10 Films to look out for at the 62nd Sydney Film Festival
The 62nd edition of the Sydney Film Festivals, one of the longest running film festivals in the world, will be running in Sydney, Australia from the 3rd to the 14th of June. The rich programme features some great titles from filmmakers all around the world, and presents some exciting fiction and documentary works covering a broad range of genres.
CineCola has already viewed many of the titles that will be screened as part of the 2015 Sydney Film Festival, and here are ten films from all of its different strands that we strongly recommend you check out should you happen to be around Sydney during the course of the festival.
HILL OF FREEDOM by Hong Sang-Soo
Hill of Freedom is the shortest and perhaps most easily approachable film by master Hong Sang-soo. Even within its relatively simple narrative, which follows a man's permanence in Seoul from Japan to propose to the woman of his dreams, it manages to say a lot about human imperfections through plenty of sensibility and even with a pinch of outrageous and unexpected sense of humour as well as its examination of cultural contrast between Korea and Japan. Further enhancing the appeal of the film is the narrative glitch that sees the story told in a non-chonological order, as it is being read through a series of letters handed to the woman he means to propose to, which are scattered after she accidentally drops them. This simple yet effective and original glitch offers a chance to experience the seemingly simple storyline in a more engaging and interactive way.
GOOD THINGS AWAIT by Phie Ambo
As far as environmental documentary go, Good Things Await is truly impressive as it seems to channel not only the beauty of nature but also the nature of the protagonist in the story it portrays. The lead subject of the documentary is an 80-year-old biodynamic farmer who practices and preaches his activities as a farmer by following a set of spiritual laws. Documentarian Phie Ambo channels his spirit and soft-spoken personality by allowing the film to have a peaceful and sometimes meditative tone, and she sometimes even slows down to depict the beauty of the settings and the beauty of nature with wonderful shots of the landscape. Despite the passion that follows this documentary, this film doesn't aim to indoctrinate the viewer, therefore making for an enjoyable experience and giving a medium to Niels which intensifies as events unravels and we realise that his likeable views are opposed and even ridiculed by richer farm owners and even by the government.
PASOLINI by Abel Ferrara
Under no circumstances should this film be taken like any ordinary biopic. Of course, that is implied as not only is this film directed by one of the most audience splitting directors, Abel Ferrara, but it is also a film about one of the most celebrated and discussed figures in cinema history - Pier Paolo Pasolini. This film utilises the structure of the last day of Pasolini's life, and make no mistake - it is a subjective vision. An interview, casual interactions with family, friends, and feeding into his unhealthy habit of picking up kids at the train station in Rome. Most vivid is the attempted and audacious downright collaboration Ferrara dares when he brings Pasolini's final documented big screen vision on film, in which we lovingly see the casting of Pieruti's muse Ninetto Davoli. Eccentrically, little attention is paid to accents and disorienting mixtures of languages, but that is a concern that fails to look at the bigger picture - or even consider the fact that Pasolini himself would often cast foreign actors and dub them in his works. The whole film Pasolini feels like more than a tribute, a daydream that a filmmaker had about his hero and as such it is a priceless and non-conventional and rebellious work that exists to be hated or loved and very little in between.
THINGS OF THE AIMLESS WONDERER by Kivu Ruhorahoza
Kivu Ruhorahoza's Things of the Aimless Wonderer starts off with a simple premise - the disappearance of a girl, of which it offers three versions that also represent thre different viewpoint. However, through this seemingly simplistic narrative, one can highlight a type of unrestrained anger and strong thematic convictions as well as a striking and bold approach in portraying the cultural identities of the three characters that dominate the narrative - one a western white correspondent, the other a black native man moved by fears of neo colonialism and the third the native female who is tossed around within the patriarchal society setting of Rwanda. A harsh depiction of Rwanda, possibly one of its starkest ever, it has a feeling of urgence but also one of solemnity as it powerfully unfolds with very few words, long shots often left lingering on the screen, and clear cut actions that clearly aim to enhance its eye opening and unembellished take on a social situation that is often internationally misrepresented.
THE LOOK OF SILENCE by Joshua Oppenheimer
Following the rightful success of the nothing short of groundbreaking previous work The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer returns to Indonesia to talk about the infamous but little talked about Indonesian Communist Purges and digs deep inside the conscience of the perpetrators of such brutality and violence. In The Look of Silence, Oppenheimer sides more blatantly with the victims, through the story of one man in particular – a man whose brother was killed in the sixties and who goes around the village interviewing the men responsible for these unspeakable acts. Aside from this documentary being the type of enriching and intense experience one would expect on a political ground, it is also to be admired as the work of a man who does not believe in the neutrality of the camera. This, in fact, what was so admirable and even shocking to some extents about his previous work where he got the perpetrators of the purges to re-enact their evil deeds on camera. In The Look of Silence, he lets the camera eye linger on the two opposed parties, studying their silences long after they have stopped wanting to say anything else at all. A final paradox is provided by the figures in this documentary, the vast majority seemingly going deaf. This is a metaphorical type of paradox, which represents a see no evil hear no evil outcome that the whole historical event is sadly destined to have.
SOMETHING BETTER TO COME by Hanna Polak
A film about people living outside of society, set in Russia and living on Europe's biggest landfill. Something Better to Come took Hanna Polak fourteen years to compile, taking her camera among the community in an unobtrusive way, setting up a strong bond and high level of trust with her subjects, and allowing them to reveal their colourful personalities as revealing their heartwarming solidarity that gets them through their nightmarish lives and living conditions. The driving force of the film, however, is the tender coming of age Yula from child to young adult. An enriching experience and a remarkable project that aims and achieve to give voice to the voiceless, this film is at once strikingly real and impressively poetic due to its genuine portrayal of the situation of extreme poverty with an underlying sentiment of optimism.
GOODNIGHT MOMMY by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz
A truly terrifying experience. A masterful conglomeration of horror film clichés with a compelling lenience towards arthouse cinema – in fact the same sort of arthouse approach that producer Ulrich Seidl is known for. Despite all this, first time feature directors Franz and Fiala already seem masterful in building an intense and chilling atmosphere with haunting and downright shocking relentlessness, spinning out of a relatively innocent domestic drama, developing into a dense psychological thriller with paranormal flirtations and erupting into a full blown tough to watch torture movie. The story is pretty simple – two twins become suspicious and then obsessed by the fact that their mother is not their real mother but a kidnapper or a monster. The visual charge of the film provides added immediacy in such elements as the bandages worn by the mother, who has just returned from a facial plastic surgery operation. It’s hard to pay rightful tribute to the visceral horror that is Goodnight Mommy. It is, in fact, one that has to be lived through but it is certainly not one to be experienced by the faint hearted.
SONG OF THE SEA by Tomm Moore
Tomm Moore's Song of the Sea is a venerable hand drawn animation feature with an extremely distinctive visual style rich in water colour texture and meticulous composition that is unique, groundbreaking and one would expect trend setting. The story is influenced by Celtic mythology, and it is the story of a journey undertaken by a young boy and his deaf mute sister, who is a creature named "silke" and who must find her voice and free supernatural screatures from the spell of a Celtic goddess in the process. It is a delightful and exciting adventure, wth a witty sense of humour and impressive character depth. Song of the Sea is also praiseworthy for its well balanced use of honest melodrama. Also impressive is the heavy use of the very Irish traditional music soundtrack, which plays an active and specific role in the narrative, rather than being a pretty and petty surplus.
DEAREST by Peter Chan
Based on a much publicised and intricate true story of a missing child in China found in the countryside, Chan’s tale examines greatly complex domestic drama in all its aspects within the narrative of Dearest, his latest work. The interesting element is the shift in focus, which goes from the initial divorced parents of the missing child to the woman who raised him, who suddenly finds herself having to give up a little girl she also looked after for years on the same grounds. It is the non-judgemental approach that makes Dearest such an enriching interactive experience; it is up to the audience to make up its mind on the ethical inclinations of each individual element of the tale. Despite this, Chan plays up the emotional to quasi-exploitation levels through a shameless use of melodrama and a heavily stringed musical score. This, however, does not undermine the fact that the power of the story and the in depth examination of each of the individual characters remain remarkably gripping and ensure a three dimensional viewpoint on the delicate matter of cultural contrast, prejudice and the Chinese social plague of missing children.
DEMOCRATS by Camilla Nielsson
Documentarian Camilla Nielsson gives us an unusual insightful look at the politically unstable situation of Zimbabwe, as a new and more democratic is being put together by the ruling party of strongman Robert Mugabe and the divided opposition. The enriching charge of Democrats is that it compiles a complete report on all the aspects of this delicate evolution of the socio political mindset of the country of Zimbabwe, and it does so not only by paying heed to the solemnity of the act, but also most rewardingly looking at more intimate aspects of its subject by having direct contact with its key players. Most admirably, despute Nielsson and her crew being from Denmark and being allowed somewhat unprecedented insight in such a situation from an African country, it is almost completely devoid of typical neo-colonialist prejudices and hence feels rather faithful in a fresh and authentic way.