MIFF 2012

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That time of year again, and I will be watching a stack of new films over the next couple of weeks.

Strangely I'm actually finding watching films painful. This is because sitting for hours in an uncomfortable chair is exactly what is not recommended by my physio. Still, anything for art, eh?

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A Simple Life.

Hong Kong's Ann Hui has crafted a sweet and amusing film about old age and dependence. Ah Tao is a family retainer who has served Roger's family for 60 years. She has a stroke and asks to be allowed to retire and move into an old people's home. Such homes in Hong Kong are a far cry from what we would expect, and Roger feels obliged to support Ah Tao in response to the service she has given him over the years.

Action star Andy Lau is cast against type as Roger, and delivers a subtle performance of wry humour and undeclared affection for Ah Tao. But it is Deannie Yip as Ah Tao who shines from the screen in every scene she is in, a performance that won her Best Actress at Venice. (Interesting to note that Yip is actually Lau's godmother in real Iife).

A Simple Life is an amusing tale that warms the heart without getting schmaltzy.

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Robot and Frank

Just go see this, OK? It's hilarious.

So, that said, this was one of my first punts. I'd not heard of the film before, but the premise sounded promising. Frank is a retired (?) jewel thief suffering from Alzheimer's. His son decides to get him a robot to help him around the house and monitor his health. Frank hates the idea and fights the robot every step of the way, until he works out that the robot can be talked into helping him make a comeback to burglaries.

Frank Langella and Peter Sarsgaard as the robot deliver a host of laughs. Liv Tyler and Susan Sarandon crop up in solid support roles. The film is a bit of a cross between a caper movie an a buddy movie, and none the worse for that. This is my first 5 star film of the festival, and the sleeper so far.

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Flicker

Patrick Eklund's first feature is a Swedish take on the stupidity of corporate life, mixed with satirical commentary on the reliance on society on technology.

The compamy concerned supplies power to a small Swedish town, and are helmed by an incompetent CEO who has no idea how to deal with people or to rescue his firm from financial crisis. This is made worse when two repairmen bring down a base station,lunging the town into darkness.

Eklund's film has an ensemble of characters including an accounts manager whose computer crashes every time the board demands a financial report, a cleaning lady terrified of spiders, a repairman who is allergic to electricity, and a group of anarchists dedicated to bringing down the power industry, led by a one-armed extremist.

This is a very funny film, almost as good as Robot and Frank. I only mark it down a little because it is a bit reminiscent of Office Space, although Eklund (who attended the showing) was quick to deny that.

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The Legend of Kaspar Hauser

This film is a surrealist and absurdist twist on Werner Herzog's film, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Davide Manuli directs renaissance man Vincent Gallo in what is a deliberately obscure and inaccessible film.

Kaspar Hauser is a historical figure, a young man who appeared in Germany out of nowhere, with no language or social skills, seemingly as a result of long-term isolation at the hands of an unknown man.

In Manuli's version, Kaspar is an androgynous teen (played by an actress) who washes up on the shore of a Sardinian village, wearing headphones that never get removed. S/he is found by the Sherrif, played by Gallo in a tiresome performance full of drawled "Yep"s that drive you mad. It's never clear why an Italian sherriff is played as a US western stock character; I think it's a nod to the kind of spaghetti western where the local sherriff was always a bumbling fool.

The Sherrif locks Kaspar up in a cell for his protection and teaches him how to be a DJ. Other residents meet Kaspar and see in him the change that they have been looking for. The Duchess gets wind of this and decides that Kaspar Is a threat to her power.

Over-acted to the hilt, this is a really tiresome film. To give it its due though, it's shot in a beautiful black and white and boasts a pulsating score from French musician Vitalic that will please anybody who was into Giorgio Moroder in the 80s.

As a festival-goer, I get annoyed at people who walk out on films, as quite a few did here. I mean, the slightest amount of research would tell you that this was never going to be mainstream fare, so why go if you're not open to the experimental?

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Beasts of the Southern Wild

This debut film from Benh Zeitlin has been setting the Festival circuit on fire for most of the year. The two sessions programmed here sold put like greased lightning.

The film is set in the Bathtub, a remote location in the Louisiana bayous, cut off from the world by a levee. Hushpuppy is a six year old who lives in the Bathtub with Wink, her father. Her mother is gone, but Hushpuppy still holds hopes that she will see her again.

The Bathtub is devastated by Katina, but Hushpuppy and her friends refuse to leave. Wink tries to protect Hushpuppy and help her survive, but starts to realise that doing this is beyond him. In the meantime, mythical beasts rampage through the Bathtub.

Zeitlin cast his film entirely from non-actors, and his major achievement here is the unearthing of the five year old Quvenzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy. Her steeliness and unnervingly direct gaze into the camera perfectly convey a character who has had to become self-sufficient way beyond her years. Wallis' electric performance is alone worth the price of admission, but there is much else to admire in this beautiful film.

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The Imposter

Another sold-out film, The Imposter was one of my documentary choices for the festival. It tells the story of the 1994 Nicholas Barclay disappearance in Texas, and its strange aftermath.

Barclay disappeared as a 13 year old and, three years later, the family heard from Spain that a boy answering his description had been found there. Barclay's sister Carey flies over to Spain and brings him home. The family is overjoyed to have him back. The strange thing is that Nicholas, who was a blond blue-eyed kid, now has brown eyes, dark hair and speaks with an accent.

In fact "Nicholas" is serial imposter Frederic Bourdin, a 23 year old from France who looks and sounds nothing like him. Bourdin himself cannot understand how this seemingly flimsy impersonation could be successful, fooling family members, the US Embassy, a Spanish court and the FBI.

The film tells the story of how Bourdin managed this, how he was eventually uncovered and the aftermath. Bourdin, the family members and other players are interviewed along with re-enactments of the emergence of "Nicholas". The film is a strange tale about how we see what we want to see, with some disturbing and creepy undertones to it.