The Lumičre Reader’s film editors and contributors select the movies that mattered in 2008. Lists by TIM WONG, DAVID LEVINSON, ALEXANDER BISLEY, BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM, JACOB POWELL, LYNDON BARROIS, ALISTAIR KWUN and STEVE GARDEN.

TIM WONG looks back on the major film festival of the year, the New Zealand International Film Festivals, a programme where quiet achievers shone in lieu of bombast and audacity.

STEVE GARDEN highlights some of the best unreleased films to screen at the New Zealand International Film Festivals this year, including Lance Hammer’s Ballast, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Banishment, and José Luis Torres Leiva’s The Sky, the Earth, and the Rain.

STEVE GARDEN offers an enthusiastic overview a once-in-a-lifetime retrospective, Edward Yang’s Taipei Stories, screened as part of the New Zealand International Film Festivals in July.

Reviewed by David Levinson

TO MOST people, Richard Jenkins will be familiar as the gloomy Fisher dad, who, killed at the outset of Six Feet Under, continues to haunt his family as an imagined ghost. Prior to that however, the actor was able to fashion a career out of other ghostly non-roles; dubbed “the man who wasn’t there” in a recent Film Comment piece, he’s made an art of soaking up negative space, cast as a steady line of nobodies over the years. Given his acting record, Jenkins might seem like an odd choice for a leading man. But he’s found a game host in Thomas McCarthy, who – in an act of Rosencratz-and-Guildenstern-like revision – allows him to take centre stage in his latest indie, The Visitor.

A Hymn to The Silence: Alexandr Sokurov’s “Mother and Son”. By STEVE GARDEN.

THE FILMS of Alexandr Sokurov are often compared to those of his teacher and mentor, Andrei Tarkovsky. While there are stylistic and thematic similarities, there are also significant differences. Both favour understated acting, long takes, and complex sound designs that combine the sounds of the natural world with sparse and evocative music. They’re also ‘spiritual’ filmmakers in the sense that both are concerned with existential questions and a visualisation of the ‘inner’ life. However, where Tarkovsky’s characters seek Grace (acknowledging the existence of an interventionist God), there is no such redemptive certainty in Sokurov’s world. Even at his most pastoral, Sokurov’s spiritual temper is more aligned with a humanist reverence for love, simplicity, endurance, and the liberating wonder of art, which Sokurov frequently celebrates (most profoundly in Russian Ark, 2002) as the life-affirming embodiment of hope and meaning. Of all his films, the one that arguably comes closest to a ‘mystical’ view of existence is Mother and Son (1997). Although the film stops short at theism, it is nevertheless an elegiac hymn to the fragility of being, evoking a kind of ‘non-religious sacredness’.

Back to the future: Alexandr Sokurov’s “Russian Ark”. By STEVE GARDEN.

AT 2:30pm on the 23rd of December 2001, Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov started shooting a 96-minute feature film in one continuous take, tracking through 36 rooms of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg with the help of approximately 2000 actors, extras, musicians (including three orchestras), and technicians (notably cameraman Tilman Büttner, whose feat of endurance was nothing short of Herculean), to make a film that crosses four centuries and re-enacts various events that took place in and around the palace: Peter the Great whipping his General; Catherine the Great looking for a place to relieve herself during the rehearsal of a play; the family of the last Tsar at their dining-table, oblivious to the impending revolution; and hundreds of dancers waltzing at the last Great Ball of 1913, all seen through the eyes of a modern-day Russian who, invisible to everyone (including the viewer), suddenly finds himself out of time in a dream-like saunter through the splendid corridors and salons of the museum with the cynical 19th Century French diplomat, Marquis de Custine (Sergei Dreiden), with whom he engages in a slightly fractious and ironic dispute over the Marquis’ disdainful opinion of Russia and Russian art, while he (the unseen Russian narrator – Sokurov himself) reflects on his country’s uneasy relationship with its past, discussing the tensions that have always existed between Russia and Europe. This device offers the viewer the opportunity of considering identity, place and belonging, one of many intriguing asides that run in tandem with the main focus of the film: the celebration of the Hermitage as not only one of the great museums of the world, but a treasure house that stands as a testament to the buoyancy of the human spirit; a living entity that veritably breathes history and culture; a safe-haven from the storm; a beacon reminding us of tradition at a time when the notion has not only diminished in value, but when the future is increasingly under threat; and the only museum in the world (according to Sokurov) in which life and art are inseparable, a place where fine art still inspires belief in a greater humanity, that encapsulates our most cherished hope for the future at a time when virtually everything is commodified, politicised, and confused, a point Sokurov makes stronger by book-ending the film with a warning where he draws a parallel between the hundreds of figures from the past who parade before us like ghosts moving steadily towards an uncertain future and the possibility of our own potential demise, hinted at in the opening moments when we are told that an ‘accident’ has occurred, an idea returned to with added emphasis when the film comes to rest on a final apocalyptic image that suggests that the preceding 90-minutes have been snippets of life-passing-before-the-eyes of a mortally wounded Russia, stricken by some irreversible man-made act of destruction or neglect perhaps, and it is with this ominous closing image that Russian Ark (2002) comes to its sombre conclusion.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Lang’s German, expressionist noir.

IT’S EERIE how prescient Lang’s thriller M was. One of the first great sound films, Lang freed the camera up, and utilised specific sounds, and in the process, along with other European directors, helped free sound cinema up from its early stagy or musical confines. But its subject matter was, and is still rather daring – the story of a child killer (with hints of paedophilia in there too) who drags a city to hysteria. Lang muddies up the morality – there’s a strong current of black humour throughout – right the way through to its bravura ending, and in the process implicates the viewer and those who are judging him.

Without love we perish: R. W. Fassbinder and “The Merchant of the Four Seasons”. By STEVE GARDEN.

IN THE ’70s and early ’80s, German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a leading figure of New German Cinema and one of the most revered filmmakers in the world. He started as a theatre actor, and in the late ’60s established a troupe known as the Anti-Theatre. After being turned down by the West Berlin Film School, Fassbinder simply started making films. Over a period of 14-years (until his death in 1982), he wrote and directed more than 40 productions: four films in 1969; six in 1970; a 5-part TV series and four more features in 1972; and an average of three productions a year for the remainder of his career! It would be an understatement to say he was driven, and his private life was (by all accounts) equally intense. Much has been written about his self-destructive lifestyle and the extent to which it informed his work – acting as a kind of counterbalance to his private excesses. The early films were all Anti-Theatre collaborations, but following the chaotic production of Whity (1970), an experience mirrored in Beware the Holy Whore (1970), the troupe began to implode. Their last project was the relatively modest Pioneers of Ingoldstadt (1970), after which Fassbinder slowed the pace down to concentrate on one film: The Merchant of the Four Seasons (1971). He took more care over the production of this one film than any other to date. It was the only film he made in 1971, and it was to be a major critical and artistic breakthrough.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: archaic adventure.

IN THESE supposedly depraved times, it’s easy to forget that Hollywood was once viewed as the antithesis to morality and good taste. This concern brought about the Production Code, where by 1933, anything people find remotely interesting was cast out in favour of coy entertainment. The Yellow Ticket bears traces of this earlier utopia of free expression – themes of prostitution, pick-up lines, storylines, flashes of nudity for the pervs. Who am I kidding; this film is as dated as last week’s rubbish. The film was too scared to mention anything too daring, and the word “prostitute” was never mentioned. But all this did make The Yellow Ticket a lot of camp fun.

Wes Anderson/USA/2007; R4
Roadshow, $19.95 (until 25/11) | Reviewed by David Levinson

ARRIVING part-and-parcel with the waves of hype that precede it, backlash is an integral part of the natural order of criticism – a Darwinian acid-test that separates the fad from the bona fide. Those that withstand its lashings will usually reveal their caster for the attention-starved grinch they are, while in other less propitious cases the bad buzz might help stop a runaway bandwagon. Not all trajectories are that simple, of course, but as someone who found fame during an age of pre-blog boosterism, Wes Anderson has survived critical exaltation (as well as hip-kid endorsement) thanks to the sincere emotional yearning that lurks beneath his tchotchke-like surfaces. Coasting on his quirks (which at this stage, veer dangerously close to self-parody), Anderson’s fifth feature, The Darjeeling Limited, is hardly an attempt to defy nature: Like a rearranged Mondrian grid, the film is drawn from the same life signs (a hard-on for sad-happy ’60s pop; broken family templates; and a decorative sense of composition) that set the benchmark for arch close to a decade ago, with the release of his sophomore hit Rushmore. Once again though, it’s the film’s heartfelt ode to family dysfunction which shines through, ensuring longevity in the face of its more fleeting visual pleasures.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Tarkovsky’s looking glass.

ANDREI TARKOVSKY is not the easiest filmmaker to watch, and his films, for unsuspecting viewers, can veer from the spectacular (Andrei Rublev) to the downright awful (Solaris). The Mirror is seen as his most personal film and is a convenient middle point from his more detached earlier work (Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris) and his more ‘spiritually’ focused later work (Stalker, Nostalghia, The Sacrifice). The Mirror eschews the linearity of his other work, composing his film like a visual fugue in order to explore Tarkovsky’s notions of memory. A melange of his father’s poetry, archival footage, multi-generational storytelling and dreams, the film washes over like a wave. It pays not to think too much about this film, and let the beautifully composed imagery and carefully-constructed sound design work its magic. It’s not surprising that it wasn’t too popular with the Soviet authorities for its perceived elitist leanings.

A roundup/recap of the current best and rest in film and DVD. In this installment: Taken, Body of Lies, Young at Heart, Caramel, In Bruges (Film); The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, War/Dance, Tintin and I, I’m Not There, Sex and the City: The Movie (DVD).

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: mad Australians.

TALES told in asylums or about madness are nothing new, and some of cinema’s most famous moments have dabbled with these narrative settings. Rather than using it for horror, Australian film Cosi adapts it for comedy and musicality. It doesn’t quite work. A rather clichéd story of people overcoming adversity to prove themselves to people who are patronising to them, paradoxically, the film’s primary source of humour comes from laughing at the “mad” people.

Alister Barry/NZ/2008; R4
NZ$39.95 | Reviewed by David Lenny Kempkers

WHEN FILMMAKERS convert non-fiction books into documentaries, they tend to do so to achieve one or more of the following goals: to expose the book’s thesis to a wider audience; to make some money; to bring (visual) life to the text; and to uncover or produce new material that extends or reinforces the book’s thesis.

STEVE GARDEN’s DVD appreciation of ‘Vampyr’ on the Eureka Masters of Cinema label.

FILM CAN mark you for life. In the late 70s I became aware of cinema – not just movies, but film-as-art. It may not have happened if it wasn’t for the Film Society; the 8th Wellington Film Festival; and a chance viewing of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1974). This seemingly plotless film (a rather cryptic and decidedly Russian expression of personal and collective memory) went right over my head... or so I thought. In terms of the movie expectations I had at the time, Mirror made little obvious sense, and yet I left the theatre exhilarated. It was an epiphanic, near-religious experience, a life-changing encounter with a language that spoke directly and intimately through sound and image. It wasn’t just what was being said, but how. Mirror required full concentration, perception and intuition, a film one had to discern rather than simply wait to be entertained by.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Korea, take four.

The King and the Clown was a taboo buster in Korea, and it also became the biggest box office hit in Korean history. The film demonstrates the generic hybridity that typifies a number of big Korean hits, as it straddles the conventions of melodrama, historical epics, romance, slapstick comedy and action. The film looks at two clowns (Gong-gil and Jang-sang) who decide to satirise the despotic head of the Chosun Dynasty in order to improve their impoverished lot. The rather wildly unpredictable repercussions result in chaos, love, obsession, revenge and ultimately a societal shift. Art does indeed effect political change, if The King and the Clown is to be believed.

CATHERINE BISLEY samples the offerings at the 13th Italian Film Festival, touring centres until late November.

FILLED with (mainly) beautiful women and the odd handsome man, Manual of Love 2 taught me nothing of its professed subject. The film consists of four stories which segue together in glaringly fabricated coincidence. Threading through them all is the radio show from which the title derives; at the office of Manual of Love, everyone sits around smiling and nodding as the DJ muses over Eros. Manual of Love 2 suffers from too much self-congratulation.

David Lynch/USA/2006; R4, 2-disc set
Madman, $34.95 | Reviewed by Steve Garden

DAVID LYNCH likes abstract ideas. He says he doesn’t always know what they mean, but in the course of making a film they become clearer. He also says that this understanding is strictly his, and viewers must be free to use their intuition to discover meaning for themselves. He wants them to trust their own judgment, and encourages an active (rather than passive) approach to film viewing. He never explains his films because to do so would rob the viewer of discovery and (crucially) a personal connection with the work. All he will say about his latest film Inland Empire is that it’s a mystery about a woman in trouble.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Korea, take three.

GEORGE LUCAS, I think, infamously once said that the way to make an audience feel emotional was to choke a kitten on-screen. It wouldn’t work for me, that’s how much I fall on the dog side in the perennial cat vs dog debate. So it was a good thing Barking Dogs Never Bite opened with a warning stating that no dogs were harmed in the making of this film. Though I was slightly dubious as the film progressed, as a bunch of ratty looking dogs were thrust over balconies, cut up for soup or threatened with hanging. However my canine concerns aside, the film ultimately is a free-wheeling satire, a dark comedy, and a sharp take on Korean social stratification and gender roles.

Adam McKay’s new comedy Step Brothers, and the man-child odysseys of Judd Apatow, don’t see eye-to-eye, according to DAVID LEVINSON.

TIM WONG considers if Circa Theatre’s new stage production of “Wait Until Dark” holds a candle to the play’s 1966 film version.

RISING quietly above the ‘psycho-biddy’ histrionics of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford – grand actresses whose dwindling careers gained unexpected traction through notoriety in such hag horror classics as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, and Strait Jacket – Terence Young’s screen version of Wait Until Dark is a controlled, hermetically-sealed thriller. If conventionally lumped into the same women-in-peril bracket of sixties cinema – its home intrusion premise a cousin of Lady in a Cage’s handicapped dame in terror, where a frazzled Olivia de Havilland, trapped inside her mezzanine elevator, is traumatised by a psychotic James Cann – it’s important to note the picture circumvents these cruder tropes. Through its elegant, headstrong lead (Audrey Hepburn), scenery-chewing adversary (Alan Arkin, the unhinged star of the film), and micromanaged turn of events, Wait Until Dark is not in the least bit lurid, but a superior, clockwork suspenser that neither overreaches nor degenerates like its campier peers. While the film holds up as a gripping chamber piece, how would it fare transposed back to its original stage setting? Until November 8, Circa’s presentation of the Frederick Knott play tests this water, with variable results.

GREGOR CAMERON reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Korea, take two.

A DIRTY thought makes the world spin around, but a decent moral sets a stable tone. There’s something very alluring about circling the darker side of human sexuality and Kim Dae-Woo’s film Forbidden Quest gets it just right. He leads us into the seedy world, involves us in the dialogue about the rights and wrongs of it, without ever descending into the deliberately prurient.

Taika Waititi is shooting The Volcano, a full-length redux of Two Cars, One Night, in March. The setting: beautiful Waihau Bay, where Taika grew up and Tama Poata/Barry Barclay’s awesome Ngati was shot. ALEXANDER BISLEY asked Taika five quick questions.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: Korea, take one.

KOREA has undoubtedly been making some of the great art/cult/commercial cinema of the last decade, assisted no doubt by the rigid quota systems (which unfortunately is being eroded), heavy investment, and a commercially sustainable population. The Film Society has decided to show a mini-collection of Korean films, from recent years, and provides a chance to see some Korean films which haven’t made the Film Festival or much of a dent on the local circuit. Driving With My Wife’s Lover mines similar territories to the great Hong Sang-soo, with a symmetrical(ish) structure, ménage-a-trois/quatre, and a beady depiction of contemporary Korean relationships. While it doesn’t have the resonance or overall sharpness of Hong, the film is a wry, fractured take on masculinity.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: priming Rain of the Childen.

VINCENT WARD is probably the closest figure to an auteur in New Zealand, which means even his noble failures (such as River Queen) are worthy of consideration. His visual palettes and the understated yet complex moods are brilliantly constructed, and he was able to maintain these tropes even within his mixed American career. Given the release of Rain of the Children, the Film Society in a nice piece of foresight, screened two of Ward’s earlier films – A State of Siege based on a Janet Frame story, and In Spring One Plants Alone, the documentary that forms the basis of Rain of the Children.

A roundup/recap of the current best and rest in film and DVD. In this installment: Underbelly, Donnie Darko: Collector’s Edition, The Chaser’s War on Everything, The War on Democracy, The Investigator, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (DVD); Up the Yangtze, Paris; 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Film).

With the long overdue release of Seasons Three and Four to DVD, HBO’s extraordinary The Wire continues on its rightful format. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM extols the show’s progress to date. (contains spoilers)

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: life through a lens.

ROSS MCELWEE’s particular brand of angst reaches its apogee in Time Indefinite. A mix of philosophical ruminations, self-deprecating humour, and personal filmmaking, Ross McElwee’s tragicomic documentary carries on the storylines he set up in his previous work. And while the film does drag at points near the end (you feel like you know him and his family really really well after seeing all these films), this is a poignant and wonderful piece of work.

George Andrews/NZ/2008; R0
GA Productions, $49.95 | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

AT LAST we, as a nation, are starting to celebrate our intellectuals; those who have left their mark internationally outside of the sporting arena. Allan Wilson: Evolutionary is a documentary about a man who helped develop and strengthen evolutionary theory. Or, as the publicity puts it, a “groundbreaking researcher and a lightning rod for controversy, [who] revolutionized science and galvanized the scientific community”.