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MIFF - Day 05 & 06 

DAY 05

Film Screened: Nina
Time: 3:00pm
Type: Feature
Genre: Drama/Thriller
See it for: Possibly the lowest voice to ever come out of a woman on the silver screen
Avoid it if: You’re looking for impressive Manga cartoon intercuts ala Kill Bill.
Celebrity Sighting: None
Rating: 2/4

This was my first screening at the Forum Theatre and what a beautiful theatre it is! By far the classiest venue the film festival has to offer. I’ve never actually stepped inside the film theatre before although I’ve been to the main theatre for concerts and stuff. Hopefully, they’ll screen more movies there in the future. It’s awesome!

With the rain absolutely pissing down outside, today was a good day to stay inside and soak up the festival atmosphere. I didn’t expect this film to bring in a solid crowd but it seems anything at the festival this year is drawing numbers and this session was no exception.

Okay, I thought I was a movie geek by going to see 13 films this year but while I was waiting in the line, the people behind me had booked 56 sessions! Then another person joins the conversation and says they’re going to over 100! That’s every session booked, four films a day throughout the entire festival. I seriously couldn’t do that. It’s too much. Where’s the time to ponder and think about it afterwards?

Ultimately today’s film Nina was a bit of a letdown. It centres around the character of Nina, a poor, aggressive young woman who escapes life through a mixture of Manga cartoon’s during the day and clubbing by night. She lives with an evil landlord who has to win the prize of ‘deepest voice of a female character in a film ever!’. Nina’s biggest problem lies in its structure, with the second half going off on a tangent all of its own. The first half of the picture had promise, setting up the character and her morbid environment. The standout in the film had to be the scene of Nina going home with a blind man and doing a naked dance and rearranging his furniture to hilarious effect. But apart from that, the film is ultimately flawed. Had the filmmakers gone for a more complex and interesting story, it might have elevated it above the norm. But I can\rquote t say I can recommend this enough to see in the theatres.

DAY 06

Film Screened: Bright Leaves
Time: 5:00pm
Type: Documentary
Genre: Drama
See it for: A fascinating insight into one man’s heritage and life
Avoid it if: You think this is in the same vein as the recent documentaries (ala Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me)
Celebrity Sighting: Bloggers!
Rating: 4/4

Tonight was a good night all-round. The film I saw Bright Leaves was fantastic and I caught up with two fellow bloggers Beth and Lyn who were just the nicest people. If you ever get the chance to meet them, I guarantee you’ll agree.

Into day 6 of MIFF and I’m really starting to enjoy the entire vibe. Initially I was like “This is a little strange” but just hearing (and overhearing) people’s discussions on the films and their obvious passion for cinema is great. As a film fanatic, I felt like I could relate to some of the more specific comments such as “Christopher’s Doyle’s cinematography was just amazing in Hero” and “the score in Switchblade Romance was better than it should have been”. Most people don’t know or care what we’re all talking about but when everyone shares more or less the same opinions on the films, it’s a good environment to be in.

And so onto today’s film, Bright Leaves. Lyn wrote a review of this a little while ago from the Sydney Film Festival and I pretty much agree entirely with her thoughts (yet again!). I found it to be a welcome change from the current trend in popular documentaries in that it was fashioned in an incredibly personable manner rather than trying to cover the larger topics at hand. The film focuses on the North Carolina Tobacco industry and its history but Ross McElwee decides to paint a more human portrait and centre on his family history and how his great grandfather could have potentially inherited a fortune. Had this been made my Michael Moore, we would have seen a documentary on the effects of tobacco and corporate America but this wasn’t made by Moore. (Yes there are other documentary makers out there!)

McElwee tries to tie in a relationship between the 1950 Gary Cooper/Lauren Bacall film Bright Leaf and his great grandfather’s own story and what results is more satisfying than a simple, singular conclusion one might expect. He also touches on aspects of grandfather/father/son relationships, including the one with his own son. His approach may seem relatively straightforward and the conclusion unpredictable but I got the impression the film started to come together more so in the editing room since he obviously had countless hours of footage to choose from.

It’s full of humour too, such as McElwee’s friend who discusses her childhood growing up in North Carolina on camera only to be more mesmerised by the black cat in the garden causing trouble. McElwee doesn’t cut this moment because it’s ultimately more human than removing it. We also get to meet the ‘rabid’ resident film theorist at the North Carolina film school who totally misrepresents McElwee’s motivations for filming the documentary with totally hilarious effects. The countless moments of humour injected throughout the film also help you warm to McElwee’s dry sense of humour that if taken out of context, would probably leave you feeling a little distant.

This is definitely the most introspective film I’ve seen at the festival so far and also one of the best. Intimate, telling and individualistic documentary cinema.

Tomorrow’s Screening:

The political documentary Control Room. Been keen to see this one for quite a while now.