Film Shapes

  Right, that was a fun four days. I'm going to run through the nine films I saw with some brief notes and a rating on each. Here goes. My Rembrandt   This documentary is a bit of a love letter to Rembrandt with the makings of a controversy bubbling underneath. The director, Oeke Hoogendijk, introduces us to Jan Six (pictured left) and his possible new discovery of a hitherto unknown Rembrandt. The story flicks around various eccentric collectors and it all looks fantastic but the film could have been a bit more focussed on the central issue - namely the veracity of the 'new' painting. For more on this film, see the longer review here . Desert One  This documentary, by esteemed filmmaker Barbara Kopple, tells the story of the failed attempt to rescue American hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran after the Iranian revolution in 1979. There are some good moments here (notably interviews with U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his Vice-President, Walter Mond...

This was the 7th film I saw at Revelation and it's a pretty amazing story. I reckon it shows Desert One how to take a balanced view of a historical event (but more of that later). The plan is to do a summary blog and pod of the festival in the coming days but for now, here's a full size review of The Jump . The story of Simas Kudirka plays out like a made for TV, cold war potboiler and would be hard to believe if it wasn’t historical fact. In November 1970, Kudirka, a Lithuanian sailor on a Soviet fishing boat, jumped onto a U.S. Coast Guard vessel while crew members of the two ships were conducting high level fishing discussions. Claiming asylum, Kudirka was initially hidden by the American crew, until orders came to hand him back to the Soviets. And this is only the beginning of the story. After Simas is returned to his vessel, his fate unknown to the West, word gets out and protests spark up throughout the U.S. These are led by the Lithuanian-American diaspora, who maintain...

This is one of six films I've seen so far at the Revelation Film Festival; four Thursday and two today, Friday. Yesterday was a hard slog, with the quality fluctuating between films but I'd say this was (just) the pick of them. I'm planning on a summary for the rest of the films I see (some animation tomorrow and three more films on Sunday). Anyway, carry on. My Rembrandt is a fascinating documentary about the first discovery of a painting from the Dutch master in decades. The director, Oeke Hoogendijk, has form in this field. Her films The New Rijksmuseum and Marten & Oopjen: Portrait of a Marriage deal with Dutch art in general, the latter film delving deeper into one thread from My Rembrandt. And here’s where the film suffers – the central storyline involving art dealer Jan Six and his ‘new’ find is shunted to the margins at times, the film showing us the admittedly beautiful Scottish landholding of the Duke of Buccleuch or the glitzy world of American collector, ...

The 23rd Revelation Film Festival runs from Thursday 10th to Sunday 13th Dec and there are some tasty looking films on offer. They mostly screen at the Luna in Leederville with some down in Freo at Luna on SX, and a couple at the Windsor in Nedlands. The Backlot in West Perth and Johnny Ma Studios in Maylands have a few things on the Saturday. The complete schedule can been found on the Revelation website (link above). I'm filling my card with some interesting looking features and docos, as well as an outing to the (FREE) Family Animation Explosion!, which is on at 10:30 every morning of the fest. It should be mentioned that all screenings are COVID restricted this year, so it's going to be a case of 'first in, first served'. It has taken me a fecking long time to choose which ones to see, but that's part of the fun of something like this. There are really too many to talk about here but especially notable films include locally (WA) produced, An Ideal Host and a 1...