At the Melbourne International Film Festival - Rod Bishop discovers 'the near perfect" CLOSE YOUR EYES (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina, 2023)

 

After a 30-year absence, Spanish director Victor Erice (above, The Spirit of the Beehive) has reappeared with his fourth feature. 

Memory, death, friendship, love and truncated careers meld into the 84-year-old Erice’s three-hour film, his masterly control and quiet formalism recalling, and comparable with, the later films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

For those who believe the best of cinema is preferable to real life, there’s a lot to relish in this story of a “heart-throb” actor who walked off a film set 20 years ago. He left no trace, no body, and the film unfinished. Many presumed suicide, but the film’s director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), an old friend of the actor, thinks otherwise.

Miguel talks of his doomed film on an investigative television program and it produces one viewer who claims to know of the actor’s possible location. Miguel sets out to find him.

In a lengthy but always absorbing quest, Miguel reconnects with the actor’s daughter; the film’s original editor; and a woman both he and the actor once loved. 

There’s padding though, and it’s filmic in-jokes. Knowing mentions of Dreyer’s miracles; Josef von Sternberg; a song from Rio Bravo performed gratingly off-pitch; the film editor looking at shelves of cans and lamenting digitization; and empty, disused cinemas, bio-boxes and abandoned projectors from an analogue past.

It's difficult placing this material in Erice’s narrative. Are we meant to presume Miguel’s - and Erice’s - careers as film directors failed due to changes in production methods? Or like the actor, did Erice walk away from his chosen career? Or are these questions just too literal?  

Many films have included film buff references. Tarantino can’t help himself and is constantly winking at his knowing audiences. In Kings of the Road (1976) Wim Wenders used the film references metaphorically and made Germany’s dying provincial cinemas stand for a dead German film industry.

Closer to home, in Dave Jones’s Yacketty Yack (1973) a film crew of film buffs and a film critic verbally interject with a deranged Godard-worshipping director. The film jokes are a self-referential part of a meta-text that includes, among others things, entropy, existentialism, misogyny, chaos theory, political correctness, cultural exploitation, academic tenure and violence.

In Close Your Eyes, despite the plot of a film director searching for his lost main actor, the film jokes seem like disruptive additions. 

They are not entirely honest, either. An important sequence from the unfinished film screened in an abandoned cinema is in pristine condition. Not a sign of dust, markings, or scratches after 20 years, with no splice marks suggesting a workprint, and with a very nicely mixed soundtrack.

Maybe Erice’s film does offer some parallels with the Spanish director’s 30-year absence, but as the film progresses any comparisons fall away. If Miguel had been a plumber instead of a film director, and the actor his lost brother, Close Your Eyes would still have the same power and emotional strength.

This compelling, near perfect work with its mesmerizing performances from all in the cast, didn’t need the in-jokes. 

Maybe it’s one of the reasons some have referred to Close Your Eyes as a “near masterpiece”.

THE CURRENT CINEMA - Bill Mousoulis presents his latest film MY DARLING IN STIRLING (Australia, 2023)

A shout out for friend Bill Mousoulis (above), the Charley Varrick of Australian independent film-making, an indefatigable force working constantly on behalf of a sector that simply doesn't get enough attention. Bill is almost a throwback to the days before subsidised film-making, government grants and bureaucrats who tell you they dont want to read scripts because that's not the right way to go about things. Bill promotes and supports Australian independent film-making through his various websites and finds time to make movies himself.

Bill's latest film, which premiered last year at the Adelaide International Film Festival, is an homage to Jacques Demy's 60s masterwork THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. It's a musical set in the Adelaide suburbs, a love story and according to Adrian Martin a film which "As a spectator, I felt a euphoria rising within me from about minute 2 all the way to minute 79 of My Darling in Stirling. This is not only because of a feeling of immense pride in the achievement of my dear friend, director-writer-editor (and also eternal webmaster of this site) Bill Mousoulis; but also because of the compact eloquence, stylistic finesse and emotional force of the work – a new and higher plateau for this artist."

The film is having one screening in Sydney at the Randwick Ritz next Wednesday 16th October at 7.00 pm. Bill will be there to introduce the film and take part in a Q&A with critic Anne Rutherford. You can get more info from The Ritz webpage and make a booking. https://www.ritzcinemas.com.au/events/my-darling-in-stirling-sydney-premiere

The Current Cinema - Barrie Pattison recommends the unique film-making of Adam Elliott - MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (Australia, 2024)

Adam Elliot (above) can count himself as one of the rare successes of current Australian filmmaking. He looks with gratitude to the county's subsidised system. Getting Harvey Crumpet's Oscar didn't do any harm either. Stepping back from the big bucks of U.S. filmmaking has been added to his painstaking 3D stop motion methods. His animators can average ten seconds a day. One model maker spent near a week gumming in the wire whiskers of the bearded puppet character. This all means Elliot's work comes out widely enough spaced for us to forget about him in between them. It's been five years since his Mary and Max.

Elliot's new film Memoir of a Snail moves away from that one's international model – no U.S. setting, no Hollywood actors. This one embeds itself in the Australia ugly – a protagonist with a cleft palette ridiculed by schoolmates until her protective pyromaniac brother sorts them out. "Childhood is like being drunk: everyone remembers what you did, except you." Separated after the death of their wannabe fire eater parents, young Grace Pudle (Grace Poole?) is raised by a swinger couple, who retire to a Scandinavian nudist colony, while brother Gilbert passes into the care of a rural Christian order, who treat him with gum-on magnets as part of electric shock aversion therapy - till he burns down their church.

Meanwhile, in the awfulness of suburban Canberra, Grace (below), surrounded by her clutter of snail memorabilia, falls for the lure of a pipe cleaner mustache lothario neighbor who offers to leaf blow her lawn. Rendered impotent by his career repairing microwave ovens, he proves to see her as an outlet for his fat fetish. We get an extra helping of cartoon nudity including another of Elliot's bum crack jokes.

With its muted colours and littered art direction, where contributors were encouraged to make their output more ugly, we can't help wondering whether a film which is so intent on rubbing our noses in it ("masturbation is the thief of time") is going to find a place in a market that treasures Frozen 2.

Memoirs of a Snail  is determinedly Australian, littering its frames with references that even locals may have forgotten. Bulging red frankfurters in tomato sauce, Clag glue & Chico Rolls get a curtain call in Melanie Etchells' end credit roll. Dumpy Grace, echoing Elliot's mother's hoarder habits ("I'd never want to offend anyone"), rounds off a line of Australian grotesques that runs through The Sentimental Bloke, Dad & Dave, Alvin Purple, Kenny – and Fred Negro. Where are those resourceful comics of other film industries - Chaplin & Buster, Bob Hope & Adam Sandler? Hoges is all alone here.

Voice casting presented a challenge. Jackie Weaver as a wrinkly chum and Eric Bana doing a legal lion with a thorn in its paw were more than equal to their tasks and brought some international recognition but the local celebrity female stars were a dodgy match with Grace until Elliot was able to get back to casting his Melbourne neighbours after Sara Snook, an early choice, achieved status with the Succession series. Avoiding a funny voice for the lead doing a monologue commentary to an autographed garden pest, is another one of the risky choices. So far everyone seems to accept it.

The endearing Adam Elliot is an authentic one off. ("I always start my film with a sense of anger") Watching how he fares in a film climate that doesn't have a good record with unique personalities will be more than instructive. 

It's just a pity they had to prop up his personal appearances handing out those soggy snail buns. 

CINEMA REBORN - OCTOBER NEWSLETTER - A TRIBUTE TO TOM ZUBRYCKI + DAVID STRATTON, ROSS CAMPBELL and BILL MOUSOULIS

A TRIBUTE TO TOM ZUBRYCKI Tom Zubrycki (pictured above) is one of Australia's leading documentary film-makers. For over forty years  he has chronicled Australian society. His awards include the Stanley Hawes Award in recognition of an outstanding contribution to Australian Documentary, the Cecil Holmes Award from the Australian Directors Guild, and an International Emmy. Cinema Reborn, OZDOX and the Randwick Ritz are proud to present  a screening of newly restored copies of two of Tom’s highly regarded landmark films: KEMIRA – DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984) and HOMELANDS (1993). Tom will introduce the films and take part in a conversation about his life, career and documentary film-making in Australia. The evening will be hosted by Maree Delofski - filmmaker, scholar and historian. KEMIRA – DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984)  A day by day account of a sixteen day underground colliery sit-in strike which led to the storming of Parliament House in Canberra. The story is mirrored through a family of one of the striking miners. KEMIRA premiered at the Sydney Film Festival, had a cinema release and won awards including the AFI for Best Documentary, Silver Bear in Leipzig, and Best Film at Tyneside.  HOMELANDS (1993). A story about a refugee family living in Melbourne but torn apart by their conflicting desires to return to their homeland in El Salvador or to stay in Australia. HOMELANDS follows the personal dramas in the life of the family over eighteen months. The film had a nation-wide festival and cinema release and was awarded the Film Critics Circle Prize for Best Documentary. International festival screenings included Cinéma du Réel, IDFA and Margaret Mead. Tom would like to acknowledge the work of Ray Argall who has lovingly restored both of these films. 5.00 PM ON SUNDAY 8 DECEMBER BOOKINGS CLICK THIS LINK DAVID STRATTON’S NEW BOOK AUSTRALIA AT THE MOVIES Coming in November is David’s new book, the third of his critical studies of the history of Australian film. David has been kind enough to send through the Introduction to the book to allow Cinema Reborn friends and subscribers to get an early taste of what our longstanding patron’s book, a massive 660 page survey, delves into. Our thanks to him. The book goes on sale in November. The peaks and lows that have characterised Australian feature film production over a period of 30 years are the subject of this survey.  My aim has been to provide basic information, and brief critical commentary, on Australian feature films made between 1990 and 2020.  I previously published books about Australian films of the 1970s - The Last New Wave (1980) and the 1980s, The Avocado Plantation (1990) - but they were rather different from the current book, which is effectively an encyclopaedia that attempts to list all the feature films made over that thirty year period.   The 70s was a decade in which the Australian cinema, which had been virtually dormant for about thirty years, burst into life, thanks to Government support (Federal and State) and to a new sense of identity and cultural blossoming. Most of the young directors who made their first films in the 70s were interviewed for The Last New Wave and many of them went on to successful international careers. The 80s was the decade of tax concessions for the film industry, a period in which so many films were made that the level of quality inevitably declined.  There were, of course, significant highlights during the decade, but in writing about them for The Avocado Plantation I divided the films into genres rather than placing the major focus on the film directors. I had always planned to follow these books with another about the 90s, but the pressures of participating in a weekly television programme, and other commitments, intervened and the years slipped by.  So now there’s a lot of catching up to do, and the following pages contain an account of feature film production (and sometimes co-production) over three decades. I have attempted to include every feature film made in Australia between  1990 and 2020, but during a period when an increasing number of films are being independently made and when release patterns are increasingly chaotic, I haven’t been entirely successful in accomplishing this. I have no doubt that some films are missing, but I hope there are not too many of them. …I hope this book will provide useful information and perhaps encourage further investigation and research into some of the forgotten feature films of the past quarter century. David Stratton BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE…. Veteran Melbourne cinephile Ross Campbell has published a remarkable memoir titled …MELBOURNE AT THE MOVIES: Confessions of a Certified Cinephile. The book is a labour of love chronicling what Ross describes as the excitement and brilliance of the city’s vibrant film culture as seen through the life of a movie obsessed Melburnian. More information and a link to purchase IF YOU CLICK HERE BILL MOUSOULIS PRESENTS MY DARLING IN STIRLING Stalwart supporter of Cinema Reborn and champion of independent Australian cinema Bill Mousoulis is screening his new film in Sydney on Wednesday 16 October at the Randwick Ritz.The film premiered at the Adelaide International Film Festival and is a contemporary and experimental musical, Bill’s 11th feature in a career spanning 40 years. My Darling in Stirling is a low-budget community effort, highlighting the town of Stirling situated in the Adelaide Hills. A fairy-tale but realist musical, where every line is sung, it is a joyful but also melancholic film, about lost innocence. A young woman, Emma (Amelie Dunda), studying at university and living at home with her mother and brother in the Adelaide suburbs, falls in love with a cafe waiter Nick (Henry Cooper), (both pictured above) who lives and works in the town of Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. Entranced by the man and the town, she begins to feel a sense of excitement and vitality in her life. My Darling in Stirling is inspired by the all-singing 1964 film directed by Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There will be a filmmaker introduction prior to the screening and a Q&A after the film, moderated by film critic Anne Rutherford. "A dream film, a bittersweet celebration of ordinary life."- Frankie Kanatas, Senses of Cinema "The film has compact eloquence, stylistic finesseand emotional force."- Adrian Martin, Film Critic: Adrian Martin CINEMA REBORN DATES FOR 2025 In case you need to make a diary entry, Cinema Reborn 2025 takes place at the Randwick Ritz from 30 April to 6 May and the Hawthorn Lido from 8 to 13 May. Programme announcements from early in the New Year and full programme published in mid-March.