Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Archie Madekwe, Ellora Torchia, Hampus Hallberg, Gunnel Fred, Isabelle Grill, Lars Väringer, Henrik Norlén, Anders Beckman.
‘I’m sure it was just a miscommunication.’
Following the success of his debut feature, Hereditary (2018), director and writer, Ari Aster shares the same attention to the discord of strange ritual in a modern time.
The more ritual involved, it seems, the darker the deed.
Midsommar focuses on the pagan celebration and nine-day feast the small community of the Hårga partake in every ninety years: the purification ritual.
Before we’re introduced to the slow corruption (purification) of the idyllic village in Hälsingland, filled with wildflowers, people tending gardens, getting high on magic mushrooms and dancing around in white tunics, we see a relationship falling apart. We see Dani (Florence Pugh) clinging to the only stability left in her life after a family tragedy, Christian: her boyfriend who’s been thinking of breaking off the relationship for a year.
Christian’s mates don’t understand why he’s still with her.
All the boys want to do is live the life of students, go to Sweden to sleep with as many Swedish chicks as possible, while Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) shares the unique ritual of his home, a once-in-a-life-time experience with his friends while Josh (William Jackson Harper) writes his thesis about the celebration of the Summer Solstice.
So when Christian invites the distraught Dani to come along on the trip, the awkward tension of the relationship becomes the undercurrent of a journey that unravels like a bad trip. A trip that keeps getting darker played-out in the constant sunshine and reassurance of the Hårga explaining this is what we’ve always done. This is our tradition.
It’s the out-of-control pull of the constant bizarre behaviour of these villagers, that twists the perception, to see the warp of reality as the visitors are seduced into a culture so different to their own, to be swept along into the trance, helpless to stop what comes next.
It’s the subtle details that drew me into this new world, Aster and his creative team piecing together the culture of the Hårga based on James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, paganism and the spiritual traditions of philosophers such as Rudolf Steiner. The team created a culture with its own language, history, mythology, and traditions. Bizarre and violent traditions with the added trip of seeing grass grow through feet, to see the trees breath; to see flowers open and close in time with a heartbeat.
There’s brutality and beauty, like the extreme of long nights and never-ending days. The beauty cloys. Like blood clotting. It’s too bright. The flowers are too pretty.
Yet, the ritual makes the violence seem natural.
‘It does no good, darling, looking back at the inevitable. It corrupts the spirit.’
The many shades of darkness and light are used like a theme through the film, like a reflection of the person telling a lie, the truth shown in the focus of foreground. Showing the shades of Dani and Christian’s relationship is these subtleties is the genius of the film for me – the deliberate pulling away, the discord when Dani tells Christian, ‘That was just really weird.’
And Christian replying, ‘Was it?’
Then there’s the artwork and paintings and symbols hinting of what’s to come in the story, making me wonder how dark the film will get.
However, I didn’t find the film too confronting, the film not horrific because the senses have been saturated with sunlight and flowers and flutes and song; like the characters, I felt a little drugged by the grassy fields, lulled into the natural progression of the wrongness because the village becomes closed-off, the modern world, shut-out.
Without the outside world to compare the behaviour, the ritual becomes embraced, so the violence doesn’t hit as hard. I guess making it all the more disturbing. But for me, more thought-provoking because eventually, all those subtleties add up to show an interesting truth of human nature.
I’ve been thinking about writing this article since watching the thought-provoking horror, Us (2019).
Featuring doppelgängers, the film shows the horror of a reflection taking the place of our self. Scary stuff. But what I enjoyed most about this film was the humour.
The film juxtaposes normal behaviour set in a bizarre world where a copy of self is killing all the other selves.
Seeing a family fighting for their lives to compete to sit in the front seat of the car, the winner based on who has killed the most people/doppelgängers? Hilarious.
There’s also the additional delight of husband Gabe with a tissue stuck up his bloody nostril stating things like, ‘Almost looks like some kind of fucked-up art instalment.’
Director, writer and producer Jordan Peele states, “Horror and comedy are both great ways of exposing how we feel about things […] The comedy that emerges from a tense moment or scene in a horror film is necessary for cleaning the emotional palate, to release the tension. It gives your audience an opportunity to emotionally catch up and get prepared for the next run of terror.”1
Winston Duke really nailed the father character, Gabe; and I appreciated this layer of bizarre humour to lighten the strange – as Jorden states above, to, ‘clean the palate’.
But what does this ‘clean the palate’ actually mean?
And what is it about gallows humour that I find so funny?
An article published in Nature Reviews / Neuroscience, ‘The Neural Basis of Humour Processing’ (Pascal Vrticka, et al (2013)) concludes there are, ‘two core processes of humour appreciation: incongruity detection and resolution (the cognitive component); and a feeling of mirth or reward (the emotional component). Whereas the cognitive component seems to rely principally on activity in the [temporo-occipito-parietal junction] TOPJ, the emotional component appears to involve mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic pathways and the amygdala.’ 2
Yu-Chen Chan, et al summarize and further research the comprehension-elaboration theory of humour in their article, ‘Segregating the comprehension and elaboration processing of verbal jokes: An fMRI study’ (2012)3. Highlighting that ‘not all situations involving the detection and resolution of incongruities are humorous.’
They go on to quote Wyer and Collin’s comprehension-elaboration theory of humor (1992), where ‘The elaboration follows comprehension, involves the conscious generation of inferences of features not made explicit during comprehension as well as further thoughts stimulated by the newly understood situation, and elicits the unconscious or conscious feeling of amusement. These elaborations effectively involve appraising the stimulus event for their humourous content.
The amount of humour elicited is a function of the amount of elaboration of the event and its implications that occur subsequent to its reinterpretation.
The affective feeling of humor results from, and may overlap with continued elaboration of the event.’
So, humour in the setting of a horror evokes further elaboration not just because of the incongruent, it’s the nature of the incongruent: normality in a setting of the horrific.
The elaboration, further cognition of the joke makes the humour darkly funny.
In the setting of a horror film, there’s also a layering to dark humour that sparks the cognitive on the foundation of a previously evoked response, like fear.
As stated in the article, ‘The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat’ (Ohman. A (2005))4, ‘Behavioral data suggest that fear stimuli automatically activate fear and capture attention. This effect is likely to be mediated by a subcortical brain network centered on the amygdala […] When the stimulus conditions allow conscious processing, the amygdala response to feared stimuli is enhanced and a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated. However, the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited. Instead there is activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response. The data suggest that activation of the amygdala is mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus before accessing the amygdala, and which operates on low spatial frequency information.’
This is interesting with the view that further processing of a scene in a scary film, provoked by an incongruent behaviour, will break the activation of the amygdala and be, ‘mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus’ and would give the effect of tension relief (‘cleansing the palate’) and therefore, humour.
The article goes on to describe the activation of the fear response, like increased heart-rate and respiration (as we’ve all experienced in particularly scary movies): ‘The amygdala consists of several separate cell groups (nuclei), which receive input from many different brain areas. Highly processed sensory information from various cortical areas reaches the amygdala through its lateral and basolateral nuclei. In turn, these nuclei project to the central nucleus of the amygdala, which then projects to hypothalamic and brainstem target areas that directly mediate specific signs of fear and anxiety.’
You can imagine sitting in the cinema, immersed in a scary scene that has evoked the fear response: the rapid heart-beat, sitting on the edge-of-your-seat. That automatic response has kicked in.
So, those jumps you get in a horror are from that ingrained automatic response – like a reflex.
With conscious processing the fear is either enhanced through a clever script that gives layers to the idea of the horror (mediated through the amygdala), or is consciously processed as being, just a film (activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response): this isn’t real.
So either the data is further processed, where, ‘a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated.’
Or isn’t: ‘the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited.’
I think dark humour occurs somewhere in this cognition. In the further elaboration.
The fear response is already activated, through something that automatically evokes the fear-response, doppelgängers for example; then the data is further analysed when the setting is incongruent to the behaviour of the character, leading to a release of tension on the background of an already evoked fear response. With further cognition and elaboration the incongruent is resolved by processing through memories, past experiences, so the data is personally related in the context of a horror making the humour: darkly funny.
So, humour instead of a fear response including that extra processing leads to tension release and to a layered emotional response giving a fear response, mirth, therefore creating dark humour that tickles because of its complexity, its, elaboration.
But dark humour isn’t just humour in horror.
Dark humour can be satire. Dark humour can be about a cop trying to perform a dance in memory of his lost mother… At her funeral.
I recently reviewed the film, Thunder Road (2019), finding the performance and script from writer/director/lead, Jim Cummings genius. I’m still giggling about this cop falling apart because the character is so sincere and so tragic, it’s funny.
Jim was interviewed on a Podcast by Giles Alderson, and he talks about his intention to straddle both the tragic and humour of this cop having a breakdown, stating the audience will reward you when more than one lobe of the brain is engaged.5
The writing and performance of this film is brilliant because of the empathy evoked by seeing this guy grieving against the incongruity of his abnormal behaviour.
It’s the processing involved while seeing this super-nice guy, doing his absolute best in the worst of circumstances, then just lose his grip that tickles: standing, about to throw a child’s school desk, the teacher subtly pocketing the school safety-scissors included.
His mother is dead, his siblings don’t show at the funeral, his wife has left him, his daughter can’t stand him and is acting out, making statements like, ‘I hope I get mum’s boobs.’ And his job as a cop is emotionally draining and stressful.
His life is eating him alive.
But Jim continues to try to do the right thing only to end up with ripped pants.
Don’t get me wrong, the humour here is subtle and complex – like the way Jim is described, ‘Everyone grieves differently. Everyone’s unique.’
You can just see it – how the nice people describe someone losing the plot at a funeral.
I’m still giggling because the film shows how difficult life can be and how ridiculous.
So based on the same principle of processing the incongruent on the foundation of a fear response, here the emotional centre is engaged, in empathy for this guy at his mother’s funeral.
The humour is based on the incongruent because this guy is not functioning as a normal human being.
Then the nature of his behaviour is elaborated, because of the sadness and tragedy and empathy for this guy doing his absolute best.
The sadness and tragedy is modified by the incongruent behaviour, leading to further cognition, coming back as humour on a foundation of sadness that leads to elaboration creating that dark humour.
It. Just. TICKLES.
Taking the idea further: if there’s not enough tension for humour to release through incongruity, or if the difference isn’t enough; and if there’s no attachment to the character (leading to further elaboration), the attempt at humour will miss the mark.
The response will be flat: it’s just more data that flows through, marking time.
And if the humour doesn’t require further processing, and really misses that tension relief, it becomes simple. Like slapstick. And that’s if there’s a good performance from the actor.
If not, the end result will turn the audience against the storyline because the film will be a boring experience or the laughter will be directed at the film, not with it.
Watching a film that gets dark humour just right, for me, is a genuine pleasure – who can forget the gloriously funny, bad luck of, O. B Jackson (James Parks) in The Hateful Eight (2016)?!
Tarantino is definitely one of those writers and directors who knows how mix up the violent, the unexpected warmth and intellect with the incongruent.
Think about the relentless violence in John Wick 3 (2019) that saturates to the extent it’s funny.
It’s the unexpected bloody action happening to a well-liked character that absorbs with the incongruent of a deadly killer who loves his dog making John Wick a memorable and likable character adding those touches of joyful dark humour.
I acknowledge that not everyone enjoys this style of (sometimes bloody) humour – and there’s further research about the different theories of humour; think of humour used as aggression (and why people will feel superior and laugh at a movie, perhaps) and humour used in sexual selection (I found that funny too! Maybe we should go out…).
As a side note, the sexual selection theory is a concept well illustrated in the Coen Brothers’ film, Burn After Reading (2008), with the character Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) taking online matches to the movies to see if they laugh at the same joke.
A nice illustration and frankly, not a bad filtering method to find the right partner.
Whether you like dark humour or not, I’m sure all would agree that those added complicated interactions of cognition and emotion make watching a film a more rewarding experience, and one that certainly keeps me coming back for more.
2. Vrticka P, Black J. M. and Reiss A. L. 2013 ‘The Neural Basis of Humour Processing’ Nature Reviews / Neuroscience, Science and Society PERSPECTIVES 14 860 – 868.
3. Chan Y, Chou T, Chen, H and Liang Kl 2012 ‘Segregating the comprehension and elaboration processing of verbal jokes: An fMRI study’ NeuroImage Dec, 61: 899-906.
4. Ohman. A, 2005 ‘The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat’ Psychoneuroendocrinology, 10: 953-958.
5. Giles Alderson (2019) ‘Jim Cummings On Writing, Directing and Starring in Thunder Road’, The Filmakers Podcast May 29, available at: apple.co/2EydVIz
Written, Directed and Produced by: Pamela B. Green
Co-Written by: Joan Simon (Writer, Executive Producer)
Executive Produced by: John Ptak, Joan Simon, Geralyn Dreyfous
Narrated by: Jodie Foster
Cast Including: Alice Guy-Blaché, Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Michel Hazanavicius, and Julie Delpy.
Be Natural is an investigative biography, taking writer and director Pamela Green eight years to piece together the life of one of the first director’s of film: Alice Guy-Blaché.
Most enthusiasts, film professionals and critics will sight the Lumiéne brothers. The responses will vary. Rarely will the name Alice Guy-Blaché be mentioned.
The documentary is shown like a mystery, while asking the question – was she overlooked in the history books because she was the first female director? Writing, producing or directing 1,000 films, then going on to build her own studio, Solax in the U.S, alongside the likes of Paramount Pictures and Universal, how has this titan of the industry been forgotten?
Greene sets about investigating, showing her search with animated maps tracing her travels; the conversations with sources from Alice’s relatives, to archives and museums, while travelling to France, Brussels and through-out the United States.
We’re taken on the journey as each detail is revealed and highlighted with the red outline of a magnifying glass as narrator, Jodie Foster, details the findings, to cut to interviews of actors, directors, relatives and found footage of an interview with Alice herself, giving insight into the difficulties she had, not as a film maker, but to get credit for her own work.
The documentary travels back in time, to Alice’s beginnings, to her first job as a secretary working for Léon Gaumont, where at 23, she was to make one of the first narrative films ever made, La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) (1869).
This was a time when film was first invented, the company Alice worked for in France, Gaumont Film Company, selling cameras to the scientists, the inventors, to the leaders of their industry; where anything new or different was recorded like a stock shot – the ocean rolling in and tourist attractions from around the world.
There was no thought of using film to tell a story.
The general consensus was that film would pass as a fad.
For a woman to have such control was unnoticed because no one thought filmmaking would last. Alice was able to find a place in the industry.
So how is it that no one has heard of Alice Guy-Blaché? How did she get forgotten?
Even though Alice wrote her own memoirs, and that she corrected the historians time and again, her body of work was mostly lost leaving silence around her phenomenal success.
I felt the injustice, not because Alice was a female film maker, but because one of the pioneers of film-making had been so completely overlooked.
Historical documentaries aren’t my usual go-to for movie watching; yet, Greene has gone to great lengths to keep the sheer volume of information clear and interesting.
Using montages and layered screens and unique ways of showing shots of photos held by relatives; magazines thrown, one on top of the other, and the slicing of Alice’s films to show her work, kept the investigation moving like a quick wit (rather than a dry news story).
I could see the huge amount of information Greene managed to amass, the amount of work and effort obvious in getting history right this time. To give Alice, finally, her due.
Just one of her many moments of forward thinking, we learn that Alice had notes all over her studio, including a large sign, Be Natural. ‘That’s all I asked of them,’ she says of her actors.
And in the end all Alice wanted was acknowledgement of her work.
For those interested in cinematic history, this documentary is a gift. For those not looking for a history lesson, this is a doco that is more investigative, more about the revealing of a mystery shown in an interesting and clever way.
Inspired by the book “Nureyev : The Life” by: Julie Kavanagh
Produced by: Gabrielle Tana p.g.a., Ralph Fiennes p.g.a., Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Andrew Levitas, François Ivernel
Composer: Ilan Eshkeri
Starring: Oleg Ivenko, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Chulpan Khamatova, Ralph Fiennes, Alexey Morozov, Raphaël Personnaz, Olivier Rabourdin, Ravshana Kurkova, Louis Hofmann, with Sergei Polunin and Maksimilian Grigoriyev, Andrey Urgant, Nadezhda Markina, Anna Polikarpova, Nebojša Dugalić, Anastasia Meskova.
Based on the true story of the Soviet Union ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev (Oleg Ivenko), The White Crow is a film that shifts in time, from his time during the cold war, visiting France as a member of the Kirov Ballet Company in the 1960s, back to his lessons, showing his determination to be the best, the most expressive male dancer, back to the time of his childhood and his birth in 1938 on a crowded train as it travels through the snowy countryside – all his past leading to his ultimate defection from the Soviet Union to France where in a dramatic scene he seeks asylum while under the careful guard of the KGB.
We see the contrast of the oppressive days living in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the scenes leached of colour, to renewed hope after the war where the people living under the communist regime feel the bad days are over, only to see the vigour and freedom of Paris and the gorgeous be-jewelled costumes and stage-craft of lights and dancing, chandeliers and standing ovations.
The film shows the background of this famous performer, giving insight into his infamous temper and demands. He explains to his friend and French supporter, Clara Saint (Adèle Exarchopoulos), his nickname, White Crow: the unusual, the extraordinary, not like others: an outsider.
To be able to express and give all of himself in the dance, his drive must remain pure, his soul free.
Ralph Fiennes, has directed with restraint, giving the tone of the film a quiet power.
It was the silence of the soundtrack that absorbed, to hear the scraping of ballet shoes on a hard wooden floor cutting to Rudi’s admiration and observation of paintings and statues in the Rembrandt Room of the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg, showing his aspiration to be as perfect as a statue himself.
The layering of the story makes the film more than the defection of Rudolf Nureyevilm, this is about the determination of a driven and abrasive, spectacularly brilliant dancer, as he explores a world he’s only dreamed about, filled with intellectual conversation, acceptance, art, adoration and freedom.
As his long-time supporter and teacher Alexander Pushkin (Ralph Fiennes – directing and also starring) explains to the KGB about Rudi’s defection – it’s not about politics, it was more an ‘explosion of character’.
Yet it’s the love of his mother and his childhood, the flashes back to his father returning in uniform, his mother searching for firewood in the bitter cold, that gives him the strength to fight through any fear of performance.
It’s a classically, beautiful film filled with the grace of ballet and violins, the tap of piano, the production team determined to show the story with respect with the cast made-up of native Russian actors, the lead, Oleg Ivenko also an award winning ballet dancer.
What I appreciated as a viewer was the cast speaking Russian instead of English with a Russian accent.
And the setting is filmed in France, and Russia, the artwork of Géricault’s painting ‘The Raft Of The Medusa’ used to show the beauty of Rudi’s internal torment and ability to see the beauty in the tragic.
Like Rudi tells Clara Saint, if you have no story to tell, you have no reason to dance.
Starring: Ingvar E. Sigurdsson, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Hilmir Snær Guðnason.
WINNER
Best Actor, Cannes International Film Festival 2019 (Critics’ Week)
WINNER
Best Actor, 2019 Transilvania International Film Festival
Opening the Scandinavian Film Festival, A White, White Day (Hvítur, Hvítur Dagur) is a slow, bold and at times beautiful film, the outstanding performance from Ingvar E. Sigurdsson the centre piece to the background of Icelandic scenery.
I was drawn into the landscape of this film, the interest of change while the centre remains the same; the boldness and cheek of a granddaughter, the roar of a monster – it’s a film about grief but shown in images and movement and stillness, showing the process of grief rather than the narrative.
Time is shown as frame, by frame, an old farm house remains static, as each frame shows wind, snow, wild horses, a full moon at night, to daylight and green grass, and eventually, former police chief and grandfather, Ingimundur (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) arriving with granddaughter, Salka (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir).
They wander around the old house, turning on taps, finding one of the horses in the kitchen. Laughing together, the scene shows the relationship between grandfather and granddaughter; the natural companionship and exchange between them, the love.
Slowly, we realise that Ingimundur’s wife has died. He’s a widow. He used to be a cop. We see a counsellor ask him not to be so hard on himself. Not to self-criticise.
To ask: ‘What would be a perfect day?’
We receive no answer, the film cutting to Ingimundur in a rowboat with his granddaughter after they’ve caught a fish.
The editing (Julius Krebs Damsbo) sets the tone of the film, the story shown through image and object to depict the way a retired police chief’s mind works: Ingmiundur plays soccer in his purple boxes with the sea slowly rippling in the background.
He’s found out his wife was unfaithful. He didn’t know while she was alive. Now, he has questions.
The sea churns.
The film’s a mysterious family drama that revolves around the quiet strength of this man, Ingimundur, who loses his grip as he investigates the infidelity of his beloved wife. But instead of revenge, his quiet anger shows the depth of this love.
And the mystery of his love is set in the strangeness of fog and snow, as he tells scary tales to his granddaughter, while he quietly grieves.
I was absorbed into that quiet and open feeling like a strange day can create – that’s why the film’s title is, A White, White Day – where the sky and land are both white so they blend, allowing the dead to speak.
Written by: Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman
Produced by: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Megan Ellison, Chelsea Barnard, Jessica Elbaum
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstien, Jessica Williams, Jason Sudeikis, Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte.
Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) have been besties all through senior high, working their butts off so they can be accepted into the right college.
Not that they can talk about what college they’re going to with the other graduates; don’t want to make them feel bad about their choices and all.
Until Molly overhears a couple of the cool kids calling her personality, butter-face. She might be cute, but her personality needs a paper bag. Case-in-point, she’s just been correcting bathroom graffiti grammar.
So when Molly finds out the kids who have been partying all year have also gotten into Harvard, Stanford or jobs working for Google, she realises she’s missed out.
It’s time to party like it’s 2019 for the next twenty-four hours before graduation, to make up for all the fun times missed while studying like an idiot.
Sounds familiar, right?!
Another American graduation film.
Booksmart can’t be dressed up as anything else but graduates trying to figure out the next step: friendship, the safety of that friendship in a world of the unknown, sex and crushes and all the obsession and humiliation that goes with it. So yeah, it’s familiar but jez the humour is fun.
We get a bumper sticker on the back of a teen feminist’s car stating: Hot flushes? Power surges!
And a principle who spends his spare time driving an Uber while piecing together his detective novel featuring a pregnant woman whose baby kicks when she gets close to a clue.
The humour is off-beat and funny without trying too hard.
Even girls losing it in argument has been handled by first feature director Olivia Wilde so it’s not screeching but drama, somehow making a teen movie not annoying.
Molly (Beanie Feldstein) should have been a nerdy hard-to-take teen, but she’s adorable in her persistence and abrasive Slytherin nature. And her bestie Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), the loyal, patient, keen for her first girl-on-girl moment was believable making her sexual orientation a normal teen struggle rather than an attempt at the contemporary – it’s all the same teen stuff we’ve seen before made more relevant.
More than anything, Booksmart’s good for a giggle.
Produced by: Maya Gnyp, John Battsek, Sue Murray, Mark Fennessy, Richard Lowenstein, Lynn-Maree Milburn, Andrew De Groot
Executive Producer: Maiken Baird
Music by: INXS, Michael Hutchence, Ollie Olsen, Max Q, Kylie Minogue & Nick Cave, Olafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm.
With a noted very special thank you to: Tiger Hutchence – Geldof.
Michael Hutchence: ‘The trouble is hanging on to a fixed point long enough to understand it.’
I grew up with INXS, clearly remembering watching Michael Hutchence on TV performing on stage at Wembley Stadium (leading to their album, Live Baby Live) and feeling something stir.
Like the rest of the world, I saw that Michael had that something.
What this documentary shows is that Michael wanted to be more than a pop star. He wanted fame. And he wanted to be an artist.
Usually I’m scribbling notes and at times drifting during a screening, thinking of a phrase to write. But I was absorbed into this documentary because there was so much footage of Michael. Those eyes. That heart.
Lowenstein notes, ‘There finally came a time when I felt that the hype had calmed down and enough time had passed for someone who had known him well and respected that relationship, to physically and emotionally tell a genuine and respectful chronicle of his life.
That’s when the interviews began.’
The documentary is made up of footage of Michael taken by family and friends and himself with voice-overs from those who were close to him – Kylie Minogue tries to explain their intimate relationship admitting it was exactly what it seemed, the dark and worldly Michael introducing Kylie to the sensory delights.
And we witness his relationship with super model Helena Christensen, as they gallivanted around the South of France, living the dream.
Early girlfriend and long-time close friend, Michele Bennett and Helena had never spoken publicly about Michael, until being interviewed for this film.
Michele Bennett, Kylie Minogue, Susie and Kell Hutchence (Michael’s parents), Tina Hutchence, Rhett Hutchence (sister and brother) and ‘Ghost Pictures have opened up their extensive archive of never-before-seen personal 35mm, 16mm and home video for this film. Many other informants and sources have supplied photographs, sound recordings and rare documents seen for first time.’
It was so easy to think Michael was just this superficial, sexy guy. But the story of his life, in this documentary at least, depicts a sensitive dreamer who worked hard. Who made the band INXS his family.
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him alive and well in those early days, only to get my heart broken again by his ultimate suicide. Yet, there’s answers here, which I appreciate as a fan.
Whether the film gives us insight into all that happened during Michael’s heady days, I’m not sure. The band members weren’t given much of a voice but were shown alongside Michael, on stage, backstage.
What struck me was the revelation of the attack that occurred in 1992 in Copenhagen, when he was outside a pizza shop with Helena. The traumatic brain injury (TBI) he suffered lead to a complete loss of his sense of smell and 90% of his sense of taste. And he kept the injury a secret.
The later years of his life were buried in controversy after his relationship with Paula Yates became the London presses favourite topic.
All I remember from the time is the much-publicised divorce and custody battle Paula fought against Sir Bob Geldof, and the drug abuse of Paula and Michael.
Here, we’re shown the effect the controversy had on Michael while his condition took it’s toll, the symptoms from his TBI looking like the effects of drugs.
Michael says of life, ‘Sometimes it clicks and sometimes you’re fighting against nature.’
It was a pleasure to see, once again, the performance of Michael on stage and to see behind the scenes of this surprisingly shy man.
It’s a haunting documentary that satisfies the curiosity while breaking the heart.
Produced by: Red Bull Media House and All Edge Entertainment
Distributed by: Adventure Entertainment
Best Surfing Film in the 2017 Byron Bay International Film Festival
Winner of the 2018 Wavescape Category in the Durban International Film Festival
‘Either the water lets you go. Or it doesn’t.’
Watching surfing guru, Nathan Fletcher tell the story of his life, I can see how bad the drive to find that edge can be. And how rewarding.
Heavy Water is a documentary driven by Nathan’s dream to surf a big-wave by dropping from a helicopter: A Helicopter Acid Drop.
I can’t imagine the coordination, balance, strength and shear will/balls/tenacity it took to successfully pull-off this feat – the first of its kind. But on the 21st of April, 2017 – Nathan succeeds.
For fellow surfers and adrenaline fans that understand the skill involved, this is an exciting feat to watch.
But it’s the story leading up to The Drop that makes this documentary an absorbing film.
Director, Michael Oblowitz states, ‘I’m a surfing anthropologist and my baseline is good storytelling.’
A Hollywood director who surfs to escape the pressures of his career, Oblowitz decided it was time to combine his two passions, ‘To make surf movies that are unlike any other surf movie ever made’.
The documentary flows along the timeline of Nathan’s life, from growing up in San Clemente, California, where he learned to walk and talk and surf all at the same time.
There are voice-overs and interviews and footage giving insight into the Fletcher family, pioneers in surfing, from: Herbie Fletcher starting the motorised wave-ski tow-line drop, to Nathan’s brother Christian who started the aerial surfing trend and even his grandfather, big-wave original Walter Hoffman.
Riding a wave that can kill you is a family tradition.
Heavy Water is a biography showing the tight-knit circle Nathan ran with growing up, with mates like Darrick “Double D” Doerner, Danny Fuller and legendary Jay Adams (the original DogTown Z-Boy) talking skateboarding over footage of the guys skating in an empty swimming pool, the grimace of tough coolness hard-won and admired – the punk-rock style changing the face of skateboarding forever.
Nathan adopted the style, using the skate moves on the water, wanting to jump higher and higher. Eventually leading to his pursuit of big-waves.
Nathan and mates like Bruce Irons would be constantly checking satellite weather patterns searching for ‘Code Red’ swells and then travel to places like Fiji, Indonesia and Tahiti to ride waves called the Himalayas, Jaws, the Mavericks – massive, dangerous waves that can crash you into a 60-foot crevice and hold you under, never knowing if you’ll get to the surface in time, or drown.
Seeing how big those wave are from the perspective of the ones riding them; to see the awesome power of the pull of water literally gave me goose bumps.
The film has footage of guys like Andy Irons and his brother Bruce, and Sion Milosky pushing their limits, all dancing with death – some making it through, some not.
Christian Fletcher states that those lost in the water are immortal, forever at the age they died doing what they love. It’s the ones left that miss them.
The intensity and risk creates a spiritual bond, the documentary giving insight into what it takes to get to such a high level – some of the guys ending up in jail after pushing the limits too far.
Nathan leaves his entire life behind to compete in a comp in Tahiti, scoring 10, then another 10, going home a professional surfer. Only to arrive to nothing – no home and no wife.
He lived in a van for two years, chasing waves.
The film takes away the glamour of the glossy magazine shots and shows the reality of what it takes to get those photos.
The footage of Nathan and Bruce back in Tahiti, leading to that famous shot of Nathan awarding him the XXL 2012 Ride of the Year shows the motivation and spiritual mindset needed to get to that headspace.
This isn’t a stylised promo for surfing or any branding, Heavy Water is the story of a guy who wants to continue the family legacy with all the risk and reward that goes with it.
Starring: SONG Kang Ho, LEE Sun Kyun, CHO Yeo Jeong, CHOI Woo Shik, PARK So Dam, CHANG Hyae Jin, JUNG ZISO, JUNG Hyeon Jun, LEE Jung Eun.
Winner d’Or Cannes Film Festival
Official Competition Sydney Film Festival
Director and writer Bong Joon-Ho describes Parasite as, ‘a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains.’
And Joon-Ho has certainly captured a film with a difference here, where the story starts off one way, then evolves into something else so the film’s like a journey into a way of thinking or a thought that creeps up.
Parasite starts off about a struggling family, living in a sub-basement where they contemplate putting up a sign, ‘No urinating’ because of the drunk that is forever pissing outside their window.
The father, Ki-Taek (Song, Kang Ho) has no job after several failed business ventures; the mother, Chung-Sook (Chang Hyae Jin) is a former national medallist in the hammer throw who keeps house as best she can amongst the stink beetles and cardboard pizza boxes the family assemble to at least have some money coming in.
Getting cut-off from the wi-fi because the neighbour has changed their password, son, Ki-Woo (Choi Woo Shik) and daughter, Ki-Jung (Park So Dam) wave their phones around, trying to find a connection, waving past a fan cover with socks hanging, eventually finding connection up on the raised toilet.
It’s desperate times, but the family struggles together.
Until Ki-Woo gets an opportunity to tutor a rich kid.
Posing as a college graduate, Ki-Woo burrows into the life of the Park family, also a family of four, with Mr. Park (Lee Sun Kyun) CEO of a global IT firm and young wife Yeon-Kyo (Cho Yeo Jeong) who stays at home with their two young children.
Ki-Woo plans and manipulates this rich family to keep his family together – to get them jobs as well, despite the fact all the positions are already filled. And it’s easy. The family are so nice. But they can be nice. They’re rich.
There’s so much more to this film than the concept of the haves and have-nots. Yet, this is the central idea shown with symbolism like flood water running down steps – from the beauty and green grass and clean lines of a house built by an architect to catch the sun, running down to the squalor of the streets below, flooded with raw sewage.
There’s a line – Mr. Park even stating, ‘I can’t stand people who cross the line’ – and as the film progresses the more stark the difference between those above and those below.
I can see why this film is winning awards. There’s so much thought and layering in the story, carefully unveiled.
From light humour capturing how families are, to the horror of a class divide that keeps getting deeper shown with the revelation of ignorance and the fight to protect family; the individual fights against circumstance until the eventual learned behaviour: with no plan, nothing can go wrong.
The portrayal of what feels like a true-to-life tragedy is made to feel authentic because of the lightness and brevity of the family on the edge of starvation; the desperation turning relatable, intelligent people into something else.
Like the film is saying: it’s not like people who are desperate don’t know they’re desperate.
So there’s more than the class divide growing wider and the actions the desperate make trying to survive, there’s self-reflection.
Starring: McKenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga.
‘Not all ghosts are bad, right?’
In this third instalment of the Annabelle series, we find Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) taking the doll, Annabelle off the hands of some very frightened nurses – circa the end of The Conjuring (2013).
The relationship between Ed and Lorraine is as always, close and personal and sweet – unlike their life’s work of containing the demons infesting the lives of those still of this world.
It’s a familiar feeling, seeing the Warrens return, and the doll, Annabelle.
James Wan (director and co-writer of, The Conjuring 2 (2016) and also co-writer of the original, The Conjuring) co-wrote this instalment, along with Gary Dauberman. But the direction is all Dauberman – his debut after successfully writing the two previous Annabelle films.
And the atmosphere is tense.
There’s something about Lorrain’s eyes that’s used so well here – the expressive concern compared to the doll’s wooden cracked stare. This is just one of the many techniques used to ramp-up the tension.
The demonologists leave their young daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) in the hands of the ever-reliable baby-sitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) while they venture out to another job.
Most of the film is set in that 70s style house of laminate kitchen, low hanging lights and orange and brown decor. Back to the house holding the room with three locks and a sign asking, Do Not Touch Anything; filled with all the objects touched with evil, to have a priest pray over every week to keep the demons where they’re supposed to be: contained.
This is the focus of the film, the Occult Museum and the misguided friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife) who releases all within in it.
The film isn’t about Lorraine and Ed, this is about the three young girls fighting for their souls and sanity while the demon that controls the doll Annabelle acts as a beacon that calls all the other spirits.
The suspense is built on the creepy atmosphere of the house, bit by bit – the sounds of static and touches of orchestral sounds keeping up the edge. And the turn of light through blue, green, yellow and red cellophane revealing hidden spirits turn the house into something like a freak show – all set to a sometimes still silence while you wait and wait for that next scare.
There’s some lightness to break the tension, ‘Don’t touch her, you’ll get obsessed,’ says one kid at Judy’s school.
And there’s a kind of sweetness to the relationship between the girls and the want-to-be-brave boyfriend that manages not to be cheesy, making Annabelle Comes Home not horrific but still scary because of the suspense.
Some of the objects in that room really get the heart pumping – who would have thought a reflection seen in an old tube TV could be so creepy.
So there’s plenty of tension but the violence doesn’t evolve. It’s more the threat that kept me on edge.
In the end, the film felt more like a homage to the Warren family, with the recent passing of Lorraine Warren: 1927 – 2019.
I wonder if she’s still floating about, haunting anything – like ringing her spirit bells, just for fun.
