October 12 2017
Greek Film Festival
Blue
Only Living Boy in New York
Good Time
The Mountain Between Us
Bad Blood

It's all so overwhelming - the number of new releases and festivals is enough to send me into film OD! But I'll suffer for the cause, as there are so many wonderful films I want to tell you about. Particularly, check out the DelphiBank Greek Film Festival, always a wonderful showcase of Hellenic films. 

Blue
The Day The Sea Changed
Director: Karina Holden
Length: 70 min

© Transmission -  a marine cataclysm looms - but
people seem oblivious

• In the last 40 years half of all marine life has been lost.  
• By 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish

These two highly alarming statistics are at the heart of this must-see documentary that hopefully will make humans who take the sea for granted wake up, before it is too late! Two years in the making, Blue takes us on a journey with people dedicated to saving our oceans, showing us the devastation that is happening every day across the planet: overfishing of tuna in Indonesia to the point of extinction, trawling nets killing marine life, pollution from heavy industry, mounds of garbage washing up on shorelines, and birds dying from plastic ingested into their gut. Rather than leaving only the "eco-warriors" to fight, this beautifully shot film throws the challenge to each one of us, asking what we could do to make a difference. This is important viewing! 
4 - highly recommended!

The Only Living Boy in New York
Director: Marc Webb
Length: 89 min

© Roadshow - anything with 
Jeff Bridges is worth seeing!

Recently graduated Thomas Webb (Callum Turner) moves out from the home of his successful publisher father (Pierce Brosnan) and fragile mother (Cynthia Nixon). Living in the rough end of town, Tom befriends his alcoholic neighbor (Jeff Bridges), who dispenses life lessons on how Tom should win Mimi (Kiersey Clemons), the girl of his dreams. But when Tom discovers his Dad is having an affair with the alluring younger Johanna (Kate Beckinsale), he starts to reconsider his options. Rotten Tomatoes critics seem to have dismissed the film, but I find it an intelligently scripted, (if at times the voice-over is a touch pretentious) engaging story with strong performances, good dialogue, and a plot twist that I certainly never saw coming!    
3.5 - well recommended

Good Time
Director: Marc Webb
Length: 89 min
Screening Nova, Lido and ACMI

© Potential - a star performance from Robert Pattinson
marks this fast-paced crime thriller

Small time crook Connie (Robert Pattinson) takes his younger, mentally challenged brother Nick (Ben Safdie) along with him on a bank robbery. When everything goes wrong and Nick ends up in remand, Connie will stop at nothing to get his brother out. Pattinson has come a long way since his vampire days in Twilight, and he simply bursts with manic energy in this crazy, frenetic tale of  a grungy low-life who perhaps has some heart when it comes to family. The action never lets up, with the camera restlessly zooming along the streets of New York's underbelly, in and out of apartments and finally into a deserted fun park. There are moments of sudden violence, and others of semi-farcical humor. Even though the characters are all quite unlikeable, this film belongs to Pattinson who shines throughout.    
3.5 - well recommended

The Mountain Between Us
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Length: 103 min

© Fox  - the location adds a new meaning to "remote"!

Professional photographer Alex (Kate Winslet) and neurosurgeon Ben (Idris Elba) find themselves stranded at an airport, both needing urgently to get home (one to marry, one to operate). They charter a small twin-engine plane, but when the pilot suffers a stroke, the plane crashes into remote mountains, and the battle to survive begins. Another film to divide critics down the middle, TMBU totally stretches the bounds of credibility. It feels authentic for the early part, but then starts to venture into highly implausible territory. The outcome is fairly predictable, but, in the film's favour, the performances by Winslet and Elba are strong, the location starkly gripping, (the cast and crew literally froze in the mountains of British Columbia), and I must confess to finding myself entertained.   
2.5 - maybe

Bad Blood
Director: David Pullbrook
Length: 90 min

© Potential - is fiance Vincent really who he seems?

Vincent (Xavier Samuel) is a successful author, much in love with fiance Carrie (Moran Griffin), but hiding from her a dark secret he harbors. When he invites her for a romantic weekend at the isolated country property of his publisher, things get scary - is Vincent really who Carrie thinks he is? Described as a "sophisticated thriller with a Hitchcock vibe", this good looking film has elements that work, yet for me it's no Hitchcock! I loved Samuel as Otto Bloom, but I fear in this he may be miscast - not dark enough and too cleancut looking to really pull off the dual role he plays. I love to support Australian film, but unfortunately this one doesn't enthral me.  
2.5 - maybe

Delphi Bank 24th Greek Film Festival
11-22 October
Palace Como and Astor

Greek musicians perform at the ouzeri
in Cloudy Sunday 

The Festival offers 16 feature films, several documentaries and even a short film festival.

My no 1 pick:
Djam: I adore all the films Tony Gatlif has directed. He has a feel for distinct cultures and their music, along with the longing that all exiles have for their homeland. In this Greek/French/Turkish co-production. Gatlif goes to the island of Lesvos where feisty young Djam lives with her stepdad. He sends her on an errand to Istanbul, where she befriends a troubled French girl, Avril. Together the girls take the slow road of digressions back to the island. There is something so joyous in Gatlif's approach to music and life - he captures the defiant spirit of the Greeks, who, despite all the catastrophes that have beset them, including economic and refugee crises, still have a lust for life and an unbroken connection to their music.

Roza of Smyrny: Touted as the Romeo and Juliet of Greco-Turkish relationships, this film deals with a very interesting time in Greek/Turkish history, and gives background to the often hostile relationship between the two countries. The mystery element comes from the finding of an old blood-stained wedding dress. A museum curator, building an exhibition around Greek culture in Smyrna (now Izmir), tracks down the story behind the dress. It's a fabulous tale, even if directed in a somewhat melodramatic style. 

Cloudy Sunday: The closing night film is a very moving story of the love between a Jewish girl and Christian boy in the city of Thessaloniki at the time when the Nazis occupied Greece. The film garnered several awards for its acting and production values, and recreates beautifully the atmosphere of the Greek musical tavern, Ouzeri Tsitsanis,  where one of the protagonists performs. This is yet another important take on a little known aspect of the Holocaust in a city once famed for its Jewish culture. 

Pedro Noula: After surviving a horrific bus crash, Pedro Noula suffers amnesia and sets out to discover his identity, with the aid only of a passport, a photo and a bank cheque. This is a great idea and starts off really well, with a sympathetic main character, plenty of sidekicks who feel really authentic, but then the whole plot gets a little too convoluted for my taste, and doesn't seem to quite know how to finish itself off. Nevertheless, the film has a wry humour and is an interesting look at the subject of identity, who we are at heart, under all the events of our lives, and whether we can we reinvent ourselves. 

Istoria: This fascinating doco follows three generations of Australian Greeks: Elias, who is suffering from Alzheimers, has always wanted to return to Greece, so his son and grandson take him back hoping it will help his condition, but the memories he unearths of the Greek Civil War are highly disturbing. I never understood much about the Greek civil war, and this certainly opened my eyes on the history of Greece post WW2.

Son of Sofia: From Greece/France/Bulgaria comes the story of 11-year-old Misha who travels from Russia to reunite with his mother in Greece, in the year of the Athens Olympics. He doesn't know his mum has remarried a much older Greek man, who tells children's stories but is a fierce disciplinarian. Misha befriends some dubious Ukrainian boys, and escapes into fantasy fairytales, thinking he is Misha the bear, the Olympic mascot from the Russian Games. This is a nicely made story, blending coming-of-age and cultural displacement  themes with a dose of magical realism. 

Dogs of Democracy: I loved Kedi, about the street cats of Istanbul, and this doco does a Greek take on the theme, using stray dogs, and the people who care for them, as a framework/backdrop to the economic crisis. This doesn't quite pull it off - the political observations are insightful, but combining the two threads doesn't work for me so well. 

Trezoros: The Lost Jews of Kastoria: another beautifully made doco about the Holocaust, as experienced in a Greek village. Of 1000 Sephardic Jews who had lived there since the Roman days, only 35 returned. Survivors and their families speak of their experiences, and wonderful archival footage is employed. 

The Festival will also screen the fine Australian film Joe Cinque's Consolation, directed by Greek-Australian Sotiris Dounokos, based on a Helen Garner book about a true crime in which a law student killed her boyfriend. 

For more information on all the films and their screening times go to: www.greekfilmfestival.com.au