Launceston Film Society

 Mild course language and sexual references 

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Origin: USA 2009 
Director: Anne Fontaine 
Featuring: Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos 
Language: French with subtitles 
Running Time: 108 minutes 

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There have been a number of recent films about Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, however this offering traces the rise of the haute couture designer from humble beginnings to the glittering heights of the fashion world. Anne Fontaine’s film attempts to lifts the veil on the early years of Gabrielle Chanel. Unfortunately there remains no guarantee that we are getting fact or fiction, since, as many of Chanel’s biographers acknowledge, she was notoriously adept at remaining mysterious and unassailable, ferociously guarding details her austere beginnings. Nevertheless, there is sufficient plausibility –from her beginnings in an orphanage to an unsuccessful singer who segues into a kept woman. 

Mature Audiences, violence and coarse language 

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Kev and Chook are a couple of outlaws scamming their way through outback Australia, hitching rides, scrounging food, sleeping rough, stealing cars.  ’We’re Butch and Sundance,’ Kev says to Chook. ‘Who?’ says Chook. But then he’s only ten, and he wouldn’t have seen the movie. 

 

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Strong violence, coarse language and nudity 

(Germany, 2008) 
Director: Uli Edel 
Featuring: Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek, Bruno Ganz, Nadja Uhl, Jan Josef Liefers, Stipe Erceg, Niels-Bruno Schmidt, 
Language: German with subtitles 
Running time: 150 minutes 

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This film reminds us that they didn’t really stand for anything much more than anarchy, even though they – eventually – dressed it up as a desire to ‘free the oppressed’ and destroy US imperialism, as they saw it. They wanted world peace, if you like, even it meant waging war and slaughtering civilians to get it. This much is clear from Bernd Eichinger’s intricate screenplay, but even with Uli Edel’s dedicated direction, the film ends up rather episodic. It’s like watching a historical dramatisation in fast forward, where, inevitably, we miss lots of detail and can only surmise the thrust of the work. (Eichinger also wrote & produced Downfall, a masterpiece of German cinema.) 

In trying to cram a great deal into 150 minutes, the filmmakers necessarily jump scenes like puddles, and sometimes the audience gets lost. But the montage style provides the time frame, and shows how the young Baader Meinhof gang gave birth to a whole raft of terrorist clusters and organisations, each growing more violent than the last. 

Perhaps the most important function of a movie about the Baader Meinhofs of this world is to reveal their hollow morality, their arrogance and their cruelty; nothing romantic here to entice youngsters to kill innocent civilians in pursuit of peace and freedom. In this respect, the film highlights the absolute failure of politically driven terrorism as an agent of socio-political change. 

Finally, I thank the film for its information value about one of the most notorious terror groups of the recent past. 

Source: Andrew L. Urban – Urbancinefie.  Compiled by Peter Gillard

Strong coarse language 

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Director: Ken Loach 
Country: UK 2009 
Cast: Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns, Stefan Gumbs, Lucy-Jo Hudons, Cole Williams, Dylan Williams, Matthew McNulty, Laura Ainsworth, Max Beesley, Kelly Bowland, Julie Brown, John Henshaw, Justin Moorhouse, Des Sharples 
Running time: 116 minutes 

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His wife has gone, his stepsons are out of control and the house was chaotic even before a cement mixer appeared in the front garden. Life is crazy enough, but it is Eric’s own secret that is driving him to the brink. How can he face up to Lily, the woman of his dreams that he once loved and walked out on many years ago? Despite the comical efforts and misplaced goodwill of his mates, Eric continues to sink. 

In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend to help a lost postman find his way, so Eric turns to his hero: footballing genius, philosopher and poster boy, Eric Cantona. 

When it comes to portraying lives in the toilet, nobody does it better than Ken Loach. 

Since defining British social-realist cinema with excoriating early classics such as Cathy Come Home (1966), Kes (1970) and Family Life (1971), Loach has been the pre-eminent master of kitchen-sink misery, often placing at the centre of his harsh dramas some put-upon working-class cog who is compelled by economic and social forces to either break the law or violate their own moral code. Laughter and magic realism have never really had much of a look-in. 

With Looking for Eric, however, Loach appears to have been touched by the angel of good cheer. It’s an upbeat, warm, life-affirming tale that doesn’t even have a left-leaning political point to push. Loach still delivers those lashes of brutal realism that have become his signature, but his emphasis here is on optimism, hope, love and friendship. 

Source: IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes 
Compiled by: Mark Horner

Violence and coarse language 

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Australia (2009) 
Genre: Drama 
Director: Robert Connolly 
Featuring: Anthony LePaglia, Oscar Isaac, Nathan Phillips, Gyton Grantley,Damon Gameau,  Thomas Wright, Mark Winter. 
Language: English 
Running time: 111 mins 

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As Indonesia prepares to invade the tiny nation of East Timor, five Australian based journalists go missing. Four weeks later, veteran foreign correspondent Roger East  is lured to East Timor by the young and charismatic José Ramos-Horta  to tell the story of his country and investigate the fate of the missing men. As East’s determination to uncover the truth grows, the threat of invasion intensifies and an unlikely friendship develops between the last foreign correspondent in East Timor and the man who will become President. BALIBO is a political thriller that tells the true story of crimes that have been covered up for over thirty years. 

Watching the deaths of the 5 journalists is almost unbearable. In dramatic terms, we know little about these five men, accept that they died horribly. The film gives us little of their characters because it has a lot of ground to cover. Channel Seven reporter Greg Shackleton is shown as romantic, perhaps tragically so. Channel Nine’s Malcolm Rennie is game and impetuous. Cameraman Gary Cunningham  is an amiable professional, like Brian Peters. The sound-man Tony Stewart is the youngest of the five at 21. 

The director, Robert Connolly, who co-wrote the script with David Williamson, assembles the pieces with great methodical logic. It’s much more ambitious than The Bank or Three Dollars, his earlier films –

 more forensic and committed, yet freer in its willingness to let us draw our own conclusions. Connolly gives a strong sense of the tragedy and resilience of the East Timorese, as well as a clear account of one of the great crimes in our modern history. The one person not in the film, to whom it is deeply indebted, is Jill Jolliffe, the journalist who has spent 34 years trying to tell the story. The film is based on her book Cover Up. In some respects, Balibo is her vindication. 

The film is banned in Indonesia.

News.com.au, IMDB, The Sydney Morning Herald.   Compiled by Sue Aylett

Mature themes, violence, coarse language, sex scene, drug use and nudity

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Origin: USA 2009
Director: Christine Jeffs
Cast: Amy Adams, Steve Zahn, Emily Blunt.
Running time: 91 minutes

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‘It’s a racket, you should get into it,’ Steve Zahn’s adulterous cop Mac tells Rose (Amy Adams) about the lucrative opportunities that crime scene clean up offers, as they are about to fall into bed together in a motel room. It’s an idea that has little appeal to Rose – until she is desperate enough to try anything. It’s tough bringing up a child on your own (especially a super bright one with disruptive behaviour) and now, working as a maid with only a distant memory of her college days when she was a success as a cheerleader,

Rose’s self image is all negative. Adams allows all her emotions to show in her vulnerable face as she takes charge of her life. Emily Blunt’s Nora is the damaged younger sister who likes weird. Blunt gives an edgy performance that couples sensitivity and daredevil. She is the sentimental one and cannot help but become involved with tangible items from the places they clean up. Playing a role not dissimilar to the one he played in Little Miss Sunshine, Alan Arkin is the sisters’ scenestealing, stubborn, supportive and unpredictable father Joe who has unusual ideas of his own.

Clifton Collins Jr. plays Winston, the sympathetic one-armed cleaning supplier who makes model planes in his spare time. It’s a great character and one we wish we could get to know better. Jason Spevack is well cast as Oscar, the 8 year old who thinks a CB radio has a direct line to heaven.

The best reason to see this film is the performance by the two most egnimatic young actresses today, Emily Blunt and Amy Adams.

Source: Louise Keller www.urbancinefile.com.au

Compiled by: Jack Morton

Strong theme, violence and nudity

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Origin: UK 2008
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Helena Bereen, Larry Cowan
Running Time: 96 minutess

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In 1981, Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) led an IRA Hunger Strike in which republican prisoners attempted to win political status, as opposed to merely being classed as criminals. At the time, these events captured the world’s attention.Hunger details the life in Maze Prison, Northern Ireland in the six weeks prior to Sands death. The film is actually portrayed from three perspectives, opening with the part of prison guard, Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), who lives in constant fear. The second considers the views from a new inmate. The final perspective considers Sands himself, who stands for his cause and the rightness of political prisoner status. One notable scene is Sands debating the morality of the hunger strike with a catholic priest.

The direction highlights what occurs when both the physical and psychological aspects of the human condition are pushed to their limits. The film’s impact is particularly heightened when the director sets aside dialogue, using instead visual effect to portray the complex relationships between inmates and prison guards, both caught in complex political issues during the Thatcher years.

This film is certainly compelling. Prior to its release in the UK, it premièred at the Cannes Film Festival resulting in both standing ovations and walk–outs.

Source/s: IMDB, David Stratton

Complied by: William H. Doudle

Violence, sex themes, mature themes and coarse language

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Australia/South Africa 2008
Genre: Drama
Director: Steve Jacobs
Screenplay: Anna Maria Monticelli
Featuring: John Malkovich, Paula Arundell, Scott Cooper, Eriq Ebouaney, Jessica
Haines, Fiona Press, Monroe Reimers and Charles Tertiens
Language: English
Running time: 119 mins

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David Lurie, a professor who teaches poetry at a university in Cape Town, is not a very likeable man. He is divorced, lives alone and is apparently friendless; even Soraya, the prostitute he visits, is disenchanted with him. His air of bored aloofness doesn’t endear him to his colleagues, so there is no mercy for him when he’s disgraced by the revelation that he seduced one of his students, Melanie, and then forged a pass mark for a test she didn’t take – he’s forced to resign his position but, as he tells a student journalist, he finds the experience ‘enriching’.

He goes to visit his lesbian daughter, Lucy on her remote farm, but while he is there an incident occurs that changes his life forever.

J.M. Coetzee’s powerful Booker Prize-winning novel was never going to be easy to adapt to the screen and it’s to the credit of Anna-Maria Monticelli that her screenplay is both faithful and cinematic.

It would have been easy to rely on a voice-over narration, but Monticelli and Jacobs reject this, and the result is a strange, disturbing and ultimately riveting film whose final shot is quite memorable – Steve Arnold’s camera work is exemplary throughout.

Jessica Haines as the daughter gives a magnificent performance and isn’t over-shadowed by her formidable co-star. This is a most unusual Australian film, but a very powerful one.

Source: David Stratton – At the Movies.

Compiled by Peter Gillard

Infrequent coarse language and nudity

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Kazakhstan/Poland/Switerserland, 2008
Genre: Comedy, drama
Director: Sergei Dvortsevoy
Written by Dvortsevoy and Gennady Ostrovsky.
Featuring: Tolepbergen Baisakalov, Ondas Besibasov, Samal Wsliamova, Askhat
Kuchencherekov, Bereke Turganbayev
Language: Kazakh and Russian with English subtitles.
Running time: 99 minutes.

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“Tulpan,” Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes 2008, is Sergey Dvortsevoy’s first feature. Born in Kazakhstan, his documentaries are about people in the old Soviet republics living between tradition and the future. Sounds unpromising, but for those of us who loved The Story of the Weeping Camel or The Cave of the Yellow Dog this film is an unlikely gem from the world’s largest land-locked country.

Asa, newly discharged from the Russian navy, has come to live with his sister Samal, her husband, Ondas, and their children. As the story opens, Asa, Ondas and his buddy Boni are negotiating for the hand of Tulpan (“Tulip”). Asa enthrals them with tales of the seahorse and octopus. They offer 10 sheep and a chandelier. But “no” the bride-tobe is fussy because his ears are too big. This means trouble, because the local sheep herding boss won’t let him have a flock of his own until he marries – and Tulpan is the only marriageable girl around.

Asa’s coming of age as he battles to solve this conundrum and to learn to be a sheep herder is only part of the attraction of this film. The true hero of the story is the landscape and the often comic happenings of this fast-disappearing way of life. Dvortsevoy’s nonprofessional cast let us witness not one but two lengthy struggles with a suffering ewe as she gives birth. We listen entranced to Asa’s niece sitting all alone on the leeward side of the family yurt, singing a Kazakh song into the wind. We laugh as the local vet arrives with a sick camel calf in the side-car of his motorbike with the worried camel mother following.

Whether Asa gets the girl or not simply isn’t that important.

Sources: Salon.com, European films.net, Chicago-Tribune.

Compiled by Owen Tilbury

Strong violence and drug use

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Country: Italy 2008
Genre: Drama
Director: Matteo Garrone
Featuring: Cast: Salvatore
Vincenzo Altamura, Italo
Distributor: Madman
Language: Italian, Subtitled
Running time: 137 mins

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Roberto Saviano’s account of the Camorra, is the Naples-based mafia which virtually runs the city. The film adaptation by Matteo Garrone focuses on a housing estate in Scampia, a suburb of Naples where murders seem to be an everyday occurrence, where young men display a stupid bravado and where even young teenagers become embroiled in the action. The film follows five main stories, just about all of them about poison of one sort or another, whether it is drugs, toxic waste, dirty money or the wasting of humans.

It is like a vision of a little hell. The architecture of the housing estate reminds you of a prison, people are killed with the nonchalance of a spit and anyone who thinks they canescape the tentacles of the Camorra quickly learns to the contrary. Competing clans within the Camorra add to the body count. It’s to Matteo Garrone’s credit that none of this is sensationalised. The matter-of-factness in the telling adds to the film’s power. The use of real locations in Naples – the housing estate is real, many of the performers are from the street there – complement the narrative.

Although it’s a demanding film, and a long one, and a very disturbing one, the portrait it paints of this society in the grip of this tawdry but immensely powerful and rich organization is scary indeed.

Source: Margaret Pomerantz – At the Movies.

Compiled by Peter Gillard