Cinephilia: Film Festival preview

The Film Fes­ti­val has been a fix­ture of Welling­ton’s win­ter cal­en­dar for near­ly 40 years and for those of us who organ­ise our lives around glow­ing rec­tan­gles of one kind or anoth­er there is no bet­ter way to spend a cold and wet after­noon than in the com­fy leather chairs at the Embassy, engrossed in a work of art.

Pro­gram­ming a Fes­ti­val like Welling­ton may seem easy but I can assure you it’s get­ting tougher every year. The sheer vol­ume of inde­pen­dent film is grow­ing beyond all rea­son (I read that there were around 5,000 films sub­mit­ted to Sun­dance last year) and atten­tion must be paid to all four cor­ners of the globe nowa­days.

The glossy pro­gramme (doing dou­ble-duty this year as Fes­ti­val Guide Book and Sou­venir Pro­gramme) is 90 pages long and I direct you to it forth­with — my role here is, with the help of some pre­views from the Fes­ti­val office, to point your atten­tion towards some of the unher­ald­ed titles avail­able amongst the hun­dreds on offer. This year I only men­tion films I have seen and read­ers are asked to add their picks/hopes/reports in the com­ments.

The first thing to point out is that, unlike the old days, there is noth­ing to be gained in try­ing to guess which films will return for a com­mer­cial sea­son. With the loss of the three (oth­er­wise unla­ment­ed) Rial­to screens in June, there is even less chance of a film com­ing back than before and the gen­er­al down­turn in atten­dance this year has made dis­trib­u­tors wary. At the moment there are no plans to release The Sav­ages (a well-observed, superbly act­ed dra­ma with plen­ty of black humour star­ring Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man and Lau­ra Lin­ney) and even the Jack Black — Michel Gondry com­e­dy Be Kind Rewind is expect­ed to go straight to DVD post-Fes­ti­val (although strong local sales may pro­voke a change of mind). Rec­om­men­da­tion: if the big screen expe­ri­ence is impor­tant to you, don’t wait.

[Pre­view con­tin­ues after the jump]

Many films in the Fes­ti­val are nev­er like­ly to come back com­mer­cial­ly — they may not even have local dis­tri­b­u­tion and thus even a DVD release is unlike­ly. Of the fea­ture films I got a chance to see before dead­line, I was most tak­en with Silent Light by Mex­i­can Car­los Rey­ga­da ( Japón, 2003). In an iso­lat­ed Men­non­ite com­mu­ni­ty in Mex­i­co, a hus­band has to deal with the con­se­quences when he tells his wife of his love for anoth­er woman. A fable-like sto­ry, exquis­ite­ly pho­tographed, with an end­ing that more than rewards the work you have to put in. I made the mis­take of watch­ing it over two nights which reduced its poten­cy by about 75% and I rec­om­mend you get to the Embassy screen­ing (if pos­si­ble) where you can wrap it around you like a blan­ket.

Direc­tor Shane Mead­ows has been a per­son­al and Fes­ti­val favourite for near­ly 13 years and he showed with last year’s This is Eng­land that he is strik­ing a rich vein of form. Somers Town stars that film’s Thomas Tur­goose (now 16) as Tomo, on the run from an unmen­tion­able fam­i­ly life in Not­ting­ham. In Lon­don, he meets anoth­er lone­ly drifter, Pol­ish immi­grant Marek, and they spend the Sum­mer lark­ing about and grow­ing up in the streets around St Pan­cras. Ful­ly fund­ed by the Eurostar com­pa­ny as an act of pure patron­age, per­haps it could be a mod­el for the new KiwiRail com­pa­ny to fol­low.

In the doc­u­men­tary sec­tion (with the immense­ly strong music depart­ment jus­ti­fi­ably giv­en it’s own sec­tion of the pro­gramme) there is some­thing for every­one. With no less than three Iraq War docos to choose from you could do a lot worse than Errol Mor­ris’s Stan­dard Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dure about the abuse-reveal­ing pho­tographs from Abu Ghraib. No one frames a sto­ry bet­ter than Mor­ris and, while all most of the talk about the film has been abstract dis­cus­sion about the nature of pho­to­graph­ic real­i­ty, it should arouse plen­ty of right­eous anger sim­ply for the hor­ror it por­trays.

Crazy Love is anoth­er well-con­struct­ed tale. With this one it helps to not know too much detail going in, as the reveals are deli­cious­ly han­dled. Suf­fice to say that love is blind, in more ways than one.

If you want­ed to explain to a stranger why New Zealand is known as God­zone, show them Bare­foot Cin­e­ma, the doc­u­men­tary about beloved cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Alun Bollinger. His idyl­lic life in Reefton on the West Coast, his career choic­es (not least to stay in NZ when his con­tem­po­raries in the 70s and 80s left for Hol­ly­wood) and of course the AlBol-Hel­Bol 40 year love sto­ry. There’s a dark shad­ow that appears but even that is han­dled by the fam­i­ly with impec­ca­ble grace.

Ant Timp­son has revived the some­what mori­bund Incred­i­bly Strange Film Fes­ti­val after sev­er­al years as a watered-down That’s Incred­i­ble sub-sec­tion. It still sits a lit­tle uncom­fort­ably with­in the whole but the pro­gram­ming is back to it’s best: you’ll find our cov­er star tucked away there in Takashi Miike’s Sukiya­ki West­ern Djan­go. Mean­while King of Kong plays like an amped up ver­sion of that cross­word doc­u­men­tary last year, this time fol­low­ing vin­tage video game obses­sives and the quest for the world Don­key Kong record. It’s a clas­sic good guy/bad guy set-up and you’ll be as manip­u­lat­ed as any 8‑bit Mario, but it’s a lot of fun.

Final­ly, tucked away at the Film Archive for two lunchtime screen­ings is a lit­tle gem called The Return by Welling­ton film­mak­er Kathy Dud­ding. I have just re-watched my two favourite films, Lon­don and Robin­son in Space by Patrick Keiller, and was delight­ed to see Welling­ton get a sim­i­lar aes­thet­ic treat­ment — beau­ti­ful­ly com­posed, per­fect­ly bal­anced, stand­ing images of mod­ern Welling­ton (the Har­bour and Ori­en­tal Bay for the most part) with Dud­ding’s grand­moth­er’s mem­o­ries of Edwar­dian and post-WWI Welling­ton on the sound­track. Mes­meris­ing and mov­ing.

Print­ed in Welling­ton’s Cap­i­tal Times on Wednes­day 16 July, 2008. Cross-post­ed to Funer­als & Snakes.