www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet meet not quite meetmarket
• A late start after a late night

In the third installment of our daily Doc/Fest gems, Super 8 legend Norwood Cheek takes us through the Attack of the 50 Foot Reels filmmaking challenge.

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A Buzz Films Production

• Doc/Fest 09 – The International Pitch
• Doc/Fest 09 – Crossover Summit
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod03 – Daisy Asquith
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod02 – Emily James
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod01 – Lee Kern

Have a read and watch,

• SotW: Countertransference
• SotW: Unlocked
• SotW: The Autobiography of Tom Stern, Chapter Six: The New Science
• SotW: Tarantino’s Mind
• SotW: Solar

As well as having 4 pitch meetings and taking part in 10×10. I still am yet to watch a single film. Today I saw:

Art docs at the chapel

Sandwich and lack of chair crisis at the delegates centre

Lisa and Dylan 10×10

All aboard the coach…

…to the gala dinner at city hall

Just a few of those 1000 shots of nordik vodka

The guilty pleasures cabaret

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to zed of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet meet not quite meetmarket

Sheffield Doc/Fest day two sees six filmmakers pitch for a £10k DFID funded opportunity to create a 10 minute short for the Community Channel. Greg Sanderson chairs a panel of judges including Executive Producer Jane Stephenson.

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A Buzz Films Production

• Doc/Fest 09 – Crossover Summit
• Doc/Fest 09 – Attack of the 50 Foot Reels
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod03 – Daisy Asquith
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod02 – Emily James
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod01 – Lee Kern

The time has come once again when the documentary film community converges on the city of Sheffield for Doc/Fest. With director Frank Boyd as their guide, Buzz Films‘ Jan Bednarz & Simon Wan captured the goings on at the inaugural Crossover Summit event.

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A Buzz Films Production

• Doc/Fest 09 – The International Pitch
• Doc/Fest 09 – Attack of the 50 Foot Reels
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod03 – Daisy Asquith
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod02 – Emily James
• Doc/Fest 08 Vod01 – Lee Kern

MeetMarket this way

Directors of men who swim

Niki, c4int sales agent

Nina pope and Karen Guthrie, artists and directors, staying in Sheffield on a house boat.

The Sheffield Eye

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to zed of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• A late start after a late night

Excited that at some point today I will meet Phil Parker, the researcher on Orion. Up to now everything has been done by phone, email and googledoc.

First stop was to buy new headphones, in my rush for the train I forgot to the essential tool for showing my pitches.

The hubs

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to zed of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet meet not quite meetmarket

I made it, here’s the obligiatory Sheffield steel welcome.

Who’s who at the hubs – awarding the TV sock prize to Axel Arno for best TV commissioner pitch.

Charlie Phillips, the beating heart of MeetMarket

Jason Daponte, commisioner for BBC Mobile platform and aspiring beekeeper

I am ashamed to admit we went to Rutland pub instead of going to the opening film for fish and chips and catch up drinks.

Then on to the opening party for shouted exchanges and way, way too much wine for an opening night. Interspersed with Skype calls on my almost dead iPhone, attempting to arrange a shoot in Memphis with Stewart Copeland for Orion. I’m exhausted and it’s only day one.

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Stitch, pitch and the a to zed of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet meet not quite meetmarket
• A late start after a late night

In my haste to finish my various edits for Friday’s dfg group 10 x 10 event – I will be showing a teaser and two scenes from my new film Orion: the man who would be king. I missed the 2.15 train to Sheffield. I had to console myself with a volcano-hot hot chocolate and the salubrious surroundings of Nottingham station platform cafe.

If this later train makes it for 4 I’ll be going to the incredibly useful Who’s Who event. In a nutshell financiers, buyers and commissioners stand up and say a couple of minutes about themselves and what they’re looking for. Last year the Brit commissioners were very much evident in their absence and there was an amusing game to be played matching the guide photo (usually taken about 10 years ago) and the current incarnation.

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to zed of Britdoc
• SheffDocFest minus one and counting
• Meet meet not quite meetmarket
• A late start after a late night

The edit!

The night before Sheffield Doc/Fest I am doing what most directors I know are also doing. Staying up, way past my bedtime to finish cutting a trailer on my new project, to take and show to willing ears and eyes. The aim is, as always to get projects off the ground, financed, commisioned, seen, distributed, you know the small stuff of film-making!

I’ll be keeping an adhoc photo diary of my festival experience here through the week, armed only with an iPhone and unsuitable shoes.

www.jeaniefinlay.com

• Who’s who and who are you?
• Stitch, pitch and the a to zed of Britdoc
• So near, yet so far
• Meet meet not quite meetmarket
• A late start after a late night

Sadly, we’ve reached the last of our London Film Festival ‘09 afternoon tea interviews, but it’s a great one to go out on. I very selfishly took up a nice chunk of time with directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas, who were at LFF for the premiere of their much anticipated documentary, American: The Bill Hicks Story – a look at the life of one of the world’s greatest comedians and thinkers, as told by the family and friends who truly knew him.

Showlinks
American: The Bill Hicks Story
Bill Hicks.com
Waltz with Bashir
The Kid Stays in the Picture
La Jetee
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe After Effects

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy
• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: Starsuckers – Chris Atkins

Ever since I saw Barton Fink over 15 years ago, I knew I would forever be a fan of the Coen Brothers; their style was unusual, their storytelling unique and when settling down to watch a Coen Brothers film, you always felt like you were about to witness something spectacular. Over the last couple of years though, this feeling had to started to dwindle and I had started to question some of their filmmaking decisions (especially during the 2003/2004 period).

Entering the busiest press screening of the London Film Festival I’d attended so far, the auditorium seemed awash with anticipation, hoping to witness another Coen classic. Unfortunately, 106 minutes later the buzz had somewhat disappeared, the audience quickly departed and there was to be no spontaneous, rapturous applause for the Brothers Coen.

I’ve always been a firm believer of quality over quantity when it comes to films. The Coen Brothers however have seemed to favour the latter with seven releases in the last nine years (not including their involvement in Paris, je t’aime). During this period the creative duo have released some brilliant films, with the recent multi-award winning No Country for Old Men probably being the pick of the bunch. Unfortunately though with the release of A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan’s output for this period must be rated as well…average.

A Serious Man is a recognisably Coen Brothers’ film, filled to the brim with eccentric characters, strange going-ons, glorious period design and the essential Roger Deakins’ cinematography; it has Joel and Ethan written all over it. Unfortunately for the Brothers though, their latest release misses the tension of No Country…, the intrigue of The Man Who Wasn’t There and the comedy of O Brother, Where Ought Thou?. Instead what you’re left with is a stunning looking film, with not much else to hold your attention for 3/4’s of its 106 minute duration. Just as A Serious Man begins to get interesting with a series of dream sequences, a trippy Bar Mitzvah and an approaching natural disaster, it unfortunately comes to an untimely end.

Whatever the plot and whoever the actors, the one thing you can always count on when it comes to a Coen Brothers film is that it will look incredible. The set design, locations and costumes for A Serious Man are almost impervious to criticism and you almost feel as if you’ve been transported to 1967 and the largely Jewish suburb of St Louis Park, Minnesota. As expected, Deakins’ photography is sublime again and although it’s not his best work with the Coens, it’s still better than most of the cinematography you’ll witness this year. It’s unbelievable to think that in his 30+ years in the industry, Deakins has never won an Oscar despite eight previous nominations, I just get the feeling it’ll be ninth time unlucky this year.

A Serious Men tells the bleak, downbeat story of Larry Gopnik a family man and physics professor and we follow Larry as he begins to lose his grip on his wife, his family, his job and a series of distinctly Coen mishaps leave him homeless, smoking weed and accepting bribes from students. Ultimately though, due to pacing problems and the noticeable lack of tension or humour, Joel and Ethan’s story of mundane life, just comes across as a little too mundane its self for my liking……although, I’m sure many other will disagree.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

When talking about innovators and pioneers of the moving image, critics are always looking for the next ‘original voice’ of cinema, but seem to rarely actually discover one. Well, Warwick Thornton, debut feature director of the Cannes, Camera D’or Winner, Samson and Delilah may be one such voice. This tale of a small aboriginal community focuses on two of its youngest inhabitants, Samson, a petrol sniffing teenage boy living with his older brother and Delilah, a young girl caring for her elderly Nana. Not content with its critical acclaim at Cannes this year, Thornton’s debut has also been praised as ‘one of the most wonderful films this country has ever produced‘, by critics in its native, Australia.

Warwick had a good introduction to the world of cinema as he comes from prime filmmaking stock, his mother, Freda Glynn, was not only co-founder of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), but was its first director. Following in his mother’s filmmaking footsteps, Thornton decided to study cinematography at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and after graduating went on to compile a solid body of work which includes short films Payback, Mimi, Green Bush and Nana. For his first attempt at feature filmmaking, not content with just writing and directing this excellent movie, Thornton was also responsible for the films striking cinematography.

The multi-talented Thornton has created a powerful, almost dialogue-free feature, touching on a community and a lifestyle we all too rarely get to see on the big screen (I can count the number of films I’ve seen featuring aboriginal characters on one hand: Rabbit Proof Fence, Ten Canoes, Walkabout and Crocodile Dundee). Narratively, you could compare this story of rebellious teenagers to the likes of Larry Clark’s Kids or Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park or find similarities with this account of small town life with Harmony Khorine’s Gummo. However, Samson and Delilah doesn’t feel like any of these films and despite some similarities with previous films (which film doesn’t have similarities with others?), it manages to feel fresh and original.

With Aboriginal roots himself, Thornton doesn’t paint a pretty picture of white Australians’ treatment of its indigenous people and the majority of views we get of the young couple from outside their community are all pretty negative (although the views of Samson and Delilah from within their community are pretty negative as well). Whether it’s security guards following them around the supermarkets, townspeople exploiting them to sell their art or youths abducting Delilah, this filmmaker seems to be telling us something about the treatment of the Aboriginal people. In fact, the only non-Aborginal, helping-hand that comes to the aid of our young, fragile couple is offered by Gonzo (played by Warwick’s older brother Scott Thornton), a fellow homeless man, who despite having very little for himself, shares what he does have.

With such a lack of dialogue in his film, Thornton must have known how important audio would be to the film’s success and like two of my other favourite films from the festival, The Exploding Girl and The Limits of Control, Samson and Delilah relies heavily on sound design to create atmosphere and ambiance. Whether it be Samson’s brother’s band rehearsing the same song over and over again or the sound of the cars on the freeway under which the young couple sleep, the director uses his sound mix to highlight the daily, monotonous boredom Samson and Delilah face. Audio is also used to emphasize the isolation and remoteness both Samson and Delilah feel (whether together or apart) and at times as a viewer, you actually feel as if you’re in the mind of one half of the troubled couple.

Aesthetically, it’s a fascinating film, due to not only some interesting cinematography, but also to some unusual locations and settings, which the director takes full advantage of with his widescreen frame. Taking control of the camera himself, Thornton’s handheld lens tracks our couple on their journey, coming close at times to reveal the couple’s blossoming relationship and straying away at other points, to depict them lost in a world they don’t truly understand.

Samson and Delilah is a bleak, tough-love story, loaded with realism instead of sentimentality and although watching this film may depress some, those who love film should be completely invigorated.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

After wining the Grand Prix at Cannes earlier this year, the reputation of Jacques Audiard’s Un prophète (A Prophet) has, as expected, gone from strength to strength. The film’s continuous rise throughout the year, has seen it take its enviable place at LFF09 as the Sight and Sound Special Screening on the final Saturday of the festival.

Son of prolific screenwriter and director Michel Audiard, A Prophet’s writer and director Jacques Audiard also began his career as a screenwriter over 30 years ago, writing for his father’s 1974 film, Bons baisers…à lundi. He made the move to directing in 1994 with Regarde les hommes tomber (See How They Fall) and went on to make another four films in the 15 years before A Prophet, including the critically acclaimed Un héros très discret (A Self-Made Hero) and De battre mon coeur s’est arrete (The Beat That My Heart Skipped).

With a solid background in screenwriting, you would expect Audiard’s films to have a strong focus on character and plot and this assumption is confirmed with his latest piece. A Prophet follows Malik, a 19 year old French Arab facing six years in jail with no friends, no-one to turn to and most importantly no-one to protect him. The film tracks the young prisoner’s rise from frightened, intimidated inmate to confident, prison-system player and maybe more importantly, from boy to man. For me, the second transformation was the most interesting in the film as we witness Malik go from an uneducated, socially inept teenager, to a multi-lingual, thoughtful adult. It’s almost as if Audiard’s anti-hero is actually growing in stature on screen, right in front of our eyes. As the film progresses, we see Malik becoming more and more of a product of the system to which he belongs, yet the the more he became involved in these negative activities, the more I began to root for him. You know it’s a good film when you find yourself not only liking, but supporting a murderous, drug-trafficking criminal.

A lot of the credit for the character’s depth and credibility within the film has to go to the director’s reportedly actor driven approach. It feels as if Audiard and his cast have taken due care and attention to ensure every nook and cranny of each character’s personality and soul has been explored. This results in some eye-catching performances from the cast of A Prophet; in particular Tahar Rahim as Malik and Audiard regular Niels Arestrup as Cesar Luciano, are stand out impressive. Corsican gang-boss Luciano’s hair might be receding and his belly fat, but Arestrup still manages to portray him as a pillar of strength and a force to be reckoned with. Malik on the other hand, enters the film physically weak and easily manipulated, but through Rahim’s tour de force performance, his growth throughout the slightly flabby 150 minute duration seems immense. Rahim’s performance shouldn’t be underestimated as Malik’s transformation from young thug to respected leader is completely believable and utterly engrossing.

Story-wise, Audiard’s narrative is nothing original, yet he adds enough touches of flair and originality to make this more than just another prison drama, although comparisons are bound to be made with this year’s other French crime movie, Mesrine. Audiard attempts, with varying success, to make his film differ from its competitors with inter-titles, dream-sequences and apparitions and although the narrative is comparable to that of a Hollywood film, the approach is undoubtedly European Art Cinema.

As a surprise winner at Cannes this year [MarBelle: It also picked up The Star of London, Best Film award at LFF], I was anticipating big things from A Prophet and maybe it was because of these expectations I left the screening a little disappointed. It’s a well made, well told story and a film definitely worthy of praise, just not the cinematic explosion I’d so desperately craved.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Shot over seven years, DIG! is a feature-length documentary about musicians Anton Newcombe, leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Courtney Taylor, head of the Dandy Warhols, star- crossed friends and bitter rivals. DIG!’s director Ondi Timoner took away this year’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, with Palm Pictures hot on her heals to pick up the North American theatrical and DVD rights.

How did DIG! come in to being?
I graduated and had made two films about women in prison in Connecticut America. One of them The Nature of the Beast (1994), about Bonnie Jean Foreshaw, who was railroaded into jail, ended up on public television, which is pretty much where documentaries went back then, and it was clear to me that people weren’t really watching documentaries. I felt the problem with documentaries was that they were retrospective, and so I felt I wanted to make a film where the story was unfolding on camera. So I came out to LA to turn The Nature of the Beast into a TV movie to get Bonnie out of prison and to continue making documentaries, but make them like narrative film.

In turning The Nature of the Beast into a TV movie, I was suddenly involved with a major talent agency, which was trying to package it with Queen Latifah playing the lead, while trying to give me a title and get me out of the picture. It became clear that in the face of commercial success or commercial venture, creative integrity is definitely a fragile thing. And in that crux where art and industry meet, art can die – or it can be diluted very severely. So I began looking at where art and industry meet by looking at 10 bands on the verge of getting signed, when I heard the music of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and it blew me away. It turned out that every label was interested in them, so I went to San Francisco to meet them and that’s the first footage you see in the film.

Two weeks later they came down to play an industry showcase in LA and ended up in a fist fight pile-up by the fifth song, and I was just like, “OK, these guys are madmen and whatever’s going on with them and their music and their day- to-day life is more important than any kinda rules the industry has set up; they’re gonna play the game on their own terms if they’re gonna play it at all.” The day after the show Anton Newcombe said, “I’d like you to go and meet the Dandy Warhols; we’re gonna start a revolution together. We’re gonna revolutionise the music industry. Forget about those other bands you’re filming, we’re gonna show you how to do it in your movie.” And I was inclined to believe him.

I didn’t drop the other bands right away, but eventually my original idea, The Cut, was ripped off by MTV, which turned it into a game show. I’d brought it to them trying to look for financing and it ended up on TV in a mutated form, so I dropped the project and just picked up with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, because I realised I could look at everything I wanted to explore about art and industry by looking at these two bands. So many other bands were looking at what the industry might want from them and then trying to be that, whereas both of these bands were just who they were. I thought the Dandys were more likely to get a ticket to ride through the industry than Brian Jonestown Massacre, so the relationship and contrast between them was perfect. So, seven years later we have 1500 hours of footage and quite a tale to tell.

Was it always the plan to follow the bands for seven years?
No, it was going to be a year originally, but you just can’t look at something like that over a year; things just don’t go that fast. For the first two years we filmed very consistently and a great deal of the footage is from 96-99, and then I slowed down a bit. I also realised that the revolution wasn’t going to happen the way that Anton or I thought it would. About six months into filming, the friendship between the bands started to go sour.

I still thought the Brian Jonestown Massacre could make it and the Dandy Warhols were making it, then about three years into it I realised that Anton was too rock’n’roll for rock and was going to self destruct at every opportunity of commercial success. Then I began to look at what success really is. Is it commercial success and would Anton be alive if he was successful? He’s put out 11 records, so he’s a very prolific and alive artist, but he just has to live on the edge. If he had a home and a family life he probably wouldn’t be making this music. Meanwhile, the Dandy Warhols were on this straight-up trajectory, having issues with their record label.

The Dandy Warhols’ favourite band is the Brian Jonestown Massacre – they just don’t want to be in the same room as them necessarily. They get a lot of inspiration from them. The Brian Jonestown Massacre became obsessed about the Dandy Warhols at one point, sort of stalking them, writing songs about them, becoming really jealous of their success and at the same time disappointed in them for ‘selling out’, because in Anton’s eyes you can’t really be commercially successful without having sold out: that seems to be his perspective.

Arguably, the Dandy Warhols haven’t sold out. They haven’t changed. They’ve just been the Dandy Warhols and the fact that people like them doesn’t mean they’ve sold out. The fact is they’ve just managed to navigated the industry enough to get their music out there.

Did you have problems with access?
Well, when you film people the camera’s like a mirror, so it’s not a good idea to hold it up when they’re not happy. There were phases like when Anton was into heroin: that wasn’t a good time to be filming. I would get a little bit in here and there, but I was not as inspired to film. It was too sad and hard for me as a filmmaker to not get involved, so I stayed away as much as possible and just checked in once in a while. But at no point did either band tell me not to film. That was an incredible thing about both bands; they opened their lives up to an experiment.

Did you let them see the footage?
Yeah. The Dandy Warhols have always been big fans of DIG!. The film is mostly about the Brian Jonestown Massacre, say 70:30, so it’s a fun look for the Dandy Warhols at all the antics and shenanigans over the years of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Anton never looked at the footage until the end and I think it’s hard for him to navigate, because it has his father, who committed suicide, in it, and then there are incidents where he says things in the movie that he remembers very differently from the reality on the tape. I think it’s a big shock to his system, so I’ve heard mixed reviews from him.

What was DIG! shot on?
We started shooting the film before there was DV on the consumer market, so we shot about 400hrs of Hi8 with a Sony VX3. Then my camera was stolen at a Dandy Warhols show, so I upgraded to DV with a TRV900, then the VX1000 and finally the PD150. I use the PD150 to this day and I worship the camera. A lot of the movie was shot on that, and a good 30 per cent was shot on spy cameras. I used spy cameras back before reality TV existed, so they were very expensive. Now you can get them for 50 bucks on the internet, but back then it cost me $2500 to buy one spy camera. I needed it because of the low-light, and I didn’t want to use lights because there’s nothing like that to blow a scene – especially when people are a little bit inebriated or in a club at night. So spy cams worked very well for that. We used spy cams and Super-8 primarily for the Brian Jonestown Massacre because they have that gritty, organic feeling that Super-8 brings across. Then once we got some resources together we shot the 16mm film of the Dandy Warhols and then there’s some 35mm in there too from their more hi-end videos, so it’s a real mixed bag.

What did you use for post?
Avid! I’m an Avid editor, and Angela Strachan, who really believed in both bands and the project, contributed a crucial 20-30 grand in the form of an Avid about three years ago, so the Avid’s been like my roommate since then. People have had to try and pull me out of that room with me just going through revelations editing DIG!. In August all the drives crashed and we lost half the media. We finished the film on 3 October, but there was actually a five hour cut in July, so within 3-4 months we’d slimmed the film down from five hours to 1hour 45mins, but stay tuned for the DVD – its gonna be great. As Joel Gion from Brian Jonestown Massacre said, there’s the potential to make three movies that tell the exact same story using different footage. I couldn’t stop filming because the relationship was so extraordinary and the story just kept unfolding. It’s like the project became bigger than me; I just had to hold on to the seat of my pants and keep going.

How hard was it to cut down such a huge volume of footage?
Really hard. It was practically impossible to make it happen. Basically I had to spend many, many weeks throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what stuck. It was really painful; it’s like killing your babies or something. Someone said, “a work of art is finished not when there’s nothing to add but when there’s nothing left to take away.” I had to throw away stuff as good or better than was on the screen just to stick with the story. There are some antics and choice, choice things, but I had to just let it go.

Did you seek guidance when editing?
Yeah, Vasco Lucas Nunes our co- producer spent a lot of time in the edit bay with me. He sat with me at length and really worked with me. Then at the very end I showed Doug Pray (director/editor of Hype and Scratch) a cut when it was already down to two hours 12mins, and he helped me take it down to 1 hour 45mins, just by sitting with me for a couple of sessions and making some comments. He has an editorial adviser credit on the film; he was very helpful.

I had to finish the film because I was due to give birth that week, so I actually didn’t have the feeling that it was done, because I didn’t have that satisfactory, “OK, that’s it”. We output it and then did a polish before Sundance and cut another seven minutes out of it, and now we have our distribution deal I want to do another polish, not to cut time but just to tweak a few things I saw while at the festival. I don’t think it’s ever done for filmmakers; we’re way more critical of our work than other people.

How did you finance the project?
I didn’t raise a budget, I funded DIG! by working as a director. I produced, directed and edited a show for VH1 called Sound Affects; I did a bunch of EPKs and was nominated for a Grammy in 1998 for a piece I did about fastball. Then I did documentaries about Paul Westerberg and music videos for people such as Lucinda Williams. Very low budget music videos, but it was my bread and butter and I would just take my money and make DIG!. I looked for money at different times, but it was such a waste of time because everybody looked at the amount of footage and said, “Well, lots of luck.” Nobody could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I don’t blame them; it was a hard project to complete.

The budget was less than a million, but more than $500,000, just because it was shot over so long and there were so many journeys in it. I toured Europe with the Dandy Warhols three times, went to Japan with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and did national tours with both bands, and that costs. Plus a lot of tape, film and transfer costs, and I’ve had to upgrade the Avid and get more drive space for the film. And there’s people I brought on at different points; I brought my brother on to edit for a little while last year, and another editor, Oscar Daniels.

I kept trying to hire editors to get the perspective and just direct, but it never worked out; I just ended up having to edit it to the end. It was such a massive project that it was hard for anybody to wrap their arms around it. I was the only one with it the whole time, and had all the pieces of the puzzle in my head. I would literally lie in bed and de-reconstruct the scenes. So ultimately it came down to me being tortured till three in the morning. I would wake up with these epiphanies. One of the final epiphanies was Courtney Taylor doing the narration. I wrote it and then he and I ad-libbed and he went away and did some extra stuff which was great. It just ties the whole thing together having him tell the story. Even when the bands go their separate ways and you don’t see the bands together for the last five years of the film you’re hearing about it from Courtney.

And he did know about it and they did follow each other’s stories, even though they don’t share the same space. In the last conversation I had with him, Courtney said “My life wouldn’t be the same if Anton didn’t exist. I would have had a completely different life.” So it’s this star-crossed friendship between the two of them. They are each other’s barometer of success.

Dandy Warhols defined commercial success for the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the ability to be a good band and successful, which the Brian Jonestown Massacre couldn’t seem to do, but they defined creative integrity, the prolific nature of songwriting and the ability to ride that edge. As Peter Holmstrom said, “Courtney was either unable or unwilling to ride that edge that Anton seems to ride.” It’s a very uncomfortable place to live, but it’s an amazing place to write music from.

So what next?
I have two documentaries that I’ve been shooting. One I’m shooting in Portugal with Vasco Lucas Nunes. We’re documenting a form of bullfighting that he used to perform, it’s a very rustic form of bullfighting that’s done in Oria on the border between Portugal and Spain. It’s a very beautiful thing, where they don’t actually kill the bull. The second is a film I’ve been doing about a dam in Maui, West Africa that’s threatening one of the oldest living civilizations.

I also have a feature-length script called Fortunate Sun that people are looking at, which I wrote a while ago, about a man that spent his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit here in America. He’s basically like a rock star of the prison system. I’m really interested in individuals fighting circumstances they can’t control. Then there’s another film I would love to make about my father, but I only have the story outline not the script. I’m basically looking to do a feature next. I’ll keep doing documentaries forever, but my next move would be a feature. I also wanna keep doing music videos and a few commercials here and there, because they’re such a shot in the arm for a filmmaker who does something over such a long period of time. I’m very excited cause I have a lot of potential opportunities right now.

• Overnight
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• We Dreamed America – Alex Walker
• Tokyo Cowboys – Daneeta Loretta Saft & Patrick Jackson
• They Turned Our Desert Into Fire – Mark Brecke

Double Sundance Grand Jury prize winner Ondi Timoner, must have thought she was living the documentary filmmaker’s dream, when in 1999 she was asked to document a social experiment/art project involving 100 artists living in an underground bunker in New York for a month. However, the project soon turned into a nightmare as the life of its instigator (internet pioneer and main focus of We Live in Public), Josh Harris, started to spiral out of control.

After filming the whole experiment for a month and editing for two and a half months, director Timoner returned from pitching her project Dig! at Sundance to find the Avid system gone and the master tapes missing. In her absence, Harris had gone through the rough cut, decided he didn’t like how it made him look and took possession of everything, leaving Timoner unpaid and without a film. Ten years later the film has evolved from a story about this one experiment (and the possible birth of reality TV), to the incredible tale of the rise and fall of Josh Harris.

At an early age, Harris began predicting a future dominated by the internet and as this prediction came to fruition, he was at the head of the queue to cash in, becoming one of the key dot-com kings. After making millions with his share in Pseudo.com, a website for live audio and video streaming, which Harris later described as an art project, he went on to push the boundaries of art/society with his Quiet project, where he gathered together a community of 100 artists and scenesters to live for one month in a fabricated bunker, complete with a thorough, ‘nowhere-to-hide’ security system, under New York. Featuring a church and a firing range, the residents of Quiet were provided with everything they could need for free (including food, drink and drugs). The only thing that wasn’t free, was the footage that was shot, Harris owned that. After the project descended into chaos and the NYPD brought the experiment to an end (they believed it to be a cult) on January 1st 2000, Harris went on to his next project, We Live in Public. Whilst conducting the Quiet mission, the internet pioneer formed a strong relationship with Tanya Corrin, an ex-presenter on Cherrybomb, one of his video streaming channels and asked her to participate in his next stunt. Harris and Corrin would live out their relationship in a loft apartment fitted with 24 hour surveillance, live in front of the internet viewing public. Sharing all their intimate, personal moments, including a camera in the toilet, the couple would share their new life with anyone who wanted to see it. Obviously, this relationship didn’t last (in fact Harris now refers to Corrin as a fake girlfriend), another project fell apart and a stock market crash meant the millionaire lost it all. What happened to Harris after this point is only fractionally covered towards the end of the film, but it appears he tried to disappear from public view. Although, I doubt this is the last we’ll see of Josh Harris.

Timoner’s film is expertly crafted from vast quantities of footage and is a joyous, informative watch. The director was in a strong position when brought into record the Quiet project, as she not only became a documenter, but also a participant. Speaking after the film, Timoner confirmed this is the kind of filmmaker she is, by admitting “I’ll pick my subject up if they fall over, but I’ll film them first“. The fimmaker seems very close to her project and speaks very personally, honestly and frankly about it, especially when quizzed on the subject of Tanya Corrin. As a friend of Harris’ ex-girlfriend, Timoner still seems very unhappy with his references to her as a ‘fake’ girlfriend.

This was the second film that focused somewhat on reality TV and fame that I’d seen at this year’s LFF (in fact I saw them only hours apart). Where Chris Atkins’ Starsucker was a light, somewhat uninformative doc, We Live in Public feels like a very personal, informational, dense story. In fact, when the credits roll, you almost find it hard to believe you’d never heard of Josh Harris before and like the titles at the start of the film declared:

This is the story of ’The greatest internet pioneer you’ve never heard of’.

The only misstep in We Live in Public was the horrible inclusion of Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity at the end of the film – A far too obvious choice and far too awful song to end such a brilliant film.

• DN LFF09: Starsuckers – Chris Atkins
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill and Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy

For his third feature Passenger Side, director Matt Bissonnette decided to go back to basics and the freedom that comes from shooting a film on a low budget, with a skeleton crew. We sat down over LFF tea and cakes to discuss the process of bringing his tale of road tripping, polar opposite brothers to the screen.

Showlinks
Matthew Bissonnette
Passenger Side

• DN LFF09: Men on the Bridge – Asli Özge
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

South Korean cinema has been going from strength to strength in recent years and if Mother is anything to go by, then this rise isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Park Chan-Wook has stolen much of the praise for the nation’s growing cinematic power with his Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) and his recent take on the vampire story, Thirst (Cannes 2009, joint Jury Prize winner). Lurking in his shadow somewhat has been Bong Joon-Ho, his police drama Memories of Murder showed the potential of  this skilled craftsman, whilst The Host displayed how to make a successful monster movie with a moderate budget (The Host is a far better film than Cloverfield, Godzilla & Peter Jackson’s King Kong put together). With his latest effort Mother, Joon-Ho has once again displayed his deft touch for storytelling with his original take on the murder mystery movie.

Mother is (unsurprisingly) a tale of maternal love and a story about how far one woman will go to protect her only child. The Mother in this case is a quiet, introverted herbalist whose sole purpose appears to be to care for her backwards son Do Joon. Led on by his horny, rebellious friend Jin Tae, Do Joon finds himself falling deeper and deeper into trouble, until he’s engulfed in a serious criminal investigation where only his loving, devoted Mother will fight to clear his name. It’s a refreshing take on the ‘Who-Dunnit’ formula and the story provides moments of shock, humour and raw emotion.

As the titular mother, emphasis inevitably falls on actress Kim Hye-Ja and the film’s success was always going to largely depend on her performance. Thankfully it is a masterful performance, as the veteran actress manages to convey not only the frailties of this lone woman sucked  into a male dominated world, but also the strength she conjures from within to save her child.

Mother could almost slot into Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy, as it has a similar feel and a similar plot (the film’s plots all revolve around the title characters’ quests for answers). It’s definitely up to the quality of Chan-Wook’s work and although not as stylish as Old Boy or Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, it’s a confidently made film with some stunning imagery. The camera hangs on Kim Hye-Ja’s face and we see it spread, emotion ridden, across the screen, dominating the frame as often as possible. However, the actress isn’t the only star of this film as the cinematography takes every chance to lovingly display the Korean countryside in full panoramic glory, as we are dazzled with wide tracking shots of fields, forests and mountains.

In all honesty I knew I’d like this film from the opening seconds, I mean if an impromptu  dance in a hay field isn’t going to do it for you, then I don’t know what will.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Chris Atkins made his name with his Blair busting documentary Taking Liberties and now with his new doc he takes a look at fame, celebrity and the media. Although the director’s latest film does provide entertainment and plenty of laughs, it does seem as if the ‘facts’ it’s revealing are things the majority of it’s audience will already know:

• Kids watch too much TV – Hardly fresh and revolutionary information.
• Today’s Society is obsessed with fame – anyone who watches TV, reads newspapers or listens to the radio will already be far too aware of this.
• The media lies – Ok, so not everyone will know not to believe everything the read, see or hear, but you’d like to assume people have the smarts to question a story’s validity.

Visually this feature shows some nice touches of flair, using graphics and a set of floating magician’s hands to present information to its viewers. Atkins attempts to divulge the secrets behind the curtain of media and fame, like a magician exposing the methods of their tricks. It’s a nice metaphor and the graphics are particularly pleasant, however it does seem a little bit of a ‘party-trick’ to link segments together and make the information seem all the more revealing.

The footage in the film’s 100-minute duration does seem slightly repetitive and I began to wonder if Atkins had used a lot of the material just to fill the visual space under the voice over. At times the voice over does feel like the dominant element of this piece, which is obviously a bit of a let down when watching it on a big screen as a cinematic experience.

There are some fascinating characters in this documentary but unfortunately, just like the Ross Brothers’ film 45365, they didn’t really get enough time to settle on our screen and just as we start to become interested, they disappear.

In the end there simply wasn’t enough of a hook to Atkins’ examination of fame to keep me mesmerized for its entirety and instead I found myself drifting in and out of the film. Don’t get me wrong, at its core it’s a very entertaining and humorous film, it just felt a little lightweight (a bit like this post!), considering it’s selling itself as a ‘revelatory’ documentary.

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill and Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy

This is the best article you’ve ever read!

This is the best article you’ve ever read!

Ok, now I’ve laid down the Jedi Mind Trick I can pretty much write whatever I want.

Not content with acting, writing and producing (mostly on George Clooney projects), Grant Heslov has now turned his hand to directing, with this wacky feature produced through Smokehouse Pictures (Heslov and Clooney’s production company). The Men who Stare at Goats is based on Jon Ronson’s non-fiction bestseller of the same title and tells the story of the US military’s attempts to train a squad of Jedi-like psychic soldiers, who use mind powers as their weapons instead of guns.

The comical events of the story revolve around reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) as he escapes a broken heart by doing what all men with broken hearts do, go to war. Searching for a story in Iraq, Wilton stumbles across ex-psychic soldier (and titular Goat Starer!) Lyn Cassady, who believes he’s been reactivated on one last mission to locate his former mentor Bill Django (Jeff Bridges reprising his ‘dude’ mentality from The Big Lebowski).

I liked Heslov’s movie, but that’s as enthusiastic I’m going to get about it. It was far too hit and miss to be anything above average and if it hadn’t been for the director’s ability to assemble a formidable cast, this movie could have easily slipped below that mark. In all honesty, I don’t think it’s actually possible for any film featuring George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges to be anything less than enjoyable. With Clooney and McGregor (surely only in the film to make the Jedi references funnier) consuming most of the screen-time, it’s somewhat surprising it’s Bridges and Spacey who provide the majority of the comic moments.

The bulk of The Men who Stare at Goats’ laughs come from sight gags and slapstick-like skits, whether it’s a psychic soldier unsuccessfully trying to run through walls or another failing with a leap of faith, they do feel a little like cheap-shots aimed at new-age techniques and spiritual thinking. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little cheap humour every now and then.

I think if I had seen this film at my local cineplex style cinema, I would have been perfectly happy with what I had just viewed. Unfortunately for Heslov’s movie, I saw it at the London Film Festival surrounded by some better looking films, some funnier films, some more substantial films and The Men who stare at Goats didn’t quite rise to the level of the rest of LFF’s programme.  The fact that this was my third favourite Clooney film I’d seen in 5 days, should tell you enough about The Men who Stare at Goats.

It’s almost like the production team had such an interesting story and such a fantastic cast, they felt like they didn’t need to do anything else. Some advice Mr Heslov, well to quote the Jedi – “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”(did you like the way I just added that whole last paragraph to get a Jedi quote in?…respect my Geekness!)

• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: The Informant! – Steven Soderbergh
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

As a fan of many years and with a couple near misses in the past, today’s LFF interview is probably the highlight of the festival for me. It was my pleasure to spend some time (however brief) with director Harmony Korine, to discuss his latest offering Trash Humpers, along with the chances of us ever seeing the abandoned Fight Harm project surface.

• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: Passenger Side – Matt Bissonnette
• DN LFF09: Men on the Bridge – Asli Özge
• DN LFF09: Enter The Void – Gaspar Noe

To breakdown the plot of The Limits of Control, would be like unwrapping a riddle that’s wrapped in an enigma, the film transcends conventional narrative and is more about atmosphere and intrigue, than story and plot development. Watching Jarmusch’s film reminded me of an old quote about Jazz musicians, “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play” and with his latest feature, the cult director manages to say so much by having his characters say so little.

In essence the movie focuses on the Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé, the coolest, smoothest, most smartly dressed man you’ll seen on screen this year, if not this decade), a hit man sent to Spain to follow a treasure-hunt like trail of coded messages to his target. It almost seems that with the character of the Lone Man, Jarmusch is finally trying to erase the disappointing Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai from our (and maybe his) memory. Where Forest Whitaker’s overweight, philosophy spouting, Samurai hit man just didn’t seem very believable, Bankole’s sharply dressed, steely faced hit man of little words, seems not only plausible but downright menacing at times.

It’s a film of very little dialogue, Jarmusch instead uses a sprawling soundtrack (reminiscent of Dead Man), Bankolé’s strong face and Christopher Doyle’s striking cinematography, to paint his vivid picture.

The soundtrack, dominated by Boris, Sun O))) and Jarmusch’s own band Bad Rabbit, drones and rumbles through sections of the film, adding a sense of tension and unease. However, the director also isn’t afraid to use silence to his advantage and where not displaying his love and his respect for the movie soundtrack, he lets silence reign.

Another element Jarmusch uses to his advantage are the facial features of lead performer Isaach De Bankolé, whose chiseled good looks and unyielding eyes gives the Lone Man the level of mystery needed to make this film work. It’s one of those roles you can’t imagine anyone else filling and a performance that should elevate Bankolé from bit player to fully fledged leading man.

Christopher Doyle has made a solid name for himself in recent years, working on visually arresting movies with unforgettable images, he has become one of the top names in cinematography. His work with Wong Kar-Wai in particular, landed him critical acclaim and the cinematography for In the Mood for Love won him the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes in 2000. Doyle carries on his good work for avant-garde directors, with this wonderful piece of cinematography that complements Jarmusch’s writing idyllically. Doyle’s camera loves it’s environments and locations and seems to always find the best position or angle to perfectly set the scene or frame a character. The combination of Doyle and Jarmusch is surely one all us cinephiles have been waiting for.

I’m sure many people will criticize this film for a perceived lack of focus or for being too self-indulgent, with all of it’s film, music, art, literary and philosophy references. However, I think these are only apparent weaknesses, if you miss the whole tone of Jarmusch’s latest feature and instead of admiring his education and passion for the arts, you mistake it as a self-congratulatory pat on the back. The director references everything from William S. Burroughs with it’s title, Arthur Rimbaud with it’s opening quote and more directly, John Boorman with it’s visual style. It’s almost as if he is saying, if you like my work, maybe you should check this out (he’s like a filmic version of the Genius bar in iTunes).

“The best films are like dreams you’re never sure you really had,” the character Blondie proclaims in a one sided conversation with the Lone Man. Well if that’s true, I’m really hoping this dream is recurring.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

After the screening of Metropia, director Tarik Saleh claimed he never wanted to make an animation and even went on to declare that after watching his film he was disappointed when he realized it wasn’t live-action. The director jokingly stated he was put off animation because of the lengthy creative process he experienced when working for his father, a stop-motion animator. To be fair to Saleh, he had spent a year creating 200 faces for a puppet, only for his father to decide he could actually do the job with just 30, enough to put most people off. Despite all this, Metropia is clearly an animation (although it does contain live-action elements) and one that took six years to make.

Set in the not too distant, not too pleasant future, the world is now running out of oil and the undergrounds have been connected into a sprawling subway network beneath a dreary dystopian Europe. Metropia tells the story of Roger (Vincent Gallo – not as impressive when you can’t see his face!), a man obsessed with conspiracy and overflowing with paranoia about the ever-increasing levels of surveillance in the world in which he lives. This suspicion isn’t helped when he begins hearing voices and starts believing that someone or something is trying to control him. The film follows our anti-hero as he tries to uncover who or what is attempting to manipulate his thoughts and ultimately regain control of his life.

This is a strange looking film, faces and body-parts look photo-real, but often characters walk and move like they’re straight out of South Park or Team America: World Police. To create the distinct look, Saleh and his team used Adobe After Effects, a tool that the director admitted wasn’t ideal for creating animation (good job he wasn’t making an animation then!). Trying to avoid his film looking like just another Pixar imitation, where everything appears to be made out of ice-cream (Saleh’s words not mine), the director forced the software to create something markedly two dimensional and very memorable. I don’t know whether I liked the style of the film or not? At times it was visually breathtaking and reminded me of the Rosto A.D. short Jona/Tomberry, at other points it just looked a little disappointing.

The one thing a filmmaker should take away and consider after watching Metropia is how important it is to consider all mediums when creating your films. Even though director Tarik Saleh is usually a documentarian, he had a story to tell and decided the best way to tell it was through the use of animation methods and personally I couldn’t imagine this film done any other way…especially on the low budget of 34,000,000 Krona (about £3 million).

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) is back with another modern day tale of life, love and frequent flyer miles with Up in the Air.

George Clooney (this year is definitely the year of Clooney), plays Ryan Bingham, a middle-aged man who lives his life out of his immaculately packed, perfectly sized suitcase. Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert (he fires people!), who makes his way around America doing a job that others don’t have the balls to do. He loves his life, he loves his job and seems to want nothing more from his existence than to reach his life goal of clocking up ten million frequent flyer miles (which he’ll only be the 7^th person to do). Unfortunately, Bingham’s reality is suddenly shattered by the appearance of two women in his life. The first, Alex (Vera Farmiga), another frequent flyer with a similar outlook on life (“Think of me as you with a vagina” she informs Bingham), threatens to disrupt his whole non-committal approach to women. Whilst the other, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a self-assured, young techno-whiz, wants to revolutionize the downsizing industry by introducing firing by Web cam, essentially ‘grounding’ Bingham and the jet-set lifestyle he’s come so accustomed to. It’s a lightweight tale from Reitman and one that carries on from the same amusing, moral scattered themes we’ve seen in his earlier work. Although it was nice to see a slightly darker ending to this Hollywood story.

Right from the immaculate opening titles (another piece of work from Shadowplay, the people behind the titles sequences for Juno and Thank You for Smoking) and a snappy, smartly edited establishing sequence the tone is set. Just like Reitman’s last two features this is a smart, funny, well-constructed movie which is hard to dislike, even if at times it does resemble the best advert for American Airways ever made.

This is probably my favourite Clooney performance of the festival; smoother than the Fantastic Mr Fox and funnier (haha funny, not strange funny) than Lyn Cassady (The Men who Stare at Goats), George always seems to be at his best when riffing on his playboy image. Ryan Bingham certainly is one charismatic, captivating character and the praise for this has to go mainly to that performance. Although to be honest, Clooney plays this role with such ease, you start to question how much this on-screen persona is actually like the real-life George. The rest of the cast put in likable turns, Vera Famiga (Alex) and Anna Kendrick (Natalie) prove strong female characters in a male orientated world and Jason Bateman and Sam Elliott also bring some classic comic moments with their cameos.

My only criticism of Up in the Air would be that however amusing, however charming, it does seem a little like we’ve seen it all before. The plot is far to close to Thank You for Smoking and with another light-hearted, moving comedy I am starting to question whether Reitman has anything else to offer us (although maybe I’m being picky for picky’s sake!)

If Reitman is a one-trick pony though, then he surely has mastered that trick and however much I’d like to see him try something different I’m just going to sit back, relax and enjoy his one trick tactics for now.

• DN LFF09: The Men who Stare at Goats – Grant Heslov
• DN LFF09: The Informant! – Steven Soderbergh
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

Today’s LFF afternoon tea interview is a doubleheader with co-directors Damani Baker and Alex Vlack, who after over 11 years of patient persistence, were able to bring their documentary Still Bill to the screen; a look at the life, relationships and of course music of the legend that is Bill Withers.

Showlinks
Still Bill

• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill Ross & Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy

From the opening titles, before even a word is spoken, you can tell this is a French film. From the simple shots of unmistakably French streets and the almost lethargic titles, it’s clear to see this movie is going to focus on substance and character over style.

Mia Hansen Løve’s second feature, following her 2007 debut, Everything is Forgiven, is a harrowing tale, inspired by the life and unexpected death of French film producer Humbert Balsan. The film follows Grégoire, a semi-successful producer of Art Cinema, who is struggling to keep all his projects afloat and his company out of the receiver’s hands. He’s a charming, confident man, but ultimately his devotion and dedication to his projects proves to be his downfall and his family are left to cope with the aftermath. It’s not only a thorough insight into European Art Cinema, but also a heartfelt examination of a family trying to cope with tragedy.

Technically this film doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s still an accomplished and absorbing piece of filmmaking. Fitting to the film’s tone, Hensen-Løve creates a slow, thoughtful pace for her movie, relying on strong performances over fancy cinematography and snappy editing. Static camera shots fill the films nearly 2 hour duration and the camera always ensures we get a good view of the most important thing on show, emotions. Shots and scenes are given the time they need (and deserve) to play out and thanks to the forceful acting from the cast, this is a tactic that leaves a lasting memory.

Led by a real-life father and daughter team, there is some acting of the finest quality on show. Louis-Do de Lencquesaing portrays the suave, loving side of family man Grégoire, whilst also displaying the troubled, fragile side of Grégoire the producer. Whilst his real-life daughter Alice De Lencquesaing puts in an enigmatically mesmerizing performance as his on screen daughter trying to find her place in the world. In fact all the actors involved in depicting the Canvel family, put in fantastic turns and as a unit it is with a fluid ease we picture them as a real family.

I only discovered after the film was over that Father of my Children was inspired by a true life story, which only added to the moving affect it already had on me. Although I have to say, after watching this film I never want to be a producer! It didn’t exactly show the behind the scenes of filmmaking to be a magical, wonderful place.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

This 93 minute Documentary tells the story of Sydney, Ohio (zip code 45365) and it’s 20,000 population of small town Americans.

Throughout its brief duration we get an insight into a Barber Shop, a College Football Team, an Election Campaign, The Police Force, A Radio Station and much MUCH more. For me, this is where the problems with brothers Bill and Turner Ross’ film began. The pair attempted to cram so much in, the movie never seemed to settle and let stories unwind or characters develop. At times it felt as if someone was constantly channel surfing through endless American documentaries, but could never decide which one they liked best. It’s a shame really, as there are some really entertaining characters (the old Black guy who can’t stop looking at the Camera whilst getting his haircut or the elderly mother of a Judge running for re-election) and some laugh out loud moments (the phone-in guy trying to convince the DJ that The Who’s ‘Squeezebox’ is about a Dildo), but we just don’t get the time to enjoy them.

Visually, the Ross brothers do try to add quite a bit of style to their documentary, with touches of art-house flair amongst some more standard documentary footage. The directors break their film into sections, using the digits from the zip code and footage of trains passing by. For me these touches, although ambitious, aren’t really enough for me to connect with the film and leaft me with only a few images to consider after the screening. Although, I did really like the titles and text used in the film, it was good to see some care and thought put into an oft over-looked element of film.

45365 definitely isn’t a bad film, it was just a film I didn’t connect with (to be honest the fire alarm halfway through didn’t help) on the day, I’m sure many others did and I’m sure many others will.

• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill Ross & Turner Ross
• 45365 – Bill Ross & Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Starsuckers – Chris Atkins
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman

Balibo is a political thriller of sorts, focusing on the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 and in particular the involvement of a group of Australian journalists covering the tragic events. The story is told through the eyes of journalist Roger East, as he attempts to discover what happened to the five Australian reporters in East Timor at the time of the invasion.

Due to my age and lack of world history knowledge, I’m ashamed to say I’d never even heard of this conflict before watching the film and unfortunately after watching it, I’m not sure how much I truly know about it now.

Roger Connolly’s film is definitely high on drama and packed to the brim with tension, but it’s tendency to tell the story through Australian eyes, leaves the viewer wondering what really happened to the inhabitants of East Timor. The movie almost feels like a two-parter; first half political thriller full of intrigue and accusation, second half war movie full of action and bloodshed. Whilst the first section dragged a little, setting the scene and introducing us to Roger East and the Balibo Five, the second half springs into life with some nerve shredding action (the scenes where the five journalists film the Indonesian invasion is particularly tense).

Although as a viewer you feel for the journalists and admire their courage in wanting to document the atrocities occurring on the island, you don’t really gain a great understanding of the real horrors the inhabitants of East Timor are facing. As an Australian film, it seems very internally focused and yes what happened to the journalists is horrific, however to almost skip over the hundreds of thousands of Timorians murdered is not only disrespectful, but also damaging to the narrative. Even though Connolly weaves a tense tale with his film, you truly have to question why this major part of the events is practically overlooked in his film (especially as they’re selling the film as a true story). Whether this is fair judgment, I don’t know, but personally I wanted to know more about the East Timorians fighting to save their native land and although this film touches on it, it just didn’t seem enough.

The film is held together at parts by some fantastic acting and in particular Anthony LaPaglia and Oscar Isaac shine whenever they’re on screen (and even brighter when they appear together). LaPaglia plays the film’s lead (although screentime is shared quite generously between an ample cast), Roger East, a haunted reporter who at times appears to be on the verge of alcoholism, his face displaying years of worry and his eyes telling the story of a troubled, but determined man. Issac on the other hand plays José Ramos-Horta, Secretary of Foreign Affairs for East Timor, a man with steely determination in his eyes and fiery patriotism in his heart. You can tell Isaac really got under the skin of his character. He delivers each line he speaks with such passionate belief, you’re almost convinced he’s actually fighting to save the entire population of this island.

In the end Balibo does deliver some dramatic moments along with some fine performances, but I’m a little dubious if it delivers all the facts.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton

Gaspar Noe’s followup to his infamous Irreversible, Enter The Void is the first film I saw at the London Film Festival this year and it’s probably worth noting that as soon as the lights went down, the flu/fever that had been threatening to make itself more apparent consumed my entire body. This might have influenced my patience with the film but let me tell you this, Enter The Void is feverish enough on its own without you sweating in your seat independently. The plot is slight; the film is told from the point of view (literally) of Oscar, a drug dealer in Tokyo, who gets shot in a drug raid and has an out-of-body experience. Floating around the city, we see the events that led to his being shot, the bond he has with his sister Linda and the possible consequences of his actions.

The easiest parallel I can come up with for Enter The Void is Darren Arronofsky’s The Fountain. Arronofsky had just come off two visually exciting, controversial, critically well-regarded films and ploughed a lot of time into what sounded like a psychedelic treatment of some very basic themes – love, death, loss, regret, rebirth. And what we got was intermittently stunning, but overall rambling, self-indulgent and full of philosophy that didn’t make a great deal of sense or contribute to the emotional tone of the film. Now, I think Enter The Void is better than The Fountain, but those criticisms apply even more to Noe’s latest opus. I think I can say my major problem with Enter The Void is that it’s too long. Waaay too long. There’s a lot of use of repetition in the film, that for me doesn’t really work. And I usually love repetition in music and films – it has a hypnotic quality when done right, you appreciate tiny details more… In Enter The Void it just gets a bit boring. I honestly think at least half an hour of the film could be removed without harming the story, tone or momentum one bit. Of course, I feel like a dick writing that, I’m not an editor, I have no way of knowing how it would play edited down to such a degree, but I desperately wanted to LOVE Enter The Void and only ended up liking it, and I’m pretty sure that it was because this story does not need 2hrs 40mins to be told – Seul Contre Tous is still pretty amazing in how it condenses its story into its time frame and it’s got a LOT more to work with than Enter The Void.

My other problem with the film is that Noe has thus far worked with great actors – Philippe Nahon made the butcher in Seul Contre Tous compellingly horrible and Bellucci, Cassel and Dupontel made their characters charming and believable in Irreversible (quite a feat, when you can barely make them out for the first 40mins). By comparison, the characters in Enter The Void are straight-up annoying. They are mostly demanded to either scream or look drugged and whine. I mean, I’m sure we’ve all known people like this but verisimilitude isn’t a good reason to put up with them for this amount of time.

This is weirdly less a deal-breaker than you would think, because ultimately Enter The Void is all about the visuals and Noe couldn’t make a visually boring film if his life depended on it. The film is exploding with colour the whole way through, either from the city lights of Tokyo, hallucinated blobs, constant strobing… my eyes felt quite sore afterwards. The opening 15 minutes is bewildering in terms of how many effects are taking place – hallucinations, constant blinking and blurring all happening all the time. Like Irreversible, it settles into something more conventionally watchable about halfway in but it’s still pretty kinetic. It’s that skill with images that would make me recommend Enter The Void, as it genuinely isn’t like any other film you will see, but ultimately Noe’s way with a story here is a disappointment, particularly after one as affecting as Irreversible, and it does make some of the more outre stuff (yes, there is a shot of a penis inside a vagina ejaculating at the camera and a whole ton of other very obvious Freudian images) less earned.

In short, breathtaking visuall, and unsatisfying emotionally, but sometimes the visuals are so good that it doesn’t really matter.

N.B. If you’re going to see this, its absolutely something that should be seen in the cinema – this will lose so much on a smaller screen.

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Men who Stare at Goats – Grant Heslov

I was making the dash across London, from the BFI to the Vue Leicester Square, fingers crossed, hoping I could get a ticket for Gasper Noe’s, Enter the Void. Reaching the Vue’s box office, I excitedly asked if they had any tickets left, to which the box office attendant playfully laughed, “No chance!” There was to be no entering of any voids today.

So programme in hand, I hurriedly made my way back to the BFI in the hope they would have spaces free for one of their afternoon sessions. A quick flick through the schedule, a trip to the box office and before I knew it I had a ticket to see Giuseppe Capotondi’s, The Double Hour.

The short synopsis in the programme told me two things:

1. It was from the production team behind Il Divo (the film, not the terrible band), which meant in the very least, it should be technically accomplished.
   
2. The film has “pleasing echoes of Double Indemnity and Vertigo“, two of my favourite old school films. However, I was already starting to make assumptions about the plot in my head.

Well I was right with my first analysis of the synopsis, this is indeed a masterful piece of filmmaking.

From cinematography, to editing, to sound, the whole production team had really stepped up to (and beyond) the mark and created something special with this movie. The cinematography seems fresh and inventive without having to do anything too extreme or experimental. The editing controls the pace of the film beautifully, letting moments play out poignantly, then snapping and cracking through others with a sense of frenzy and drama. Whilst the sound editing for The Double Hour is not only beautifully crafted, but also a key factor in the plot (even if we only realise this after the event). Like with Bradley Rust Gray’s, The Exploding Girl, sound is used so expertly, it adds a new dimension and a whole extra depth that is lacking in many similar films.

My second analysis of the plot however couldn’t have been more wrong. I was expecting to see plot strands ripped straight out of Vertigo and Double Indemnity. Instead, what I got was a story that continuously intrigued and enthralled me until it’s final seconds. The plot twists and turns at every chance and moments that seem strange and unclear suddenly become revealing moments of clarity later in the film.

For me, a film’s narrative is always more enjoyable if you have to work at it and analyze what you have seen, whereas a movie that just lays a plot down in front of you like a gift, just doesn’t seem as rewarding. After stepping out of the screening I was almost buzzing with excitement, running through the narrative in my head and piecing together the puzzle I had just seen. To be totally honest, I’m still not sure I picked up on everything in the plot and could probably do with another viewing straight away. Now that must be a sign of a good narrative and a good film!

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

If The White Stripes were movie characters, they’d be pretty unrealistic and as a viewer you’d have a hard job believing all their quirks and oddities. A brother and sister rock ‘n roll duo, who only dress in black, white or red, the sister speaks so quietly she needs subtitles and the brother is so obsessed with number 3, he even changed his name to ‘3 Quid’ for a whole tour . Sounds like something out of a David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch movie, but they are real people, they are a real band and they are the focus of this wonderful music documentary.

Emmett Malloy’s (renowned Music video Director for the likes of Oasis, Metallica and Will Ferrell!) movie follows The White Stripes across Canada as they kick off a tenth anniversary tour, attempting to play in every province and territory across the country. The band play a number of spontaneous gigs  in bowling alleys, Inuit elder centres and even on the back of a boat, as well as the more traditional rock shows. It’s an energetic, humorous movie, but I don’t know if it will have a massive appeal outside of White Stripes fans, as live performances and the Stripes’ music take up a good 80% of the film. Saying that there are plenty of funny moments and the duo have an interesting screen presence, with Jack being the eccentric, outspoken performer of the band and Meg the quiet (ridiculously quiet!), introverted one.

I’m usually not a big fan of movies that change visual styles for no good reason and Malloy’s movie is consistently switching from black & white to colour. However, with the colour coordinated Stripes as the subject the hue changes appear to make sense. Switching from stark black & white to rich colour, saturated with red, aligns the film perfectly with The Stripes colour obsession.

There’s not really much more I can say about this movie? In essence it’s an absorbing, performance driven rock ‘n roll documentary, which seems to perfectly compliment the band’s attitude to their music. If you are a White Stripes fan or you want to become a White Stripes fan, then this movie is a must. If you are not or you don’t want to, what’s wrong with you?

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: Starsuckers – Chris Atkins
• DN LFF09: Paper Heart – Nicholas Jasenovec

Hailing from Germany’s Black Forest region, the artist simply known as Trimpin is a sonic experimenter, who combines the roles of inventor, engineer and composer, with a body of work that also defies categorization. Director Peter Esmonde joins us at the London Film Festival to discuss the challenges of creating a documentary which elucidates the creative process of such a indefinable artist.

Showlinks
Trimpin: The Sound of Invention
Trimpin

• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill Ross & Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy

The Road is a rare commodity in today’s movie industry, an apocalyptic film that relies on subtlety and imagination, instead of CGI and special effects.

It’s the second Cormac McCarty book to be adapted for screen in recent years, following the Coen brothers’ wildly successful take on No Country for Old Men. For The Road, Australian director John Hillcoat (The Proposition), takes the reigns in the challenging task of converting this haunting, Pulitzer Prize winning novel to film.

The story sees humanity at the brink of extinction as the earth has been left ravaged by an unknown event, millions have died and the remaining few are left with no power, vegetation or food. We follow an unnamed man and his boy and their struggle to survive day by day as they make their way South in hope of a better (or even just warmer) life. It’s a harrowing, yet thoughtful tale, which instead of relying on huge catastrophic moments (asteroids hurtling towards earth, volcanoes erupting from the land), decides to almost ignore the apocalyptic event and focus on humanity’s reaction in the aftermath.  Hillcoat’s dramatic moments develop instead from how mankind copes with the catastrophic situation it finds itself in and the lengths the remaining few go to for survival. There will be no rescue in McCarthy’s apocalyptic vision, no crack team of scientists will save earth this time.

Having read McCarthy’s novel earlier this year I knew how important casting would be for this film, especially the parts of The Man and  The Boy. As The Man, Viggo Mortensen carries on from his excellent work in Cronenberg’s latest films, Eastern Promises and A History of Violence, with another immense performance. Mortensen shuffles and splutters his way across the frame, body frail, eyes sunken deep into his head, looking every bit like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. When reading a book you usually create a vision of a character in your mind’s eye that inevitably the film adaptation bares little resemblance to. However, with the The Man in The Road, Hillcoat and Mortensen have got it bang on in my eyes, in fact the casting and realization of characters for the whole movie is inspired. Charlize Theron is her usual excellent self as the The Woman (even though I felt there was too much emphasis on this character in the film, over proportioned compared to the book), Kodi Smith-McPhee does a good job as the The Boy and the cameos from Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce, illustrates just how important these brief roles are to the overall film.

Another vital part of transferring this book from page to screen was creating the desolate, scorched world of McCarthy’s novel and the production team has done a fantastic job in achieving a convincing look. By using locations around the USA that were actually affected by natural disasters (e.g. Katrina hit parts of Louisiana), as well as other cleverly sourced sites (abandoned coal mines and motorways), Hillcoat and his team have created a bleak future for the earth. It’s a world that is extremely cinematic and praise must also go to cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe for his part in creating Hillcoat’s vision, it must have been a real challenge for a DoP to shoot a planet devoid of sunlight.

I know it must seem like I’m obsessed with book to film adaptations and I’ve tried to stay away from it when talking about The Road, but it’s hard not to make comparisons with such an acclaimed book. There are additions to the film that I didn’t really like and there were sections in the book I felt deserved more time in the film. Overall though Hillcoat’s adaptation is a solid, refreshing piece of filmmaking that does justice to an outstanding literary work.

• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Exploding Girl – Bradley Rust Gray
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

I’m not a big fan of Steven Soderbergh, there I’ve said it, it’s out in the open now……please don’t kill me!!

I think I always kidded myself that I was a fan of the prolific director, but going through his filmography earlier, the realization suddenly struck me that he hasn’t made many films I’d rush to watch again. Admittedly Out of Sight is a film I absolutely love and whilst I always liked the visual style of Traffic, many of his other movies just didn’t hit the mark with me (although to be fair to Soderbergh I haven’t seen his recent works – The Girlfriend Experience or Che). Saying that, I was really looking forward to The Informant!, from the clips I’d seen it looked like a nice light way to kick off an early session of film watching.

The Informant! (can’t forget the exclamation mark) tells the story of Mark Whitacre a young go-getter in the Agriculture Industry, who turns FBI informant to expose his company’s multi-national price-fixing conspiracy. Whitacre’s plans to become a national hero soon come crashing down, as the FBI find out their informant isn’t exactly telling them the whole story. It’s a black comedy of sorts I think, although in all honestly the laughs per minute ratio wasn’t high, it was more kooky than funny (a ‘Kookedy’ maybe?).

Soderbergh’s film is based on the book The Informant (A True Story), written by Kurt Eichenwald and is based on true events, although from the story I’d take the ‘based on’ very lightly. It’s hard to imagine that the extremes Whitacre goes to in the film actually occurred in real life. Although, to be fair, I’m guessing the real life story wasn’t that funny! [MarBelle: Oh it is. Check out This American Life's The Fix Is In episode.]

It’s a decent turn from Matt Damon (still can’t write or say that name without thinking of Team America: World Police) in the lead role and he basically carries the film on his slightly podgy shoulders. However, Damon’s zany character isn’t enough to make this more than slightly humorous and unfortunately, his performance can’t quite lift Soderbergh’s latest offering above the average mark.

Not really funny enough to be a comedy, not dramatic enough to be a thriller and in the end, just not enough form in The Informant!

• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: The Men who Stare at Goats – Grant Heslov
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

Today’s LFF interview comes from Asli Özge whose debut feature Men on the Bridge began as a documentary concept to explore the distinct lives of three men working at the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. However, after meeting her potential contributors during the research stage, Özge decided she could better serve their stories through fiction, employing two of them to take up roles as themselves in the feature.

Showlinks
Men on the Bridge

• DN LFF09: Passenger Side – Matt Bissonnette
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

This slight, but honest film by Writer/Director Bradley Rust Gray, tells the story of student Ivy (Zoe Kazan), her summer back home in Brooklyn and her relationships, both platonic and romantic. As you can probably tell from this synopsis, this is a tale where nothing much seems to happen, but the little things that do occur appear as massive events in Zoe’s small, introverted world. It’s a story where phone calls and their uncomfortable silences seem to last an eternity and a stomach cramp comes across as a life threatening illness.

The film centres around the mesmerizing performance of Kazan (who you might recognize as DiCaprio’s Secretary from Revolutionary Road) and her cute cartoon-like face seems to show a million emotions, whilst never truly revealing what Ivy is feeling. Kazan’s performance is helped along the way by an assured performance by Mark Rendall as Al, her friend/possible love interest and the two play off the uncomfortable moments when they begin to realize they might be more than friends, with great plausibility, feeling and chemistry.

The plot doesn’t seem to be the most important thing in Gray’s film and I suppose some may be expecting more from a film with such an attention-grabbing title (although maybe the title was more of an afterthought, considering it was hardly even readable at the start of the film). At times this character study of a film almost feels like a fly on the wall documentary and we as the audience feel as if we’re peering round the corner, sneaking glimpses into this young girl’s life.

The film is often shot at distance from its characters, with objects/people blocking our view of the main players and at times significant events (like when Ivy suffers a fit) are almost hidden from our scrutiny. Often when films go for this candid, unobtrusive visual style, the aesthetics of the film can suffer, however this isn’t the case with The Exploding Girl. Shot on 4k digital using a Red One camera equipped with a set of four 35mm prime lenses, the visuals are crisp and luminous and the quality of image is excellent for a restrained budget production. The sound design is another stand out aspect and I can’t remember the last time I was so impressed with a film’s sound mix. At times dialogue is almost inaudible over the bustling noises of Brooklyn, enveloping you in the city. Birds sing, traffic drones and we drift in and out of random conversations on the street. The sound department of Michael Sterkin and Ian Stynes really deserve credit for the acoustic atmosphere they create.

This isn’t a film everyone will like. Those who expect more drama and crave big narrative twists may find this film too slow or uneventful. A few people after the screening said they found it too self-indulgent and I never really understand this argument. Surely if you’re making a film you want to make something for yourself, as a reflection of yourself? If others like your vision…great! Personally I found Gray’s film earnest and touching and I was fully immersed in Ivy’s reticent world. It just goes to show, a bit of small time drama can be a good thing every now and again.

• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch
• DN LFF09: The Double Hour – Giuseppe Capotondi
• DN LFF09: Samson and Delilah – Warwick Thornton
• DN LFF09: Mother – Bong Joon-Ho

Do you believe in true love? If so how do you go about finding that special, once in a lifetime person? These are the questions that send Charleyne Yi and a ‘documentary’ crew on a road trip across America, with a pit stop in Paris to see if the city of love can save her burgeoning romance with Michael Cera. Will they live happily ever after? Only if their Harley can outrun the cops and their bullets.

I got to sit down with Charleyne Yi and director Nicholas Jasenovec at the London Film Festival to discuss their documentary/fiction mashup feature Paper Heart.

Showlinks
Paper Heart
Panasonic Varicam

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: The Whites Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – Emmett Malloy
• DN LFF09: The Men who Stare at Goats – Grant Heslov

Growing up, the books of Roald Dahl were an important part of my childhood and even now they still have pride of place on my bookshelf. Some of my earliest memories are of my mum and dad reading me the likes of The BFG, The Witches and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, over and over again. For some reason though, Fantastic Mr Fox was never one of my favourites, maybe I didn’t connect with it as a child, or maybe the voices my dad used for the animals weren’t funny enough (not that I’m blaming you if you’re reading this Pops!).

I’ve always been a little wary of adaptations of Roald Dahl books, they’re books that rely so much on a childish imagination, it’s often hard to see how an adult director will capture this. A few directors have already attempted the feat (Mel Stuart and Tim Burton with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Nicholas Roeg’s The Witches and Henry Selick’s James and the Giant Peach, to name a few), but none have quite captured the magic of Dahl’s writing. If you would have asked me for a list of directors that I would have chosen to direct a Dahl adaptation, Anderson wouldn’t have been top of that list (well since you are asking Gondry, Jonze, top 2 – you had your chance Burton). However, when i heard Wes Anderson was directing a stop motion version of Fantastic Mr Fox, I was all of a sudden overcome with the anticipation of what a good combination this could be.

Any fans of the eccentric Anderson will already be all too aware of the painstaking details he goes to in order to create his off the wall visions and this obsessive touch of his really paid off with his first venture into stop motion. The worlds he creates for Fantastic Mr Fox are truly magical and the details in his sets are so precise and so well thought out, that at times it’s almost too much to take in. Even down to the paintings hanging on the walls which have been so lovingly created with such great care, that they seem to be dying to reveal the complex back stories behind them: from the stormy landscapes by Mrs Fox to the badger portraits in the office of the Lawyers.

Not only are the sets (I’m talking about the film sets, not the ones in which the badgers live) beautifully created, but they also have a strong sense of Englishness about them. Which, as an English man, watching an American director’s adaptation of an English book by one of our most prized English authors, I was relieved to see. However, whilst the aesthetics of the film stay true to the setting of Dahl’s book, the animal characters are voiced by an ensemble cast of famous American actors. This can only be the smallest of complaints though, as I didn’t find it particularly strange, just a little disappointing. To be fair to Anderson, he did use some famous British voices for the human characters, with Michael Gambon impressing as Bean and a nice little cameo from Jarvis Cocker.

Whilst the film has style and panache in abundance, it can be said to be lacking in narrative and in character development. The basic premise of the film goes a little something like this: Mr Fox is a fox. Mr Fox likes to steal chickens. Mr Fox gives up stealing chicken to provide a more stable life for his fox family. After 12 Fox years without stealing Mr Fox goes back to his criminal life style. Mr Fox is then hunted down by farmer’s Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Mr Fox gets his fox family and wild animal friends into a bit of a pickle. Mr Fox comes to the rescue. Story wise it’s enough to keep a child entertained, but for an adult audience it’s a little slender, the support characters don’t get enough time to develop and ultimately as a viewer I didn’t really care what happened to them (although maybe I’m being a little unfair as the book wasn’t exactly a piece of narrative genius!). George Clooney’s brash overpowering Mr Fox eats up most of the screen-time leaving little time for the others to shine, although, Jason Schwartzman’s diminutive Ash does manage to steal a scene or two with his obsessive desire to be just like his fantastic father.

Overall, it’s a very good film that’s definitely more Wes Anderson film than Roald Dahl adaptation. My clinical, technical head says admire and respect this film, but my inner child was left a little disappointed (and is now sulking!).

• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner
• DN LFF09: Up in the Air – Jason Reitman
• DN LFF09: The Road – John Hillcoat
• DN LFF09: The Men who Stare at Goats – Grant Heslov
• DN LFF09: The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch

Kicking off our series of interviews from the Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival, I got to chat to Bill and Turner Ross, brothers and co-directors of 45365; a verite feature documentary which explores the daily lives of the inhabitants of the American town (and hometown of the brothers Ross) – Sidney, Ohio.

If you happen to be reading this whilst the London Film Festival is in full swing, you can catch 45365 on the big screen on the 23rd and 26th of October.

Showlinks
45365
Panasonic AG-DVX100
SXSW

• DN LFF09: 45365 – Bill and Turner Ross
• 45365 – Bill Ross & Turner Ross
• DN LFF09: Trimpin: The Sound of Invention – Peter Esmonde
• DN LFF09: Still Bill – Damani Baker & Alex Vlack
• DN LFF09: We Live in Public – Ondi Timoner