BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: the post-war German cinema season concludes.

IT’S AMAZING to think a film like this was made one year after World War Two ended. Made by the soon be East German DEFA studio, The Murderers Are Among Us tackles Germany’s war guilt head on, looking at the casual way in which war criminals assimilated themselves back into society. The film is a plea to not forget, for Germans to confront their past and shows the way in which Germany should advance forward.

A roundup/recap of the current best and rest in film and DVD. In this installment: Rang de Basanti, Volver, Black Sheep, Black Book, Half Nelson, Suburban Mayhem.

Reviewed by Tim Wong

LIKE A FINELY sheathed blade, Eastern Promises conceals a deadly weapon: not just the grisly body horror we’ve come to expect of any David Cronenberg film, but a screen stealth so loaded with malice and intent, there’s no escaping its quiet assault. Supplanting the hallucinatory Americana of A History of Violence with a shady London milieu, Cronenberg reveals a closeted, seldom intimated subculture in the Russian mafia – or vory v zakone in native tongue – through a masterfully administered course of events. Firstly, the throat slitting of a Chechen gangster; secondly, the death of a haemorrhaging 14-year-old, whose newborn baby is saved; thirdly, the cutting of its umbilical cord, juxtaposed against the severed fingers of a to-be-disposed of corpse; next, one of several hushed encounters between vory ‘cleaner’ Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) and Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife who seeks the baby’s biological father; later, a sex scene voyeured by the spectre of Vincent Cassel, whose greasy Russian mobster ushers the film’s latent homoeroticism into the open; and climatically, a much talked about knife fight of gruesome, inerasable proportions.

Out of India, GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN considers the current Indian and Bollywood Cinema.

DIRECTOR Anurag Kashyap believes in living life on his terms, and making cinema that may not please everybody. His first two films – Paanch (Five) and Black Friday – ran into massive problems with the Indian movie censors. The first was denied a certificate on six grounds, including abusive language and glorification of violence. His second feature made in early 2000 on the police investigations after the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993 was not permitted to screen for a couple of years because of the sensitive nature of its subject. When Black Friday finally opened last year it got rave reviews.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM essays the current obsession with Britney Spears, a symptom of a wider schadenfreude and malaise linked to mass media, audiences and celebrity, eerily prophesied by Sidney Lumet’s 1976 film Network.

Further dabbles in the Italian Film Festival: CATHERINE BISLEY on a broken family melodrama.

“FOOTBALL is for dickheads… Swimming is a noble sport” is one of the many great lines in Along the Ridge (Anche libero va bene). The directorial debut of prominent Italian actor Kim Rossi Stewart, this film examines the interrupted world of children; its emotional disquiet is palpable yet the film is also entertaining and charming.

Reviewed by Diane Spodarek

La vie en rose recalls France’s most well-known nightclub singer, Edith Piaf, the Little Sparrow. Piaf was only forty-seven years old when she died in 1963. Marian Cotillard, a beautiful and versatile actor captures Piaf’s genius, gestures and her drugged and drunken life. Olivier Dahan writes and directs, matching the unique sound of Piaf’s voice with brilliant cinematography lush with detail and colors that make you feel as if you are plunged into a deep womb. The film is beautiful, a sensory experience about love and music that arouses laughter and tears.

“The glittering range of free imported drinks waylaid any bother over ticket prices for the opening night of the 12th Cathay Pacific Italian Film Festival in Wellington this week. Coincided with the launch of an inaugural Italian Film Photography exhibition – this year the illuminating works of Philippe Antonello are on display in the Paramount’s foyer – the festival opener provided a satisfying range of treats. The second winner of the annual festival scholarship was announced, and Canterbury raised Pericles Dailianis will follow in the fresh footsteps of Paolo Rotondo to internships in Italy’s Due A and the National Museum of Cinema. Sadly there was no screening of the short film that won Dailianis the scholarship – an addition to the evening which was well received last year.” MELODY NIXON reports from the Gala Opening Night, where the import beverages flowed, followed by celebratory screening of My Best Enemy, another generous, if foreseeable Italian romantic comedy.

Following Auckland, the festival continues in Wellington until October 31. Further dates follow in Christchurch (Oct 24-Nov 7), Dunedin (Oct 31-Nov 14), Nelson (Nov 7-21), Napier (Nov 14-28) and Hamilton (Nov 21-Dec 5). Full programme details online at italianfilmfestival.co.nz.

MELODY NIXON soaks in the afterglow of a generous romantic comedy at the Italian Film Festival.

Il Mio Meglior Nemico, or My Best Enemy is standard, polished fare for the Italian Film Festival. Humorous, romantic blockbusters with gorgeous women and happy endings have proven a reliable opener for the festival in past years and 2007’s offering is no exception. This is Italian romantic comedy at its most tweaked and rambunctious. In continuation with cultural tradition it is also comedy as Dante Alighieri himself described it: ‘beginning with adverse circumstances, but with a happy termination’.

Lapping up the hospitality at the Gala Opening Night of the 12th Cathay Pacific Italian Film Festival, MELODY NIXON previews the coming attractions ahead.

THE GLITTERING range of free imported drinks waylaid any bother over ticket prices for the opening night of the Italian Film Festival in Wellington this week. Coincided with the launch of an inaugural Italian Film Photography exhibition – this year the illuminating works of Philippe Antonello are on display in the Paramount’s foyer – the festival opener provided a satisfying range of treats. The second winner of the annual festival scholarship was announced, and Canterbury raised Pericles Dailianis will follow in the fresh footsteps of Paolo Rotondo to internships in Italy’s Due A and the National Museum of Cinema. Sadly there was no screening of the short film that won Dailianis the scholarship – an addition to the evening which was well received last year.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: a German Psycho.

THE GERMANS have made some excellent serial killer films in the past. What has made them so fascinating is that these films seem to be just as much about the society in which the killer operates in, if not more, rather than simply giving the audience any sort of perverse pleasure via a conventional thriller. While The Devil Strikes at Midnight (Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam) could still also be seen as a rather conventional film, it’s also an interesting indictment on the German psyche, a compelling view of post-war anomie of a country trying to understand its own behaviour pre-and during World War II.

In an ongoing series, TIM WONG scouts for new and elusive films that either have fallen off the radar, or are yet to see the light of day in New Zealand. (contains spoilers)

WITH cheap shots Jesus Camp and Audience of One prolonging religion’s bad rep on screen, Lee Chang-dong’s aptly titled Secret Sunshine, while not quite the positive reinforcement, arrives at a more constructive view of Christianity, portrayed here as a faith well equipped to manage and absorb debilitating grief. Yet for all the love and rejuvenation He offers a distraught mother in the wake of her son’s kidnapping and death, the film never loses sight of God’s mean-spiritedness either: the rationale behind the Lord’s will to taketh away a point of contention for the inconsolable Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon). Relocating to her late-husband’s hometown in the hope of starting afresh, she finds only temporary solace; her son discovered face down in a creek after being ransomed and murdered. Jeon, who claimed Best Actress at Cannes for her exhausting performance, hits the right notes of emotional devastation required for any Lee Chang-dong role, even if the uncontrollable wailing at times resembles comedy over tragedy – her hysterical breakdown in the throws of Christian worship a real doozy of born again frenzy. Joining her spiritual journey is the splendid Song Kang-ho; he plays a mild mechanic whose dysfunctional courtship both confirms him as Korea’s most interesting thesp, and provides the film with an alleviating sense of humour.

Julian Jarrold/UK/2006; R4
Magna Pacific, NZ$34.95 | Reviewed by Jacob Powell

HOW DID a romantically inexperienced spinster like Jane Austen write arguably the most enduring and compelling romantic literature of all time? This is the question upon which Julian Jarrold’s Becoming Jane cogitates. A late teenage girl of a respectable but fiscally challenged middleclass family, with a quick mind, lively literary wit, and broad streak of independence finds herself with a difficult decision to make. To marry the dull but wealthy and well connected nephew of the ‘neighbourhood nobility’, or to run off with a handsome young Irish rake with little to recommend him but his charms, passion for life and a glimpse of some deeper character. At one point or other in the film she decides on both options!

GREGOR CAMERON reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Germany year zero.

REMINISCENT of the fifties Black & White films of the Children’s Film Foundation or like something out of Enid Blyton the contagious enthusiasm of the boys at the beginning of The Bridge (Die Brücke) endears them to the cinema goer. Certainly their antics in the beginning call up images of Robert Westall’s The Machine Gunners as they play at war and gambol through a war-fatigued village.

Patrick Creadon/USA/2006; R4
RS, NZ$29.95 | Reviewed by Matt Pickering, Saradha Koirala

FOR MOST people, perhaps, crosswords are a solitary pursuit, hastily attempted in their lunch breaks, but here they become an event; a competition and communal celebration of all things lexical. Wordplay focuses on Will Shortz – New York Times Crossword editor and founder of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Having started making puzzles at age 8, selling his first puzzle at 14, Shortz’s obsession with puzzles and puzzle-making led him to become perhaps the only graduate in the world to major in Enigmatology – the study of puzzles. In fact to do so, he first had to design the entire curriculum himself.

Out of India, GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN considers the current Indian and Bollywood Cinema.

INDIA’s official entry to the 2008 Oscars, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya: The Royal Guard with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead/title role is now in a legal tangle. Bhavna Talwar, whose Dharam was also in the race for selection, has gone to court saying that some members of the selection panel (chosen by the Film Federation of India) were closely associated with Chopra. The court will decide on October 10 whether the case merits a hearing, and has asked the parties involved in the dispute to submit their responses by that date.

George Gittoes/Australia/2006; R0
Madman, NZ$29.95 | Reviewed by David Levinson

“DON’T LET the palm trees confuse you,” one of the Lovett brothers warns about sunny Miami, though what he’s referring to isn’t exactly the city’s coke-and-disco patina. No: as Michael Mann’s po-faced update suggested, those first days of Tubbs and Crockett have passed, only to be replaced by something much more grim and ambiguous.

Richard Linklater/USA/2006; R4
Warner Bros, NZ$34.95 | Reviewed by Mythily Meher

A PSYCHOLOGICAL story, like a psychological experiment, presents experience compressed. Life razored down to particular essences on which the volume is turned up, up, up. Philip K. Dick wrote A Scanner Darkly in 1977. The story finds inspiration in the paranoia of the Nixon period, in the scrunchy throes of 50s drug culture of which Dick himself was a part, in addiction, suspicion, identity, surveillance, counter-surveillance, all of which find form in protagonist Bob Arctor’s fluxing relationships to drugs, his colleagues, his friends and him self. Sci-fi genre aside, it seems it is the autobiographical qualities of this story make it soar.