Film Reviews by TE

Despite having one of the great film titles (taken from the earlier novel) 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' has not really stood the test of time (at least not for me).

It's sense of mystery is heavily diluted by the affected, highly stylised way that the young women talk to each other. The undertones of repressed sexuality are there, but everything is done with a heavy touch and the core enigma feels plain lifeless and wishy-washy. Do we care what happened to the girls?

Emotional hysteria in girls' boarding schools has become something of a cinematic cliche. Peter Weir may have got into this sub-genre earlier than others, but there are many better films from this vibrant period for Australian cinema.

The synopsis provided on here gives a very good summary of this absorbing, enigmatic film.

Four distinct plots and sub-plots (or motifs) are woven together, with a great deal left unsaid and left to the viewer's imagination. The director, Angela Schanalec, has said that her films are for "watching rather than thinking about", but there's enough of a narrative here to force the viewer to think about what has happened and what will happen to the characters. Schanalec provides no clues or guidance.

All this makes for an intriguing film, but there are no emotional hooks to draw us in further, it feels very cerebral.

Costa-Gavras does not miss a single beat in this superb narration of the true story of a young American who was "disappeared" by the vicious Chilean dictator, Pinochet, with the complicity of the American government.

Jack Lemmon gives a career best performance as the father who is at first more concerned to blame his son than the murderous authorities. The father's journey towards the awful truth is brilliantly portrayed. Sissy Spacek is also excellent as the bereaved partner of the murdered man.

The story of the Pinochet coup is one that needs to be much better known. I'd highly recommend 'Nostalgia for the Light' and 'The Pearl Button', both directed by Patricio Guzman, for further viewing. There is also Pablo Larrain's 'No'.

The blu-ray disc for 'Missing' contains a generous selection of extras, featuring Costa-Gavras's commentary on his reasons for making the film.

A film that richly deserves all the awards and plaudits it has received.

Frances McDormand has always been a fine actor, but her performances have reached a new level of truth and excellence since the superb mini-series 'Olive Kitteridge'. She has become the perfect model for the independent, emotionally intelligent older woman, tough-minded but also capable of warmth and self-doubt.

Here, her character, Fern, explicitly rejects the chance to settle down with a caring and respectful man (very well played by David Strathairn). And at the end we see her embracing the road once again after a visit to her former house.

Some reviewers have seen this as "sad", but Fern is actually making a positive choice. She is most comfortable as a loner, and she also values the transient sense of community with like-minded women and men.

This latter point comes across very strongly in the blu-ray disc extras, where the 'nomadic' life is warmly celebrated as a personal solution to the stresses and pressures of conventional society.

All this is beautifully wrapped in Chloe Zhao's trademark feel for the wide open landscapes of the American West.

I strongly recommend the book that the film is based on: 'Nomadland' by Jessica Bruder.

'Slow Cinema' has become a recognised genre over the last decade, and it is a happy antidote to the crash-bang-wallop dominance of Hollywood and the multiplex reliance on short attention spans. Slow Cinema has given us several great directors (Bela Tarr, Lav Diaz, Tsai Ming-Liang and others).

However, it has also given us some "Marmite" directors, and for me, Albert Serra is one. This film, 'Honour of the Knights', is something of a rehearsal for 'The Story of My Death', which follows Casanova and his manservant on a desultory wander from nowhere to nowhere.

In 'Honour of the Knights' we follow Don Quixote and Sancho Panza through some summery Catalan countryside, with uneventful silences punctuated by the knight's querulous, dementing obsessions.

I love many examples of Slow Cinema, but Serra leaves me baffled and inclined to think that his work is superficial and bland.

There is a sense of deliberate obscurity about 'The Story of My Death' that grates more than a little. At the same time, Serra constructs very beautiful, dark visual tableaux throughout the film.

This visual feast is in keeping with the strongly sensuous tone. We get sounds, smells, tastes and tactile images galore. We see Casanova's hands covered in menstrual blood and female arousal fluid. We see him straining on the lavotary, and we see the results. Most taxing of all, we hear him scrunching his way through a pomegranate, with exaggerated sound effects and juice dribbling down his stubbly chin.

His slow journey, accompanied by his manservant, Pompeu, is desultory in the extreme. His random thoughts and reminiscences are banal and sketchy.

Once Dracula appears, things drift into a more conventional horror genre, though everything that happens is still very mannered and ponderous. Darkness shrouds most of the scenes, with the only light coming from candles and fires. And, whilst the visual imagery is compelling, I still feel in the dark as to what Serra is trying to achieve.

Claude Chabrol was an incredibly prolific film-maker, so it is not surprising that there are several lesser works amongst his masterpieces.

'Blood Relatives' was released in 1978, and it is strange to note that in the same year he released 'Violette Noziere', one of his finest films. Perhaps 'Blood Relatives' shows that he struggled with the transition from France to America / Canada. It certainly comes across as laboured and 'stiff', unlike his French movies. In many ways it is nothing more than an average TV murder mystery from the 1970s.

The film is based on an Ed McBain novel. Donald Sutherland's presence helps a little, but overall it feels like a low budget, low energy project.

Another Kusturica film that has not aged well. 'Black Cat White Cat' is a kind of Balkan 'Carry On...' film, but with ruder jokes. A typical routine sees an obese woman singer concluding her act by pulling a six-inch nail from a plank with her buttocks. There is a lot of circus-style falling over and knocking things about and smashing crockery.

There is a constant wild energy that simply gets tiresome after a while. You get the impression that the entire cast must have been jacked up on mega-amphetamines before each scene. There is so much slapstick that some of the 'slap' does 'stick', giving the occasional belly laugh, but such moments are drowned in the self-consciously madcap mayhem (much as the film's villain is almost drowned in liquidised shit at the end...don't worry, he wipes himself clean with live geese).

Successful farce has some underlying structure, and makes effective use of changes of pace. This film just exhausts without giving enough back.

A typically low-key masterpiece from Satyajit Ray. The film explores the changing role of women in Indian society post-independence, but also shows the lingering influence of British imperialist rule and the generational conflicts within families.

Ray is an expert at dealing with profound themes with a lightness of touch. 'Mahanagar' (which means "Big City") is like the best Shakespearean comedies: the characters are beautifully drawn and are put through serious challenges, but the final emphasis is on re-birth and positive ways forward.

We are slowly drawn into the lives of the family portrayed, and there is an effortless grace about the relaxed performances from the cast, with Madhabi Mukherjee on spellbinding form as the working wife.

As stated by another reviewer, this film is (sadly) still very relevant today.

'Viva' was the first full length feature by Anna Biller, whose 'Love Witch' is a similar high-camp 1960s sexploitation parody. Biller takes the lead role in 'Viva', giving a suitably mannered performance, complete with a haughty scowl and a wardrobe full of gaudy costumes.

It's a fun film which supposedly carries a feminist message, though it would have just as much impact if edited down to a couple of comic sketches.

Biller apparently drew her inspiration from the pages of old Playboy magazines, and she is very good at conveying that garish, plastic world, with all its shiny sexism and slightly sinister hyper-reality.

This blu-ray issue consists of the cinema version of 'Underground' and a second disc containing the 4-part television mini-series that was edited down to the final cinema cut (which is still nearly 3 hours long).

Emil Kusturica was once a feted world cinema director, but his status has been diminished by the politically controversial nature of some of his films, especially this one, 'Underground'. He has been accused by many people of being an apologist for the brutal nationalism of the former Serbian regime. 'Underground' certainly gives a very partial account of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and the treatment of the non-Serbian characters (especially the Bosnians) is regrettable, though Kusturica is on record as having no regrets. Nowadays his reputation is intact only within Serbia.

The film still carries a powerful, slightly manic energy, and the music is great. But overall the narrative is compromised by the director's political agenda, which has not stood the test of time.

Sean Penn certainly assembled a very fine cast for this, his second film as director. Apart from Jack Nicholson as lead, there are cameos for Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Sam Shepard, Benicio Del Toro, Paricia Clarkson and Harry Dean Stanton, as well as a good role for Robin Wright Penn.

Nicholson gives one of his better late-career performances, but the whole enterprise is let down by a dull script and a far-fetched narrative. Would Lori really be attracted to the crumpled, nondescript retired cop? Would that same retired cop really try to use Lori's 8 year old daughter as "live bait" to catch a predatory paedophile?

The interest is sustained by the gritty reality of the smalltown setting, and Penn is good at giving us the incidental details.

The opening sequence tells the viewer the film's ending, which is a shame as it reduces any tension in the final section.

The real life story of Elvira Madigan, a celebrity tightrope walker, and Count Sixten Sparre is one of the world's great romantic tales. In this 1967 movie, Swedish director Bo Widerberg gives it the full 'love is all that matters' treatment.

It's worth suspending all contemporary cynicism and allowing yourself to be swept along by the sheer bliss of the lovers' rapture, and by the beautiful strains of Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto (which became an unlikely hit as a result of this film and which is now referred to on cd labels as "Mozart's Elvira Madigan Concerto").

Of course, we know from the start that such happiness cannot last, but that is the whole point: nothing can stand in the way of true love, not hunger, not friends, not family, not even the fear of death.

Over 50 years on it is hard to imagine such a grandly Romantic film being made these days. But, as in the Elvis Costello song, it's worth asking: "What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding"?!

Pia Degermark looks stunningly beautiful in the lead role, and you would think that she was set fair for a great career. However, her life seems to have been blighted by anorexia, drugs and financial fraud leading to prison. Still, 'Elvira Madigan' is an incredible artistic peak to have been part of.

It's tempting to write a detailed review of this superb film, a chunk of words to describe the subtle nuances of character, longing, isolation and hope that underpin the simple narrative. But, in keeping with the minimalist brilliance of 'Las Acacias', suffice to say that this is humane, emotionally intelligent cinema at its very best.

'Let Him Go' promises plenty but in the end it proves to be something of an unresolved mix between gritty family drama and gung-ho violence.

The build-up is slow and carefully paced, sustained by a solid performance from Diane Lane. If her performance is 'solid', Kevin Costner is more 'stolid'. Looking heavy in face and body, Costner never seems to get out of second gear from start to finish.

The film sets out to be a realistic portrayal of a family crisis and the emotional abuse of a child, but in the final third all parties suddenly start taking ludicrously unrealistic decisions.

It ends up looking like a rejected episode of the 'Fargo' series: civilised people versus the backwoods crazies (who are led by Lesley Manville in a curious departure from her usual roles). The 'Fargo' effect is completed by the presence of Jeffrey Donovan among the villains, delivering his trademark loony grin psycho performance.