MELBOURNE FILM FESTIVAL 2007 – PREVIEW

"taboo realms of behaviour"

The ensuing media coverage and public outcry over this incident uncovered a secret community of zoophiles – or ‘zoos’ – which prompted filmmaker Robinson Devor to investigate further. His expressionistic rendering of how apparently upstanding citizens banded together into the most taboo realms of behaviour reveals the enormous gulf between what we appear to be and who we really are. (Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.)

But for a film with real bite, try Teeth (US) – the film about Dawn (Jess Weixler), a high school student who discovers she is a living example of vagina dentata …

“The title, Forbidden Pleasure, happened organically after seeing a film at Berlin, I think it was,” says Moore. “It might have been Exterminating Angles … and we (Moore and fellow festival programmer Nick Feik) thought that we could curate a sidebar, fitting into it several films that deal with taboo subjects.”

There is very little in Australian cinema that tackles such subjects, Moore notes. “And it’s also important to organise films into accessible sections – both from a curatorial and marketing point of view.”

Moore’s first objectives as incoming director were to put more emphasis on retrospectives, “to celebrate some cinematic glories of the past”, hence the Hirokazu Kore-eda program of half a dozen films and the tribute to Shohei Imamura; to identify new cinema, hence the African sidebar, to rationalise the program so it’s more managable for audiences, especially in the presentation aspects. “I wanted to include session times, for instance, in the program guide, tighten the synopses and in general present the films in a very accessible and informative way.”

In the freshly minted Euro Debuts section, we can explore the darkness of the Belgians; like their dark chocolate, their films are often a mix of the bitter and the sweet, as they explore life in meltdown.

Take Cages, from Olivier Masset-Depasse, an erotic thriller that would never come out of Hollywood. Eve and Damien are passionately in-love. Together, they run an unusual café called The Zoo where they host an annual contest for the best animal noise. After an accident, a gulf of silence slowly comes between them. Eve communicates in gestures but no longer speaks. Damien can’t express his desires anymore. When their relationship is on the verge of suffocation, Eve takes drastic action.

Desperate to hang onto Damien, Eve makes him her prisoner, caged – like her – against his will. From here unfolds a story in which suspense (and desire) are driven by physical compulsions.

"concentrated"

More Belgian darkness in Koen Mortier’s Ex Drummer, described as “grubby, violent and propulsively energetic…”

In the longer term, Moore aims to reduce the size of the program, but increase the number of programmers from the current two, with the addition of some specialists. Future festivals may well be smaller in volume, but more concentrated. As he points out, the sidebars like Forbidden Pleasures have to balanced with “commercial considerations.”

In the latter category, we might put two vastly different films produced by Sisse Graum Jorgensen of Zentropa, the company set up by Lars von Trier. They are ‘commercial’ only in the festival context, as distinct from being suitable for multiplex roll-out. Red Road, named after a bleak housing estate in Glasgow, is Andrea Arnold’s audacious debut; the film sent shockwaves through Cannes (2006), and won the Jury Prize. Jackie Morrison (Kate Dickie) is a surveillance camera operator in Glasgow, observing a bleak public housing cluster. When she recognizes the ex-con Clyde Henderson (Tony Curran), she is compelled to confront him, despite never wanting to have seen him again. The film is a UK/Denmark coproduction.

After the Wedding, Denmark’s 2007 Foreign Language Oscar nominated drama, made by director Susan Bier and her collaborator, writer Thomas Anders Jensen (they made Open Hearts and Brothers), had such a huge response at its Sydney Film Festival screening (Sunday, June 17) that an extra screening was scheduled for the last day of the festival. And no wonder; the film is a moving, gripping drama of human weakness, devotion, family relationships and the adroit interference of fate. It’s a story about Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) who runs a faltering Bombay orphanage and when a wealthy Danish benefactor, Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) who could save the place insists on meeting him, Jacob reluctantly leaves Bombay for, he hopes, a brief trip. After a perfunctory meeting, Jorgen invites Jacob to the weekend wedding of his daughter Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen) to Christian (Christian Tafdrup). At the reception, Anna’s impromptu speech inadvertently reveals a family secret that implicates her mother Helene (Sidse Babbett Knudsen) and shocks Jacob. It’s the beginning of a chain of changes to all their lives.

On a partly personal note, Moore has curated a selection of Israeli films (Stars of David): Stars of David will provide a measured glimpse at the multitude of experiences and opinions resonating within Israel. I've had a long personal connection to the State of Israel - I still have a twenty something son there … Over the years I've noticed the remarkable transformation in the fortunes of the Israeli cinema, both in terms of its domestic box office success and its representation in major film festivals all over the world. This year really delivered an incredibly strong and very diverse selection of cinema.”

There are several other films in this Festival that avoid mainstream sensibilities and the safety of filmmaking by numbers; seek them out.

Published 4.30pm, June 20, 2007