MELBOURNE FILM FESTIVAL 2011 PREVIEW: THE STUFF I'VE SEEN

I've been an especially rabid festival-goer over the last year, so here are my absolute highlights of this year's MIFF from my viewings at Toronto, Adelaide, Sydney and elsewhere, followed by everything else I've seen ranked in tiers of quality/recommendation.

THE TURIN HORSE (Bela Tarr)

A monumental statement - and a final one for its auteur, at that - of futility & desolation, at once grueling and very darkly comic. This is Tarr's Jeanne Dielman, charting tweaks in a daily routine that turns into a death march. Possibly the most beautiful b&w cinematography I’ve seen; windswept hair has never looked better.

PASTOURELLE (Nathaniel Dorsky)

I wasn’t going to include shorts, but I’ll make an exception for Dorsky. It’d be nice if his entire tripych (that I saw in TIFF) played, but even a small sampling will do. Dorksy describes his work as ‘films for 10-year-olds’ and that pretty much sums of the childlike awe of his gorgeous, fragile miniatures – even if ‘avant-garde’ normally makes you run a mile, you’d be hard-pressed not to be taken with it. Plays with the Experimental Shorts 1 program, which also has Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s latest.

PETER TSCHERKASSKY SIDEBAR (2 programs + a masterclass)

More ‘accessible avant-garde’, at least not for epileptics. I’ve only seen Outer Space (Program 1), Instructions for a Sound and Light Machine and Coming Attractions (Program 2) but each are the kind of thing you’ll regret missing on a big screen (again, provided you’re not seizure-prone).

13 ASSASSINS (Takashi Miike)

Miike goes for an old-school samurai saga, and the results are glorious: a hypnotically assembled Jenga tower of formality, that proceeds to giddily collapse into a cloud of blood, limbs, mud, dust & flaming oxen. Chances of seeing a more entertaining film at the fest are slim.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sean Durkin)

Scarily assured for a debut feature, this transcends its subject matter (scary backwoods cults) in the sense that it's really about being torn between a false sense of belonging & being completely alien in the world where you’re expected to belong. Masterful handling of an elliptical narrative, formally exquisite in the chilly Haneke/Kubrick mold (but without being slavishly indebted to either), and superbly acted by all. It's been touted as 'this year's Winter's Bone' but I think it'll be more passionately embraced by its supporters - I had a very personal, emotional response to it that was hard to shake off afterwards, and I wasn't alone based on conversations with others after its SFF screening.

MYSTERIES OF LISBON (Raul Ruiz)

I’ll confess that I can’t recall a whole lot of the myriad characters and narrative specifics in this 4.5 hour period drama from prolific Chilean auteur Raul Ruiz. Nonetheless, it’s a dizzying smorsgasbord of storytelling pleasures, evoking a prolonged liminal state despite remaining ostensibly classical throughout.

TERRI (Azazel Jacobs)

This is how a teen comedy should be done; subtle, warm, humane, quirky in the most palatable way. Michael Sicinski aptly described Azazel Jacobs (whose TheGoodTimesKid remains one of the standout microbudget US indies of the new century, and Momma’s Man isn’t too far behind) as “the rare American realist independent who still communicates through mise-en-scène as much as characterization”, which explains this film’s reinvigoration of familiar tropes through a deft directorial touch (not to ignore Patrick DeWitt's smart script). It’s hard to remember the last time a comedy was as artfully made; it helps that it's damn funny, too.

Also very strong:

KILL LIST (Ben Wheatley)

CURLING (Denis Cote)

END OF ANIMAL (Sung-Hee Jo)

ATTENBERG (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (Jason Eisener)

POST MORTEM (Pablo Larrain)

BOXING GYM (Frederick Wiseman)

TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS (Radu Muntean)

PROJECT NIM (James Marsh)

Flawed, but with plenty to recommend:

HERE (Braden King)

TROLL HUNTER (André Øvredal)

SILENT SOULS (Aleksei Fedorchenko)

SLEEPING SICKNESS (Ulrich Kohler)

A USEFUL LIFE (Federico Veiroj)

SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE (Matthew Bate)

TYRANNOSAUR (Paddy Considine)

RUHR (James Benning) - not exactly 'flawed', just recommended to those with a high minimalism threshold. Severe even by Benning's standards, albeit rewarding.

Disappointments from filmmakers I admire, though fans should still see 'em:

ESSENTIAL KILLING (Jerzy Skolimowski)

OKI'S MOVIE (Hong Sang-Soo)

I WISH I KNEW (Jia Zhang-ke)

COLD FISH (Sion Sono)

SURVIVING LIFE (Jan Svankmajer)

DREILEBEN - BEATS BEING DEAD (Christian Petzold)

TABLOID (Errol Morris)

Blah:

TOOMELAH (Ivan Sen)

Gah:

THE FUTURE (Miranda July)