film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Category: REVIEWS

Here is where you would find our film reviews on BRWC.  We look at on trailers, shorts, indies and mainstream.  We love movies!

  • Acute Misfortune: Review

    Acute Misfortune: Review

    Adam Cullen (Daniel Henshall) was a renowned Australian artist and Acute Misfortune tells the story of his life through the words from his biography as written by Erik Jensen (Toby Wallace). For those who haven’t read Jensen’s biography and have seen a lot of biopics about various famous people (or people they never heard of) then perhaps they would be expecting a particular kind of format.

    However, actor turned director Thomas M. Wright’s biopic of Adam Cullen does away with any of the familiar tropes and cliches that audiences may have come to expect. The rose-tinted glasses are thrown away as Acute Misfortune is not told through the eyes of a fan or the carefully drawn up agreement made by Cullen’s estate so as to not show him in a bad light.

    Instead, Acute Misfortune shows Cullen very much as he would have been. Warts and all may be a phrase that is bandied about to bring in an audience, but in this case the warts and all are just the honest truth and a terrific portrayal by Henshall.

    Drafted in to write Cullen’s biography, Jensen doesn’t know quite what to expect. After all there’s a fine line between genius and madness and as he gets to know Cullen, Jensen starts to realise that the world of an artist (particularly this one) is not one in which he may want to involve himself.

    Henshall’s performance is as close to the real man that anybody could imagine and thankfully besides a little eccentricity and intensity in the script and his performance, Henshall still manages to stay in a character that’s real and the film doesn’t wander off into spectacle over realism.

    To any other director, a a cross between A Beautiful Day in The Neighbourhood and Ex Machina may have been tempting to exaggerate Cullen’s behaviour to extraordinary levels.

    However, Acute Misfortune manages to dig deeper than that, so that by the end of the film the audience will see a portrait of a man whose life they may or may not have known about, but by the end they will feel as if they know him through and through.

  • The Planters: Review

    The Planters: Review

    By Heidi Sharpley.

    There’s a saying, “if you want something done give it to a busy woman”.  Well, Alexandra Kotcheff and Hannah Leder have been busy indeed.  Apparently best friends since they were eight years old, these two women are a driving force as according to IndieWire, “the two would be solely in charge of the film’s sound, costumes and makeup, not to mention directing, writing, shooting, producing and starring in it.”  They also ran a KickStart campaign to fund it and were recipients of a Women in Film Finishing Fund grant.  Aretha Franklyn would have been proud of these sisters, doing it for themselves.

    Martha Planter played by Alexandra Kotcheff finds it hard to relate to people and struggles in her job as a tele-sales consultant for an air-conditioning company where her personality as rigid as her perfect hair braids, doesn’t lend itself to making sales.  Her zany and true passion is burying tins in the desert containing trinkets and treasures she’s stolen from the second-hand store.  Martha types succinct instruction notes with the coordinates and pins them to the town notice board.  Her delight comes from recovering compensation left behind by successful treasure hunters. 

    Hannah Leder really plays three characters: the gentle and damaged Sadie Mayflower, and her mixed up alternate personalities, reckless 4 year old Emma who regularly shits her pants, and brash Angie who loves to get drunk with everyone around her.  Sadie arrives unexpectedly after escaping a sex cult and good-hearted Martha takes her in.  

    This movie is about unlikely friendships, helping each overcome obstacles and finding your place to belong.  Not a unique plot but that doesn’t matter.  The Planters is visually stunning and the detailed art direction creates beautifully quirky-looking settings for just as quirky and endearing characters. 

    Each scene is carefully constructed and stylised with a smorgasbord of considered props.  The camera angles and framing adds appeal and your eyes are spoon-fed exactly what they are meant to dine on.  As the movie unfolds watch out for the whimsical bike and trailer transitions. 

    Music and sound is a key trigger for the audience of the Planters.  Thomas Kotcheff’s compositions are inspiring.  I’m guessing Alexandra and Hannah had some help from friends and family.

    The stop motion scenes of Hannah’s visions with Jesus and Moses are enchanting.  Sam Barnett knows how to animate.

    This indie movie won’t be for everyone but already, I want to watch it again. I think Kotcheff and Leder have a style of their own and I look forward to seeing what else this power-house pair comes up with.

  • Siberia: The BRWC LFF Review

    Siberia: The BRWC LFF Review

    Siberia: The BRWC LFF Review – Veteran filmmaker Abel Ferrara’s latest film (his sixth collaboration with Willem Dafoe) is every bit as strange as we’ve come to expect from him; a beautiful yet bizarre work that truly tests the patience of its audience.

    Dafoe plays Clint, a bartender based in Siberia, who embarks on a journey of self-examination, wherein he faces his own memories, thoughts, dreams, and even hallucinates. It’s a trippy, emotionally testing look at the human subconscious that Ferrara has described as such: ‘I want to see if we can really film dreams; our fears, our regrets, our nostalgia.’ 

    Siberia is far from the only film ever to attempt this, so it’s hardly the adventurous, bold game-changer that Ferrara clearly thinks it is, and other filmmakers have had far more success with the concept than him. 

    The film isn’t a completely wasted watch. In fact, it’s stunning to look at, creatively directed and exquisitely shot by Stefano Falivene, with the use of thematically distinct lighting and colour wonderfully reflecting Clint’s agitated mind. It’s competently put together by a team of experienced people who have mastered their craft, particularly Dafoe, a consistently engaging performer with a unique presence that has always suited the protagonists of Ferrara’s work. 

    Sadly, the problems lie with just about everything else. The visions and memories we see Clint experience are often no less than frustrating; shot with purpose, yes, but vapid and empty. Ferrara has thrown all of his thoughts on the screen, whether they add to the narrative or not (they rarely do). His intention appears to be to frustrate the audience into an uncomfortable state, but it just comes across as arrogant pretension and mockery, from a filmmaker who believes he’s far cleverer than those viewing his work.

    The less experimental aspects of the film also fail to ever truly come to life, due to the language barrier that exists between Clint and the Inuit people who come to his bar. While clearly intentional, it means that his time with his customers (particularly a heavily pregnant woman whom he kneels down to kiss) just comes across baffling. It isn’t an approach that works.  

    Siberia certainly gets under your skin, but not for the reasons Ferrara clearly hopes. In spite of its beauty and Dafoe’s predictably committed performance, it’s an utterly mindless attempt to visualise the mind of its protagonist with empty, surface-level experimentation that appears far more profound than it truly is. 

  • A Taste Of Tea: Review

    A Taste Of Tea: Review

    A grandfather, who adores his family fills his family home with love, playfulness and art. A mother ,strives to show the world that she can have both a career and raise a family.

    A son, desperate to win the love of his life through skill and intellect, and a daughter, who above anything else wants a gigantic version of herself to stop following her around, which can only be done by completing one…perfect…backflip. This, is A Taste of Tea.

    A Taste of Tea is beautifully directed, with picturesque and peaceful scenes of Japan’s magical countryside emanating throughout. It is at its heart a film of love, everyday life and the magic behind a simple and happy existence. It’s also, incredibly weird.

    It’s opening scene features son Hajime (Takahiro Sato) chasing a train which has the love of his life on board as she leaves town, only for the train to emit from his head leaving a train shaped hole in his brain and presumable, his soul.

    Uncle (Tadanobu Asano – Mongol, Thor, 47 Ronin) tells a story of being trailed by the ghost of a yakuza man, who it turns out is pretty peeved that he took a dump on his skull after he died because he thought it was an egg (we never find out why he did this). A Taste of Tea is quirky, ambiguous and brilliant.

    Although slow at times, it’s worth the grind. The characters are deep, rounded and human. It’s hard not to relate to at least one of the situations. Despite the comedy and the strangeness of it all, and in truth because of it, the Haruno family will become like your own family.

    A Taste Of Tea

    Director Katsuhito Ishii, works best with his main man Tadanobu Asano at his side, who before his glimpse into Hollywood in Thor has done several films with the director, including Party 7, Funky Forest, and my favourite title ever Shark Skin Man & Peach Hip Girl.

    Ishii has created in A Taste of Tea, the essence of a series within a film. The pace, the cinematography, the development of characters made it feel like you’d watched ten episodes. There was no wanting, no loose ends, no confusion. It was instead well-crafted and complete.

    A Taste Of Tea

    Tomokazu Miura who plays the hypnotist father Nobuo gives a standout performance, particularly in one of the most heart-warming scenes I think I’ve ever seen. It’s a common troupe that a successful wife disappoints a husband who’s rather see here at home caring for the children.

    In A Taste of Tea we see the complete opposite as Tomokazu delivers such pride, warmth and love through his facial expressions when he receives a call about her success; cementing my favourite line in the film, when he declares to a patient who’d dreamed of an angel five second earlier ‘my angel was phone’ after he hears the news of Akira’s (Tomoko Nakajima) success.

    A Taste Of Tea

    A Taste of Tea is a wonderful watch full of good and bad aspects, bad in the sense that they’re endearing like a terrible B movie you can’t help but love. Together they deliver a wonderful package, a delicious taste of tea. It’s not action packed, but it meanders into your soul and of course, towards the end wows you with possibly the worst CGI 2004 could deliver in possibly its most esoteric scene when a sunflower encompasses our entire solar system because yes, the Haruno daughter Sachiko (Maya Banno) DID complete the perfect backflip!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NcBL6cYGL4
  • She Is The Ocean: Review

    She Is The Ocean: Review

    According to its own publicity material, She Is The Ocean is “a full-length documentary about great women. An in-depth exploration into the lives of nine astonishing women (who) share deep love for the Ocean.” With the film itself spending a lot of its time trying to be inspirational and less informing the audience about who these women are and what they have achieved, looking at additional information can be a big help, in particular for those who aren’t familiar with its subject matter.

    Director Inna Blokhina features each of her nine subjects separately, one after another. The exception being ten-year-old aspiring surfer Cinta Hansel, competing in her first competitions, which is used as a wraparound for the whole film. It seems that this is for the young girls in the audience, to show them they can achieve from an early age in life.

    It is a bit undermined by her father, who himself wanted to be a surfer when younger, doing a lot of her talking for her. That is made up for by showing Hansel in action on the surf, but therein lies a recurring flaw of the film: what’s on-screen does not always match the subject matter at hand.

    If Hansel is the future of surfing, She Is The Ocean also profiles the past and present of women not just in competitive surfing but all manner of water sports.

    Champion tube rider Keala Kennelly talks of growing up having male surfers be her role models, then having to compete as a woman in a male-dominated sport. Anna Bader tells of her career as a cliff diver, accompanied by plenty of very impressive clips of her doing just that. They are featured more prominently than the modern-day star of surfing, Coco Ho, an annoying, plastic millennial who thankfully has just a short, token appearance early on.

    There are also some interviewees whose inclusion here genuinely makes no sense. While it has women who have made an impact in their field, ballet dancer and yogi Rose Molina qualifies just because she likes the sea and going diving. Her section really doesn’t add much to the meaning and themes of the documentary, that she is the most pretentious and mysticky of everyone featured doesn’t help.

    She Is The Ocean does spend more time with women who are impressive and inspirational. Freediver Ocean Ramsey (How could she not have a connection to water with a name like that?) overdoes it a bit with the spiritual talk, but takes an active role in the conservation of sharks. Accomplished and distinguished marine biologist Sylvia Earle gives a compelling and educating talk on the impact humans have had on the oceans, why it’s important we save and preserve them.

    The most inspiring subject is Jeannie Chesser. She has seen much tragedy in her life, but none of that has dampened her love for the water, even though some of those hardships were because of it. She still surfs in her old age, knowing the time she has left is limited. She shows an unwavering determination that anyone can take heart from.

    She Is The Ocean has the best will in the world, but its parts are greater than the whole. Everyone featured is clearly passionate about what they do, but with no real narrative or much to link them beyond they are women with a connection to water, the documentary has an uneven feel. Each of the nine segments could have worked well separately and independently of one another.

    One thing that is constant in Blokhina’s film is impressive photography both in the water and on its surface. There’s plenty of shots of the surfers doing just that which look spectacular, both at a distance and close up. Most striking of all are the underwater sequences of Ramsey swimming alongside sharks. In fact it’s possible to gauge much of these women’s enthusiasm for their work from seeing them do it much as hearing from them. It is a well-meaning and well-made but muddled and too infrequently feels like a film.