Ixcanul Volcano: NZFF Review

Ixcanul Volcano: NZFF Review

Small scale stories on the international stage is what the New Zealand International Film Festival is all about.

And this latest from Guatemala certainly offers an insight into a world most of us are unlikely to ever see into.

It's the tale of 17-year-old Maria, who works on her family's coffee plantation and who is facing an arranged marriage that would guarantee her family's fate and secure their life. But Maria has other plans in this variant of Romeo and Juliet thanks to the secret love she harbours for plantation worker Pepe.

Ixcanul Volcano is one of those films where by virtue of the story, very little happens but each dramatic moment is a seismic one. It may be sombre and low key but it's quite affecting in places thanks to Maria Mercedes Conroy's performance which just pitches it perfectly.

There are a few dramatic shocks throughout as well and some of the story's elements aren't quite as conclusive as perhaps you'd expect, but that's probably a good thing - the social commentary on life in Guatemala and for those in small villages is an eye-opener, a reminder that life isn't always neatly resolved and that the human condition is still prone to suffering and pain while paying the piper.

Slow and a film to lose yourself in, Ixcanul Volcano has haunting imagery, a volcano in the background and in some scenes, an urgency that's hard to deny; dramatically, it's a slow burner but the journey is worth taking.

808: NZFF Review

808: NZFF Review

There's no doubting that the drum machine is iconic in so many of the sounds we grew up loving and the music we groove to.

However, there's none more influential than the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which put the boom into so many of the floor-fillers throughout the ages.

Launched back in the 80s, the machine still figures in pop music today and this latest doco decides to go back to the beginning to trace its roots and its effects on the industry by talking to key players.

Narrated by Zane Lowe with occasional bursts of bombast, the piece talks to the likes of Rick Rubin, The Beastie Boys (who provide some much needed verve and banter), Afrikaa Bambaataa, Strafe, and Lil Jon to name but a few to see what the machine brought to the table.

And while it's fair to say that director Alexander Dunn's piece concentrates predominantly on the effects of the 808 on the American music scene, it's also perhaps fair to say that anyone not interested in these musical stylings may not be taken in by this.

808 dances a little too much to the beat of its own drum and could have benefited from a little more focus and a little less on the talking heads front.

Particularly given that maybe a third of the interviewees have little too insightful to say about the 808 other than how influential it was (something we'd already garnered by the effects on the film) - in fact the best moments come from the aforementioned banter between the Beastie Boys as they lose their own thread, Soulwax who discuss how they bought an 808 from a studio which had the iconic beats of Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing pre-programmed in and Golide who gets swept up in his own enthusiasm.

But in between the constant shots of knobs being twiddled, close ups of the 808 and records, it seems like the visual creativity to tell this story is missing a little in all the repetition.

Ironically, for a machine that loops and keeps playing, that's what 808 the movie offers - a lot of the same thing over and over again. It's not that it's not serviceably put together, but more that it needed a little editing and trim; certainly the final 30 minutes feels like the thread has been lost. (And the lack of the acid house scene in the 90s is a criminal oversight)

Thankfully, an interview with Roland's Ikutaro Kakehashi puts a great spin on the machine and provides the insight that's a little lost in all the preceding hagiography.

The beat goes on, and sadly, in places, this doco about a seminal piece of kit is prone to doing the same.

Turbo Kid: NZFF Review

Turbo Kid: NZFF Review

The Incredibly Strange goes retro with this film, expanded from a concept submitted for the anthology The ABCs of Death.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world of 1997, it's the story of the Kid (Munro Chambers in a sweetly powerful role), a vulnerable yet capable loner in the wastelands who spends his time reading the comic book Turbo Raider and looking for bits and bobs to trade to get by.

It's a world ruled by evil overlord Zeus (Michael Ironside, keeping it on the right side of malevolent and OTT), and one where water is scarce and a commodity worth dying for. When the Kid inadvertently finds Apple, a pink-haired, blue-eyed hyper annoying girl, she latches onto him and becomes his puppy-dog companion. A loner by nature, the Kid isn't best pleased by this, but takes her under his wing - a move that proves to be specially prescient given that BMX-mounted goons roam the wastelands - and soon the Kid and Apple are on a collision course with Zeus.

There's an endearing sweetness to Turbo Kid which is infectious.

Sure, it's got a fair amount of gore and splatter within, but beneath the blood, there's a huge beating heart and a tender love story bursting to get out.

It helps that the Kid is so eminently likeable, with a back-story that's admittedly predictable but the set-up of the film and the world around him is so accessible that this retro-thrill's innocence can't fail to win you over.

The design makes the most of the settings and the synth-heavy OST by Le Mathos is a real stand-out, perfectly encapsulating the kids action adventure series of Saturday mornings of yore. There are a few crowd-pleasing moments of retribution doled out to the bad guys and some inventively silly takes on the slice/dice mentality gel well and get the requisite laughs.

But it's the characters which make Turbo Kid work and elevate it through the tender pastiche of cheesiness and fun that surrounds it. Chambers works well as the Kid, bringing a new take on a guy in a red suit saving the world, Laurence Leboeuf's Apple is enthusiastic, yet never annoying, a smart savvy take on the buddy of the piece and Ironside brings the required menace as the bad guy, Zeus, but never overplays his hand, snarling when he needs to do and delivering his lines with bloody relish; but the real hero of the piece is a mute baddie and Zeus' sidekick, Skeletron.

Under just a metal mask, with a shock of hair and a buzzsaw weapon attachment, Edwin Wright's nervy and spiky energetic baddie is a cult icon in waiting, delivering the kills from the crossbars of the bike and giving the audience a villain to boo at but also to love. Underneath TURBO KID's splatter and gore lies a big beating heart that commands your genre love

Ultimately Turbo Kid is a retro-infused blast of nostalgia-tinged cinema; a good time box office piece, with a conclusion that hints at more options to explore this Mad Max with BMX bikes world - and thanks to its warmth and earnest heart, I'd be happy to visit again.

Experimenter: NZFF Review

Experimenter: NZFF Review

Realising that exploring social experimenter Dr Stanley Milgram was likely to be a controversial choice, the writer, director, and producer of it all, Michael Almereyda could have been on a sticky wicket.

However, by choosing to break the fourth wall conventions in this biopic a la Bronson, he removes the controversy of the man himself and ends up providing a more rounded insight into Milgram.

The film begins with Milgram's most incendiary experiments into the human condition, wherein he managed to put two subjects - a teacher and a pupil - into a room and made them administer shocks to a stranger. Based on Milgram's childhood growing up as a Jew and being influenced by events in the Holocaust, Milgram's reasoning for his trial appears sound - what could provoke any right minded person into such horrific action?

The Milgram experiments clearly had ripples and ramifications and Almereyda's exploration and presentation of them is nothing short of a shock to the system.

By using the aforementioned fourth wall convention and using photos for backgrounds for some events and meetings, it's a bolt upright reaction to what transpires on the screen. (And even has a feel of TV series Masters of Sex about it in its recreation) - but in many ways, it's a film that defies convention for a man who ultimately defied his own conventions.

Sarsgaard is a cool crisp slice of clinical perfection as Milgram, each word carefully delivered for maximum impact and each dryly wry witticism despatched with ease; there's plenty of humour in this film that's essentially a snapshot of a biopic.

By keeping it free of the minutiae of Milgram's life and investing us solely in pivotal moments at certain points in time, Almereyda's concocted something smart and involving.

Exposition serves for explanation and shifts of time periods within the film, and the discussions raised within will likely provoke some incisive and robust debate as the movie ends. However, rather than bogging down the film in stuffy discussion, thanks to some excellent casting (look for the cameos who make up the subjects of the initial Milgram experiment) and a great performance from Sarsgaard and a return to form for a long time absent Winona Ryder as his wife, Almereyda provides a film that hits squarely and confidently what it wants to do.

It may skirt around some issues and some of the ramifications of the experiments (there's an unexplored inference that Milgram was being tailed and one of his colleagues dies early in age, both of these are left to linger frustratingly rather than be delved deeper into), but Almereyda's never interested in anything more than using the style and the effortless ease of his leading man to deliver a fascinating take on a thrilling subject.

The Tribe: NZFF Review

The Tribe: NZFF Review

This year's confrontational offering from the New Zealand International Film Festival is Ukranian and trying, at best, in parts.

Focussing on a new entrant to a boarding school, it's the tale of a gang of occasionally feral boys and two girls who end up working tricks for truck drivers.

However, here's the rub with The Tribe - and it's a great hook and something inventive, which is why film festivals are crucial; every single person in the film uses sign language, there are no subtitles and there are no voiceover.

So, to say it's in your face and confrontational already is no understatement - and I'm sure it's what director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy intended.

But then given that the brutalising and extremist story plays out in ways that forces you to concentrate on the body language and expressive nature of the actors is perhaps to distract from some of the downfalls of the film.

Shorn of the traditional constraints of the way movies are told and characters developed, it's hard to get to grips with the boys and to even go along with their actions. The newcomer to the group adopts easily to the clique's way of life, stalking their prey and viciously mugging a shopper before revelling in their spoils in a playground is as much a slap in your face as one of the characters repeatedly gets.

Equally, the treatment of the girls is intensely depressing and difficult to watch - one scene involving one of them ranks as the hardest thing I've had to watch at a festival for years; the whimpers and sobs as something plays out were horrifically difficult to behold and incredibly distressing.

Some of the problem with The Tribe comes with its alienation and the unfolding horror of what they're upto, rather than its characterisation.

There's no light with this piece, no scenes of school bonding and you get none of the context you need to invest in this ferocious foursome as they head out on the prowl - and by the same token, there are plenty of scenes where the same thing happens that the repetition becomes frustrating. (Even an attempted love story provides very little in the way of positivity) Several extraneous scenes could have been excised - and the shocking ending is an exercise in moral repugnance as the powderkeg explodes.

With no OST and only the ambient sounds to match the signing, it feels like you're distanced from a lot of this movie - as if you're privvy to conversations not meant for your ears.

Perhaps in some ways, that's a good thing - while this flick's picked up awards on the overseas circuit, it's nothing short of a troubling watch.

There may be no spoken language within, but there's certainly enough sound and bluster in The Tribe to make it the NZIFF's most difficult and divisive experience this year. However, the fact that it even exists and is shown in a festival like this is a testament to the NZIFF's raison d'etre.

54: Director's Cut: NZFF Review

54: Director's Cut: NZFF Review

70s Disco excess gets the big screen treatment once again with the new version of 54.

With 40 minutes of footage excised from the original 1998 release at the ordering of the Weinstein head honcho so that it wasn't quite the deviant flick that director Mark Christopher had envisioned.

Sure, the original vision may now be in tact and restored, but 54 has lost none of the thrill that it held the first time around.

For those not in the know, it's the story of Ryan Phillippe's wannabe Shane who lives in New Jersey but longs to outgrow his roots and be part of the New York scene. Stumbling one night into the path of Studio 54, Shane's plucked from the crowd by 54's svengali Steve Rubell (on the condition that he removes his shirt).

Inside the world of excess and disco music, Shane discovers his true raison d'etre as a busboy, but begins his social climb to bartender via ego and arrogance. Falling in with Breckin Meyer's Greg and Salma Hayek's Anita, he seems to have it all. But as the decadence of the club's excesses dig their claws deep into him, he starts to lose his humanity and decency, stopping at nothing to get to the top.

The director's cut of 54 may have lost none of the excess (in fact, it's probably even added some of it back in) but it certainly feels like more of a narrative flow than the previous outing. Even adding in one of the more notorious scenes where Shane tries it on with Greg, Christopher's vision for the film appears to have been restored to the glory that was originally envisaged.

Though, it's not all entirely successfully shoe-horned back in.

A few moments, coming as they do from source VHS, stand out on the big screen and the quality lapses are perhaps shockingly inevitable. And the sequences with Neve Campbell's soap star and potential love interest for Shane doesn't quite hang together or flow as the self-destructive Shane tries to summit the heights of his ambition.

But despite these minor niggles, 54: The Director's Cut brings a string of familiar faces in early roles (Heather Matarazzo, Mark Ruffalo) and reinforces that Mike Myers' take on Rubell was a tragic figure subtly personified and equally under-explored.

A paean to the excesses of the 70s it may be, but 54: The Director's Cut is still a trashy blast, a last hurrah for the disco era and a guilty pleasure nonetheless.

Newstalk ZB Film Review - Ant-Man, Paper Towns and Home

Newstalk ZB Film Review - Ant-Man, Paper Towns and Home

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/lifestyle/movies/darren-bevan-ant-man-paper-towns/