Change Your Image
talkfest
Reviews
Jiang cheng xia ri (2006)
window to modern Chinese world
I love this film! I felt it really gave me a window into a slice of current Chinese culture. Seeing how people are dealing with the challenges of the contrasts between old china vs new china and country vs city. The characters had me thoroughly engaged. Fantastic acting and casting. I know it's not PC to say you like happy endings but I saw it at Melbourne film festival and I really enjoyed the positive outcome of the re-opened communication between the father and the daughter that resulted from the whole experience. Especially in the context of so many bleak films. Some obvious conveniences in the plot. I was so interested to see the rich cultural aspects woven into the story from design to behavior that I hadn't seen before. Some wonderful, some surprising and shocking. All fantastic. Can't wait to get it on DVD.
Like Minds (2006)
Thrilling departure for Oz film
Like minds is a film that I have seen at Melbourne International Film Festival. It is a refreshing departure from the current bulk of Oz films. It swept me away into it's unique world for it's entire length and it may actually do some decent box office! It kept me guessing and thinking right to the end, in fact my friends and I kept talking about it at Brekki the next morning. It felt to us like it seemed to harp back to some of the wonderful thinking Oz films of the 70's.
It was a refreshing surprise to see a new Australian film maker unashamed to put production value to effective use to complement the drama in every way. It lets craftsmanship take flight to maximize the impact of the drama.
Half way through when the action pace ramps up, I found I really had to focus on who was manipulating whom. Both in the forward and back story. I was even more engrossed.
It was wonderful to see Toni Collette and Richard Roxburgh playing supporting leads. No doubt that was used for a lot of leverage in getting the film made. Toni lets those wonderful ranges of emotion wash across her face in a subtle and strong performance.
Unusual programming for a film festival, not your typical film festival film I don't think.
The Book of Revelation (2006)
Disappointed
Worth watching this film for performances, cinematography and design but not groundbreaking cinema. Great performance by Tom Long so emotional and fragile and it's so convincing the way he internalizes his pain and then self destructs.
But I remember seeing some of the issues related to this topic treated on "Law and Order", the TV show, back in 2001, an episode called "Ridicule". A man is charged with murder of a woman and it comes out that he has been sexually assaulted by 3 women and the story revolves around whether it can be classified as rape, if he is sexually aroused. Something largely to that effect. It was nothing like the story of the Book of Revelation and it had a completely different emphasis but it meant that some of the issues on their own, were not new/shocking for me, as I had seen them raised on prime time TV 5 years ago. (Of course no explicit scenes were shown and the story started where TBOR left off and I could go on and on to list significant differences.) But, because I remembered this TV show, I was hoping TBOR would take me a lot further, I felt disappointed by how this particular film had been hyped. I just thought it would make me feel a lot more confronted and moved. Not groundbreaking cinema.
I do feel however, that these types of issues obviously need to be continually raised, and debated from different viewpoints, to gradually have a lasting impact on society. It gets it out there, in front of more people who may not have seen the topic discussed at all yet.
Great art direction/cinematography and loved Greta Scacchi's portrayal of the Dance instructor too. I thought it was one of her best performances.
Afsaid (2006)
soccer fans
This was the first of Panahi's films that I have seen, I saw it at Melbourne film festival. I was totally absorbed by the different characters that he creates and how differently they react and behave compared to Aussie kids and yet on other levels how similarly. I think perhaps if more people could see movies like this, they could see people as individuals and avoid racism that can often be fueled by the fear of the unknown. There are the obvious large political differences between Oz culture and Iranian culture, but I found the more subtle differences between the characters, that this film fleshes out so successfully on screen, extremely fascinating. There are idiosyncrasies in the characters that seem to me, so unique. I found it made the characters compelling viewing.