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Adelaide Film Festival 2005 Fri 18 Feb to Thu 3 March It really is fantastic to have an international film festival in Adelaide. As the Premier said in his opening speech, film offers us a range of information, perspectives and safe, vicarious experiences that we would not otherwise have, and these shape our attitudes, understanding and imagery. He mentioned particularly the opportunity to take an emotional "roller-coaster ride," and pointed out that we all respond differently to films. The festival's provocative slogan 'Image Is Everything' was frequently proved wrong in many ways, including by the lo-fi aesthetic of successful, generally independent films. Sound (including music), dialogue, acting, coherence and wisdom are all essential elements in good film-making and these made a variety of works look gilt edged alongside some glossy pretenders. Festival Director Katrina Sedgwick believed she had curated a festival concerned with globalisation, and there certainly was a thread in all categories. 'Allende' reminded us how on Sept 11th (1973) the US backed the military overthrow of the democratic, libertarian President of Chile, giving a martyr for the resistance to corporate domination. Leni Riefenstahl's stunning footage of Hitler in 'Triumph Of The Will' took us back to a previous attempt at globalism heroically thwarted. These documentaries contrasted Chile's peaceful, democratic revolution of reciprocated love for Salvador Allende, with Germany's adoration of the fascist, Adolf Hitler. The latter was more a sado-masochistic submission to an irresistible force and a grotesque display of nationalism. From the forty features I watched, this tussle between love and obsession was the theme. Some films championed 'love' in the form of mal-adaptive, possessive, serial romance. Ken Loach's banal 'Ae Fond Kiss', and the strained 'Peaches' and 'Human Touch' were in this category. Stories that rely on identifying with old men who forsake everything when smitten by lust for teenage girls do not inspire me. I foolishly interpreted the rape scene in Michael Winterbottom's sci-fi 'Code 46' as being more about abuse of power and exploitation than love, so I rather lost the plot. 'Enduring Love' was a homophobic 'Fatal Attraction', and as such thoroughly unpleasant no matter how good the images. By contrast, the many highlights of the Festival brimmed with portrayals of expansive, supportive relationships where people related frankly and authentically. The locally-produced opening film 'Look Both Ways' set alongside the traintracks of Adelaide, dealt wisely with all of its characters fears of life and death. The daring, debut director Sarah Watt also charmed with her short 'Small Treasures' in conversation with Margaret Pomeranz. The French 'A Common Thread' was a similarly rich and moving investigation of hope and tragedy as a pregnant girl and a grieving mother embroider a beautiful friendship. The Hungarian 'Control' was another bold debut with cool music from NEO rocking the superb characters, amongst the trains and escalators of the Budapest underground. It was darkly humorous and energetic with wild images gorgeously lit. 'Duck Season' from Mexico showed friendship blossoming into love as two adolescents pitted their wits and computer-game skills against the pizza delivery guy. Intimate relationships that rang true were also explored in 'Demi Tarif', a guerrilla/verite-style look at three abandoned pre-teens, fending for themselves in Paris. The conjured joyful family maintained through the co-operation and anarchic spirit of the children was credible. The exquisitely bleak Serbian 'Midwinter Night's Dream' depicted compassion, care and tolerance in the face of extreme difficulties. 'Brothers' told powerfully of a Danish soldier's brief and traumatic tour of duty in Afghanistan, and of bringing the brutality of the so-called "War on Terror" back home to his family. In the documentary category, 'Tarnation' claimed to have the lowest budget of all which means the producers mustn't have paid for the fabulous hits-of-the-era soundtrack to this incredible story. It was a frank, autobiographical patchworking of home movie, text and stills showing a young gay man's growing reciprocation of his seriously-damaged mother's love. It also explored the often over-looked power and importance of grandparental influence. 'Moog' traced the history of the inventor Bob Moog from building, selling, and playing Theremins to creating his eponymous instrument, a process he said described as somewhere between witnessing and discovering. 'I Like Killing Flies' took us hilariously into a very quirky New York restaurant while 'McLuhan's Wake', 'Manufacturing Consent' and 'Weapons Of Mass Deception' reminded us of the duplicity and dereliction of the media especially in its delivery of 'news'. In 'Five Obstructions' precocious Dogme 95 director Lars Von Trier was confounded by the superb results of having his beloved mentor remake his classic work within seemingly unconscionable constraints. There were more fine film-making high jinks in Werner Herzog conspiring to make the comic mock-umentary 'Incident at Loch Ness'. The screening of the landmark 'Nanook of the North' was another documentary treat while disappointingly, the newly commissioned Spike Milligan documentary 'I Told You I was Ill' allowed the legacy of the beloved Goon to be obscured by the feuding of his family. The stand-out shorts I saw included Australian creations the neat 'Everything Goes' which was smart about serial monogamy, and 'It's Like That', a chilling animation about children in our detention centres. 'Ryan' from Canada, which screened before the spectacular 'Rhinoceros Eyes', deservedly received the animation Academy Award during the course of the Festival. In the music category, Neil Young's clever film of his own visionary rock-musical 'Greendale' was a pleasure and 'Kill Your Idols' provided an insight into the No Wave art and music movement. A film festival valuably provides a survey of the zeitgeist and there seemed to be a few pervading commonalities to be gleaned about the modern world by the end of this one. A hell of a lot of people were smoking joints, drinking too much, catching trains, contemplating suicide, having shock-treatment and falling in 'true love', again. Sexually, men were going down and women were on top (though this didn't seem to be a metaphor for anything else) and no-one that I saw used a condom. I loved the sheer volume of the films in the festival and all the joys and frustrations of the stories, the sparking of debate from differing responses, and the chance for shared reflection. It was a beauty.  |
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