Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Slow West

Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender - Slow West

Screenwriter and Director, John Mclean's debut feature film set in the desolate regions of Colorado in the United States around the period near the Civil War is described as an 'unconventional' Western. This is an understatement as it's a very curious and inconsistent film in many respects. Filmed in Scotland and New Zealand (which was the substitute location instead of Colorado), the film follows the trek westward by young Scotsman, Jay (actor Kodi Smit-McPhee) who is searching for his lost love, Rose and her father who had fled Scotland after a tragic family dispute. Jay is young and naive, traversing a territory full of harshness and predators including bounty hunters, lawless soldiers, bandits and the ever likely Indian raiders. He runs into Silas (Michael Fassbender) a cunning and worldly bounty hunter who, for a fee, will provide a hired gun escort to enable Jay to find Rose. What Jay does not know is that Rose and her father have a $2,000 price on their heads and bounty hunters including Silas are on the lookout. At the end of the trail lies an all-too-likely classic western shoot-out.

This is a very odd little film with multiple inconsistencies throughout its length. Although in desolate country far from an civilisation, Jay and Silas encounter all manner of strange people and sights. Three Congolese men in suits sitting on benches singing love songs in the middle of nowhere, a well built bridge crossing a river yet there's no trail or road with it; a rough hewn trading store with various limited supplies yet there are fresh apples without any apparent way the fruit could have been transported there (a question posed to the film's producer during Q & A who admitted that was a flaw in the film). And finally Rose and her father's house in a desolate field looking brand new with pristine perfect timbers. The film is so quirky its quite entertaining and is worth a cinema ticket.

   

Sydney Film Festival 2015

335 screenings of 250 films in 9 venues over 12 days. The 2015 Sydney Film Festival has reached its 62nd year and continues strongly with a broad swag of new films to view which will be released in the coming weeks and months to the broader public market. New Australian films have a marked presence in this year's selection demonstrating that the local industry has not become inert, albeit it does remain dependent on substantial public funding from bodies such as Screen Australia. From the first set of screenings, family dysfunctionalism again seems to have centre stage in many of the stories presented. Whether this is simply a trend being set in the Art House film genre or is representative of current social trends generally is a matter of conjecture. It does however demonstrate an unusually limited focus for many of the films which have been produced over the past few years.

Participation in the Christian faith in the United States - trending downward

Pew Institute data 2015

The United States is often perceived to be the major bulwark against the trend of falling participation in the Christian religion in developed Western countries. Images of Southern Baptist choirs, evangelical preachers with syndicated programs and activist social justice ministers populate many contemporary film, television and online media mediums. But how accurate is this image with reality ? According to research from the Pew Institute, the truth is heading in the opposite direction.

The Christian faith in the United States is in decline and by a marked level.The percentage of adults (aged 18 or older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in only seven years from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Commensurately, the number of Americans describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular" has increased from 16.1% to 22.8% over the same period. This drop, according to research by the Pew Institute, is mainly driven by declines amongst mainstream Protestants and Catholics.

For the organised mainstream Christian religion, the most concerning element is the decline in support in the Millenial generations and the ageing of the population for adults who are Christians. As a result of increasing non-affiliation with religion, the median age of mainstream Protestants is 52 years of age and the median age of Catholic adults is 49. This gentrification bodes badly for the future.

Fully 36% of young Millenials (those between the ages of 18 and 24) are religiously unaffiliated and 34% of older Millenials (aged 25-33) likewise. There is also time-trend data indicating that people in older generations are increasingly disavowing association with organised Christian religion.

Studies such as these from the Pew Institute are massive in size (sample sizes are over 35,000) and complexity including multi-ethnic and multi-faith research work. The factors for this decline will be multifaceted including changing lifestyles, values and demographics, weak institutional leadership, various moral/ethical scandals in major Churches over the past decade and societal fragmentation in the digital world to cite a few.  At a time of rising militancy in the Islamic faith, the correlating but unrelated decline in Christian support is not a positive development.

Red wine - indulgence or instrument of good health

Much conjecture and debate continues on the relative merits of red wine to health, in contrast to all other alcoholic beverages which are perceived to have negative properties. So what are the properties of red wine that provide these supposed advantages ?

Possibly a longer lifespan according to the Harvard Medical School. Resveratol, a compound found in the red grape skin stimulates a protein with anti-ageing properties. The same compound is conjectured to improve short-term memory through interaction with the hippocampus region of the brain. Resveratol is also theorised to reduce the risk of cancer by acting as a protein blocker for tumour cells.

Other properties of red wine include: procyanidins, found in red wine tannins which have a positive effect on cardiovascular health;  Tempranillo and Rioja which possibly lower cholestrol levels; polyphenols which slow bacterial growth in the mouth and thus slows tooth decay.

Other claims which are often made about the miraculous properties of red wine include improving eye health and even helping to stop the common cold. There is little factual evidence to support these assertions but when enjoying a glass its a reassuring thought that a good Pinot Noir or Merlot may be the magic bullet which beats the common cold.

Film Review - Leviathan

Russian film directors often have a style of film-making which captures both forbidding grandeur and small municipal detail simultaneously, effortlessly juxtaposing the two into an immediate relationship. Thus is the case with the Russian film, Leviathan directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and written by Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin.

The film's story is set in the coastal town of Teriberka is Russia's northern region near the port city of Murmansk. A simple handyman, Kolya is pitted against the corrupt town Mayor, Vadim, who has used town powers to appropriate Kolya's home for redevelopment as a resort. Kolya's life is already  in turmoil as his son, Roma has rejected his new step-mother, Lilia placing a strain on family relationships. An old army buddy, now a prominent Moscow lawyer, Dmitri arrives to support Kolya and face down the mayor and corrupt town officials however his efforts are compromised when he has an extramarital affair with Lilia.  This a film which explores the cracks in social contracts when fate, power and money intervene. Aleksei Serebryakov is well cast as the hot-headed Kolya with Roman Madyanov as his protagonist, Vadim the Mayor. Elena Lyadova as Lilia and Sergey Pokhodaev as Roma make up the rest of the family unit. This story has no happy ending and Kolya's fate seems inevitable in the context of this Russian reality.  

The film's desolate location shoots in the Kola peninsula (Kirovsk, Monchegorsk, Olenegorsk) and on the coast of the Barents Sea (Teriberka) provide an imagery which is both stark and yet majestic in its melancholy expanse. In this setting it's no wonder that the Russian locals turn to the vodka bottle to lubricate and lessen the burden of their existence.

The film has won a string of awards including Best Screenplay at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign Language Film at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, Best Film at the London Film Festival and the 32nd Munich Film Festival, plus a Golden Peacock at the 45th International Film of India.

Half a minute past midnight - The threat of antibiotic-resistant superbug bacteria

The threat posed to public health by antibiotic resistant bacteria has been well known since the early 1990s however recent reports in the media of potential discoveries of new drugs has given hope that the threat is being mitigated, if not resolved. This is an unduly optimistic and premature belief.

The recent report on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) to the UK Prime Minister in December 2014 highlighted that antimicrobial resistant infections currently claim over 50,000 lives each year across Europe and the United States alone. In 15 European countries more than 10% of bloodstream Staphylococcus aureas infections are now caused by methicillin-resistant strains (or MRSA) with some countries now approaching 50%. Drug-resistant tuberculosis prevalence amounted to 480,000 new cases in 2013 worldwide and reported cases of drug resistant malaria have started increasing in South East Asia particularly in Myanmar and Thailand. The death toll from drug resistant malaria is only available as a vague estimate of between 10,000 and 200,000 people worldwide, mainly children. The tough gut-bacteria known as Enterobacteriaceae of which the best known is Escherichia coli (or E-coli) have also been found to have drug-resistant strains. In the United States, currently 4% of Enterobacteriaceae are drug resistant and in Greece it has reached 68% for the strain of Klebsiella.

Research from the United States has found that drug resistant bacteria from cattle has been able to become airborne and move distances for further contamination.

Without effective prophylactic antibiotics to reduce infections, many surgical procedures would become too risky to undertake. Four areas of high-volume medical intervention would particularly be affected: caesarean sections for births; joint replacements; cancer surgical treatment; and organ transplants. In effect modern medicine would be plunged backwards into the pre-antibiotic period.

In early 2015, the discovery of Teixobactin, a small molecule antibiotic was announced in the journal Nature. Teixobactin was found to effectively kill both Staphylococcus aureas and Mycobacterium tuberculosis without the bacteria developing resistance. However this drug has not yet undergone clinical trials involving humans and is at best 5 to 6 years away from this stage of testing. A newer class of drugs termed carbapenems have been in use but a significant number of these remain suspended from development due to economic and regulatory hurdles. Even so carabapenem-resistant bacteria are on the rise.

And what are the causes of this growing health crisis ? Drug development is less than half the problem with over-prescribing/misuse of antimicrobials, and counterfeit/sub-standard drugs being sold over the counter without a prescription being major culprits, particularly in developing countries such as parts of Africa, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Researchers have found drug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in street puddles in Delhi, India and in water samples taken in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Although infection control in hospitals can provide short term solutions, the fundamental need for new discoveries, faster pathways for antibiotics to be available and stricter management of drug access and use remains the pivotal changes needed.

The link to the research findings for Teixobactin is at the link below:

Nature: Teixobactin

The link to the UK report can be accessed at the link below:

Review Paper: Tackling acrisis for the health and wealth of nations

Australia's decline in renewable energy investment

The Clean Energy Council's diagram below shows the strength of the industry and its value to Australia in 2013 but with reports that investment in large scale renewable energy has declined by 88% to $240 milion by the end of 2014, what is the future ? Australia has fallen from 11th in the world ranking for renewable energy investment to 39th.