Reviews: 2010 New Zealand International Film Festival

One of my favorite things to liven up a dreary, rainy Auckland winter is the New Zealand International Film Festival, which brightens every July with a slate of dozens of local and international movies. This year I was heavily in a documentary frame of mind, and saw several great docs that are well worth seeking out. Another highlight was a most excellent screening of Sergio Leone's classic spaghetti western "Once Upon A Time In The West" in the glorious Civic Theatre -- you haven't lived until you've seen Charles Bronson's eagle eyes staring you down from a sweeping wide screen the size of a house.

Here's the movies I checked out at the fest this year:
There Once Was An Island: Te Henua e Noho
Takuu, 250 km off the mainland of New Guinea, is slowly washing away. Climate change and rising seas are wreaking havoc on this tiny atoll community of just 500 people who have lived there for hundreds of years. This documentary, directed by New Zealander Briar March, looks at the uncertain future the islanders face as seas overtake their land -- just a few feet above sea level. It's a beautifully shot documentary that has a clear focus on the dilemma the people of Takuu face, one likely to plague other communities in coming years. These aren't unspoiled island people who've never seen an airplane; they are part of the modern world, but still faithfully keeping to their old traditions. The tiny size of Takuu and its isolated place make it a kind of oasis, but not without problems. March picks a few islanders and their stories to focus on -- particularly sad is the woman who left the island years ago who left behind her family, but returns once a year or so from the mainland. It's very hard for me to imagine what it would be like to live on a tiny island not much bigger than some strip malls, with only a ferry a couple of times a year. There's a hopefulness to "Island," but you still feel that you're likely watching the end of something. It's kind of heartbreaking, even though it's a beautiful little movie.
The trailer

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
I love the Magnetic Fields, which are basically Stephin Merritt and a cast of collaborators brewing up askew, witty and dark chamber-pop music such as the classic triple album "69 Love Songs." Merritt's doom-deep voice and songs like "No One Will Ever Love You," "Love Is Like Jazz" and "I Don't Believe In The Sun" have often left me wondering what the man himself is actually like. Enter this documentary, a real treat for Fields fans. Merritt himself is an amusing contradiction -- with his deep bass rumble you might expect him to be an ascot-wearing bear of a man, but the diminuitive figure resembles nothing so much as Elmer Fudd. The film makes a big deal of Merrit's reputation as a grouchy fellow, but the portrait that emerges here is less scathing. In fact, it's often kind of sweet, especially when it delves into the symbiotic relationship Merritt has with Claudia Gonson, instrumentalist and manager who basically handles all the "little details" of his life. "Powers" is best at how it takes you into the day-to-day life of a semi-famous musician -- the rehearsals, the hours spent writing, the time wasted on publicity interviews. The Magnetic Fields have never been big stars, but they've been adored in their own fashion. This movie is a fine valentine to Merritt's work and surly charm.
The trailer

"American : The Bill Hicks Story"
Bill Hicks never quite made it to the big time, but in his brief life, he was one of the US's most incendiary, hilarious stand-up comedians, unafraid to break barriers. This highly entertaining doc interviews family and friends to recreate Bill's life before his shocking death from cancer at the age of 32. It's a kind of rise and fall and rise and fall and rise again movie. At first I thought the movie made Hicks seem rather shallow, not as revelatory as the comedy bits I've seen of him. But the cleverness of "American" is that it gradually shows the evolution of a comic's style, from his mugging gags beginning to the end, where Hicks had begun to resemble some kind of wild-eyed prophet, the son of Lenny Bruce, fiercely cutting with his wit. Hicks developed a voice in his short lifetime, and "American" is the story of how he got there. The directors make a curious stylistic choice to "re-enact" scenes from Hicks' life using animated still photos; while it looks kind of funky in a faux-3D way, I felt the technique distracted me more often than not. The best parts of "American" are the copious footage of Hicks' voice raging away at the dying of the light, a sound that's still potent 15 years after his death.
The trailer

Teenage Paparazzo
Directed by and starring Adrian Grenier, best known as Vincent Chase on TV's Entourage, this is a meta hall of mirrors that looks at celebrity and society's obsession with it. Grenier was "shot" one day by a 13-year-old kid named Austin Visschedyk who said he was a paparazzi. Striking up a friendship with Austin, Grenier dives into a fascinating big-brother sort of relationship with the kid, following him as he hangs out in Los Angeles til 2am chasing down Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan (yes, the parenting here is rather questionable). Grenier learns what drives the paparazzi, and even tries his hand at "papping" himself. He also sees Austin become famous himself, ending up on a reality TV show. By the end we've been spun around all sides of the celebrity cycle -- Grenier avoids judging celebs or paparazzi, and the film's general even-handed tone is welcome. I was pleasantly surprised by how much depth "Paparazzo" has to it, although it slides a bit too heavily into academic theorizing towards the end. But it really leaves you thinking about the stars we love and why we're so obsessed by them (heck, I even had a bit more respect for Paris Hilton by the end, no mean feat). This screening was highlighted by Grenier's attendance down here in NZ, and a half-hour Q&A afterwards with him. He's nothing at all like "Vinnie" in real life of course, and I was quite impressed by his talk and musings on the celebrity culture. Definitely check this one out if you get a chance.
(Can't seem to find a trailer for this one but plenty of footage on the website!)

Reviews: Auckland International Film Festival 2009

There's nothing better to do in the middle of winter than the New Zealand International Film Festival. More than 100 fine movies from all over the world are screening in Auckland, and poor old me only got to four of them -- but they were four terrific flicks, well worth seeking out. I do loves the film festivals!

Best Worst Movie
A more charmingly offbeat documentary you won't see all year. Back in 1990, a really, really bad movie called "Troll 2" was made. It's late-night marathon horror movie schlock that in its sheer awfulness (no really, it's not good) has since gone on to become a cult hit of "Rocky Horror" proportions, with fans reveling in the terrible acting, story and effects. Fans hold "Troll 2" parties and re-enactments. Now, former "Troll 2" child actor Michael Stephenson has gone on 20 years later to make a documentary about the "Troll 2" comeback story, looking at how the amateur actors see it now. But "Best Worst Movie" doesn't just mock "Troll 2," and instead turns an eye on the whole concept of trash becoming treasure, of something becoming the object of cult adoration. Best of all is George Hardy, the square-jawed fellow who played the lead role in "Troll 2" who has since gone on to be a small-town Alabama dentist. Hardy is a delight, an outgoing, charmingly sincere fellow who still has affection for his brief moment in the spotlight (he even tells patients about "Troll 2" during cleanings!), and who sees in the "Troll 2" revival a last chance for fame. "Best Worst Movie" has a big open heart for eccentrics and oddballs and would-be stars, and is delightfully funny in the process without overly mocking anybody, even the pretentious Italian director of "Troll 2" who is vaguely offended how everyone is laughing at his movie, or the spaced-out actress who quite seriously compares "Troll 2" to "Casablanca." Like the best documentaries, "Best Worst Movie" takes you somewhere unexpected, and is well worth hunting out. Now I actually have to watch "Troll 2" sometime!



Big River Man
Like a cross between "Borat" and "Heart of Darkness," this amazing documentary tells the tale of Slovenian icon Martin Strel, a big-bellied, beer-drinking, horseburger-eating man who, remarkably, is an ultramarathon swimmer who bas become the first man to swim the entire length of the world's longest rivers -- the Danube, the Mississippi, the Yangtze. Strel doesn't fit anyone's mental image of an extreme athlete, but he's the toast of Slovenia in the endearing prologue to this tale of his taking on the Amazon River – his longest record yet, more than 5000 kilometers of swimming in piranha and bacteria-infested waters. He does it all to draw attention to the world's environmental woes. "Big River Man" moves from a kind of yokel comedy into something deeper and stranger as Strel's Amazon epic gets underway. Sometimes, I felt like the directors got a bit too into stylistic tricks rather than focusing on the story in front of them. But the sheer chutzpah of the subject matter outweighs a few flaws. Was it worth the staggering cost for Strel in the end? I don't really know. But his feats are amazing and this guy's name should be known by people in the same breath as Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz, and "Big River Man" is a worthy tribute.

Big River Man - Trailer from KNR Productions on Vimeo.

Moon
Imagine commuting to the moon. In this stunning little movie, Sam Rockwell plays an engineer named Sam Bell who works on the moon, manning mining stations that now provide much of Earth's energy needs. He lives alone on a moon base, with a contract of three years, spending much of his time making models, exercising and trying to keep sane alone. Now, Bell is just two weeks away from the end of his contract and can't wait to get back to Earth. But something very strange starts happening around the base, and Bell begins to think he's going insane. "Moon" is clearly indebted to classic brainy science fiction like "2001" and "Solaris" (Kevin Spacey voices the station's helper computer system, which ought to be called 'Son of HAL.'), but it's an impeccably done experience. It's directed by none other than David Bowie's son, formerly Zowie, now known as Duncan Jones -- and I tell you, Jones is a director to watch. He stages "Moon" with a combination of beauty and menace, utilizing very subtle yet perfect special effects, and has utter control of the production. But the movie's biggest star is Sam Rockwell, who is basically on screen carrying the entire movie by himself. I love Rockwell, who's been great in movies such as "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and "Matchstick Men," and he's the best he's ever been in "Moon" -- funny, heartbreaking and intense. I can't give too much away about the nature of his performance witout spoiling the movie, but let's just say he really deserves an Oscar nomination for his turn here. Genuinely haunting and beautiful, "Moon" is just about the best movie I've seen in 2009 so far. It's playing at small theatres all over now so go hunt it out.



Van Diemen's Land
In 1822, eight convicts in remote Tasmania escaped into the tangled bush. One walked out, and told a terrible tale of starvation and cannibalism. I recently re-read Robert Hughes' great history of convict Australia, "The Fatal Shore," and the episodes set in Tasmania -- then known as Van Diemen's Land -- rank as the most shocking of the sordid history of "transportation". It's inevitable that it would become a movie, and first time director Jonathan auf der Heide, a Tasmanian, does a fine job of exploring the story in a stark, lushly filmed drama with some stunning cinematography. You can see the influence of Terrence Malick in the filmmaking, which makes the endless green and grey forests of Tasmania seem quite foreboding and evil. The landscape plays a crucial part in the unfolding drama. There's a matter-of-fact approach to the violence that generally avoids horror movie shocks, which makes it all the more awful, and a nice brooding near-silent performance by the central convict Pearce (Oscar Redding). It also makes for a rather pitch-dark, harrowing movie, with a darkness that feels kind of grueling by the end, and sometimes "Van Diemen's Land" moves too slowly, with a few too many lingering tracking shots. But it's generally a gripping first feature, skirting the line between existential drama and horror movie. I tell you one thing -- I'm glad I'm not a convict in 19th century Australia. But then that goes without saying.

Reviews: 39th Auckland International Film Festival

I spent a lot of the weekend cloaked in darkness watching images shimmering on screen at Auckland's most excellent film festival. It's great living in a city with such a world-class event – it was very hard to narrow down what to view out of more than 100 fantastic offerings, but here's a look at what I've seen:

• "Helvetica" (director, Gary Hustwit). A documentary about a typeface? Egads, you say. But this 80-minute feature on the world's most ubiquitous font (you see it everywhere from the Target logo to American Airlines' logo to most street signs) is fascinating work. Director Gary Hustwit started with a premise – why is one particular typeface so common in this modern world? – that spins into a sweeping discussion of typography design in general and what the shape of a letter can do to our mind. Helvetica, which is 50 years old in 2007, has become the script of city life. Besides giving us many montages showing how Helvetica is everywhere these days, Hustwit stuffs his film with interviews with a wonderfully eccentric crowd of type experts. Trust me, some of these guys are quite bizarre, such as the German who lustily denounces Helvetica or the avant-garde magazine designer who once laid out an article he disliked in the utterly illegible Zapf Dingbats font – and it saw print that way. There's a lot of humor in Hustwit's exploration of this insular but very influential world of design. The screening I was at seemed to be full of graphic designers or people involved somehow in the art of type. As someone who's worked in newspapers for over a decade and had my share of dealings with Helvetica I found this a really interesting movie, one that adeptly fulfills the documentarian's desire to show us a hidden facet of the everyday world. Hustwit himself was at the screening and gave an informative Q&A talk afterwards about how and why he did this film. It's a very "niche" appealing film I suppose, but I loved it, and can't wait to pick up the DVD.

• "All In This Tea" (director, Les Blank). How much do you know about the history of tea? I got offered a free ticket a friend couldn't use to this one, despite not being much of a tea drinker. And it certainly left me thirsty – a quite interesting, short documentary that follows David Hoffman, a Californian tea importer whose life is devoted to finding the best, purest Chinese oolong teas in remote parts of the countryside. Director Blank splices Hoffman's wanderings with a look at the meaning of tea, its growing popularity in America and what the differences are between organic tea and factory-farmed alternatives. It's a quite neat little film that is best when it focuses on the small details, such as Hoffman's penchant for sticking his nose into bags of tea leaves to gauge their quality. When it starts to speechify a bit on organic farming methods it becomes a little dull, but rallies nicely to become a meditation on quality of food in general. "All In This Tea" also features lots of lovely footage of the rural Chinese countryside and its people. Hoffman is a nicely charming lead character, a kind of capitalist hippie whose love for the "good tea" is infectious. The kind of small, spunky movie film festivals are made to showcase.

• "Rescue Dawn" (director, Werner Herzog). This is the most "Hollywood" I've seen of German director Herzog's films ("Grizzly Man," "Fitzcarraldo," etc), but it's also a tremendously captivating war story, based on the true story of U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down and captured in Laos in 1965. Christian Bale stars in a story of survival, as Dieter plans an escape from a prison in the heart of the jungle. Herzog's movies often feature man against nature in gritty scenarios, and "Rescue Dawn" is no different. It's on the conventional side, by Herzog's standards, but still spellbinding, particularly as Dieter spirals down into despair and faces impossible odds. Herzog makes the malevolent Asian jungle like another character in this film – you can taste the humid air, smell the fetid jungle scents. It's the small details that Herzog adds that give his distinctive tone to this movie – it could've been a Steven Spielberg movie, but instead it's something tense, heartbreaking and haunting. Bale is excellent, playing a can-do hero who has to confront his own limits, but even more dazzling is Steve Zahn as a fellower prisoner. Zahn is best known for kooky comedies like "Saving Silverman" or "Happy, Texas," but he is utterly fantastic here as a prisoner whose spirit has been nearly crushed. His intensity really should be remembered come Oscar time, and I hope it is.

Still to come: "Control," the new biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, which I'll see later this week!