While I firmly agree
with recent comments about how poorly served Sydney is, cinema-wise, and I'm
jealous of other cities' curated programs, and even more I find myself green
with envy reading of the many cinephilia defenders who are travelling the world
in their various quests, I know I have to make do with what's available here. I have managed to find a selection of films,
both old and new, to (almost) satisfy my viewing habits over the last
year. And my viewing habits still mean
going to the cinema, despite the difficulty of getting there - I keep thinking,
as I'm dealing with Sydney's increasingly messed up transport system, trudging
along badly paved footpaths, or climbing those bloody stairs in so many
cinemas, about staying home and watching, on my nice, new and sizeable smart
TV, some of the DVDs from my packed shelves, or the hours and hours of stuff
recorded on my two hard drives. And
that's before I even think about streaming services! But no, off to the cinema I go.
Hong Sang-soo (younger days) |
In a year
dominated by mainstream (and not so mainstream) releases, the Sydney Film
Festival, and Palace's seemingly never ending stream of "national film
festivals" (of which more later), there have been some genuine surprises,
some interesting new venues, and some reliable oldies. In August, for example, I discovered that
the Museum of Contemporary Art was having free curated screenings on Saturday
afternoons, with four films that month, curated by MUBI's Daniel Kasman, by one
of my favourite filmmakers, Korean director Hong Sang-soo. I'd seen two (one, Right Now Wrong Then, only a week or so before at the Korean Film
Festival) but I was very happy to see (again) The Day He Arrives, and for the first time A Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, and Nobody's Daughter, Haewon.
An absolute treat, especially for being so unexpected.
Apichatpong Weerasthekul |
Then there is the
Golden Age Cinema, Sydney's newest venue, a tiny cinema tucked away under
Paramount House in Surry Hills. (It used
to be Paramount's screening room, back in the day!) The Golden Age has an interesting program, a
mix of new and old films (plus some live events), and they often pick up films
that have only had a short run in other cinemas, or films that haven't managed
to get released elsewhere in Sydney. I'd
go much more often if it weren't so difficult to get there and get home from
there. But I did get to see A Cemetery of
Splendour there (it was only on twice and I wish I'd gone back for the
second screening). And for Chinese New
Year they screened two films by Li Luo, which I was encouraged to attend by
Michael Campi and found totally engrossing and strange. And then there was City of Gold, a gentle doco about food, eating, and the importance
of writing about it - three things I love!
While I didn't get
to one of Sydney's oldest and nicest cinemas, the Hayden Orpheum at Cremorne,
as often as I used to, I was enticed over the bridge to its David
Stratton-curated Great Britain retrospective, where I saw Blithe Spirit for the first time and A Matter of Life and Death for the umpteenth, and then for the
Hitchcock retrospective where I saw the Hitchcock/Truffaut doco, Kent Jones'
intelligent and insightful tribute to a book and two filmmakers, as well as Foreign Correspondent (which I realised
I'd never seen) and Notorious (which
I've seen umpteen times and will see umpteen more times, if I can). And it was
at Cremorne that I had another viewing of my friend Margot Nash's lovely film, The Silences - even more involving the
second time. And on the very same day I
saw the lovely Japanese film, An.
What a treat.
At the Domain Theatre
at the Art Gallery of NSW, Robert Herbert keeps on curating interesting
programs around each current exhibition at the gallery, and screens the films on
beautiful 35mm or occasionally 16mm. My highlights - All the Mornings in the World, Grand Illusion, The Blue Angel, Bullets
Over Broadway, The Shop Around the Corner, Offside, Who's That Knocking at my
Door?, and the unexpectedly gorgeous Tarzan
and His Mate. (The AGNSW recently
received a irate letter from someone complaining about not being let in to a
session that he arrived nearly an hour late to; he described the audience as
"elderly and poverty-stricken".
Well they (we) may be - but they are also appreciative of both the program
and of the protocol.)
Our Little Sister, (Kore-eda Hirokazu, Japan, 2015) |
While the Sydney Film Festival is still the high point of the year, with its packed program (my favourites, Goldstone, Aquarius, Certain Women, Letters from War, Fukushima Mon Amour, Fire At Sea, Chevalier, Hot Type, No Home Movie, and a pair of terrific Australian docs, Baxter and Me and Night Parrot Stories), there are other smaller festivals throughout the year worth cherry-picking. At the Young At Heart FF I saw Kore-eda's sublime Our Little Sister for the second time, at the Mardi Gras FF the fascinating doco Feelings are Facts - the life of Yvonne Rainer, and at the Sydney Underground FF the doco on Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny (and I could kick myself for not seeing the doc on Brian de Palma.) At the Korean Film Fest I saw Right Now Wrong Then (for the first time), Two Rooms Two Nights, and Assassination (for the second time; I'd seen it at Event last year). And then there's the Silent Film Festival, whose title's a bit of a misnomer; it doesn't only screen silent films, and programs almost the whole year round at several different venues, some outside the city, and purists would complain that they don't show anything on film, only digital. But where else could I have seen the Japanese silents, Story of Floating Weeds and Dragnet Girl (Ozu), Japanese Girls by the Harbour (Shimizu), and Street Without End (Naruse)? I also saw Epic of Everest (1924), a program of Buster Keaton short films and the sublime The General (again, but who's counting?), Blackmail, and a program of suffragette short films from 1899 to 1917. And The Kid Stakes - again, but I love this film.
Philippe Garrel |
This year Palace
expanded their repertoire, adding a Hot Docs festival, at which I saw the
underwhelming Legacy of Frida Kahlo,
Stig Bjorkman's lovely doc Ingrid Bergman
In Her Own Words (not only words but lots of her own home movies -
apparently she always had a camera with her); and the big surprise, the nutty
but terrific Chuck Norris Vs Communism. They also added Essential Independents -
American Cinema Now, at which I saw In
Transit, Albert Maysles' last film, and the restored version of Kelly
Reichardt's lovely first film, River of
Grass(poster below). But both these festivals were
squeezed into the busy May/June period, just before SFF, both had substantial
ptograms, and I doubt that either attracted the sorts of audience numbers that
Palace expects. I wonder if they'll be repeated.
In this the 400th
anniversary of Shakespeare's death, I had a bit of a binge. Through the Theatre on Screen program I saw
Kenneth Branagh's A Winter's Tale,
with Judi Dench, the Globe Theatre production of Richard II, the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet, and a wonderful Richard
III with Ralph Fiennes, as well as Henry
IV and Cymbeline. I also saw Olivier's Henry V (the only Shakespeare of his I like), and Chimes At Midnight (for the umpteenth
time, but it's still one of my favourite versions of Shakespeare on film), and
then, to cap it off, the Russian Film Festival screened the restored version of
Kozintsev's King Lear, which I've
been waiting for years to see - and it was worth the wait.
Event and to a
lesser extent Hoyts are screening Asian cinema (Hong Kong, Chinese and Korean
films) on a reasonably regular basis, and highlights for me were Phantom Detective, Detective Chinatown, New
York New York, Cold War 2, Tunnel, Mr Six, Johnnie To's Three, Swordmaster, and the sexy, surprising
and absolutely exquisite The Handmaiden.
I missed a couple of films I wanted to see when they disappeared after only one
week - very annoying!
And let me put in
a word for New Zealand filmmaking. Like
practically everyone I know, I really like Hunt
for the Wilderpeople, and also the very engaging documentary, Poi-E, the story of our Song. And then there was Tickled, which screened at SFF but I missed it there; luckily I
caught up with it at its very short run at the Dendy Newtown, Since then I've
been trying to get people to see it (it still pops up every now and then at the
Golden Age); it's a terrific, if rather eccentric NZ doco about a truly bizarre
subject - and really worth seeing.
I'm on the board
of the Antenna Documentary Film Festival, which is now in its sixth year, and
slowly growing in program size and audience numbers. Highlights for me this year included the
tribute to Chantal Akerman (the doc about her, I Don't Belong Anywhere, plus two of her short films, One Day Pina Asked . . . and La Bas), The Seasons in Quincy, Tilda Swinton's lovely tribute to her friend
John Berger, Kritin Johnson's terrific Cameraperson,
the fascinating Fear Itself, and the
stunning Chinese documentary, Behemoth.
And a quick
mention of Ira Sachs' gentle and moving Little
Men, Susan Sarandon in The Meddler,
which I really liked, and the wonderful new Japanese anime, Your Name.
Editor’s Note: Age shall not
weary them! Tina Kaufman has been involved in the Sydney cinephile community
for many decades. She is a Life Member of the Sydney Film Festival and has been
involved in many of the efforts to establish a Sydney Cinematheque. She was,
for its duration of publication, editor of the great newspaper Film News, the
entire contents of which have now been digitised and made available online via the National Library's Trove facility click here