Spookers: NZIFF Review

Spookers: NZIFF Review

Kiwi director Florian Habicht is a habitual film fest offender.

His latest doco takes a look at the New Zealand institute of Spookers, a fright fest themed attraction based at the old Kingseat psychiatric hospital.

Andy and Beth Watson run the park and have set about making sure its cast of horrifying workers have a good solid workplace, as well as ensuring that visitors to the place get scared enough to deliver their own Code Browns.

It's into this world that Habicht and his non-intrusive camera and soft questioning approach head in - and what emerges from Spookers, in its first half, is a film that captures the quirk of Kiwis and the heart and soul of those who live there. Whether it's asking a zombie bride if they go to the supermarket wearing the outfit or revealing a depth to one woman who works in insurance and who channels her frustration into the scares, Habicht has an eye for ensuring there's as much heart as there is offbeat material in the film for us all to latch onto.

But it's in the back half of Spookers that it feels a little like Florian's lost his way.

Relying increasingly on more performance art pieces which feel fresh and enticing early on,  than any kind of ongoing narrative, it feels like Spookers becomes a touch repetitive and lacking in anything new to say, other than to compound its previous speakers who talk of their connection to one another.

That's not to deny the power of those stories - and while Beth and Andy seem grounded, the range of their workforce appear to have a whole heap of issues that they have to contend with. From mental health to actual health issues, the sense of community behind the make up is pervasive in Spookers and deserves to be applauded.

More interestingly the former patient and nurse of the hospital get to deliver their views on how the attraction is now, providing a contrast in perception and an ideological conflict with then and now. Habicht allows his speakers the time and space to breathe thought into these beliefs and is also smart enough to not belittle anyone in his film.

There's no denying that Spookers is an essential piece of Kiwiana and a quirky celebration of the power of family, both adopted and parental, but if the back half's structure were a little tighter and perhaps the journey a little more strongly plotted, Spookers could have risen a bit more strongly to the top.

Bad Genius: NZIFF Review

Bad Genius: NZIFF Review

Inspired by true events and a cheating scandal, Thailand's Bad Genius is perhaps the most accessible and popcorn friendly film of the festival.

But this is no bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.

Set in a school where money helps buy you in and keep you there, it's the extremely moral tale of Lynn, a straight A student, who's financially badly off. Approached by her best friend Grace to help her with her grades at her Thai school, Lynn's soon enticed by Grace's boyfriend into running classes to help less able students ace the tests - and with the promise of money, Lynn's soon in and enjoying it.

But when Grace and boyfriend Pat are told by their parents that they have to score highly enough to get into Boston University, Lynn and her warped sense of logic are soon caught in a global scandal...

If one were to say that what is essentially a heist movie but set against a backdrop of school exams is perhaps the most compelling and thrillingly tense movie of the year, then you'd be inclined to think this reviewer had lost it.

However, using smartly edited scenes, a sense of stylistic flashiness, an eye for character and a degree of cinematic aplomb, Bad Genius director Nattawut Poonpiriya manages to create a real sense of danger and tension as the film progresses.

It helps that setting it against a backdrop of a slightly scathing look at the moral arguments over the financial pressures of paying for tuition as well as ensuring there's a heart to the story with Lynn's relationship with struggling friend Bank, means that Bad Genius is a compelling film from beginning to end.

Lacing humour in helps a lot too, and goes some way to alleviating some of the rather appallingly acted non-Thai roles in the final section of the film.

Overall, Bad Genius is pretty much close to Bloody Genius and will most likely, if there's any justice, get a Hollywood remake.

By keeping the presentation simple, but stacking the odds high and personal, as well as delivering a polished and gripping pace, Bad Genius' pleasure comes from ensuring it's thrilling from beginning to end.

The Farthest: NZIFF Review

The Farthest: NZIFF Review

Rekindling both a love of space travel from younger years and again firing up a feeling of cosmic insignificance, Emer Reynolds largely entertaining but slightly overlong doco about the Voyager missions reminds you why as a species we look to beyond the stars.

Lively and engaging talking heads from the original project which launched in 1977 reflect back in the building of the technology and the ongoing interest in the space exploration.

At the centre of the project was the Golden Record , a 90 minute piece of metal which held on it various greetings from around the globe, and a raft of music including Chuck Berry but excluding The Beatles. ( Due to their refusal to licence for outer space, a touch that shows the limits of our petty horizons.)

But rather than concentrating too much on this golden dispatch that provoked panic that alien life could see it as a calling card and draw their plans against us, Reynolds concentrates on the people and their reactions to the discoveries in a pre-Internet, pre-live streaming world.

And it's thrilling seeing these images some 40 years on and realising what they meant at the time. Enthusiasm fills the screen here and while there are perhaps too many CGI shots of a craft hurtling alone in the cosmos, Reynolds' evocative touches bring what could be dull vividly to life, choosing energetic sound bites and engaging speakers.

As the Voyager craft headed further into space, the revelations and discoveries from the satellite moons come flooding in. And by using numerous shots of these and forming them like album covers, Reynolds reconnects it all to the record that's on board and the rings which orbit the planets.

But the most powerful moment comes when the whole thing is given context, seeing as how most of the film feels like it exists in a timeless bubble. As shots from space (Uranus??) trickle in they're split-screened with the destruction of the Challenger shuttle.

It's here that the fragility of mankind's significance is exposed and simultaneously the impressive work that NASA did in a lower tech world stand out.

Whilst the doco is incredibly polished (maybe a little too so at times), Reynolds' ease of accessibility and assembling of the pieces stand out. This is a documentary that has not only universal preoccupations but yet also has universal appeal.

The Free Man: NZIFF Review

The Free Man: NZIFF Review

Starting with a Sartre quote that "Man is condemned to be free", director Toa Fraser's latest doco is perhaps incorrectly being sold as a look at Jossi Wells, the NZ free-skier and his interest in the sport.

But what it actually is, is more of a meditation on what inspires people to be involved in extreme sports, and is more of a look at the Flying Frenchies, a pair of French guys who started a company of base-jumping and high-lining. Added into the mix is the inclusion of Jossi Wells, who starts training with the Frenchies to be able to cross a zipline in the French Alps.

Fraser creates a typical documentary set up in the start, detailing a bit more about Jossi and how he got into sport before switching the film's focus away from this and more into the psychology of extreme sports and whether it's man's desire to push the edges and visit the void.

That's potentially some of the problem with The Free Man, in that it doesn't quite seem to know what exactly it wants to be as it unspools. Loaded with slightly po-faced questioning and voiceover that equates the director to those walking a high-wire, The Free Man's philosophical edges may be enough to put some people off.

However, what helps it, is the incredible footage of extreme sports and also the camaraderies that emerge from between the Frenchies and Wells.

Using a locked off camera and some truly vertigo-inducing shots, Fraser manages to spin out some magnificently existential moments as you end up questioning why people are doing this. It doesn't quite get into the psyche as well as perhaps it intends to do, but The Free Man reminds once again of the adrenaline thrill that people get from being involved in such pursuits.

Perhaps if The Free Man had had a slightly tighter focus on perhaps just one angle and one group, it may have been a more precisely delivered documentary; as it is currently, its thoughtful edges and desire to create metaphors mean it feels a little tonally jerky, almost as if it's caught on its own high wire of being.

Claire's Camera: NZIFF Review

Claire's Camera: NZIFF Review

Director Hang Sang-Soo's latest may purport to be a representation of crossed lines and the relationships between men and women, but it's a bit of a struggle despite its brief running time.

Set in Cannes, and filmed there when its stars were promoting Elle and The Handmaiden in 2016, it stars Isabelle Huppert and Kim Min-hee as two people who cross paths at the Croisette.

Huppert is Claire, who finds Min-Hee's Jeon wandering around the streets. Armed with a camera, Claire is sauntering around Cannes taking pictures; Jeon meanwhile has been fired from her job managing film sales by her boss for reasons unknown to her, but which relate to her being dishonest.

As the two meet, three different perspectives collide.

Claire's Camera will appeal to those who enjoy Sang-Soo's rambling free-wheeling approach to movie-making, but this latest struggles a little with stilted dialogue which is further exacerbated due to language barriers.

Huppert's English along with Min-Hee's reactions make the film a difficult road to negotiate sometimes, and while Min-Hee manages to convey more of the turmoil with her subtle reactions, it's a hard road to grasp anything with Claire's Camera, other than sagging frustration.

It may be lovingly shot, an ongoing thread of Sang-Soo's directorial eye and a take on perception in the workplace, but Claire's Camera feels frustratingly underwhelming and bizarrely, overlong despite its 69 minute run time.

Ultimately, this may solely be one for purists of his form and art, and while the gradual reveals of what has occurred give a level of interest, the halting stuttering stops make it harder to maintain that level.

Marjorie Prime: NZIFF Review

Marjorie Prime: NZIFF Review

Initially reminiscent of a premise from Black Mirror, Experimenter director Michael Almereyda's Marjorie Prime is more a story of the cadences of reflections and memories than a sci-fi warning as its premise may suggest.

Holographic companions inhabit homes keeping people and memories alive for those left behind.
One of those is Marjorie (veteran actress Lois Smith) whose companion Walter is a younger version of her husband and whose interactions help with the demons of dementia.
Fussing around is her daughter (Geena Davis) who's wary of the tech and her husband (Tim Robbins) who believes the tech has a purpose.

What initially promises to be a spiky clash of beliefs melts into a reflective discourse on memories, their continuation and their place in the face of ageing and ultimately, death. Almereyda's desire to stack the deck with a mournful tone and a shifting of timelines brings varying effects to the film and will largely be as resonant as the mood you're in.

Dialogue heavy and with philosophical ruminations, Marjorie Prime is slow cinema. With Micah Levi's string heavy score piercing through the tone and building it further, the edges come a little more to the fore.
"The more we talk, the more real it will be," is a line spoken by one human to a prime hologram and there's certainly a feeling that the discussion and nature of memory is what propels this through.
But what also grounds it are the concerns we all share and the fears we all face as time goes on.
While the vignettes and interactions are the main driver of this, an excellently underplayed cast help bring large swathes of it to life, even when the pace slows to a near crawl.  Surrendering to the melancholic and maudlin rhythms and applying your own beliefs will mean you get the most from Marjorie Prime -it'll certainly help spark a discussion and a re-examining of one's self afterwards.

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Win a double pass to see ATOMIC BLONDE

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An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.

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Rated:  R16: contains graphic violence, sex scenes, offensive language and nudity 

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