TIM WONG wraps the best – and the rest – from Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals 2004.

Still suffering from withdrawal symptoms, low Vitaman D and buttock gangrene, a portion of the Lumière team decided to revisit their unhealthy addiction one more time with a compilation of post-festival lists – before promptly getting a life.

Reviewed by Tim Wong

SO this is the other side of French Cinema. Given my latest post-festival hangover included the in-your-face didacticism of Catherine Breillat and Bruno Dumont – we're talking experiments with genitalia and squeal-like-a-pig rednecks, respectively – it's no surprise that the totally non-threatening Ruby & Quentin played out like a much-needed aspirin and black coffee the morning after.

Reviewed by Tim Wong

A STAR GRADUATE of Euro-arthouse provocation, Gasper Noé; propelled himself once again into the throws of widespread controversy with Irréversible, which headlined 2003's (now defunct) Incredible Film Festival with two much-debated screenings.

Potentially the Irréversible of its time and day, Straw Dogs is Sam Peckinpah's exposition into the virtues of manhood, territory and violence. This key film of the 70's stars Dustin Hoffman as the Mohandas Gandhi archetype; a meek, cowardly mathematician who's conviction is put to severe test under the bigotry and ignorance of life in isolated pastoral England. Striking a raw nerve with the male psyche, it almost operates on a level of deep, macho fantasy with the territorial male elevated to protector of family and home.