With the NZ International Film Festival in full swing, Flicks writers are giving their first impressions on what they’re seeing in the form of bite-sized mini-reviews. This blog will keep updating through the festival, so keep checking back and take the time to share your thoughts with us in the comments – and get out to see some of these films!
Click on a title below to go straight to the review or scroll down to browse through the list.
THE AMBASSADOR | BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD | BERNIE
BONJOUR TRISTESSE | THE CABIN IN THE WOODS | CAESAR MUST DIE
COMPLIANCE | CRAZY HORSE | DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE MUST TRAVEL
FAUST | FIRST POSITION | FROM UP ON POPPY HILL | HIMIZU | HOLY MOTORS
THE HUNT | IN DARKNESS | IN THE FOG | INTO THE ABYSS | I WISH
KILLER JOE | THE KING OF PIGS | KLOWN | THE LAST DOGS OF WINTER
LE TABLEAU | MARLEY | MONSIEUR LAZHAR | MOONRISE KINGDOM
NEW ZEALAND’S BEST 2012 | RAMPART | REBELLION
ROOM 237: BEING AN INQUIRY INTO ‘THE SHINING’ IN 9 PARTS
SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN | THE SHINING | SHOCK HEAD SOUL
SIDE BY SIDE | SIGHTSEERS | SLEEPLESS NIGHT | THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
V/H/S | ¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! | YOUR SISTER’S SISTER
SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN
I went in the Civic ignorant of the ‘missing’ titular man, and I’m glad I did. Sugar Man is an astonishing story of uncredited, but not unrecognised, musical talent, told with a slickness that compliments its golden tale without distracting you from it. I don’t want to say any more about the film because I feel that going in blind enriches the experience. I will say that by the end, it provokes a tremendous amount of joy within me, as if I had been an actual part of its stirring conclusion. One of the best films I’ve seen all year.
LIAM MAGUREN
HOLY MOTORS
The opening five minutes involves director Leos Carax literally breaking the fourth wall with his middle finger to reveal the audience starring at the screen. He looks at them with a particular bemusement that says “I can’t wait to see your reaction.” My reactions included confusion, irritation, wonderment, confusion, intrigue, anger and confusion, but never boredom. I liked it.
LIAM MAGUREN
Wow. This was awesome, leaving me in a strange state as I left the theatre, partly because Holy Motors evoked a number of different moods and memories as it wove its way through different film genres, and partly because its dream-world left my mind racing. While it definitely seems more about the journey than the destination, where the film ends up is in a place of delightful absurdity. While Holy Motors may be all over the place the whole enterprise hangs together – thanks largely to Denis Levant’s incredible chameleon-like lead performance.
STEVE NEWALL
THE AMBASSADOR
Mads Brügger shows he has balls of steel in The Ambassador, a high-wire act that blends documentary with something approaching performance art in his impersonation of someone who, for personal gain, pretty much impersonates being a diplomat in Africa themselves. Aside from the nerve required to make it and the fascinating questions the process raises (some covered in our interview) The Ambassador still works well as a film – enlightening, entertaining and boasting the blackest of humour (no pun intended).
STEVE NEWALL
COMPLIANCE
Initially I thought that Compliance could have been a great short film, but as a bit of time passed after seeing it I appreciated how the relatively simple premise was lent plenty of room to breathe by the feature format. Yes, I can see how the film could be a bit upsetting – a couple of people left during the screening I attended – but this plausible tale of unthinking acquiescence to authority proves more fascinating than off-putting. Just.
STEVE NEWALL
I haven’t been so tastefully disturbed by a movie for quite a while. Based on actual events, the film convincingly shows you how far humans are willing to go to please a supposed authority figure. This results in the slow spiritual deterioration of an attractive teenager as she’s interrogated by her fast-food manager, terrifically portrayed by Ann Dowd. Some contrived dialogue choices aside, Compliance is a brilliant psychological thriller that I couldn’t watch a second time.
LIAM MAGUREN
I WISH
With the festival fatigue wall coming into view, I struggled with the first slow half of I Wish as it sprawled between its many characters without any seeming desire to push forward. But after I got past the halfway mark, it turned into a sweet journey that skipped along with a carefree bliss. I couldn’t help but be invigorated by the energy of the kids’ simple desires, recalling the joys of my own childhood. It could’ve been faster and it could’ve been tighter, but it couldn’t have been any more charming.
LIAM MAGUREN
KLOWN
A fair bit of hype accompanied Klown to the Festival, and I’m delighted to say it is funny as all hell. The audience felt so too, one of those screenings where a bunch of people are swept away in fits of laughter that don’t have time to abate before the next gag arrives. The film really pushes the envelope in terms of its gags which leave zero to the imagination, if not the overall form – Klown’s a pretty conventional manchild trying to reform to please his wife flick told somewhat Curb Your Enthusiasm style (soundtrack included). If ribald comedy’s your thing you’ve gotta check this out, Klown wipes the floor with its American comedy counterparts, but don’t bring your mother-in-law unless she’s into gags about guys jizzing into their mother-in-law’s eye.
STEVE NEWALL
V/H/S
I love a horror anthology – most of the time. Not so much in this case, with most of the micro-budget directors who contributed shorts to this collection all indulging similar themes. The desire to shock seems to outweigh a sense of atmosphere throughout, which is fine if you like grubby horror but didn’t really do it for me. An extra disappointment was that Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) directs the worst of the bunch. A missed opportunity pretty much all round.
STEVE NEWALL
One of the biggest disappointments of my festival, V/H/S is a found-footage horror anthology comprised of five shorts and another overarching one that doesn’t actually over-arch in any satisfying way. The middle three shorts present some nifty ideas but are bogged down by dullness, stupidity and irritating character douchebaggery. However, the first short won me over and the last short is an absolute joyride that stands out like a Blu-Ray in a Betamax collection.
LIAM MAGUREN
RAMPART
Move over Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler there’s a new powerhouse performance in town with Woody Harrelson in Rampart. Watching a descent into hell hasn’t been this enthralling since Leaving Las Vegas. Pulp demi-god James Ellroy’s script, co-written with director Oren Moverman, packs a punch (aside from a “You’re a dinosaur” speech seemingly lifted wholesale from M’s critique of Bond in GoldenEye). Rampart delivers drama, humour and an all too human character in Harrelson’s flawed and brutal cop. Stellar supporting cast too, including Ben Foster, Ned Beatty, Anne Heche, Ice Cube, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright, and Steve Buscemi. Highly recommended adults only viewing.
ADAM FRESCO
NEW ZEALAND’S BEST 2012
We had a great crop of shorts this year, ranging from the visually arresting (43,000 Feet, Home) to more genuine slices of life (Milk & Honey, Ellen is Leaving). My top pick was a toss-up between Night Shift and Lambs, both showing the bleaker side to NZ we often prefer to ignore. Ultimately, Lambs won me over with its strong, diverse lead, presenting him with a choice that tore at his two desires. Beautiful.
LIAM MAGUREN
FROM UP ON POPPY HILL
A decade after his critically panned Tales of Earthsea, Goro Miyazaki (son of the great Hayao) has shown some noticeable improvement. Poppy Hill has plenty of charm and character, most noticeably within the students’ Tardis-like clubhouse, and I’ve always been in love with the way the animation studio presents small Japanese communities. However, it’s still a pretty standard outing, vacant of that magical Ghibli allure.
LIAM MAGUREN
THE SHINING
On the Civic screen this was bloody spectacular, but special mention also needs to be made about the theatre volume that, when cranked up to eleven, helped the electronic score, percussion and strings really carve their way into my head. My first time seeing The Shining on the big screen was an absolute treat, and despite the frequent distracting comic relief provided by elements discussed in Room 237, it proved a captivating experience.
STEVE NEWALL
The only other time I saw The Shining when I was a teenager. TV2 was playing it late at night and I had nothing better to do. I remember being confused by the prospect of a psychotic house and a kid who just happened to have a magical ‘shine’, so I blew it off as being a pretentious arthaus horror. Seeing it again on the Civic’s glorious screen provoked many different reactions from me, the strongest one being the desire to punch my ignorant teenage self in the teeth.
LIAM MAGUREN
As fresh today as when released in 1980, Kubrick still packs a psychological punch in this ravishingly restored big screen revival. Improvising off Stephen King’s novel, Kubrick explores obsession in obsessive style. For those who’ve seen conspiracy-doco Room 237, it’s proof that Kubrick faked the moon landings – for everyone else it’s a cracking movie in a genre all of its own. Welcome to Kubrickland where everything means something and some things mean everything…
ADAM FRESCO
Stanley Kubrick’s singular and genre-rocking entry to horror still weaves its spell after 30 years. This reviewer was pleased to see audience members squirm in their seats, lean slowly forward and even shriek as the tension ratcheted up through each psychologically unnerving scene. The restoration was beautiful, the DCP presentation was stunning and the Civic’s massive screen consumed our senses. Fantastic.
RAJNEEL SINGH
BONJOUR TRISTESSE
Otto Preminger’s 1958 tale of a teen meddling in her (pretty sleazy) dad’s love life is visually sumptuous, the backdrop of the French Riviera almost a character in its own right – a big call given the gusto with which the vibrant Jean Seberg, Mylène Demongeot, David Niven and Deborah Kerr bring to their performances. Enlivened by comic and charming moments, the dramatic aspects of the film never veer into cheese, with Seberg capturing the extremes of youthful excitement and hopelessness in a winning performance.
STEVE NEWALL
THE KING OF PIGS
As an unforgiving look at the long-term effects of school-yard bullying, The King of Pigs manages to be pretty intriguing. With its noticeably low budget, it visually gets by quite well without the animation feeling cheap. However, the god-awful pigeon ‘Engrish’ subtitles are downright embarrassing, and I can’t help but feel like they hampered my possible love for this film. It’s a shame too, because I can only imagine what may have gotten lost in translation. Still, there’s some great primordial satisfaction in seeing bullies get the ever-loving crap kicked out of them.
LIAM MAGUREN
IN THE FOG
After a fantastic opening scene, it didn’t take long for this Cannes winner to bludgeon my attention span with its unnecessarily long shots of people doing absolutely nothing interesting. Perhaps I’m missing a deeper underlying context to seeing a man sitting blankly by a tree for five minutes straight. I guess for people smarter than I, they can draw out some engrossing poignancy to these lingering moments, adding to the grim atmosphere and personifing for the isolating hopelessness of the lead character’s condition… or whatever. For me, the only thing In the Fog elicited from me was an overwhelming sense of boredom.
LIAM MAGUREN
SIGHTSEERS
I dug Kill List quite a bit, and while it hinted strongly at Ben Wheatley’s potential for black comedy Sightseers turned out to be a far superior film. Tighter and more confident than Kill List it also benefits from not so much of the “look at what I can do” elements of this previous movie. Anchored by fantastic performances and cracking dialogue this is black-as-night British comedy at its best. But given that so much of the film is about murdering annoying people, the folks talking behind me throughout the film came perilously close to Sightseers being the last thing they ever saw – though you could pick worse movies to go out on.
STEVE NEWALL
Ok, I’m officially a Ben Wheatley fanboy. Though he likes to play fast and loose with genre (gangster comedy-drama with Down Terrace, hit-man horror with Kill List, and now pitch black comedy with Sightseers), each of his films share an underlying sense of dread, and each starts simply and gradually escalates into chaos. Sightseers is his most crisply shot film, and the least loosey goosey in terms of performance (despite some obvious improv – Alice Lowe’s line readings occasionally tip over into the absurd). What I enjoyed the most though is the fantastic comic dialogue, which I won’t spoil here
. Alright, one line: “Cheap crisps are full of horrors!”
TONY STAMP
INTO THE ABYSS
Werner Herzog’s documentary exploration of the death penalty is confined to just one case here, a format continued in his other Death Row portraits. With such a limited focus Herzog’s interviewing skills come to the fore, winning the confidence of the felons, family of the victims, acquaintances of both and some state employees. He expertly eases the process for his subjects with his softly spoken manner and uses silence to draw out revealing comments, nudging the interviews along by tapping into emotional reservoirs that aren’t always related to the direct subject at hand. Light on existential rumination or odd tangents, this isn’t stereotypical Herzog, but is the more insightful for it.
STEVE NEWALL
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
Wonderful David Byrne cameo aside, this must be the single biggest let-down of my Festival so far. Sean Penn’s forcibly “kooky” bored rockstar routine succeeds in being boring – it’s like watching The Cure’s Rob Smith wait for a bus. Bono’s daughter (Eve Hewson) makes no impression other than in a “look there’s Bono’s daughter” way and the Auschwitz backstory comes across in horribly bad taste rather than as the moving father/son reconciliation schmaltz it seems to be aiming for. Worth seeing as a curiosity – but expect the audience to be divided between the “Wow! Cool! It’s so boring!” crowd and the likes of me who struggled to stay awake…
ADAM FRESCO
HIMIZU
If you’re going to make a two-plus hour film about the depressing life of a 14-year-old boy, you’ve got to make me care. Himizu does not do that, preferring to parade around its needlessly exaggerated characters, irrational bouts of behaviour and plot threads that weave together like the wad of hair that clogs your shower’s drain. An unsatisfying test of my patience.
LIAM MAGUREN
THE HUNT
The Hunt displays the haunting reactions derived from the heaviest of convictions (stable or not). Mads Mikkelsen is astonishing as the kind-hearted kindergarten teacher falsely labelled as a child abuser. His absorbing performance ensures that that you suffer with him as the accusation infects his social circle. Despite the horrendous treatment he receives from the townsfolk, no one is completely vilified, dousing the story with a horrific sense of reality. It’s an incredible film, and one I can’t fault.
LIAM MAGUREN
Mads Mikkelsen excels in a performance that scored him Best Actor at Cannes in this tale of a teacher falsely accused of child abuse. Deeply personal and moving, The Hunt focuses more on the community consequences of his persecution that the legal outcome, and in doing so comes across as a more measured (but still extremely traumatic) version of the Christchurch Civic Creche Case documented in the book A City Possessed. One of my highlights of the Festival so far.
STEVE NEWALL
DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL
This is a fascinating look back at the life of fashion icon Diana Vreeland, the exuberant and visionary editor of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue from the 1930s to the 1960s. Even those with no sense or interest in style will be drawn to the film’s eccentric subject, the embodiment of creativity, self-invention and originality. Her outlandish view of life is captured in archival footage and interviews with the editor herself, along with all those who were inspired, charmed and occasionally infuriated by her.
REBECCA BARRY HILL
ROOM 237: BEING AN INQUIRY INTO ‘THE SHINING’ IN 9 PARTS
Despite an occasional clumsiness, repetitiveness and, um, repetitiveness in the telling, it’s the subject matter and interviewees that make this documentary utterly compelling. Fascinating, funny and fabulous stuff for Kubrick connoisseurs, conspiracy kooks and film freaks… So colour me guilty on all counts because I loved it.
ADAM FRESCO
Like director Roland Ascher’s earlier short The S From Hell this documentary avoids the typical talking heads format and instead accompanies the voiceovers of its “experts” on The Shining with copious content from the film and an assemblage of footage cribbed from Kubrick and further afield. To say their arguments strain credulity would be to put it mildly, the film being a study of insanity and obsession (like the movie it examines) with the lack of context provided for its contributors at times making it feel that they, like Jack Nicholson’s character, have been sucked into The Shining‘s netherworld.
STEVE NEWALL
SLEEPLESS NIGHT
The fight scenes take a-while a-coming but, once they arrive, they’re satisfyingly brutal, imaginative and bold. Although it ain’t the wall-to-wall actionfest that the trailer promised, the father/son bonding works well. Well worth a watch for action fans before the already scheduled Hollywood remake…
ADAM FRESCO
CAESAR MUST DIE
From prison rehearsals to performance, this sensational high-security Shakespeare blurs the lines between fact and fiction; theatre and cinema; reality and performance. Beautifully shot and acted drama (or is it a documentary?) that’s accessible to all – from Shakespeare scholars to curious newbies.
ADAM FRESCO
SIDE BY SIDE
A light-hearted, but informative and deep essay on the digital cinema revolution for film buffs and general audiences presented in an engaging and fun manner. While it offers nothing for experienced industry workers (bar hearing heavyweights champion their own opinions), it still educates and informs on a variety of aspects and is very up-to-date. Having said that, the film could be taken as being “pro-digital” since almost all of the 35mm celluloid supporters come across in a bad light, which I think is unfair and doesn’t do their perspective any justice (even though I’m a pro-digital person myself). Definitely recommended viewing.
RAJNEEL SINGH
Sheer indulgence for film-lovers. Keanu Reeves acts as the guide for this riveting waltz through the ‘celluloid vs. digital’ debate, featuring so many contemporary cinematic greats; it’s like watching the dream guest-list for the Flicks Christmas Party. Gives equal weight to all sides of the argument, whilst never failing to fascinate, amuse and entertain.
ADAM FRESCO
YOUR SISTER’S SISTER
Blunt, Duplass and DeWitt superbly satisfied my lofty expectations in this character-driven drama, dealing with three ordinary folks caught in a weird relationship cluster. The film lingers in the middle, but this meandering allows the three leads to grow on you before the shit drops in the final act. It may not work for some people, but it definitely worked for me.
LIAM MAGUREN
FAUST
Don’t expect the classic Faust of old – this is a twisted, surreal, sometimes disturbing and often demented twist on the tale of the man who sold his soul. Visually arresting, powerfully acted arthouse drama from the director of Russian Ark that’s not for all tastes – but if you go with your mind open it’s a thought-provoking playground for the imagination.
ADAM FRESCO
MONSIEUR LAZHAR
Elegant, meditative and yet laced with emotion, this French Canadian drama cleverly deconstructs the ‘inspirational teacher’ story by weaving a more realistic tale of a primary school educator and his young class who both journey to overcome tremendous personal loss. Marked by extraordinary performances by its child actors, the film does not seek to offer answers for tragedy but to dissect the process on healing as contrasted between children and adults. A slow but superb observational experience.
RAJNEEL SINGH
Oh my word, this is a glorious film. It tells its story with perfect concision, exploring the nature of death and loss from a child’s perspective, portrayed by some of the finest young actors I’ve ever seen.
LIAM MAGUREN
MARLEY
No doubt Bob Marley fans are going to eat this up (and there’s plenty of them in NZ). As well they should; this is a superbly crafted documentary encapsulating the man and the effect of his music. For me however, my mild appreciation for the artist left me feeling uninterested for the starting third of the two-and-a-half hour doco. Nevertheless, the superbly revamped concert footage easily justifies a theatrical viewing.
LIAM MAGUREN
THE LAST DOGS OF WINTER
Kiwi Costa Botes has done well to draw attention to the importance of keeping the Canadian Eskimo dogs from reaching extinction, even if I felt like I should have cared more about the issue than I actually did when the film was over. But every time the doco started to lose me or repeat itself, it would show a puppy taking a bath or a polar bear hugging a dog. How can I possibly criticise that?
LIAM MAGUREN
LE TABLEAU
An awe-inspiring combination of art, animation and classic storytelling, Jean-Francois Laguionie’s tale brings paintings to life. Beyond the canvas live fully-fledged communities, each with their own colourful characters, laws and problems (a dreamy version of a Venice carnival leaves the party-goers constantly exhausted). The artist is cleverly inserted into this unique fairytale, and the film subtly alludes to universal themes of discrimination, acceptance and the nature of the Great Creator. Even the “Sketchies”, his unfinished and unpopular figurines, are beautiful to behold.
REBECCA BARRY HILL
I was charmed by this secret world of painted characters, making no bones about the real-world issues it parallels. Ideas about diversity, discrimination and creationism are very overt and a little too familiar at times, but it’s an amazingly animated visual splendour. It’s like soothing your eyes in warm caramel.
LIAM MAGUREN
KILLER JOE
As with Bug, William Friedkin adapts a play for the screen with surprising theatricality – but it works. Great gory fun and wonderful to see Matthew McConaughey getting his acting chops into the role of titular hitman. He’s ably supported by Emile Hirsch and Juno Temple in a darkly comic thriller with a severed tongue firmly in its bruised and bloody cheek.
ADAM FRESCO
This was a superbly written, well-acted redneck thriller that’s quite obvious about its stage-play roots. While the build-up is entertaining, it’s the third act goes completely bonkers. Eliciting laughs one moment and disturbing craziness the next, the audience were unsure (even nervous) of how to respond, which made me love it even more. It also gave me a newly warped definition of the term ‘double down’.
LIAM MAGUREN
REBELLION
Mathieu Kassovitz’s powerful portrayal of the 1988 Ouvéa Caveincident features solid acting, great cinematography and an even-handed treatment of all sides, opinions and politics. Kassovitz’s most rewarding movie since he burst onto the international scene with La Haine make it a movie well worth seeking out.
ADAM FRESCO
Gripping historical hostage-taking drama that boasts a great military sequence, and a sense of urgency to the discussion and debate around resolving the capture of French police and soldiers. More a focused examination of its scenario rather than an indictment of French mineral greed or colonial pomposity in New Caledonia, there doesn’t seem to be any agenda except to humanise all Rebellion‘s characters.
STEVE NEWALL
BERNIE
Bernie put a massive smile on my mug, exploring the effect one graciously generous funeral worker had on a small Texas town. As a straight-up comedy-crime-drama, it’s very entertaining. But it’s the way Linklater blends real-life interviews with the members of the actual community that makes this film special. The town of Carthage has an infectious charm that can’t be replicated, so Linklater got the townsfolk to naturally express it themselves.
LIAM MAGUREN
Richard Linklater’s fun true crime tale boasts a winning Jack Black performance that’s engaging and refreshingly not OTT. Bernie is bolstered by interviews with real townsfolk (and a couple of the actors playing them) that prove a clever way to adapt this from the magazine story about the case and elevates this above pure filmmaker supposition.
STEVE NEWALL
FIRST POSITION
A good look inside the pressure cooker of kids’ ballet competitions follows a path familiar to these sorts of docos – introducing a few characters who we follow into this gruelling world and watching as their dreams are fulfilled or crushed. Some of the dancing drew gasps from the crowd, and the film is filled with winning personalities. Don’t be put off by the subject matter – a love of ballet is as irrelevant to this as a love of the dictionary was for Spellbound.
STEVE NEWALL
IN DARKNESS
Sobering, grim and yet moving and powerful, this true story of a Polish sewer inspector who hides Jews under his city during the Nazi occupation justly deserves its Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination. Fanciful technique takes a back seat to gripping storytelling that is masterfully acted and told. Dark and harrowing but also filled with hope.
RAJNEEL SINGH
CRAZY HORSE
Surprisingly boring for a film full of nude babes, Crazy Horse is really long and misses every opportunity to do more than scratch the surface of the stories that could be told – no interviews with the dancers, no audience comments, no context. Just performances (seemingly shot at dress rehearsal) and fly-on-the-wall behind the scenes footage that doesn’t enlighten as much as it could. By the time it gets to scenes like new dancers auditioning, I was wondering why there wasn’t so much more of this in the film. Seriously, how could this not be good to watch?
STEVE NEWALL
SHOCK HEAD SOUL
What feels like (and might originally have been) a 45 minute long, television docudrama about Daniel Paul Schreber – a 19th Century schizophrenic – is padded out into an uneven, slow and dangerously mind-breaking 87 minutes of intellectual examination that fails to impart the significance of its subject matter to its audience. An interesting subject and an interesting take, but very difficult to digest in this ponderous form.
RAJNEEL SINGH
THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
It’s every Hollywood horror cliché in the book – and yet, it works, thanks to a suitably twisty-turny-keep-‘em-guessing script. A surprisingly fresh and (deliberately) funny chop-‘em-up-and-keep-‘em-laughing kinda film that’s a gory delight to watch in a crowded cinema.
ADAM FRESCO
If you’re a horror junkie planning to watch this with a crowd of your peers, keep an adrenaline shot handy; you may need it when you O.D. on the floor. It’s that good.
LIAM MAGUREN
Solid, tight and thoroughly hilarious, this inspired inversion of the cliche “teenagers in a log cabin” horror movie promises a fun night out with even-handed servings of scares, gore and big laughs. One of the most easy-going films of the festival and an antidote to Hollywood’s fetish for “big dumb fun”.
RAJNEEL SINGH
Being on information lockdown for the past two years or however long it’s been really paid off here – as did seeing The Cabin in the Woods in the Civic. Hilarious and engrossing, I can’t imagine any horror fan not loving the film, and Joss Whedon pulls the same trick he did with The Avengers in putting so much winning personality on the big screen that even people only vaguely familiar with the genre will be won over. A great one-off idea brilliantly executed.
STEVE NEWALL
MOONRISE KINGDOM
Quirky, kooky, crazy – this might just be Wes Anderson’s best yet. For the uninitiated it’s a great introduction to Wes’ world. For Anderson fans? This naive love story set on a fictional island is a true delight.
ADAM FRESCO
Nice to see Wes Anderson telling a simple tale, dialling the whimsy back from 11 (to just 10.5) and adding new actors to his gang. I’d heard a few gripes about Moonrise Kingdom before seeing it, which lowered expectations – something that turned out to be a good thing. It’s full of his trademark style and wackiness, but doesn’t feel quite as forced as some of his other films, plus by being anchored in young romance he avoids much of his usual angst.
STEVE NEWALL
¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS!
What would you see if you dug your way to the other side of the world? That’s the central question posed in Victor Kossakovsky’s inventive film. Part nature documentary, part anthropological experiment, part sensual experience, it spends a day in four antipodes on Earth (including New Zealand’s Castle Point). Meditative, grand and whimsical, it has to be one of the most beautiful films ever made.
REBECCA BARRY HILL
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
I’ll admit there’s some cinematic alchemy happening here in certain shots and sequences, but aside from a charming lead performer I was left pretty much cold by this film. A clunky ecological message and an even clunkier central metaphor chugging along on a wisp of a story, I found it surprisingly ugly (hated the cinematography), and ultimately pretty empty. Judging by the sobs echoing around The Civic though, I’m in the minority on this one.
TONY STAMP
Delivers on the promise of the trailer with a beautifully shot (albeit an occasional overzealous use of handheld-camera) tale told through a child’s eyes. It’s a film full of innocent awe and natural wonder, but what grabbed me and didn’t let go was the standout performance by Quvenzhané Wallis as 6-year old protagonist, Hushpuppy. Unusual, ambitious and magically mythic storytelling
ADAM FRESCO
The much-adored opening night film of the festival featured a great lead performance, and some good stuff but didn’t grab me. I think I was just about the only person that didn’t enjoy Beasts of the Southern Wild, but perhaps that was because I expected something more dreamlike and impressionist than what made it to the screen – for a film that’s generated so much love I’m surprised it didn’t connect with me emotionally.
STEVE NEWALL
