1 post tagged “reviews”
I watched my last two films of the SIFF today, and it was a wonderful SIFF this year. I attribute this mainly to the fact that I have gotten better at picking which films to watch, from the past 4 years of hits and many, many misses.
I want to write about my favourites, because they made me so happy, and because I think you should watch them if you ever get the chance. I really hope some of these make it to wide release and/or DVD.
Grbavica
14-year old brat of a daughter wants to go on a school trip, and her mother takes on a third job to save up money for it. Thing is, the daughter could go for free if she just brought a certificate to school showing that her father was a shaheed, a soldier who died defending Bosnia in the war. For some reason the mother doesn't have this cert and comes up with many excuses about why she can't get a copy of it. The daughter begins to suspect that her mother's been lying to her about her father's identity all this while. The secret's finally unravelled in an explosion of a climax that shows how war can still tear people's lives to pieces 14 years after it's ended.
I liked how this movie was political without mentioning politics at all. Solid acting and wonderful dialogue. From the Slate review: "Didn't I see you at a postmortem identification?" It's a pickup line no one should ever have to use. But Grbavica, like its heroine, is brave enough to try to find love among the ruins.
We Shall Overcome
I'm just a sucker for Danish films. I started out my SIFF adventure 4 years ago thinking Iranian films held the key to my soul, but now I realise I love Danish films.
This film was based on a true story. It's set in a rural Danish village in the 70s. It starts with a 10-year-old boy, Fritz, witnessing his father going into an anxiety attack and getting shipped off into a mental asylum. He returns soon enough, but by that time another problem has cropped up: Fritz gets badly abused by his school principal. His family decides to try and get him fired, but this means a long and difficult fight against the school board, which is in the principal's hands. Consequently, his mother, who's the school nurse, gets fired and his dad falls into a relapse of depression. Amidst all of this, Fritz makes friends with a hippie school teacher who encourages his interest in history, civil rights and Martin Luther King, and decides to change his name to Martin, which then leads to many surprisingly funny moments in the film.
Well it was just a nice, enjoyable film. The children were very good actors. I liked how all the different sub-plots weaved into each other and created a satisfying whole. One might say that the director was taking it a bit far, trying to equate Fritz's fight against the principal with the American civil rights movement, but I think it was more a way of showing that Fritz was a weird, sensitive kid with interests that were unusual for a 10-year-old Danish boy.
Ten Canoes
The film's narrated by an aboriginal Australian, speaking to us today. He's telling a story about his ancestors - two brothers. In this story, the older brother is telling the younger brother a story about their ancestors, whom our narrator calls the ancients. (Still with me?) So basically we're really watching a movie about the ancients. The ancients (and the ancestors too, for that matter), all walk around naked. I thought you might like to know.
Ok so anyway the story about the ancients: a younger brother lusts after his older brother's third wife. What follows is a really funny and touching morality play about why younger brothers shouldn't lust after their older brothers' wives. This story is being told by ancestor-older-brother to ancestor-younger-brother because -- guess what -- the latter is lusting after the former's third wife.
Bah. This all sounds way too complicated. In short, it's a brilliant film. It's really funny and charming. Unlike watching a documentary, this film doesn't exoticise this aboriginal, butt-naked tribe. Each member of the tribe has his/her own unique personality and quirks. I mean, it's really like watching any other film about any random bunch of people in modern society. You don't for a moment think, oh this is so eye-opening, these people have such cute customs or anything like that. You do come away realising that these people are exactly like you -- they have the same feelings and jealousies and idiosyncracies and human flaws and sense of humour -- and I think that's more effective than any documentary or history book in making you realise just how cruel colonial rule was.
This film was screened alongside Ten Feet Tall, a short film also from Australia. It was a shite short film, but it amused me and Um.a in that after the first line was spoken by a character, she turned to me and said, "For a moment I forgot that Australians spoke English and I was wondering where the subtitles were," and I replied, "Oh my God... me too." Signs you're too fucking artsy-fartsy for your own good, anyone?
Village People Radio Show
Well I'm partial to any film that's made by articulate, funny, intelligent and yet down-to-earth directors. The documentary's about ex-Communist Malaysians now living in a village in southern Thailand. How they lived in jungles for decades, fighting the colonists and then fighting Malaysia's own independent government. Old people are the best interviewees, they say the funniest things in the most offhand manner. And this while talking about living a lifetime of guerilla warfare.
Best line: "Korek, korek, korek, bakar." (Dig, dig, dig, burn.)
This was an old man talking about how he dug into his own leg and cauterised himself when he got shot and paralysed. He healed himself, too: "I could climb mountains after that."
Oh, also --
Old man: We would use jungle herbs as medicine. Collect them and pound them with chicks.
Amir: With chicks?!
Old man: With chicks.
Having Amir Muhammad there himself to explain some of the things in the film was great. His Q&A session was almost as entertaining as the film itself. He said, "If you liked this film, please tell your friends to watch it. If you hated it, please tell your enemies to watch it."
It's being shown in theatres here from May. Go watch it!
Black Gold
Coldplay fans already know what this documentary's all about: Make Trade Fair. I wouldn't bore the rest of you.
Not the most well-made or gripping documentary I've ever watched. Not as captivating as say, The Corporation or Supersize Me. But makes a good point and sends it across effectively enough. I would have liked it if it had examined whether products with the Fairtrade logo really do give their third world producers a better life or if they're just there to make us bourgeois capitalist pigs feel a bit better about ourselves.
Well, as my public service, I urge you to visit these websites: The Official Black Gold Site and Make Trade Fair.
After the Wedding
My second Danish film of the festival. Mads Mikkelsen, who looks like Viggo Mortensen, plays Jacob, a social aid worker in India. One day a Danish businessman mysteriously offers him a load of money to help fund his ailing orphanage. But to get the money Jacob must return to Denmark. One meeting with the businessman leads to a wedding invitation, and from there a major family drama spirals.
What a satisfying film. The kind of human drama in the likes of In the Bedroom. Nothing is predictable and everything that happens, every line that is spoken, has a point. Mads Mikkelsen has a commanding screen presence. He's like the Danish Edward Norton. And I really like that the ending isn't wrapped up too nicely. I don't like super-happy, neat endings.
The Boss of It All
I LOVE THIS FILM. No synopsis will do it justice. It's a Dogme film, which is this Danish filmmaking movement which encourages directors to strip their films down to the barest essentials -- no lighting, no props, no costumes, a lot of improvisation by the actors. Lars von Trier was one of the founders of the Dogme movement and he's known for directing a lot of super-artsy, weird films that people either hate or love. Well this film I think everyone can love, because it's a satire of von Trier's own filmmaking style.
It was hilarious. The entire theatre was laughing like mad throughout the whole film. It was magic. Best film of the festival for me. I had high expectations for the film because it's said to be von Trier's best yet, and after coming out of After the Wedding I was really thinking, this film better blow me away or it'd be a depressing end to the SIFF for me and it did! It blew me away!
In short: Ravn hires Kristoffer, an out-of-work actor, to pretend to be the boss of his company. Ravn is the real boss, but ever since he started the company 10 years ago he's been pretending that someone else, "the boss of it all", has been making all the decisions - especially the unpopular ones - in the company. (The staff in the company think that the boss of it all lives in the US.) But now Ravn needs the boss of it all to come to life because he wants to sell the company, and the Icelander who's interested in buying the company will only deal with the boss of it all. But what should have been a very simple job -- all Kristoffer needs to do is sign a fake name on a contract -- becomes complicated when Kristoffer befriends the the staff and realises that they're all being exploited by the system.
The film starts out very strong but ends a bit flatly, but it doesn't really matter. I had a fantastic time.
