Film Festival Top Ten 2010

We asked Anders Falstie-Jensen of the NZ Film Festival for the top ten picks you must-see in the 2010 film fest. Here are the highlights...

Exit through the Gift Shop
UK 2010, 86m
A Banksy film
Festivals: Sundance, Berlin 2010
Exit through the Gift Shop bills itself as “a Banksy film” and “the world’s first street art disaster movie.” If it is indeed directed by the artist who goes by the name of Banksy, it is one of the most inspired, adroit, hilarious debut features ever (please quote this on the poster), but one should expect no less from the mystery man who printed Lady Diana £10 notes, painted nine graffiti images on the Israeli West Bank barrier wall, and placed an inflatable effigy of a Guantánamo prisoner in Disneyland.

"These and many other profoundly political works, executed with great panache, are glimpsed in the movie, which also includes many freshly minted Banksy aphorisms, seemingly uttered by a darkly clad figure whose face is digitally concealed and whom I believe to be the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde. Some Sundancers speculated that Exit through the Gift Shop was helmed by Spike Jonze, and for a minute I suspected, based on the Rhys Ifans voiceover narration that recalls Velvet Goldmine, that Todd Haynes had a hand in it. However it came into the world, it is a joyous addition to the potential catalogue raisonné of the artist who turned Warhol inside out by proving that anonymity is cooler and more difficult to sustain than fame." — Amy Taubin, Film Comment.

“Commentators for the Times, National Public Radio and elsewhere have become hypnotized by the question of whether this fascinating and often exciting film about the global rise of guerrilla art, Banksy's own career as a provocateur and the genesis of a sub-Banksy pop artist called Mr. Brainwash might itself be some kind of meta-fictional Banksy prank. I felt some of the same anxiety after first seeing Exit through the Gift Shop a few months ago at Sundance, but I now think that reaction dramatically misses the point of the film. Banksy offers a heady and hilarious voyage through the underworld of contemporary art that poses all kinds of puzzlers about the role, meaning and context of allegedly subversive art in a consumer society.” — Andrew O’Hehir, salon.com
In English and French, with English subtitles.

After the Waterfall
New Zealand 2010, 94m
Director: Simone Horrocks
This close dramatic study of a bereaved father’s devastation and recuperation marks a boldly individual directorial debut for Simone Horrocks and a thorough triumph for actor Antony Starr. He plays John Drean, a forest ranger living close to Piha with his wife, who hasn’t integrated quite so happily into the tiny isolated community, and their bright spark of a four-year-old daughter, Pearl. When Pearl disappears suddenly, possibly irrevocably, everything else that defined John’s life begins to disappear too. Horrocks concentrates her film intently on his existential crisis – and on Starr’s startling self-effacement, inviting us to consider what remains dormant when a person loses everything. As the award-winning shorts she made in the UK already made apparent, she’s a filmmaker in a distinctly European mode, adept at capturing psychological complexity in amazingly exact and intimate flickers of sensation, mood and emotion. — BG

There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho
New Zealand 2010, 80m
Director: Briar March
“Filmmaker Briar March made a memorable New Zealand International Film Festival debut in 2004 with her remarkable inter-generational portrait of two artists, Allie Eagle and Me. She's spent much of the intervening time along with producer Lyn Collie making a documentary about the people of a Takuu, a tiny low-lying atoll in the South Western Pacific where the impact of climate change becomes increasingly apparent with every rising tide. The film centres on the varied responses of three of the islanders to the crisis. There are those on Takuu who see the hand of God in the relentless erosion of their environment while others are more inclined to pay attention to the analysis and concerned advice of visiting scientists. Meanwhile the Papua New Guinea government proposes to move the population, with its distinct language and Polynesian island culture, to the sugar fields of Bougainville. The intimacy of March's encounters with her subjects makes this confrontation with a global crisis a vividly personal one. If there's truth in the claim that people will only begin working to counteract climate change once it affects them personally, then this quiet evocation of a tiny, vital civilisation under threat should bring that moment closer for anyone who sees it.” — Bill Gosden



Agora
Spain 2009, 127m
Director: Alejendro Amenabár
Festivals: Cannes (Out of Competition), Toronto 2009
“Audiences at Cannes cheered Amenabar's film about Hypatia, the first female mathematician and philosopher known to history. And for classics nuts it is as must. Classicists are going to have a field day with Alejandro Amenábar's Agora, which premiered yesterday at the Cannes film festival. Starring Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, the 4th- to 5th-century Alexandrian astronomer, philosopher and mathematician, who was brutally killed by an angry Christian mob, it avoids some of the pitfalls of movies set in the ancient world. The characters behave naturally and speak normally, without either jolting archaisms or ridiculous anachronisms, and the world that has been created to stand in for Alexandria – a huge set on Malta – works well, with minimum CGI nastiness and an obvious attention to historical detail. The costumes and the ‘look’ of the characters was based on Romano-Egyptian mummy portraits, said Amenábar at his press conference, and that was deftly done…. Hypatia has symbolised much in her after-life, but for Amenábar she is chiefly an anti-clerical heroine; an Enlightenment martyr. She stands in the film as a calm centre around which religious fanatics whirl violently, inhumanly and cruelly. Amenábar was perfectly upfront on Sunday about how the material gave him ‘the chance to make a film about today’.” – Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian



The Ghost Writer
France/Germany/UK 2009, 126m
Director: Roman Polanski
Festivals: Berlin 2010
Best Director, Berlin Film Festival 2010
“Why did Tony Blair, in his ten years as Prime Minister, do exactly what the White House wanted on so many occasions? That’s the juicy question buried in the depths of Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, an extraordinarily precise and well-made political thriller – the best thing Polanski has done since the seventies, when he brought out the incomparable Chinatown… The Ghost Writer offers not the blood and terror of Polanski’s early work but the steady pleasures of high intelligence and unmatchable craftsmanship – bristling, hyper-articulate dialogue and a stunning over-all design that has been color-coordinated to the point of aesthetic mania. Working with the British writer Robert Harris, whose 2007 novel, The Ghost, serves as the basis of the movie, Polanski fed the political material – troubling stuff about rendition and CIA collaboration – into the mazy convolutions of a neo-Hitchcock story. He presents the entire movie from the restricted point of view of a likable young man, a hard-drinking, cash-poor writer (Ewan McGregor), who has been hired to finish the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a former Prime Minister clearly modelled on Blair. The writer, who is known in the credits as ‘the Ghost’ (he is never named – the P.M. calls him “man”), is not the first to work at this job. The previous ghostwriter has been found dead on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard, near the house of Lang’s publisher, where the P.M. and his entourage have gathered to work on the book. The Ghost is in trouble from the beginning, and he knows it, but he needs money and self-respect, and he forges on…” — David Denby, New Yorker.

I Am Love
Io sono l’amore, Italy 2009, 119m
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Festivals: Venice, Toronto 2009
“From the opening titles, which sweep the screen as they might in a long-lost Visconti film, I Am Love, bewitches its viewers as thoroughly as any of its central characters seduce each other. Set among a bourgeois industrial family in Milan beset with sibling rivalry, power jockeying and erotic undertows, I Am Love, updates Visconti for the Berlusconi aristocracy of fashion, food and globalization, while never losing touch with a core operatic intensity. In her most absorbing performance since Orlando, Tilda Swinton plays a Milanese magnate’s Russian trophy wife who realizes the emptiness of her existence once her children leave the nest. A chance meeting with her son’s best friend, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), sets her on a collision course with propriety. The conflagration of attraction summons classical parallels, but in cinematic terms it’s up there with Antonioni and Monica Vitti or Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. Luca Guadagnino brilliantly directs the wonderfully sophisticated script cowritten with Barbara Alberti. Yorick Le Saux’s camerawork, meanwhile, dazzles in its sweep from baroque splendor to the precise gesture – Swinton’s hand swiftly wrapping a cord at the dinner table, as if her unraveling world could be rewound – or the Lawrencian splendor of nature in San Remo. Guadagnino has an ear as much as an eye, and boldly incorporated compositions by John Adams while gambling (successfully) on winning the composer’s permission afterward. That audacity carries through to every element of this superb melodrama, a film that reimagines the form with bold originality and not a hint of irony.” — B. Ruby Rich, San Francisco International Film Festival
In Italian, Russian and English, with English subtitles



I Killed My Mother
J’ai tué ma mère, Canada 2009, 100m
Director: Xavier Dolan
Festivals: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight), Toronto, Vancouver 2009; Rotterdam, New Directors/New Films 2010
Best Canadian Feature, Vancouver International Film Festival 2009
“The turbulent relationship between a mother and a son unfolds with a compelling combination of savage fury and melting affection in I Killed My Mother. A stunning, semi-autobiographical tour de force from writer/director/producer/performer Xavier Dolan, it is a film with the sting of shrewdly observed truth… To say that 16-year-old Hubert (Dolan) and his mother Chantale (Anne Dorval) have a love-hate relationship is a gross understatement. They fight and revisit old wounds with the same relish as George and Martha in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?. Hubert is a petulant, floppy-haired adolescent who has grown to hate every single aspect of his mother’s life from the messy way she eats to the horrible fashion faux pas that constitute her wardrobe. He isn’t shy about telling her. Arguments become shouting matches with Hubert displaying the kind of uncontrollable rage that would have done the late Klaus Kinski proud. “ We used to talk, “ murmurs his mother. “ I was four and had no one else,“ he roars back at her… Dolan is only 20 but shows great maturity and assurance as a filmmaker in the way he captures both sides of this complex relationship… I Killed My Mother succeeds so well because it reflects a truth about human relationships that any viewer can recognise. The bond between Hubert and Chantale may be more extreme and exaggerated than most but in the pettiness, manipulations, reconciliations and heartache it expertly conveys the way we all have the ability to hurt the ones we love the most.” — Allan Hunter, Screendaily
In French with English subtitles



I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive
Je suis heureux que ma mere soit vivante, France 2009, 90m
Directors: Claude Miller, Nathan Miller
Festivals: Venice 2009
“In the hands of veteran French filmmaker Claude Miller and his son Nathan, a real-life incident in which an adolescent boy attempted to murder his birth mother becomes a fascinating drama of failed parenthood, whose scope goes far beyond the immediate implications of the real case… The audience is introduced to Thomas straight away, first as a five-year-old child, then as a rebellious adolescent, and finally as a deeply wounded, angry young adult (splendidly played by Vincent Pottiers). Born out of wedlock to a happy-go-lucky, hopelessly irresponsible teenage mother, Julie Martino (Cattani), he is given up for adoption as a toddler with his even younger brother (from a different father) and taken on by a music teacher (Citti) and her invalid husband (Verhoeven). But from very early age Thomas becomes obsessed with his own origins; he feels unwanted and a the same time desperate to belong. He rejects his adoptive parents, runs away to a boarding school, and using a folder he found at home, tries to find his natural mother… Thanks to richly sensitive performances from both Pottiers and Cattani, a myriad of painful aspects relating to the maimed relationship between an immature mother and her estranged son come quite naturally to light. Citti’s warm personality, meanwhile, offers an alternative which Thomas fails to exploit. Though there were two Millers behind the camera in this case, judging by the results, they acted as one…” — Dan Fainaru, Screendaily
In French with English subtitles

Bill Cunningham New York
USA 2010, 84m
Director: Richard Press
Festivals: New Directors/New Films, San Francisco 2010
Photographer Bill Cunningham, well into his ninth decade, has two weekly columns in the “Style” section of the New York Times: On the Street, where he identifies fashion trends as he spots them emerging on the street; and “Evening Hours”, his coverage of high society charity benefits. His work constitutes a long-running chronicle more reliable than any catwalk of fashion as expression of time, place and individual flair. This documentary introduces us to a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own lovely, unassuming grace. — BG. “The movie charms by bringing you into the private world of a man who would clearly prefer you direct your attention at the glorious, gaudy beauty embodied by the passing human parade that he immortalizes – and insistently democratises – with lightning-fast moves and palpable joy. Despite his proximity to fashion’s power elite (hello Anna Wintour!), Mr Cunningham retains a remarkable innocence. Fashion is his muse, not the manufactured glamour and celebrity fetishism that often pollutes it.” — Manohla Dargis, NY Times

Carlos
France/Germany 2010, 330m
Director: Olivier Assayas
Festivals: Cannes (Out of Competition) 2010
In English, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, Arabic, Russian and Hungarian, with English subtitles
This extraordinary three-film epic, made for French television, was showcased out of competition in Cannes to a storm of acclaim. “Bravura narrative filmmaking on a hugely ambitious scale, Carlos is a spectacular achievement. Tracing the rise and fall of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez [popularly known as Carlos the Jackal], the Venezuelan terrorist whose pro-Palestinian activities earned him global notoriety in the 70s and 80s, Olivier Assayas' sprawling yet incisive three-part epic compacts some 30-odd years of history into almost six hours of thrilling, kinetic, psychologically revealing portraiture… Dense in detail, rich in verisimilitude, displaying a focused grip on its material and fully trusting a smart audience to keep up, Carlos is, at 5 1/2 hours, a marvel of concision, and for all its nonstop globe-trotting and language-switching, its energy rarely flags.” — Justin Chang, Variety. “Dynamic, convincing and revelatory… In what is certainly his best work, French director Olivier Assayas adopts a fleet, ever-propulsive style that creates an extraordinary you-are-there sense of verisimilitude, while Edgar Ramirez inhabits the title role with the arrogant charisma of Brando in his prime. It’s an astonishing film… Carlos enters deep and dangerous waters as it takes on biography (of a still-living figure), international politics, terrorism, history, religion, sex and much more and handles all the issues with staggering dexterity, intelligence and skill.” — Todd McCarthy, indieWIRE
Please note special reduced per-film prices apply. Late confirmation has confined this film to a suitably comfortable but low-capacity digital venue, so bookings are strongly recommended.

New Zealand International Film Festival 2010 Dates

Auckland, July 8 – 25

Wellington, July 16 – August 1

Dunedin, July 23 – August 8

Christchurch, July 29 – August 15

Palmerston North, August 5 – 22

Hamilton, August 12 – 29

Napier, August 18 – September 5

Tauranga, August 26 – September 8

New Plymouth, September 2 – 15

Nelson, September 9 – 23

Greymouth, October 4 – 10

Masterton, October 13 – 27

Gisborne, October 28 – November 10

Whangarei, November 4 – 17

www.nzff.co.nz