Reviews

I think that when it comes to teenage dramas Ellen Page is the best person to make it interesting for a very wide audience. She has such a knack for quirky, strong, witty characters. The real joy of this movie was seeing all of the characters, likable in their own rights, snapping out this great dialogue. The father particularly was fantastic, but I have to say Michael Cera may be the Mark Hamil of our generation, having only that bemused smile look.

I have to see that this was a really interesting interpretation of the teen pregnancy scenario. Although most of the situations that the characters encounter are fairly typical of such movies, I think that all of the character's interesting reactions keep one engaged throughout.

Having said this, I'm not entirely sure this film justifies being in the top 250. Though very good, with great performances, I was a little bored by the end. There's only so much witty dialogue I can stand before it loses a bit of punch, even when realism isn't a particular concern. Ultimately this is a teen movie, but still a very likable one.

I have greatly admired David Lynch's work for a long time, and though I have not always enjoyed his films on a basic level, I have always admired him as a film maker. I don't think Blue Velvet is his best film, but I think it is the film in which he truly mastered a style which is entirely his own. Blue Velvet is the type of movie that is completely beyond generic convention. It is a romance, a crime thriller, and an "experimental" film all in one.

The characters are bizarre, but extremely well done. The small town characters are in the beginning hokey, but as the plot becomes more complex it's almost as if the actors themselves become more serious, not just the characters. It's a beautiful symbolism for small town life; a veneer of of quiet mediocrity at face value, but with a dramatic and complex core. Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini are obviously the stand-out performance, each seemingly trying to out do the other in sheer madness.

The plot itself is a very interesting one, and it is told very well. One feels the determination and the helplessness of Jeffery who lunges into a world beyond his control. And it is fascinating how he manages to concur it in the end.

This may not be a film that everyone will enjoy, but I think it is a film that will interest a very wide audience. I think it's a great introduction to Lynch, and an important film in modern cinema.

I have to admit, this was not a film that I would have seen on my own accord. I hadn't heard of it when my friend invited me to this, and after a bit of research I was put off by two things: firstly that it was a monster film, and that it involves hand-held camera. But in the end this was a surprisingly effective monster flick, up to the same standard as The Host.

Firstly I was not captivated by this movie. The beginning bit in the party was frankly quite irritating. I grew to quickly dislike most people, particularly the guy behind the camera. I think that not much character development was made, nor was it throughout the film. I think I would have preferred to have come in when the action begins, not really knowing who these people were. The core of this film is the action, not the characters.

The action is surprisingly good. The special effects were fantastic, and even in vast New York one feels a certain claustrophobia. The pacing was very good, and the action was nicely quick. It wasn't lingered on, and it wasn't built up to. It was sudden and horrific, making it seem more like the danger could come from anywhere at any time. The danger of the large beast and then the little creatures made the danger feel both epic and personal.

I had heard before this film that we wouldn't see the creature, and that certainly would have disappointed me, I think. I think that the hand-held really made the creature more real, as we only see brief glimpses of it until the very end (which sort of countered the effectiveness of the rest of the movie, to an extent). The fact that we didn't really know what the creature was, or what its intentions were, made the movie far more effective, as one never knew what was going to happen. Nor did the movie fall into that irritating trap of the stranger who knows everything, and comes and goes at different times.

One thing that frustrated me was the going back to the previous tape of the couple. I think I would have liked it better if that was our only knowledge of the characters. I think it was underused as a device, because it really only happened four or five times. I think I would have proffered it if the last scene, and the last video flashback, were our first real insight into who those people were. But such is life.

In the end I thought that this was a terrific monster movie, certainly one of the best I have seen in a long time.

I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of the Coen Brothers. Though I enjoyed the BiG Lebowski and Fargo, I didn't think that they were the greatest pieces of cinema. But what I have noticed in their work is an exploration of the idea of characters existing in a moral miasma, where their sense of morality does not quite fit, or where there is none altogether. We see the comedy of a man with simple morals in The Big Lebowski, a man with dreams of raising people to greatness in a world of distanced mediocrity in Barton Fink. Fargo and Miller's Crossing come closer to this work, the former being trying to be not too bad in an immoral world, and the latter just trying to have things turn out alright in the same. All of these films however missed out on something which I think they capture incredibly well in this film; I just don't think it's any one thing. This is a pure exercise in existential cinema, and every feature contributes towards it.

The first thing I took note of was the character of Anton, who immediately struck me as a sort of Hannibal Lector type character. He is so exceptional at what he does that the wise know they cannot beat him, and the foolish fail in trying. Yet Lector cannot sustain believability because he is not human; he is so good that he never gets hurt. The Coens did exceptionally well at showing that he is not invincible, and in the end it is the simplest scenarios that challenge him the most, as shown in the story told by the Sheriff about killing the steer. Even something as simple as his haircut, which is so boyish, is used to great effect. He is simultaneously real and unreal.

The Sheriff and Moss are both excellent counter-points to the world in which they live in. Anton is an amoral killing machine, and these other two could hardly be considered moral. Moss knows that what he is doing is wrong, and yet he never feels any guilt for having done it. In this situation he is thrust into the raw need to survive. And the Sheriff, despite being a man of the law, has no lofty principles. His only concern is to protect a man who isn't even his friend because he can. All of the characters, and the actors who portray them are terrific in this film.

The pacing contributes to this film brilliantly. In an amoral world no event is more important than another. Nothing is built up, and nothing is lingered upon. In a film with a high body count every death, though gruesome, seems to be just a matter of fact. This person dies for this reason. Whether this is a shame or not is not really at issue. The audience, not the movie makers, choose whether to care for the drug-dealers who come after Moss, or the man in the truck he asks for help, or many of Anton's innocent victims. The Coens seem to have taken a page from Kurosawa and Leone by not lingering on violence itself, but they seem to go a step further and not linger on the build-up. Violence occurs as paced and as simply as the horse-ride or the hunt in the mountains.

The visuals provide an interesting contribution to the film. The landscapes are sweeping and desolate, as are the gritty urban scenes, where caravan upon caravan, bungalow upon bungalow flow into the horizon. This is the world in which the action takes place, and it is a world in which monumental events are shocking up close, and yet lost in the horizon. The lawmen never have a chance of catching Anton because he destroys everything near him, and then disappears into the distance. HIs weapons capture this perfectly, being silent and quick, leaving no further evidence that the bodies they leave behind.

Everything in this film contributes towards this being a truly inspired piece of cinema. I recommend that everyone watch this!

I have to admit that I am quite a big fan of Julie Tamor, so what instantly made me fell at home was her very unique (very) visual style. Her psychedelic and bizarre presentation in films fits perfectly into the transitory period in which the Beatles were writing. Transition was the name of the game here, and I think the movie ultimately captures this very well, and its only faults come when it loses this edge.

So firstly, the songs are obviously fantastic; I particularly love them being a big Beatles fan. However, I much prefer the Beatles latter works to their earlier, more commercial stuff. That worked out well in the end, because Tamor mostly focused on Rubber Soul onwards, which is where I think the Beatles catapulted themselves into eternity. These are the songs that fit best into the film. The start of the movie focused on explaining who the characters were, often through songs. I thought that these were the least effective part of the films, because the songs, though good, felt the most patched on. After the move to New York, and the rise and fall of the characters, we get into their more serious, political and social songs, and this is where the music and the plot blend wonderfully. The ultimate success of this film is showing a new generation how the Beatles encapsulated a mindset of a huge part of the population, and are such a great band because they spoke for the times.

As for the singing itself, this is where I always get irritated at such films. The Beatles couldn't really sing in tune, but I love them anyway. The question is why Tamor asked the sound technicians to make every note right on key. I prefer a few wrong notes, because it makes the experience more real and immanent. It really keeps me at an emotional distance, as well. The best songs, therefore, were the angry songs, like Helter Skelter and Why Don't We Do It In The Road, because you could feel the emotion. But Joe Cocker's rendition of Come Together was easily the best song in the movie, as his raw energy shined through, and they didn't do much to his voice.

As for the way they fit the music and the action together, the use of names was twee, and I giggled a bit, but ultimately I thought it worked quite well. Some of the songs like Mr Kite seemed a bit useless, and I think some other songs did as well. Across the Universe, Happiness is a Warm Gun, Strawberry Fields and All You Need is Love were incredibly powerful.

As for the characters, I thought the acting was very good, and everyone did a very admirable job. However there were simply too many characters, and there was just too much going on. I would have preferred if Sadie, Prudence and Jojo were more peripheral, not because they did a bad job, but because they ultimately made the movie drag; as did much of the early scenes about Evan Rachel Wood's family.

But what this movie ultimately showed was change. Nothing from that period could exist. The bizarre extreme nationalism of the governments who went through Vietnam, as well as the anarchistic counter-movement were both creatures that could not live on. As were the lifestyles of those engaged, particularly the hippie movement. So what irritated me slightly was the ending, when the main characters got back together. But, as I reflected a bit more, the ultimate message of the Beatles was one of hope in dangerous and transitory times, when love can be abandoned for heartless ideals like nationalism, capitalism, revolution and even freedom. What the Beatles said, and what this movie showed well, was that love grounds life, and redeems us of our faults.

I thought this was a very wonderful movie, and I think I may enjoy it even more on a second viewing.

At the start I'd just like to say that I am completely biased about Sondheim. I think that there is very little that you can do to stuff up a musical written by him, and in many ways the less you do with it the more the music gets to shine. I think, however, from the perspective of cinema, Tim Burton is very well suited to directing this film because of his penchant for darkness, and his over-the-top style. So though I have not always thought that Tim Burton was the best of directors, I think this is incredibly good.

The music itself was excellent, and I really didn't mind the cut-down length of some of the songs. As for the singing overall, I think it feel, but only slightly, into the trap of most Burton pictures, which is having the music so loud it drowns out the singing. In other Tim Burton musicals like Willie Wonka and Corpse Bride I could hardly hear the words, and I couldn't follow what was going on. With this the balance was a bit off, but only slightly. Besides that all the actors, particularly the young boy, did a very good job. As for the other actors, well, the best thing about opera (or light opera), rather than musicals, is that a good singing voice comes second to emotion. So the quality of the action greatly forgives the very good, but not great singing. What did, and always does, grate me is how digitised the voices were. Even in serious operatic performances I prefer a few missed notes. In this, of course, there were none. And this somewhat detracts from the emotion; an angry man should not hit every note. A more frenzied singing style would be more appropriate.

I have not much to add with the cinematography itself, or with the direction. I thought the beach scene in the dream was very funny indeed, and that is indicative of Tim Burton's great mix of humour and horror throughout. One thing that I thought, though, was that the scenery dragged a bit towards the end. I got a bit sick of seeing the same old set, so by the time we got to the finale in the basement I felt a little bored. But still, not much.

The acting, however, is where this movie shines. The stars are all first-class actors. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman are all some of my perennial favourites. But the supporting cast was even better. Timothy Spall is his usual fantastic self, and Sasha Baron Cohen was absolutely hilarious. But Ed Sanders was the real stand-out performance. It was just as eye-catching as Jack Wild's performance as the Artful Dodger in Oliver.

In the end I think that this was a really fantastic movie, and I recommend it to everyone!

When I first read the Kite Runner I was very engrossed in the story. After a while, upon reflection, I considered it to be a very good book, bordering on great, and I wondered whether it would become a classic. In the end I think the power of the story will see it through, even if the writing isn't something great. The movie runs into similar problems for me, however, and I just don't think it is as good as a piece of cinema as the book was a piece of literature.

Ultimately it is a thoroughly engrossing story, and is one that is (intentionally?) very accessible to a Western audience, who may not appreciate both how modern Afghanistan was in the region in its time, and how horrific it became after the Russian invasion and the Taliban's despotism. The movie translates this really quite well, and the story shows this off nicely. Even though the initial portrayals of Afghanistan made it seem more quaint than what it actually was, I think that one had a feeling of homeliness while we were watching these sequences.

The story that evolves is a powerful one. It really is emotional, and quite subtle. It does not take any cheap shots, and it is well paced. The actors all did a wonderful job with their characters. But, although I think he did a great job, I think that Homayoun Ershadi's character as Amir's father was not fantastically written, as I felt he was somewhat austere towards his son. But this is only a slight feeling, and something easily overlooked.

What concerned me most about this film was the direction, which I can only call incredibly conservative. The starting was quite reminiscent of Stand By Me or Forest Gump, with a character remembering most of the action which is to follow. Though it's not the worst technique, it has been done a lot. Iranian cinema is, in my opinion, some of the most interesting today, and it is a shame that Marc Forster ultimately set this very interesting story within thoroughly Westernised techniques. Ultimately I believe that this lessens the effect of the scenes in Afghanistan and Kabul, alienating us somewhat from the action. It ultimately alienates us from the characters as well, particularly when it comes to some of their less liberal social idiosyncrasies.

Though accessability was ultimately the aim of this film, I felt that its powerful story had some of its impact pulled back by its very conservative direction. It really neither provokes one to action, nor really to a greater understanding of the Afghan culture. This is a very good movie, but ultimately not for its direction.

Comparisons with this movie to Omega Man are inevitable considering the drastic similarities in plot, even though the plots of all post-apocalyptic films are quite similar. I very much enjoyed this film, but considering it was a remake my thoughts kept turning to whether this film was necessary.

Firstly, the best thing about this film is the acting. Will Smith does a fantastic job, showing a wide range of emotions. Much more so than the original movie, we feel his isolation, particularly in his insanity in risking his life for his only companion, and the heartbreak in their eventual parting. Unfortunately the other character, the mother-son duo and even the main enemy zombie, had potential to be more fleshed out characters, but this ultimately failed to eventuate. What I enjoyed particularly, though, was how human Will Smith was. Even though he was a Colonel, he is scared in legitimately scary occasions, and he isn't an unstoppable hero. Unlike in recent action films, like Die Hard 4, he can't take a serious beating for two hours (a day in their time). A simple knock on the head almost kills him.

The action scenes were very well done, and the CG was very good in portraying the city and the explosions. I felt that they were not quite up to standard in the scene with the lions, and I felt the total CG effect of the vampires detracted from how scary they were; I think actors + makeup with CG editing would have been much more effective. But it was very well paced, and incredibly gripping at most points. What I enjoyed was the move away from jump cuts to scary images accompanied with loud noise which is so common in modern cinema. Such cheap tricks make you jump, but that's different to being nervous and scared, which this film makes you feel.

What I most disliked about this film was the anti-humanist religious "sub-text". I use scare marks because it was hardly sub. It was done in a very hack-kneed way, with obvious lines such as "We didn't do this, God did", with the very conservative moralistic view that people shouldn't tamper with genes, even to do something as benevolant as to cure cancer. The ending of Omega Man also has obvious religious imagery. Charleton Heston suspended, Christ-like, in the fountain of his life-giving blood is one of the most powerful images in all of cinema because of its subtlety. The end of I am Legend, with the continuous references to "listening to God', and particularly the final panning shot above the village whose only large structure is a church unnecessarily promotes quite unwelcome ideas about the ultimate moral triumph of parochialism, Christian virtue, and the evils of science (I don't even remember seeing street lights or telegraph poles).

Ultimately though, if people love a good (ultimately) horror film, that is well-acted, clever, and with an excellent script, and also one that makes you think (whether you agree with the writers or not), then this movie is definitely a must-see.

Throughout this film we are presented with many people whose lives have gone in directions they may not have liked. Kate Winslet is married to a man whose primary interest is pornography, Patrick Wilson is married to a woman whose sole interest is their son, Jackie Earle Haley is a sexual deviant, and Noah Emmerich lost his position in the police force. Throughout the first hour and a half of this film we are shown how these people have the potential for change, and yet at the end we are presented with a confusing message, one that annuls the entirety of the film. I felt this was a film that tried to do what Magnolia did, in many ways, but failed. It is a film that is very forgetful.

Let me first say that this film had some terrific performances; I was completely convinced by everyone, particularly Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson, who made a wonderful couple. The support cast, though great, didn't have a lot to work with, particularly Jennifer Connelly, who did well with what she had. The children were effective and very cute.

I was also very impressed by the brave perspective Todd Field took towards sexual deviants who have served their time, showing that they are unduly victimised for almost the rest of their existence. In fact, the storyline between Ronnie and Larry, and the small offshoots, were the best part of the film, and very well done. The ending in particular was disturbing and wonderfully redemptive.

I did however find many problems with this film. Firstly, there were some bizarre stylisitic features. Jarring the overall mood of the film were the parts at the start set in the park, which, though effective, was forgotten after the second scene. The entire setting wreaked of being a plot device after this happened, and I find that the monotony of being a wife in this neighbourhood could have been better shown. Furthermore, Kate Winslet was shown to be different to these women, and I found that this was somewhat weaved with her being an English Masters student, but this was a fact only used in one or two scenes, and then forgotten. Also, I had was with the bizarre comedy in the football sequences. Sometimes a serious film needs some brevity, but it was so out of place. I just didn't understand why it was used.

The adultery in this film reminded me of In the Mood For Love in some ways, although in that film the neglectful spouses are not shown. But, like Magnolia, this film tries to give them a story, though both are forgotten about quickly. The film could easily have done without both characters. The same is true of the strange football referee. The only side-character that was of any worth was Ronnie's mother (and what a great performance from Phyllis Somerville).

But, as was foreshadowed at the start, the ending was poorly constructed. Throughout the film it is continually showed to us the rut that these people are stuck in. We are shown time and time again the poor relationships Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson have with their spouses, and how their entire existence has become their children. Yet through each other they see themselves as beautiful, and their lives gain meaning. Neither had any drive to grow until the others came along. Then there was the reference to Madame Bovary, and we are shown in that scene how the self-destructive course that she takes makes her a powerful heroine of literature, despite all of her failings, because she dares to expand her horizons. And yet at the end of the film they come to the "realisation" that (in the instance of Kate Winslet) they have their commitments to their family, and (in the case of Patrick Wilson) he was just out for a rush. In the end the message was that the women at the start were right; that it's best to live for your children, and that Madame Bovary was a thrill-seeking slut. Though it may not make sense retrospectively, but this ending made the film at least half an hour too long. We could have come to this (rather dismal) point much earlier.

Overall, however, it is a well made film that just didn't come together, and had an arch- conservative ending. Films like this need to be brave, and there's nothing cowardly to show that a person has a huge commitment to their family, but it just seems that no-one could think of a suitable ending for these characters, so they just sent them back to their families. A disappointingly average film.

In an interesting twist on the Little Red Riding Hood tale, David Slade brings us a fantastically twisted piece that shows that thrillers are most effective at their most simple, and least gory.

Hard Candy is the story of a seemingly innocent 14 year old girl who is taken home by a very suspect 30-something, for reasons that seem not entirely honourable at the start. The mood quickly changes from a curiously funny and slantedly "romantic" beginning to a suspenseful and depraved story of a girl who is threatening a man with castration for his sick interest in under-aged children, and his possible involvement with the murder of another young girl.

The first thing that impresses upon an audience is the talent of the actors. Almost the entirety of the film is the interaction between Haley and Jeff. Ellen Page gives an absolutely incredible performance, and made her character into one of the most complex and fascinating villains in cinema, up there with Kevin Spacy as Kaiser Sose, and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector. She is an amoral anti-hero with a cutting wit, a sly sense of humour, and is powerful beyond her physical attributes. Jeff Kohlver brings a great gravity to his character. Though we are aware from the start that he takes a sick interest in young children, and even when he is all but outed as a paedophile, one still feels that what he undergoes in the film is undeserved.

But the atmosphere of suspense is what makes this movie as brilliant as it is. The film is almost entirely set in Jeff's house, and Jeff spends most of the film tied up, in discussion with Hayley. The threat of carstration provides the perfect terror. It is something that is utterly horrible, but not something that is so unbelievable beyond our possible experience, that the audience is allowed to relate to it in a way that the almost silly premise of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre denies from us. Here is a strange situation, but one that is entirely possible, and one that we can relate to. But, as a sign of the excellence of the direction, the "action" scenes never break this mood. They are believable, and yet dramatic. Jeff's attempts to get back at Hayley are excellently conceived, and Hayley's ability to keep Jeff in check, physically at first, and mentally in the end, were perfectly executed.

This is really the movie that does what thrillers should be trying to do. Unlike Hostel, which I considered to have a similar intention in mind, it works without pretension, without resorting to senseless violence, and without pandering to the lowest common denomenator of audiences. By being clever, both in the concept and the dialogue, it makes it a film that can be enjoyed on many levels, and therefore a fantastic movie for all audiences. It is truly the best film of the suspense genre that I have ever seen. I look forward to seeing the future work of the actors and the directors.

I am glad that the Australian film industry is making films about such interesting subjects, and particularly ones that have had their fair share of great films. Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting were two films that really showed the drug culture in an interesting light, and were very entertaining. But, with Candy, I couldn't help but feel like it'd all been done before, just better.

We have the plot that is reasonably standard to these melancholy drug films: boy meets girl, they do drugs, they fight, they get back together, they descend, and a possible happy ending. As far as it goes the structure of these movies is not really the point. They all follow the same structure, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, it does mean that, as a genre, you really need to be able to hammer home your points well. Those points have to do with what you're saying about the drug culture and, more importantly, in my opinion, what you say about relationships.

Before I get started I'd like to say how absolutely brilliant the actors were. Heath Ledger has really shaken off the critics and proved himself to be a great dramatic actor, capable of picking good roles, and pulling them off to a tee. His performance was one par with any great modern actor. Geoffery Rush was his usual amazing self, adding a bit of humour to the movie, but in a way that never ruined the film. Of course, earning the biggest mention is Abbie Cornish, who is beautiful and wonderful as always in this film. Her performance is just mezmorising, and I couldn't keep my eyes off her. She is so perfect for these innocent-yet- knowing, vulnerable, melancholy roles. She is amazingly professional in everything she does, and she bucks the trend of young actors in nude scenes; she retains her respectability, and she actually adds gravitas to the movie through these (most welcome, if I may) scenes.

What does let it down is the somewhat tired direction and cinematography. To be rude, the cinematographer looks like he came straight from NIDA. "This is what you do to be dramatic", "this is what you do to be romantic" etc. The story was told in a very linear way, and the title of the movie divisions was simplistic to the point of being insulting. Though I am never a big fan of comparing films, one must wonder what this contributes to the genre. The similarities between this and Requiem for a Dream were plentiful in terms of structure and story, but Requiem did it with so much style. If Candy lacked anything it was a creative oomph.

All in all it is a film that is quite average, though I do not mean that in a derogatory way, as it has come to be associated. Every feature is very competent, but that is all. The thing that does make it a cut above the rest is the incredible acting. Hopefully, with actors like these, Australian filmmakers will be more daring in the future.

I'd like to wear my bias on my sleeve as much as John Williams wears his influences on his: I love the novels of Haruki Murakami, and it seems John Williams does as well. I like to think of this film as the most faithful adaptation of Murakami I could imagine. Even though it copies no story he wrote, it captures his writing style perfectly.

It appears that have the privilege of being one of the first audiences to see this at the Sydney Film Festival, and I highly encourage everyone to go out and see this. The story is so beautifully simplistic: a man has an affair two years ago, and after hiring a detective who discovered this, his wife disappears without a trace. With the "help" of a strange man in a rabbit suit (one that would look very at home in Donnie Darko) he is lead to a brothel, to a detective, and to his memories of his affair in Starfish Hotel, his usual haunt for business trips that soon become very personal.

What I enjoyed most about this film was the steady pace, which was controlled beautifully by director John Williams. Much like in Murakami's novels, he allowed his characters to really show the complexity of their feelings. Koichi Sato gave a wonderful performance as the abandoned husband. Just like in a Murakami novel, he begins by being in a state of shock that could easily appear to be disinterest, but he portrays the character as was intended: as a man so shocked and confused by the events. As the film progresses this behaviour is interjected with periods of concern and action as he traces the path of his wife. The two female leads played their roles wonderfully, though I would have liked to have seen Tae Kimura play a larger role, I think she played the scorned, but concerned and quietly vengeful wife very well. Kiki as Arisu's love interest never missed a step nor gave away a trick in the movie. Her gazes were so complex and mysterious at times, and sensual and passionate at others. The runaway performance was Akira Emoto as Mr Trickster, the deranged and possibly dangerous rabbit-suited brochure man. He was comical and terrifying without being silly, and it every scene he was in was genuinely disturbing.

The best feature of this movie was the atmosphere. It really played out just like the psychological thrillers mentioned so much in the film. The romances are always tinged with a sense of tragedy and mystery, and the rest of the film is just downright disturbing. Seeing Mr Trickster getting more and more deformed during the film added a bit of horror without falling into cheap shock. But the best part were the incredible settings. The Hotel Starfish, Wonderland (formed and burnt), the mine and even Arisu's house were all hauntingly portrayed.

What I enjoyed most about this film is that it didn't pull any punches. It knew that it was esoteric (from the perspective of understanding rather than enjoyment), and it knew that it wouldn't pander to people who like to tune out during films, but most bravely, it never really made sense for people that were paying attention throughout the entire film. At the end there were so many interpretations possible that it keeps even the most attentive viewer thinking about the events for days afterwards. I very much liked that the film didn't make sense in that way, and I think the experience was all the richer for it.

When I was reading the description of this movie for the Sydney Film Festival I was instantly intrigued, and I certainly was not let down, as it lived both up to this description and my expectation of it.

The premise is delightfully simple: a man trims off his moustache after discussing the possibility with his partner, and after he does so she seems adamant that she never had one in the first place. The entire first half of the film is centred around the conflict that follows, and because of its simplicity I think it is the strongest part of the film. At first it is utterly engaging because of the way Marc responds to everyone's apprent disinterest in his new appearance. He is genuinely upset when his friends, and particularly his wife, do not respond to the change. I thought that it was an effective insight into relationships on the part of Carrere, showing how such a small thing can become such a big issue for a couple. The other feature of the first part of the film was the story regarding the radiator, which sets up the possibility that this could be an elaborate hoax. Though, from the naturalistic perspective the movie takes, it is absurd to think that his wife and friends could have orchestrated the entire affair, it is to Carrere's credit that the possibility is always niggling at the audience.

The progression to the second half of the movie, set in Hong Kong, was somewhat jarring. The trips on the boat, though furthering nicely the interesting water motif that permeated the film, got slightly repetitive before the final twist at the end. However, the appearance of his wife in his hotel room quickly makes one forget this, and really allows the audience to form their own opinion on the matter; is this the dillusion of a troubled man, or the sick game of a strange wife.

The film was excellently written and directed, and the music was inoffensive but effective. My only quibble was the quality of some parts of the movie, but I think this may have been a problem with the reel that was used. All in all it was a highly enjoyable movie for those who don't like to always know what's going on, but most enjoyment can be yielded from it if one appreciates the insights into relationships shown here, and not just into continuity of appearance.