Author: Kate Larkindale

NZIFF Review: ‘Hannah Arendt’

Posted by | Jul 29, 2013 |

Margarethe von Trotta’s film-making career has spanned four decades. In that time she made herself a master of compelling academic cinema. Her films tend to be philosophical, asking the audience to engage their brains rather than just sit back and absorb narrative and imagery. Hannah Arendt continues this trend. Not a straightforward bio-pic of a startling woman, the film only briefly mentions Arendt’s past as a German Jew forced into exile by the Nazis’ rise to power. Now living happily in the US, she makes a living as a university lecturer. When the New Yorker magazine asks her to travel to Israel to cover the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, she jumps at the chance. During the trial Hannah is struck by how ordinary Eichmann is, and by his insistence that he was only following orders and that he was not responsible for the deaths he caused. By the time she writes the piece, these things have coalesced in her mind. The finished article is a treatise about the nature of evil and how, thanks to their own complacency, the Jewish people were complicit in their fate. Obviously Jewish survivors were not happy with her coverage and Arendt finds herself the object of hatred and vilification – even from her closest friends. But she refuses to bow to their pressure, even scheduling a public lecture to defend herself when the university suggests she...

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NZIFF Review: ‘I’m So Excited’

Posted by | Jul 28, 2013 |

Spanish auteur Almodovar abandons the sinister creepiness he employed on his last outing, The Skin I Live In, and returns the exuberant, campy, colourful style that infused his early work. Flight 2549 is in trouble – thanks to an inattentive groundcrewman, played by Antonio Banderas. The landing gear is jammed inside the plane and the flight is forced to circle endlessly while a runway suitable for an emergency landing is found. To avoid the dreaded “Economy Class Syndrome”, the plane’s economy passengers, and their two female flight attendants, are drugged. Meanwhile, the three very gay male attendants in charge of First Class, and their passengers, distract thoughts of impending disaster with sex, drugs, alcohol and a very spirited performance of the titular song. The eclectic group of passengers include: a washed-up soap star, a well-known dominatrix, an extremely hungover married couple, and a cagey mysterious man. With only the plane’s emergency phone to contact those on the ground, much of the action remains within the confines of the cabin. And when the stewards lace their Valencia cocktail with mescaline, things really start going off the rails…. There’s not much substance to the film. The few references to an impending financial collapse are largely lost amid the color and froth provided by the over-the-top stewards and their constant bickering. The one scene that takes place outside the plane feels a...

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NZIFF Review: ‘Gardening With Soul’

Posted by | Jul 27, 2013 |

Last year we got to see nuns at work in the small community of Jerusalem in How Far Is Heaven. This year we’re even closer to home with Jess Feast’s insightful and compassionate film about Sister Loyola and her work with the Sisters of Compassion in Island Bay. A keen gardener, even at 90, Sister Loyola is still the head gardener at the Home of Compassion on Wellington’s South coast. The work is often heavy but Sister Loyola does the bulk of it herself, sometimes even on crutches. Feast spent a year with the nun, following her and her garden through the seasons. Sister Loyola’s care of the land and what grows on it is shown to be an extension of the mission she vowed to undertake when she joined the order ‘to meet the needs of the oppressed and powerless in their communities’. She speaks about her life candidly, offering up insight into the New Zealand of the past and into why someone might choose to become a nun in the first place. Never have I heard such candid discussion of religion and the afterlife from someone who believes.  Sister Loyola’ ability to talk about and analyse her faith and its shortcomings is refreshing. Far from being a retreat from the real world, she shows her choice to be a nun as quite the opposite – with her...

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NZIFF Review: ‘Stories We Tell’

Posted by | Jul 26, 2013 |

I have been a huge fan of Sarah Polley’s ever since I first saw her luminous presence in Atom Egoyan’s films of the late 1990s. Since then she has become a writer and director to be reckoned with and this touching, personal documentary shows her growth and maturity as a filmmaker. The subject of this documentary is Sarah’s mother, the sometimes-actress Diane Polley. Diane died of cancer when Sarah, the youngest of a brood of siblings, was just eleven. Through interviews with her father, siblings, family friends and actors who worked with her, Polley assembles a portrait of her mother.  Her father also reads from a poignant memoir he wrote about the marriage, and is a surprisingly good sport when it comes to taking direction from his daughter. As she delves deeper into her subject, revelations come to light that would knock another filmmaker for a loop and possibly even discourage them from completing the project. But Polley doesn’t abandon her film, and the result is a fascinating portrait of a capricious woman. More importantly though, it is a treatise on the subjectivity of memory. While this is a very personal film, the actress never takes centre stage. The film is firmly about Diane and the role she plays in the memories and narratives of other people’s lives. And how different these stories are is startling. Never before has the fallibility of memory been so...

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Review: ‘Edwin: My Life as a Koont’

Posted by | Jul 13, 2013 |

This hilarious little Wellington gem is a mockumentary about the titular Edwin and his struggle to live with, and raise awareness of, the little known Koontz Syndrome. This syndrome affects many people but is often left undiagnosed, because its main symptom is acting like a complete tosser without seeing anything wrong with behaving that way. Certain his cause will be the focus of a national telethon, Edwin rents office space and hires a secretary to help him administer the funds and raise awareness for his affliction. But the telethon chooses child cancer as its charity instead, forcing Edwin to re-think his plan. A handily-lost cell phone belonging to one Peter Jackson gives him sudden access to a wealth of stars and Edwin decides to mount his own production. With secretary Lucy in tow, he heads to Hollywood to meet stars and convince them to join his comedy extravaganza. Heading his line-up is that well-known comic, Mel Gibson, whose name acts as a calling card to see others. The key to this film’s success is the irritating yet likeable lead character, and Bryce Campbell’s keenly-observed performance. Edwin’s complete lack of filter and his self-centred behaviour entangle him in situations both hilarious and perilous, but you keep rooting for him all the same. It’s little wonder Campbell won Best Actor at the recent LA Comedy Festival. Funny, irreverent and undeniably kiwi, this...

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