December 19th 2024

Black Dog

How to Make Gravy (streaming on Binge/Foxtel)

Two vastly different films this week: one award winner from China and one Aussie film based around a song that has almost become a Christmas classic. 

STAY TUNED very soon for the boxing Day releases.

For my top films for 2024 check out this link to my video interview with Movie Metropolis:

https://youtu.be/6_4899v71nM

Black Dog

Dir:  Guan Hu

Length: 118 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrpBMPfe4wk&t=1s

© Hi Gloss  - man and dog head off 
across the Gobi desert

Winner of Un Certain Regard in this year's Cannes FF, Black Dog is an unusual and touching man and dog story. Lang (Eddie Peng) has just been released from jail for murder. Back in his rapidly declining home town on the edge of the Gobi desert in north-west China, he is employed to work as a dog-catcher, with the focus being on capturing a skinny black dog that supposedly has rabies. Meantime the decrepit town is slated for demolition, and China is gearing up for the 2008 Olympic Games. The local butcher, whose son Lang killed, has it in for him and Lang's ailing Dad has decamped to what's left of the local zoo, where he tends a lone tiger. Lang manages to eventually befriend the black dog. This is decidedly an odd-ball film, but with much more below its surface than initially meets the eye. As a cinematically visual piece, it is a stand-out, the camera  capturing the isolation and bleak beauty of the vast desert. Lang as a character seldom speaks, but his body language says much, espcially in relation to the dog. Moments of quirky humour abound, and there is a warmth to the whole, that speaks of the possibility of forgiveness and redemption. Even the dog, which at first glance repulsed me, ended up becoming quite appealing!

4 - highly recommended

How to Make Gravy

Dir:  Nick Waterman

Length: 120 mins

Streaming on Binge/Foxtel

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Fwe9Q6NB0&t=73s

© Foxtel - the Kelly classic song is now 
a feature length film! 

I always feel a deep melancholy when I hear the Paul Kelly song "How to Make Gravy". The regret, longing and fear that the words evoke, as a man sends a letter from prison to his brother. Now that song, dense with plot and emotion, has been made into a feature length film. Joe (Daniel Henshall) has lost his block one Christmas with brother-in-law Roger (Damon Herriman) and landed up in prison for assault. The following Christmas he sends a letter to brother Dan (Brendan Thwaites), pouring out his heart and revealing the secret recipe for a successful gravy. He exhorts Dan not to get too close to wife Rita (Agathe Rousselle) and says he misses everyone, especially young son Angus (Jonah Wren Phillips). In prison Joe joins a men's group run by Noel (Hugo Weaving) who also recruits Joe to the prison kitchen, helping him escape prison tough guy Red (Kieran Darcy-Smith). There is certainly much to like in the film, but it is a little schmaltzy, with some pretty unbelievable sequences such as a prison choir that sings a bit too well, moments of clunky dialogue, and the not-so-subtle implication that a ladle of good gravy can mend all rifts and ills! But there's no denying it is a worthy effort to take a five-minute song and turn it into a two-hour film, especially with a cast of such strong actors. There are worse ways to spend two hours than enjoying this archetypically Aussie story. And, by the way, it already has a massive 15 nominations for next year's AACTA awards!

3 - recommended

December 12th 2024

Under Streetlights

Joy (streaming on Netflix)

Two new reviews this week. One Aussie film in cinemas is well worth seeing, with a wonderful cast, good storyline, and great music. Couch watchers should get much joy from the story of the research that went into creating the first IVF baby. 

Under Streetlights

Dir:  Danielle Loy

Length: 90 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2wow8r_8Xo

© Fresh new talent in a lovely story
of young musicians bridging the gap

In Alice Springs teenage Ella (Madison Hull) is grieving the death of her mother in a car accident. Her father Jack (Luke Scholes),the local cop, is progressively drinking himself into a stupor to cope with his grief. Izak (Jacob Harvey) is an indigenous lad who aspires to be a rapper and music producer. His father Clifford (Leighton Mason), once a talented dancer, is now an alcoholic. Ella is an aspiring singer-songwriter, and when she overhears Izak playing his music, the pair strike up a friendship. They decide to collaborate on musical projects together, but their alcoholic fathers, with a historical axe to grind with each other, threaten to derail the pair. The relationship between Ella and Izak is powerfully and movingly conveyed. Both actors are talented musos in their own right, each with a charming and striking screen presence. Alongside the plot of friendship are the ever-present issues of poverty, racism, and alcoholism. The director had her own battles with alcohol, and tries to counter many of the stereotypical views of indigenous people in this film. Music is of course an integral part of the story with Harvey and Hull having written and performed the excellent songs which creatively combine many genres of music. Cinematography is splendid with the red dust, isolation, and shimmering heat being powerfully captured. Moments of comic relief, possibly unnecessary, come from the banter between Izak's aunt and uncle, and the ending is a little too sudden, but overall this film is truly sweet, without ever being too saccharine. It is a refreshingly different addition to to the Aussie indigenous movie genre.

4 - highly recommended

Joy

Dir:  Ben Taylor

Length: 115 mins

Streaming on Netflix

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qoyn5BCm37o&t=5s

© Netflix - baby Louis Joy Brown was born 
as the result of this inspired IVF research team 

New to Netflix is the somewhat sweet, but also intriguingly scientific story of how the first IVF baby was born. Researcher John Edwards (James Norton) teams up with top surgeon Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy) and nurse/embryologist Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie) to work tirelessly for a decade to achieve a successful live birth. The film follows a fairly conventional time line starting in 1968 when Steptoe pioneered laparoscopic procedures to remove eggs from ovaries. Together with Edwards they managed to impregnate mice and rabbits and then convinced infertile women to volunteer as experimental subjects for the technique. Purdy ran the IVF lab for the doctors and also produced many important papers on embryology. Becasue of her religous background, she managed to alientate her mother who, along with many people, say IVF was akin to the devil's work. It's terrific that this film pays so much homage to the woman at the centre of this incredible breakthrough, and the strong story, along with excellent cast make it a worthy watch.

3.5  - well recommended

 

December 5th 2024

The Dead Don't Hurt

Out of Season

My Favourite Cake

One Western with a modern sensibility, a French mood piece reflecting upon "what if", and a sublime picture of love in old age in repressive Tehran. Another great week for new release films, all on the big screen. 

The Dead Don't Hurt

Dir:  Viggo Mortensen

Length: 129 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE6rFCjyEGs&t=3s

© Transmission - a stunning morph of a 
relationship film with a Western. A winner!

French-Canadian immigrant Vivienne le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) is a woman unusual for her time - a highly independent and self-sufficient flower seller in San Francisco. When she meets much-travelled Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen), an immigrant from Denmark, they decide to set up a life together at his remote little cottage in Nevada. After a short idyllic period, Holger decides to enlist in the army to fight in the Civil War, leaving Vivienne to fend for herself. The local men are an unsavoury bunch - corrupt mayor Schiller (Danny Huston), powerful rancher Jeffries (Garrett Dillahunt) and his vile son Weston (Solly McLeod) who goes after Vivienne. When Holger returns five years later the pair must learn to adjust to what each other has become, and handle some hard truths. This is a Western with a welcome difference. The tenderness of the love story and the determination of a woman to stand up for herself could well be something from the modern era. The relationship between the lovers, both passionate but each fiercely their own person, is compellingly portrayed. Mortensen as a director and actor knows how to tap into humanity and gentleness, as well as depict the brutality of the era with its ruthless and violent men. Questions of revenge, forgiveness, heart-breaking loss and the meaning of fatherhood also feature in this moving love story. Shot mostly in Durango Mexico, the film is very lovely to look at, and as well as having scripted, produced and acted, Mortensen has written a very lovely musical score.

4 - highly recommended

Out of Season

Dir:  Stephane Brize

Length: 115 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C9R1LVJ8DQ&t=8s

© Palace - old flames meet up in this two-hander

Famed actor Matthieu (Guillaume Canet) has checked himself into a spa resort in Brittany, after suddenly doing a runner from a theatre production in which he was supposed to star. He's lost all his self-confidence. Out of the blue he gets a phone call from Alice (Alba Rohrwacher) who lives in that very town, and with whom he was involved 15 years before. The pair meet up and rekindle a past flame, as well as rehashing the nature of their break-up and what might have been. I'm as torn about this film as they are about their relationship, despite the movie being a nominee for the Golden Lion at Venice. Yes, there is a lovely chemistry between the pair, yes, the windswept bleak scenery of Brittany underscores an emptiness both characters now feel in their lives, yes the music is lovely, but for me there is something a little laboured about the whole thing. Perhaps it could have been severely edited, especially in the earlier sections. I found myself thinking constantly "get on with it!" Some scenes feel  contrived, such as when Matthieu and Alice go to the wedding of a lesbian couple, one of whom has reflected at length in an interview about finding her real self long after her marriage and motherhood are over. Overall there are enough good ideas here - the shallowness of stardom and the wellness industry; the idea of "sliding doors" and what could have been; the theory that it is never too late in life to find yourself - but the whole does not coalesce into something that is as emotionally satisfying as it could have been. The two leads however are good together with strong natural chemistry, and there is one incredible scene featuring two whistlers who make amazing bird noises - the film is worth seeing for that alone!

3 - recommended

My Favourite Cake

Dir:  Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha

Length: 97 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN-hEYwqqZg&t=3s

© Vendetta - sweet and touching, with a 
subtle political undertone

Mahin (Lily Farhadpour) is 70 and has lived alone in Tehran since her husband died thirty years ago. At a friends' lunch, the women laughingly speculate on whether it is possible to find love again at their age. Mahin decides to put it to the test. At a pensioners' diner she spots lonely taxi driver and divorcee Faramarz (Esmaeel Mehrabi), and arranges for him to drive her home. The evening that ensues is unforgettable for them both. Winner of the Ecumenical Jury prize and the prestigious Fipresci prize at Berlin 2024, this film is a low-key wistful delight, that is not without its political agenda, albeit very subtly handled. Mahin is old enough to remember when women in Iran were not oppressed, and could wear low cut dresses instead of hijabs and sandshoes, and when nosy neighbours weren't watching your every move to report you. Much of the action is interior, but in one scene on the streets Mahin is fearless enough to defy the Morality Police when they harrass a young woman. Of course being alone with a man is considered a crime, but Mahin and Faramarz are determined to make up for years of bottled-up emotions. I love this sort of  gentle understated film; there is a sweet innocence about the characters, and it is always a joy to see love in the autumn years on-screen. The two lead actors conjure up a beautiful intimacy and the many tableau-style shots of them side by side reinforce this.  Unsurprisingly, the two directors  were not allowed out of Iran to go to collect their awards, just further testament to the life Mahin is against, and yet resigned to.

4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended