Wednesday 17 May 2023

 May 18th 2023

The Blue Caftan
Limbo
Quant
Marlowe
Remember Belsen - special screening Sunday 21st May

Again this week brings some powerful movies to our big screen. Great to see a top Aussie drama amongst them. Plus I recommend you to a Q&A this Sunday, remembering a dark time in human history. 
The Blue Caftan
Dir: Maryam Touzani
Length: 124 mins
© Kismet - sensitive, delicate, 
beautiful and absorbing. 
Here's a literal winner of a film, with nine prestigious awards, among them Queer Palm and Un Certain Regard critics' prize at Cannes. The film is a co-production from France, Morocco, Belgium and Denmark. It stars beautiful Belgian actor Lubna Azabal as Mina, who runs a dressmaking shop in Morocco with her husband Halim (Saleh Bakri). Their lives are turned upside down when a handsome young apprentice Youssef (Ayoub Missioui) comes to work at the shop. The film takes a slow burn approach; it is only incrementally that we discover the truth of Mina and Halim's lives, both in terms of his sexual proclivities, and her illness. The friendships that develop between the three are handled with an exquisite sensitivity and at a measured pace. Anyone who's visited Morocco will know of the painstaking work done on clothing in the form of embroidery, and this side of the film is a treat for the senses (though not for viewers who are impatient). The story is also homage to the dying handcrafts that are being usurped by machine work, and clients who want ready-made rather than the delights of intricate hand workmanship. 
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended

Limbo
Dir: Ivan Sen
Length: 108 mins
© Bunya Productions - raw, gritty, film
noir set in the Aussie outback 
The outback opal mining town of Limbo is a gloomy place in every regard: the surroundings are bleak and the people seem defeated. Detective Travis Hurley (Simon Baker) is sent to the town to investigate a cold case from 20 years ago when a local indigenous girl, Charlotte, went missing. The police hadn't cared, and when they finally investigated had tried to pin the blame upon local First Nations men, including implicating Charlotte's brother, Charlie (Rob Collins). Hurley gets the initially hostile locals to finally open up to him, including reclusive Joseph (Nicholas Hope), brother of a one-time suspect, and Charlie's estranged sister Emma (Natasha Wanganeen). This finely crafted, haunting film just oozes atmosphere. The decision of Sen to shoot in black and white adds a noir overlay to the feel, from the minute Hurley checks into the underground cave-style motel, to the ending which remains, cleverly, ambiguous. There is much pain in the story - that of fractured families and a justice system that continually ignores or mistreats the First Nations people. Baker is compelling as the world-weary Hurley, who himself has a drug habit, but has enough compassion to invest himself in the sad case. The settings (in and around the underground mining town of Coober Pedy) are stark and fascinating, and the understatedness of the plot, the characters and their interconnections is beautifully handled. An intriguing, gritty cop-story with a big human heart.
4 - highly recommended

Quant
Dir: Sadie Frost
Length: 86 mins
© Vendetta - the face of sixties' 
fashion, and mother of the  miniskirt 

Probably no fashion designer says 1960s more than Mary Quant. This excellent doco shows not only how fashion changed women's lives, but how society itself went through seismic changes in the sixties. Quant opened her first shop in 1955, and as the sixties blossomed was known for bold colors, mini skirts, and a free-spirited, individualistic line of  clothing. There are many revealing interviews with Quant and fashion doyens then and now, excellent old footage of the day, and all is backed up by a nostalgia-inducing fabulous soundtrack. But Quant's career was more encompassing than a single decade; she moved with the times and the changes she and her brand went through up until the year 2000 (when she retired) are also highly reflective of societal change. No need to be a fashionista to get a lot out of this engaging film, made more poignant by the fact that Quant died on April 13th this year, aged 93. 
4 - highly recommended

Marlowe
Dir: Neil Jordan
Length: 109 mins
© Madman - the big man is back
Raymond Chandler wrote The Big Sleep in 1939. It featured a detective known as Philip Marlowe. Since then ten films about the private detective have been made. Some have become classics, but probably not this one. Jordan is Irish, as is the writer of the Chandler lookalike book, so Liam Neeson is an Irish-accented Marlowe in LA in 1939. The mandatory blonde seductress Claire Cavendish (Dianne Kruger) asked Marlowe to help find her missing lover Nico, a props man for a movie studio. Marlowe discovers Nico has been killed. But has he? All the ingredients are here - an upmarket nightclub ( a front for what?) run by Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), a druglord Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming), Claire's horse-riding mother (Jessica Lang) along with a grab-bag of other assorted characters from cops to crooks. I find the plot too convoluted, and something about Neeson's performance feels clunky and not quite right. However, Glover, Cumming and Lang (great to see her again!) all bring top performances to their characters. And the film certainly looks fabulous, with excellent period recreation and costuming. 
2.5 - maybe

Remember Belsen
Dir: Frank Shields
Length: 104 mins
Special Screenings and Q & A - Sunday 18th May, Melbourne Holocaust Museum
Selwyn St, Elsternwick. 2pm-4.30 
© Frontier Films  - one of Alan Moore's 
artworks depicting camp horrors
After WW2 ended, a film was commissioned, documenting the horrors the Allied troops discovered upon liberating the concentration camp Bergen Belsen. But that film was never made and 40 years later the reels were unearthed. Now this extraordinary documentary by Australian director, writer and producer Shields puts it all on the big screen lest the world forget the atrocities that were perpetrated upon the Jewish people by the Nazis. Shields dedicates the film to Aussie war artist Alan Moore, who immortalised in his work some of the most confronting scenes he was experienced as a young soldier. Yes, we've seen some horrific scenes of the Nazi horrors before, but never in quite as much sobering and disturbing detail as here. Interwoven into the dark history, are wonderful interviews with survivors, including two women, Helen Schon and Olga Horak. They speak so powerfully of their experiences, and they are a testament to human resilience and survival in the face of evil. Alan Moore (before his death) was interviewed, while artworks from other prisoners and famous war artists are also detailed. The film plays in three "chapters" - the first detailing how so many of prisoners came via Auschwitz to Belsen, the second documenting the actual liberation, and the third examining the extraordinary efforts from medical personnel and volunteers to nurse back to health some of those inmates who were able to be saved (a ray of light amidst the horror).  This beautifully assembled doco, so well edited by John Doggett Williams, weaves in and out of the timelines, seamlessly blending stills, footage and interviews. Remember Belsen is vital viewing, to keep reminding the world how dangerous hatred can be.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended




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