Film - 2008 was a year in which I made a concerted effort to attend more film festivals, with the aim of broadening my awareness of world cinema (as opposed to simply the cinema from big American studios). In brief, I managed to attend film festivals from Mexico, Germany, Israel, and Italy, as well as Sydney (both the International and Underground festival), along with a trek down to Melbourne for their International film festival. It was great to not only see some brilliant movies, but to also be amongst the community-based, film-appreciation astmosphere of such festivals.
I have completed 2 short courses at Sydney University in International Film History. The first of which was taught by Andrew Urban (Urbancinefile). This course was particularly beneficial, because Andrew consistently had guest speakers from each of the countries we focused on (e.g. the director of the German Film Festival, and the Minister for Culture of Argentina). The second course was with David Stratton ('At The Movies'), where we focused on international films from the 1980's era. Whilst overall the 80's wasn't really a period of huge inspiration for me (although i particularly took interest in the British realist cinema of that time), simply listening to David talk about movies was inspiring in itself - as my bulging notepad attests to! Luminary guests such as director Jane Campion ('The Piano') and actress Rachel Ward ('Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid') also heavily inspired. Both courses were great in the sense of contextualising what was happening in film with what was happening in society. As Greek director Costa Gavras ('Missing') said; "film should act as a mirror to society, it should make people think".
Always a nice way to round off the year is to vote in the online 'Best Of' poll' for the 'At The Movies' film review show, hosted by Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton. After some consideration, these are my top 5 films from 2008 that were commerically released in Australian cinemas. The consistent theme amongst these 5 films is that I always exited the theatre a changed person; these films all had a heavy impact on me, and they all served as a very clear mirror to society.
1. Waltz With Bashir (Israel)
2. The Diving Bell & The Butterfly (France)
3. Hunger (UK)
4. Towelhead (USA)
5. Ten Empty (Australia)
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8 comments:
For what it's worth, I loved your top 3, was unimpressed with 4 and haven't seen 5.
The top three are all very distinctive and original films. 2 & 3 are both by visual artists.
My top 5 cinema releases are:
1. Transylvania
1. Paranoid Park (equal favourites)
3. Hunger
4. Happy-Go-Lucky
5. The Secret of the Grain
Grindhouse, a guilty pleasure, was just behind them.
Cool mate, haven't seen Transylvania, did that get a general release?
'Elephant' by Van Sant was one of the 'surprise hit' dvds that I watched this year. I rented 'Paranoid Park' on the back of that, but didn't get past the first 20 or so minutes (which may have been due to a mind-numbing hangover).
Only cottoned on to the brilliance of Mike Leigh after 'Happy-Go-Lucky' finished its run in cinemas - through 'Vera Drake'.
Haven't heard of 'The Secret Of The Grain', although that's no real surprise as the French Film Festival was one of the festival's I decided not to attend (rather ignorantly I presumed the program would be more Parisian love stories rather than Godard-esque brilliance).
Grindhouse was also a guilty pleasure :) I could happily tune in to the dialogue of Tarantino and Woody Allen (pre-2000) for hours on end.
Transylvania screened at the Kino. Paranoid Park looked great at ACMI but it only screened from digiBeta at the Nova and didn't look as good. The Secret of the Grain screened at Como.
I'll keep on eye out for Transylvania.. that's 2 years running now that your top film has been set in Romania.
If you can be bothered, i'd be interested to read your top 5 dvd movies this year (from any release period). Need to have a think about mine..
I don't watch much DVD, though I saw some pretty amazing stuff with Kieslowski's Dekalog, some of the most amazing cinema ever, though I believe it was made for TV.
My other picks are:
* Curb Your Enthusiasm, seasons 1-6 (TV series with Larry David)
* Kieslowski's Blind Chance
* Kieslowski's A Short Story About Killing
* Richard Kelly's Southland Tales
* Andrei Zvyagintev's The Banishment
* Alan Clarke's The Firm
Cheers dude, i'll look into a few of those.. it's funny, a friend just recommended 'The Banishment' to me the other day.
I watched 'The Secret Of The Grain' last night.. took a little while to start to take form, but when it did it just left me buzzing. Isn't it fabulous!
I'm about to start contributing for an Australian film & culture website (www.twoflatwhites.com), so i'm now kind of focusing on catching up on Australian cinema. Two DVDs which left me reeling recently were 'The Piano' and 'Lantana'.
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