This Novemeber’s German Film Festival marks two decades since the fall of the Berlin wall. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM checks out one of the twenty post-reunification films on offer.

BERLIN has regained a reputation as one of the world’s most eclectic and electric party spots over the last decade, a sort of 1920s Weimer decadence typified by a wildly diverse artistic scene, plenty of young people attracted by the cheap rent/squatting opportunities, and the city’s spatial dynamics. And as Hannes Stöhr’s Berlin Calling shows, the heady mix of drugs, music, and artistic types has had both productive and cautionary effects on some of Berlin’s citizens. The film, while at times a hackneyed narrative of self-destruction and redemption, is aided by its pulsating techno soundtrack and its depiction of the great city.

STEVE GARDEN’s final word on New Zealand International Film Festival, in which the likes of Dogtooth, 24 City, Double Take, Serbis, Summer Hours and Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl impressed and demanded repeat viewings.

Compassionate and hard-hitting, Warwick Thornton’s Cannes-winning Samson and Delilah returns to cinemas this week following screenings at the New Zealand International Film Festival. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

Baiting and repelling audiences at the New Zealand International Film Festival in equal measure, Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is the most misunderstood film of year. STEVE GARDEN explains why.

With thoughts on Broken Embraces, A Christman Tale, Disgrace, Jerichow, In the Loop and Paper Soldier, STEVE GARDEN continues his post-mortem of the New Zealand International Film Festival, separating the stellar from the middle-of-the-road.

Premiering locally at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival and returning to cinemas this Thursday, The Strength of Water marks Kiwi filmmaker Armagan Ballantyne’s feature debut. She takes BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM behind the scenes.

A violent quartet from the 2009 Melbourne International Film Festival. By AMY BROWN.

LIFE ISN’T always a barrel of laughs; in fact, “if you’re happy for more than ten minutes in a row, you must be an idiot”. This is a line from Baltasar Kormákur’s Icelandic dramedy, White Night Wedding, but it could apply to any of these four films from the Melbourne International Film Festival this year. Patriarchal Korean family life, adolescence in an Essex housing estate, disastrous marriage on a small Icelandic island, and a bomb disarmament squad in Iraq, provide completely different perspectives on the violence and disappointment that inevitably comes with some human interaction.

In Unmade Beds, director Alexis Dos Santos has reworked London as a bohemian rhapsody. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about making the film.

Love and listlessness in bohemian London. By JACOB POWELL.

RECREATING the spirit of those peripatetic uni days, Unmade Beds reveals its story amidst the aimless existence of urban 20-somethings brought together for brief spell in a sprawling London squat. Sporting a consistent tenor of muted cool, Alexis Dos Santos’s appealing new feature charts afresh the age old quest for love, connection, and meaning.

Director of Dig! and now We Live in Public – a short history of the internet through the exploits of dotcom millionaire and mad prophet Josh Harris – Ondi Timoner has made a habit of documenting egos and self-destruction. She talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

Eight films that lead from the front at this year’s festival. By ALEXANDER BISLEY.

I’M NOT touching Antichrist with a ten-foot taiaha! I can’t curb my enthusiasm for A Christmas Tale, 35 Shots of Rum and Tyson. Five further stellar films make up my festival forward pack for 2009.

The animator of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ looks to the skies. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

The Sky Crawlers, the latest feature from master Japanese animator Oshi Mamoru, is based on Mori Hiroshi’s sci-fi novel of the same name. This is an important point, as the film seems to assume you’ve already read the book. At least, I had no idea what was going on for about two-thirds of the film. And by the time the pieces started falling into place, I struggled to engage.

A carte blanche concert film. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

All Tomorrow’s Parties essentially employs a well-known musical figure (like Sonic Youth, Mogwai, Dirty 3, Steve Albini) to run a music festival. They are given carte blanche to pick bands that they like or admire, and a three-day festival takes place in the English seaside. And the line-ups are usually fantastic. So anyone making a documentary on this festival would have a ridiculous amount of great music to wade through. But the problem this largely disappointing film has is, paradoxically, that there’s too much music in the documentary, and not enough music.

In the likes of Bluebeard, Wendy and Lucy, Jeanne Dielman and 35 Shots of Rum, women filmmakers provided much of the poetry at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival, writes STEVE GARDEN.

Steven Soderbergh pulls off a cinematic coup. By NINA FOWLER.

Che is an achingly beautiful blend of biography, adventure-odyssey and deep social commentary, with a touch of blockbuster thrown in for good measure. This master work is not only remarkable for sheer scale – two revolutions, two parts, four hours – but because director Steven Soderbergh has managed to successfully bind these disparate components together.

Michael Haneke frames the rise of German fascism. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

MICHAEL HANEKE’s films work like bed bugs, hidden away, causing discomfort months later from when they were first introduced. His latest, deeply unsettling film was a last-minute addition to the New Zealand International Film Festival programme, and all I can say is Thank God for that. And while it certainly felt odd walking into a multiplex – a necessary detour as one the first countries to see the film since it won the Palme d’Or – this austere examination of the roots of German fascism looks anything but dour with its sumptuous digital projection. Haneke’s films are so emotionally glacial that they can alienate viewers, however those who share Haneke’s pessimism will find plenty to savour. And those already attuned to Haneke’s worldview will add The White Ribbon to the burgeoning list of great films by this Austrian master, that haunt well after they have been seen.

The outrageous espionage of OSS 117 returns. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

HE’S FRANCE’s top agent. His name is Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, better known as OSS 117, a spy whose prominent jawbone is matched only by his bloated ego. And he’s the absurd secret weapon that makes this spy-thriller parody and delicious satire of Gallic arrogance so ridiculously entertaining. OSS 117: Lost in Rio is the second film by director Michel Hazanavicius that lift its protagonist from a series of 1950s pulp novels.

Filmmaker Megan Doneman tells BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about documenting the story of India’s most controversial woman, Kiran Bedi, and overcoming her own adversity in the six-year making of Yes Madam, Sir.

Toe-to-toe with an ex-con, hitman, and would-be martial artist. By JOE SHEPPARD.

THIS YEAR’s New Zealand International Film festival saw (at least) three very different takes on that classic genre noir – one old-school, one surreal, and one farcical. First up are the mean streets and violent prison life of 1960s Sofia, in the bleak and hard-nosed Zift. The title refers to the thick, dark resin that convicted diamond thief Moth chews, but it’s also used for holding down pavestones and it’s apparently slang for shit in Bulgarian.

Life amidst Kazakhstan's inhospitable Hunger Steppe. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

LITTLE-BY-LITTLE the simple charms of Tulpan spring up and overwhelm you. Gently comic and endearing, the debut feature-film from Kazakhstani director Sergey Dvortsevoy says more about family dynamics than the bloated vanity of Frenchman Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale.

Lars von Trier’s preposterous new film. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

I’M NOT A PARENT, but I assume that when a kid starts throwing a tantrum, the worst thing to do is to indulge them. Yet this is what I’m going to do with Lars von Trier, precisely the reaction that he’s after with his latest film Antichrist. I’m not sure if I’ll ever come across a sillier movie, and my only hope is that this deeply un-profound film isn’t retrospectively passed off as some sort of classic by some person who should know better. But the film did teach me some things. A children’s toy entitled “grief” is meant to be symbolic of “grief”. That’s symbolism. And the bit where the child dies at the moment that his mother has an orgasm. That’s being deep. And the bit where the couple go to a place called Eden, and have written on a piece of paper “Satan” “nature” “me”. That’s being subtle. And/or spiritual. Getting audiences to see this film because they are lured on the promise of seeing graphic, non-narrative-advancing imagery. That’s being calculated (i.e. the filmic equivalent of a Nickelback track). I think the Wayans Brothers are going to do a shot for shot remake of Antichrist and call it Scary Movie 5.

Lumière’s Art Editors on three portraits. By THOMASIN SLEIGH and ANDY PALMER.

THERE’s nothing more amusing that a Very Serious Art Historian. Very Serious Art Historians love Very Serious Artists. So, because this film deals with the work of Picasso and Braque – two Very Serious Artists par excellence – a handful of these kind of art historians get screen time. There is nothing they like better than a good discussion about influence and method. In the case of Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies, it is a discussion around the influence of early cinema on the early cubist works of Picasso and Braque. And they get into it with great gusto.

Jim Jarmusch’s wandering thriller. By JACOB POWELL.

OUR SCREENING of Jim Jarmusch’s latest feature, The Limits of Control, began with some unexpected drama: the first reel of the film (about 15-20 minutes) had a problem with the audio-picture sync which saw the film’s soundtrack a full three minutes or more out from the video track! The film certainly lived up to its title – one quarter of the audience mutinied, another quarter claimed this was how the film was supposed to be, while the rest sat silent, slightly bemused. A test of the audience’s ‘limits of control’, the fact that I honestly couldn’t tell at the time whether this was intentional or not might give you some insight into the kind of cinematic experience you will be in for if you get to a screening of this intriguing picture.

Exploitation movie, Bulgarian style. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

Zift is an exploitation film curtained in high contrast. A black and white hyper-machismo tale of revenge and revelry, it shamelessly plunders from other noir/revenge/exploitation films and blows it all up in 60s Bulgaria. Assuming that the maxim of a girl and a gun is for prudes, the film frolics in its nudity and violence to the point of ridiculousness. Outrageous camera angles, barely-believable storylines, sordid characters are all necessary to qualify as exploitation these days, so it’s hardly dripping in originality. But despite its unabashed neo-noir silliness, it’s highly watchable, and perhaps offers some sort of critique of Communist Bulgaria. Perhaps.

Irish animators cast their spell over the Book of Kells. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

THE Book of Kells is a venerated tome containing the four gospels of the New Testament, illustrated by Irish monks in the eighth century. The Secret of Kells is the debut animated feature from directors Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey, about a young boy tasked with completing the manuscript’s centerpiece Book of Iona.

New Zealand International Film Festival guest Neil Brand returns with his renowed accompaniment, scoring pre-sound classics The Gold Rush, Spies, The Cat and the Canary and The Black Pirate. The silent pianist speaks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

Artist Renzo Martens lectures on Congo’s ‘national asset’. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

A SORT of mad homage to Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, Enjoy Poverty is the result of Dutch artist Renzo Martens’s three years traveling the Congo, documenting the country’s ongoing plunder by foreign interests and our complicity in the ‘poverty industry’. With a purposefully offensive and pyrrhic logic, Martens suggests that poverty should be considered an important natural resource. Foreign aid is, after all, among the Congo’s largest sources of income. With little more than a handheld digicam, the artist-come-director sets off to interview plantation owners and poor labourers. He also meets with NGO workers and UN staffers, as well as foreign journalists who cover the nation’s internal conflict.

A trio of encounters at the New Zealand International Film Festival. By JOE SHEPPARD.

AFTER collaborating with the Berliner Philharmoniker in earlier festival hit Rhythm Is It!, German director Thomas Grube secured unprecedented access to the brilliant and famously autonomous orchestra and filmed their tour of East Asia’s grand cities. The resulting documentary Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony is as much a journey of self-discovery for the filmmaker as it is for the 120-odd musicians and flamboyant conductor Sir Simon Rattle, all of whom explore the tensions implicit in being an individual – and often a perfectionist – working collaboratively in search of the artistic sublime.

The hallowed Berlin Philharmonic is captured on tour in Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony, screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival this July and August. German director Thomas Grube tells BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM how he got his backstage pass.

Audrey Tautou as iconic couturier. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

THERE ARE few names in the world of fashion more iconic than Chanel. Yet, despite her association with elegance, the designer’s beginnings were anything but. Coco avant Chanel, as the film’s title suggests, is more a snapshot of the designer’s early life than conventional biopic, and this is both its success and failing. Director Anne Fontaine chooses to end things just as they become really interesting, which is perhaps due to allegations of an affair with a Nazi spy that damaged Chanel’s post-war reputation in France (it flourished in the United States).

Blokes and their booze. By ALEXANDER BISLEY.

TOO MUCH low-budget cinema involves plodding narcissists boorishly indulging themselves. The frequently very funny Daytime Drinking however is a very superior, convivial flick. I raise my glass to it. Straight off we meet four amigos imbibing round a Seoul table heartily laden with booze. Hyuk-jin is upset about romantic matters. His garrulous friends jest about him employing Myspace, then enthuse about a blokes’ trip to bucolic Jeongseon. Hyuk-jin ain’t keen, making all sorts of excuses. “I need to feed my dog.” “How old is your dog?” “Three.” “Your dog can look after itself, even feed itself dessert.” Eventually persuaded, likeable Hyuk-jin turns up in Jeongseon only to finds out the trio have blacked out after a heavy session, and won’t be able to make it for a couple of days. He checks in at a guesthouse run by a remarkably impolite man. “Stop hanging around,” he’s welcomed. Daytime Drinking explores the rowdy comedy of rude behaviour a la Host and Guest.

A fitting tribute to one of the luminaries of New Zealand cinema. By NINA FOWLER.

BARRY BARCLAY passed away a few weeks after The Camera on the Shore’s first rough edit was completed. After the tangi, director Graeme Tuckett applied to Te Mangai Paho for funding to “make the film again from the ground up”. The result is a compelling visual, emotional and intellectual celebration of Barclay’s life and work, with a razor-sharp yet restrained political edge.

Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevera biopic is a revolution of two halves. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

TWO HUNDRED and seventy-seven minutes is a long time to spend in a cinema. And it’s no surprise that this immense biopic of Che Guevera has been split into two movies for its general release, given the film’s narrative is similarly split: the first half of the film looks at the fight for Cuba and the second looks at Guevera’s attempt to do something similar in Bolivia. Despite its four-and-a-half-hour running time, Che isn’t actually a film about Che Guevera. We’re no closer to knowing about his motivations or his personality (see Motorcycle Diaries or read his books instead for that). Instead, this is about revolution, the way in which social change can, or won’t be, affected by armed conflict.

Close up on celebrated New York portraitist Chuck Close. By JACOB POWELL.

AN ICON in the art world, New York photorealist portrait painter Chuck Close has a bold idiosyncratic style that demands your attention in a way that few modern portrait painters can. Since the 60s Close has owned this often unpopular sector of the painting scene defying both critic and peer to try and write-off his work as mere bland ‘mechanical’ reproduction. And yet this is essentially what he has based his career upon – reproducing painted images from large scale photographic portraits. Take a look at a selection of his works and you’ll soon understand why he has remained a vital fixture in art exhibitions, galleries, museums and literature for the past four decades.

Chantal Akerman’s rigorous study of despair. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

SHOWN in New Zealand for the first time for decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman’s formally and thematically revolutionary Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles remains a neglected miracle. While Akerman has been referenced by fashionable directors like Todd Haynes (Julianne Moore in Safe and Far From Heaven is the American heir to Dielman’s titular protagonist) or Michael Haneke (The Seventh Continent), her work remains criminally under-released and under-appreciated. Jeanne Dielman was made after her brilliantly grungy deconstruction of female sexuality, Je, Tu, Il, Elle, but is even more uncompromising in its depiction of the banal repression of everyday-ness.

Two documentaries cling to a steadily diminishing way of life. By STEVE GARDEN.

THE FILMS of Raymond Depardon are rarely seen in this neck of the woods. Apart from the superb Tenth District Court (NZIFF 2005) and the short film that opens To Each His Own Cinema (one of the better efforts in that patchy concoction), Depardon’s films have not made it this far south (to my knowledge). Which is a pity, because Depardon is obviously a filmmaker worthy of attention, and his new film, Modern Life (Profils Paysans: la vie moderne), could emerge as one of the understated masterworks of this year’s festival.

Ramin Bahrani observes two unfinished lives. By BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

Goodbye Solo is the type of gentle US indie which doesn’t try to bury its story underneath a forced quirkiness or look-at-me tactics. Instead it’s more of a sigh, a quiet film about the passing of time and a demographic changing of the guard in the United States, where the old “white” world typified by Hank Williams is being replaced by a new multi-ethnic world of “reggae, rock n roll and all that”. The story is about a man wanting to commit suicide, and hiring a taxi driver to drive him to the suicide point. If the plot sounds similar to Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry, it might not be pure ‘coincidence’ – Ramin Bahrani while American, learned film in Iran. And while he doesn’t have the same formal brilliance of Kiarostami (not that many worldwide do), he knows how to use an understated camera-work and narrative ambiguity to gain emotional resonance.

Sam Raimi masterminds a belated horror comeback. By CALEB STARRENBURG.

AT A TIME when the horror genre has been sullied by insipid ultra-violence (there were at last count five Saw sequels with another on the way) and soulless Japanese-Korean-Spanish (take your pick) remakes, Drag Me to Hell leaps of the screen like a precordial thump (that’s a carefully-aimed blow to a cardiac-arrest victim’s sternum to restart their heart).

Winnebago Man tracks down the “angriest man in the world” – the relusive star of a series of expletive-laden outtakes from an RV commercial that went viral. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM talks to director Ben Steinbauer and producer Joel Heller about finding and filming the lovable grump in those clips, Jack Rebney.

The 60s before the 60s; Kazakhstan’s domestic quarrels, historical trauma and lunar steppes. By ALEXANDER BISLEY.

“IT DOESN’T have to be teaching you know. There is the civil service.” So Emma Thompson’s headmistress ripostes when Jenny (Carey Mulligan) objects to boring school leading to boring university leading to a boring job and a boring life. The line was heartily responded to at a Wellington screening! Lone Sherfig’s latest film An Education – audience fave at Sundance 2009 – is a crowdpleaser.