20th Century Women: NZIFF Review

20th Century Women: NZIFF Review 

One of the titles much requested for this year's festival and one of the earliest to be revealed, Mike Mills' 20th Century Women is a relatively joyous memoir of 1 boy growing up under the thrall of 3 women.

Set in 1970s California, the film zig-zags around the daily life of 15-year-old fatherless Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) who lives with his mother (Annette Bening) who runs a boarding house. Other inhabitants in this house include Abbie (red haired Greta Gerwig) and handyman William (Billy Crudup).

Also dropping by, unbeknownst to Jamie's mother, is best friend Julia (Fanning)  whom Jamie has a crush on but whose advances are continually rejected.

Worried that Jamie's not getting the full life experience he needs, his mother asks the house guests to help impart their life wisdom - but it doesn't quite go to plan.

Reflexive, warm and gentle, 20th Century Women is a nostalgia blast about the coming of age, gaining of new insights and pushing against the times.

Most of the push and pull of the film comes from the interaction between the characters and how living and coping together shapes many of us in ways we don't appreciate until later in life. Bening's ease of presence and way with quick one-liners throughout give this an edge early on, but later, a more mournful tone means the kaleidoscope of life feels a bit more poignant than you'd first expect.

Ruminations on life through various eyes come easily throughout, but what 20th Century Women actually does is spin a web that's entrancing and engaging, if slightly forgettable - it's a reflection of the signs of the times, but also a salutation to the wisdom of those around us.

Jasper Jones: NZIFF Review

Jasper Jones: NZIFF Review

A coming-of-age story, adapted from a Craig Silvey novel, that's carried wonderfully by its young leads, Aussie drama Jasper Jones is a veritable ripper.

Set in a quiet Aussie village in the late 60s and centring on Levi Miller's 14 year old Charlie, the story sees him thrown into being asked for help by the town's outcast Aboriginal Jasper Jones.

Jasper fears he'll be blamed for the hanging girl found in the woods (as he remarks tellingly to Charlie, "What was your first reaction?", a sign of the times and of the instant judgement of small communities) and so together the pair try to solve the mystery of the death.

But that's not all Charlie has to negotiate; he has a Korean neighbour whose lives are under fire because of Vietnam tensions, he has a mother who's frustrated and he has a burgeoning relationship with the sister of the missing girl to negotiate as well.

Seeded into the background of Jasper Jones are inter-racial tensions, friendships and relationships, even darker material that ventures dangerously closely to spoilers and a commentary on small town perceptions that's all too familiar.

But director Rachel Perkins doesn't stir any of these up for pure titillation; she merely throws everything into the mix to create a compelling whodunnit and a deeply layered story that has social commentary seeded all the way through.

While the adults do good work, notably Dan Wyllie as Charlie's dad, a mix of compassion and understanding obvious from an understated role, it's not actually their film in many ways.

It helps that the younger end of the cast - Miller, Angourie Rice (who plays the sister) and Aaron McGrath (Jones) shoulder the great burden of the darker edges of the script with veritable ease. It may be a familiar journey in some ways (growing up, realising death and darkness is all around) but what Jasper Jones manages to do, is to ensure these themes are freshly presented and subtly enacted.

Ultimately, Jasper Jones manages to be a compelling and diverting story that's as engaging as it is well crafted and it's a reminder that even the most familiar of tropes and genres can appear fresh when given a steady and strong directorial eye and a great cast.

Ancien and the Magic Tablet: NZIFF Review

Ancien and the Magic Tablet: NZIFF Review

Eerily prescient in its depiction and debate of driverless cars, Ancien and the Magic Tablet is a family film that doesn't quite mesh as well as perhaps it should.

Beautifully etched and full of blues and steampunk hues, the story of Ancien and the Magic Tablet is set just days before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. When Kokone falls asleep, she dreams of a world where she's a brave princess, Ancien, whose tablet can do anything - and that includes saving the kingdom from attacks by Kaiju type creatures.

But back in the real world, Kokone's father, a mechanic, is no longer making money and Kokone is called on to rescue him when he's abducted by shadowy corporate types....

Ancien and the Magic Tablet is an anime that has its moments.

While there's no doubting that Ghost in the Shell director Kamiyama Kenji has an eye for the fantastical, the film's glueing together of the two realities doesn't quite hit the spot when it should.

There are some great moments of humour, and the echoes of Pacific Rim prove hard to shake in the battle sequences, but there's a bit of heart missing from Ancien and the Magic Tablet - and the lack of it, is hard to shake.

More successful is the current concerns over technology of the past and present colliding, and the commentary and corporate espionage shenanigans that ensue. It helps deal with some of the pacing problems that the back half of Ancien faces; and while the animation's nicely done, it lacks some of the wizardry of others.

Unfortunately, feeling like it's lacking some of the parts which make a great anime, Ancien and the Magic Tablet is simply a solid film that does what it needs to and little more. Families will enjoy its fantastical edges, but anime lovers may feel something irrevocable is unfortunately missing.

The Beguiled: NZIFF Review

The Beguiled: NZIFF Review

Gifted the best director awards at Cannes for this, Sofia Coppola returns to more ethereal portraits as is her wont in The Beguiled.

Set in 1864 Virginia, 3 years into the Civil War (though, in all honesty, time and the world outside barely trouble much of what transpires), Coppola's take on the 1971 Don Siegel Southern psychodrama, which starred Clint Eastwood, is as wispy as the mist which hangs over the woods in the opening shot.

Colin Farrell stars as a wounded Union soldier, Corporal McBurney, found cowering under a tree by one of the young charges at the local girls seminary, run by Nicole Kidman's buttoned up Martha. At first the seven of them debate what to do with McBurney, but different feelings of repression, desire and blossoming sexuality come to the fore as time passes.

Initially deciding to allow McBurney to recuperate before being sent on his way, the chaste and secluded women find themselves all-a-fluster thanks to McBurney (and by extension, Farrell) and his rogueish charm.

Soon, however, the question becomes who is beguiling who?

Coppola's eye for the female gaze is evident throughout, much like it was in The Virgin Suicides.

By turns, light, funny and sultry, The Beguiled does much to bewitch, even if its flirtations are as passing as the breeze.

What transpires is a four-way as Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, Kidman and the preternaturally youthful Elle Fanning vie for the attention. From dinners that drip with the potential of a cat fight, or the closest a finishing school will allow, to clandestine visits and impromptu liaisons, the film positively drips with sultry sensuality as it plays out.

Coppola's more interested in the female dynamic at play here and most men, bar Farrell, are framed from a distance when they appear and / or are surplus to proceedings. Sure, cannons fire and plumes of smoke appear on the horizon, but men are rarely seen at this finishing school, giving the flirtations a weight that's understandable when McBurney shows.

But as she stacks the deck with betrayal, lust and repressed desire, what she creates in The Beguiled is a similarly themed entrant as others display in her catalogue. Using a similarly ethereal lens and vision, Coppola may be making an obvious film in many ways, but its subtleties are enough to beguile the audience.

With equal amounts of humour, takes on etiquette and coquettishness, the battle of the females, and simple simmering, the film manages to cast a spell on those who view.

Columbus: NZIFF Review

Columbus: NZIFF Review

Everyone's life is on hold in the quietly impressive drama Columbus.

From Haley Lu Richardson's Cassie, whose chance to go to college is on pause as she looks after her mom to John Cho's Jin whose father has had a medical event and whose estrangement has come bitterly into focus, there's a sense of the inert in director Kogonada's subtle film.

Set in among the architecture of Columbus Indiana, Kogonada's film focuses on the duo who meet accidentally and become friends, with Cassie once again seeming to feel the need to usher the uncaring Jin through his experience.

But, even though the two appear to be kindred spirits, the peaceful pace and perfect slow cinema ambling of the script doesn't allow the film to fall into cliche.

With Richardson majorly stepping up and assuming the mantle of the lead in this, shouldering much of the bookish dialogue and gently truthful banter with great aplomb. There's plenty of veritas in Richardson's performance, and it's a sign once again that she's a significant young talent to watch ; this time in particular, she lends credence to the older edges of the script, but never loses the lightness of touch that a spirit desperate to fly but unable to out of a sense of duty would possess.

Equally, Cho gives something of a quiet internalised performance that's redolent of a sidelined leading man. In his interactions with Cassie, the unusual friendship blossoms thanks to the gentle pace and the languid approach that Cho delivers to his evidently angry and ultimately looking-for-redemption Jin.  There's likely to be large swathes of people who identify with Jin (and his protestations that "he never paused his life for me") - but Cho ensures Jin isn't a spoilt brat looking for love, but is more a soul in need of some kind of rebirth.

In a debut that's more than worthy of your time, Kogonada frames much of Indiana with the architecture of the area evident in almost every shot in some way or other; whether it's wide shots that give a sense of space or an always-there building lurking in the background, the film's assembled in such a way that it's destined to be one of a film-maker capturing an area on record, and populating it with people with everyday problems and everyday concerns.

Strong unassuming support from Parker Posey, Michelle Forbes and Rory Culkin add credence and weight to the veracity and tone of voice of the proceedings.

But rest assured, Columbus is Richardson and Cho's film. This is no quirky coming-of-age tale that feels the need to populate itself with self-aware dialogue; this is earnest, honest and heart-warming fare - and because of that, it radiates from the screen.

Berlin Syndrome: NZIFF Review

Berlin Syndrome: NZIFF Review

The holiday romance turns very sour in Berlin Syndrome, the first NZIFF title to feel like a commercial release.

In the adaptation of Melanie Joosten's 2011 novel, Brisbane back-packer Clare (Teresa Palmer, I Am Number Four) is on her own in Germany when a chance meeting at a traffic lights with English teacher Andi (Max Riemelt, Sense 8) takes place.

Attracted to each other, the pair edge their way to a highly charged encounter. The following morning, when Andi goes to work, Clare finds herself locked in the isolated apartment. Assuming it's an error, she dismisses it, but when the key she's given the next morning doesn't work and she discovers her phone's SIM card is gone, terror starts to creep in....

Berlin Syndrome had the potential to be a cliché (and sadly heads that way a little at the end), but instead offers a thriller that's more unsettling and psychologically creepy as it unspools.

It helps that Palmer has the right mix of vulnerable and lost in the early stages as she mixes the scared and excited of a tourist in a new city when she exits the Berlin underground. Not your typical backpacker and not saddled with a 'I'm running away /finding myself' back-story, Clare's actions seem plausible as the story plays out.

Director Cate Shortland (Somersault, Lore) takes time to build an atmosphere that's filled with inherent dread as the captivity begins and as Andi becomes cold, distant and definitely creepy. Shortland front-loads the bases from the get go, giving Berlin Syndrome a sense of something sinister lurking; whether it's shots of the ancient architecture of Berlin or the foreshadowing in art book. 

It helps that Max Riemelt plays Andi without the usual tropes of a maniac and seems all the more unhinged because of his own charm and detached affability. In scenes with his father and with hints of the Berlin Wall past trauma, there's lots left unsaid that help to build an atmosphere but which may frustrate those looking for a simple reason why he is what he is. (Though, arguably, he's responsible for some truly laugh out loud lines as he carries on like an apparently normal couple - pesto will never look the same again.)

But subtle is what Berlin Syndrome does best in its terrific opening half, as we follow Clare, discovering the clues as she does and leading to those heart-in-mouth moments. Palmer does much to imbue her character with a retreat-in-your-shell mentality to help with survival.

Ultimately, and sadly, Berlin Syndrome may lose some impact because of its resolution, but what plays out prior to that is quite gripping and filled with suspense.

Thanks to Shortland's eye for the smaller moments and Palmer's carefully selective and introverted turn, Berlin Syndrome ends up being more captivating and psychologically disturbing than you'd expect.

My Year With Helen: NZIFF Review

My Year With Helen: NZIFF Review

Director: Gaylene Preston

There's plenty to get frustrated about with Gaylene Preston's latest My Year With Helen, in which the Kiwi doco-maker spends time within Clark's camp as she tried for the job of UN Secretary General in 2016.

However, it's primarily the boys-led system that will have you raging as the film plays out, not the way the film's constructed.

Tagging along with Ms Clark, Preston had the idea to follow and see what doing good (as was Clark's desire) could actually achieve. But what, of course, transpired is that Helen Clark became the eye of the hurricane in a bid to become the next UN Secretary General.

Hindsight is both a blessing and a curse to this documentary.

It's a curse in that we all know the depressingly failed outcome of Clark's campaign, but it's also a blessing because what Preston actually captures, rather than an intimate diary of her moods, dreams and desires is the fact the UN is in crisis. Having had 8 men run it since its inception, what Preston's doco does is show what exactly is wrong with the UN, and why the zeitgeist desire to get a woman to the top job galvanised so many, and ultimately, why the final result was so head-slappingly dumb and a thumbing to those campaigning for glass-ceiling change.

Preston's smart enough to use the camera to capture the trappings of the UN, and while there are a few candid moments when Clark is less guarded (though these come primarily when she is relaxing with her father in the Waihi Beach home, making meals for her dad - I defy anyone not to release a Helen's Chilli Con Carne after this-  or a fleeting glance of her using social media in the back of the car on her way to yet another press the flesh meeting), there's little salacious or shocking on show. Throughout the entire film, whether it's scouting on a plane to Botswana, or attending meetings with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Clark is the diplomat you'd expect at the UN and the restrained politician so familiar to so many.

While Clark's campaign becomes the film's raison d'etre, and Preston's camera wisely captures the voices around her, rather than seeing Clark grandstanding, the United Nations becomes more of a focus of the documentary as it goes on.  There's a terrible nagging sense of it being desperately out of touch with the people it serves, whether it's a subtle side shot of a US politician texting while an impassioned plea is made for those stuck in Syria, it's here that Preston's masterful touches pull back the curtains on the horrific political machinations within.

If there's a criticism, it's that there's little debate and debrief into what went wrong after the final straw poll and the galling decision to install yet another white man in the top job; in the immediate aftermath, Preston captures the hubbub of others rather than using the exclusive in to get Clark's immediate reaction. So it is that once she shows, she's already in composed mode, the perfect politician.

But it's also in this moment, that Preston reveals her master stroke interview technique.

In just four words, a very laid-back intro of "What a thing, eh?" leading into the post-failed campaign interview, Preston says it all. It's at this moment the candid camera captures the pragmatic resilience Clark is famed for, her never off-guard manner personified, but threatening to crumble. It's fascinating to see, and depressing for its implications to so many.

However, in hanging on Helen for a little longer in this muted debrief, Preston draws us into her eyes, and the disappointment and dejectedness that lies within them. It's an utterly enthralling moment to behold and a technique that delivers an emotional and unexpected pay-off.

While My Year With Helen's focus is more on the UN bid (as would have been necessitated by events), and regardless of how you feel about Helen herself (the brief insights probably won't change any deep-seated beliefs) what actually emerges is a definitive rallying cry for change within; not just for feminists but for all those frustrated with political back and forths in the 21st century.

It's a sickeningly fascinating examination of the human condition, the politics of change and the lip service that goes in, but thanks to Gaylene Preston's light and deft touch, what it becomes is a dignified and restrained yet undeniable clarion call to arms.