Melbourne International Film Festival previews
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (miff.com.au).
Thursday August 2 to Sunday August 19.
With 254 feature films and 120 shorts, plus a burgeoning virtual reality program and numerous talks, the Melbourne International Film Festival is simply too large to completely take in. Part of MIFF's pleasure is in the choosing, whether you favour careful research or offhand selection. That said, a little guidance never hurt, so here are six films, touching on some of the festival's key strands, which are worth considering.
RAFIKI (82 minutes; Saturday August 11 and Tuesday August 14): Made buoyant by a vibrant colour palette and the tingle of mutual attraction, Wanuri Kahiu's film is an urban romance between two young Kenyan women. Framed by the Romeo and Juliet gambit of their respective fathers being rival political candidates, athletic student Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) and queen bee Ziki (Sheila Munyiva) share tender moments of desire and pleasure – yes, they get caught in the rain together – that would verge on slightness if the backdrop wasn't a deeply conservative society where homophobia is the norm. That the film was banned in Kenya speaks to the risks the gay protagonists are initially oblivious to. The crowd-pleasing lightness of Kahiu's touch is deceptive, because the eventual repercussions, designed to crush, render the film's message defiant and heartfelt.
THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS (102 minutes; Sunday August 5): The vivid and still evolving career of the French filmmaking team of Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani gets a complete retrospective in this year's MIFF program. Released in 2013, their second feature is a succulent, ever-shifting cinematic experience that combines aggressive bursts of colour, obsessive noir atmospherics, themes of voyeurism and surveillance and, above all, the lurid eroticism of Italian Giallo horror cinema. Set in an apartment building whose inhabitants are ciphers in a quest, the slender plot follows a man, Dan (Klaus Tange), who arrives home to find his wife missing. His increasingly desperate search is mirrored by the camera's communication of obsession and the flickering radio dial score, reaching the point where both the building and the body have to be escaped from.
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (96 minutes; Saturday August 4 and Monday August 13): British filmmaker Tim Wardle's documentary about identical triplets who were unexpectedly united in 1980 at the age of 19 is the delightful definition of an unbelievable true story, told with the happiness of discovery and a blast of pop-culture memories. But that's just the first act. The meeting of Robert, Edward and David, recounted by those involved, raises questions that are answered just as they become uncomfortably intrusive, and the film is masterful in how it shows throughout the same footage but with radically different perceptions apparent. The comparison of nature versus nurture is obvious, but it's played out in a way that is bleakly shocking. Without skipping a beat the joyous revelations give way to the struggle for survival.
TRANSIT (101 minutes; Sunday August 5, Friday August 10 and Wednesday August 15): The notion that German filmmaker Christian Petzold would lose something without his long-time lead actor, the remarkable Nina Hoss, is dispelled by his new feature. Set in 1940 Marseilles, but shot with present day detail so that the political ramifications simmer to the surface, it follows a German exile, Georg (Franz Rogowski), trying to get papers to flee even as Hitler's troops inexorably advance. Set in spectral world of seedy motels and casual betrayal, this is a study of rootlessness and identity, given dramatic form by Georg assuming a successful writer's identity and then meeting the man's estranged wife (Paula Beer). The idea that there is no way out is captured by Rogowski's shattered performance as someone unsure if they have anything left to hold on to.
WEST OF SUNSHINE (78 minutes; Friday August 10 and Friday August 17): An on-the-run vision of Melbourne at the point where the margins are too narrow, Jason Raftopoulos' independent feature follows Jim (Damian Hill), a courier driver whose relationships, even with his son, Alex (Tyler Perham), are shaped by the presence of a gambling debt that's about to be aggressively collected. Some of the criminal elements that pepper the storytelling are nebulous, but the film is exacting in capturing how Jim's fears that he will be as bad a father to Alex as his dad was to him poison as much as they prop up their relationship. Images that speak of their bond have a tangible resonance.
ZAMA (115 minutes; Sunday August 5 and Sunday August 12): Almost a decade after The Headless Woman proved inexplicable and compelling, the Argentinean writer/director Lucrecia Martel returns with this dream-state period piece set on the febrile fringes of an 18th century Spanish colony in South America. Respected but sensing only disparagement, magistrate Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) awaits a transfer to his waiting family that never comes, and the idea of absence takes shape as events happen just out of the frame, as if Zama is becalmed in history. Colonialism is an everyday perversion, impeccably staged by Martel, and she propels the uncertain participant into a journey that becomes a beguiling reckoning.