Sydney Film Festival: The Most Buzzed Films, And What We Thought Of Them
The 60th Sydney Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend. Here's our low-down on the most talked-about movies; most are coming to a cinema near YOU.
After two weeks and 192 movies, the 60th Sydney Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend. And with overpriced wine glasses in hand (except at Event Cinemas — when will they start allowing overpriced wine in, please?), we sat in those theatres and watched the hell out of those films.
Some of them were great, some of them sucked, some were fine, some we dozed through ’cause who can watch that many movies in two damn weeks — and some just made us wanna hang out with Greta Gerwig and Sarah Polley.
Junkee’s Dee Jefferson, Rob Moran and Steph Harmon checked out a bunch of the most talked-about movies — many of which are soon to come to a cinema near you.
–
The Film That Will Start A Fight In the Foyer
Only God Forgives, reviewed by Dee Jefferson
Directed by: Nicholas Winding Refn (the Pusher trilogy, Bronson, Drive)
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas
It was booed in Cannes, it won the Sydney Film Prize, and it’s hands-down the most divisive film you’ll see this year. It’s the film that you risk being either socially ostracised for saying you really enjoyed, or called a prude for saying you found it distasteful. Refn’s films have always been rife with violence, and it’s always been highly stylised – and nowhere more than his latest. At the same time, his films have, since the Pusher trilogy, been decreasingly interested in character – and that tendency reaches its zenith here, too. The result is a film that risks being all style and no substance. For me, however, the style is ravishing, the nightmare atmosphere is thrilling, and the inexorable unfolding of karmic justice, via a sword-wielding Man in Black, is the dramatic pay-off. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but it’s not the travesty that so many critics are calling it.
For fans of: Takashi Miike, Lars Von Trier, Nicholas Winding Refn
Opening in Australia: July 18
–
The Film That Will Make You Want To Play-Fight With Greta Gerwig And Run Everywhere With Her, Always
Frances Ha, reviewed by Steph Harmon
Directed by: Noah Baumbach (The Squid And The Whale, Greenberg)
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Grace Gummer
Two white-bred, directionless BFFs live together in New York, until one — Sophie — moves on and moves out. Alone and in denial, Frances is left to flounder around, and we get to look at her while she does it. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s perfect: Frances is gangly, guileless, occasionally absurd, and completely lacking in self-awareness — infinitely watchable, basically — and I didn’t want the movie to ever end. See her run! Run, Frances, run! It’s a role that was made for Gerwig (literally: she wrote Frances Ha with indie king Noah Baumbach, who she’s also dating), and the movie makes for face-watching fun: Frances’ parents are played by Gerwig’s parents IRL; Mickey Sumner is the daughter of Sting; and Grace Gummer — who plays Frances’ workmate Rachel — is the daughter of Meryl Streep.
For fans of: Girls, Damsels In Distress, Woody Allen, French new wave, joyfulness
Opening in Australia: August 15
–
The Film That Will Be A Box Office Hit, Whether It’s Deserved Or Not
The Bling Ring, reviewed by Rob Moran
Directed by: Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Lost In Tanslation, Marie Antoinette)
Starring: Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson
The most entertaining bits in Sofia Coppola’s anticipated take on these infamous thieving teens are lifted straight from E!’s reality show, Pretty Wild: Leslie Mann’s nutcase New Age mum, Emma Watson’s pious Nicki (based on Alexis Neiers)… The rest is confusingly half-arsed. Coppola puts you in a strange position, asking you to laugh at the kids’ outlandish criminal tendencies while indulging their teenage loneliness. We’re asked to accept them as nihilistic youth, lonely kids caught up in the rush of friendship and infamy, but then tut-tut when Emma Watson tells paparazzi she wants to “grow and expand as a spiritual human being”. I guess it was kinda fun to pretend-party in Paris Hilton’s house, though.
For fans of: Pretty Wild, Laguna Beach, The Hills, asshole kids
Opening in Australia? August 8
–
The Film That Will Make You Want To Be A Serial Killer
Stoker, reviewed by Dee Jefferson
Directed by: Chan-wook Park (Joint Security Area; Mr Vengeance; Old Boy; Sympathy for Lady Vengeance)
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode
Fans of Chan-wook Park’s previous work may quite rightly be disappointed by his first English-language feature, which features none of the moral complexity or dramatic energy of his Vengeance trilogy. He does a pretty good job with what is a fairly lackluster script, albeit a potentially awesome premise: a teenage girl who may or may not be a murder machine. Park is complicit with the screenwriter (actor Wentworth Miller, of Prison Break) in teasing out audience expectations, weaving a tantalising scenario in which the imagination explodes with supernatural possibilities – before blowing his load on a lame final act reveal. Plus, what’s with the incest between Uncle Charlie and India? Gross.
For fans of: Mia Wasikowska, whose performance is great and makes being a serial killer look super cool.
Opening in Australia? September 29
–
The Film That Will Make You Feel Sad And Old
Before Midnight, reviewed by Rob Moran
Directed by: Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Dazed & Confused)
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Few films capture the teary-eyed complexity of blossoming love like Before Sunrise (1995) did. That classic scene in the record booth is lovely and how I dreamed all my future dates would go when I first saw it as a lame-o 15-year-old. Before Midnight takes whatever lingering hope remained at the end of Before Sunset and sends it tumbling like a jumbo Jenga of despair. Even the series’ recurring romantic setting is muted this time ’round: despite a nice provincial lunchtime scene that evokes Stealing Beauty’s European intellectuals, you hardly get a look at the Greek Peloponnese. Tellingly, the film’s climactic scene takes place in a stale hotel room where we’re dealt the unexplored bombshell [KINDA SPOILER ALERT] that both parties in this epic love story have recently, ahem, strayed. And they don’t even care! WHAT?? F**k Jesse! F**k Celine! F**k love!
For fans of: Before Sunset, Stealing Beauty, ageing, despair
Opening in Australia? July 18
–
The Film That Will Make You Want To Buy A Nice New Winter Coat With Fancy Lapels
Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf’s, reviewed by Steph Harmon
Directed by: Matthew Miele
Structured (somewhat clumsily) around the Christmas window display being set up at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman’s, this doco deals in the legend (apparently it is legendary?) of the upmarket department store. We follow fashion director/gate-keeper/trendspotter Linda Fargo; we talk to industry bigwigs like Giorgio Armani, Christian Louboutin, Michael Kors, Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs and Vera Wang; and, best of all, we meet personal shopper to the stars, the feisty and hilarious Betty Halbreich (soon to be adapted into Lena Dunham’s next series, and is the subject of an excellent New Yorker profile, too). It’s fun to watch, the subject matter is fascinating — “but who would spend $6000 on a pair of shoes!”, you’ll cry — and the characters peculiar (Lagerfeld! Your gloves!). But don’t expect to have your mind changed about anything: You wish you could afford nice clothes, it’s a very pretty building, and the industry’s ridiculous.
For fans of: Fahshun, sassy old ladies, window display installation montages
Opening in Australia: TBA
–
The Film That Will Make You Watch A Separation
The Past, reviewed by Dee Jefferson
Directed by: Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)
Starring: Bérénice Béjo (The Artist), Ali Mossafa, Tahar Rahim (A Prophet)
Anticipation ran high for this one, following the simultaneous jizzing of pants over A Separation. Farhadi sets his follow-up in the outer suburbs of Paris, pitching his tent in the middle of an uncomfortable triangle between Marie, her soon-to-be-ex husband (who has just flown in from Iran to sign divorce papers), and her current boyfriend, whose wife is in a coma. The Past suffers mainly from comparison; it looks almost melodramatic next to A Separation, straying into soap territory in both content and execution. Nevertheless, it’s an honest examination of emotional entanglements of the familial and romantic kind, with great performances.
For fans of: A Separation
Opening in Australia? TBA
–
The Film That Will Make You Wanna Go Camping, Even If You Hate Camping
Prince Avalanche, reviewed by Rob Moran
Directed by: David Gordon Green (George Washington, Pineapple Express, Your Highness)
Starring: Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch
Prince Avalanche is an unassuming buddy comedy (an apparent remake of some Icelandish film named Either Way), starring Paul Rudd (at his moustache peak) and Emile Hirsch (in his best Jack Black impersonation) as a couple of highway painters, trapped in the ashen wilds of Texas with only each other’s questionable company. It’s a Jared Hess-type turn for director David Gordon Green, splitting the difference between the broad comedies he’s been doing of late (Pineapple Express, Your Highness, The Sitter) and the quieter rural tales of his early career (George Washington, All The Real Girls, Snow Angels). I mean, there’s dirty sex jokes and bickering galore, but it’s surrounded by such gentle humour, kinda like when you go fishing alone and giggle after farting loudly on a river’s bank. It would’ve been nice if the SFF hadn’t paired it with a horrific opening short about two Danish kids with suicidal tendencies.
For fans of: Nacho Libre, Gentlemen Broncos, Thoreau, Paul Rudd
Opening in Australia: September 8
–
The Film That Will Make You Want To Bash Your Head Against A Wall For 92 Minutes And Then Never See A Movie Ever Again, Thankyou Very Much
Computer Chess, reviewed by Steph Harmon
Directed by: Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha)
Starring: Kriss Schludermann, Tom Fletcher, Wiley Wiggins
Whatever you do, don’t walk into this movie like I stupidly did, expecting a retro off-beat comedy about borderline autistic computer dorks at a weekend computer chess tournament. That would be a totally great film, I agree — but that’s not the film you’ll get. The film you’ll get will be a barely-acted, fragmented, molasses mind-fuck of existential crap, that just won’t end no matter how hard you will it. Technology vs the human spirit — an interesting topic that they somehow turned into the most boring experience imaginable. It was only 92 minutes, but lasted forever.
For fans of: Waterboarding
Opening in Australia: NO THANKS (TBA)
–
The Film That Will Make You Want To Be Friends With Sarah Polley
Stories We Tell, reviewed by Dee Jefferson
Directed by: Sarah Polley (Away From Her; Take This Waltz)
Starring: Sarah Polley
Few people can make a film about their family without looking indulgent at best, and pretentious at worst. Sarah Polley is one of them. It’s best to see this film raw, without reading about it – so suffice to say: it’s both artful and painfully honest in examining family and the stories we weave into our own identity. Its only fault is that it’s too long, and could quite clearly have cut off before its final (okay, potentially self-indulgent) act.
For fans of: Sarah Polley
Opening in Australia? June 28
–
The Film That Will Excite And Exhaust (And Possibly Make You Buy A Duke Ellington Record And Take Up Papier Mache)
Mood Indigo, reviewed by Rob Moran
Directed by: Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Science Of Sleep, The Green Hornet)
Starring: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh
Gondry’s surrealist, crafty aesthetic finds a perfect match in Boris Vian’s French literary classic, Froth On The Daydream (1947), letting him play inventor and make a whole bunch of shit that you’ll want in your house (the infamous pianocktail, for example, or an oven with an in-built TV chef). The first half of the film is a handcrafted thrill-a-second, like one of those colourful stop-motion Sesame Street skits, filled with cloud rides over the rooftops of Paris and long-legged dance scenes like an arty Adventure Time. Gradually, it transforms into another of Gondry’s uniquely personal explorations of his father’s death, love as anxiety, that universal fear of losing the thing you love most. In one telling scene, Colin (Durais) attacks a factory line of typists, trying to fight fate and rewrite the movie’s (his own) narrative. It’s romantic and sad, and the only movie I saw at the festival that didn’t end in forced audience applause, whatever that means.
For fans of: The Science Of Sleep, this Supergrass video, Sartre parodies
Opening in Australia: September 5
–
The Film That Will Make You Want To Hug An Old Creepy Weirdo
Behind The Candelabra, reviewed by Steph Harmon
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Rob Lowe
Based on the true story of showman pianist Liberace and his lover/driver/pet therapist/maid/adopted son Scott, 40 years his junior, Behind The Candelabra will — according to Steven Soderbergh — be Steven Soderbergh’s last ever film. It’s sumptuous and opulent, much of it filmed in Liberace’s old pad, and you can tell how much the director completely adored his subjects. Michael Douglas is transformed in the title role (albeit controversially; as Salon asks, are straight actors in gay roles the new black face?), and — although far older than the 17-year-old he’s meant to be — Matt Damon continues to be great at playing a confident but oblivious dumbo (see also: Soderbergh’s The Informant). Together, they are an adorable couple; no matter how creepy the old man and his dialogue gets (““I want to be your father, brother, lover, and best friend,” Liberace whispers to Scott in bed), you still can’t help but root for them. Also, Rob Lowe as a plastic surgeon wins all of the points.
F0r fans of: Rob Lowe’s plastic surgery face.
Opening in Australia: July 25
–