Revelation Film Festival 2024

Revelation Film Festival 2024 - Wrap up

Well, that brings an end to a fantastic edition of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival. I managed fewer films than I'd hoped due to a rough cold, but still got to see nine (plus one at the Programme Launch back in May). Spoilt for choice this year - I'll briefly run through my least to most liked:

The Primevals ★½

The story behind this film is more interesting than the film itself. Devised in the 70s, with principal photography done in Romania and Italy in 1994, it was finally released in 2023. A bonkers story about Yetis being genetically modified by lizard aliens (I think), this feels like a Ray Harryhausen stop-motion film from the 60s. It's really a vehicle for David Allen's puppet mastery, the bloke has some serious visual effects cred, but he doesn't cut it as a writer/director. I guess if it can produce a line like this - "The eyes of a dying giraffe can change a man." - then it can't be all bad.

Hundreds of Beavers ★★½

Very inventive, uber stupid animated reality about a guy who aims to win a woman's hand in marriage by killing loads of beavers (not real ones). It starts slowly, picks up about halfway through, but wears out its welcome soon enough. The absolute commitment to Road Runner style slapstick is to be commended. I just couldn't maintain the watching rhythm.

We Were Dangerous ★★★

1950s set drama about a group of 'incorrigible delinquent girls' in New Zealand who are sent to an island to prepare them for marriage and keep them out of trouble. There are some fine performances from the girls (Erana James, Manaia Hall and Nathalie Morris) and an OTT one from the matron (Rima Te Wiata). Nothing groundbreaking but it's a nice kick at old-fashioned conservatism.

So Unreal ★★★

This is a fun video essay on how technology is treated in film. Debbie Harry gives us a ripe voice over that probably does more harm than good. Most of the expected films are there but also some intrigues like Mindwarp, The Lawnmower Man and Looker. One for the film nerds.

The Man I Left Behind ★★★

Larry Towell is an experienced photojournalist from Canada with stints in Central America and the Middle East. This documentary, mainly shot by Towell himself, depicts his press gigs, sandwiched between his home life. Some of the footage is horrific, the landmines victims' prosthetic 'maintenance' sequence particularly shocking. A pretty important doco that just lagged a bit in its delivery.

Kid Snow ★★★½

Some traditional film making with this boxing drama about a pair of brothers touring the Aussie bush with a tent fighting troupe and a girl who gets stuck in the middle. Phoebe Tonkin is excellent as Sunny, the brothers Kid (Billy Howle) and Rory (Tom Bateman) are solid too. This flips the traditional sports movie trope of the underdog prevailing, and director Paul Goldman knows how to hit all the right beats. Shot mostly in Kalgoorlie, and the outback looks suitably dusty, if that's your thing.

Power Alley ★★★★

This is an extremely well made debut drama from writer/director Lillah Halla about abortion in Brazil. Fine performances from the young cast, who apparently improvised much of their dialogue, with special mention for the lead, Ayomi Domenica. The volleyball coach Sol (Grace Passô) is a standout too. Engaging and enraging cinema.

Hesitation Wound ★★★★

See separate review here.

Kinds of Kindness ★★★★

Great triptych from Yorgos Lanthimos with a clutch of actors (Jesse Plemmons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley) playing different characters over the three stories. I don't usually dig these composite films but this was an off-the-wall joy, especially the third part. Not many filmmakers have the power to provoke the sort of open-mouthed disbelief in the audience, not shock as such, more like a snort and a shake of the head, usually followed by a satisfied grin (in my case, anyway). Must complete the Lanthimos set one of these days.

Birdeater ★★★★½

The best film at Rev was the last one I saw. This Aussie drama about a young guy, Louie (Mackenzie Fearnley) who invites his fiancé, Irene (Shabana Azeez) to his buck's party weekend is a modern gem. Co-writer/directors Jack Clark and Jim Weir have tooled something special in their feature debut. It has echoes of Wake in Fright and Phantom Thread, and the exploration of toxic dependency is scathing and unsettling. The performances are mint with an especially fantastic turn from Ben Hunter as psycho mate Dylan. Atmospheric and assured, a very exciting career launch for these guys. Filmmakers to keep an eye on.

I also caught a couple of shorts before the features - Bottleneck, Kindling, Broono and Max Pam: The Freddie Incident, the last being the pick. All in all, this was a cracking Rev, one of the best I've been to. Long may it continue.

Comments

Two Prosecutors

This Stalinist 'thriller' sets out its stall early, with a snowy prison yard holding our attention (or not) for a good few minutes. Prisoners are herded in, most very old and on the verge of pegging it. One such geezer is tasked with burning hundreds of letters to Josef himself, pleading with him to hear their case. The old guy saves a letter written in blood and so begins the story. The note is from an ex-academic, party member and proud Bolshevik, asking to see someone from the prosecutors office. Enter Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov), newly appointed and eager. His meeting with the ancient political prisoner, Stepniak (Alexsandr Filippenko) opens his eyes to the creeping dread of the times. Kornev makes the trek to Moscow to see the Procurator General (Anatoliy Beliy) to make his case against NKVD corruption brough to his attention by Stepniak. It's not an easy mission. The bureaucracy and interminable fucking waiting throughout the first two acts of the film would make Kaf...

The Voice of Hind Rajab

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a very confronting film that uses real emergency recordings to tell the story of Hind Rajab, a 6 year old Palestinian girl trapped under siege in northern Gaza in early 2024. Tunisian writer/director Kaouther Ben Hania apparently paused work on another film when she heard the audio of the calls between Hind and the Palestine Red Crescent Society in order to get this film made. And it's a timely reminder of the crimes of this current Israeli government. The film starts in the offices of the Red Crescent, a West Bank based rescue agency, when Omar (Motaz Malhees) gets a call from a man in Germany explaining that his family are stuck in a car that's been attacked. Omar contacts a young woman in the car but is cut off by the sounds of gunfire. When the call is reconnected, it's soon discovered that the only person still alive in the car is a 6 year old girl, Hind. The sole way to save her is to coordinate with the Israeli army, via the Red Cross to a...

Nope

Jordan Peele really doesn't flinch from a stoush. His first film, Get Out , took an excoriating swipe at racism and white privilege in the US. His second film, Us , delved into class divides and human rights. His latest film, Nope , takes aim at man's subjugation of nature, primarily for profit. The marketing of this film suggests a creepy, sci-fi alien invasion film, and while this is all accurate, there's more going on here too. Daniel Kaluuya, returning for a second Peele film (after Get Out ), plays OJ Haywood, a trainer of horses that appear in films or TV. His father, Otis senior (Keith David), is killed early doors in a freak accident....or is it? Well, no obviously, it isn't, but life moves on for 6 months before more manure flies. OJ is joined by his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), as the Haywood Hollywood Horses business, bereft of the old man's guidance and experience perhaps, begins to flounder. OJ has been selling some of the horses to Steven Yuen's ...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

We Bury the Dead

I went along to Luna Outdoor last Friday to see a preview of local lad, Zac Hilditch's Albany shot, Tassie set zombie drama, We Bury the Dead . The premise goes that the US government has accidentally detonated an experimental pulse weapon close to the east coast of Tasmania, killing more than 500,000 people. A side note to this disaster is that some of the dead are rebooting. Daisy Ridley plays Ava, an American physical therapist looking for her husband, who was in Tassie on a work retreat. She volunteers to be part of a body retrieval unit but is told she must not leave Hobart. She meets Clay (Brenton Thwaites) and they manage to cadge a motorbike and hit the road south. On the way, among the rebooted, they run into soldier Riley (Mark Coles Smith), who has his own reasons for being out of the capital. In a Q&A after the film with The Curb's Andrew F. Peirce, Hilditch mentioned that the film started out as a pure grief drama, and zombies were added to the script later. Th...

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I'm really getting into the 28UoTLCU (28 'Unit of Time' Later Cinematic Universe). This edition is directed by Nia DaCosta, and she picks up the reins from Danny Boyle and slots right into the landscape. The biggest takeaway from The Bone Temple is that Father Figure transference is rife, throughout both of these '28 Years' films, actually. If we choose the obvious link, Spike (Alfie Williams) is passed from parents, Isla (Jodie Comer) and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the first film, onto two polar opposites, Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) in this one, and presumably to a certain returnee in the third installment. But there are also other relationships in the film(s) that explore the nature of dependency, and we have to assume writer Alex Garland, DaCosta, and godfather Boyle, have other, real-world settings in mind, not purely in the zombie genre. This manifests in the rapprochement of Dr. Kelson towards the 'infected', s...

David Fincher Top Ten

With Fincher's first feature in 6 years, Mank , due soon, I figured I'd do a top ten of his other films. Conveniently, he's only made ten features, on top of dozens of music 'videos', as well as some TV and a few shorts. But let's focus on the films. 10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Where to start? Well, let me say that Benjy is the only Fincher film I hated. Full of heart-felt whimsy attempting depth, it misses just about every mark. This is trite bollocks with very little to raise it, save from the unimpeachable Cate Blanchett. Take her out of it and you're left with a certified steamer. 9. The Game (1997) Not a bad film, and made with some late 90s panache, but it just didn't elevate for me. Not much wrong with the cast, Douglas and Penn are usually watchable at worst. There are the requisite reversals and rug-pulls but maybe that's part of the problem - too much of this malarkey? 8. Alien³ (1992) I don...

Ainbo: Amazon Princess

A young Amazonian girl bounding around on a tree like Mowgli in The Jungle Book opens this Peruvian/Dutch/German co-production. We soon discover that this is the Ainbo of the title, and that her best friend, Zumi, is about to be crowned leader of their tribe. A relatively quick whip- round of characters introduces us to the two leads; a smarmy village thug called Atok; Zumi’s father and current tribal chief, Huarinka; Ainbo’s foster mother, Chuni; as well as two ‘loopy’ spirit guides, Dillo and Vaca (a bespectacled armadillo and a clumsy tapir). The environmental theme is also introduced early on, in the form of dying fish and disease in the village, attributed to a curse but, as we find out later, the result of something more real, and more troubling. Ainbo is convinced by her spirit guides to embark on a trek to find a magical root that will save the village. On her journey she must deal with various perils, ranging from a pursuing Atok, and a gigantic sloth in his volcano home, t...

Sirat

Sirat is the fourth film by writer/director Oliver Laxe and it's a bit of a head scratcher, not just about what's going on, but also why? It stars the excellent Sergi López as Luis, a Spanish dad looking for his daughter in the raves of Morocco. Laxe apparently scoured music festivals and street performers' patches to cast the other characters in the film, and he's unearthed some nuggets here. Steffi (Stefania Gadda), Jade (Jade Oukid) and Tonin (Tonin Janvier) stand out, but all of the non-pros certainly feel like they might attend crusty raves in a desert. In its favour, it certainly drops the shock bombs and some of the scenes are extremely tense (there's a bit of mountain road driving, for example, that tightens the knot). But for the most part, I found it noodly, pretentious and lacking cohesion. There were even a couple of scenes that were cut from the middle, allowed to drift away, and Luis's central motivation just disappears off a Moroccan cliff. The s...

Artificial Justice

This reality adjacent sci-fi thriller is a pretty timely look at one of the many possible uses of Artificial Intelligence - legal judgement. In the near future, somewhere in Galicia, Spain, a system called THENTE 1 is being used to assist judges in passing down their verdicts and sentences. It's only assist for now, as a referendum is coming to decide if the whole horse and cart should be put in the hands of AI. There's some sense to the proposal - the AI system usually makes the same decisions as most judges, and much quicker too. This would clear the backlog of cases that can clog up the courts. But obviously they are dangers to removing the human angle. With the referendum days away, the head of THENTE, Alicia (Alba Galocha) is killed in a self-driving car accident, mere hours after she proposed a postponement to the launch of the new THENTE 2. Fishy? You bet. Meanwhile, judge Carmen (a fine performance from Verónica Echegui) is seconded to THENTE to analyse the new...

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