Overview of The Lumičre Reader’s Telecom 2007 New Zealand International Film Festivals coverage. Includes summary of all features, reviews, form guide entries, and festival commentaries.

Bruised by another grueling Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals, TIM WONG discovered the hardest hitters were those who refused to yield to convention in a programme of largely complacent, uncompelling tone.

JACOB POWELL learned not to judge the Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals by its cover, encountering a satisfying and surprising programme that belied its middling appearance.

Experiencing withdrawal symptoms after the excess of the Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals? Upcoming film festivals jostling for position include: celebrating architecture with documentaries such as A Crude Awakening (aka Oil Crash) and Antonello and the Architect (from this year’s TNZIFF), the Jasmax Film Festival, on now at various venues throughout the country until August 29; the fifth Date Palm Film Festival, showcasing Middle Eastern/North African features and pertinent documentaries in Wellington and Christchurch throughout September; New Zealand’s only competitive International Documentary Film Festival (DOCNZ) returns for its third edition, a terrific avenue and incubator for local documentary filmmaking presented from late September through to November in Auckland, Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington; and the always decadent Cathay Pacific Italian Film festival (their opening nights, at the very least), from October in various centres (the programme has yet to be announced). Further details are available on the respective festival websites.

Side thoughts and footnotes collated from our festival correspondents at the Telecom 2007 New Zealand International Film Festivals.

Golden Door is ‘presented’ by Martin Scorsese, which basically means that, though it features European actors like Charlotte Gainsbourg, it has no stars who would appeal to an American audience, so this stamp of approval indicates that if you like films by Martin Scorsese... and it does have an element of Gangs of New York, with a sense of heightened reality and stylistic set pieces.

I Served the King of England is a gorgeously whimsical film with serious elements swathed in quirky scenes and luscious cinematography. It is carried almost entirely on the back of Jan Dite (Ivan Barnev) whose charming opportunism never cloys. The mischievous little character is always popping up in the right place at the right time, learning from his mistakes and telling his story through flashbacks and voiceover.

As a fan of Nirvana’s music I resent this documentary. It will elsewhere be described as experimental; that’s just desperation being dressed up as innovation. More importantly it is incorrect. Kurt Cobain: About a Son features sonorous taped interviews with the titular subject riffing on any and every topic, mostly discussing his upbringing and his interest in creative pursuits. The movie plays out with footage of Cobain’s hometown – and if there’s a more depressing place on this earth than Aberdeen, Scotland, it is quite clearly Aberdeen, Seattle – while the taped interviews play, sans real context, in and around pointless shots of hometown folk and guitar shops. Sure, we get the sense of this grey, bleak, industrial shipping town. But we know that already. To call that innovative is to suggest that every “unauthorised” classic-albums documentary rip-off is cutting-edge; this is in fact the most formulaic way to make a movie when you don’t have consent. Sure, Courtenay Love is a cow for so heavily protecting the rights to the music, but John Fogerty’s ‘Fortunate Son’ is not a decent replacement soundtrack, even though it is obviously overreaching in the irony stakes.

A standout cult classic which emerged from beneath the 70s New Hollywood era, under-utilised director Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop is the definitive road movie all others try to approximate. Lacking the pretension present in much existential cinematic exposition, this is movie-making as accessible as it is enigmatic. And damn if I wasn’t excited seeing this in all its beautiful big-screen glory!

Curating movie-themed illustration since 2003, The Lumičre Reader presents five new illustrations as part of its Telecom 2007 New Zealand International Film Festivals coverage by LYNDON BARROIS and ADDOLEY DZEGEDE for You, the Living, Drama/Mex, A Few Days in September, I Served the King of England, Priceless, and Eagle vs Shark. Click on images to enlarge.

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten is Julien Temple’s documentary about the great man. It is definitely not a documentary about The Clash, which is why they are only one element in the film. It has almost too much information, covering everything from his childhood (as a son of a diplomat), through his squatter art-school drop out phase, to his forgettable acting work, and his final band, The Mescaleros. Let’s face it, it is as lead singer of The Clash that everyone loves and remembers him.

How many films did you make on your OE? JOE SHEPPARD talks to the remarkably industrious Jess Feast, local director of Cowboys and Communists and guest at the Telecom 36th Wellington Film Festival, about her experiences in Berlin documenting the effects of Germany’s reunification on two very different characters.

The Lumičre Reader shifts its frequency of coverage down a notch following the conclusion of Telecom 2007 New Zealand International Film Festivals’ two major legs, Auckland and Wellington, though continues to dispatch outstanding reviews and reportage for the remainder of August as the festival services Dunedin, Christchurch, before hitting the road to complete a tour of New Zealand’s minor centres through until November. Coverage to date can be overviewed by month (June/July/August), browsed via the Form Guide, or sampled in recaps by way of the The Film Reader’s TNZIFF Dispatches. Also look out for our annual Post-Festival Wrap at the end of the month.

Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine both profile and participate in the burgeoning industry of books, websites and films that seek to debunk or discredit the notoriously polemical filmmaker Michael Moore. But what sets Manufacturing Dissent apart from the rest is the journey of a sweet Canadian lady with honest intentions who really just can’t get an interview with the celebrity firebrand. The narrative parallels – and ultimately casts doubt on – the central premise of Moore’s breakthrough Roger and Me: the refusal of General Motors CEO and chairman Roger Smith to grant him an audience. Following the 2004 Slacker Uprising Tour around US universities (aimed at getting the apathetic youth bloc to vote), Melnyk and Caine evenly document Moore’s controversial history by balancing interviews with friends and foes. In the process of building a case against Moore’s dilatory and bullying tactics they shed light on the fascinating character of someone living under constant public scrutiny, whose career and reputation depends on never giving up ground and creating a persona more trademark than human being. Melnyk and Caine raise crucial questions about the integrity of the documentary genre and even the definition of truth as they sift through a catalogue of inventions, manipulations, equivocations, omissions and – perhaps most deceptive of all – a lack of basic context. As a result, debate about ‘the greater good’ and ‘the means justify the ends’ elevates Manufacturing Dissent above mere party politics and into the loftier spheres of philosophy and ethics.

I went to university in Manchester in the early ’90s partly because of the quality of the degree to be gained, but mainly because of its reputation as the most important and exciting city in Britain (read, the world). Joy Division and Factory Records were the cornerstone on which that reputation was built, a decade earlier, so I was hugely anticipating this biopic of Ian Curtis.

By turns infuriating and exhilarating, Inland Empire is David Lynch gone senile: whereas cinema’s dream curator struck gold with the relatively logical narrative capsizing of Mulholland Drive, his latest plunges deeper in search of Hollywood’s back entrances and dark portals, and rarely if ever resurfaces for air. While bewilderment is synonymous with Lynch movies, Inland Empire is so far removed neurologically from anything else in the director’s oeuvre that Lost Highway comes across as unfurnished and comparatively sane; thus, in achieving singularity, it approaches the very edge of insanity. Grasping a long overdue lead role with two hands, Laura Dern (magnificent, playing her most fucked-up character since Citizen Ruth) stars as an actress cast in a promising melodrama – a Polack folktale which just happens to be a remake of a cursed screenplay. There are also phantom prostitutes, musical numbers, sitcom rabbits, copious cameos, and ever-present signs of lurking evil to contend with. Lynch unsettles proceedings from the outset with a stilted, oddly retarded mise-en-scene – a shambolic merry-go-round of uncomfortable close-ups, pregnant pauses, and drunken delivery – before pushing us through not one, but a succession of rabbit holes that lead nowhere except down. What this bottomless pit reveals though isn’t so much a descent into lunacy, but a liberation of the mind; no longer hindered by the process of film, Lynch runs amok with the digital format, streaming his unconscious with all the mileage of a YouTube video blog. The murky, pixelated vision certainly adds to the anxiety of the ‘mare, as does the staccato horror: abrupt, ad hoc moments of classic Lynchian terror. For all its maddening incomprehensibility, Inland Empire is never uninteresting, and affirms what Lynch thrill seekers have known since day one: that in relinquishing to the experience, you’ll hang on every low drone, mental trapdoor, and hysterical shriek for dear life. In a nutshell, cinema at its most perilous.—Tim Wong

Plays which use strobe lights must carry warnings. I think films that feature jerky, erratic camera-work should do likewise. The blurred shots, inability to hold the camera still and muffled sound clearly mirror the crack addiction of the main character, but they are also enough to induce headaches, nausea and vomiting. Although Half Nelson is possibly a very good film, I had to sit through most of it with my eyes closed and taking deep breaths. It was unsettling in more ways than one. (Kate suffers from the common, incurable disease, Cinema Vertigo.—Ed)

From its infancy, with the paper rationing of the 1940s, to the current explosion of indie and mainstream, DIY and Internet, The Comics Show concisely captures the amazing breadth and distinctive feel of sequential art in New Zealand. In fifty-odd minutes Shirley Horrocks sketches half a dozen intriguing potraits, each of which could support their own spotlight: self-taught pulp penciller Eric Resetar, who imagined the first All Black on Mars; the sinuous brushwork of bro’Town illustrator Ant Sang and his magnum opus Dharma Punks; or NZ’s Bob Crumb, Barry Linton, whose brilliant work on counterculture comic Strips and miscellaneous epics scream out for printing. Shitty stereotypes have always plagued the funnybooks, but Horrocks never falls for all that and quickly gets past the emo/teenage years of marginalised navel-gazing and onto the social commentary. Chris Knox observes the connection between the (punk) musician’s ethos and comicbooks, while Dylan Horrocks, whose metanarrative Hicksville gave New Zealand a work with real thematic maturity and creative rigor, earns his keep as an eloquent ambassador, especially on the topic of commercial traps awaiting any future industry in Aotearoa. Such logistic considerations are never far from the Kiwi comics crew, but Horrocks always strikes a nice balance, getting the skinny on creative processes, interviewing both blokes and sheilas, and looking forward as well as back. Keep an eye out for the DVD release, and a television slot in early September, for a fascinating look into a long-overdue subject.

The Frames are coming to New Zealand as the opening act for Bob Dylan. With a strong musical reputation, they promise a good live show, having been voted Ireland’s number one live band. However, they are also doing their bit to publicise the Irish film industry as well. Lead actor of Once, Glen Hansard is also the lead singer of the Frames, while the film is written and directed by John Carney, formerly a member of the group.

This French/Belgium adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s seminal novel fails to capture much the essence of discovery and release that the book so powerfully conveys. The film’s moments of contemplative nature footage, and a retro outfitting of handheld camerawork, obvious zooming, and amateur holiday footage (the Super 8 camera used here a few decades out of sync with the rest of the film’s setting) work to create moments that are aesthetically pleasurable but ultimately plodding, surface level and without spirit.

Is Gad Elmaleh (The Valet) trying to typecast himself as the bozo with a heart of gold? In Pierre Salvadori’s Priceless, he plays Jean, the very lucky bartender at a swanky hotel in Biarritz, whom gold-digger Irčne (Audrey Tatou) mistakes for a handsome young tycoon. In way over his head, Jean is soon busted and bankrupted, but as Irčne moves to Nice and onto her next sugar daddy, he reluctantly falls into the role of toyboy for an older, jealous woman who can cover his debts. The rest of the film is essentially the hijinks that ensue from his rapid indoctrination in prostituting himself, all the while pining for his teacher, who flits easily between lady and tramp. The effortless, cool jazz themes from Camille Bazbaz are a real highlight and help avoid scrutinising the film for too long, because with its luxury-product placement, dodgy morals and plot contrivances, Priceless is best enjoyed as a Riviera beach: let those evanescent pleasures wash over you and try not to notice that you’re enjoying diversions built around the empires of the Paris Hiltons of this world.

I have to admit, I am not, nor have I ever been a Leonard Cohen fan. I have a healthy suspicion of any songwriter who is described as a poet and has acolytes who speak about him in deferential tones. There is a lot of that in this film, as every man and his dog has been dragged before the camera to pontificate about the magic and the mysticism of the great man and his lyrics. That said, when he speaks for himself, his deep gravely voice reveals touches of humour and cynicism which make him far more likeable. He says when he was born, “the givers hovered over me like a football team, then they took some gifts away – those that didn’t fit they threw back into the void.” He goes on to talk about his songs and his formative experiences; the truth behind Suzanne with her tea and oranges or the Chelsea Hotel.