Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Australian Premiere - A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence

A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence - Opening Title

Described as a cinematic visionary, Swedish film director, Roy Andersson won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for this absurdist humoured film which consists of a tragicomic series of vignettes which become increasingly bizarre. The film shifts between different time periods with a weird collection of characters, extremely strange in behaviour and appear with make-up creating ghostly whitened faces. With a singular vision and using some interconnecting themes and characters, each vignette of the film is set in plain, austere and drab matte surroundings reinforcing the minimalist context and the dark irony of the actors dialogue. Hence in short time, the audience have witnessed a series of funny deaths, a large suggestive flamenco dancer and encountered the numerous rejections of Sam and Jonathon, two travelling salesmen selling novelty items such as vampire teeth and hideous masks.  The 17th Century Monarch Charles XII of Sweden visits a 21st Century Stockholm cafe for a mineral water with his army while marching to war against Russia (and returns again after his defeat) while numerous scenes show people answering phone calls always commenting to the unknown caller, how nice it is to hear that they are 'fine'.

During Q & A, Andersson described the film as being similar to visiting 37 different rooms and so it is, no more and no less. Many of the settings and images provide cringe-worthy, if not recognisable social and personal moments while the range of feelings evoked stretch from humour to horror. This is a film for an alternative, fringe or film-as-performance art audience.  

Charles XII of Sweden in a Stockholm cafe before going to war with Russia

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - World Premiere - Sherpa

Base Camp - Mt Everest

Documentary film-maker, Jennifer Peedom has brought an alternate view of the foreign expeditions who climb Mt Everest by filming through the eyes of the Sherpas, the local mountain guides who take climbers up the dangerous, unstable slopes of the World's tallest mountain. Following an angry mountain-high brawl between Sherpas and European climbers in 2013, Peedom and her team set out to discover the cause of the dispute. During their filming of the 2014 climbing season, they were on location for the greatest tragedy experienced on Mt Everest when a huge block of ice crashed down on the climbing route killing 16 Sherpas. This event again laid bare the great disparity and unequal relationship between the poorly paid Sherpas who risk their lives repeatedly traversing the mountain carrying supplies and the cashed-up foreign expeditions who climb for a hobby.

This is a stunningly shot social documentary using both film cameras and iPhone cameras (carried by the Sherpas themselves) to capture events and images on Mt Everest during the climbing season and in the villages which depend on the expedition income for their survival.  Peedom has brought a knowledgeable and sensitive insight (she has previously filmed on Mt Everest for her film Miracle on Mt Everest in 2008) to a largely unknown impact and one which gives pause to consider the disparity between wealthy foreigners and a local primary produce-oriented society. 

Sydney Film Festival - Film Review - Australian Premiere - The Daughter

Ewen Leslie, Odessa Young and Sam Neill - The Daughter

Another intense dysfunctional family drama. The Australian film industry never tires of this category of screenplay and The Daughter fits well within this genre. Simon Stone is another theatre director trying his hand at film-making and has brought his adaptation of Ibsen's The Wild Duck for the Belvoir St Theatre to the cinema screen. A very experienced expert cast do nothing to dispel the darkness that pervades every element of this film which involves a complex drama between two intertwined families. The story follows the impact created when Christian (Paul Schneider) returns to his family home for his father Henry's (Geoffrey Rush) wedding to a younger woman. Christian is a very damaged young man constantly haunted by the suicide of his mother many years earlier and with suspicions as to the cause of that tragedy. On his return he reunites with an old childhood friend Oliver (Ewen Leslie), an employee of Henry's timber mill which is now closing down, and Oliver's wife Charlotte (Miranda Otto) and teenage daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young). Through constant questioning and with a good dose of paranoia, Christian discovers that many years previously his father Henry, had an affair with Charlotte before her marriage to Oliver and this revelation sets the direction for another devastating tragedy to unfold.

These two families have many more hidden secrets to uncover during the course of the film showing how interconnected two generations have become. Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Mirando Otto, Paul Schneider, Sam Neill and Odessa Young are well cast in their roles and the locations are atmospherically chosen. A clear deficiency with the plot line is the unresolved conclusion leaving the audience with little other than the personal devastation of the key characters in the film.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Australian Premiere - Ruben Guthrie

Patrick Brammell - Ruben Guthrie

Playwright and now screen director, Brendan Cowell has brought his stage play of the same name, produced for the Belvoir St Theatre, to the screen. This is a unabashedly Sydney-centric film in settings, themes, culture and characterisation with a well-known Sydney based cast including Patrick Brammell, Alex Dimitriades, Abbey Lee, Jeremy Sims, Robyn Nevin, Jack Thompson and Harriet Dyer to name a few.

The storyline for this film follows Ruben Guthrie (actor Patrick Brammell), an advertising executive who leads a party-boy lifestyle, with a model fiancee, waterside house and a reliance on alcohol. After almost drowning in his infinity backyard pool, Guthrie faces a stark crossroad in his life - either give up the alcohol for a year or lose his fiancee, Zoya (Abbey Lee). He decides to take the year-long challenge despite the alcoholic temptations offered by his gay friend (Alex Dimitriades), his parents (Jack Thompson and Robyn Nevin), and his boss at the advertising agency (Jeremy Sims). Ruben Guthrie is quintessentially Australian with a strong Sydney flavour demonstrating that bogan lives are often not about money but about taste. Director Brendan Cowell deliberately set out to focus on the alcoholic influence and makes no apology for the emphasis shown in the film.  This is a old style 'Aussie' film which resonates with the 'mateship' theme and best 'Ocker' traditions.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - World Premiere - Last Cab to Darwin

Michael Caton - Last Cab to Darwin

Theatre director, Jeremy Sims, has brought this stage play to the big screen with very mixed results and a substantial number of clichés. Essentially this is a road film taking the viewer across the Australian centre from Broken Hill to Alice Springs to Darwin. The plotline for the film follows Broken Hill cab driver, Rex (Michael Caton) who has received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Rex has known of his illness for some time following surgery from an earlier diagnosis for the same disease. He does not wish to die in hospital like his father and on learning of law changes in the Northern Territory allowing euthanasia and the existence of a laptop device which manages sedative drugs, he resolves to drive to Darwin to end his life. Along the way, he picks up two travellers, a young Aboriginal man with football abilities and a young backpacking English nurse, who both accompany Rex on his journey. Rex however has an unresolved relationship with Aboriginal woman, Polly (Ningali Lawford-Wolf) which eventually draws him back to Broken Hill before it is too late.

Jackie Weaver is sadly miscast as the euthanasia campaign doctor seeking to assist patients to end their lives and does not convincingly carry the role. Aboriginal interaction with white Australians is shown in a typecast segregated manner more in common in the US or an earlier South Africa than Australia's Northern Territory in the current era. The film may well be suitable for a stage play but overall sits less comfortably on the big screen.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Australian Premiere - Strangerland - Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman in Strangerland

Strangerland from Australian director, Kim Farrant, has a strong internationally rated cast with Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving and beautifully shot images of the vast Australian outback landscape around the remote desert town of Nathgari. These production elements should provide a concrete foundation for a memorable and impressive film, yet Strangerland descends into another melodrama of a dysfunctional family, the plotlines of which are similar to many other recent Australian films. The strongest aspect of this film is the performance of Nicole Kidman, who with minimal makeup or sets to support her, delivers her part with deep vulnerability and emotion.

The storyline is centred on the Parker family who have relocated from another country town due to a scandal involving their teenage daughter and an affair with a married school teacher. Catherine Parker (Nicole Kidman) and Mathew Parker (Joseph Fiennes), her husband and the town's pharmacist do not have a perfect relationship and they differ in their approach to raising their young son and their teenage daughter. When a massive dust storm shrouds their town in red dust and an eerie red  light, their two children disappear. Outback police detective David Rae (Hugo Weaving) conducts the search and during the course of his investigations uncovers many hidden family secrets.

Overall this is a depressing film with very flawed, unlikeable characters. The mystery of the disappearance of the children is only partially answered and the conclusion of the film has an unresolved atmosphere.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - 99 Homes

Andrew Garfield as Dennis Nash in 99 Homes

The personal impact of the 2008 housing crisis in the United States which precipitated the Global Financial Crisis is explored in this feature film by director/screenwriter Ramin Bahrani. In this feature film rendition of the effects of the financial crisis, real estate agent Rick Carver (actor Michael Shannon) has made a fortune repossessing the homes of desperate mortgage holders and bank debtors. When tradesman, Dennis Nash (actor Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home with his family, he finds himself working for Carver and becoming literally the Devils Apprentice by joining the business forcibly evicting others from their homes. Drawn by the lure of regaining his own family home and seduced by the wealth and increasingly glamorous lifestyle, Nash finds himself questioning his beliefs and values. When he is asked to courier a forged legal document in order to ensure a court win against another householder in debt, Nash reaches his nadir.

Actors Michael Shannon and Andew Garfield are perfectly cast in their respective roles and the film was shot in Florida and Louisiana using a mix of professional actors and amateurs, many of whom had lost their homes due to Hurricane Katrina and brought that experience to their performances. This is a well researched film with a strong underlying ethical dilemma and a message about the social impact of disconnected institutional behaviour.