Sigh. The end of another MIFF. I've emerged, bleary-eyed, back into the everyday world, re-calibrating my sense of time and re-aligning my diet (how many cheap shitty sandwiches did I eat during the festival, racing between sessions?). Actually, compared to other years, I saw less films – for the first time ever, my tally was less than 50 films. While seeing over 50 films may seem excessive to all non-cinephiles, and even to some cinephiles, there are many reasons why I stand by doing this. First up, this may be the only time that many of the programmed films get a chance to be screened in Australia, so one has to support the presence of these films. Second, it can't be helped – even on a bad year (and there were so many films that didn't make it here this year, but that's for another posting, coming soon) there are still a huge number of films for the hardcore cinephile to obsess over, and each year the best films of the year were viewed at MIFF. Finally, although catching 3 to 5 films per day each day for 17 days can get tiring, there is a sense of feeling your cinema-vision being incrementally crafted and honed, the ability to assess the weight, texture, and sensation of each film begins to feel like second nature as you immerse yourself deeper and deeper.So, a quick overview, then the ubiquitous top ten. A theme that pervaded last year's festival was 'life is bleak, no one wins, the world is a shitty place' (see Martyrs, Eden Lake, Antichrist, just for starters). This year the theme was more benign – it seemed to be about ceaseless wandering. My Joy, Let Each One Go Where They May, Karaoke, Between Two Worlds, The Wind Journeys, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives all involved characters just simply walking around for a bit. Most of time the walking seemed either aimless, lost, arduous, or never-ending. Rather than the previous year's aura of nihilistic, apocalyptic doom, this penchant for ambling perhaps signifies a modicum of hope – if the future direction of global civilisation has seemed dark, ominous, and paralysingly hopeless, then the act of meandering is at least the start of an ongoing search to try and find meanings, answers, bearings.There are a huge number of films I have missed, and although most of these films have distribution and therefore may return to the big screen in the next 12 months, the context of a festival adds an inexplicable something to the viewing experience. So, although I will see a swathe of films over the next year that were previewed at the festival, there is always a pang tugging inside me, a little ache that I missed them when they were first shown at MIFF. Right. Here's my top ten of the festival;1. NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (Patricio Guzman; France/Germany/Chile; 2010)2. UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES ( Apichatpong Weerasethakul; France/Germany/Spain/Thailand; 2010)3. LOURDES (Jessica Hausner; France; 2009)4. WORLD ON A WIRE (Rainer Werner Fassbinder; Germany; 1973)5. LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET (Frederick Wiseman; France/USA; 2009)6. VILLALOBOS (Romuald Karmakar; Germany; 2009)7. POETRY (Lee Changdong; South Korea; 2010)8. OVER YOUR CITIES GRASS WILL GROW (Sophie Fiennes; France/UK/Netherlands; 2010)9. NE CHANGE RIEN (Pedro Costa; Portugal/France; 2009)10. ALAMAR (Pedro González-Rubio; Mexico; 2009)
And snapping at the heels of these ten are The Strange Case of Angelica, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, Nenette, Medal Of Honor, and Karaoke.So, back to DVDs and normal cinema sessions. Sigh.
(Apichatpong Weerasethakul; France/ Germany/ Spain/ Thailand; 2010)
Weerasethakul constructs films like no other. His films may be described as elliptic, but narrative is never ignored – rather there is ceaseless striving to find new ways of telling visual stories. The calm, unhurried pace of his work belies a vigour at the heart of his composition, with many shots and sequences exuding an intense sensorial experience. After predominantly spending time inside a hospital for Syndromes and a Century, Weerasethakul returns to the forest. His latest film is perhaps his warmest, despite the mournful premise that Uncle Boonmee is peacefully preparing to die. Weerasethakul fits magical and supernatural elements quite naturally within the framework of this film, as if the slow shimmering return of Boonmee's deceased wife, or the quiet return of his long-missing son as a Monkey Ghost, a hairy, Yeti-like creature, are almost common, explicable occurrences. It is incredible how Weerasethakul presents not just one world but many worlds, all layered on top on each other, as if alternate worlds naturally erupt through the membrane of the world we think we know. Time feels alive, as if it is sentient, aware of it's own movement, therefore not necessarily moving chronologically. Weerasethakul explicitly highlights how time can loop on itself in the film's coda, accentuating a sense of mystery and wonder within the everyday world. Exquisitely shot, the scenes in the forest have to be seen on the big screen – the nocturnal deep green hues of trees in semi-darkness, enveloping the piercing red-eyed shadows of the monkey ghosts, create an environment that haunts the memory long after the film is over.
(Koji Wakamatsu; Japan; 2010)
This film is very blunt. It is quite clear that Wakamatsu wants us to simply consider that war is bad, and no-one remains unaffected. He spells this out through his presentation of statistics about the loss of lives in World War 2 at the end of the film, which feels a little too preachy and tacked-on. But, if you ignore the proselytising tone, then the film has depth and complexity, and presents a truly horrific tale of war through the lens of a domestic setting. A wife has to tend to her husband, returned to her after losing all four limbs and the ability to speak while fighting in the Japanese army. He is considered to be a war-God, but this seems to be by sheer dint of having survived with horrific injuries. The film is interesting when elaborating upon the grey zones of the relations between husband and wife – she hates him, yet at times tenderly nurtures him and feeds him like a baby, he is supposed to be a hero, but the flashbacks reveal he is much less than that. Often, the anger, the agony, the screaming, the crying, all gets a bit too much. Shinobu Teriyama's performance as the wife, however, is extremely strong, and the scene where she first runs away at the sight of her deformed husband is electrifying and terrifying.
(Abbas Kiarostami; France/ Italy; 2010)
O.K., we pretty much know the story behind the film by now – Kiarostami has returned to true-blue narrative film-making and has also made his first film outside of the framework of his native Iran. It may be that Kiarostami's placement of this film within the Euro-art-house film brigade will rankle the fans of his signature style, and perhaps there may be some kind of backlash against this film.... but if the film is viewed on its own terms, then we have something that is actually enjoyable and rewarding. The film is almost like a game. The English man is a philosopher, the French woman is an antique dealer. He has written a treatise philosophising about the copy of a work of art rather than original, while she deals with both original antiques and copies. They meet, they talk, they argue, they travel through the Italian countryside. Soon it becomes difficult to discern reality from pretend in their relationship, whether they are newly-met and are playing the role of husband and wife, or whether they have in fact been once married and initially played the role of not being so familiar with each other. Or perhaps the viewer is fooled, believing that the relationship can be easily assessed in a clear black-and-white manner. And all of this is not so far from Kiarostami's earlier work – for example, Close-Up also manipulates the idea of real and not-real. The incremental shift in this relationship unravels with near-imperceptible grace, and while William Shimell is a tad wooden, Juliette Binoche once again reveals her inexhaustable talent.
(Romuald Karmakar; Germany; 2009)
An outright surprise. This is not merely a biographical document of DJ and composer Ricardo Villalobos, but a minimalist portrait of an artist who is thoroughly at home within his chosen passion, who calmly inhabits a world of sound. The film is book-ended with long passages of Villalobos DJ-ing in a huge, cavernous club, and despite the length of these sequences, watching him calmly search through records, seamlessly weave another strand or layer into his mix, and joyously dance to his own aural concoction is utterly captivating. But its when he's in the studio that the film really holds the attention, as Villalobos reveals his lightning-quick skills at assessing tracks for future club sessions, his close attention to detail and his vitality in remixing a track, and an incredible ability to delicately string the nature of acoustics, histories of sound recording, and philosophies of sound into long, cohesive, and richly engaging monologues. It is to the director's credit that he creates this film out of many long-takes, as it enhances the sensation that the subjects presentation of ideas and thoughts is not contrived or pretentious, but something that gently flows from him as he builds and builds on each thought. What we end up seeing in this film is not simply a DJ or a musician, but someone whose dedication to his profession is as natural as breathing.
(Sophie Fiennes; France / UK/ Netherlands: 2010)
German artist Anselm Kiefer has lived and worked in a old former silk factory in Barjac, France, since 1993, and for the past ten years has slowly been transforming this place, and its surrounds, into a gallery-space which is really one giant artwork. This extremely engaging film meditates on the intricate, otherworldly landscape of Barjac, as well as presenting Kiefer constantly engaged in extending and developing this strange and surreal miniature city. Fiennes is not afraid to let the work speak for itself, as slow moving shots pan through labyrinthine tunnels, across monolithic art-works hanging in their own rough-hewn gallery arenas, and over towers of large, semi-broken concrete slabs, all rising from the ground as if the earth has recently spat out some ancient ruins. These long sequences, aided by a fantastic score by Gyorgy Ligeti, are sublime – the music, the art, and the stately motion of the camera make for wonderfully hypnotic cinema. But even more engaging is seeing Kiefer at work, his creativity seeming to be a constant flow that pours forth new ideas at a startling rate of knots. When we see Kiefer at play with a new work, we get to see someone who inhabits the skin of an artist without pretension, with simplicity, verve, and natural grace. 
(Tom DiCillo; USA; 2009)
This is a primer on The Doors at it's most basic, and is only enlivened by being immersed in a cascade of archived footage of The Doors and Jim Morrison, in concert, in rehearsal, and all things band-related in-between. At first I though that DiCillo's gambit of presenting this like a story, with only old footage and narration by Johnny Depp, was a positive ploy, avoiding furrowing the path of standard rockumentary fare by doing without the current-day talking-head interviews with a host of movers and shakers in the scene then and now. But in fact, this is where the film falls a little flat. The conflicting voices that pepper biopics such as The Filth And The Fury or End of the Century; The Story of the Ramones gave these films tension and charm. The narration by Depp only provides a long saga that presents just one side and one view of the band and especially Jim Morrison. One ultimately wonders why the film needed to be made – purely to cash in on the hoards of Doors fans who will flock to see this film? Despite this cynicism, the film is somewhat satisfying purely via the opportunity to see a wealth of Doors concert footage in one sitting.
