The MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival, for those of you playing at home), was something I talked about going to every year. It was always, "Oh the festival is happening. I have to go check it out." Then the festival goes as quickly as it came.
But this year was different. I took a stand (...against myself?) and decided to go. I bought me a mini pass. This entitled me to any ten movies (excluding the opening and closing nights, which cost like $25 a ticket or something ridiculous like that) and three free 'day' sessions. So if utilised effectively, that's 13 movies for the handsome price of $110 (conc.)
Not too shabby.
Only catch though is that most of the movies (at least) I'd never heard of, so a lot of my choices were made at random. This could be good and bad. You go in not expecting anything at all, on some occasions not even knowing the plot. The strike rate, I'd say was about 50/50. But hey! When else am I gonna get the opportunity to see 13 (mostly) random movies, right?
The line-up included: 5 US films, 3 Korean, 1 Japanese, Russian, Danish, Romanian and UK. US heavy, I know. I couldn't be as adventurous as I had hoped. In my defence though, most of the US films, I had already heard about and wanted to see.
The movies were as follows (look these up on imdb.com, if you want more info):
- My Friend and His Wife (Korean) - Confusing. In a sense that, the actions taken by the characters are very hard to fathom. It's out of the norm and you ordinarily wouldn't expect people to act that way. I don't know if it's whether I missed something, or the Koreans have whacked sense of morality or what. It was weird.
- The Mourning Forest (Japan) - Festival-ly. Apparently it had rave reviews at the Cannes film festival and it's THAT type of movie. Slow paced, drawn out and hard to tell what it's trying to say.
- Bug (US) - Trippy. The most whacked out, tripped out, crazy ass thing I've seen. It's about paranoid schizophrenia. And it's so crazy it's almost humorous. But there was something so believable about it. Had decent actors.
- Black Snake Moan (US) - Gritty. One of my favourites from the line-up. Terrific performances and awesome soundtrack. More commercial for a festival film though.
- Rescue Dawn (US) - Duplicated. Had not soooo many movies like this been made, this would be awesome. However it's not original or creative enough to lift it above the other prisoner-of-war movies.
- Day Watch (Russia) - Fun. Completely enjoyable. It the 2nd installment of a trilogy. The fun part about this was the fact that the subtitles were almost "part" of the movie, so it was a bore having to read them.
- Woman on the Beach (Korean) - Random. In the same vein as the first Korean film. It's about love and relationships and all that, but it's totally random. Things happen but not much of it made sense.
- Fay Grim (US) - Mish-mesh. Comedy/espionage movie. The audience apparently found it hilarious. I didn't get it. Sure it was funny, but THAT funny? Had one of my favourite actors, Parker Posey, in it.
- The Boss of it All (Denmark) - LOL. This was so funny. Even with subtitles. Now that's rare. Being an European film, it doesn't have a what-you-would-expect ending.
- Interview (US) - Copycat. Another film that is similar to previous movies that you wonder why they bothered. Having said that though, this was made very well and actually pretty good. Just nothing new.
- Breath (Korean) - Finally. Third time lucky for the Korean pictures. lol. This was still very artsy and heavy on the 'deeper meaning' aspect, but it was quite well made and fairly enjoyable.
- Mister Lonely (UK) - Zzzzz. I don't know if the movie was shit or I was just tired, but I actually fell asleep in this one. I'll have to see it again to give it a proper judgement, but initial signs don't look good. lol.
- 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romania) - Brilliant. It's film making at it's best, particularly with a very difficult subject matter of illegal abortions in the '87 communist ruled Romania. It's the type of film that would garner awards.
As you can see, I was quite a busy boy. But it was so much fun. I'm ready to do it all again next year...provided I'm in the country, that is. :P
Much love,
Ipz.
2 comments:
You enjoyed watching the movies I enjoyed reading your comments. They are simply funny, I love them!!!
Suzi
ditto going in expecting nothing at all. best part about having no expectations is you're likely to come out surprised, and maybe too caught up, as in my case.
always find myself lost in the plot of the movie.
re MIFF, there was this absodoringly lovely little boy who acted in Home Song Stories. it was an Aussie film, and he came up onto stage to speak after the movie, along with the rest of the cast!
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