Author: Kate Larkindale

Review: ‘Rush’

Posted by | Sep 27, 2013 |

There’s nothing like an obsessive rivalry to fuel cinematic conflict. Throw in the danger and drama of high-speed Formula 1 motor racing, and you have movie gold. In 1976, unlike today, it was not unusual for drivers to die on the track. So the sport attracted people who were passionate, confident and perhaps a bit crazy. People like Nikki Lauda and James Hunt. Their rivalry ignited the 1976 season which is the subject of this film. The contrast between their personalities is highlighted early. Hunt is a playboy and party animal who loves racing because of the luxuries and fame it affords him. Lauda, on the other hand, is a committed and obsessive driver whose focus is on building the fastest car. The film cuts back and forth between the two drivers’ lives as they prepare for and drive in the ’76 season. After dominating early on, a near fatal accident forces Lauda out for several races, allowing Hunt to gain momentum and take the title race down to the last round – a wet and wild Japanese Grand Prix. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this film. I’m not a racing fan, although I live with one. I did feel as if the last part of the film focused more on the racing and less on the characters, and wished we could see more of what...

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Review: ‘The Weight of Elephants’

Posted by | Sep 15, 2013 |

New Zealand films often gravitate toward themes of childhood, and this latest local feature offers a particularly grim view of what growing up can be like. Adrian is already an outsider at eleven years old. He lives with his grandmother who has her hands full with her manic-depressive son and offers Adrian the minimum of care. At school he survives on the fringes. He has one friend – when it suits him and the older, more popular kids aren’t looking. Adrian becomes fascinated with a news story about three children suspected to have been abducted nearby. When three kids move into the ramshackle house next door, it’s no surprise that Adrian becomes convinced they are the abducted children and forms a tentative, brittle friendship with the older girl. This film will bring back the horrors and the small joys of childhood. Borgman perfectly captures the small humiliations of a child’s life – swimming in the school pool, dropping a football, being teased for associating with an uncool kid… The cinematography is gorgeously documentary in style, capturing the harshness and beauty of Adrian’s world. The performances are universally strong, especially from the child actors who never show an ounce of precociousness in their roles. This speaks volumes about the strength of the direction because capturing natural children’s performances takes considerable skill. This is a wonderful film until the abrupt and inconclusive ending that leaves too many unanswered questions to be fully...

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Review: ‘The Patience Stone’

Posted by | Sep 9, 2013 |

An ancient Persian story urges a person with a heart filled with sorrow to find a ‘patience’ stone. The stone will listen to your problems and grievances until it can hold no more, and explode into pieces that lift the weight from your shoulders and set you free. It is this tale that forms the basis for Atiq Rahami’s 2008 novel, and this film made of it. Set in an unnamed Afghani city besieged by the Taliban, the film centres on an unnamed woman, wife and mother.  With her husband comatose after a bullet wound to the neck, she spends her days caring for him. Her two daughters also need care but with no food, water, electricity or money, things look grim. Apart from the comatose husband, no menfolk are around. It’s not explicitly stated but it’s evident that they are probably at war somewhere. There are no relatives left, except an aunt who it turns out is working as a prostitute. Occasionally, wrapped in her burkha, the wife steps outside the house’s gates and makes her way through streets where gunfire and explosions are everyday occurrences and where the Taliban ride through on jeeps, machine guns at the ready to exterminate whole families on a whim. It’s safer to stay inside the house, sitting by her inert husband and using him as her patience stone. As the days go by, she dissects...

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Review: ‘Tasting Menu’

Posted by | Sep 7, 2013 |

This Spanish confection is set in a world-class restaurant – the kind of place people travel across the globe to eat at and make reservations a year ahead. If you saw the documentary El Buli last year, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about here. And like El Buli, this restaurant is closing. For the final night, a mixed group of guests drifts in. A writer and her ex-husband are among the first to arrive. They made the reservation pre-divorce, and neither wanted to miss out on the experience. At another table two Japanese investors are joined by the woman who would be their translator but she doesn’t speak Japanese. A group of brash Americans fill out another table, among them the writer’s editor with whom she is having an affair.  A wealthy countess sits alone, accompanied only by her husband’s ashes in an urn.  And at the final table is a solo, unrecognised, gentleman. Behind the scenes Mar, the chef, and her maitre ‘d husband do everything to make this evening as special as possible. Mar wants things to be perfect for her guests – especially the Countess whom she is very fond of. Her husband is more concerned with impressing the investors so they have somewhere to move on to after the restaurant’s closure. But as the kitchen sends out delectable morsels, the lives of the various diners entwine in ways none of them ever would have expected....

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Heli

Posted by | Aug 21, 2013 |

From the opening sequence showing two bodies being driven across country and hung from an overpass, we know this isn’t going to be comfortable viewing. And the film that follows doesn’t disappoint in that regard. Heli is a young husband and father, struggling to earn a living at the local auto plant. He lives with his wife, son, sister and father in a tiny house in a small town in the Mexican desert. Life isn’t a lot of fun, but by working hard the family get by. Heli’s sister Estela becomes infatuated with Beto, an army cadet who impresses her with his macho exploits – in one scene he uses Estela as a barbell and does bicep curls. To offset this golden image, we’re shown Beto’s reality at bootcamp where he’s made to roll through his own vomit during a training exercise. After asking Estela to marry him, Beto decides to finance their elopement by stealing two large packages of cocaine. When he asks Estela to hide the packages in her water tank over night, he sets in motion a chain of carnage that will leave no life untouched. Brutal, miserable and probably far more honest than we want to believe, Heli is not a feel-good film. In the film’s most shocking scene, Beto is subject to inhuman torture as two young children in the room play video games....

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