2017 NZ FILM FESTIVAL

Lucky Dips

The 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival came and went in what seems the blink of an eye. It was an easier year for me, given that there were less ‘must see’ titles in the programme, and less ‘lucky dip’ temptations too. Apart from a handful of works by notable auteurs, Haneke, Loznitsa, Lanthimos, Zvyagintsev, Grisebach, Denis and Hong, the programme (when compared to previous years) was remarkable for its relative lack of heft.

Of course, my opinion is entirely subjective. The general consensus is that this year's festival was one of the strongest, but it says something that Jane Campion’s China Girl (a continuation of her excruciating Top of the Lake) was touted as one of the ‘big films’ of the festival and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (one of the great masterworks of post-war cinema, looking and sounding better than ever) gave the contemporary ‘big hitters’ more that a run for their money.

The upshot is that I struggled to find the usual 40 or so titles that make up my yearly habit, eventually cobbling together a list of 20. If anything says something, that certainly does ... well, for me at least. So, by way of a wee heads-up, this post briefly touches on a handful of films that didn't quire live up to their promise for me.

Among them were a handful of ‘lucky dips’ such as Maliglutit, beautifully produced and (on an anthropological level) full of interesting bits of business, but it was a long 90 minutes and ended with the corniest message of the festival, “No matter how tough things get, you should never give up." Good to know. Sheesh!

I was impressed by Katell Quillévéré’s Love Like Poison back in 2011, so my hopes were high for Heal the Living … alas, too high. It had its moments, notably one of the most original car crashes you'll ever see, unexpectedly brilliant, but it was exactly what the programme notes said it wasn’t – a routine hospital weepy. Well, in fairness, it was better than that, directed with restraint and precision, but it was ultimately little more than an advertisment for organ donation.

Una (dir. Benedict Andrews), was the only film I walked out of this year – something I rarely do. Every facet of the production was a lost opportunity: the score; the acting; the direction; woah! I chose the film on the basis of a quote in the programme from Tricia Tuttle (of the BFI) that described the filmmaking as “artistry of the highest order”. Pfff. Mental note ... if Ms Tuttle says it’s good, think again.

Bangkok Nites wasn’t without interest, but this 3-hour film outstays its welcome and purpose by at least an hour. I was envious of those who walked out, one of whom was the guy who convinced me to see it! He lasted two hours, but considered leaving after 30 minutes, and this guy cites Lav Diaz's 8-hour Melancholia as one of his favourite films, so he isn’t squeamish when it comes to duration. I don’t need to ‘identifying with characters’ or have ‘engaging narratives’, particularly if ideas and themes are strong and formally integrated, but with Bangkok Nites I would have happily settled for a decent yarn.

A Fantastic Woman was anything but, a conventional plea for sexual tolerance that led the audience by the nose to a clichéd conclusion: the heroine on a concert stage singing earnestly from the hard-fought-for reaches of her down-but-not-out inner fortitude. A better title might have been, 'A Fantacist Woman'.

The Ornithologist is a very strange bird (sorry, couldn't resist). I liked the first hour or so, but gradually wondered if this unpredictable, wilfully mysterious shaggy dog of a film (driven by an iconoclastic mix of Catholic, animistic and queer presumptions) might end up being less than the sum of its parts … and that's pretty much how it went. This curious mix of Jodorowsky, Guiraudie, Jarman, Weerasethakul and (possibly) Bunuel, had a surprisingly lame ending for such a singularly idiosyncratic film. Yet one supposes that a throwaway conclusion was exactly what the director intended. After two hours of intriguing, provocative, always cinematic and unlike-anything-you’ve-seen-before filmmaking, João Rodrigues opted to wrap it all with a wee truism about treasuring love regardless of where one finds it. Fair enough, I guess.

The only Hungarian film this year, On Body and Soul, didn’t quite have the courage of its convictions. I got the impression that the director wanted to make a tougher study of the near-impossibility of finding love in a dysfunctional world, but seemed to lose his nerve (or maybe caved to external pressures). The film felt stranded between two unresolved ambitions: an art film trying to engage a mainstream audience.

I had doubts, but having sat through all nine hours of Shoah (twice!) I was determined to see Claude Lanzmann’s Napalm. I don’t regret it, but once was enough. The glimpse into present-day North Korea (what the world might look like under Scientology) is the most interesting aspect of the film, but the film soon gets bogged down by a lengthy anecdote about an encounter Mr Lanzmann had in the late 50s with an attractive Korean woman, a curious tale that recalls Confessions of a Dangerous Mind in terms of what may or may not be true. The film is also unsettling in that Lanzmann comes axross as a bit of a sexist in the way old men sometimes do, by getting away with saying patently unacceptable things because they’re "harmless old codgers". Hmm?

Those familiar with Aki Kaurismaki will know exactly what to expect from The Other Side of Hope, a film replete with the stylish tropes that have served him well for many decades. His dead-pan wit charms as always, as does the post-Bressonian understatement of the cinematography, set design, acting, dialogue and direction, but I’m not convinced that Kaurismaki found the right balance between the seriousness of his subject matter – Syrian refugess and European indifference – and his trademark retro schtick. His heart is in the right place, but despite a well-judged performance from Sherwan Haji in the central role, Kaurismaki's Kaurismaki-esqueness may have got in the way of his own film – or maybe I've just seen one Kaurismaki too many.

So, with the “moan-fest” now out if the way, it's time to consider the films that “did the business” for me this year, starting with what turned out to be one of the most polarising films of the festival, Claire Denis's Let the Sunshine In.