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2010 PROGRAMME

Synopses are from
UrbanCinefile
(courtesy Andrew L. Urban)

For extensive film reviews and information go to
Urban Cinefile
Internet Movie Database
ABC: At The Movies
Rotten Tomatoes

For information on film classification go to
Office of Film and Literature Classification

Films are screened in the order shown, with a 15 minute interval between films.

All film bookings are confirmed by the distributors, but are subject to change.
Townsville Cinema Group reserves the right to alter its programmes if necessary.

For further information about the society or its programmes, email to
info@cinemagroup.org.au

REVIEWS
UrbanCinefile
IMDb

OFFICIAL SITE

THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX
Germany/France/Czech Republic 2008 (MA15+)

Germany in the 1970s: murderous bomb attacks, the threat of terrorism and the fear of the enemy inside are rocking the very foundations of the still fragile German democracy. The radicalised children of the Nazi generation led by Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) are fighting a violent war against what they perceive as the new face of fascism: American imperialism supported by the German establishment. Their aim is to create a more humane society but by employing inhumane means they not only spread terror and bloodshed, they also lose their own humanity. The man who best understands them is also their hunter: the head of the German police force, Horst Herold (Bruno Ganz). And while he succeeds in his relentless pursuit of the young terrorists, he knows he's only dealing with the tip of the iceberg.

Review by Louise Keller:
The Baader Meinhof Complex is an uncompromisingly brutal look at German left-wing militants in the 70s, whose fanatic mindset set off a disturbing and shattering chain of events. The film highlights the ugliest side of human nature and as a result it is a sobering experience, reinforcing the futility of violence. Adapted from a book by Stefan Aust depicting the historic events, the screenplay delivers what we sense is a blow by blow account, and while the accuracy of historical facts is imperative, the film's impact from its drawn out structure, suffers somewhat as a consequence. The cast is faultless however, with Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck superb as movement leaders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.
Directed by Uli Edel, who also contributed to the screenplay, the film gives an excellent sense of the times, when the Vietnam War raged and revolution was the word on the streets. Their aim is to fight oppression and injustice around the world: 'It's possible to take action and win,' Gedeck's respected journalist Meinhof writes. Bleibtreu's Baader insists 'only a gun makes it fun; change things or die trying.' Perhaps the film's most interesting part is the beginning, when we learn how Baader and Meinhof become the leaders, figureheads and inspiration to the movement. In the case of Meinhof, a political journalist with two young children, it is her conviction to act, rather than do nothing that propels her. Her desertion of her children is unfathomable.
The events, characters and storylines are as complex as the title suggests, and we feel the desperation of all the participants throughout - be it in the field training, robbing banks, stealing cars, setting off explosives and bombs and callously pulling the trigger and precipitating blood baths. There is so much violence, I almost felt desensitised at the senseless killings and there are many disquieting images - from force feeding hunger strikers to twitching bodies shattered by multiple bullets. There is no question of the film's validity as a historic retelling of the times, yet as an emotional journey and an insight into the lives of those involved, I hoped for more.

150 minutes (The film occupies the full programme)
Classification: (M) Strong violence, coarse language and nudity

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
At The Movies (ABC) - no review

OFFICIAL SITE
(in French)

ROMAN DE GARE
Crossed Tracks
France 2007 (M)

Best-selling author Judith Ralitzer (Fanny Ardant) is researching unlikely places to find characters for her next novel. As luck would have it, a serial killer with a penchant for magic tricks has just escaped from a high-security prison, providing the perfect source material for an intricately plotted, moody mystery. At the same time, her ghost writer Pierre (Dominique Pignon) gives a lift to a stranger, Huguette (Audrey Dana) who has been left stranded at a gas station after a huge row with her boyfriend. She and her life become Pierre's inspiration for the next Judith Ralitzer novel - but he's no longer satisfied to stay in the shadows, which sets up a clash of wills with the determined author.
Review by Louise Keller:
"Tension oozes from every scene in Claude Lelouch's intriguing drama in which we meet a bunch of seemingly unconnected characters whose fates intersect. There's a novelist in search of a story, a teacher who's abandoned his wife and kids, a serial killer on the run, a hairdresser with a vivid imagination and a ghost writer on the prowl. Lelouch manipulates not only his characters, but us his audience as we are whisked away on a journey in which the bends in the road are sharp and unexpected. Wavering between frustrating and brilliant, Roman De Gare offers complex storytelling and Lelouch makes us question and doubt each character. One moment I found myself mesmerised; the next I had disconnected totally."

110 minutes
Classification: (M) Coarse language and sexual references; Mature themes

REVIEWS

Urban Cinefile
IMDb
At The Movies (ABC) - no review

OFFICIAL SITE
(in Danish)

AFTER THE WEDDING
Efter Brylluppet
Denmark 2006 (M)

Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) runs a faltering Bombay orphanage and when a wealthy Danish benefactor, Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) who could save the place insists on meeting him, Jacob reluctantly leaves Bombay for, he hopes, a brief trip. After a perfunctory meeting, Jorgen invites Jacob to the weekend wedding of his daughter Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen) to Christian (Christian Tafdrup). At the reception, Anna's impromptu speech inadvertently reveals a family secret that implicates her mother Helene (Sidse Babbett Knudsen) and shocks Jacob. It's the beginning of a chain of changes to all their lives.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
"Nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar (2007) - among many other nominations and awards - After the Wedding is another triumph for Susanne Bier and her collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen. As in Open Hearts and Brothers, two other films they have made together, the filmmakers have created a complex work that locks in on several elemental human emotions about relationships. In this scenario, the past meets the present and determines a new future. The elements of the story are not entirely original (though I'll refrain from revealing the crucial elements, as they are best revealed by the film itself) but the way Biers directs the material, these elements are certainly fresh.
"Much of the film’s multi-dimensional effect comes from exceptional performances: Mads Mikkelsen again creates a tangible, multi-faceted character, whose emotional predicament is at the heart of the film. But not exclusively: Rolf Lassgard articulates Jorgen’s own, dramatic emotional journey with nuance and ultimately earns our admiration; Stine Fischer Christensen has won several awards for this brilliant performance as the character at the centre of the family secret; and Sidse Babbett Knudsen gives Helene a warm and vulnerable glow in a pivotal role. Nor will you forget Neeral Mulchandani as the 8 year old orphan, Pramod.
After the Wedding is seamless, holding our attention, engaging our emotions and satisfying our cinematic needs with a story of human weakness, strength, heart and the capriciousness of fate."

120 minutes
Classification: (M) Moderate coarse language

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
ABC - At the Movies

OFFICIAL SITE

MOON
USA 2009 (PG)

Sam Bell has a three year contract to work for Lunar Industries. For the contract's entire duration, he is the sole employee based at their lunar station. His primary job responsibility is to harvest and periodically rocket back to Earth supplies of helium-3, the current clean and abundant fuel used on Earth. There is no direct communication link available between the lunar station and Earth, so his only direct real-time interaction is with GERTY, the intelligent computer whose function is to attend to his day to day needs. With such little human contact and all of it indirect, he feels that three years is far too long to be so isolated; he knows he is beginning to hallucinate as the end of his three years approaches. All he wants is to return to Earth to be with his wife Tess and their infant daughter Eve, who was born just prior to his leaving for this job. With two weeks to go, he gets into an accident at one of the mechanical harvesters and is rendered unconscious. Injured, he awakens back at the station in the infirmary, he assumes assisted by GERTY. GERTY tells him that a rescue team named Eliza will come to the station to clean up the aftermath of the accident. After his recuperation, he takes an unauthorized trip back to the broken harvester, where he makes an unexpected discovery. Because of his find, he begins to doubt his sanity, then his true identity, then the company and GERTY's willingness to do what is best for him. Because of his resulting beliefs, his sole mission becomes how to get back to Earth on his own. ('Huggo')
93 minutes
Classification: (M) Coarse language and science fiction themes

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
ABC - At the Movies

OFFICIAL SITE

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
USA 2008 (M)

When Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt), she brings a long history of personal crises, family conflict and tragedy along with her. The wedding couple's abundant party of friends and relations has gathered for a joyful weekend of feasting, music and love, but Kym-with her biting one-liners and flair for bombshell drama-is a catalyst for long-simmering tensions in the family dynamic.
Review by Louise Keller:
The occasion may be about Rachel Getting Married but everything else is about Rachel's troubled sister Kym, whose life is on shaky ground. Like Noah Baumbach's 2007 Margot at the Wedding in which the relationship of two sisters are at the centre of longstanding family tensions, Rachel's wedding is a catalyst for the unravelling of pent up emotions and deep seeded resentments. It's good to see Anne Hathaway challenged in an emotionally dense role and here she gives a star turn as the vulnerable Kym whose despicable behaviour is a cry for help. Although Kym is not an especially likable character, Hathaway makes her real and we learn that the unseen bruises are often those that are the most painful.
113 minutes
Classification: (M) Coarse language, moderate themes and a brief sex sceneds

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
ABC - At The Movies

OFFICIAL SITE

SERAPHINE
France/Belgium 2008 (PG)

It is 1912. By day, Séraphine Louis (Yolande Moreau) is a religiously devout housekeeper whose hours are occupied with the solitary duties of laundry, cleaning and ironing. In her spare time, however, she immerses herself in the wonders of nature. There she talks to the trees, birds and insects around her. It's the only communication available, and her intimacy with the natural world inspires her to express her feelings on canvas with anything she can find, whether wine, mud, fruits or flowers - or all of them. When German art critic and dealer Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), an enthusiastic advocate of modern and primitive artists, visits the house where Séraphine serves, he is instantly mesmerized - and so begins a relationship that will expose her to the world. But as Séraphine paints her most inspired canvases, the power of her work leads her into the realms of madness.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
Yolande Moreau won the Best Actress Cesar Award for her portrayal of Séraphine, one of seven Cesars bestowed on this exceptional biopic of the late artist... The film begins in 1912 and creates such a dense sense of time and place that it's an immersive experience (hence the awards for production design, music, costumes, cinematography). Moreau, like the other famous and brilliant actress of that name, simply disappears inside Séraphine, who is serene and observant, stoic even, as she goes about her tasks, speaking little, humming or singing or chanting when painting, intense - yet strangely vulnerable. Her subtle and gradual escalation towards the mental imbalance that finally claims her is masterfully fashioned by Moreau, and it manipulates our sympathies perfectly. We get to know her - as much as it's possible to - and to care about her life. Her relationship with art dealer Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), is the central one of her life and the film.
As far as biopics of painters go, Séraphine is one of the very best.

126 minutes
Classification: (PG) MKild themes

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
ABC At The Movies - no review

OFFICIAL SITE - none

HEARTBREAK HOTEL
Sweden 2006 (M)

Elisabeth (Helena Bergström), who is about to be divorced from husband Henrik (Johan Rabaeus), is on her way to their son's wedding, when she is given a parking ticket by Gudrun (Maria Lundkvist) with whom she exchanges a shrill and abusive encounter. To both women's surprise, they meet again a few days later when Gudrun is persuaded to see her gynecologist by her daughter Liselotte (Erica Braun) only to find it is Elisabeth. The women become friends with Elisabeth encouraging Gudrun to have some fun, something she has forgotten how to do, since losing her husband Ake (Claes Mansson). There is no time for tears or regrets when the music and the dancing begin at Heartbreak Hotel.
Review by Louise Keller:
It's uplifting, funny and surprisingly moving, this joyous Swedish film about an unlikely friendship between two women trying to put zest into their lives. With sublime delicacy, writer director Colin Nutley encapsulates life's conflicts and insecurities for two 40-something divorced women... With splendid performances by Helena Bergström and Maria Lundkvist, this carefully observed and highly satisfying film will resonate not only for women of all ages, but for men who love women...
Watch out for an unforgettable scene in which Gudrun's daughter Liselotte (Erica Braun) confronts her mother disapprovingly in the hotel's rest room, when she sees her slam-dunking tequilas and letting it all hang out on the dance floor. There are dramatic moments as Elisabeth shrieks in defence of Gudrun's right to enjoy herself. But there's also a contagious sense of fun as we watch Elisabeth and Gudrun with an unused packet of condoms trying to get laid. It's the beginning of many adventures which include propositioning two policemen, riding on the back of motorbikes and ending up stranded in a field of flowers in the middle of nowhere. They laugh together and share confidences; when Gudrun confides she has never had an orgasm, Elisabeth offers a solution.
There are misunderstandings, interferences and resentment as echoes and ghost of the past appear. Heartbreak Hotel is their escape hatch where cares quickly soar out of the window. This is a gorgeous film with a wonderful soundtrack including songs like Bette Davis Eyes, Heartbreak Hotel, My Number One, Waterloo, Piano in the Dark and Jill Johnson's haunting Love Hurts, whose lyrics remind us 'love is like a cloud; it holds a lot of rain'. But as we hear at the beginning of the film, we are created through our encounters with others. Amen.

97 minutes
Classification: (M) Moderate coarse language and sexual references

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile - no review
IMDb
ABC At The Movies - no review

OFFICIAL SITE

SIN NOMBRE
Mexico 2009 (MA15+)

El Norte. The North. It is a lodestar for some of those south of our border, who risk their lives to come here. Sin Nombre, which means "without a name," is a devastating film about some of those who attempt the journey. It contains risk, violence, a little romance, even fleeting moments of humor, but most of all, it sees what danger and heartbreak are involved. It is riveting from start to finish.
The film weaves two stories. One involves Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a young woman from Honduras who joins her father and uncle in an odyssey through Guatemala and Mexico intended to take them to relatives in New Jersey. The other involves Willy, nicknamed Casper (Edgar Flores), a young gang member from southern Mexico, who joins with his leader and a 12-year-old gang recruit to rob those riding north on the tops of freight cars. Their paths cross. This is an extraordinary debut film by Cary Fukunaga, only 31, who shows a mastery of image and story. He knows the material. He spent time riding on the tops of northward trains; hundreds of hopeful immigrants materialize at a siding and scramble onboard, and the railroad apparently makes little attempt to stop them...
There are shots here of great beauty. As the countryside rolls past, and the riders sit in the sun and protect their small supplies of food and water, there is sometimes the rhythm of weary camaraderie. I was reminded of Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory. Kids along the tracks are happy to see the riders getting away with something, and at one place, they throw them oranges. At stations, the riders jump off and detour around the guards and then board the train again as it leaves town.
Sin Nombre is a remarkable film, showing the incredible hardships people will endure in order to reach El Norte. Yes, the issue of illegal immigration is a difficult one. When we encounter an undocumented alien, we should not be too quick with our easy assumptions. That person may have put his life on the line for weeks or months to come here, searching for what we so easily describe as the American dream. What inspired Fukunaga, an American, to make this film, I learned, was a 2003 story about 80 illegals found locked in a truck and abandoned in Texas. Nineteen died.

Sin Nombre won the awards for best direction and cinematography at Sundance 2009. (from Roger Ebert)

96 minutes
Classification: (MA15+) Strong violence

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
ABC -At The Movies

OFFICIAL SITE - none

MOTHER
Madeo
Korea 2009 (G)

A mother (Hye-ja Kim) desperately searches for the killer who framed her son (Bin Won) for a horrific murder.

Review by Geoff Gardner:
First sighted at Cannes last year in the Un Certain Regard section (many thought it should have been selected for the Competition) Korean film-maker Bong Joon-ho’s fourth feature film Mother has gone on to be a major selection at just about every film festival round the globe since and confirmed Bong’s reputation as South Korea’s sharpest maker of varied high class entertainments. He has been feted throughout North America in particular and its not hard to see why. In this neck of the woods, the film was rushed into release in Sydney almost immediately after its Cannes success and dumped, without a dollar spent on advertising, into a Chinatown cinema which has since closed down. That was a significant mistake by the distributors of one of the year’s best films and it seems that some attempt was made to rectify it when the film later played the Melbourne International Film Festival and drew appreciative crowds.
Mother displays an assurance in suspenseful story telling that is remarkable. Perhaps no surprise at its accomplishments need be registered when it’s recalled that Bong also directed the absorbing police procedural Memories of Murder as well as the enigmatic Barking Dogs Don’t Bite and that exhilarating entertainment The Host. We’re dealing here with the work of someone who knows how to make smart, edge of the seat movies which keep audiences guessing and aren’t afraid to be witty and extravagant.
Mother is a story in Hitchcockian vein, tailored for audiences today that like their thrills to contain rather more explicit material and rather more down and dirty human foibles than even those revealed in the old master’s most extreme displays of human nastiness. An intellectually challenged young man, goaded by a cynical mate, attempts to accost a young girl walking home alone late at night. Who she is, what she does and what he does form the core of the story which we are led through by the boy’s mother, a somewhat hapless figure who makes a living selling herbal remedies and giving illegal acupuncture treatments. She’s convinced he’s innocent and sets out to prove it. Mothers are like that - always wanting to believe the best about their kids no matter what the evidence. She however is like the rest of the population – cops, crooks, thugs, schoolboys, schoolgirls and more – all just that bit twisted, just that bit tempted to be nasty when they can.
The film opens with a lyrical shot of a middle aged woman slowly approaching the camera in some seemingly idyllic rural setting. She begins to dance as the credits roll. Then we cut, back we only later know, to a mother in her business keeping an eye on her errant son in the street just at the moment when he’s arrested for the murder. Tracking through the story with her provides thrills and shocks and more than a bit of bone jarring violence in the rather graphic fashion known as the modern way. But there’s quite some mastery here in telling the story and Korea’s soft underbelly, a nation on the collective make and out to get what it can, gets more than a little attention.
After four films its safe to say now that Bong knows how to cover all the bases of the modern thriller, with villains ranging from enigmatic neighbours, unknown assailants, a monster in the river and, in the latest case, a might be might not be, casual killer. He is one of the new Asian masters of the noughties and we should treat his films as major events in the way we do with new work from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Wong Kar-wai, and Hou Hsiao-hsien. He’s that good.

129 minutes
Classification: (MA)not available

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
ABC - At The Movies (interview)

OFFICIAL SITE

AMREEKA
USA/Canada 2009 (M)

Muna Farah (Nisreen Faour), a Palestinian single mum, struggles to maintain her optimistic spirit in the daily grind of intimidating West Bank checkpoints, the constant nagging of a controlling mother, and the haunting shadows of a failed marriage. Everything changes one day when she receives a letter informing her that her family has been granted a U.S. Green Card. Reluctant to leave her homeland, but realising it may be the only way to secure a future for her teenage son, Fadi (Melkar Muallem), Muna quits her job at the bank and visit her relatives in Illinois (Hiam Abass, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Ali Shawkat) to see about a new life in a land that gives newcomers a run for their money...

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
The extreme end of the fish out of water story is that of migrants moving to a vastly different culture from a home in which they can't stay, to a home they can't stand...
Of course life in the Amreekan paradise is not necessarily better, but it's certainly different. Outsiders have to find a way to adjust to the social and financial landscape. Muna finds it hard, as does Fadi. Both deliver terrific performances; Faour is vulnerable, defiant, frightened and determined by turns, and Muallem is a natural in a challenging role that calls for a mix of performance restraint and technique.
Their relatives are also superbly played by the experienced Hiam Abbas (seen in Australia in Paradise Now, Munich, The Visitor and Lemon Tree, as well as a small role in Limits of Control) and Yussuf Abu-Warda who plays her husband, a doctor whose practice is falling away in the wake of the Iraq war, which has just started at the time of this story. Also excellent is Alia Shawkat as their daughter. Shawkat followed Amreeka with the role of Pash in Drew Barrymore's questionable directorial effort Whip It.
The themes and issues that Cherien Dabis works into the screenplay add layers of texture and interest and relevance - but it's the humanity of the work that makes it resonate and the insight into a culture closed to most Australians that makes it illuminating.

96 minutes
Classification: (M) Drug use and coarse language

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb

ABC - At The Movies

OFFICIAL SITE
(in Italian)

QUIET CHAOS
Caos calmo
Italy 2008 (MA15+)

At the beach with his playboy brother (Alessandro Gassman), Pietro (Nanni Moretti) rescues a woman (Isabella Ferrari) from drowning, only to return home to find his wife has died in a freak accident, leaving him to care for their 10 year old Claudia (Blu Di Martino) - whose seeming acceptance of her loss confounds Pietro. He spends his days on a park bench outside her school, waiting to take her home, sometimes sitting in his car or in a nearby restaurant.
Review by Louise Keller:
'Quiet Chaos' is an apt description for the emotional state of Nanni Moretti's grieving widower Pietro, in a film whose central theme is grief, but that plays out with a mix of humour and acceptance. There are some parallels with Moretti's acclaimed The Son's Room, although this adaptation of Sandro Veronesi's novel (by Moretti) has a lighter touch as it deals with the complex issues of emotional loss. There's a controversial steamy sex scene too between Moretti and Isabella Ferrari, whose characters had previously met in intimate, albeit totally different circumstances at the very beginning of the film. Ferrari's Eleonora is the woman whose life Pietro saves at the beach and their orgasmic encounter epitomises the essence of letting go, a feat with which Pietro has been struggling, since the sudden death of his wife.
Most of the film takes place outside the school of Pietro's 10-year-old daughter Claudia, where the bereaved father plants himself when he takes her to school each day. It happens naturally when Pietro reassures Claudia after her mother's funeral and as he sits on the bench outside the school, or in his car on a wet day, he becomes familiar with the regulars in the street. There are unspoken dialogues with the pretty girl walking the big dog, the local restaurateur and the mother with the disabled son who he amuses by remotely making his car lights flash. It also becomes an unexpected meeting place with his business colleagues as the company reels from back-stabbing in the midst of a merger. (Roman Polanski makes a surprising appearance in a cameo.)
Moretti's imposing frame and presence form the heart of this unexpected tale about love, relationships and loss. Alessandro Gassman as his younger funky brother Carlo steals many scenes such as the one in which he is smoking opium. Antonio Luigi Grimaldi elicits great performances from all his cast, including Yoshimi, who delivers a warm and credible performance as the little girl who learns at school that some things are reversible and ultimately allows her father to resume his life. It's a thoughtful film with themes that linger.

96 minutes
Classification: (MA15+) Strong drug use; Strong sex scene

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb
At the Movies (ABC)- no review

OFFICIAL SITE - none

TULPAN
Germany/Kazakhstan/Switzerland/Poland 2008 (M)

On the steppes of Kazhakstan, a young Rassian sailor, Asa (Askhat Kuchencherekov), returns to his village to secure his future - a flock of sheep to tend for a boss. To do this, he needs a wife; the girl of his dreams, Tulpan, is the only option in the entire region. For now, he shares a yurt (a tent house made of skins) with his beautiful older sister Samal (Samal Yeslyamova), brother-in-law Ondas (Ondasyn Besikbasov) and their four rambunctious children. But when he calls on Tulpan's family and offers marriage, Tulpan, hoping to leave the steppe and go to college, tells her parents to refuse him, claiming it's because his ears are too big. Asa now has to somehow make do...
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
The story has the makings of a romantic comedy, but it veers off into something else. Imagine the situation: the barren Kazhak steppe is your traditional home, where shepherds make a meagre living tending flocks - usually for other, slightly richer people. To get a flock to look after, the boss demands you have a wife, for the simple reason that you cannot survive without such domestic support as a wife provides. It's very pragmatic. So when Asa, the mournful-faced Askhat Kuchencherekov, comes home from military service in the navy, he looks up the girl next door. She's the only girl near by (and it's not so near, either) and she's not interested in him. Or anyone else. She wants out, just as much as he wants in. He's happy on the steppe; she wants a future in the city. This clash is echoed elsewhere in the story, with varying degrees of intensity. The initial set up of boy meets girl is thus translated into a culture we hardly recognise. But we soon learn. The second act would normally have the boy chase the reluctant girl - which he does, but to no avail. Worse, her mother gets in on the act, at one stage threatening him with a shovel.
All the while Asa shares the yurt with his sister's family. Good grief their kids are loud! All crammed into one space the size of an average living room, and Asa's brother in law is a sour fart who resents his presence.
The film takes us deep into Kazhak country, including a real time scene in which Asa finds himself the impromptu midwife to a sheep in the middle of nowhere. The local vet turns up to take away a young camel whose mother brays and hovers threateningly. Sudden whirligigs lift the surface dust and reduce visibility to zero while raising the decibels.
Highly acclaimed at festivals, Tulpan is wondrous and fascinating, with a gritty, true-to-hard-life tone. It's not a comedy but there are humorous moments; it's not a romance but there are romantic touches; it's not a drama but there are dramatic elements. It's unique and memorably exotic, and it does illuminate the human condition. But don't let the accolades raise your expectations too high or you may be let down.

99 minutes
Classification: (M) Infrequent coarse language and nudity

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile - no review
IMDb
At the Movies (ABC)- no review

OFFICIAL SITE - none

HER WHOLE LIFE AHEAD
Tuta la vita davanti
Italy 2008 (M)

Preamble for you foreign viewers: this movie is about the so called "permatemps"; that's temporary workers who effectively do the job of a permanent worker, but can be fired anytime and have no benefits at all. In the last 5-6 years in Italy, temporary job laws were introduced and had a devastating effect on society, especially on younger generations.
Finally a movie with heart about temporary workers, very well written and directed. You will be taken through the odyssey of Marta, a young graduate in philosophy who cannot find any job related to her studies, so to keep herself alive, she has to take a temporary job as a telephone-marketer. While in the process of descending this inferno, she will get in touch with a wide spectrum of persons and situations, that will keep you interested in the story.
The writer/director does a very good job in building the story, you will really care for all the characters, even the two villains, who by the end of the movie show their human side. My only remark to the script is when Marta engages in a totally gratuitous sex act that is very clichè, and the fact that the story does not really tackle with all the problems that a temporary worker has to face in Italy, mainly the inability to get any mortgage to buy a house, or the mandatory periods of time when the worker is left home without pay and then hired again later through a different mediating agency, which is the standard workaround to avoid the rather feeble restrictions imposed by the law.
Overall, this is a great movie that I recommend, it is an universal story about the de-humanization of people, that every viewer in the western world will feel connected to. Yet it still manages to be funny at times and rather moving. (from 'Pietro', Italy)

116 minutes
Classification: (M) Coarse language and sex scenes; Infrequent nudity, violence and drug use

REVIEWS
Urban Cinefile
IMDb

ABC - At The Movies

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COLD SOULS
USA 2009 (M)

Actor Paul Giamatta (Paul Giamatta) is emotionally drained after intense rehearsals of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya when he stumbles on an article in the New Yorker called 'Soul Storage', about a private laboratory offering relief for overburdened souls. On the spur of the moment, Paul decides to have his soul extracted and stored but is taken aback when he discovers it is the size and shape of a chickpea. He discovers having no soul to be rather empty and boring and rents the soul of an alleged Russian poet. When he decides he must get his own soul back, he meets Nina (Dina Korzun), a Russian soul-mule who transports souls from Russia to America.
Review by Louise Keller:
I love the bizarreness of the premise about a man who feels so heavy by the weight of his soul he puts it into cold storage, and although Cold Souls doesn't quite gel in the final analysis, there is much about Sophie Barthes' dream-inspired film that is wonderful. Intriguingly, there are parallels with Charlie Kaufman's Being John Malkovich as it is not only Paul Giamatti's overly burdened actor who has his head messed with; we do too.
What is it that makes us who we are? Where does the soul fit in? How would our individual stories play out if we could swap souls as easily as books at the local library? Would you still love me if I were someone else? It's a cocktail of the philosophical, the reflective, the introspective and the surreal, wickedly and liberally laced with deadpan humour. And Giamatti makes an extra tasty meal of it, luring us onto that springboard from which we make a gigantic, entertaining leap of faith.
Watching David Stathairn's Dr Flintstein ('A twisted soul is like a tumour; get rid of it') is a joy as he explains soul-swapping philosophy in the same disarmingly matter of fact way as he might discuss swapping football cards. He assures vulnerable Giamatti that 'size isn't everything' as his distraught client views his chick-pea of a soul, clinically displayed in a tall, cylindrical glass jar. Emily Watson is suitably bewildered as the wife and Dina Korzun is excellent as the trafficking Russian soul-mule Nina, who inadvertently retains fragments of the souls she smuggles through customs. Satire is at its peak when Katheryn Winnick's Russian soap actress Sveta is determined to get Al Pacino's soul to improve her acting talents but gets Giamatti's instead.
The story eventually runs out of puff and fizzles, but it's a hell of a journey (excuse the pun) and Andrij Parekh's cinematography beautifully enhances the mood. The David Lynch-like sequence that incorporates an incongruous set of ingredients sits comfortably in the context but in the end the stimulation and intrigue fails to pay dividends.

101 minutes
Classification: (M) Infrequent coarse language

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DEPARTURES
Japan 2008 (PG)

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a devoted cellist in a Tokyo orchestra that has just been dissolved and he is left without a job. Despondent, he takes his young wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) to the small town where he grew up (after his father left the family when he was six) and where his late mother had left her small cottage to him, so they can live rent free. Spotting a Help Wanted ad in the local paper featuring the word "departures," he is happy to try a new career ... in the travel industry, perhaps. Daigo is hired on the spot, even before learning what the job really entails: the ceremonial "encoffination" of corpses prior to cremation, working as the assistant to the boss, Shouei (Tsutomo Yamazaki). Mika resents the job but Daigo soon takes a certain pride in his work, acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death. It takes news of his father's death at a small fishing port to resolve his various emotional conflicts.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
In so many cultures, farewelling the dead with respect and love is one of the ways of grieving and coping with the inevitable end of a life. By itself, the subject would make a fantastic doco (please can I narrate it!). The rituals and customs that various societies practice surrounding death have always fascinated me, and I'm not alone. Indeed, it was the film's star, Masahiro Motoki, who came up with the idea of a movie set against the backdrop of the rather delicate and artistic Japanese custom and a Japanese 'nakanshi' (encoffiner - the person who ceremonially prepares a body for the coffin). It was triggered by his visit to India, where he saw life and death sharing the riverbanks... He took to the role seriously and learnt the craft first hand, enhancing his graceful and caring performance as the young man thrown into the job. He also seems to play the cello pretty well...
The film has enjoyed tremendous acclaim, from a Foreign Language Oscar for 2008 -- the other contenders were: The Baader Meinhof Complex, The Class, Revanche and Waltz With Bashir -- but I hesitate to recommend it unreservedly. Better to lower your expectations and discover those elements that touch you most deeply without waiting for the film to deliver something that it doesn't really promise. Yes, it's engaging, woven together with a light, sometimes humorous touch - and the screenplay is layered with the theme of parent and child relationships. Indeed, it is Daigo's feelings about the father who left them when he was just 6 that give the film its real emotional grounding. And it is the resolution of this underlying tension that also gives the film it's more satisfying payoff.
But it is sometimes a little stilted and a little laborious, and director Yojiro Takita (a terrific craftsman) lets himself be seduced by sentiment; we could do without scenes of Daigo playing his cello on the raised bank of a river with birds flying and an orchestra rousing us....or the extended scene of meaningful glances at the end....for example. The treatment of Daigo and Mika's relationship also leaves something to be desired, but in the overall thrust of the story this is not so critical.
Performances are (with a few exceptions) mostly spot on, and I especially like the master encoffiner, the veteran actor Tsutomo Yamazaki.

130 minutes
Classification: (M) Mature themes

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$9.99
Israel/Australia 2008 (M)

Unemployed Dave Peck (Samuel Johnson) still lives at home with his dad, Jim (Anthony LaPaglia) in an apartment block where his neighbours are a mixed bunch. Pensioner Albert (Barry Otto) is visited by what seems an angel, who in a previous life was a homeless man (Geoffrey Rush) and retired, broke magician Marcus Parcus (Roy Billing) is getting repossessed. Loser Ron (Joel Edgerton) is at odds with his girlfriend and keeps company with three miniature beer swilling students who live in his room. Dave's brother, Lenny (Ben Mendelsohn) is chasing supermodel Tanita (Leeanna Walsman) who likes her men hairlessly smooth.
Review by Louise Keller:
Looking for the silver lining is what is at the heart of Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal's stop motion animated film, in which a wonderful voice cast inhabits an unexpected and unusual group of oddball characters. It's a satirical work, based on a short story by Etgar Keret and whose title describes the cost of a mail-order booklet that promises the answer to the riddle of the meaning of life. For the most part, Rosenthal's vision is one that presents a cynical point of view, with the exception of her unemployed 28 year old protagonist Dave (voiced by Samuel Johnson), whose hopeful optimism leap frogs to others in his apartment block. It's a challenging film with plenty of merit as a handful of unrelated stories criss-cross and involve us in a mountainous thought provoking journey in which we ponder the meaning of happiness. But it's challenging, in that for all its good points, I often found the characters hard to follow. The Australian accents also seem incongruous in the context of characters that are more at home in Israel than in Australia.
'Nice guys always finish last,' is the philosophy of Anthony LaPaglia's middle-aged, balding Jim, who sees the world through the rind of a lemon. The striking, opening sequence in which Jim is confronted by Geoffrey Rush's hobo in search for a cigarette and a cup of coffee, is a real attention grabber, and my personal favourite. It confronts us with many issues simultaneously, leaving us wondering what can possibly come next. We are then introduced to a number of different characters including a Lothario (voiced by Ben Mendelsohn) who will go to extreme lengths to impress his model girlfriend who likes her men smooth as a baby's bottom, a magician whose furniture is being repossessed ('Robin Hood in reverse'), a soccer-mad youngster whose dream to own a new action figure changes as he gets attached to his piggy bank and a dope-loving layabout (voiced by Joel Edgerton) who treats his miniature fantasy figures with beer from an eye-dropper. Claudia Karvan voices a pregnant school teacher at odds with her predicament.
Geoffrey Rush's hobo (who inherits wings) is the character that makes us sit up and take notice. After all, he is the one who thinks heaven is like the Sunshine Coast. The handful of narratives flit from one to the other and occasionally the lives of the characters intersect. It's a striking film that proudly stands up wanting to be counted, and for the discerning movie-lover

74 minutes
Classification: (M) Coarse language, violence, sexual references, nudity and drug use

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BLESSED
Australia 2007 (MA15+)

During the course of one day and night, seven children find themselves on difficult urban journeys in Melbourne. Katrina (Sophie Lowe) and Trisha (Anastasia Baboussouras) are street-smart girls, with sharp tongues and attitude. They wag school and are caught shoplifting. Having recently fled his mother's cloying love, Roo (Eamon Farren) is living on the street. But when he finds himself in a porn film he realises he's not so tough and just wants to go home. Unfairly accused of stealing his mother's money, angry Daniel (Harrison Gilbertson) attempts a real theft - with unexpected results. Brother and sister, Orton (Reef Ireland) and Stacey (Eva Lazzaro), must flee the mother they love in order to survive. And James (Wayne Blair) is the most lost of all; a young Aboriginal man with no place in the white or the black world. But how does it all look from their mothers' point of view?
Review by Louise Keller:
There's a scene towards the end of the film in which Frances O'Connor's agitated and anxious Rhonda is walking down a laneway at night surrounded by shadows. It occurred to me that our emotional journey in Ana Kokkinos' exquisitely and brutally powerful film about the indestructible but fragile thread that connects mothers and children feels just like that: a heart-wrenching walk through the darkest depths of turmoil. Similar to her previous film, Head On, Blessed caresses the extremes. Love, hate and everything in between is artistically splashed on a sizzling-hot canvass with no restrictive frame. Our hearts lurch violently the whole while and even though I felt bruised, I also felt energized and completely satisfied by the experience.
To begin with, the two-part structure of Andrew Bovell's screenplay, based on the award-winning play he penned with Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves and Patricia Cornelius (Who's Afraid of the Working Class?), is simple but brilliant. Not only does it clearly reveal the subject matter, but naturally offers different points of view. The Children and The Mothers. Both sections begin in exactly the same way with images of the characters peacefully asleep and adrift from the tumultuous emotions of their waking hours. The 'children' are in fact, angry young adults, using their instincts to survive their everyday practicalities and inner demons. Foul language, insolence, shop-lifting, stealing and exploited sexual fantasies are some of the results. Although we have already met The Mothers through the eyes of the children, we see them in a new light and with greater depth, as the point of view changes. Although the characters are not connected, there is a point at which their stories intersect or draw a parallel. The day also ends differently to expectations.
The entire production is superb, beginning with Kokkinos' hard-wired, intuitive direction. Geoff Burton's cinematography is gritty like the content of the story-lines and Jill Bilcock's seamless editing helps in the potency of the cocktail. Cezary Skubiszewski's haunting music theme feels like a wave that impacts as it washes over us.
O'Connor gets top billing and rightly so. Her performance as the fertile Rhonda, who is barren in so many ways, is something special. In one key scene, she lets fly a scream so potent that it will stay with me for a long time. But every single performance has merit. The luminous Deborra-Lee Furness as the affection-deprived nurse, Miranda Otto as titan-haired Bianca who waits for Lady Luck, Victoria Haralabidou as the religious seamstress who overlooks one child for another. William McInnes cannot do a thing wrong and here his always-wrong husband makes someone happy 'because he can.' The young cast is outstanding too: there is not one wrong note anywhere. I especially like Anastasia Baboussouras and Sophie Lowe as the precocious schoolgirls and Eamon Farren is impressive as Roo. Harrison Gilbertson has great appeal as the boy who gets more than he expects, when the tables are turned during a break-in (Monica Maughan, haunting). It is in this powerful scene that we are told that mothers have no choice - when it comes to love.
There is so much more that can be said about this achingly potent film. Including Rhonda's revelation from which the title comes. Producer Al Clark knows how to put a project together and this one vibrates with heart, passion and truth.

113 minutes
Classification: (MA15+) Strong themes, coarse language and sexual references

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THE FRENCH KISSERS
Les beaux gosses
France 2009 (MA15+)

While 14 year old Herve (Vincent Lacoste) and his sidekick Camel (Anthony Sonigo) are forever fantasising over their female classmates, they're rarely able to go as far as actually talk to any of them, other than mumble a few incoherent insults. But when Herve inexplicably catches the eye of the sweet but equally hormone-fuelled Aurore (Alice Tremolieres), he's pushed to choose between his first probable girlfriend, his unquenchable libido, and his best friend.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
The fumbling and bumbling and raging hormones of early adolescence are only funny to those who survive them; adults. I suppose it's also funny to other teenagers who are not involved. Anyone at arm's length, in fact, from the actual characters. In this fresh, exuberant French comedy of teenage love/lust/romance and other deadly serious matters that threaten life on a daily basis, there are no messages. Perhaps one, for mothers of teenage boys: stay out of their bedrooms.
Written in the ink of painful experience, Raid Sattouf's screenplay rests his humour on reality; like Absolutely Fabulous (say) the material is serious to the point of tragedy. These characters survive emotionally by the skin of their teeth - and a few don't. Vincent Lacoste is the epitome of young nerdiness who likes to think (but doesn't believe) that he's a suave and sexy man. He isn't of course. His hair is a mess, his pimples are ferocious and his experience with girls is zip. His Arab school friend Camel (Anthony Sonigo) alternates between envy and frustration with his friend, but it's all together when it comes to perving on women, whether in the flesh or in the magazines. They are examples of normal, natural, well meaning, struggling, flawed and struggling 'beaut kids' as Australians might translate the French title.
One of the hits of Directors Fortnight at Cannes, the film also has all the attributes of a commercial coming of age comedy. Sattouf and his co-writer Marc Syrigas explore the subject with verve and barbed accuracy; they also treat the multicultural fabric of modern France with a natural jocularity that is both comfortable and poignant. All the observations about contempo French society are seamless and matter of course. But that makes them all the more valid and dynamic.
The girls are portrayed as different, but certainly not morally superior. There is a casual emotional violence to all the characters that rings true; that's how we are before we mature and learn how to measure our venom and our response. All of this makes the film easy to digest, engaging and entertaining - especially with a demonstrative crowd. It has real heart and captures real feelings we recognise - or even vaguely remember.

90 minutes
Classification: (M) Strong sexual references and coarse language

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GENOVA
UK 2008 (M)

Widowed Joe (Colin Firth) moves his two daughters, the youngest, Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) and her teenage sister Kelly (Willa Holland) to Italy after their mother, Marianne (Hope Davis) dies in a car accident, in order to revitalize their lives. Genova changes all three of them as the youngest daughter starts to see the ghost of her mother, while the older one discovers her sexuality.
Review by Louise Keller:
Michael Winterbottom knows how to tell a story. He knows how to make it real and how to press our emotional buttons. This story about love, loss and making new rules is not unfamiliar, yet in Winterbottom's hands, it has an appealing freshness. New beginnings in new Italian surroundings include not only a culture change, but a chance to come out from the shadows inherited by the past. Life affirming and warm, Genova captures a great sense of place as we explore the intricate maze of cobbled streets, the historic buildings with peeling facades and well-worn green shutters, sunny beaches and dense forests.
The scenes before the opening credits belong in the old life of Colin Firth's Joe and his two daughters Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) and Kelly (Willa Holland). The trigger for everything that happens in the film occurs in the first scene - in black, white and silver. There's a magnificent wintry setting with snow-laden fir trees, there's blackness when eyes are closed for a guessing game; the silver of metal is only one of several interpretations. But the story really begins in the Italian port of Genova or La Superba, as it is known, after its magnificent historic past, when Joe and the girls relocate from Chicago. 'If you like pasta and ice cream, you'll be fine,' Joe's old University friend Catherine Keener's Barbara tells Mary when they arrive.
Like the modulating notes at Mary and Kelly's piano lessons down the myriad of narrow laneways that divides the 16th century buildings, life changes key. Firth is well cast as the loving father intent on protecting his family, while Keener draws us to her Barbara, even though we can only sense an aura of sadness around her. Hope Davis makes a strong impression as Marianne, whose presence is felt throughout and Margherita Romeo's Rosa is vital as Joe's love interest. These are the characters that form the rod of the story, while Holland's Kelly (discovering her sexuality), and Haney-Jardine (as the little girl who senses things) waver in different directions until all the story strands come together at the end. Brazilian actress Haney-Jardine is outstanding as Mary; her emotional outpouring engulfs us like a wave from one of those glorious sunny Genova beaches.
There are secrets and candles, time jumps and flash backs as well as love trysts. There are also a few more hand-held camera moments than I would like. But the story and the characters touch us profoundly and we are sucked into their reality. This is a beautiful film that crosses all kinds of boundaries, leaving us refreshed and filled with anticipation.

93 minutes
Classification: (M) Mature themes and coarse language

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DISGRACE
Australia/South Africa 2008 (MA)

David Lurie (John Malkovich), twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as an English professor in post-apartheid South Africa, finds his life falling apart. When he seduces one of his students, Melanie (Antoinette Engel) and does nothing to protect himself from the consequences, he is dismissed from his teaching position, and goes to live with his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines), who shares a farm in the Eastern Cape with trusted black worker Petrus (Eric Ebouaney). For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. In the aftermath of a vicious attack by three black youths, he is forced to come to terms with the changes in society - as well as his disgrace.
Review by Louise Keller:
Desire and its consequences are at the heart of this complex drama that has the power to shred us emotionally. Based on the Booker prize winning novel by J.M. Coetzee, this is the kind of film that knocks you for a loop. It surprises at every turn, takes you where you least expect to be taken and twists a knife into your heart just after you think you have endured the worst of it. Directed and adapted by the husband and wife team who brought us the quirky and accessible La Spagnola in 2001, Steve Jacobs and Anna-Maria Monticelli have a profound grasp of the subject matter, resulting in a mature, thought provoking work that resonates. Subconsciously, the film throbs with truth as we find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper in a quagmire of redemption, acceptance and reconciliation reflecting the South African divide.
When we first meet John Malkovich's lust-driven University professor David Lurie, we quickly understand his philosophy that there are more important things in life than being prudent. He teaches romantic poetry and listens to classical music, while lust fuels his leisure time. Disgrace is the result of his liaison with his student Melanie (Antoinette Engel). But that is just the beginning of the journey. We take a sharp right hand turn as David drives through the distinctively barren South African terrain to the remote farm where his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) lives. The harsh reality of daily life begins, where desire is examined from a converse point of view. Rape and the confrontation of an unfathomable cultural mindset start life spinning as fast as the hubcaps of the pickup trucks on the desolate, dusty roads.
Malkovich is one of those actors who cannot help but carry loads of gravitas. Here, as always, he is brilliantly credible as a severely flawed man forced to learn the reality of the poetry he teaches. ('One who goes to teach learns the keenest of lessons; one who goes to learn, learns nothing'). Haines gives a staggering performance as Jessica, the strong woman who makes tough decisions as her comfort zone crumbles as she loses everything, while Eriq Ebouaney is striking as Jessica's neighbour Petrus, whose life philosophies must be accepted. There are two especially devastating moments in this film and they arrive unexpectedly. The first is the scene in which Malkovich is crying: we see him as from the back of a car carrying unusual cargo. The second is at the animal shelter, where David helps Bev (Fiona Press) in the heartbreaking task of dealing with unclaimed dogs. Special mention to Antony Partos' exceptional score which accentuates and tugs at our emotions and Steve Arnold's splendid cinematography which captures the starkness of the landscape. Disgrace is a powerful work and one that is not easily forgotten. Sadly, the resonance of life in South Africa feels only too real and familiar.

120 minutes
Classification: (MA) Violence, sex scenes, mature themes and coarse language

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THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
USA 2008 (M)

Chelsea (Sasha Grey) is a highly paid, high-end Manhattan call girl, who deliver not only than sex to her clients, but companionship, conversation and all the things one might expect from a real girlfriend. Chelsea thinks she is in control of her life with a secure future (earning $2,000 per hour) and devoted boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos), who accepts her lifestyle. But when you are in the business of meeting people, you never know who you will meet, nor will you know how you will feel.
Review by Louise Keller:
It's a bit like an unsatisfying sexual encounter - full of anticipation but not complete. One thing that does deliver, however, is 21 year old porn star Sasha Grey, who tantalises at every turn as the hooker who offers The Girlfriend Experience. Steven Soderbergh's typecasting is effective, but not for the reason you might think. Apart from a hint of nudity, there is no titillation, sex or eroticism. But Grey drips with on-screen presence and oodles of je ne sais quoi. She has confidence is spades and has an appealing vulnerability - until you catch the glint in her eyes, when we see a tough edge. But there is something about her that we want to discover. She knows what she's talking about - and it shows.
It's a curious film about sex, relationships, money and business thrown together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle in which timeframes are thrown together higgledy piggledy and which beyond its fly-on-the wall appeal, feels like an out of sequence snapshots and impressions. The fact that Soderbergh has set his film during five days during the lead up to the 2008 presidential elections, allows the financial concerns of the various characters and clients to flow naturally. Chelsea's jeweler client recommends investing in gold, rather than diamonds; a seedy 'Erotic Connoisseur' (I didn't know there was such a thing!) wants a freebie as payment for a glowing review to promote more business. A hustler is organizing a junket to Dubai where 'cash flows out of water faucets' ('It sounds like a white slavery ring, but it's not'). It's all about growing her business. Yes, the sex business.
What do men want for a Girlfriend Experience? 'They want what they want you to be', Chelsea says. 'If they wanted you to be yourself, they wouldn't be paying you.' It comes as somewhat of a shock that Chelsea has another life beyond the fantasies of her paying clients. Her live-in boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos), who works as a trainer at the gym reassures her she is the best at what she does, but there's a shift in Chelsea's confidence levels from the beginning of the film's journey. Soderbergh also shot and edited the film, giving it an often jerky feel that succeeds at making you feel that life is indeed a bumpy ride. When it all boils down, sex and money is what it's about. Needs and dreams have to fit in the cracks.

78 minutes
Classification: (M) Coarse language, sexual references and nudity

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THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Man som hatar kvinnor
Sweden/Denmark/Germany 2009 (MA15+)

Engaging, suspenseful, well-acted, atmospheric, and technically well-made Swedish thriller, based on the first book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy (which I have not read; Amazon.com/Adlibris.se). Clichés and little originality notwithstanding, there is a certain freshness to the proceedings, and the film is one of the better Swedish entries in the genre. The movie contains a couple of very disturbing and intense scenes that linger in the mind. While the ending makes the film feel slightly too long, it also ties up a few loose ends quite nicely. Michael Nyqvist convincingly portrays Mikael Blomkvist, but his character is underdeveloped; Noomi Rapace is excellent and memorable as Lisbeth Salander; in a smaller role, Peter Andersson is appropriately disgusting and slimy as Nils Bjurman. Sure-handed direction by Niels Arden Oplev. (Peter Ericson)

152 minutes
Classification: (MA15+) Mge

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PRIME MOVER
Australia 2009 (M)

Young Timothy (Michael Dorman) has always aspired to be like his truckie dad (Andrew S. Gilbert), dreaming of driving his own prime mover. When he gets a loan from some dodgy connections through Mrs Boyd (Lynette Curran) to buy one, he is on his way, and he also makes a strong connection with pretty servo attendant Melissa (Emily Barclay). In debt and in love, Thomas is a vulnerable figure and local standover man Johnnie (Ben Mendelsohn) soon has him in his clutches. Things begin to spiral out of control on all fronts, just as his truckie mentor Phil (William McInnes) had warned.
Review by Louise Keller:
Big dreams, harsh reality and a quirky fantasy make up the engine of David Caesar's likeable new film, in which a prime mover is the prime motivation of his pie-in-the-sky protagonist. It is hard to believe it has been 7 years since Caesar's last film, the urban black thriller Dirty Deeds which also juxtaposes drama with comedy. This time, rural Australia forms the setting and black comedy is replaced by a fantasy element. It begins with 'Once upon a time in a town called Dubbo,' and is what you might call, a rural fairy tale. Caesar is good at his craft and instantly engages us into a world of immaculately polished trucks, long nights behind the wheel and endless stretches of highway that blaze into the barren, red-ochre landscape. Like all good fairy tales, there are good and bad characters, as well as a central love story that grounds things as surely as the tyres on a prime mover.
When we first meet Michael Dorman's Thomas, we immediately know he is hopelessly lost under the spell of The Truck. Driving and owning his own truck is all he can think about, until he sees his dream-girl Melissa (Emily Barclay) at the servo, where he and his Dad (Andrew S. Gilbert) fill up at the bowser. Their romance is grounded in Aussie lingo. 'You're a good sort,' and 'Give us a kiss,' he smiles as he invites her for a 'burn' in his car. Dorman, who played Barclay's boyfriend Rusty in Suburban Mayhem is nicely cast as the likeable, naïve Tom who truly believes that 'having a plan for everything' is all he needs to make his dreams come true. Barclay continues to stun us with a totally different but irresistible turn as the girl with the Gypsy in Her Soul who adapts from being a calendar pin-up holding a giant spanner, to making a home in a caravan park. Barclay makes even the smallest expression important and as a result, we can't keep our eyes off her.
Caesar pays vital attention to every little detail that makes up the fabric of the story, and the casting is spot on. Gilbert's role as Tom's mechanic father cannot be underestimated - he sets the tone for the whole film. Ben Mendelsohn, who made such an impact in Caesar's 2001 film Mullet, is wonderful as Johnnie, the colleague who puts in a word when help is needed, but expects something in return, while William McInnes is excellent as truckie Phil. McInnes' expression is priceless when Tom first slips a tape of Melissa's gypsy-music into the truck's cassette player. Lynette Curran makes the most of her scenes as Mrs Boyd, the money lender with the manic look. I also really like Anni Finsterer as Tom's sympathetic Mum.
The risky fantasy element works a treat and there's a sense of the bizarre as St Christopher, the calendar girl and truckie come to life at unexpected times, in various guises and in incongruous situations. A screaming baby, an absent husband, no-doze pills and mounting debts snowball into a tangible nightmare and the striking visuals and empty loneliness of the landscape accumulate in their effect. Caesar mixes the perfect balance of drama and comedy to deliver an accessible work and one that I, for one, really enjoyed.

99 minutes
Classification: (M) Mature themes, violence and coarse language

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WAKE IN FRIGHT
Australia/USA 1971 (M)

In 60s Australia, John Grant (Gary Bond), is an Education Department bonded teacher at a tiny outback school. Making his way to Sydney for the holidays, John takes the train but stops overnight in Bundayabba. Drawn into the 'Yabba's' culture of drinking and gambling, he becomes embroiled in the locals' insular and threatening world.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
No mere curiosity from 1970, Wake In Fright is a riveting film with exceptional relevance today in its cultural veracity and its observation of not just outback Australian society (if you can call it that) - but in human nature. And no wonder, since it comes from a novel that was based on the real life experiences of an Aussie journo, Kenneth Cook. Nor is it surprising that the film was screened in Competition in Cannes (1971) where it was screened again in the Cannes Classics sidebar in 2009.
What's great about the film is the recognisably real flip-flop intensity and humour, the characters and the isolation that forges its inhabitants like a blacksmith forges and shapes and bends hot steel. Gary Bond, reminiscent here of Peter O'Toole in his Lawrence days, is a hapless young teacher who is posted to a settlement the size of two buildings. A pub on one side of the railway tracks and the small school house on the other, catering to a dozen or so local kids. When school holidays finally arrive, he heads straight towards Sydney and his girlfriend. He doesn't get past Bundayabba, a small town that is not dissimilar to Broken Hill (38 years ago).
Ted Kotcheff has directed a minor masterpiece - and that's not meant to be disparaging; through the relatively simple story of a young man's hard living adventures over a few days, he has found a rich source of observation. He serves it up with an emotional payload, and a driving force that leaves no room for judgement. The characters are complex and unpredictable, even when they are behaving badly, which is pretty much all the time. And yet, however unconventional, these characters are by and large genuine Aussies - and genuine.
Kotcheff orchestrates some remarkable scenes, ranging from an extensive and pivotal two-up game in the pub, to a kangaroo hunt, a singular would-be sex scene (you'll have to see it to understand), to a brawling, drinking party....and the climactic sequence.
The iconic cast includes Chips Rafferty in his last role, as the town cop, Jack Thompson in his first role, as a hard drinking, rowdy local lad, John Meillon in a cameo as the publican of the tiniest and emptiest pub I've ever seen, Maggie Dence as the unforgettable motel receptionist, Donald Pleasence as the alcoholic dropout doctor, and Sylvia Kay as the dutiful daughter whose modest exterior hides a ferocious secret.
It's a rare pleasure to revisit this Australian classic, which has been spectacularly restored after an agonising search around the world by its editor, Anthony Buckley; great job, Tony and thanks to Atlab and the National Film and Sound Archive. A genuine gem.

From website, 'OptikNerve', Melbourne:
I noted that Speen and some other media commentators think that Wake in Fright was a foreign product that just happened to be made here in Oz.
My father was approached by EMI in 1967 or there abouts. The introduction of colour TV in the US had created a demand for weekly films on the networks, and they were rapidly exhausting the supply of colour films (colour only became the norm post WWII). EMI was approaching media companies around the world to produce films for cinema release. The two caveats were that the films must contain at least one US marqee name (a recognisable draw card), and the rights for US TV must be given to EMI. All other matter of production were a matter for locals.
My father - who was running a large company in OZ (which had a recording arm) and had been involved in the start of TV, signed up. The result were to very different films. Squeeze a Flower with Walter Chiari (who had starred in They're a Weird Mob two years earlier) with Jack Albertson as the US star, and Wake in Fright with Donald Pleasance as the star.
They utilised largely Oz casts, largely Oz crew and were moderately successful financially (from the Oz viewpoint, I don't know how EMI faired). Even Dave Allen who many now think of as an English or Irish star was the host of 'In Sydney Tonight' at the time (the Harbourside version of Graham Kennedies 'In Melbourne Tonight'). The follow on from this scheme of EMI was the beginings of TV features - specifically filmed for TV as feature films. But Squeeze a Flower and Wake in Fright were Oz films created for a TV market.
The success of Wake in Frightand Walkabout at the same time, along with the support of the Gorton Government for backing the new film push, started the ball rolling for Oz film's renaissance.

109 minutes
Classification: (M) Violence and mature themes

FILM TITLES TO BE CONFIRMED

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FILM TITLES TO BE CONFIRMED

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REVIEWS
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OFFICIAL SITE
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MADAMOISELLE CHAMBON
France 2009 (M)

In Stéphane Brizé's restrained fourth film (which he's adapted from a 1996 Éric Holder novel) a tight-lipped mason named Jean (Vincent Lindon) in an unnamed provincial French town meets his little boy's schoolteacher, the Mademoiselle of the title (Sandrine Kiberlain) and his world subtly changes. He loves his wife Anne-Marie (Aure Atika), who works in a print shop, and little Jérémy (Arthur Le Houerou), but Mademoiselle (her name is Véronique, but Jean never gets beyond the formal "vous" with her) has a refinement, a delicacy. And she plays the violin -- classical music that Jean seems unfamiliar with but delighted by.
At first Mademoiselle asks Jean at the last minute to fill in and speak to her class (and his son's) about his work, an experience that also gives him great pleasure. Perhaps he enjoys indirectly telling this refined maiden lady who attracts him about his basic, satisfying work, building houses that are always different and will last, as one child asks, "for your whole life." Then when she asks help with a broken window at her flat, he takes a look and then insists on being the one to replace it. Then comes the music. He insists that she play; photos and the violin tell him of her former profession.
This film has only a hint of sex, and no raw physicality, but it works with the body, with silence, and with gesture. Throughout it shows Lindon acting the part by doing hard construction work on screen, breaking up paving with a pneumatic drill, mounting the window, laying bricks of a wall, and so on. He even walks like a skilled laborer. Anne-Marie is always ironing, cooking, shopping, making lists. Mademoiselle Chambon reads, rests, places her hand delicately on her neck. Jean tenderly washes the feet of his old father (charming veteran Jean-Marc Thibault).
Finally the teacher plays a recording of chamber music at her place for Jean and as they sit together listening they slowly hold hands, embrace, and cling together as if at home, but afraid to go further. This carefully paced sequence is one of the film's most effective. However many "make-out" scenes you may have seen, this one still feels fresh. Lindon is like a fine mason in his acting, slowly, patiently laying the bricks of gesture. A silence and a pause can speak volumes.
Both Véronique and Jean fight their attraction. And can it go anywhere? But it keeps growing, despite gestures in the opposite direction. Jean tells Mademoiselle that her CD's interest him even though he hasn't listened to them yet. She usually changes schools every year, but tells him, in a key scene, that she's been asked to fill in for someone and stay on. But instead of expressing enthusiasm, Jean blurts out that his wife is pregnant.
This is one anchor to the family: one child, and another coming. Another is Jean's father. Jean and Anne-Marie are planning a big birthday party for the old man at their house with family members coming from all over. Family matters. But Jean shows how far his feelings have gone in another direction -- even though we've seen only those restrained moments -- when he invites Mademoiselle Chambon to come and play the violin for his father. It's not certain that his wife has suspected anything, but she has noticed that Jean seems bored, indifferent, irritable. And she might suspect why now.
What follows is surprising -- agonizingly suspenseful -- and quite familiar. We've seen this kind of story before. We've seen these characters before. But we've rarely seen more delicacy than Bizé brings to his treatment of the story, which is haunting in a classic way without feeling in any way retro -- though perhaps the provincial setting was chosen to avoid that, to have events unfold in a place that's less aggressively modern and hip than Paris.
Lindon and Kiberlain are husband and wife, though now estranged, which may help explain the magnetic energy in their scenes together. There are plenty of lines here, but there's a distrust of language, together with a touching desire to use it properly. "I'd like to hear more tunes," Jean tells Véronique. "Is that right, to say 'tunes'?." At the outset, Jérémy poses a homework problem to his parents to find the "direct object" in a sentence and they haven't a clue, but patiently figure out what this means. Bizé is great with the children. Arthur Le Houerou as the son is unfailingly alive and natural; and his classmates are spontaneous and charming (though primed, as classes are) when they excitedly ask Jean about his work.
If there is a weakness to the film it's the danger that the differences of class and culture are pelled out a little too clearly. Lindon is a magnificent actor, but as a man with many illustrious relatives and one-time suitor of Princess Caroline of Monaco he is not exactly drawing on personal experience in playing a mason whose father was also a mason. Nonetheless he is for the most part utterly convincing. It's the film itself that plays on broad differences that a screenplay of 90 minutes duration cannot quite adequately delineate. Lindon has a harried, careworn, but solid quality that fits a working man in need of reawakening. Kiberlain seems held inward, decent but tragically needy. You wouldn't know that she's been around the block with the actual Lindon and had a child by him; she could be this uptight maiden lady on the brink of lifelong spinsterhood. There's a sadness about her, a sweet sadness... When it comes to the varieties of love, the French have the bases covered. (from Chris Knipp, Berkeley, Ca)

96 minutes
Classification: (M) Infrequent coarse language

REVIEWS

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OFFICIAL SITE (in German)

SOUL KITCHEN
Germany 2009 (MA15+)

Director Faith Akin is often called one of the most important contemporary German directors to have emerged in recent years. Soul Kitchen is Akin' highly anticipated first attempt at a genuine comedy. So far Akin has been has been more involved in the fields of drama and romance. In a recent interview he revealed he was curious to explore a more varied range of film genres which sounds like an interesting plan. In venice this year, the film was celebrated by the audiences and scored the special jury price.
The story revolves around a restaurant/club called Soul Kitchen and the troublesome life of its respectful owner Zinos. He has to overcome many struggles involving his girlfriend, his brother and the authorities. The film is set in the heart of the diverse northern German city of Hamburg, the home turf of the two scribes Faith Akin and Adam Bousdoukos.
The makers of the film call it a new take on the idea of the "Heimatfilm" - a rather preconceived loose genre which basically defines a film to have been made in the makers home country and dealing with issues relating to home and identity.
Akin described how he studied classical sketches by Charlie Chaplin and also looked at his method of working. A simple "joke" that comes off easy and natural on screen had been reworked over and over. For some of the scenes Akin admittedly said he had to shoot 30 takes before it felt right. This made him doubt his own abilities but in the end let him grow as a filmmaker and as an individual. The result is a stellar solid performance by the entire cast. Many jokes and payoffs will unfortunately and without a doubt get lost in translation but still the timing and heartblood of the actors will still capture anyone's attention.
Akin makes use of a couple of his "regulars": Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu and the great Birol Ünel but also introduces fresh unknown blood with the two female leads Lucia Faust and Nadine Krüger.
Having just seen another film recently I noticed myself how well this film is balanced out in comparison. There is a rhythm, a beat or a harmony. The soundtrack and editing allow the plot to flow organically and let the narrative play out smoothly. Interestingly Akin once mentioned that since Gegen die Wand (Head On, 2004) he is inspired by the songs used in his films in a visual way and sets out a soundtrack before the filming is finished.
The film marks Akin's first shot at wider levels of improvisation. Normally, he said in an interview with a German radio station, he has the script all planned out in detail; all the actors know what their dialogues are and maybe one or two things get changed, with feedback from the people on set but this time a lot of things were left undone on purpose to grow naturally out of the situations.
What I personally enjoyed a lot about Soul Kitchen is the way in which the film addresses its urban environment. Akin took a chance to shoot in a wide range of locations, many of which such the club "Mojo" have since closed down. It attempts to capture the spirit of the city at a point in time and successfully tells an emotional, personal story.
Recommended to anyone with a passion for fresh, clever and funny stories of life and the city. (from website 'cry_ablaZe', UK)

96 minutes
Classification: (MA15+) Strong sex scene