Sydney Film Festival

Finally had some time to digest the films from SFF 2011 and have come up with the following (amateur) haikus:

Spare, sublimely filmed
treatise on race and pioneers;
elan tumbleweed.

C+

Pretty look and sounds;

but lacking in substance, like

setting's soft and melting snow.

C+

A ragged swallow;
like its characters, big heart
but not ready yet.

B-

Fun, funny topic
without second and third act,
left wanting much more

B-

Surprisingly black
comedy on deathly life;
breath of fresh flowers

B

Touching, heartbreaking
inspirational quest for
basic human touch

B+

Son becomes father
A lost bear, just coming out
of hibernation.

B+

Perfectly realised

legal and moral quagmire;

required mozzie bite

A+

Life, love, death: puncted by
metaphysics of nature.
timeless masterpiece

A+




Without a doubt, A Separation and Tree of Life were the best films for me.  A Separation delved into the social, legal and moral crises that contemporary Iran is facing with perfect plotting, scripting and performances.  In addition to winning the Jury Prize at the SFF, it also won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.  More interestingly, the entire cast won the Best Actor and Best Actress Prizes as well.  Thoroughly deserved because the intellectual and narrative intricacies could really leaden the film, but the performances make it powerful and true.

Tree of life, on the other hand, went beyond the intellectual into the metaphysical plane, as do all of Malick's films.  It is so achingly beautiful - in narrative, visuals and sound - and so completely a cinematic vision of life at both ends of the spectrum - the grand view of Time and Space versus the hermetic world of a young boy in small time 1950s America - that you must see this on the big screen and just take it all in.