$2.50 Terrible Coffee

Sunny, beautiful, global warmingly warm July day in Melbourne, and I decide to spend hours of it indoors.

Fulling intending to hit the 11am session, I slept in, then had to work, then had to run around, then had to do this, that, then that again.

I met up with PK at Joe's Garage in Brunswick Street, after buying a tie for a ball on Saturday night, and a book to read while I'm away.

I bet you're real glad you came here to read that thrilling information.

Then I got into the city, parked at Crown and headed to the forum to pick up my mini pass. I wa sserved by the astoundingly hot French girl who had served me last year. *drools*

And then it was off to the movies! (and not a moment too soon, this preamble was shit.)

Voices of Iraq

Voices of Iraq is 74 minutes of documentary that makes you question the entire basis of your opinion of the US occupation of Iraq.

Edited together using footage from 150 digital video cameras that were dispersed amongst the wartorn microcosm of Iraq, this documentary gives the viewer a taste of everyday life within the country. Despite my initial misgivings, and suspiscion that the film would lean so heavily to one side or another as to topple over, Voice of Iraq tells of a country which is equal parts relieved and scared.

Amongst the talk of the oppresive regimes, industrial shredders used to torture dissidents, and the crippling sanctions, Ive always wondered what the lifestyle of an Iraqi is like. The film is at pains to say that 'for the first time in 24 years, the people of Iraq have a voice' and I suspected that the film could be pro American, and in retrospect it could be alleged that the film is.

Simply presented visions and stories of common Iraqi's lives in the post US era are presented, with the most common question asked by the camera operator is 'Do you think things are better now?' overwhelmingly they answered yes, but often with a qualifier of "...but things are too unsafe here now."

One of the most alarming scenes was a man address his comments directly to the American viewers of the documentary, he pleads with them to understand that most Iraqi's don't care about the abuses at Abu Graib prison, as the victims were the very same people who tortured innocent Iraqi's prior to the American invasion. This man was happy to see them suffer.

It was hard not to leave the cinema tarred with the sense that Iraq sees a sun rising over the hill, and that the American invasion, for whatever short term cost, will save Iraq, not destroy it. The documentary never falls into the trap of leading the viewers hand, but you still wonder more about what they aren't telling you - than what they do.

I give it 4.5/5 steaming hot lattes.

Primer

In 1999 I walked out of the open air cinema in Broome, scratching my head and wondering what exactly to make of The Matrix. After having seen The Matrix two or three more times, I now get the meaning of the film, it's complicated notions, twists and turns.

Primer is precisly the sort of film you shouldn't blow two hours on at the festival, as it needs repeated viewings. Staring Director/Writer/Etc. Shane Carruth, this film suckered me in with the following sentence from it's synopsis on the MIFF website:

Moonlighting research geeks fluke the impossible: a garage-built and gaffer-taped, but functioning, time machine. The implications of their discovery are limitless but, as is so often the case, human beings achieve greatness only after they succumb to their basest instincts.

Am i the only person who thinks, 'Awesome, they'll go forward and get lottery results and then come back and win lots of money and then live the sort of decadent out of control life style I'd lead if I was like God and shit,' when they read that?

There was little action and a lot of low level muttering and whispering. The two lead characters, Abe and Aaron, get themselves into a situation where multiple copies of themselves are roaming the same earth they are...I think.

This movie spent way too much time explaining a complicated and implausible time transportation concept that no one got anyway - it would have been better to just get on with the sci-fi thriller aspect, and focus on delivering a story that the audience was excited to see the conclusion of.

I still don't understand how this ended the way it did, or why anyone let the writer/director take a lead role, to the detriment of the film. This film needs a second and possibly third viewing, and is excellently made in terms of appearance and style, but is not the sort of film to see at the festival.

2 soy lattes.

Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate

In a time when a $40million movie budget was considered excessive, Heaven's Gate become a colossal disaster that single handedly took down movie studio United Artists.

The western film, the child of devoted director father Michael Cimino, fresh from icing the Deer Hunter cake with five Academy Awards, become an exercise in failure, as the obsessive Cimino blew out the budget and filming schedule with an alarmingly unchecked attention to detail.

Featuring new interviews with all cast and crew, but not Cimino himself, the documentary at times struggled to enliven a story that you are already well aware of the conclusion to. It almost becomes a catalogue of the insults and taunts that the cast and crew had to suffer through as the media created maelstrom engulfed the production and release of the film.

The audience is treated to some of the finest film review grenades ever, in the form of reviews that feature quotes such as:

"Watching Heaven's Gate is like being given a three hour tour of your own living room."

Perhaps due to it's length, and lack of content, this documentary never seems to hit the mark, doesn't build towards any climax, and left me checking my watch by the end - but hey, it is a documentary, and I could now tell you in floral detail exactly why 1980's Heaven's Gate was edited, and re-edited, and took the fabled United Artists down with it.

2 lattes.

The Ninth Day

Initially set in the German WW2 Dachau concentration camp, this true story manages to keep the audience at once captivated and uneasy throughout the telling of one of the most morally challenges tales of WW2.

A native of the tiny principality of Luxembourg,Reverend Kremer is one of a group of clergy who are interned at Dachau during the war, as a result of their activities, of varying severity, against the Nazi European occupiers.

Unexpectedly, Kremer is released back to his family in Luxembourg - but he soon finds that he has a challenge facing him. He has nine days to convince the Bishop of Luxembourg to cease his quiet resistance to the Nazi occupation, or return to the concentration camp after the ninth day.

His debate with SS officer Gebhardt is a highlight, as the torn Kremer weighs up the seeming inevitability of Nazi victory against his desire to save himself and his fellow clergy back in Dachau.

This inspiring drama never once falls into the trap of beating the audience over the head with concentration camp horrors, but merely accentuates the fear and torture the hamstrung Kremer relives as he makes his decision over his torrid nine day release.

The climax of this film is gripping, and asks the audience to examine their own beliefs, both moral and religious. The production values are on a par with the beautiful acting, as the Reverend and his SS keeper waltz through a religious debate with the highest of stakes attached for both.

5 grande lattes.

A Hole in My Heart

From the MIFF synopsis:

Rickard and his alienated son, Eric, share a dingy apartment in suburbia. Rickard is something of an amateur pornographer, reality TV and the affordability of a digi-cam making possible this 'creative' venture. Rickard and his buddy Gecko shoot a skin flick over the course of a weekend, with wannabe porn star Tess.

Firstly, from that synopsis, it's entirely plausible that I got everything I could have expected from this film; that said, this film was trash. A Hole in My Heart is far and away the single worst film I have endured so far at this years festival, and goes very close to winning the overall 'Crappest Film Ever Seen at MIFF.'

This film manages to grasp at every lose narrative straw it can in the hope of securing some semblance of relevance, even if it's only to those who appreciate cinema which scrapes the very bottom of the barrel.

It is neither clever, nor cutting edge - it more closely resembles a mulch consisting of equal parts nudity, teen angst, ruined childhood, fear, and social exile. Ultimately rich in visual content, the film is severely lacking when it's comes to fulfilling the audience. It never explores anything beyond the consistent immaturity of the characters.

To describe this film as 'challenging' is to overstate it's ability to hide the shocking makeup of the characters, from the caricature of a teenage son, to the fumblingly ineffective dad.

I walked out, I was the 27th person to do so - but I saw enough to tell you this film gets sweet FA out of five lattes.

Plethora

Standing in the queue to see Blacktown, I realised that I was standing out from the crowd due to sheer normality. here's a list of things that I forgot to take with me to the festival.



1. Bad Hair.
The more unkempt the better. Festival goers should exercise extreme caution with regards to having anything remotely resembling 'stylish' or 'managed' hair.



2. Festival Guide.
So what if you've already gone through it from cover to cover, bought tickets to all the movies you want to see, and have doubled it's weight via kilograms of ink left behind after you have annotated each movie listing - is HAS to go with you EVERYWHERE.



3. Headwear.
Got a teacosy just gathering dust? Put it on your head, the less dignified the better. Peaked caps are a definite no no, and don't even consider anything constructed of a synthetic fibre.



4. Excessive Scarves.
Please, it's Melbourne, you don't need Lavinia Nixon to tell you that you need to rug up. And rug up festival goers do, with an array of stylish, colour coordinated, inner city lane way cafe and $12 foccacia scarves on display.



5. Talking Hands.
Got something to say? Yell it with your hands. Those with an opinion on Wolf Creek, Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat, or Voices of Iraq, had better have a dazzling array of innocent bystanders eyesight endangering hand movements to back them up. Folded arms should step aside!

Monday, Monday

The weekend was, in a word, disorderly - I didn't wind up attending any movies.

So tonight I was able to get along to two films, Blacktown and Three of Hearts: A Post-Modern Family.

(Luckily I can link straight to the MIFF website's excellent online synopsis, allowing me to avoid having to heavily summarise these movies.)

I decided to get a minipass, and got into the festival box office with time to spare before the 7.30pm screening of Blacktown. No matter what time of day you are there, there is always a queue, and during today's queue I was joined by three French exchange students who presumably thought they were on exceedingly crowded public transport and each suffered from poor hearing. STEP BACK LOUD FRENCHIE!

The lady festival volunteers (surely they can't all be silly enough to volunteer for this stuff?) are almost always trendy looking, extraordinarily cute, and precisely the sort of girl I'd love to be seen with on my arm. The girl who served me was no exception, right up until she told me there were no minipasses left - "We'll have some more tomorrow, maybe." - and secondly, DENYING my student card as a valid form of concession ID - "Sorry, this isn't stamped with this year's date." - to which I did the only thing a well restrained festival goer could do, I muttered and rolled my eyes.

I was now shitty, and $30 poorer - she was still alarmingly adorable.

The queue at ACMI was massive, as Blacktown sold out. When seated, in a first for me, I struck up conversation with the girl next to me who was taking notes. I'm not going to reveal how I did this, I don't want everyone lifting my best lines for their personal use, but she was a smart type, with a burgeoning interest in cinema. In and amongst some name dropping and general talking myself up, I noticed that one of the notes she had taken "because I'm interested in directing movies" was Movie is sold out. Hmmm... telling observation.

Blacktown was shot on DV and according to film maker Kriv Stenders, who introduced the film, 'has come to your straight from my computer desktop.' The storyline of this was easy enough to follow, and I have to say, was quite captivating. It treads a fine line between gently leading you on, and risking boring you, yet pulls it off in way that never leads you to second guess the film.

One thing I cannot stand, especially in something this low budget, is a camera which moves during setting shots - it's a small thing, but I'd rather watch a movie without thinking "damnit, buy a FUCKING tripod" every three minutes.

Blacktown tells of an unconventional story, in an unconventional way and still delivers. The energy between leads Niki Owen and Tony Ryan is constant, as both characters grow and bloom during the film.

Unfortunately Blacktown doesn't screen again this festival, but is worth seeing if it happens to pop up locally sometime.

3.5 lattes.

Three of Hearts: A Post-Modern Family featured a majority gay bisexual couple, Stephen and Sam, who decided that a woman was what they were missing in their monogamously gay relationship. Enter Samantha, a gorgeous second generation East Indian woman who becomes the loves third wheel.

This film wins nothing for it's overtly crap title, but it's professionally put together and tells the triangular story in a way that involves the viewer in what could otherwise be a very very very boring 'we're so happy/positive energy/how super modern!' story.

The star of the show is the terribly piss funny Sam, who nails one liners across the 90 odd minutes. The trio marry, and have two kids together, and as the their lives evolve (the documentary was shot over 8 years) it's becomes apparent how normal they are in and amongst the total whatthefuckness of their life situation. Samantha struggles with the same typical stranded mother situations present in most families - despite the children having two fathers, as the film makers are careful to illustrate the normality of the trio's lives.

The documentary slows through it's middle stages, but is worth sticking through even if it's just to hear how effortlessly each character refers to their time 'in therapy' again, and again, and again.

Once again, Three of Hearts: A Post-Modern Family, has finished up for the festival - but is defiantly worth a look if you see it around.

I give it 3 very therapeutic lattes.

The reveal!

This isn't going to work out quite as planned, I don't think I'll be able to go to as many films as I first thought. Typical random planning issues have eventuated, not least of which is the leaving free a weekend to work so I have spare cash for a trip to Cairns in August. That, and that fact that I'm a university student. We're penniless remember.

At the moment I'm seeing as much as I can the first weekend, and then getting to everything I can squeeze into after that.

The festival guide arrived the other day, and the ritual of flicking through the guide from page to page, selecting movies began.

The temptation not to choose too many documentaries saw me switching between films, and going back and choosing others.

There is of course the yearly competition for the most blatantly obvious title translation from another language to English, and this years winner was a film called Buffalo Boy- which is an Asian film about boy and a buffalo.

Tomorrow the festival starts for me, and I'll have an update on what I saw tomorrow night.