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

The Magic Faraway Tree (Me) (Kids)

I probably read these books as a kid (can't remember) but I certainly read them to my kids a few years ago, so the whole family took a trip to the Palace cinema to check out this new film version. It's adapted from the Enid Blyton book(s) by Simon Farnaby, the writer of Paddington 2 , Wonka and Mindhorn , and directed by Ben Gregor, a British TV journeyman. The cast is chock-full of screen dignitaries, from Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, to Python Michael Palin, to Dame Judi Dench as a talking fridge (!). Modernising this classic kids' book series from the 30s and 40s means adding some stuff about screen (over)usage, the splintering of the family unit, and the desire to get back to the basics of life. In this case, the Thompsons go rural in a rundown barn with old tractors, and chickens living on the stove. The family is made up of Tim and Polly (Garfield and Foy), and the three children, Beth, Joe and Fran, played by Delilah Bennet-Cardy, Phoenix Laroche and Billie Gadsd...

Amrum

The preview film for the 2026 German Film Festival is a sombre little drama about a child's perspective of the end of WWII. Jasper Billerbeck plays Nanning, a 12 year-old doing his best to look after his pregnant mother and younger siblings in the tiny farming/fishing island of Amrum in Northern Germany. The opening scene shows German planes flying overhead, indicating that even this lonely outpost of the Reich is not untouched by war. The story really acts as window dressing for the suppression of emotions and trepidation related to the very probable approaching end of hostilities. We find out early on, in a clever moment in the family library, that Nanning's (absent) dad is a high ranking Nazi, and his mum, Hille, is fully on board with the doctrine. Auntie Ena lives with them and is much more pragmatic, and as anti-Nazi as she can be in the circumstances. The two sisters are played by Laura Tonke and Lisa Hagmeister respectively, and they're fantastic. Diane Kruger, who...

The Talented Mr. F.

Screening at the German Film Festival, this is a mind-boggling tale of a 'you-tuber' dickhead who nicked a short animation film off a couple of German university students and passed it off as his own work. The thief, or the 'talented' Mr. F. of the title, is Samuel Felinton, a ubiquitous pud with a probable case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This diagnosis has been mentioned on Reddit but his baggage is weighty so fucks knows what's wrong with him. We open with Moritz and Julius, who made a cute little robot anime, uploaded it to YouTube to see if anyone liked it, and when it gained loads of hits and positive comments, took it down. Emboldened by this public favour, they then started to enter their short, Butty, into various film festivals. When the replies came back that it couldn't be accepted because the film was already doing the festival circuit, the lads freaked out. Turns out Butty 's brief online life was enough time for Felinton to d...

The Monkey

What's this then? Modern horror, I guess. Or just another addition to the relatively recent spate of animal-titled films: The Lobster , The Crow , The Whale , Pig , Lamb , First Cow , Black Dog , Red Dog , Dog Man , Monkey Man , Wolf Man , Cuckoo , Cocaine Bear , and Hundreds of Beavers . Whatever the reason for its existence, this Stephen King adaptation is a curious beast. Osgood Perkins (son of old Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins) writes and directs here. He also has a pretty funny cameo. The story starts with a bloke in a pilot's uniform (Adam Scott) trying to sell a windup drumming monkey toy (DON'T CALL IT A TOY!!). A bloody event occurs, not for the last time in the movie. Cut to 1999 where we meet Hal Shelburn and his twin, Bill (both played by Christian Convery), who live with their mother, Lois (an in-form Tatiana Maslany). The pilot of the opening scene is the dad/hubby who has done a runner, leaving the cursed monkey for the lads to find (though, to b...

Case 137

Here's a police procedural drama from the Alliance Francais French Film Festival with a minor key change. Case 137 is based on true events from 2018 during the Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests in Paris. The case (or dossier in the version originale) involves a young lad who was shot in the head with an LBD riot gun (basically rubber bullets) and then left on the street. He survived, but with life changing injuries. The IGPN internal affairs department are brought in to investigate. Léa Drucker takes the lead as Stéphanie, a single mum dealing with resentment from her ex-husband, his new girlfriend, and most other members of the force, who believe the cops should look after their own and not 'police the police'. Her teenage son is also concerned that everyone he talks to hates 'les flics'. There's a slight hitch in the case when it's discovered that the injured guy and his family come from Saint-Dizier, also Stéphanie's home town. Director, Dominik M...

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...

Franz: Becoming Kafka

In this fractured, somewhat unconventional biopic, various characters take on the role of narrator, breaking the fourth wall within the story. As curious as the method of delivery here is, the bones of the film itself still function to paint the picture of one of the 20th century's most lauded writers. We witness Kafka's less than perfect childhood with unloving father and powerless mother; his possible spectrum hovering; his near-crippling insecurities; his tricky relationships with women; and eventually the illness that brought on his early death. Director Agnieszka Holland is still firing at 77 years old, she's quite happy to lean towards experimentation and, along with her co-writer, Marek Epstein, she imbues the film with a surrealism similar to Kafka's work. Aside from the 'to camera' narration, the timeline jumps around, even bringing in elements of 21st century Kafka tourism with French, Japanese and American tour guides, who may or may not be on the lev...

Arco (Me) (Kid)

This is the first feature length film from French writer/director Ugo Bienvenu. It tells the story of futuristic kid, Arco, voiced by Juliano Crue Valdi in the English dub, and Oscar Tresanini in the French original - here I'll explain that I saw the preview of this with the English voice cast, so I'll mention them from now, unless I spy a notable Frenchy. Anyway, Arco is too young to fly to the past like his family do, but like any young ding-a-ling, he decides to chance his arm, and ends up in 2075. This is a more recognisable future for us than Arco's time, as we see climate change writ large on society. In this time-zone, Arco meets Iris (Margot Ringard Oldra) and her domestic robot, Mikki (voiced by a strange combination of Iris's parents, Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo). Iris wants to help Arco return to his time, but they're thwarted by a missing jewel that he needs in order to travel, as well as a trio of bumbling goons (Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg and Flea...

The Rivals of Amziah King

This final film at the Lotterywest Film Season for the Perth Festival is a surprising gem. It combines a great musical opening scene with a fine entrance from Matthew McConaughey. Writer/director Andrew Patterson knows who he's got on his hands here. McConaughey has fun with this role of Amziah King, his first real starring part since The Gentleman in 2019, and in fairness, the film probably wouldn't have been made without him. The story goes thus: a honey maker (or beekeeper, apiarist, professor of bees, call him what you will) is coopted into helping the police identify a stolen batch of honey barrels. After a frankly incredible (in the good sense of the word) honey heating procedure that goes off the rails, Amziah finds himself at cafe, where he bumps into Kateri, a young woman who used to foster with him when she was a kid. A star is unearthed here in Angelina LookingGlass (what a name!), in her debut film role, and the rest of the cast is fittingly grubby and grungy. Kur...

Hesitation Wound

This film was shown at the Revelation Film Festival programme launch for 2024. It's a Turkish legal drama that leaves a lot unsaid, unexplained, with plenty of scope for interpretation. Tülin Özen plays Canan, a lawyer tasked with defending a guy on a murder charge, Musa (Ogulcan Arman Uslu). At the same time, she is dealing with the slow demise of her old mother, hospitalised in a coma. The minutiae of life in this small Turkish town is fascinating. There's one simple, prosaic scene where Canan stops by a chemist to buy a razor so Musa can shave for the hearing. The shopkeeper asks what kind, she tells him she doesn't know, he selects for her, then explains that she can't use her debit card for that amount, so she buys some pretzel sticks. Completely normal, yet for some reason, I've remembered this scene weeks later. Maybe it's the unusualness of seeing a Turkish store on screen, but I think the on-point pacing of the film has a lot to do with it. Another odd...

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