Sex! Stars! Action! Intrigue!

… and that was just the Festival trailer. Good job Wildbear.  Artistic director of the 18^th Canberra International Film Festival, Lex Lindsay, stepped up to the podium and added a few more words— War, Hope, Denial; Man, Woman, Child; and Then, Now, Next. These are the broad themes of this year’s festival – and by the time he stepped down and the film rolled I was exhausted just thinking about the breadth and depth, the cinematic feast that is this year’s festival.

There really IS something for everyone. In just 18 days, 64 films from 30 countries will screen with most only screening once or twice, so don’t miss out – check out the program NOW!

Goal of the Dead

At the risk of being predictable, I have to note that the category I am most looking forward to is Freaky Friday, in honour of Halloween. This coming Friday you can kickstart a weekend of celluloid binging with treats like Goal of the Dead – why didn’t someone think of combining soccer and zombies sooner? However, the one I am looking forward to is A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – what could be better than the first ‘Middle Eastern feminist vampire romance’???

A Girl Walks Home at Night

In his opening address to the audience, Lex also pointed out several instances of how the program has unwittingly linked to our zeitgeist. We have just lost Gough Whitlam, who introduced free university courses, CIFF is screening Ivory Tower – a film on the high cost of studying (encore this Saturday); climate change is again up for discussion again and they are screening Merchants of Doubt; the ageing population and longer working lives is in the news and they are screening The Immortalists. They are also screening a good range of indie and mainstream Australian films, and this articlewas in yesterday’s paper. How do they do it?

But this week it is Maps to the Stars that is under the spotlight…

If you have never seen a David Cronenberg film before I would have to be honest and say I do not think this is his best, but that means it is still several levels above a lot of cookie-cutter movies Hollywood churns out. If you want to read a review from someone who really loved it (and never uses just one syllable when five will do) read this.

I was certainly fully engaged with the story (or perhaps more so the performances) throughout the film but there was a sense of sameness about the direction that I think let it down a bit. I am not saying this lightly either as I have been following Cronenberg’s films since the 1980s. I loved The Fly, M. Butterfly and even tolerated the tough A History of Violence. However, I did not like A Dangerous Method and may have dosed off in Cosmopolis.

His habit, particularly with female actors, of getting characters to deliver lines offhand, to focus out of scene rather than in the scene is a bit pretentious, recalling the Nouvelle Vague French cinema of the 1960s. Jennifer Jason Leigh in eXistenZ read the same way onscreen. It doesn’t always work but when it does, it is like a jolt of electricity. It works with Julianne Moore.

She is an actor who has, as one commentator put it, made a career out of portraying women on the verge of a breakdown but this time she has been rewarded with a Best Actress nod at Cannes. At first she is blurred, unfocussed but needy, weepy and used up. Until she finally gets the role she is chasing and then it is as if her real character snaps into focus. Sharp focus – and it is chilling, as is what happens to her.

This is an essay on the murderous narcissism and heinously skewed view of reality that is Hollywood, by a director who has shunned the Dream Factory all his life. It is vicious; it is skin crawlingly awful and; it is fun. Although ‘fun’ is probably too strong a word, ‘deliciously Schadenfreude’ might be closer to the mark. The laughs are of the I-cannot-believe-they-went-there variety but they are good nonetheless.

Certainly worth the price of a ticket to the encore this Saturday.