November 21st
Judy and Punch
Suzi Q
Official Secrets
The Report
Farming
Japanese Film Festival

Another week of many new releases, and one more festival. My picks of the week would have to be the Aussie made, left-of-centre Judy and Punch, along with the rocking doco on the leather-clad lady of the 60s, Suzi Quatro. 

Judy and Punch
Director: Mirrah Foulkes
Length: 105 min

©  Madman - creative film-making with fine
perfs by our Aussie leads

In the mean-minded, witch-stoning fictional town of Seaside, (exactly when and where  is not spelled out) a pair of puppeteers put on their successful marionette show. Punch (Adrian Herriman) and wife Judy (Mia Wasikowska) hope their earnings will enable them  to escape the town with their baby. However, thanks to Punch's drinking, womanising, aggression, and a tragi-comic day of ghastly incidents, everything goes horribly wrong. Director Foulkes says she wanted to use the inspiration of a "fairy-tale" story to explore the current obsession with violence and misogyny in our society. So, just as the classic puppet show relies upon endless violence, so this film runs with that theme. Foulkes achieves a delicate balance between comedy (at times bordering on slapstick), and tragedy, all underpinned by a beautifully crafted and unsettling backdrop of a village of bigots and religious nutters. This highly inventive and unusual film will not be to everyone's taste, but it knows how to get its message across. Wasikowska and Herriman shine in their respective roles. The final scene of children watching an old puppet show is a salutory and fitting end to an unusual and impressive movie experience. 
4 - highly recommended!

Suzi Q
Director: Liam Firmager
Length: 104 min

©  Label Distribution -  rock on Suzi! Still going
strong at nearly 70!

Suzi Quatro was born in Detroit in 1950. From the age of five, when she saw Elvis on TV, she knew she wanted to be a rock'n'roller. Forming a girl band with her sisters in her early teens, she then left home young to seek solo fortune in London, and soon was topping the charts with her wild brand of rock and her thumping bass guitar. She's been in movies, TV shows, and musicals. Now, nearly 70, she is still writing songs and performing. This terrific upbeat doco uses archival footage, features more than 40 songs, interviews with Suzi then and now, and commentary from those people who have witnessed or shared her amazing journey - her family, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett, Deborah Harry and more. In a time where it was thought only men could get anywhere in the rock world, Suzi proved them all so wrong. I get the impression that underneath the leather jump-suited high voltage performer lay (and still lies) an unassuming person who simply loves what she does, never puts on too many airs and graces, but has the Detroit toughness and determination to make of her life exactly what she wanted. You don't have to be a fan to really enjoy revisiting the time of glam rock, getting to know this woman, who demonstrates that age is no barrier to rocking on.
4 - highly recommended!

Official Secrets
Director: Gavin Hood
Length: 112 min

©  Universal - a top performance from Keira

Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) works with British Intelligence, screening incoming classified information. Just as America is plotting to get Britain on board for the invasion of Iraq, she stumbles across an explosive memo: the US is garnering info on members of the United Nations Security Council to blackmail them into voting in favour of the forthcoming Iraq invasion. Feeling compelled to blow the whistle, Katharine leaks the memo to the press. Her freedom, and that of her refugee husband Yasar (Adam Bakri), are soon under threat as she is accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act. This tense thriller examines the legality of war when there is no sanction from the UN, and the personal convictions of a woman willing to risk it all so that the public know the truth. This is possibly one of Knightley's best performances to date, and she is well supported by the likes of Ralph Fiennes as a lawyer with the Liberty human rights organisation, and Rhys Ifans as a journalist. There are sequences of extreme tension throughout, although the ending is quite abrupt and unexpected. But since it's a true story, that's life!
3.5 - well recommended!

The Report
Director: Scott Burns
Length: 120 min
Out now, coming to Amazon Prime on Nov 29th

©  Transmission - important subject matter, great
performances, but a little dry. 

It seems like films exposing wrongdoings and cover-ups  from governments and churches are the flavour of the month. In this, another true story, US Senator Feinstein (Annette Bening) heads up an inquiry into the CIA's torture of terrorist suspects in the wake of 9/11. Staffer Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) leads the investigation which lasts years and has thousands of pages. In principal I'm partial to films which expose wrong-doings by the "big guys". This one does it methodically and painstakingly, for me a little too detailed, making it somewhat dry. Certainly the lead performances are terrific (Driver is also the flavour of the month) and of course the subject matter is important. Without showing too much, the film-maker still manages to convey the inhumanity and hypocrisy of the US government in regard to its treatment of prisoners. I like my political thrillers with a little more pizzazz, but many of my colleagues really loved it. 
3.5 - well recommended!

Farming
Director: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Length: 100 min

©  Icon - truth is stranger than fiction in a story of 
self-hatred, identity and skin heads. 

Based upon the true story of the director's childhood, this confronting film tells of a scurrilous practice in Britain in the '60s and '70s whereby Nigerian parents "farmed" their children out to white British families so they could work or study. Enitan (Damson Idris) is fostered out at six weeks old to Ingrid (Kate Beckinsale) who has several black kids in her care. After a few years in Britain, and a short-lived return to his Nigerian family (where the unfamiliar African customs traumatise and horrify him), Enitan is returned as a young teen to Ingrid's care, but lacking self-esteem and discriminated against, he hooks up with, of all things, a white skinhead gang. This story beggars belief, but is possibly a classic psychological case of externalising self-hatred. This is an intriguing story, with important resonance for a world where racial discrimination is alive and well. Unfortunately it is presented in an unsubtle, blunt and violent way, which focuses too much on the horror of the skinhead gang, and the racism, rather than allowing audiences to absorb the message. Raucous music doesn't add anything to the lack of subtlety. However, Beckinsale is excellent, as are all the young male leads, while much awarded young actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw is fine as Enitan's teacher, the one person with a shred of compassion in a film that is pretty bleak (except for the 3 years later epilogue.) The level of violence and gruelling humiliation will make it hard for many audiences to watch.
2.5 - maybe!

Japanese Film Festival
21 Nov - 1 Dec
For other states and times, film synopses, ticketing and venues, visit https://japanesefilmfestival.net/

This is the 23rd year for the Japanese Film Festival which will feature 45 films in four program streams: JFF Main Program, JFF Regional, JFF Classics, and JFF Fringe. Not many Japanese films seem to make it to our mainstream cinemas, so here's a great opportunity to get up close and personal with a fascinating culture. 

Melancholic: Here's one for fans of a quirky Yakuza story. Kazuhiko is an aimless guy despite having a uni degree. He takes a job at a local bathhouse, but the cleaning up is something a lot more sinister than he imagines, as the place is an execution site where Yakuza (Japanese mafia) bring their victims. Though the deeds Kazuhiko and his sidekick must perform are horrific, the film manages to maintain moments of humour and warmth, and by its unexpected denouement, even some heart-warming moments. That's what I like about Japanese film - often the unexpected, and often a deep sense of humanity in the face of difficult situations.