Launceston Film Society

M (Moderate sexual references, themes and coarse language)

Following their father’s recent death, three estranged American brothers who have not spoken to each other in a year board a train in India on a spiritual quest to reconnect. Francis (Owen Wilson), the eldest of the three, has initiated the journey. Peter (Adrien Brody) is unsure how he will handle impending fatherhood and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) was recently residing in five-star luxury in Paris, although he may have just lost the love of his life.

While not a particular happy group, The Darjeeling Limited is actually quite stirring, contrasted against colourful landscapes. But Wes Anderson’s films are about dysfunctional families and some sort of yearning for significance in the experience.

The journey rapidly veers off-course, at which point a new, unplanned journey suddenly begins.

So all aboard for the quirky albeit slightly discomforting journey on The Darjeeling Limited!

Origin: United States of America
Director/s: Wes Anderson
Cast: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Source/s: IMDB, Margaret Pomeranz
Complied by: William H. Doudle

Classification: M - Moderate sex scenes and nudity

Lady Chatterly was not easily conceived for DH Lawrence - and not only because his book was so widely banned. It addresses difficult issues which may be found in our own lives - ‘though most of us deny it.

Lady Chatterly is the sexually frustrated wife of WW1 cripple Clifford who finds his own life in managing his inheritance (but it might just as well be his boat, a tv program or his favourite football team). She discovers sex and love in the arms of the gamekeeper, crossing the issues of our individual right to seek fulfilment, with infidelity and the very deep conflicts in their wide class difference.

Director Pascale Ferran takes this story very gently and very slowly - two and a half hours - celebrating the womans touch in a usually male genre. There is ample opportunity for the audience to transpose these issues to their own experience, to reflect on the authenticity of the scenario presented, to savour the cinematography, and the eroticism.

English speakers may find some surprise in the French soundtrack to what is an English story. This is perhaps a deliberate endeavour to separate us from the conventional presumptions of our English inheritance - to endeavour to put the issues in a different light.

Ty Burr (Boston Globe) suggests this as a good ‘third-date’ movie. If your beliefs or upbringing confine your sense of sexuality to ‘dirty’ you may struggle to deal with some of the issues this film explores.

Origin: France 2006
Director: Pascale Ferran
Cast: Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coullo’ch, Hippolyte Girardot
Duration: 161 minutes
Genre: Drama, Romance
Sources: IMDB, Boston Globe
Compiled by: Peter Hoban

M (Moderate coarse language)

Forbidden Lie$ is simply a better (cinematic) version of Norma Khouri’s book Forbidden Love, and THAT was a best-seller.

The film’s subject is Norma Khoury, a Jordanian woman who found fame and fortune in 2001 with the publication of her book Forbidden Love, a biographical story of sorts concerning a Muslim friend of hers who was murdered by her family for having a relationship with a Christian man.

Director Anna Broinowski has found a truly fascinating woman to study, and she conducts endless interviews with Khoury as she seeks the truth. As always in life, the truth is not so easy to find. Norma fears for her life, worried about violent backlash over the unsavoury portrait her novel paints of Jordanian Muslims. She refuses to return to Jordan and show us the facts. Broinowski is not deterred however, and slowly puts the pieces together in front of us.

The result is an incredible look inside the mind of a con artist. Naturally, what we find there makes little sense and is extremely difficult to follow, and ultimately we don’t know whether to believe Norma or not. She’s either a rather unfairly put-upon woman trying to survive or a fantastic spinster. The web of lies, truths and half-truths she turns through the film is brilliant.

Origin: Australia 2007
Director: Anna Broinowski
Cast: Norma Khouri (as herself), Linda Mutawi
Running time: 108 mins
Source/s: IMDB, http://www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au.
Complied by: Sue Aylett