A GIRL AT MY DOOR is a fascinating Korean film dissecting class, race and sexuality in the guise of a familiar police drama premise; one of the most interesting films to play at Melbourne International Film Festival.
Backwater
Despite fleeting entrancements of atmospheric insularity BACKWATER is an overall repugnant film, one which recklessly embraces sexual violence, that features a plot and script that undercut the latent potential of the characters.
Gabrielle
Although the starry-eyed, soft-focus, suitable-for-work sex contained in the film is a little too close to the reproducing the condescending ideas of people with disabilities as being abnormally innocent, beautiful, pure souls, GABRIELLE offers a strong alternative to the tired stereotypes of disability.
Black Panther Woman
BLACK PANTHER WOMAN makes no claims to being a work of superior cinematography or aesthetic value, instead opting to place focus on systematic oppression in one of it’s most taboo forms – an act given the undeniable legitimacy of a black woman telling her own story, one of being pinned at the intersection of misogyny and racism.
Tamako in Moratorium
Although the characters are well crafted, the jokes are funny, and the intimacy feels genuine, without the lethargy and sullenness to weigh it down Tamako in Moratorium might have been light enough to float away.
Taking the Film Out of Sydney Film Festival
As the digital age rearranges the film industry, film festivals are looking increasingly precious and perhaps increasingly anomalous as purveyors of the cinematic experience. With this change, preserving cinematic heritage – curating retrospectives, encouraging cinema-going, screening on 35mm – becomes less a programming consideration and more a social obligation.