Film Shapes

The 2021 edition of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival was due to kick off on Thursday July 1st but sneaky Covid has put a temporary spanner in the works. At time of writing, the Perth & Peel Lockdown (catchy band name) is slated to end at 12:01am Saturday morning, July 3rd, meaning only two days will be cut from the front of the festival, possibly to be added at the end. Most films will be screening at the Luna in Leederville, with a few down in Freo (Luna on SX) and one or two at The Backlot in West Perth. As usual, there are some interesting looking films to gorge yourself on. The theme this year is 'Distant but connected' and as festival director, Richard Sowada told us, the changing face of the world under pandemic conditions also informed the choices in this year's schedule. He talked about styles and techniques being pared back and films becoming more story-focused and intimate. Listen to the pod below for details. Films I'm looking forward to ...

The lads from the Black Maria Film Collective organised a night at the Luna cinema in Leederville for their victims to see a double bill of The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds and Night Tide (entry to follow). I'd not heard of either of these films, nor had I heard of the guy slated to talk at the end, a fella called Jimmy McDonough (he turned out to be quite a bit more entertaining than the films, but onto them soon). There was a brief recorded intro by not so infant enfant terrible, Nicolas Winding Refn, the guy responsible for curating the films through his organisation, byNWR . And then the first 'film' began. When I say 'film', I use that word very loosely, in that Bert Williams (writer, director, producer, lead actor and occasional camera operator) used some form of cellulose to make this thing. The story, as far as I could make out, sees a tough cop (Williams) hiding in a swamp from some gang he has infiltrated. He stumbles upon an old hotel on an island (the nest...

Three Summers (or Três Verões ) is a film that deals with the corruption and class-based deprivation that seems to be rife in Brazil these days. The film, directed by Sandra Kogut, positions itself in the luxury mansion and resort style grounds of a filthy rich family and takes place over three summers (clearly). The neat trick is that it removes the family from the film in short order and leaves us with the staff - cooks, grounds-keeper, maids, dogsbodies and the head caretaker, Madá, played with near-annoying verve by Regina Casé.  Chasing up unpaid wages takes up most of their time but Madá sets about coming up with ways to make the mansion pay off. She runs boat tours of the bay (pointing out all the houses of crims - noting that if they punters can see someone at the house, they're most likely 'foreigners or football players'). The staff ransack the family clothes and heirlooms for a garage sale. The house is offered in a kind of Air BnB set-up and is even somehow ren...

Here's a tingling law-based cracker from The German Film Festival just finished here in Perth. It's peppered with European acting royalty - Rainer Bock, Heiner Lauterbach, Alexandra Maria Lara, even Franco Nero, whose imdb list of credits is so long I had to forgo the mouse wheel for the scroll bar. The lead though, is Elyas M'Barek who holds his own in this rarified air, some of his scenes with Lauterbach's Professor Mattinger are electric. M'Barek plays a novice lawyer (Caspar Leinen) tasked with defending a geezer, Collini (Nero), who has killed a famous businessman. Coincidentally, dead bloke raised Caspar after his parents split and he tries to extract himself from the case. Mattinger, his old college prof, (more coincidence or Berlin is smaller than I remember) convinces him to tough it out and rely on the law to do its thing. What follows starts out as a simple law case procedural, with childhood romances and nervy, early career stumblings, and soon becomes s...

The Backlot in West Perth hosted the Revelation media preview night with a screening of this starkly muddy film from Robert Machoian. It follows a couple of days in the separation of David (Clayne Crawford) and Nikki (Sepideh Moafi) in a bleak, cold town near some mountains in Utah.  The sound design is noticeable from the kick-off, with short bangs and slow drum rolls (?) hinting at something off screen, or about to happen. This may have been an attempt to discombobulate the viewer - it worked on me at any rate. It opens with a dude quietly holding a pistol at two people sleeping in a bed. He's clearly in two minds but then the toilet flushes and he scarpers. We soon see this is David, as he runs back to his Dad's house nearby. Here's an example of the functional, almost student-level cinematography that mars the film a bit for me. The camera shakily holds on his back as he runs along an empty road. All the way. It's a style that's repeated throughout, with extrem...

Not to be confused with Perfume: The Story of a Murderer from 2006 (based on the fine novel by Patrick Süskind), this is a charming little tale about bravery, acceptance and empathy. Oh, and smell of course. The 'nose' in the film is Anne Walberg, played with many blends by the great Emmanuelle Devos. She's a professional scent-maker, whose career at the top table has dried up (for reasons best kept under wraps) and is now hawking her nasal talents to factories trying to mask their emissions, or brand companies with bag odour issues. A chauffer, Guillaume, played by Grégory Montel, is tasked with driving her to and from these gigs and, after initial friction, a respect and a friendship develop. It reminded me of  The Intouchables , from 2011, a film widely lauded by most folk except me. As in that cliché-ridden film, Perfumes throws together two seemingly ill-matched characters and watches as they slowly wear down barriers between one another. There's a nice, platonic ...

I first heard about Minamata disease in a book called Japan - Behind the Lines by Ben Hills. It was a bit of an eye-opener (the whole book was, actually) as I'd just returned from 2 years living in Japan and was planning on a return. Most chapters in this book shone a grubby light on the politics of looking the other way and 'keeping face' in Japanese society - things the average language student doesn't really want to talk about. The cover up and complete misanthropy of the Chisso company is explored in this new film by multi-faceted artist Andrew Levitas. Long story short, this corporate dreck dumped toxic chemicals, including mercury, into a bay in Kyushu for years, causing birth defects, illness and death. When it came to light this was happening, the bigwigs hid the facts and denied responsibility. Sadly familiar.  This film retelling is pretty powerful stuff. The angle the filmmakers take is that of an outsider's awakening, Johnny Depp being that guy. He play...

Argentina’s economic problems of the early 21 st century don’t exactly sound like ripe ground for a knock-about heist film, but director, Sebastián Borensztein finds the space in this broad, yet affecting comedy drama. The title refers to a group of small town friends and neighbours, led by Ricardo Darin’s Fermin, who, in trying to offer hope to their lives, plan to revive an old factory. A quick whip around takes place and eventually about half the required funds are raised. Here is where the bank steps in. After agreeing to deposit all the money, in order to act as a guarantee against a bank loan, Argentina’s Corallito crisis hits. All US dollar accounts are frozen (with peso accounts severely restricted) and the Heroic Losers are suddenly bereft. This preamble makes up roughly the first act and events take a shift when it comes to light that a corrupt lawyer, with the help of the bank manager, has made a US dollar withdrawal moments before the government freeze occurs. Added to thi...