Hursto's five minute films: February 2019

Wednesday, 27 February 2019

February 28
The Guilty
Greta
**Alert: One week to go until the Alliance Francaise Film Festival**
**Alert: Transitions Film Festival continues**

It's thriller week. One tense Scandi crime thriller proves you don't need elaborate locations and actions to get full throttle tension. By contrast, French superstar Isabelle Huppert stars in a bizarrely entertaining tale of a friendship turned sinister, set in New York.

The Guilty
Director: Gustav Moller
Length: 85 min
Exclusive to Cinema Nova

The Scandis do it well when it comes to tense crime stories. In this Danish film, former police officer Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) now works in emergency dispatch, where he receives a call from a woman who says she's been kidnapped. As he attempts to get more information and arrange help, he discovers things aren't always what they seem. Here's the incredible thing about this gripping film - it all takes place in the confines of the one setting - Asger at his desk with his phone and GPS tracker. It is up to the viewer to create the mental imagery required to flesh out what is happening on the other end and to make sense of what is fact, and what other interpretations of the truth may exist. All assumptions must be put aside as the plot progresses. Surprisingly this works extremely well, with the tension progressively ramping up, along with one's engagement with Asger. The film's power is enhanced by its dark visual tones, and the highlights on Asger's face. Cedergren is wonderful as a man giving his all to a fragile situation where mental instability plays a huge factor. The film is compassionate and challenging and a most unusual and impressive cinematic experience.
4 - highly recommended!

Greta
Director: Neil Jordan
Length: 98 min

Frances (Chloe Grace Moretz) has moved from Boston to New York a year after the death of her mother. When she finds a handbag left on the train, the honest but naive youngster returns it to the rightful owner, an older French woman, Greta (Isabelle Huppert), who is very appreciative and extremely lonely. A friendship develops, until Frances discovers something is not quite kosher about Greta. This is a truly over-the-top B-grade thriller, with a lot to like, plus a pile of plot holes you could drive a truck through! But veteran director Jordan seems assured in how he wants his film to be - full of sinister tension, sudden frights, and one big unexpected surprise. There is also an overload of well-worn horror tropes and a fairly predictable cliff-hanger ending. However Huppert is a just perfect at playing creepy, charming and odd all at the same time, while the fresh-faced misty-eyed Moretz is a great foil for her. Maika Monroe is also strong as Frances' flatmate Erica. Sometimes it's just plain old-fashioned fun to see a well-acted horror that entertains and frightens without endless blood and gore, and of course Huppert is always worth watching.
3 - recommended!

Tuesday, 19 February 2019

February 21
Stan & Ollie
Undermined: Tales from the Kimberley
Transitions Film Festival

This week sees one highly entertaining release, plus a selection of docos, (several within an important festival), which deal with issues that should be of concern to all.

Stan & Ollie
Director: Jon S Baird
Length: 97 min

I was never a fan of the sort of slapstick comedy Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C Reilly) were famous for. But it doesn't stop me loving this sweet, funny and poignant film, about two once-famous comedians trying to make a comeback. Although the duo made 107 film appearances between 1927 and 1950, by 1953 they were past their prime. With Ollie's health failing, the pair go on a tour of Britain to attempt to reignite their popularity. This film works well on a number of levels - the recreation of the many popular routines the pair had down to a fine art is so impressive - Coogan and Reilly totally inhabit the characters. As well as the poignancy of how changing times eventually diminish even the world's most popular duo, it is also about the love between the two men. They could always make each other laugh, and, despite past clashes and estrangement, ultimately the bond endures. With Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda as their wives, and Danny Huston as the hard-boiled Hollywood producer, the cast is nicely filled out, but the spotlight shines front and centre on the pair who gave so much to the world of Hollywood comedy.
4 - highly recommended!

Undermined: Tales from the Kimberley
Director: Nicholas Wrathall & Stephanie King
Length: 100 min
Exclusive to Cinema Nova, Classic Elsternwick

The Kimberley, one of the world's last great wilderness areas and home to 200 remote Indigenous communities is under threat from mining, pastoralists and irrigated agriculture. This disturbing doco looks at the complex issues involved in attempting to integrate Native Title with business interests, and inclusion of Indigenous people in those business projects. Excellent commentary is given by Indigenous leaders, who are battling to preserve their homelands in what seems like yet another blatant landgrab by greedy companies. The vast cattle stations, and pristine coastline are strikingly impressive to view on the big screen, but the dramas going on at grass-roots level have the potential to threaten and ultimately destroy everything. With interesting characters, important issues and spectacular landscapes this is a worthy and important film for all Aussies to see.
3.5 - well recommended

Transitions Film Festival
21 Feb - 8 March
Cinema Nova
For info and tickets, visit: https://www.transitionsfilmfestival.com/

Subtitled "Visions for a Better World", this festival showcases "ground-breaking documentaries about social and technological innovation, revolutionary ideas and trailblazing changemakers that are leading the way to a better world."
There couldn't be a more important time for films of this nature to be coming out - films with the potential to change people's thinking and hopefully save the planet! But you need to be quick as most show only for one session. So head to the website (above) and choose what you want to see, or better yet get a season's ticket. I'm lucky to have already previewed several.
The Point of No Return: This doco tracks an almost unimaginable first - the flight of a plane around the world using only solar power. Discover the genius behind the idea, the two brave pilots, and be inspired that such thinking could revolutionise the planet. (Showing tomorrow, 21st Feb)
System Error: Our planet's resources are finite, so why do economists keep hollering about the word growth? This doco investigates what makes our financial system tick, exposing many of the wool-over-the-eyes ruses economists use to lure people in. Even respected academicians declare that a growing economy cannot last for ever. Scary stuff - great food for thought. (Showing 22 Feb)
The Human Element: This film has impressed me deeply. Famed photographer James Balog goes on a world odyssey with his camera, documenting the planet and its changing response to the four elements: water (dramatic floods and sea level rises); fire (wildfires the likes of which we've never seen); wind (hurricanes and typhoons of devastating magnitude); earth (volcanoes, coal mines causing catastrophe). He proposes that there is a fifth element - the human one, that has changed everything. Taking a very understandable and simple approach, Balog counterpoints his stunning visuals with the catastrophic reality of what is happening to our planet. (Showing March 1, but plan for it and get your tickets early!)
The festival is 4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Feb 14th
If Beale Street Could Talk
At Eternity's Gate
Arctic

Another week for films with Oscar nominations. These are amazingly diverse thematically, all strong in their own unique way, and once more testament to the art of independent non-mainstream film-making.

If Beale Street Could Talk
Director: Barry Jenkins
Length: 119 min

With three Oscar nominations to its name, plus another 67 wins and 133 nominations in other festivals, this is a much anticipated film. Based on a novel by James Baldwin, it is set in Harlem in the 1970s, and, like last week's The Hate U Give, it again highlights the injustices done to the Afro-American community. Tish (Kiki Lane) and Fonny (Stephan James) are young lovers with their lives ahead of them, that is until Fonny is framed for a rape he never committed. The film moves between Tish's visits to her lover, as she progressively swells with their baby, the increasingly futile attempts to get justice for him, and the past tracing the trajectory of their incredible over-the-top romantic love affair. Jenkins already won Best Picture for Moonlight in 2017, and he again proves what a fine director he is. The transcendent beauty of the intensely romantic love between Tish and Fonny is in stark contrast to the ugly reality of the prison world, and the corrupt justice system stacked against blacks. Here's yet another film still as relevant today as it was then.
4 - highly recommended!

At Eternity's Gate
Director: Julian Schnabel
Length: 111 min

Vincent Van Gogh come back to life.

Quite simply, this film traces the life of painter Vincent Van Gogh (Willem Dafoe), during the time he lived in the southern French town of Arles near the end of his life. Schnabel is trying to get inside the artist's head - to use film as a medium for expressing the intensity of Van Gogh's need to paint, and his amazing perception of color. The camera work is remarkable, swirling around the subject matter in the way Vincent's thick paint swirled on the canvas. Scenes of natural beauty within the film are as beautiful as paintings themselves. It's really something that needs to be seen, as did Loving Vincent, the film that animated Van Gogh's paintings to tell a similar story. Dafoe virtually inhabits his character and is nominated for a Best Actor award. Some people judge films like this as too slow - I see them as something to be relished - almost frame by frame - a true celebration of the life of a misunderstood, somewhat unstable genius.
4 - highly recommended!

Arctic
Director: Joe Penna
Length: 97 min
Exclusive to Sun Yarraville, Lido Hawthorn, Classic Elsternwick, Cameo Belgrave

Mads gives a great performance.

For fans of the survival genre film, here's one for you. A man, Overgard, (Mads Mikkelsen) becomes stranded in the Arctic after his plane crashes. Hopeful of being rescued, he is thrown further into crisis when he must be responsible for a woman (Maria Smaradottir), who has also met with an accident. This is survival at its most harsh, and strong visual film-making that must have cost the cast and crew many near frost-bitten moments. Shot in the deep north of Iceland in winter it looks fabulous, (a nominee for last year's Golden Camera award) but the action is at times painstakingly slow. I guess that's the point - to follow the gruelling journey of this man, and to feel his pain and steely determination. Self-preservation versus altruism is at the forefront of the story, and it is to Mikkelsen's credit that, with hardly any dialogue, he masters every nuanced look, so critical to getting the audience to engage with him. I like the fact that no backstory is given (it is not needed) and that the ends are not neatly tied up.
3.5 - well recommended!

Friday, 8 February 2019

Feb 7th
Capharnaüm
On the Basis of Sex
The Hate U Give

It's another week where two of the three films reviewed have overwhelmed me with their power, their themes, their tackling of injustice, their compassion and their fine film-making. And just to reiterate, my scoring is often so high because I simply don't go to see those films I think will not be so good. Why waste two hours of one's life!?

Capharnaüm
Director: Nadine Labaki
Length: 126 min

This is Lebanon's entry for Best Foreign Language Film in the forthcoming Oscars. First the question on everyone's lips - why the title? Not to be completely confused with the Biblical town, (both may have similar derivations) - it means a confused disorderly jumble. When outlining her film's themes, director Labaki had so many that the title evolved. It is the lives of the characters that are in total disarray. This is the story of Zain, about 12 years old (no he has no birth papers) who lives in a slum area of Beirut with many siblings and abusive parents struggling to get by. When the father sells 11-year-old sister Sahar into marriage Zain runs away, and is given shelter by an illegal Ethiopian immigrant Rahil, who has a young baby Jonas. When Rahil suddenly disappears Zain is left to attempt to protect and care for the baby, stealing and working street jobs. This is a remarkable piece of film-making, straddling documentary and fiction. Most of the actors were pulled from the streets, their real lives mirroring those of the characters they play. The young lead boy (Zain al Rafeea) is simply mesmerising, as, with a doggedness and responsibility, he does whatever it takes to care for the baby, before ultimately going to court to sue his parents for ever bringing him into the world. Yordanos Shiferaw as Rahil similarly was an illegal immigrant when pulled in for the role, and as for the baby, the little girl Treasure playing the impish Jonas is beyond adorable. All these actors bring the truth of the pain of their lives to this wonderful film, that has already risen to my top 10 for the just-started year.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended!

On the Basis of Sex
Director: Mimi Leder
Length: 120 min

Here's a biopic where it becomes hard to separate strong subject matter from film-making technique. Last year we saw the excellent doco RBG about US Supreme court judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg, an inspirational woman who spearheaded the fight for gender equality and many other social inequities. Here's the feature film version starring British rose Felicity Jones as aforesaid Ruth, and the impossibly handsome Armie Hammer as her husband Martin. The film traces the early years of Ruth's getting into Harvard law school, in an era where women were expected to be wives and mothers, and mainly men were accepted to the bar. When Martin finds a taxation law case discriminating against a man, Ruth takers on the might of the legal patriarchy to mount a case of gender discrimination. It's a nicely acted film, with an extremely important historical theme, but it employs, especially in the early part, too many cliched film-making techniques. And the soundtrack, which I refer to as "jaunty choofing-along music", annoyed me immensely and detracted from the gravitas of the story. Nonetheless it's a good recreation of the era, and in the second half, where more silence is employed and legal thrust and parry get more intense, the film definitely lifts its game. Despite flaws, the film is worth a look, but I preferred the doco.
3 - recommended!

The Hate U Give
Director: George Tillman Jnr
Length: 133 min

This film has just blown me away. Based upon a young adult novel, it is the story of Starr (Amandla Stenberg), a black teen at a white private school, living almost a dual life with two distinct styles of presenting herself to the world, her schoolgirl "white" self, and her ghetto black self. All is going well until she is sole witness to her childhood pal Khalil (Algee Smith) killed by a white policeman. As tensions mount within the rival black gangs in her neighbourhood, and within the black community as a whole against white injustices, Starr must decide if she has the courage to stand up and speak out. There are simply too many issues and themes to enumerate in this important, gripping and moving story, but Tillman handles them deftly, never preaching, but never shying from the hard truths of what hatred means, both between the races and within a neighborhood. The title comes from a song by murdered rapper Tupac Shakur, THUGLIFE (The Hate U Give Little Infants F...s Everyone). How relevant is this in a world, regardless of color, that still hasn't learned that lesson. The performance by Stenberg moved me to tears, (and every other cast member is simply brilliant), the rampant ignorance and prejudice enraged me, the family connections inspired me, and overall this is one mighty fine movie, not just for young adults but all of us.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended!