2012 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL PREVIEW

Sydney Film Festival
June 6-17
www.sff.org.au










Coffee, pastries and movies: what better way to start a sunny autumn morning in Sydney? The coffee and pastries were part of the morning tea provided for the announcement of the 2012 Sydney Film Festival line-up this morning at Customs House. And what a line-up it is.

Earlier last month it was announced that Barbara (Germany), Beauty (South Africa), Tabu (Portugal, top left), Oscar nominee Monsieur Lazhar (Canada), and Sundance prizewinner, Beasts of the Southern Wild (U.S. top right), would all feature as part of the 2012 line-up. And based on word of mouth alone, I'd recommend adding those titles to your SFF 'must-see' list if you haven't already.

Now add to that Cannes 2012 opener, Moonrise Kingdom (from U.S. writer-director, Wes Anderson), Berlin 2012 prizewinner, Caesar Must Die (bottom left), Jeff Who Lives At Home (from the Duplass brothers), Miss Bala (Mexico), Michael Haneke's Cannes entry, Amour, Walter Salles' adaptation of the Jack Kerouac classic, On The Road (bottom right), starring Kristen Stewart, and Australian films, Dead Europe, and Lore.

The Festival, under new director Nashen Moodley, also features a focus on the films of the subcontinent (Focus on India), Aboriginal themed films (Blackfella Films), and a retrospective of Italian director, Bernardo Bertolucci, including screenings of classics The Last Emperor and Last Tango in Paris.

While there are plenty of films which will receive a general release in Australian cinemas -- Beasts, Lazhar, On The Road, Moonrise Kingdom, Takashi Miike's latest, Hara Kiri, Andrea Arnold's revisionist Wuthering Heights, and opening night film, Not Suitable For Children (from Australia, and starring Ryan Kwanten) -- if you can't wait until September (at the latest), well, why should you?

And in the case of Once Upon A Time in Anatolia, unless you live in Melbourne, this may well be your only chance to see the film in a cinema.

But you'll find yourself rewarded if you venture of the beaten track, and checkout films you've never heard of, from countries you wouldn't have thought of catching a movie from. Documentaries and short films also feature prominently in the Festival, which is held in various venues throughout the city.

Going to this year's Sydney Film Festival? Let me know what you plan on seeing? Or even ask for suggestions on what to see. I'll happily recommend something to see (MUST: Beasts of the Southern Wild).

FILM REVIEW: SAFE

Icon Film Distribution
Now Showing




Safe is not just the title of the new Jason Statham action vehicle -- whereby a former secret agent fallen on hard times must redeem himself by saving the life of a young girl -- but pretty much sums up the treatment by writer-director, Boaz Yakin.

While not entirely predictable, Safe is an uninspired action film which features more fire power than fisticuffs as Luke Wright (Statham) sets about rescuing young Mei (Catherine Chan) from both the Chinese Triad and a group of New York Russian mobsters.

The Triad, who have held Mei for more than a year after discovering her mathematical and memory retention skills in Beijing, use her as a human calculator; dispensing with a paper trail by committing all of their illegal business dealings to the 11-year-old's memory.

That's where Triad leader, Han Jiao (James Hong, a.k.a Kung Fu Panda's dad), places the combination to a safe containing $30 million in cash. And that's what the Russians want, staging a brazen kidnapping in downtown New York.

Certain sections of the NYPD also want the girl -- or rather, what she can lead them to -- and when they come calling on the Russians, Mei manages to escape. It's here, hiding on a subway platform, that she comes to the attention of Wright, who's about to throw himself under a train.

Wright, turned-on by his former NYPD partners for turning informant, and having his life made a living hell by the same Russian mobsters chasing Mei -- they killed his wife when he failed to take a previously arranged dive in a cage fight (his post-police career) -- has had his life reduced to vagrancy.

Wright doesn't have a lot to live for but Mei may well be his redemption -- if he can keep her, you know, safe.

Child-in-danger movies are nothing new, and sadly, Safe brings nothing new to the genre. Chan makes Mei a strong-willed young girl but the relationship between her and Wright is never fully developed. He's neither fatherly nor a mentor to the youngster; not quite Bruce Willis in Mercury Rising (1998), or Jean Reno's Leon in The Professional (1994), although Safe is much closer to the former than the latter in quality.

But Jason Statham is no Bruce Willis. The one-time British Olympic diver who made his film debut in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), has neither the charisma or the acting chops (never thought I'd write that!) of the Die Hard hero.

Like Liam Neeson in Taken, Statham has a very particular set of skills and they're very limited. Statham's fans may be sated by Safe, but more discerning action fans should play it safe and look elsewhere.

FILM REVIEW: IRON SKY

Hoyts Distribution
Now Showing




As far as high concept films go, the idea of Nazis on the moon sounds like it should be a blast, well, at least a hoot. And if you happen to see Finnish director Timo Vuorensola's Iron Sky with the right audience, it could be.

A playful satire of right wing politics which swings unevenly between dead-on and too broad, Iron Sky is set in 2018, where Nazis have colonized the dark side of the moon. The Germans have actually been lunar-located since the latter stages of World War II, biding their time and awaiting a glorious return to Earth to establish the Fourth Reich.

Those plans are hastily brought forward with their discovery by two U.S. astronauts, one of which they take back to headquarters and who, much to everyone's Aryan surprise, turns out to be black.

James Washington (Christopher Kirby) is actually a male model, chosen for his good looks and dark complexion as part of a PR exercise to kick-start the re-election campaign of the current Palin-esque U.S. President (Stephanie Paul, who's no Tina Fey).

The Nazis are fascinated with the Earthling -- a computer the size of pack of cigarettes? -- none more so than Renate Richter (Julia Dietze), resident school teacher and Earthologist, whose knowledge of the Third Reich's history is somewhat spotty; she believes the Nazis are a peace-loving people, and Charlie Chaplin's The Dictator is a short film praising the good works of Hitler (the film's best joke).

But when she stows away on future Fuhrer (and husband), Klaus Adler's fact finding mission to Earth, accompanied by the now albino-ized Washington, Renate eventually has her eyes opened to the true nature of her people.

But not before Adler (Gotz Otto) is embraced by the U.S. President as a key to her re-election strategy, and literally embraced by presidential campaign manager, Vivian Wagner (Peta Sergeant). But before long, intergalactic relations sour and it's rocket ships at the ready as the U.S and the Nazis go to war -- again.

The swastika hasn't been used this prominently in film since Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (2009), or with such reckless abandon and gleeful disrespect for the Third Reich since Mel Brooks' The Producers. Not that Iron Sky is as entertaining as either of those films; it's not even in the same galaxy, quality-wise.

Still, the film looks great. The visual effects, and particularly the models of moon bases and spacecrafts are impressive. The film recalls Star Wars in look and has a deliberate nod to John Williams' score; Ride of the Valkyries also gets a good run (you can't have Nazis without Wagner).

If only Vuorensola, and screenwriter Michael Kalesniko (working from an original idea by Johanna Sinisalo and Jarmo Puskala), had paid as much attention to honing the screenplay, sharpening the satire and finessing the performances, then Iron Sky may have hit more targets than its scatter shot approach allows for.

FILM REVIEW: TRISHNA

Madman Films
Now Showing





We were assigned to read Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles in high school, and while I certainly remember beginning the book, I don't recall finishing it. Apologies to Mr. Hardy, my more literary-minded readers, and my Year 11 English teacher.

My only experience with Hardy since then has been in film and television, most notably Jude (1996), director Michael Winerbottom's adaptation of Jude The Obscure, as memorable for featuring a full frontal nude Kate Winslet as it was for Rachael Griffiths' slaughtering of a pig.

Winterbottom returns once more to Hardy with Trishna, a sub-continental re-imagining of Tess of the D'Urbervilles set it in modern India. And while it may be the director's third Hardy adaptation (after 2000's The Claim), he continues his trend of never repeating himself; Trishna is as different to any Hardy adaptation as it is to Winterbottom's previous films, The Trip (2011) and The Killer Inside Me (2010).

Trishna (Freida Pinto) is a poor young woman in Rajasthan, supporting her family as a servant in a hotel when she catches the eye of Jay (Riz Ahmed). A handsome and charming England born-and-raised Indian, Jay's on a boys-only holiday with mates before taking up a managerial post in one of his father's Indian hotels.

Jay arranges to have Trishna come work for him, and it's the beginning of her downfall (Hardy loves a tragic heroine). Fleeing the hotel after Jay's affections finally take physical form, Trishna returns to her family, but after she brings shame to her father's household, Trishna is sent away to look after an ailing aunt.

That's where Jay discovers her and whisks her away to Mumbai, dazzling the country mouse with beaches and night clubs, dance classes and film sets, and a world of possibilities Trishna could only ever have dreamed of.

But then Jay is called home to England, and Trishna is seemingly abandoned. His return, which sees both relocating to Rajasthan and Trishna returning to a servant's uniform, witnesses a marked change in Jay's behaviour and sets in motion the tragic end to their always ill-fated romance.

India makes for an ideal setting for a Hardy tragedy given that it's a country where women remain at the mercy of the dictates of both men and tradition. Trishna herself seems like a rather passive heroine but that passivity is culturally ingrained, and Pinto's performance (granted she's not a great actress) perfectly captures that 'between-a-rock-and-hard-place' resignation and the believability of her actions.

And while Trishna's final, desperate actions may go some way to evening the ledger in favour of women following their mistreatment at the hands of men in The Killer Inside Me, that's not the point of the film: it's a good old fashioned Hardy tragedy, regardless of the setting.

Winterbottom's adaptation may be far from perfect -- the set-up is over long and the middle section of the film, despite being in the midst of the vibrant Mumbai, is rather inert -- but Trishna is an oddly beguiling film. And it's final moments make it both hard to ignore or shake.