Breath: NZIFF Review

Breath: NZIFF Review

A typical coming-of-age tale told in a slightly atypical fashion, former The Mentalist actor Simon Baker steps behind (and in front of) the camera for this adaptation of Tim Winton's book.

Centring on two kids, Pikelet and Loonie (Samson Coulter, sensitive and thoughtful and Ben Spence, instinctive and amusing) growing up in Western Australia in the 70s, Baker's Sando serves as mentor to the duo, helping them take in the waves.

But Sando keeps pushing them to go further, despite the condemnation of his other half Eva (Elizabeth Debicki, in waif and distant form) - however, Pikelet's reticence tests the boundaries of friendship with Loonie and his mentorship with Sando, as well as his own family unit.

Breath is an intriguing piece, simultaneously feeling distant in some of its narrative parts and yet frighteningly cohesive in others, and after reflection.

Perhaps consisting of one too many slow mo surfing or at water shots, Breath can be forgiven its indulgence in the waves of the ocean, thanks to some truly impressive water shots by cinematographer Rick Rifici. Pulsing waves are shot from below the surface, each one bubbling by and each showing the tumult in the relationships; the symbolism is not lost.

Elsewhere, some narrative threads feel a little unexplored; a potential school girlfriend for Pikelet is more dalliance and distraction and family tensions are hinted at rather than endorsed further.

But it's herein that lies the rub for Breath. On reflection after the lights have gone up, these relationships are explored in the way a teenager may approach them - distance helps evaluate what's transpired and why it's that way. Certainly, the relationship between Eva and Sando appears an odd one, a couple of lost souls who've found each other and are ebbing in and out like the flow of the ocean - there's much in Winton's prose that hints and there's much in Baker's restrained direction that offers deeper connections when probed.

In the relationship between the sensitive Pikelet and the gregarious Loonie, Coulter and Spence gel well, each pushing and pulling the tensions where necessary; feeling naturalistic in many ways, and evocative in others, this is a relationship that needs no deeper dissection; it breathes on its own and works well because of it.

"I've never seen men do something so beautiful, so pointless and so elegant" intones Pikelet in his later years - but in many ways, he could be hinting at the relationships that come from growing up; in caressing the tensions, and the triumphs of youth and friendships, Breath inhales deeply on its intensity and strips away its own profundity in places.

Breath is at once a complex beast at times, and yet one that feels familiar and simple, elegiacally executed - in many ways, it's one NZIFF film that demands further introspection and re-examination.

Disobedience: NZIFF Review

Disobedience: NZIFF Review

For all the theology opening and the deep soaking of Jewish tradition in Disobedience, it has to be said there's scant depth to what Disobedience unspools in terms of character.

Rachel Weisz is Ronit, the black sheep of the Jewish family whose return is necessitated by the death of her father. But many are unhappy to see her back in England's drab and dreariness including Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) and his new wife Esti (Rachel McAdams).

But Ronit's return rekindles something in Esti - and soon the perils of the outsider are thrust deep within the community, threatening to reignite both old passions and even deeper hatreds.

Drab, dreary backgrounds pepper the dour proceedings to start off with - London's backdrops stultify and threaten to overcome Ronit's natural incandescences, a woman who threw off the shackles of tradition to the disappointment of all around her.

Certainly, the hints are laid early on, in some naturalistic dialogue that drops emotional bombs later on as the intense recoupling rebirths.

Director Sebastien Lelio gives life to the struggles of the outsider, but Disobedience rarely feels more than a chamber piece between Esti and Ronit; and with the third wheel of Dovid thrown in for good measure. It lives and breathes like a play, as it piles up small emotional stakes building them into greater barriers as time goes on.

Largely restrained, Disobedience benefits from tasteful touches, and passionate clinches - even if occasionally, they feel borderline to voyeuristic, something which in truth is more the fault of an audience investment in the outcasts storyline. The sense of longing, the sense of connection and the sense of duty all swirl in one potent mix, and while Disobedience's palette is one of dour dismal skylines, what bubbles beneath is fiery and difficult to quell.

But Disobedience never fully breaks out to rage against the patriarchal society, the Jewish clasp thrown down upon these women - it's a frustration muted into a quiet scream as events transpire, and while the film is perfectly adequately explored and extolled, it never once finds the emotion to send it soaring high and beyond - despite the threesome offering some truly strong performances.

Jirga: NZIFF Review

Jirga: NZIFF Review

Although it begins with soldiers taking a compound by storm in Afghanistan through the viewing lens of night time vision, Jirga's less a film about soldier bravura and more a film that's about one soldier wrestling with a conscience.

Former Home and Away alumnus Sam Smith plays Mike Wheeler, who, as the film begins, can be seen heading back to Afghanistan with a money belt secreted around his body.

It's no secret to reveal he's off to make amends for what happened in the raid mentioned above, but what Jirga is more interested in doing is a sort of parable about atonement and guilt - the religious allusions of which aren't lost by director Benjamin Gilmour sending his lead shambling through the desert at one point.

But if the path trodden by this clandestine drama (it was shot on the quiet in Afghanistan after permits were denied in Pakistan) is all too familiar in terms of its themes, its quiet splendour is obvious as the journey plays out.

It's sparse in extremis, but Gilmour makes good fist of the landscape, even finding a way to incorporate a pink flamingo pedalo into proceedings that contrasts nicely with the stark arid deserts all around.

"Forgiveness is better than revenge" is uttered at one point in the film, and Smith provides the internal conflict with a human face as the guilt becomes evident. There's a sense here that this is about giving voice to the human side of conflict, and as such, while admirable, aside from how the film is presented and shot, it's not a new conceit.

There are some narrative leaps - Wheeler manages to persuade his apparently violent captors of his benevolent journey when cornered, but Jirga never loses face or furore when the end comes. Granted, its profundity is more of the smaller variety than anything bigger, but that's perhaps Gilmour's intentions.

The power and the rawness of the eventual meeting between Wheeler and the family he's wronged may ache with reality, but by resisting a desire to overplay it, Gilmour and Smith make the film something a little different.

Not entirely successful in its execution (perhaps a sense of the denial of permits and the clandestine nature of filming muted some of the plans) and with very familiar themes, Jirga manages to achieve more than you'd expect with an almost spiritual level of commitment and debate all round.

You Were Never Really Here: NZIFF Review

You Were Never Really Here: NZIFF Review

Director Lynne Ramsay's thriller is bathed in brutality, but also beaten down in humanity.

A hooded, hulking and haunted Joaquin Phoenix is Joe, a hitman former veteran, whose specialty is saving children from sex rings.

Aside from the repugnance of his day job, Joe spends the time outside of the job looking after his mother, who's ailing and in need of care.

But when Joe's called in to a kidnapping of a US senator, what he believes is a cut-and-dry job turns into something a lot more personal - and potentially fatal.

Based on the 2013 Jonathan Ames' novel, Ramsay's sparsity with the camera work and the hallucinatory material within works masterfully for You Were Never Really Here.

It's aided by a sterling turn by Phoenix, whose intensity is suited to the anger contained within Joe as he dispatches his law-breakers with a hammer. But Phoenix also makes a case for real tenderness in terms of his interaction with his mother and also the victims of the child sex rings.

It's these touches which lift You Were Never Really Here out of the darkness that it inhabits.

Ramsay (who did We Need To Talk About Kevin) keeps things taut and interesting throughout - rather than fixating on the violent means of despatching, she angles the camera away from proceedings.

When Joe breaks into a hotel to free his victims, CCTV footage shows the scene but cuts just before the method of murder is revealed; equally a desperate fight on the floor is depicted through a ceiling mirror - it's impressive stuff that's not too showy, but very effective.

It helps with the disorientation too, as You Were Never Really Here has an overall feeling of thrilling wooziness as it plays out.

Greatly enhanced by a turn from Phoenix that keeps you riveted as the conspiracy plays out, You Were Never Really Here is as much of a trip for the audience as it is on screen.

It may be a trip to a seedy underbelly, but thanks to Ramsay and Phoenix, it's a trip that's well worth taking.

Minding The Gap: NZIFF Review

Minding The Gap: NZIFF Review

It's possibly fair to say that Bing Liu's debut documentary film was never planned to be anything more than capturing stolen moments of boys-being-boys, skateboarding and shooting the breeze in small town America.

But what emerges from the film, once it settles from its initial shots of kerb-hopping and open-road boarding and divests into life, is a fascinating, maddening and saddening portrait of what it means to be a boy, and how it is to grow up a man these days.

Thrusting the camera on Zack and Keire, and himself, Bing Liu's film finds a horrific connection that goes deeper than simply half-piping and boarding. Some of it comes from Zack feeling he's been forced into being a man, when his girlfriend becomes pregnant; and some of it comes from when Keire starts to feel lost, looking to his past for answers, and some of it comes from Liu himself looking to his past.

It may sound gimmicky but what occurs organically in this film is a wealth of paradigm shifts, each more subtle than the last, but each with more resounding consequences than are to be expected.

It's also a study of middle American life, of towns abandoned and of prospects unlikely; there's a depressing lyricism to what unfolds as the lads go from initial jackassing around on camera to waxing lyrical about where it went wrong or where it's going. Hope is randomly allocated in Zack and Keire's lives, but there's much to be gained from what seem to outside viewing like small victories for flighty spirits such as Zack.

Keire's trajectory is as interesting as Zack's too, as he faces what it means to be African-American in among his friends - in many ways, this is seismic stuff softly explored on the screen and subtly worth engaging with.

Minding the Gap is not a doco where bombs are dropped, more where hints of minor frustrations and realisations occur - but in their universality, these are compellingly and precisely told for the most part. There's a feeling one conflict is sadly left unexplored, but equally that confrontation is another consequence of friendship and boundaries.

Ultimately, Minding the Gap is a human take on where boys struggle with being men, and where toxic masculinity resides ; poignant, powerful and prescient, it's a documentary that lingers long after.

Pick of the Litter: NZIFF Review

Pick of the Litter: NZIFF Review

So, here it is - this year's Kedi.

Whereas the tale of Turkish kitties was a story of animals, their surroundings and the people that adopt them, Pick Of the Litter is an unashamed piece of furry kryptonite, determined to deliver some close ups of adorable puppies.

Choosing to follow five Labrador puppies as they undergo training for guide dogs for the blind in the USA is not the most taxing of intentions.

However, Dana Nachman and Don Hardy's documentary is unashamed in its desires and is oblivious to the notion of going deeper in this once-over-lightly piece that just about entertains for its 80 minute run time.

Primrose, Poppet, Phil, Potomac and Patriot are all born within the walls of a Guide Dogs building in California and all have the potential to change future owners lives. But not if they fail basic training and their puppy raisers don't meet the mark.

With a couple of the pups passed around different trainers, the interesting parts of the film and the dilemmas which reside within are largely ignored in a brisk and brutally cute piece that's aiming for Hallmark thrills rather than in-depth investigations.

Perhaps the more interesting and knottier elements of the film are dropped in amid the cutesier touches as the dogs are "career changed" (lingo for being moved out of the programme) and disappear from our immediate view.

Questions over the ethics of in-house breeding, what kind of a life that must be, the cost of doing it, both financially and emotionally for the organisation and more specifically the trainers are vaulted over at such speed that it's dizzying.

It's a shame as there are hints of some darkness here that are genuinely worth exploring, and which linger rather than being dug into. Some trainers have the dogs taken from them with a disconnect between the administration and the owners unable to be reconciled; issues over whether there are problems with expectations are hinted at - there's a lot more meat to be explored here, but doesn't get done so.

It's not to say that Pick Of The Litter isn't engaging - certainly, if you're an animal lover, you'll adore it, and you'll end up invested in which of the five pups - if any, given the high rate of failure - make it to the end of the training.

And there's certainly no denying the power of the simplicity of seeing the joy on new owners' faces and prospective lives being changed just by having a dog get through this.

But Pick Of The Litter is very much a once-over-lightly kind of pleasantly presented doco, that lacks deep insight but gives cutesy cuddles - not a bad thing for the winter months, but certainly there's a nagging feeling that a stronger documentary definitely lies within, waiting to be coaxed to the surface.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story: NZIFF Review

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story: NZIFF Review

Known to many only as a Hollywood icon, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is one of those docos that will change your perception of her.

Prevalent in the golden era of 1940s Hollywood, Lamarr lived another life, one which she was passionate about, but never really gained the recognition for.

And it's this doco by Alexandra Dean which sets out to correct her reputation and give her the kudos she deserves as an inventor.

It's not exhaustive by any means - however, it is concise and well-executed; coupled with what Dean does to expand greatly on it is flesh out the belief that Lamarr died without telling her story.

Helped by the discovery of a lost interview which literally sat by the bin, the mix of archival footage, candid clips, and a desire to reclaim her reputation, what emerges of Lamarr is not just a fascinating insight, but an intriguing piece of empowerment for those fighting against the perception of belief.

With a reasonable pace that never feels rushed or hurried, yet gives enough detail to flesh out the deserved yet ignored reputation, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story has some directorial flourishes to revel in.

Whether it's animations on black and white pictures or illustrations of past events, Dean creates a wider more engaging tapestry than perhaps the one-note historical perception of Lamarr.

It's a fascinating exploration of a woman undermined and gazumped by others, but one which also demonstrates the conflict over her own doubts of her place in the world.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story may start out seeming like a hagiography, fulsome in its praise for the actress, but the smart diversion into what her true calling was and how she remained dignified when all around abused it, is nothing short of inspiring and deeply admirable.