GFF Reviews

Category: GFF strand – Country Focus

  • Andrea Gets A Divorce

    I really liked this! I really love the dry Austrian humour, beautifully underplayed to maximum effect.

    Andrea is a cop in a sleepy little town in the Austrian countryside where nothing ever happens, but things are looking up! She just got a big promotion to detective, which will involve moving to a more lively city, and she’s finally getting a divorce from her good-for-nothing husband. She goes to a colleague’s birthday party, only for her husband to turn up, be an obnoxious messy drunk, cause a scene, and have to have his car keys confiscated so he doesn’t get behind the wheel. She tries to salvage her evening, but it’s pretty much ruined, so after a while she goes home. The momentary distraction of a phone call makes her hit something out on the dark country roads. It is, you guessed it, the worthless ex.

    What follows is Andrea trying to hold down her guilt and keep her world together, as she flees the scene and tries to carry on like it never happened. Her stoic and pragmatic nature make this seem achievable, and it might be, had not the blame for the accident come to fall on the shoulders of Franz Leitner, the local R.E. teacher, whose moral handwringing becomes the bain of Andrea’s existence. It’s so funny, just watching how quietly irritated she is at this man being so apologetic, kind, and remorseful.

    I think that’s what I really loved about this movie, it’s almost entirely about good people. For all the situation has put them into conflict, and the choices they make are not great, everyone in it is fundamentally good. And I love Andrea carrying on with relentless practicality with an ‘only sane one in the asylum’ attitude while everyone around her has their own brand of being slightly ridiculous.

    Just really well done and really enjoyable.

  • The Water

    That was chronic.

    The Water is about a teenager living in a small superstitious village in Spain. The local river is said to fall in love with women and carry them off in floods. The women ‘get water inside them’ which calls them to the river. Ana, the main character belongs to a family of women who are said to be cursed. The curse seems to amount to the fact Ana’s grandmother was a victim of domestic abuse and Ana’s mother is a single parent. In which case, half of all of us are cursed. Anyway, the film is about the ominous threat of Ana being carried away as she falls in love for the first time.

    This film is the concept of this superstition and very little else. There are only two types of scenes, talking about love and the superstition, and talking about how boring it is to live in this shitty little village during this long hot summer, working crappy jobs and having nothing to do. And the whole film is just those two notes played over and over again.

    I don’t know what else I can say, it was very very boring. It just felt like nothing happening for a very long time.

  • Prison 77

    Another one for the all cops are bastards file.

    Prison 77 is a fictionalised story based on the real events that took place in Spain during the transition from fascism to democracy. With the prospect of amnesty for political prisoners on the horizon, the ordinary prisoners demand it cover them as well. After all, what crime is not political?

    As the main character is put through intake at the start of the film, a guard welcomes back another inmate, a familiar face, joking that he can’t keep out of trouble even in a democracy. The prisoner asks, there gonna be a job for him in this new democracy? The film follows the burst of hope following Franco’s death as life settle back into the status quo, and it seems democracy is just a word.

    The movie covers the development of the Prisoners Rights Association and their various actions. They advocate for an amnesty for all the country’s prisoners. They want freedom.

    If you don’t know how that works out, spoiler alert, there are still prisons. I didn’t know how the real events concluded, so it was still really interesting to see how it all played out in the film.

    Prison 77 examines the brutality and futility of the prison system, and how we use the excuse of not dealing with our social problems by building four walls around them.

  • The Man Standing Next

    The Man Standing Next is about the 40 days leading up to the overthrow of President Park of South Korea in 1979. This is some straight-up slick 70s spy shit right here. If you like John le Carre, this will be right up your street.

    I have to admit, I’m completely ignorant about South Korean political history, but you don’t need to come to this with any previous knowledge to enjoy it. A lot of context is given in the film and a lot of it is pretty self-evident from the time period. There are communists to the north, and this is a right-wing military government being propped up by America, as part of the Cold War.

    But things are not going well in South Korea of the film’s setting. All the main characters are veteran armed forces leaders who took part in the military coup that was supposed to be temporary, but has, by now, lasted 18 years. You have President Park, who has grown paranoid and more dictatorial in his autocratic reign. You have Director Kim, who is the film’s protagonist, the head of South Korea’s CIA, and who believes President Park has become unstable, and the government needs to move back towards democracy. And you have the ex-head of the Korean CIA, confusingly also called Park, who I’ll call Traitor Park, who is defecting to the US and outing all their secrets. This is really a story about loyalty and betrayal among old friends.

    Set aside that everyone involved is an evil fascist bastard so you can actually enjoy the movie. Spy movies don’t have goodies, everyone’s hands are dirty. Director Kim is as close as you’ll get to a sympathetic character, and even he does a number of ruthless and appalling things over the course of the film.

    But you do root for him. Obviously because he’s the only one talking sense in a room full of sycophants and toadies, but also because his is a deeply emotional journey, with very expressive but not overly verbose soul-searching. The film asks you to buy into the idea that here was the one guy who genuinely did think the military coup was temporary, that they were just there to restore order and ensure the North didn’t invade, and that there was meant to be a path to democracy down the line. It’s kinda the plot to Julius Caesar, the tragic figure among all the back-stabbing self-interested shits is Brutus, who genuinely believed Caesar was a threat to the republic.

    Director Kim is shown as having possibly selfish reasons for his actions, as there will always be a mix to muddy the waters of the human heart, but it is more interesting a story if he is a true believer, that he is genuinely acting out of concern for his country. Because he does definitely seem torn, between loyalty to President Park, a lifelong friend, and loyalty to his country, who is suffering at his hands.

    I think I enjoyed this more because I came with so little knowledge of the subject, every twist and turn I was on the edge of my seat, I genuinely didn’t know what was gonna happen next. A real tension-pounding classic style thriller.

  • Our Midnight

    A pretentious arsehole actor meets a woman on a bridge with actual real problems.

    The film starts with Jihoon’s long-suffering girlfriend dumping him, like the woman of sense she is. After a decade in a relationship together, he has no intention of marrying her, or concern about contributing financially. He is an act-tor don’t you know, and the fact he is not supporting himself by acting or any other work seems to bother him not a jot. Now they’ve passed 30, she wants to get her life started, and maybe one day provide for her family. This confirms Jihoon’s opinion of himself as the only true artist.

    With no girlfriend to presumably leach off of, he takes a job patrolling the bridges over the Han River in the centre of Seoul, a big spot for suicides. The purpose is to approach anyone standing on their own who looks like they are considering jumping, and kind of just giving them a bit of company and chit chat to deflect the impulse in the moment. They send this self-involved cretin with low emotional intelligence off to do this highly sensitive job after a quick Powerpoint presentation.

    On his first night, he meets Eunyeung, a woman who had a relationship with a coworker which turned violent and ended with his arrest, and is now being pressured to leave her job because she is a headache for HR. There’s a business with no gender-based violence policy.

    Jihoon finds her ready to jump on the bridge and chats to her, telling her he’s there to jump too, but maybe it might do them good to go for a walk for a little while. He encourages her to talk, telling her all about his problems as an out-of-work actor, unappreciated by those around him *eyeroll*. He then comes up with the great idea of roleplay, and makes her act out a scene with him in which he gets to exercise his acting chops by playing an abusive partner. He is excited at the challenge of performing one of the most traumatic moments in her life. He comforts her by telling her knows what she’s going through, because being mistreated by the person you love and trust most, then stigmatised and blamed for it publicly, that’s a lot like him not getting a lot of acting parts.

    Ugh. This guy.

    This film is shot mostly in black-and-white, is only an hour and a quarter long and yet the film title doesn’t show until 25 minutes into the movie. That’s all you need to know.

    Jihoon does go on a bit of a character arc. Arc might be overstating it a bit, maybe something smaller, like an arcmin. Anyway, he does have a moment of self-reflection, for what seems like the first time in his life. Turns out dealing with suicide has emotional repercussions, and he seems to actually consider the topic for the first time. Which, I dunno man, I just have limited sympathy for. Maybe it’s living here, in the suicide capital of Scotland, but how can you only be noticing something like that in your 30s? They say in the movie that somebody’s going off these bridges almost every day, how can you be so blind to that?

    Anyway, I’m sure he’ll use it for tools in his acting paintbox. After all, most things in this movie funnel back to being about him.

  • Voice of Silence

    Voice of Silence is a comedy crime caper about a mute guy, Tae-in, and his pal who get lumbered with a wean that is being held hostage as part of a kidnapping. Tae-in is not a bad guy, he’s just working for the only business employing in the area, namely a crime family. Usually he mostly just buries the bodies they drop, but in a manner that is considerate and respectful, as much as you can under the circumstance.

    Our anti-hero is not pleased at having to babysit an 11-year-old hostage, especially as he’s got a 5-year-old sister to look after in his broke-ass tumble-down shack. But Cho-hee, the abductee, actually becomes the grease that keeps the small family running, the glue holding it together. In the time that she’s with him, they feel like more of a family.

    I loved Cho-hee, who is the only one with any bit of sense in this film. I like how she cuts through the bullshit. When they tell her gently, “You’re gonna stay with us for a night or so”, she’s like, “Oh, I’ve been kidnapped.” And when they’re like, “No, no, we just need you to write a letter home to your dad,” she’s like, “For ransom, aye?” And they’re like, “No, no, it’s just taking him a little longer to come get you,” and she’s like, “Coz I’m a girl and he’d be much happier if he just had my brother anyway.”

    The dark humour of the film in this kinda noirish flick is really good, and the silence of the main character allows his journey of parental affection for Cho-hee not to become overly sentimental, and remain touching within this ridiculous setup. A good watch.

  • The Swordsman

    South Korean samurai movie. Go-hor-geous! A full on eyegasm. From the opening title sequence, I was every kind of Here For It.

    Kingsguard Tae-yul is unable to stop the deposition of his king, but spirits his daughter away into the mountains, out of harm’s way. Raising her as his own, they live in peace, until one day, his failing eyesight means they must journey down the mountain for some medicine. By this time the cruelty of the rule of the emperor in Qing is being felt by all, and slavery and outrages abound. As the princess unwittily gets once again drawn into the machinations of those in power, her father must rescue her, defeat the evil invaders, and avenge his fallen king. FUCK YEAH!

    Classic traditional story with secret princesses, and noble heroes, and goodies and baddies, and the whole thing just fun fun fun fun fun!

  • Dive: Rituals in Water

    What a lovely way to start of your day, with Dive: Rituals in Water. It is a documentary about Snorri, an Icelandic swimming instructor. He started out teaching adults with developmental and co-ordination challenges, and then went on to open the nation’s first baby swim class.

    What he learnt was just fascinating, teaching babies a few months old to dive and swim and stand up. I mean, it sounds unreal, but apparently before a baby learns to walk, they will still automatically hold their breath when underwater. The first time you see it, it is quite startling, and my first instinct is always to panic, but he really knows what he’s doing and pays such close attention to the body language of the wee ones.

    Once they learnt to swim and dive, he can lift them out the water, and they will lock their knees, standing upright on his hands from the age of 4 months. It’s just extraordinary.

    The swim class is also full of music, rhymes, and stories told in songs. It is a full workout for their little brains, learning rhythm, communication, interaction, co-ordination, balance and movement.

    The film is really good at bringing you right down to the babies’ level and showing their little faces as they figure things out, grow in confidence in their dives, and trust their parents as they introduce them to these new things. You see each of their wee personalities shine through. Just a lovely documentary.

  • The Third Marriage

    The Third Marriage is a movie about how we fall in love with our friends. Martin is an old grumpy gay guy left bankrupt by the death of his husband. Tamara is an African migrant who needs to marry for a visa. A deal is done and they shack up to prove the validity of their relationship. With humour and warmth, a friendship forms.

    I loved Tamara. She blows into his life like a whirlwind. A boundary-crossing, nosey, grabby, messy, presumptuous, demanding, high-maintence ball of life you can’t help but love. She makes a beautiful mess of his life and her own. Heartwarming.

  • For A Happy Life

    For A Happy Life is about love overcoming the insurmountable problem of one person not being Pakistani. An Algerian lass is in love with a Pakistani boy, whose parents are determined to marry him off to his cousin. The movie follows the unbelievable shitshow fallout of them struggling to be together.