August 9, 2011

I Can't Stay MIFFed at You (part four)

Well, I nearly made it through the Film Festival without getting sick ... but not quite. In the end the lack of sleep and lack of vegetables got to me (when you're thinking of Nando's as 'the healthy option' you know you're in trouble ...) and I finally stumbled as I rounded the last bend. While I coughed and hacked my way through my sessions on Friday and Sunday (no doubt infecting many of my fellow film-goers --- sorry!), Saturday was a complete write-off and I had to skip the three movies I had booked. The silver lining was that I got to lie on my couch, under my quilt, with my heater on, watching the Demons ... get thumped. Hmmm, maybe it wasn't such a silver lining after all.

Maybe it's the illness talking, but my two Friday films, My Wedding and Other Secrets and Sleeping Sickness, were both pretty dreadful.

My Wedding and Other Secrets was a "wacky" New Zealand dramedy about a girl who keeps her wedding secret from her traditional Chinese parents. If anybody ever puts the word wacky in between quotation marks, you should start getting worried. The film was all over the shop, with every character having to behave in utterly ridiculous ways in order for the contrived plotline to lurch forward another step. Many of the performances were dire (I'll exempt Michelle Ang, the lead, who worked her arse off with tired, cliched material), the script was shallow as an evaporating puddle of piss, and the direction was clunky like my falling-apart couch. The nicest thing I can say about it was that it was better than The Silence of Joan.

Sleeping Sickness, on the other hand, was yet another of those 'Interesting Idea, Mis-handled' movies that have been the story of MIFF 2011 for me, though admittedly this one was more mis-handled than most. A German running a health program in Cameroon is nearing the end of his time in Africa. His daughter comes back from her European boarding school for a visit, his wife counts down the days until they're leaving, and a sleazy French friend (played by Hippolyte Girardot, who was also in Top Floor Left Wing) tries to convince him to stay, so the two of them can embark on some unspecified 'project.' Though meandering and slow, it's actually pretty good up until its halfway point, when it suddenly jumps forward a few years and we get introduced to a completely new protagonist. The tension is lost, all the questions we had about the German family are dropped completely, and the film never recovers, eventually petering out into a wilfully obtuse cop-out of an ending. It was a really annoying film.

On Sunday I had much better luck, seeing two films that ended up being among the highlights of my festival: Martha Marcy May Marlene and Another Earth.


Martha Marcy May Marlene tells the story of a girl being ensnared by a cult (albeit a cult of a pretty low-key variety), and then attempting to escape the stranglehold it has put on her psyche. The film begins with the girl (who has several names throughout --- hence the title) fleeing from the isolated farmhouse that is the cult's home, and from that point we move back and forth in time, witnessing her indoctrination at the farmhouse play out in parallel with her attempts to readjust to everyday life as a guest at her wealthy sister's holiday home. This back and forth structure is one of the film's key strengths: at certain points it is left deliberately ambiguous 'when' we are, highlighting the way that Martha's past is continually bleeding into, and altering her reactions to, her present. Physically escaping is one thing, but the psychological trauma cannot be left behind.

The cast are uniformly excellent, with particular props going to Elizabeth Olsen (Mary-Kate and Ashley's younger sister) for her curious mix of steel and vulnerability and John Hawkes for the low-key, sinuous charisma he brings to the leader of the cult. The film is gorgeous to look at, and director Sean Durkin keeps a firm grip on material that could easily have felt exploitative or simplistic. He's a name to watch.

Two more names to keep an eye out for are Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, who co-wrote Another Earth; he directed it, and she starred. A sci-fi concept plays out through the course of Another Earth: a planet appears in our solar system and begins to drift towards us. As it approaches, it becomes apparent that it is a perfect replica of Earth, right down to its inhabitants. Every person alive has an exact doppelganger up there on 'Earth Two.'


All of that happens in the background of the movie, though, and is touched on only briefly here and there (until the final act, anyway). The majority of the film concerns two people whose lives are brought together by a tragic accident, and who subsequently form an unlikely bond. I really liked Another Earth, though I've spoken to many who didn't. I thought the odd, tender little story that played out was  quite lovely, and though it took one too many unlikely turns, I thought the two leads were good enough to make it work. Newcomer Marling was very good, nearly good enough for me to buy her as a moody frump (when she's obviously beautiful). Playing opposite her was a guy named William Mapother, who's one of those actors that you've seen a bunch of times playing Henchman #3 type characters in big movies, but who here proves that he can actually act when he has to, and act pretty darn well.

I can understand why others didn't, but I liked it a lot. And heck, add half a star because it's got the most beautiful use of a musical saw in the history of cinema (Andy, you must see it, for that scene alone!).

And that, as they say in the classics, is that. MIFF is gone for another year, and I'll be resuming my usual round of multiplex mind-melters (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, anyone? Anyone?).

Given that I've seen less than 10% of the films playing at the festival, and given that I've been chatting to as many people as possible in the queues, I thought I'd leave you with a few recommendations for movies that I haven't seen. I've heard that these are great from several different sources, and maybe, just maybe, they'll sneak into cinemas sometime soon (or, failing that, they'll show on SBS2 at four in the morning in three years time): A Separation, an Iranian drama about a disentegrating marriage; Surviving Life, a mad Czech animation about psychoanalysis; How to Die in Oregon, a doco about euthanasia; and Michael, a harrowing Austrian drama about the bond between a man and the kidnapped child he has chained in his basement. In case my synopsis didn't give it away, that last one is not a comedy.

Cheers, JC.


currently reading: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
books to go: 99

3 comments:

  1. Dude! I really wanted to go and see Another Earth!
    (Just forgot. Hopefully I'll get my mitts on it at some point. It sounds pretty damn great.)

    I only saw three MIFF films: Tatsumi, The Future, and Exporting Raymond. Of those three, I think you would have liked Exporting Raymond most (regardless of your opinion of Everybody Loves the same). Just delightful and strange.

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  2. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for your kind words about the musical saw scene in 'Another Earth'!
    I am the one who coached actor William Mapother to act as if he plays a saw, and it's my playing on the soundtrack.
    You totally made my day, and the composer of the music is also very grateful to you.
    This is the composer's website: http://www.scottmunsonmusic.com/news/music-in-film-another-earth-soundtrack/
    One can hear and also download the musical saw scene music there.
    And this is me: www.SawLady.com

    With much gratitude,
    all the best,
    Natalia

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  3. Wow, Natalia, glad the feedback is appreciated, it's really a brilliant scene, you did a great job. I've just checked out a couple of videos on your site, they're fantastic. Thanks for the links!

    JC

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