Firth and Kidman Chug Along in The Railway Man

Glenn here looking at an upcoming film from my home country. I may live in America now, but I am still very much interested in what Australia is producing (as I and many of my fellow countrymen can attest, it's probably against my better judgement to do so). One title I've been keeping an eye on is Jonathan Teplitzky's The Railway Man. There a was a minor fuss a few years back when The King's Speech producers were denied Australian funding and, thus, when it won Oscars it was unable to be classified as an Australian co-production despite its producers being Australian and its others local ties. Well, the funding bodies learned their lesson and are officially on board with The Railway Man, a British/Australia co-production from the memoir by Eric Lomax.

Nathaniel showed a bit more faith than others in the project by listing it in several of his Oscar categories. Other prognosticators don't seem to even know it exists! I've been skeptical that the film would even see the light of day in 2013 since the Australian media love being able to hail a star vehicle such as this as "ours", and yet there hadn't been a peep in terms of trailers, posters, or a release date. They'd be all over it ("Our Nicole Returns Home!" read headlines during production) if there was anything to actually talk about. Well, it's Australian distributor has finally put it onto the schedule and they chose the biggest day of the year - Boxing Day, 2013. [more]

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LFF: A Conversation On 'Lore', Australia's foreign Oscar bid

David here with another report from the 56^th BFI London Film Festival. Craig and I had a discussion about Australia’s entry for the Foreign film Oscar, Cate Shortland’s Lore.

David: A story about the children of Nazis struggling across a Germany occupied by Allied forces is several thousand miles away from what you’d imagine director Cate Shortland’s wheelhouse is. But Lore’s focus on the burgeoning sexuality and voyage to adulthood of a teenage girl is strikingly similar to Shortland’s debut Somersault - so much so that lead actress Saskia Rosendahl often reminded me of Abbie Cornish in her often abrupt movement and slightly displaced screen presence. That might be how I’d describe Lore itself - it never feels truly present or powerful. Instead it filters the story through meaningful objects and eerie poetic interludes, and while this is a method of storytelling I’m certainly not averse to, it didn’t work for me in this case.

Craig: I wasn't totally sold on Lore either, all things considered.

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TIFF: "Lore", Australia's Formidable Oscar Contender

Toronto International Film Festival. Glenn is in Australia but he's seen Monday's premiere "Lore".

Australia isn’t a regular player in the Academy’s annual game of Best Foreign Language Film. We’ve only submitted five films prior to 2012: Clara Law’s Floating Life (1996), which I have never seen; Steve Jacobs’ La Spagnola (2001), which is fun, if slight, immigrant comedy; Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes (2006) a fabulous film that was the first ever filmed in native Aboriginal dialects; Tony Ayres’ The Home Song Stories (2007), which features an incredible performance by Joan Chen; and Samson & Delilah (2009), Warwick Thornton’s groundbreaking indigenous drama about two teens escaping their remote lives only to stumble upon tragedy at every turn. Thornton’s film was the closest Australia has ever come to snagging a nomination, having managed to find a spot on the nine-wide shortlist. As great as that film was, however, its hard-edged take on the plight of our country’s most troubled citizens was always going to be a tough ask for a nomination.

Much easier, I suspect, will be Cate Shortland’s Lore, which seemingly comes to us with the Oscar-nominee stamp blazoned across it. Transmission Films, the film's distributor in Australia, has officially announced that Lore will represent Australia in the Foreign Language Film category at this year’s Academy Awards. With a story involving an epic journey (!), children (!!), and WWII (!!!), it has to be considered a strong contender for the shortlist on nomination morning.

Shortland hasn't made a theatrical feature since she broke through in 2004 with Somersault, which helped launch Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington. Her latest is a finely crafted, delicate WWII drama about five children who must make their way across a divided Germany in the final days of the war after their Nazi parents are taken away. It receives a local release in two weeks time, but I saw it a couple of weeks back and was utterly captivated. It’s the best Australian film of the year (so far) for sure, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with our nation’s identity. Shortland’s knack for navigating tricky territory (a young girl’s burgeoning sexuality in Somersault, a traumatised police officer in TV movie The Silence) is at her finest here, exploring the crumbling world of these children whose affluent life is rapidly disintegrating upon the news of Hitler’s death. The final scenes are particularly pertinent as it begins to dawn on the kids – and the audience – that their lives will never be the same. They will always be Nazi children who spent their childhood in the shadow of Hitler’s rhetoric.

Wonderfully acted (especially by newcomer Saskia Rosendahl as the eldest sibling, Hannelore), expertly filmed by Adam Arkapaw (Animal Kingdom, Snowtown), sublimely edited by Veronika Jenet (Oscar nominated for The Piano), and featuring an original score by Max Richter (Waltz with Bashir, Sarah’s Key) that is so far above and beyond the best of the year, I have no doubt you will be hearing about Lore over the next year. It’s an official Australian/German co-production with many Aussies behind the scenes, so it remains to be seen whether the Academy’s voters see it as “not Australian enough”, but it is a powerful film that would make a worthy nominee.

Its American distributor, Music Box Films, has no set date for a US release yet, but distribution could give it a bit of extra marketing muscle come awards season. Lore screened in competition at the Sydney Film Festival, won the major audience award at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, and has its North American premiere tomorrow at TIFF.

A Love Letter to Noah Taylor

[Editor's Note: Melanie Lynskey Guest Blogging Continues!]

So, the movie Lawless came out last night. I don't know a whole lot about westerns, but I do know this movie is filled with great actors. Including, one of my absolute, all-time, favourite actors, Noah Taylor.

I remember so clearly the first time I saw Noah Taylor in a movie. I was 16, and I saw the movie Flirting, and that was it. I was in love. I loved his face, I loved the way he walked. I loved his voice and the little lisp in it. I loved the way he looked at Thandie Newton so shyly but so directly at the same time. There was such a lovely, innocent quality to him, but underneath it was something really powerful. He was sexy in a very unexpected way. There's a little edge to him and he's so funny in that movie. I went on a Noah Taylor rampage. I saw The Year My Voice Broke, I saw The Nostradamus Kid. At a certain point I realised that the reason I loved him so much was that there is an incredible vulnerability to him. You feel his soul radiating when he's on screen. He just has to glance sideways and you feel your heart twisting in compassion. There is something in his eyes that made me feel like this person has known and understands life, and love, and suffering, and he's putting it up on this screen with no filter. As the young David Helfgott in Shine, he is like a walking open wound. There is such a sweetness to that performance. But you feel him breaking as the movie goes on... just taking the mistreatment and quietly shifting and trying to adjust himself until he collapses inward. It all happens very subtly, but he really sets up Geoffrey Rush's insanely great performance as the older david.

Over the years Noah Taylor has become a truly great and versatile character actor. Every time I see him on screen, I cannot look away. He's played sweet dads (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), rock and roll band managers (Almost Famous), and Adolf Hitler (Max) and been utterly believable as every one. He can play comedy (The Life Aquatic) so beautifully; there is a realness to his humour that is so appealing, and that sweet face can be so goofy when he wants to be goofy. But he can easily access a dangerous quality that can set you on edge. I also love the wide range of genres and sizes of movies he's done. He can do a big silly action movie (Tomb Raider) and look like he's having so much fun while also, totally committing (not easy), and then fit right in to something like The Proposition.

Noah in [from top left]: The Year My Voice Broke, Flirting, Shine, He Died with a Falafel in His Hands, The Life Aquatic, and Submarine

Noah Taylor, I love you, and I'm so happy you're in movies.

- Melanie Lynskey

Next: Chain love letter

MIFF 4: New Gay Films

Glenn here winding down with the Melbourne Film Festival coverage. For whatever reason, MIFF’s selection of queer films is never particularly large. I wasn’t able to attend the AIDS documentary How to Survive a Plague, although I’ve heard it’s a powerful experience, but I did get along to Ira Sachs’ Keep the Lights On that follows a nine-year relationship between a Danish documentary filmmaker (Thure Lindhardt, Into the Wild) and a lawyer (Zachary Booth, Damages, Dark Horse) in New York City. I know Nathaniel’s not a fan (and I can certainly see why as there are problematic areas), but it’s rare for a “gay film” to find a positive foothold in the critical community so that made it a veritable must see.

There’s a moment when Lindhardt’s Erik passes a graffiti sign that reads “FAKE YOUR BEAUTY”, which is actually a good motto for Keep the Lights On. Sachs has certainly made his film look very nice, a professionalism that is sadly lacking from much gay cinema, but it doesn’t quite cover up the fact that the movie doesn’t have anything particularly new to say – in the end it’s still a domestic drama about two people torn apart by tragedy. The actors, especially Lindhardt walking a tightrope of fey, are wonderful and Sachs has imbued the visuals with a warm New York glow without ever resorting to travelogue sightseeing imagery. The song score by Arthur Russell could nauseate some, but I found the dizzying crooning to be lovely. Meanwhile, the gay sex scenes are refreshingly realistic and open, plus the screenplay by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias thankfully avoids preachy grandstanding about Gay Issues (although an out-of-nowhere AIDS scare is on the nose).

On the flip side… the film is, from my limited readings, based on his own experiences and he has obviously slanted the film in his favour. Lindhardt, as his own stand in, plays a documentarian who wins the prestigious Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival… was that his own form of intellectual bribery? Keep the Lights On eventually went on to win the same prize earlier this year. Hmmm. Elsewhere, Booth sadly gets too little to do in spite of his characters downward spiral. Likewise, Paprika Steen (we love her!) is underused as Erik’s sister and feels like a superfluous plot strand that the director didn’t know how to fully utilise. 

It’s certainly no Weekend, or even Brotherhood (a Danish gay drama that also starred Lindhardt), but I did find much to like about this film. It arguably should have ended some ten minutes earlier – a trend of any film festival, surely, are independent productions that should have ended ten minutes earlier – and finished on a more ambiguous note, but it does enough interesting work with the clichés of gay life to make it a rewarding watch. (B)

A conservative Iranian taxi driver whose husband is in jail accepts a fare from a woman she finds on the roadside who’s desperate to flee an arranged marriage. What makes Negar Azarbayjani’s delicate Facing Mirrors so interesting is that the cab passenger is actually a pre-op transsexual. It’s a road trip as unconventional as (to be entirely reductive about it) Transamerica, but… well, you know, better. Unburdened by that American film’s stunt casting of a celebrity, Azarbayjani’s film is able to lend both characters depth and genuine worries of the heart and brain without busying the viewer with “Wow! Look at the transformation! Wow!” style thoughts.

The screenplay by Azarbayjani and Fereshteh Taepoor eventually gets bogged down in the preachy “aren’t we all the same?” semantics that I just praised Keep the Lights On for avoiding. Subtlety is hardly this film’s strong suit. However, there’s still a thrill in seeing Iranian filmmakers take on prickly subjects, and the performance of Shayesteh Irani (the incredible Offside) is a powerful one. (B-)

By far the best of the gay cinema on offer was Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita y Mari. Traipsing the familiar coming-of-age-while-coming-out path of many before it (like other excellent recent ethnic-centric examples Pariah and Circumstance), this sublime teen drama set amongst an American immigrant community has such an authentic, illuminating quality to it that it proved to be one of my highlights of the entire festival. Starring Fenessa Pineda as a bright young student whose parents see education as a way out of menial labour and Venecia Troncoso as her rebellious, new-girl-in-town friend, Mosquita y Mari is perhaps the finest examinations of real world teenagers I’ve seen since Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park.

Guerrero immediately instils her film with a dazzling sense of place. The sun-drenched surrounds of the Huntington Park area is so lovingly lit that you can feel the sweaty brow of the Californian sun permeate through the screen. The cinematography by Magela Crosignani grabbed me with its constant hazy oasis of a far-off big city promising a better life, as well as the purple and orange sunsets that belie its modest budget (this is just one of many films I noticed end credits for thanking Kickstarter, Pozible, and other fundraising schemes). The music choices, too, are fabulous and mirror the ever-expanding horizons of its core characters. Initially peppering the soundtrack with the stereotypical twang of a guitar and the stroke of a mournful piano, the music eventually encompasses jungle trance, hip-hop, Latin, and synth pop. Just one of the many smart moves by this first-time director. As the screenplay tackles identity within a community that struggles with it, the actors – especially the two leads (hey, they actually look like kids!) – really sell the confusion, elation, flirtation and disappointment. This is an impressive, sweet and sincere gem of a film. (A- / B+)