Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema wraps up this weekend and we’re trying to find a spare moment between screenings to get these reviews done. Here’s a few more films we’ve seen over the past couple of days as we prepare for a full two days of screenings this weekend including the surprise addition of Michael Haneke’s Cannes winner “The White Ribbon”; Harmony Korine’s lo-fi “Trash Humpers”; Bong Joon-Ho’s mommy issues thriller “Mother” and more. Stay tuned next week for reviews of all of those and more including Lars Von Trier’s meme-spawning (never thought we’d write that) “Antichrist.”
“Mary And Max” — The term “animation for adults” usually makes us shudder, as there really hasn’t been any smash successes in the field, and the films are usually so bent on delivering “adult” material (ie. sex and swearing) that things like plot development and entertainment value are thrown out. Well, “Mary And Max” the first feature length claymation film by Australian Oscar winner Adam Elliot finally delivers an animated film for adults that is frequently charming, utterly moving, smashingly original and has earned itself a firm place as one of our favorite films of the year. The film’s unique premise follows the penpal correspondence between two very unlikely people – eight-year-old Australian Mary (Toni Collette) and forty-four-year-old New Yorker Max (an unrecognizable Philip Seymour Hoffman). Mary, who picked Max’s name randomly out of the phonebook shares her fears, ambitions and secrets with Max who, practically housebound for reasons that are later explained, finds a kinship in her letters. They continue their correspondence as Mary continues to grow up, graduate and attend college, and as they share their successes and failures some of the themes including mental illness and alcoholism show why the film won’t be suited to little ones.
Elliot does a wonderful job here creating some beautifully distinct sets for his Australian and New York worlds. While most of the film is in ugly brown and greys, they accurately reflect the dark journeys of these characters (indeed, some of it is grim, if blackly hilarious stuff) with subtle punctuations of color when appropriate. The voice performances are aced as well, particularly Hoffman who channels the kind of older, ornery, New York Jew that would be right at home in a Woody Allen film. But the real secret weapon of the film is Dale Cornelius’ evocative score. Particularly his main theme for Mary, his pieces are ridiculously catchy and remind us of some of Mark Mothersbaugh’s best work for Wes Anderson though with a slightly poppier edge. We still had some of the pieces running circles in our head the next day.
Outside of Pixar, we can’t remember the last animated film with this much depth and artistry that actually made us care this deeply about the characters. It’s a crime that the film, which opened Sundance, still has no US distribution. We imagine that distributors are put off by the darker than usual themes presented by this animated film, but we hope someone out there grabs it and brings it overseas. This is exactly the kind of film an indie distributor could do gangbusters with in a limited rollout. The audience we saw it with laughed, sighed and cried throughout and simply loved every second of it.
Do whatever you can to see this. [A]
“The Eccentricities Of A Blond Hair Girl” — The extraordinarily brief sixty-four minute film by 100 year-old director Manoel de Oliveira tells the story of an accountant Macario (Richard Trepa) who falls in love with the beautiful Luisa (played by the striking and luminous Catarina Wallenstein) who he first notices in an apartment window across from his office. He instantly falls in love with her and sets out to meet her against all obstacles. The film builds excruciatingly slowly, as Macario almost ruins his life pursuing Luisa, before finally winning her which sets up the most discussed part of the film – the ending. Depending on how you look at it, the ending of de Oliveira’s enigmatic fable is either brilliantly cynical or disgustingly misogynistic but either way there isn’t enough in the previous hour that allows it to land with any impact. We simply can’t agree with our colleague Sam C. Mac who awarded the film an ‘A’, praising its thematic elements. While the film does sort of touch upon the current economic climate, there is simply not enough character or plot development in its sixty-four minutes to justify the film’s ugly finish. While we do agree the film is impeccably shot — in fact, a sequence set inside a wealthy notary’s house in the early third of the picture is one of the best things we’ve seen all year — Oliveira’s film is a gorgeous, but empty failure. [D]
“The Red Race” — With no voiceover narration, exposition or even character introductions, Gan Chao’s documentary on China’s rigorous children’s gymnastic program is not as shocking as it wants to be. The lack of any background information or context makes Chao’s film difficult to swallow as we can only assume that the all too brief film (which runs at seventy minutes) cherry picks the worst moments to try and make a provocative statement about China’s draconian methods to ensure Olympic gold. To be sure, there are a couple very shocking moments of borderline abuse, but the majority of it would parallel the worst sports parents in North America. Chao’s film does briefly touch on issues of patriotism, Eastern family values, immigration, and class boundaries but with absolutely no framework to the film these avenues are frustratingly left unexplored. Chao clearly wants “The Red Race” to be an eye-opening expose on China’s rigid, fascist attitudes, but the problem is his approach leaves too many questions unanswered, resulting in his own film being a sort of propaganda of its own. [C-]