It’s Day 5 of NZIFF 2018 and I’ve already seen eight films. The most recent of these was the 12.30 screening of Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect, and within the first five minutes I was wondering if it was not too late for me to go back to university and study architecture. I wanted to from a reasonably early age, but then in high school I dropped maths for art, and was not eligible as a result, but I have spent my life designing things and building some too. The film also reawakened in me a desire to go to Dublin, and Ireland, where I have never been.
I write this almost three months after arriving in Aotearoa New Zealand, my third trip here in as many years, and by far the longest, and I have much I would like to record about it in this blog, but right now I want to talk film.
For the first time time I am joined by a friend who has come over to go to the festival too, and we have rented a two bedroom apartment right between the two cinemas showing all the films we have chosen. So far we have only dined out once, because it is much cheaper to cook here, and we are five minutes’ walk away from the organic food market in Wakefield Street. But I digress.
After arriving off the ferry from the South Island the day before the commencement of the festival and settling in to the apartment, we had only one film scheduled for the opening day, and it was also the film chosen as the opener of the festival, Birds of Passage, a Columbian film set in the 1970’s. It was a beautifully made film which initially did not give any hint of what was to come, which was in essence the story of what happened to some family groups when they got involved in making money out of the Americans’ insatiable hunger for marijuana. Unless otherwise stated, all the quotes about the festival come from the NZIFF official website, and the films I talk about are linked directly to it. About this one it says:
“A vibrant Colombian indigenous culture that’s survived centuries of colonisation takes on the 1970s drug trade in our visually and aurally astounding opener. Directors Ciro Guerra (Embrace of the Serpent, NZIFF16) and Cristina Gallego shake off the clichés of crime-war and imperialism and imbue their saga with surreal beauty and the elemental power of ancient proverb.”
I had initially booked 22 films for us (well, 22 for me and 18 for my friend P) but then he pointed out that I had only gone through half of the program – I had arrived at the schedule in the middle of the pdf version of the book and thought I was at the end but was in fact only halfway through, so when we had a chance we went through the rest and decided on some more, so unless I add further films before the end, that brings the total to 28 for me.
On Day 2 we had booked for The Wild Pear Tree, but added An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, which I had been attracted to immediately upon seeing that Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame was in it, and we had time to go home for a previously cooked dinner of rice and lentils and vegetables before the second one.
“The Wild Pear Tree is a gentle, humane, beautifully made and magnificently acted movie from the Turkish filmmaker and former Palme winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan: garrulous, humorous and lugubrious in his unmistakable and very engaging style. It’s an unhurried, elegiac address to the idea of childhood and your home town – and how returning to both has a bittersweet savour…”
After a late night, I was a little tired when it began and found myself nodding off several times early on, and a bit further in. I was not the only one, as I discovered later, but that had more to do with the movie’s gentle pace than anything else.
After dinner it was time for An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, an entirely different sort of a movie altogether, and it was great to hear Jemaine talk in his usual New Zealand accent despite the film being set in the US, with all the other characters American. “Clement refines his deadpan stylings to create a touching loner trapped in a world that treasures mean-spirited gags, while Plaza’s Lulu endows the movie with a soulful yearning that bolsters its goofiness with purpose… This otherworldly realm of a movie… adheres to a logic of total absurdity.”
Sunday was a big day, with three films (for me). The first was Maui’s Hook, at which a number of those involved in its making were present and two were available for a Q and A. I don’t do a lot of research about the films I see, as I like to be surprised, or at least, not anticipate too much, and after I have read a short blurb to decide whether or not I want to see it, I forget what has been said. So it was only when I heard a couple of people talking about remembering to bring their hankies that there was any reminder about what was to follow.
This wonderful film is a timely one, and should be shown everywhere. It is of special relevance in places where colonisation has displaced the original inhabitants and they are so often the victims of racism. It must have been a feat to mingle the acted part of the film with the real stories of the real people who had lost loved ones to suicide, but this works seamlessly at all times. The scenes are interspersed with damning statistics about the suicide numbers in Aotearoa and the rest of the world, including the shocking record that NZ tops the world for teen suicide. My hankie was in constant use.
“(Psychologist and film-maker Paora) Joseph’s film is purpose-built to change attitudes and provoke action. Post-NZIFF, as Māui’s Hook travels to selected community venues around the country it will be supported by suicide prevention workshops organised by Māori health providers.
‘Māui’s Hook is a courageous journey exposing the raw reality of pain, grief and loss for whānau in the aftermath of suicide; yet spiritually uplifting and healing for those involved, and the viewer too. It highlights how the solutions for addressing and preventing suicide in Māori communities, particularly rurally, will come from those Māori communities.’ — Dr Monique Faleafa, CEO Le Va, Pasifika health provider.
After a couple of hours for lunch and recovery, it was time for Leave No Trace, which was also attended by the director Debra Granik and lead actor Wellington local Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie.
Maybe it’s because I live in the bush, and have just been doing some wilderness tramping in Aotearoa NZ, but I loved this film. It opens in the woods, with father and daughter living a bare bones existence, living in a tent, collecting water via a canvas and lighting their fires the hard way. Like some of the other films I have been seeing, this a very contemplative film, allowing a lot of time for one’s own reflection, and focuses on a section of society that needs more of our attention and compassion. Why are they there? From whom or what are they on the run? I’m not going to say. Just see the film.
“Leave No Trace tactfully tells an equally heart-warming and heart-breaking story of the unconditional love shared between father and daughter. Foster and McKenzie deliver raw, tender, captivating and transcending performances. The bond between them isn’t only compelling, it is inspiring… A profound story about love, family, loyalty, understanding, and compassion.” — Tiffany Tchobanian, Film Threat
That night I went alone to Liquid Sky, a re-run of the 80’s film set largely in a club and apartment in New York. For people who weren’t very old or even born at the time it was set, it probably seemed quite trite in some ways. I hadn’t seen it before but given there was likely to be dancing amongst other things, I was not sorry I went.
Its premise was an unusual one – a flying saucer lands on the roof of the apartment where some of the main characters live. The extra-terrestrials are there to somehow absorb the oxytocin (though that name is not used) released by the brain during orgasm. Apparently, according to the German scientist who comes to New York to study this, the aliens target places where there is heroin, with (I think) the implication being that the orgasms are stronger in users.
There was a lot of psychedelia and extreme 80s fashion on show, as well as some of the hairstyles that we look at now and wonder how we ever could have wanted them. It was quite an experience.
“A quintessential artefact of 1980s New Wave, Liquid Sky looks and sounds sharper than ever in this 2018 4K restoration.
‘At last… Slava Tsukerman’s 1982 neon-fired New Wave New York alien sex-party punk-disco orgasm-as-revenge proto-electroclash feminist genderfuck is on screens in its finest form, scrubbed and crisp and gorgeous, ready to baffle, disquiet, thrill, and trigger… The tangerine skylines, sweat-slick club dancers, grubby-chic apartments, ubiquitous neon, lavishly asymmetrical hairdos and so-primitive-they-fascinate alien effects demand truly to be seen…
Liquid Sky has always been caught smack between delirious curio, avant-garde put-on, exploitation cheapie, and naive masterpiece. Today, it seems prescient… A singular vision of a twilight Manhattan haunted by the lost, the daring, the damned, the jonesing – and some aliens.’ — Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice
On Sunday there was just Breath. I had read Tim Winton’s book when it came out a few years ago and though I didn’t remember much about it I was keen to see the film, and was really pleased to hear Winton’s voice as the grown-up voice-over narrator, Pikelet. I cried every times there were waves and/or surfing, and also made involuntary sounds of wondrous admiration and incredulity at some of the waves that the were being caught, wishing I was there to catch some (but not the most enormous) of them. It too, was a period piece, set in the 70s, and supporting cast members included Richard Roxburgh and Rachel Blake as Pikelet’s parents, playing uncharacteristically conservative roles. This film will be loved or at least appreciated by surfers and non-surfers alike.
artsurfdance 