/10
Wavumba (Ned) (site)
Far from civilisation as us westerners would recognise it, on the eastern coast of Kenya, is a tropical island surrounded by crystal waters named Wasini. Stories tell long ago of a tribe living there called the Wavumba, their status legendary in the minds of those few people that remain in the area today. Masoud, an elderly fisherman claims to be the last of their kind, and regails the stories to anyone who will listen about the times when he landed giant sharks on his boat, just as the Wavumba did.
The director, Jeroen van Velzen spent part of his childhood in Kenya and grew up around the stories of heroic fisherman capable of superhuman feats, and this film is the realisation of a dream to go back there and find the people. But all that is left of those people is Masoud, his long-suffering apprentice Juma, and the memories of the people of the past told through stories passed between a thousand tongues. Masoud refuses to accept his frailty and uses the stories he tells to the camera and to others to keep the fire inside his belly going, to try and catch one final shark before he is too old. Grandson Juma, along to learn the ways of the master, wears the expression of a man close to the edge, especially in a boat with someone who grumps and complains about everything he does. What lessons Masoud does have to teach largely involve hitting various sea creatures over the head until they stop moving - as a hunter of giant sharks, he seems to have lost the knack.
The tall tales of an old man of the sea are fortunately not the extent to the charm of the film, as it quickly becomes apparent that Masoud is relying these days on his acheivements as a young man to curry favour with the people in his village. While we wait for his shark to appear, we are also treated to some beautiful ocean landscapes beneath angry skies, experiencing the giddy queasyness of being the third man bobbing around in a boat meant for two.
A couple next to me fidgeted about and the wife grumbled about being bored at one point, making sure he (and the eight people around her) were aware of her displeasure, and although I wanted to empty their coke bottles down their necks for being so chattery I could sort of see their point - though the master-apprentice pairing has it's entertaining moments, and the visuals occasionally coerce the jaw into dropping, there are still large periods where very little happens and you have to take in the journey at their pace.
I liked it, probably less than I would if those chattery gits weren't reminding me how bored they were, but it does test the patience a bit. 6.5/10
This film started with a large disclaimer. Some legalbot must have got a whiff of this film and made sure that we knew the estate of Stanley Kubrick, all the actors and anyone else to do with The Shining, had nothing to do with this film.
The Shining is certainly a mysterious film. Kubrick is getting a mini-retrospective of his works, with 2001: A Space Oddessey, Barry Lyndon and The Shining returning to the big screen during the festival, and this documentary goes nicely alongside, focusing on the many theories about the deeper, hidden meanings behind the film's various incidental moments, in the corner of shot or hiding in plain sight.
Told entirely by voiceover by several theorists, using footage of many films including several Kubrick ones, but of course concentrating on The Shining, they share with us their revelations about what they think Kubrick was trying to say. The many arguments put forward pick apart the film to it's very threads, and variously claims range from the film being about the faking of the Apollo moon landings, the Nazis and the Holocaust (Kubrick never finished Aryan Papers, his own holocaust film), and killing of Native Americans during the colonisation of the US. The film skips between the points of view, filling in the gaps between with observations and incidentals, some of which are quite compelling (such as some continuity errors so big that Kubrick must have put them in there deliberately), and some are distinctly tinfoil hat, such as the coincidental juxtaposition of characters and places when the film is shown backwards, overlaid on top of it running forwards.
It's natural for the human brain to search for patterns in things; that's why so many people play the lottery convinced that because their numbers have never come up, it must be their turn next time. But these people have elevated Kubrick's genius as a filmmaker to godly levels, and though it's all entertaining it becomes a tad worrying that it can be obsessed over like that.
Still, for a film which essentially takes another film apart and looks at it with tweezers, often revisiting the same scenes several times, it rarely becomes tiresome and it's interesting to see the imagination that can be stirred by a film that, by the end of this one, is quite a lot deeper than you think it is, and now I wish I had caught The Shining as well. 7/10
Wavumba (Ned) (site)
Far from civilisation as us westerners would recognise it, on the eastern coast of Kenya, is a tropical island surrounded by crystal waters named Wasini. Stories tell long ago of a tribe living there called the Wavumba, their status legendary in the minds of those few people that remain in the area today. Masoud, an elderly fisherman claims to be the last of their kind, and regails the stories to anyone who will listen about the times when he landed giant sharks on his boat, just as the Wavumba did.
The director, Jeroen van Velzen spent part of his childhood in Kenya and grew up around the stories of heroic fisherman capable of superhuman feats, and this film is the realisation of a dream to go back there and find the people. But all that is left of those people is Masoud, his long-suffering apprentice Juma, and the memories of the people of the past told through stories passed between a thousand tongues. Masoud refuses to accept his frailty and uses the stories he tells to the camera and to others to keep the fire inside his belly going, to try and catch one final shark before he is too old. Grandson Juma, along to learn the ways of the master, wears the expression of a man close to the edge, especially in a boat with someone who grumps and complains about everything he does. What lessons Masoud does have to teach largely involve hitting various sea creatures over the head until they stop moving - as a hunter of giant sharks, he seems to have lost the knack.
The tall tales of an old man of the sea are fortunately not the extent to the charm of the film, as it quickly becomes apparent that Masoud is relying these days on his acheivements as a young man to curry favour with the people in his village. While we wait for his shark to appear, we are also treated to some beautiful ocean landscapes beneath angry skies, experiencing the giddy queasyness of being the third man bobbing around in a boat meant for two.
A couple next to me fidgeted about and the wife grumbled about being bored at one point, making sure he (and the eight people around her) were aware of her displeasure, and although I wanted to empty their coke bottles down their necks for being so chattery I could sort of see their point - though the master-apprentice pairing has it's entertaining moments, and the visuals occasionally coerce the jaw into dropping, there are still large periods where very little happens and you have to take in the journey at their pace.
I liked it, probably less than I would if those chattery gits weren't reminding me how bored they were, but it does test the patience a bit. 6.5/10
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