February 27th 2025
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
The Last Journey
Inside
White Bird
Dahomey
The Goat Life (streaming on Netflix)
I go from a meagre one review last week to a hefty six today, offering you a huge choice of excellent viewing.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Dir: Mohammad Rasoulof
Length: 167 mins
 |
© Sharmill - political, personal and
powerful film-making |
Iman (Missagh Zahreh) is an honest judge in Tehran, living with his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). He receives a promotion to the position of investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court of Iran, but his integrity will be tested, as he is expected to sign countless death warrants for people who have been arrested protesting against the oppressive government. His family is instructed to keep a low profile, but free-thinking, modern sisters Rezvan and Sana are outraged at what is going on around them, especially when their friend is arrested and badly beaten on the streets. When Iman's gun goes missing he starts to doubt his wife and daughters, setting off a family crisis of mistrust and suspicion. Winner of three prestigious critics' awards at Cannes, this is an important and timely film. There is an intelligent blending of the personal family dynamic, counterpointed with the broader socio-political issues in Iran. Tension gradually ratchets up, making the film gripping, thrilling and ultimately a shocking indictment of Iran's system of corruption and oppression. Aside from its excellent scripting and powerful performances, the film is even more astonishing as it was shot entirely in secret, such are the dangers to film-makers in that country. 4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended
The Last Journey
Dir: Filip Hammar & Fredrik Wikingsson
Length: 90 mins
 |
© Universal - a warm, funny and moving story of
a roadtrip attempting to revisit the past |
Seeing the shorts for this, I assumed it was another zany Scandi narrative movie. But I was surprised to discover it is a documentary, featuring the two directors, along with Filip's father, Lars, and his mum, Tiina. Lars was a French teacher all his working life, with a passionate love of France, a country to which he travelled countless times, with his wife and son. But now, ageing and retired he seems to have lost all his zest for life, and sits in his chair, perhaps just waiting for death. Filip is distressed and decides he will take Lars, along with his best pal Fredrik, on a road trip to France, to revisit favorite places, in the hope he can give his dad some of his old joie de vivre. They head off in a very old orange Renault, but things don't go totally as planned. This film is suffused with so much joy, fun, laughter, love and poignancy. There a is total naturalness between the characters, even more so than when Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan went off on their famously filmed road trips. The scenery and places in the south of France are, as expected, simply beautiful, and the current adventure is interspersed with old video footage and photos of the family's past trips when Filip was a kid. The film also takes a sobering look at the issues involved in ageing, both physical and emotional, especially for those who no longer have the sense of identity their work gave them. The story is also a reminder that, even though we cannot turn back time or recreate the past, there is so much to be gained from seizing the present. Filip's creativeness in devising special scenarios that will please Lars, along with an uplifting testament from past students, all combine to make for a moving and inspiring movie experience. 4 - highly recommended
Inside
Dir: Charles Williams
Length: 104 mins
 |
© Bonsai - one of the best prison films
in years. |
Mel Blight (Vincent Miller) has spent many years in juvenile prison for killing another boy when he was 12. He is now being transferred to an adult facility. He shares a cell with Mark Shepherd (Cosmo Jarvis), a child rapist who has apparently "found God", speaks in tongues and runs services for inmates. Shepherd co-opts Mel to play keyboard to accompany the sermons. Fellow inmate Warren Murfett (Guy Pearce) has done an inside deal to kill Shepherd, and decides to sub-contract Mel to do the hit. And so Mel, totally alone in the world with no family or visitors, is caught between these two men who have taken him under their wings, and his own feelings of helplessness, despair and rage. This is no ordinary run-of-the-mill prison drama. Rather, it is a stand-out tour-de-force of film-making and acting, and none of the stereotypical scenarios we usually get in prison dramas. Pearce arguably gives a career-best performance. Miller knows how to use subtle facial gestures and minimum dialogue to maximum effect, while Jarvis is extraordinary at evoking an unlikely compassion for a man who has committed such a heinous act. Each character is so carefully nuanced and layered, so that we are reluctant to unconditionally condemn; instead seeing a glimmer of the humanity that lurks underneath even the most reprehensible of characters. The film was shot in a not yet opened prison in Lara, Victoria, adding to its oppressive and realistic atmosphere. For those able to tolerate the bleakness, it is probably one of the most truthful and unsensationalised depictions of the broken justice system and its sad inhabitants that you've seen.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended
White Bird
Dir: Marc Forster
Length: 121 mins
 |
© - a grandmother recounts her childhood
hiding from the Nazis |
Grandmother Sara (Helen Mirren) sits with her grandson, reproaching him for his unkind attitude to his classmates and his unruly behaviour. She decides the time has come to tell him of her childhood wartime experiences. And so begins a flashback to yet another Holocaust story, this one of a well-off French family who are rounded up by the Gestapo in Paris in 1942. Young Sara (Ariella Glaser) escapes and is hidden in a barn by the family of one of her classmates, Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), a boy paralysed in one leg by polio. Julien's kind mother Vivienne (Gillian Anderson) cares for the girl, while she and her brave classmate create a world of fantasy which helps them get through the nightmarish time. Although presented in a rather sanitised and overly romanticised way, this is a very engaging story, and it's always great to see Mirren in action. If it's more darker stories of this terrible era out there you want, head off to see The Brutalist.3 - recommended
Dahomey
Dir: Mati Diop
Length: 68 mins
Exclusive to Cinema Nova in Vic
 |
© Rialto - unusual and informative doco
that will resonate with certain audiences |
If you've seen the film The Woman King with Viola Davis, you may know of the kingdom of Dahomey in Africa. The country was once a major centre for slave trade and was taken over by the French in 1894. In 1960 the colony gained independnce and 15 years later became known as Benin. Enough of the potted history, but it is important in the context of this little award-winning documentary which raises some big ideas. Of course colonising countries love to plunder, and France stole some 7000 valuable items from Dahomey. This doco follows the process of repatriation of 26 of these items, and is told through the "voice" of a statue of one of Dahomey's kings, as it is returned to its country of origin. After a fairly slow and careful tracing of the process of packing and shipping the treasures, we join a spirited conversation among students in Benin as they debate weighty issues, among them the legacy of colonisation and the importance of the repatriation of artefacts. The film has won some pretty hefty awards, but is likely to be more popular with critics than your average movie-goer. 3 - recommended
The Goat Life
Dir: Blessy
Length: 173 mins
Streaming on Netflix
 |
© Netflix - modern slavery: an Indian
man is abducted and forced to work
in the blazing Saudi desert |
Najeeb (Prithviraj Sukumaran) wants to provide for his beloved wife and forthcoming child, so follows a job lead which takes him to Saudi Arabia. When he and his friend Hakim (K. r. Gokul) are picked up at the airport, they soon find they have been abducted by brutish Arab criminals, who take them to the middle of the desert and separate them. Najeeb finds himself being held captive and forced to work as a goat-herder. Beaten, starving and desperate, he looks for a means of escape. You'll need real staying power to survive this one, not only because of its length but because the story itself is so harrowing. It is based upon the real-life experience of a man from southern India, whose gruelling experience became the basis for a best-selling book in that country. Watching it, one really feels the pain, deprivation and suffering that Najeeb must have felt. Sukumaran's performance is stunning, as is the makeup which transforms him into a near-mute wild man.The wide-screen vastness of the stunning cinematography just adds to the feeling of his isolation. Indians often aspire to earning their fortune in the Arab Gulf States, but this story certainly casts a light on the harsh conditions many migrants endure. Ultimately this is a story of abduction and modern slavery, harsh to watch, but important to know about. (And . . . had I been editor, I'd have taken the knife to the run-time!)3.5 - well recommended
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