I quite enjoy short films and if you go see New Zealand’s Best 2013 you get to watch 6 New Zealand short films and vote for your favourite. The winner of the audience vote gets 25 per cent of the box office takings from the festival screenings. On the whole I enjoyed these and this comment is unfair to some but I couldn’t help but think do we always have to have films about poverty and dysfunctional lives in South Auckland?
I’m going to Mum’s sees young Jacob become a pawn in his parents’ battles. It’s funny and you’ll love the pink puffer jacket. Jacob mounts a very effective protest.
Interim is described as “A young, green police officer is implicated in the assault of an arrestee.” and sadly a week later I can remember nothing about it.
Tom’s Dairy drags you back to the 80s and is delightful. There was greater level of polish to this short and a moral lesson without being too preachy.
Here Now – read the article at the link. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but while I remember a little more about this one than Interim, it isn’t much more.
Blind Mice -In the words of the film maker, “Blind Mice follows a young woman, Jules, whose life is complicated by an unwanted pregnancy. She flits between two drug dealers as she struggles to find a supportive male figure”.
Friday Tigers was my favourite film of the group. The world needs more Friday tigers. Also, loved the mix of sketching and film.
Voyeuristic or self-aware, or perhaps a bit of both. In the House deconstructs the storytelling process with plenty of comedy and drama. The manipulator becomes out-manipulated. It moves from slightly odd but plausible to utterly ridiculous towards the end – which I think is a shame. I preferred it at the point when it still sat between believable and not. Still, worth getting out the DVD though.
I’ve seen this movie described a couple of different ways, firstly as sugar mamas and their exotic romance, and secondly as a exploring the way a holiday lets you reinvent yourself and be someone else. Paradise: love has layers and layers of meaning, some of which will be debated by media studies classes but the dominant overriding one for me was that of exploitation. Hard to say who was more exploited – the holiday makers or the locals. One thing is for certain, for all it was professed, actual genuine love was a little thin on the ground. It was an interesting and thought provoking movie and full of nakedness of both flavours (just in case that sort of thing bothers you). The trailer is more modestly clothed.
I don’t want to ruin the plot of The best offer for you, but this movie was going along so nicely and then it just started slapping me round the face. It didn’t stop beating me up till it was over. I felt cheated. Setting all that aside, this is a movie I’d recommend. You have an eccentric auctioneer with delightful items in his office and home, your eyes dart around the background constantly. There’s a bit of an “Invention of Hugo Cabret” subplot. Lastly there is a crazy house filled with treasures. There are friendships and confidences, intrigue and cunning and then it moves to another level entirely. Go see it, you know you want to.
So today I lined up to enter the theatre for my after lunch movie. I really like the music of The National so I was quite pleased to be seeing the movie Mistaken for Strangers. Several 20 and 30 something guys were in the line in front of me. Their tickets were ripped and in they went. When it came to me, the volunteer on the door looked at me and asked, “Are you in the right movie, do you know what this is?” Seriously, how judgmental can you get. I don’t know what made him ask, I wasn’t the only female in the audience and given that the band have been around for 10 or so years, I’m sure their fans span a range of ages. There are better ways he could have checked which might have been less obvious – heck if the Paramount just has a list up of what was in which cinema that would have been a start. Setting aside Mr Assumption on the door, the documentary was delightful.
I’m sure much was done for effect but Tom must have been an annoying little brother on the road. You just got that sense of what he got away with because he was the brother.
The band’s own website is pretty awesome with lots to listen to and watch. There’s also a website for the movie and of course, there’s the trailer.
If you get a chance to go see Hannah Arendt, do it. This biographical film looks at the philosophical Hannah Arendt who reported for The New Yorker on the war crimes trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Part of her premise, which I’m sure I won’t do justice was that fewer Jews would have died if the Jewish leaders had done more. This had the appearance of blaming the victims which wasn’t what she set out to do. I didn’t quite understand her perspective until I though about it in the context of 9/11 and the plan which fought back. No one would blame the innocent passengers of the flights which crashed that day but to apply Hannah’s logic if the good people aboard the planes which went into buildings had fought back, perhaps fewer in the buildings would have been killed.
This film was also a reminder of what happens when things are reported inaccurately and suddenly people are fighting against something which never existed in the first place. Sometimes, these days, there’s really good investigative journalism but more often I am tired of seeing stories created out of nothing. The last thing about the film which struck me was just how much smoking there was. So much I could almost taste the cigarette smoke. Such a minor thing to mention but it made me aware of how far we’ve come in reducing smoking.
Watch the trailer for the movie here:
And if you want to know more about this woman, there’s a wonderful interview with Hannah
I knew the outcome of Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington before I sat down to watch it but part of me still wished the ending would change. It is hard to say you an enjoy a documentary like this but I did sort of. There were moments which made me stop and think. Tim was tall so held his camera lower, instead of hiding behind it. He really engaged with those he photographed, he certainly didn’t fade into the background. Tim died age 40, most soldiers die in their 20s. Whatever age, death because of war is pointless. I liked the part towards the end where a former american soldier says that Tim never got to experience the truth of war, but his friends did. The only truth being that men will lose their brothers.
This year I have almost 30 films on my list to see during the film festival. It will be my highest number so far. First up was Stories we tell, a 2012 Canadian documentary. It was as though you were there watching the documentary being made in its raw state which in itself was the documentary. It is one family’s story, the relationships between the members and the uncovering of a secret. There is no single truth, no rationalising of viewpoints. Each person tells the story as they experienced it and that is how it stands. The family’s story, despite having a potentially explosive outcome, is told with a great deal of calmness. One of the most powerful sequences is at the end when no words are spoken but each family member is filmed in silence with their thoughts visible on their faces. Here is a handy trailer:
Red Shoe Girl 