The Ice King: NZIFF Review

The Ice King: NZIFF Review

A doco that's as much about showing the balletics of ice skating as it is interested in delving into its protagonist's torture, James Erskine's The Ice King celebrates John Curry.

To be frank, he's possibly a name that's less familiar to some, but Erskine's fulsome piece could ensure that changes - and Curry becomes known more about his ice-capades than being thrust into the spotlight after securing a gold medal at the 70s Olympics and coming out "off the record."

Using voiceover interviews, rather than endless talking heads, and with letters from Curry himself helping to sell and tell the story, The Ice King is not really your traditional documentary and also not really your traditional sports story.

"Whatever greatness I possess, there are demons of equal value" is a phrase uttered twice in this piece, and it becomes clear that Curry's life is haunted, blighted by reaction from his father to his desire to learn ballet and by the melancholy which hits his life as it goes on.

Interestingly though, Erskine only really ever skates around the issue of the depression and it comes more strongly to light in the back half of the film where Curry's time outside of the skating spotlight and as he toured with his own company becomes more relevant.

It's helped little by the fact hardly much archive material of Curry's skating exists, so there are times when it feels like the film dwells too long on one performance. And yet, watching Curry at work, is mesmerising, a confluence of skill and desire, sadness and loneliness all wrapped up in one performance (regardless of whether it's handheld footage from an audience, or intercutting ballet with his interpretation of the similar).

Erskine uses reasonable aplomb to pull the story together, and this Storyville entrant is certainly solid enough, but while it's balanced and compact, it never fully feels like the rub of the man is actually fully exposed.

It's a muted piece, that enlightens and enthralls occasionally, but never fully grips when the spotlight shifts from what Curry could do on the ice - at the end, he still remains an enigma to the audience.

Holiday: NZIFF Review

Holiday: NZIFF Review

An icy debut from Danish director Isabella Eklöf, Holiday's message is kind of clear - power corrupts.

Victoria Carmen Sonne is Sascha, who finds herself in an Aegean holiday, complete with all the trappings. That is to say, if the trappings come from the dirty money world of gangsters.

Under a bad blonde dye job, Sascha initially seems uneasy over settling in to gangster Michael's criminal family and slightly 18-30 tacky holiday world. But as the film progresses, she goes deeper in, her uncertainty mirrored by a burgeoning friendship with Tomas, an innocent holiday flirtation outside of the family.

Bling, Bodrum and bodies may shimmer in Holiday, but there's an iciness to this film which is maintained throughout. The sun may shine, and everyone may appear to be having a good time, but nastiness is never far away, implied often more than an implicit.

Except for two scenes which set the rest of the film apart and which form the crux of what happens - spoilers prevent discussion, but the repugnancy of both makes for difficult viewing, that opens up much of a window into Sascha's world.

Isabella Eklöf has fashioned something both difficult and obtuse here, a startling film that really only has Sascha, Michael and Tomas in its frame. Other characters seem extraneous to events around them, details of them ignored and not fleshed out - a sign that nothing matters but what this gangster’s trophy girlfriend is undergoing.

Essentially riffing on power corrupting, the corrosion of criminals and the tentacles of ugly despair wrapping around them all, Holiday is trippy at times, sickening in others. The wallops don't come till near the end, with Eklöf maintaining the dread as much as is necessary, but never holding back.

Holiday seethes - and in parts too, the audience may do so as well.

Stray: NZIFF Review

Stray: NZIFF Review

Mixing in elements of Starred Up, the landscapes of New Zealand and edges of last year's great festival hit God's Own Country, Dustin Feneley's strikingly sparse Stray is a ferocious debut.

Focussing in on Kieran Charnock's Jack who finds himself on parole for GBH, it's the story of one man's attempted escape from the confines of his own tortured demons and prison. Trapped in central Otago and taunted by something within, Jack's routine is one of isolation above all else.

But that changes when he returns home one night to find Grace (Arta Dobroshi) in the woods - in one of the film's rare scenes of action. She's seeking refuge and Jack reluctantly agrees to provide shelter...

Stray is a feature in no hurry to get where it's going and it's all the better for it.

It takes at least half of the film before the protagonists meet, and there are very few words spoken, though Charnock offers up some extreme subtleties in how he changes his interactions when there's someone else, someone unknown in his orbit.

But it's in his interactions with others that the true pain starts to emerge, and Charnock channels the unease well. Equally Dobroshi, with her unfamiliarity and unease gives Grace an edge that makes their connection understandable and natural.

Feneley's made the film a lighting dream; from the clear crisp shots of the outside mountains to moments of intimacy within the cabin, the screen is rarely looked more enticing. The South Island's rarely looked better either, a combination of both desolation, isolation, beauty and despondency all wrapped up into one big screen parcel.

Its ending may seem abrupt and potentially up for debate, but Stray's connection and capability for exploring the human connection makes this debut a tenacious one and marks Feneley out as a Kiwi talent to watch.

American Animals: NZIFF Review

American Animals: NZIFF Review

A sizzling and hyper-stylised drama that blends heist aesthetics and thrills with contemporary interviews, Bart Layton's American Animals is a slick film that grips and pulses from the outset.

Assembling a clutch of young actors (including American Horror Story alum Evan Peters and The Killing of a Sacred Deer's Barry Keoghan), it's the story of Spencer Reinhard (Keoghan) and his part in a library heist which took place at Transylvania University in Kentucky in 2004.

Despite the fact he has everything he needs in life, but bemoaning the fact that he's after some kind of life-altering experience to change him as an artist, Spencer forms a friendship with a hyper Warren Lipka (Peters).

Hitting on the idea to rob the library's rare book collection and its multi-million dollar haul, Warren and Spencer recruit two others to their plan - and start pulling together a heist.

Jumping between interviews of the real people involved and the drama, with moments of fourth wall breaking and unreliable narrators, American Animals' aesthetic and vibe seizes from the outset.

Layton assembles the pieces with the same kind of compelling bravura we witnessed in his doco The Imposter, but never loses sight of the two main leads in all the action.

Bringing the kind of tension that was missing from the recent Ocean's 8 film, the heist preparations excel - a swirling interplay of ideas executed in the head benefitting from taut editing and a pulsing soundtrack of music. It's a perfect insight into the minds of those involved over how it should play out, and for an audience, it's never less than gripping.

To say more about American Animals is to betray the sense of what plays out, a bastardisation of the American dream and a warning that nothing comes for free - even with talent. But Layton's less focussed on the themes of the piece, laying them out for subtle watchers to pick up on.

He's more interested in providing a film that thrills, in a format that makes the very best of docu-drama, with the emphasis on the drama. It helps the general idea of the heist is so audacious and the premise so compelling, but what American Animals also does is deliver two impressive turns in Keoghan and Peters.

Peters displays the intensity we've come to know from AHS but gives his Warren a kind of gleeful Joker style mania, the kind of guy you'd want to hang out with at a party. Keoghan, meanwhile, gives Spencer a feeling of being lost, an artist struggling to find their voice, and a would-be criminal struggling with his moral compass.

Throughout American Animals, the queasily compelling mix works incredibly well; the slick stylish piecing together of the elements of the drama and the documentary add much to what transpires - a portrait of the dispossessed and the bored - but it also gives the audience a thrill ride that has as much substance as it does style.

Lean On Pete: NZIFF Review

Lean On Pete: NZIFF Review

An entirely heart-breaking film that keeps its feet firmly on the ground, 45 Years director Andrew Haigh's Lean On Pete will destroy you if you have any sense of empathy.

Newcomer Charlie Plummer delivers a delicate and fragile turn as Charley, a kid who's been around the traps thanks to a dad who keeps moving about and thanks to a mom who abandoned them when he was younger.

Settling in Portland in the latest of their travels, Charley's drawn to a local race track, where he strikes up a working relationship / surrogate father relationship with Steve Buscemi's been-round-the-tracks Del and one of Del's horses, Lean On Pete.

Intuitively bonding with Pete as he's the outsider, the sensitive Charley grows closer to the horse, despite Del's insistence he's not a pet, and begins to realise the horse is being over-worked.

With things on the home front facing crisis point and with Lean On Pete's future uncertain, Charley makes a fateful decision, feeling cornered and with only one place to go, setting in motion a chain of events.

Lean On Pete reeks of empathy and delicacy; with a turn from Plummer that's nothing short of sensationally sensitive, Charley is a kid who's fallen and is falling through the cracks. Wisely, Haigh underplays his hand, with the social commentary coming through later on in the piece, but early on, the film shows disparate families growing and societies forced to make decisions out of economic necessity.

But Lean On Pete's strength lies in the way the message is handled, rather than its delivery; it's a tale of outsiders in society all throughout, anchored by a vulnerable lead who heads off on the old American road trip for soul-destroying reasons more than anything else. It's in the subtleties it finds its power, and it's in its delivery of them that Lean On Pete soars.

Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny and Travis Fimmel make for good bedfellows in this, each an American hit by the reality of life, but it's Plummer who's searing and sensational throughout. As Charley, he has to do a great deal of the lifting, but every chance he gets Plummer steals it (literally in parts), ensuring that his character is wracked with guilt and doubt throughout but is never anything other than relatable.

There may be a social commentary on current America here, but Haigh doesn't dwell on it, simply choosing to depict the reality and blessing the film with some stunning vistas and some unfussy and uncomplicated horse racing scenes.

Make no mistake, Lean On Pete will break your heart - it will have you reaching for the closeness of a family unit, and the uncomplicated love; but it will do a little more than that too - having you yearn for happiness for all, while simultaneously embracing the sadness of what life throws your way.

The Guilty: NZIFF Review

The Guilty: NZIFF Review

Taut, terrific and twisty, The Guilty's captive setting and lead man make director Gustav Möller's claustrophobic call centre flick one of the most compelling of the festival.

Nearing the end of his potentially last shift, Jakob Cedergren's policeman Asger Holm is a troubled man. With a court appearance the next day, press hounding him, and colleagues clearly less than enamoured with him, Asger appears to simply want to get it done, and move on.

A series of emergency calls come in - each more mundane than the next in his eyes, but each vital to those dialling for the help. Then a call comes in that sets his senses off - an apparent kidnapping.

With the clock ticking in real-time, Asger decides to go back to his policeman roots and try and solve the case....

To say much about The Guilty's reveals is to spoil the elements carefully placed together by Cedergren and director Möller.

Background pieces are trickled through, each dripfed when needed and each naturally inserted into the narrative rather than shoe-horned in. As Asger tries to piece together the kidnapping, the audience is left piecing together him - it's a fascinatingly compelling touch from Möller and one which is wonderfully played by Cedergren's subtleties. The smallest of looks here, the slightest of twitches of behaviour there reveal more than screeds of exposition ever could - and The Guilty sells it right down the line.

Möller also delivers some directorial flair into the setting as well - he refuses initially to show anyone other than Asger in focus, hinting at Asger's perception that others around him are worthy of his time and temperament. Asger himself is never pictured in anything other than close up until it starts to unravel for him - all demonstrating more about character than dialogue would ever achieve.

As a result The Guilty becomes a film that looks like it's destined for a Hollywood remake. Sure, it's got touches of Locke and Buried, but it's also got a panache that's all its own and a sleekness which sets it above many other entries.

Clever, compelling, and character-led, The Guilty is a festival must-see - a stripped back, pared down character piece that's almost Shakespearean in its tragedy. See it now, preferably Hollywood miscasts its lead in its remake.

The Cleaners: NZIFF Review

The Cleaners: NZIFF Review

If you ever wanted a reason to delete your social accounts and reassess your life, The Cleaners is that film.

Distinctly terrifying and definitely a sign of our depressing online times, The Cleaners turns its eye on those who police Facebook and other social channels by following five content moderators who reside in the Philippines and whose job it is to moderate what is out there.

With a daily target of some 25,000 pieces of image content to hit, these drones are understandably dead behind the eyes, their lives dictated by the flickering of the computer screen, the clicking of the mouse, and the soulless utterance of the phrases "Ignore" or "Delete" like some kind of zombie line control monsters.

"We're just like policemen," one of them intones as they enter a faceless building to begin a thankless task of poring over beheadings, nudity, child pornography and other deviant material posted.

What directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck choose to do with this piece though is to scatter their stories (and their limited backgrounds) with those who want the material to be seen.

So a painting of a Trump picture with a small penis that went viral is approached from both sides - the moderator tonelessly reveals why it was removed and the artist who believes it's freedom of speech presents their case thousands of miles away.

What The Cleaners doesn't do is pass judgement - and maybe from time to time, it would be wise to see the decisions questioned and the higher-ups interviewed.

Certainly in cases where children's bodies are depicted washed up on the shores and where a very famous Vietnam picture is talked about being removed because of nudity and gentialia, there becomes a meatier debate to be had - but the directors don't seem to want to dive into it, which is a frustration, but a sign of the depressing world we appear to now inhabit.

There's plenty of debate to be had here, and perhaps the intention is to start some kind of discordant discussion, a rumination on what the big media players are doing to stifle free speech and how content moderators can't really be the last line of defence - especially when cultural differences are the major stumbling block and a one-size-fits-all mentality just doesn't wash.

Bleak in many ways, psychologically depressing for anyone who uses social media or deals with communities, The Cleaners maybe goes a little too skin deep on the implications for free speech and lets off the moderators who strongly believe "Algorithms can't do what we do."

A sobering story of electronics and social media over-taking the world we inhabit and the morals we should hold dear, The Cleaners is perhaps one of the most terrifying portraits of 21st Century online life ever committed to the screen.