It’s another year, so it must be time to roll through another New Zealand International Film Festival. Unfortunately I can’t justify taking weeks off work to catch them all (or the bill that would generate, for that matter), so as with every film festival, it’s a balancing act around family, cost, work, and the sometimes infuriating scheduling choices of the organisers as to which I get to see.
This year I’m particularly disappointed to be missing High-Rise (impossible scheduling), Poi E (sold out too soon), Mercenaire/Mercenary, L’avenir/Things to Come, Xia nu/A Touch of Zen, Chant d’hiver/Winter Song, Médecin de campagne/The Country Doctor, Agassi/Handmaiden, and La mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV. Such is life.
Midnight Special
It’s a coincidence I saw this as Stranger Things has been riding a train pulled by memories of a certian view of the 80s alongside recollections of the great 70s and 80s Stephen King novels, because Midnight Special put me firmly in mind of Firestarter; whether that’s because it owes a concious debt to it or not, I don’t think anyone who’d read it before seeing this could avoid certain echoes of it while watching this film, in a good way.
Midnight Special opens with a scene of desperadoes in a motel, with a TV revealing that one of them is wanted in connection with the abduction of a boy from a farm; the boy appears in the room, under a sheet, wearing swimming goggles, and clearly comfortable with his captors. As this story unfolds, it’s cut together with a government operation at the farm - actually a cult - as the FBI and an NSA agent descend, rounding up the cult members and questioning them.
They believe, on the strength of his speaking in tongues, that he is a harbinger of the end times (due in four days); the NSA agent reveals that his numbers and babbling are in fact impossible-to-intercept encrypted millitary satellite traffic. Agents of the compound and government set off in pursuit of the boy, as it is revealed the kidnapper is his father.
I’m not going to unpack the rest of the story, a pursuit across states as the different movitations of the three groups come into play; the film is well-made, with polished performances from the actors involved. I enjoyed probably the first three-quarters, losing myself in the various twists and turns, but I found the last quarter a bit flat. Once the key plot points are revealed, the film feels like it’s running to an inevitable conclusion. I still enjoyed it overall, but I wouldn’t bother picking up my own copy.
Tout en haut du monde / Long Way North
Set in 19th century Russia, and concerning a teenager who runs away from her wealthy family in order to restore the reputation of her grandfather, missing on an expedition to the North Pole, this is a thoroughly enjoyable animated French film that I took Ada to.
The story is simple enough: Sasha is the 15 year old member of a wealthy and well-connected St Petersburg family; her maternal grandfather a famous explorer whose last mission, to become the first man to the North Pole, resulted in the loss of his ship two years ago. Since it was a cutting-edge icebreaker and the pride of the Tsar’s fleet, this was a black mark against the family fortunes. Sucessive searches have failed to find any sign of the expedition. Sophie, going through her grandfather’s notes, realises that his intended path was different to the one everyone else assumes, engages in a ham-fisted attempt to have one of the Tsar’s ministers launch another search; instead it provides the pretext for her family’s enemies to disgrace her father.
The meat of the film, then, is Sophie trying to find the lost expedition: she runs away from home, with only a theoretical understanding of the business of sailing and navigation. She is quickly cheated out of the few valubles she posseses, and left stranded in a small port village, to be taken in by the local innkeeper, who argues her case with a local ship captain. There is a training montage involving cooking and innkeeping. No, really.
From there, she heads north with the ship’s crew, who have been lured by the rich reward on offer for the lost ship. The voyage is harsh, hard work, but ultimately leads Sophie to her answers.
The animation style is interesting; spare, flat colours with fairly minimal detail save, as Ada noted, for detail shots of the characters’ eyes.
I found the ending satisfying; it’s happy enough to render it suitable for a 9 year old, but not too simple or easy.
À peine j’ouvre les yeux / As I Open My Eyes
Well-executed, and very depressing.
Set in the period immediately before the Arab Spring, the film is concerned primarily with Farah, an 18 year old who has joined a band. Early on in the movie her mother is visited by someone who warns her mother that her daughter has been seen in bars, and that she should do something about it - her mother becomes hysterical and overbearing in her relations with her daughter.
Farah’s father is absent, working at industrial sites a long distance form the family, something which is related to his unwillingness to join up with the ruling party, something which is clearly a point of principle for him.
Initially we are unsympathetic to Farah’s mother, Hayet. She is an unreasonable, ludicrous figure, using threats and histrionics to try and bend her daughter to her will. Farah wants nothing more than to spend time with her friends, to sing, and to study music at university. The band begins a climb to popularity and Farah and Borhėne, the principal songwriter, become lovers; Farah’s father becomes a target for workers enraged by late pay and poor treatement by the ruling party; the songs the band write become more and more overtly political.
As more attention comes on the band from officials we learn more about Hayet and become more understanding; her behaviour is, in fact, grounded in her history and reasonable fears for her daughter, which Farah is blind to.
The film finishes on a depressing note; while mother and daughter are reconciled, and Farah’s father returns to the capital, the family is brought together by defeat, not victory.
The music of the film is wonderful; the plot works the better for putting Farah’s relationships with her family and friends and the centre of the film, and putting the political context mostly in the background except as it intrudes on her life.
A warning: there is an interrogation scence which is sufficiently emotive as to cause a couple of people to leave the cinema. It isn’t gory, but it is very unpleasant.