Revelation 16 Perth International Film Festival: 4 - 14 July 2013

The 16th Revelation Perth International Film Festival is fast approaching and I'm quite excited indeed as I just got home from the program launch of what looks to be an incredible fortnight of cinema and cinema related events.

To quote directly from the website this years festival offers:

• A once in a lifetime live experience featuring Goblin playing their live score to Dario Argento's 1977 horror classic Suspiria
• 50+ Australian premieres
• 4 world premieres
• 30+ guests from Australia and around the globe
• Workshops and masterclasses
• A return to our micro-cinema roots with the Dome Pop-Up
• 4 venues across Perth
• Over 100 sessions 
• 120+ individual films from China, Australia, India, Canada, Germany, France, UK, Switzerland, Denmark, Russian Federation, Iceland, Norway, South Korea, Israel, Belgium, France and Iran.
• Films from direct from film festivals the caliber of Toronto, Berlin, Rotterdam, Sundance, Cannes, SxSW, Telluride and many of our favourites.
• A host of true discoveries that makes Rev a real independent showcase and breaker to titles in Australia and elsewhere.

This is THE Western Australian film festival, everything else pales in comparison and this year it has expanded to four venues to accommodate the growing stature and vision of the event, with a lineup of films to match! There might not be any Romanian New Wave but it's still worth booking your holidays for next month and flying to Perth for Revfest. Gold Passes which give access to every single screening are a ridiculously cheap $190 and if I wasn't getting one for free I'd probably pawn my jet-ski to pay for it.

Being from Perth I seem to always find something to complain about and usually it's that nothing really happens here, especially in terms of interesting cinema but RevFest stands out from the crowd as something exceptional and unique to my city and I'm proud of volunteering my services to help with the smooth running of events as well as spreading the word about some exceptional programming this year.

Two things instantly stood out for me, the Australian premieres of Ben Wheatleys A Field In England

and White Reindeer with a Q&A session with perhaps my favourite American indie director Zach Clark afterwards. What the hell do people ask in Q&A's? My mind always goes blank. Which might actually be preferable to what happened when I bumped in to my favourite singer in a bar that time.

Ordinarily that would be enough for me but wait there's more, here's a few that really tickle my fancy:

Upstream Colour

A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.

The new film from the director of Primer has been receiving rave reviews worldwide. I don't care what it's about, after so many years waiting to see what he'd do next this was always going to be a must watch movie.

The Fifth Season

A time of climatic derailing, never-ending winter, spring that never arrives, disappearing bees, cows that no longer produce milk, and impending famine. Instead of blaming the heavens, the village’s inhabitants find themselves some other people to blame: a man who was just passing by with his disabled son.

It looks quite beautiful and Ronan at Next Projection has a perfect poster quote: "A bit like what would have happened if Béla Tarr and Roy Andersson co-directed The Wicker Man."

Gimme The Loot

Malcolm and Sofia, two determined teens from the Bronx, are the ultimate graffiti-writers hatch a plan to tag an iconic NYC landmark, but they need to raise $500 to pull off their spectacular scheme. What follows is an adventure over two summer days to raise the cash any way they can.

I've had the pleasure of seeing this one already and it is a fully enjoyable light comedy directed by a director with an eye for interesting composition. This is a low budget indie flick filled with promise.

The Act of Killing

In a place where killers are celebrated as heroes, these filmmakers challenge unrepentant death-squad leaders to dramatize their role in genocide. The result is a surreal, cinematic journey, not only into the memories and imaginations of mass murderers, but also into a frighteningly banal regime of corruption and impunity.

At nearly three hours it might take a lot out of you but The Act of Killing has widely been hailed as a must see film about humanity and human nature and if you can stomach the content you should join me for what promises to be an experience you won't forget in a hurry.

Pictures of Superheroes

Marie is hired as a maid by businessman Eric who also asks her to pretend to be his wife to seduce his clients. While cleaning Eric’s home, Marie becomes close to Joe, an aspiring superhero artist who also lives in Eric’s house, although unbeknownst to Eric.

A film said to be a quirky deadpan comedy, with a premise that intrigues me to the point of having to watch it. Beyond that I know nothing about this film, the stuff that film festival memories are made of.

Pieta

A loan shark is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother.

Ordinarily a new Kim Ki-Duk film coming to Perth would be pretty big news for me but such is the quality of this years lineup it has become just another great film to look forward to.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

Documentary looking back at the career of the popular character actor Harry Dean Stanton, featuring songs performed by Stanton.

Watching Harry Dean Stanton be the centre of attention for 77 minutes? Who wouldn't want to watch that?

London - The Modern Babylon

Julien Temple directs a documentary looking at the past century of London's history.

The premise is enough. Of all the cities of the world London fascinates me the most, despite having lived there for a large portion of my life I still feel like I hardly know the place. Two hours surely isn't enough?

Whose coming? What are you most looking forward to? Comment and tweet and stuff.

RPIFF: Autoreiji a.k.a. Outrage (2010)

And so the Revelation International Film Festival was brought to an an end with the most high profile film of the fortnight. International superstar 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano directing and starring in his first Yakuza movie in ten years, Autoreiji.

There is nothing new on show here. This is a Yakuza movie filled with double crossings, violent deaths, torture, honour and well that's about it. It merely updates the story and in Kitano's trademark way shows the Yakuza for what they are without dressing them up in glamour like an American movie might.

At times the plot is labyrinthine in it's crosses and double crosses and triple crosses and it is hard to keep track but in essence you can summarise the film as follows: Yakuza chairman plays power games with his underlings, playing them all off against each other in an effort to kill the strongest and most powerful and thus stop from getting killed in a power struggle. Beat Takeshi is Otomo, an old school yakuza who is lead around by the nose doing everyone's bidding whilst trying to keep one step ahead of being the next head on the chopping block.

Kitano makes beautiful films with violent content and this is no different, it's not as beautiful as some (see Hana-Bi and Sonatine) but it sure is violent in parts. The meandering plot doubles as a device to show Otomo killing in interesting ways, you may have heard of the dental office scene but there are a few others that are equally violent but not gruesome. None of which I will spoil for you by telling you about here.

It is a film littered with humour, some obvious visual jokes; some of them coming from the characters and I feel (as I often do with subtitled films) that some of the humour may have come from misunderstanding a foreign culture. But overall you feel nothing for a bunch of caricatures being used as a metaphor about the loss of honour in the Yakuza as they chase money and even the loss of tradition in Japanese culture.

I can't really recommend this movie too much, it's not bad as far as Yakuza movies go if you want some violence but if you were going to watch a Japanese movie or a Kitano movie you should probably watch something better.

So it ended on a down-ish note for me but The Revelation Perth International Film Festival was a great experience. I've never been part of something like a film festival before, never had a chance to see so many great films in the cinema and the hard work that went in to getting to the cinema to see 6 films in such a short space of time was completely worth it. I hope that these movies get worldwide cinematic releases, they deserve to be seen a lot more than most films that I see advertised but even if they don't I can safely say that the exhilaration of seeing something incredible in a cinematic environment is alive and well in this film lover and I appreciate the hard work that went on to bring such a great event to this backwater city of Perth.

Hopefully I don't have to wait a whole year until the next RPIFF to see something else as fresh and interesting and challenging and powerful as I have done these past two weeks.

Share the blah good readers, anyone else feel this way? Anyone love Outrage?

RPIFF: Submarine (2010)

I was very much looking forward to this one, Richard Ayoade from The IT Crowd writing and directing a movie, it could only be a disastrous letdown. Or brilliant. Having already read the thoughts of a lot of my favourite bloggers on Submarine I was thinking I might be disappointed. Alex at Film Forager called it (and i paraphrase) "cute but too hip" and Bonjour Tristesse called it "a decent first effort." Whereas Fandango Groover gave it his Movie of the Month award in March and Blondoner in her own unique way called it a piece of brilliant, genius.


It is a cute film, it's incredibly easy to watch at the most basic level of enjoying film and yet has all kinds of extra added depth for those open to a bit more, laughs in abundance and a pretty standard genre storyline.

Craig Roberts is Oliver Tate, our lead and narrator for the duration. But he's not really our narrator, he's narrating his life, creating his own magic and attributing more importance to himself than is necessary. He's a real teenage boy in this instance. What he narrates is his first steps in to teenage love, the possible break up of his parents marriage and his attempts at espionage.

The movie is packed with strong performances all round, I particularly liked seeing Dave's Coaches Dave and Gwen from Gavin & Stacy appear, but then they would because this is a Welsh movie. On a serious note Paddy Considine is excellent in his comic turn as spiritualist nut case neighbour with a mullet Graham and Yasmin Paige as Oliver's love interest is sufficiently adorable, especially in her red coat. Sally Hawkins is her usual subtle self as Oliver's dissatisfied mother but I just can't help but think of her as super chav Samantha in Mike Leigh's All or Nothing no matter what role she takes so I may not be the best judge on this one.

Oliver's adventures are largely enjoyable and Ayoade clearly had a very strong vision for the film which he pulls off with flying colours. The movie looks great. Lots of really nice composition and his use of colour (none more obvious than the red coat) is impressive. The use of different film stock is another trick used to great effect. All of it tying nicely together to create the feeling that Ayoade knows exactly what he's doing.

There have been a lot of comparisons thrown around for this film; Rushmore, Juno, 500 Days of Summer to name a few but I just don't see them myself. Sure there are times when the construction of some scenes is reminiscent of Wes Anderson and it's about young love but I see no reason to compare it to those movies. At times it felt more like Amelie with the magical narration and the breaking of the fourth wall and the very obvious influence of the French New Wave is right there for everybody to see.

Overall it's a good piece of cinema, enjoyable but not brilliant, if it had been brilliant more of it would have stayed with me. This is just another quirky coming of age comic drama, notable for the fact that it has come from a clearly talented first time director and from England not America. It's a shame it wasn't a total disaster really but I guess not everything can be so black and white.

Blah me people.

RPIFF: Small Town Murder Songs (2010)

There seemed to be some hype surrounding this one, with the screening actually listed as SOLD OUT the day before and my friend Kate choosing this as the one she must see from the entire festival lineup. And so we saw Ed Gass-Donnelly's Small Town Murder Songs with high expectations, comparisons to the early work of the brothers Coen ringing in our ears.


I will start by going on record with the biggest problem I had with the film; it's runtime of 75 minutes. For me this is not a feature film but when you factor in the small detail that the credits may as well have rolled at 69 minutes and the white on black title cards at the beginning of the movie and you have what is basically a long TV show without the ads.

That aside this small, beautifully shot film is about redemption and centres on the murder of a young woman and the local sheriff's investigation of it in a small religious town in Canada.

It really is a beautifully shot film, the long slow takes of the scenery and small town life are given a haunting quality by the not exactly subtle soundtrack, and it's lucky that they are so nice to look at as they provide the bulk of the imagery, padding out the runtime of the film. I'm all for this kind of attention to beauty, film as art etc. but I feel that with Small Town Murder Songs it is largely there to make up for the lack of plot. Sure there are many films that look this beautiful with less plot and many pretty movies with more storylines than needed and both work fine but in this instance it just sits in the uncomfortable middle ground leaving you feeling unfulfilled.

At least two scenes are played in slow motion, almost choreographed to music, bringing to mind that Tears For Fears moment in Donnie Darko or that Mad World song from Donnie Darko. This also feels like an attempt to use style as a disguise for substance.

Seems like I didn't like this movie much. But it was quite good so I will attempt to finish with something else positive. Peter Stormare was superb and initially unrecognisable in the role of Walter, the Sheriff struggling to redeem himself for his violent past, bringing to mind Nick Nolte in Addiction and John Turturro in Fear X with a powerful performance. It is a shame that he was letdown by the occasional use of cliche in the actions of other characters. This certainly was no Coen Brothers movie.

So it didn't live up to the hype or expectation but it was worth the 75 minutes just to watch Peter Stormare and wonder at the beautiful cinematography.

Coming to the end of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival reviews here at blahblahblahgay, only 2 left. How's it been for you so far? Leave me some blah below.

RPIFF: Vacation! (2010)

Zach Clark's follow up to his 2009 indie hit Modern Love Is Automatic was my must watch pick of the fortnight, to the extent of going to the cinema alone because everyone else was busy. I used to go to the cinema alone quite a lot, back when my enthusiasm for all forms of movie was fresh and needed to be fed constantly. I saw Independence Day three times at the cinema. Alone. It hardly happens any more, only in special circumstances. It's an odd feeling but one worth while in the case of some potentially great piece of cinema. You wouldn't find me going along to Transformers 3 with nobody for company (or at all actually, my feelings towards Bay are on record.) For Vacation! I was happy to make the exception.


The official blurb from the film makers made this sound very appealing to me: When four college friends reunite for a girls' week at the beach, it's all bikinis, piña coladas and dance parties at first. But the fun soon fades away... Sugar's got a thing for Dee-dee. Dee-dee's got a thing for a girl who's got a boyfriend. Donna's never made out with a girl, or done anything fun at all, ever. Lorelei's looking for some cheap thrills to help get over her ex. After procuring a psychotropic drug from a sketchy surfer dude, the girls take a very strange trip into the abyss. And that's when everything gets totally fucked. Bummer.

Zach Clark has been involved in mumblecore, a film making scene I am still yet to watch a movie from but the kind of realism that rocks my cinematic world if reports are true. I haven't even seen Modern Love Is Automatic so unlike all of the other reviews of this that I have read I cannot compare. What I can do is tell you that this is a movie of two halves. With a truly surreal intermission.

So there's four girls on holiday. All of them attractive in one way or another, spending most of their time in bikinis and getting drunk. They pass the time casually, not much happens. End of first half. They take some kind of drug (I assume to be acid,) they share the surreal nightmare trip. Something bad happens, one of them will not be going home, ever, they react to it in varying ways.

I couldn't help but enjoy the movie, they looked like they enjoyed themselves making it and that sense of fun comes across when watching. The dialogue is so real as we are treated to awkward conversations between people who have not much in common except shared college experiences and wonderfully natural lines such as "oh my god, I bought wigs," "fantastic, tell me more," "they're blonde" which made me giggle at the audacity of the film maker. The uncomfortable silences between the girls are even more realistic and true, it is these gaps in dialogue that accentuate what the movie is; a fun yet uncomfortable film about people and the way they relate to each other.

The cinematography from Daryl Pitman is superb, not just for a low budget film but for a film full stop, he uses vivid colours, a locked camera and a clean crisp use of light to highlight the overall feel of fresh playfulness and a tension that's slow to build to barely a simmer.

The music and sound design has gotten a lot of play, and rightly so, it is sufficiently hip when required and noticeably helps add to the sense of impending dread after one of the girls remarks that "things are only going to get worse."

Whilst the idea of four lesbian/bi-sexual girls drinking and having fun would ordinarily play in to male fantasies without even trying, I left Vacation! massively impressed with Zach Clark's direction and his restraint. The film studies concept of the camera gaze as male is largely thrown out of the window here as at no point did I get the sense that any of the proceedings were being eroticised, or the characters shown in an overtly sexual manner. Even the brief nudity and sexual behaviour is filmed so matter of factly that claims of misogyny would be flimsy at best.

Overall this is no Gregg Arraki, there's less plot, but it is a fun and impressive piece of low budget independent non-genre film making worth watching.

This is another one that's going to split audiences, plenty of people have disliked this movie, leave me some blah and let me know how you feel about it.

RPIFF: Charlie Casanova (2010)

Blahblahblahgay's second outing at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival is another British movie, this time from Ireland/EIRE/Republic of Ireland, whatever your preference for the name of this country, it's the one that includes drinking capital of the world Dublin.


This is the directorial debut of Terry McMahon, who according to imdb (and this is my favourite anecdote of the day) was Bad SWAT Cop #1 in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. And he was in attendance for the screening, introducing his film and staying for a Q & A afterwards, which unfortunately I couldn't stay for (work is demanding.) His introduction featured him stating that at least half of the audience would hate the film and could they please stay afterwards to tell him why.

And he was totally accurate, this is an awkward film, very difficult to enjoy in the traditional sense and once more difficult to categorise. It's part psychotic breakdown, part political dissection, part kitchen sink domestic drama, part offensive (a large part at that,) part nightmare.

Charlie Casanova, played by Emmet Scanlan in a career making performance, is an extremely charismatic yet supremely unlikable person. He defines himself as a member of the middle class, with flash cars, flash suits, an IQ of 187 (maybe my IQ isn't high enough but I don't know what this number actually means, what is the difference between 187 and 170?) a seemingly close group of friends and a loving wife. Yet he is bored with his life and proposes a game involving playing cards quite similar to that proposed in the Luke Rhinehart novel The Dice Man - ask the cards a question with a yes or no answer, the card you turn over is either a yes or a no. Most of the questions asked seem to involve illegal acts and sexual behaviour.

The journey Charlie takes is occasionally slow moving but largely a difficult watch because his behaviour is so often completely abhorrent. What makes it watchable and in it's own way enjoyable is the incredibly powerful performance from Scanlan and the mostly tight direction from McMahon. He shoves the camera in the characters faces, you feel claustrophobic more often than not, you even (and maybe this is just me) find yourself identifying with the lunatic on screen before realising that his words are just an excuse for his behaviour, this I am pretty sure was intended by McMahon.

There is a scene in which Casanova tries some impromptu standup in a working class club, ripping the patrons apart with some very well observed humour before being dragged out of the bar. This scene feels like the one that the movie was written around, it's the strongest in it's content and the way that it was filmed and really pushes the movie forward in to the final act and the (at this point) slightly confusing ending.

At times it is a little difficult to understand some of the dialogue; as I have found from my personal experience of the Irish accent, sometimes they speak too fast for me to catch every word, other times the choice of slang is too confusing. But this doesn't actually detract from the film in any way. It may even add to the flavour, the realism of the piece.

The final 2 scenes are fantastic and have you leaving the film on a high note; Charlie is on a roof, talking to a camcorder, wild eyed and frantically spouting his political ideals, urging the masses to take some responsibility for their lives, defending his actions, an incredible piece of cinema to end with. And then there's a piece of broken domesticity, a beautiful piece of art that the camera holds on until we fade to back, nothing happens but you can't tear your eyes from it, mesmerising.

I would definitely recommend watching this film if you are partial to watching great acting performances in difficult films. It's certainly not for everyone but it is worth your time.

Anyone else seen this one? It's been at quite a few festivals so far, I'd love to hear from somebody who didn't like it. Leave me some blah and get the dialogue going.

RPIFF: Kill List (2011)

Welcome to the first blablahblahgay review from the Revelation Perth International Film Festival. 11pm is a ridiculous time to start watching a movie for me. Back when I was 16 you'd find me and my friend Owen wandering the dangerous streets of Stevenage waiting for the late night showing of whatever terrible movie we'd decided to see that weekend but now I can't remember the last time I was awake at 11pm let alone settling down to watch a film.

As already mentioned this week Kill List is Ben Wheatley's second film, following up the fantastic Down Terrace (reviewed recently here on blahblahblahgay,) with another piece of great cinema that highlights his maturing as a storyteller and growth as a film maker. This film is an enigma, it's difficult to categorise; for Ben Wheatley, genres are simply a guide, he lets his films go wherever they need to ignoring conventions and disregarding cliche. What starts out as a kitchen sink drama moves in to hitman territory quite quickly before evolving in to a serious what the fuck ending filled with mysticism and gore.

Jay is a former hitman, retired after he screwed up a previous job in Kiev (this fact pops up quite a bit throughout but is never explained) and living with his ex-Swedish military wife, Shel, in suburban England. The couple are broke and the wife, who subtly dominates the relationship, is pressuring him to go back to work. His former partner Gal (on orders from Shel) offers another job, killing 3 people, and Jay, reluctant at first, agrees.

What ensues is a mysterious journey focusing on the psychological changes in Jay and Gal, punctuated with gore filled scenes and a never ceasing increase in the nameless, shapeless dread that permeates the film. With an ending you know the less about the better before seeing.

It seems to be a major advertising point so I'm not spoiling anything here but the ending is truly horrifying, not in a modern torture porn way or in a lets make use of really loud noises to make you jump way but in a truly psychologically challenging manner. You may watch this film or hear about some of the violence contained within and think me crazy but Ben Wheatley makes very subtle movies and this mind-bending finale borders on ambiguous, there is blood and there is gore and there are shocking realisations but that all takes a back seat to the psychological study of the man. Not to mention trying to piece together exactly what the ending means.

At 2am I was thinking about this movie, all the way home we were trying to understand what happened, neither of us could actually state with 100% confidence what the ending was about. This is a film that not only deserves a second viewing but may need one so you can divorce yourself from the WTF factor and piece together the puzzle. Because hints are left throughout, religious undertones, a sigil carved in to the back of a mirror, victims happy to die, repeated requests for Jay to wake up, dead animals left in their garden, what are the red herrings and what is the explanation? You may even be watching again and again to clarify your own thoughts and you will be thoroughly entertained every time I'm sure.

At times this is a funny movie, with the comedy taken from the human interaction, not from the violence like some other movies. At other times it's deeply unsettling, the use of sound really helping to increase the tension; using strings and whistles, moans and backwards played speech and even the moments of silence to ratchet things up step by step. But mainly this movie is enjoyable as a fantastically well crafted film that utilises the handheld camera aesthetic to it's full claustrophobic best to unsettle before unleashing an ending that will impact on your daily life for weeks to come. Guaranteed.

Well that's a departure for blahblahblahgay. Anyone else seen this yet? I'd love to get some other opinions, leave some blah below. Next up Charlie Casanova.

Revelation Perth International Film Festival

It seems strange to me that I hadn't really heard of this event before. It's one of the problems with Perth I think, if you're not listening to local pop radio or reading the free music press you have no idea what's going on around the city.

The RPIFF has being going in one form or another since 1990. It's current format includes music, visual art, shorts, documentaries as well as feature films. Their website blurb states

Revelation was (and still is) concerned with the conservative nature of film distribution and exhibition practice in Australia. It has always sought to deliberately challenge current marketplace modes and biases through unusual and contextualised screening concepts, focused curation and active interaction with industry guilds, independent curators, the academic community and other Arts related activity and practitioners. The event has also always maintained a playful approach to both its programming and audience. Areas of pop and youth culture have always figured heavily in Revelation programs alongside some of the most individual and acclaimed works from the local and international scene. Whatever your taste though, Revelation seeks to challenge audiences and the industry itself with vibrant, individual, unusual, passionate and committed works.

As you can see they like to use their own name quite a lot in their blurb. But on a serious note it's a worthy mission statement.

My interest in the festival is the feature films as I have never really felt the need to watch short films or documentaries in cinemas. There's something about watching "real people" in movies or on TV that makes me very uncomfortable. I've never been able to put my finger on it but it's something I might have to look in to at some point. Needless to say that when the news has eyewitness accounts from passersby I tend to switch channels.

My initial picks (before factoring the need to go to work instead of the cinema) were:
A little Australian film titled LBF (on the website but it's full name is Life Between Fucks,)
Irish crime drama Charlie Casanova,
Ben Wheatley's followup to Down Terrace, Kill List,
the new (and I'm very excited about this) film from Takeshi Kitano AutoReiji,
Philip K. Dick adaptation Radio Free Albemuth,
Coenesque American Indie Small Town Murder Songs,
debut directorial effort from The I.T. Crowd's Moz, Submarine,
possible mumblecore film from Zach Clark, Vacation!
Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur has been highly praised.

However with scheduling conflicts and financial requirements it looks like I may be bringing you news from just a few of them. This Friday Kill List plays at 11pm, which is about 2 hours after my preferred bedtime these days but after Down Terrace I'm willing to go to great lengths for a Ben Wheatley film. Charlie Casanova plays Monday and I have my fingers crossed I can get across the city in time. Vacation! plays next Friday, Small Town Murder Songs Saturday and Autoreiji closes the festival for me next Sunday.

Seeing 5 films at the cinema in a week is pretty big for me these days, I may be a little out of practice but I did get quite used to seeing three films in one day a little while ago so I shall do my best.

Do I actually have any Perth readers yet? Anyone heard of this festival before and making a trip to Perth for it? Is there anything I've missed that you would recommend? Leave me a blah why don't you.