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Spent a lot of the last ten days at the 19th Raindance Film Festival. Several good films, a handful of very good films indeed, plenty of quite good films and one or two turkeys. Saw many too many to comment on them all, but here's my top picks to look out for; all of which are highly recommended.

If The Seed Doesn't Die (Romania/Serbia/Austria)
Two fathers, a Romanian searching for his daughter who was forced into prostitution, and a Serbian seeking the body of his son killed in a car accident, meet on the river Danube.

The Enemy (Serbia/Croatia/Hungary)
Shortly after the peace breaks out in Bosnia an engineering unit is removing mines from the border between the two sides who until recently, were at war. They find a man walled into a basement, apparently waiting for them.

Scenes Of A Crime (USA)
Powerful documentary. Police video reveals the disturbing possibility that legal interrogation tactics can lead to false confessions.

Julius Caesar (UK)
A microbudget Shakespeare adaptation made by The British Youth Film Academy, with a cast and crew of teenagers, may not sound that enticing, but this was an unexpected highlight of the festival. Not just a good film for something made by young amateurs, but a good film full stop. Shot in a derelict brewery, in noirish black and white, this was the most cinematic of the British films I saw at the festival. The age of the cast, although initially disconcerting, is made a virtue by portraying the citizens of Rome as roaming gangs and there are several very good performances.

Bumrush (Canada)
Gritty and violent gangster film about turf wars and power struggles in the criminal underworld of Quebec.

No Return (Argentina)
An innocent man is wrongly accused of a deadly hit and run accident. A story of guilt and responsibility in a spiral with no return.

The Most Important Thing In Life Is Not Being Dead
Set to the political backdrop of Franco’s rule. Jacobo is a well established piano-tuner with a shameful secret. His pianos tune themselves while he’s asleep.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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Drive
James Sallis' source novel should make a good mainstream crime movie, but this isn't it. The glossy production values, slick direction and highly polished 80s soundtrack work against the material and never create the right atmosphere. Ryan Gosling isn't that convincing as the strong, ruthless, silent type and the supporting mobsters border on the cartoonish.
Not a terrible film, but a long way short of what it could have been.

Red State
Three teens pursue an on line invitatation for sex and end up in the clutches of fanatical religious fundamentalists.
Pitch black humour, violent and quite unsubtle, but this is very enjoyable movie with the broardly drawn characterisations signalling that this is first and foremost an entertainment not a serious disection of religious fundamentalism; Which is not to say that the film is entirely without a satirical edge.
Michael Parks is excellent as sect leader Pastor Abin Cooper (imagine a totally psychopathic Pastor Deacon Fred) and there is strong support from among others John Goodman and Stephen Root.
Kevin Smith writes some excellnt dialogue for Parks's character and does a surprisingly good job directing the action scenes. Maybe not the masterpiece some Smith fans are proclaiming, but certainly a return to form.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
As Martin Ritt's film of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold was to the then burgeoning James Bond films, so Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is to the Bourne trilogy.
No bells or whistles, but excellent plotting, great acting performances, beautifully judged filming, with sufficient time taken to pay attention to detail and an excellent sense of time and place.
Fully worthy of all the many plaudits it has received.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Guilty Of Romance

Sion Sono's last two films were Love Exposure, a delirious four hour epic, concerning a teenage boy who gets his kicks surreptitiously photographing up girls' skirts, a misandrist girl and the leader of a brainwashing cult and Cold Fish, a bizarre tale of murder, madness and the retail market for tropical fish. This new one makes those two films seem almost pedestrian.
It's an unsettling amalgam of Freud, Kafka, decapitation, prostitution and carpet slippers. I won't attempt to summarise the plot and I can't even begin to decipher the meaning of it all. It could be an indictment of women who seek lustful adventure. It could equally be a celebration of the same. The view of prostitution is maybe that of a twisted male fantasist, but having said that, the men in the film are portrayed as either snivelling shits or controlling fanatics. Sono is, I guess, an equal opportunity offender.
The film is frankly all over the place, which is not to say that it is ever less than engrossing. It looks great, there is some great dialogue (as well as some rather pretentious musings), the performances are sometimes overwrought, but that kind of suits the story and the film is certainly different to anything else you're likely to see this year.
There is definitely an enormous talent behind this film, but to say it is a wayward talent would be an understatement.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Melancholia
I like the fact that I never know if I'm going to like a Lars Von Trier film.
I've loved some (Dogville in particular), hated others (Breaking The Waves springs to mind). My opinion of several of his films is somewhere in the middle.
The cosmic opening of Melancholia immediately put me in mind of Terrence Mallick's film Tree Of Life, which I didn't much like, but Melancholia turned out to be a much more fulfilling film.
It is split into two parts. In the first Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is overcome by depression at her own wedding. In the second Justine and her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) await the possible end of the world as a planet (the Melancholia of the title) approaches earth.
The first half is a wonderfully observed ensemble piece, with Justine's disfunctional upper middle class family often more concerned about appearances than Justine's state of mind. Both Dunst and Gainsbourg are particularly good in this half.
The second half seems to take while to find it's feet, but when it does it leads to a tremendous climax.
Recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Sleeping Beauty - Aussie film, directed by Julia Leigh. A young attractive student with debts decides to take on some extra curriculum activities to pay her way. High on atmosphere and presumably intended to arouse both men and women with its constant erotic scenarios but all a bit stilted and wooden and not really worth raiding the sock drawer for.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - Del Toro who made the Hellboy films. Plenty of decent CGI but at the daft end of the creepy old house horror spectrum and highly predictable.

Tyranosaur
A Relentlessly distressing character study of a self destructive alcoholic, a Christian victim of vicious assaults and the husband that beats her.
It's a powerful film, but I didn't totally believe in the character of the wife and her relationship to alcoholic, despite a brilliant performance from Oliva Colman. A gruelling watch; recommended, but with reservations.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
Recently unearthed footage shot by a group of Swedish television journalists, documenting the Black Power Movement in the United States and edited by a contemporary Swedish film-maker.
An essential piece of political and social documentary. Includes footage of the likes of Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis and Bobby Seale as well as unknown black Americans living their lives. Contemporary voice-overs are provided by Davis, Erykah Badu and Harry Belafonte amongst others.
The fact that the film is made by outsiders with no shared experience with the films subjects means that the original footage was made with an open mind and a minimum of preconception, almost to the point of naivety. The new comments are sometimes illuminating, but often add little. It is the original footage that makes this film such a valuable document. The clip of Stokely Carmichael interviewing his mother is a highlight in a film full of footage that is still pertinent today.
This film doesn't offer an authoritative history of the black power movement, nor does it profess to insightful analysis, it is simply the movement as observed by these Swedish visitors, but although far from comprehensive, it is both fascinating and powerful.
Highly recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

We Need To Talk About Kevin
Although the film inevitably abridges Lionel Shriver's source novel, it is still very faithful to the themes, tone, emphasis and essence of the book. It wisely eschews the device in the book of the letters to the husband, but keeps much of the fractured time frame. Tilda Swinton is superb as the the mother. My only reservation is that Kevin seems to me too distinctive looking and charismatic. This may just be my preconception due to how I perceived the character in the book, but I felt that particularly with the young Kevin, there was a slight, inappropriate air of Damien from the Omen coming from him. That aside, I thought it an excellent adaptation.
Highly recommended.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

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The Yellow Sea
Korean movie about a contract killing that goes horribly wrong.
Starts off more gritty and less stylised than many East Asian thrillers, then undergoes a massive gear change about an hour in and becomes a high octane visceral bloodbath of interminable knife and hatchet fights and equally intermenable chases, with a high body count, even by Korean standards. The main protagonist also undergoes a complete metamorphosis, changing from a put upon loser to a resourceful, seemingly indestructable, killing machine.The plot gets quite intricate towards the end and it's only now, two hours after seeing it that I think I've actually clarified in my head who was working for who and why and I'm still not 100% sure! I was a little bit tired, but I don't think this was totally a failing on my part.
At two and a half hours plus, it's overlong and though I've sometimes liked the sudden gear changes in other films from this part of the world (Audition for example), in this film the change was, for me, one of an interesting film into a a fairly formulaic one.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

The Ides Of March
Political intrigue and shenanigans surrounding a candidate on the campaign trail of the Democratic nomination.
Not politically astute or insightful enough to pass as anything more than an entertainment and as an entertainment somewhat lacklustre.
I thought George Clooney's directorial début Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and his next film Good Night And Good Luck were both well worth seeing, but this one is a disappointment.
My recommendation for any one thinking of seeing this - stay home and watch the DVD of In The Loop. It's more entertaining, funnier, edgier, probably more credible and has a higher calibre of swearing.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Black Pond
Saw this at Raindance. It starts a limited general release on Friday.
Low key, low budget, black comedy about a man who invites a stranger into his family home, only for things to take a dark turn.
Not hilariously laugh out loud, but consistently funny with an understated melancholia . Chris Langham is ideally cast as the well meaning father and there are some equally fine performances among the supporting cast. The story telling is well handled , though the comic tone is a little uneven; Simon Amstell's appearance as a freelance "therapist", while very funny, does stick out like a sore thumb in it's quirkiness.
Worth seeing.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

2nd verse same as the 1st...

Tabloid
Errol Morris's documentary about Joyce McKinney. Basically, a series of talking head interviews, with a few graphics and archive footage thrown in. The film is always watch-able, but sometimes a little too jocular considering the seriousness of the allegations made against her. It is impossible to draw any definitive conclusions about the truth of what happened between McKinney and Kirk Anderson, the young Mormon missionary she was accused of kidnapping, but McKinney is, for all her eccentricity, an interesting character and her version of events, although maybe containing some self deception, cannot be totally dismissed. Anderson is not interviewed, representatives of the Daily Express, Daily Mirror and a man hired to fly a plane for her are, as well as an ex-Mormon, who offers some insight into Anderson's possible state of mind as well as a few odd facts about Mormonism.
Not one of Morris's best films, but worth seeing none the less.

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Curmudgeonly Rock 'n' Roll time traveller from ye olden days

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