So the Melbourne International Film Festival has concluded and normal broadcasting will resume on GrodsCorp. But the end of the festival marks the end of life in the real world for one freak who the Editor likes to call Bicycle Pump Man (BPM). BPM, to the best of the Editor's knowledge, attended every film session over twenty days at The Forum theatre. He was certainly there every time the Editor attended a film and was spotted twice from a passing tram. Also, The Editor and McBec are certain they have seen him at previous years' festivals. This scientific observation pattern clearly indicates constant attendance.

Let's make one thing clear. The Editor would love to take two weeks off life, buy a festival passport and go see as many films as possible. Unfortunately, this is not possible and nine films was all that Ed could manage to fit around other life commitments.

BPM obviously looks forward to MIFF every year and waits anxiously under his rock for it to start. When opening night approaches he dons his standard uniform: Long flowing grey hair and long grey beard, flannel shirt and jacket, jeans with too-short legs and scuffed shoes. He sports a large backpack that was observed to contain thermos of coffee, lunchboxes and books. But here's the thing: he's always carrying a bicycle pump in his hand. Always.

So the most obvious question is: does BPM ride a bicycle to the cinema or does he use the pump to inflate a little cushion? It turns out that he must ride a bicycle because one day BPM had those straps around the ends of his jeans that stop them getting caught in the chain. The second most obvious question is: why doesn't he put the bicycle pump in his backpack? There's plenty of room.

So BPM has now returned to the underside of the rock from which he came and is reflecting on the hundreds of films that he watched, bicycle pump in hand. He will spend the next 350 odd days cooking biscuits and brewing coffee for MIFF 2006. Get along next year to the Forum and say g'day.

They say:

North Korea's Mass Games event is the largest choreographed spectacle in the world. Celebrated annually, it is a mind-blowing gymnastic tribute to the zealous ideology of the state and the greatness of the North's past and present leaders. An intricately choreographed display of tens of thousands of dancers, acrobats and karate-chopping soldiers — and one of the last surviving Communist showcase pageants — it's an extravaganza for which North Koreans have spent millions of hours rehearsing.

Following two teenage gymnasts in the lead-up to the games, director Daniel Gordon (The Game of Their Lives, MIFF 03) received unfettered access to their training and family lives, as well as unlimited footage of the event itself. He delivers a film that, in addition to being hugely entertaining, explores the very fabric of North Korean society. Interweaving cultural and historical background with more intimate observation, A State of Mind is a unique and non-judgmental portrait of life in the least-visited, least-known and least-understood country in the world.

GrodsCorp says:

Absolutely fascinating and captivating documentary that provides a glimpse at the life of North Koreans. Two young girls train hard for the Mass Games in the hope that they can bring some happiness into the life of The General, Kim Jong Il. The finale is spine-tingling and heart-breaking when the girls' hundreds of hours of work contribute to a mind-blowing spectacle. Oh, and KJI doesn't even bother to show up.

They say:

The Last Mitterrand is a captivating portrayal of the compelling and complex Francois Mitterrand. Equally, it is a consummate tale of power, idealism, history and memory.

Rising to power in 1981, when socialism was in its death throes elsewhere in Europe, Mitterrand led France's first socialist government until shortly before his death in 1996.

Based on a book by Georges-Marc Benamou, Robert Guediguian reveals Mitterrand through the statesman's conversations with a young, left, ideologue, Antoine Moreau. Somewhat in awe of the president, Moreau is a journalist researching a biography of the president at his behest. He spends the last months of the president's life in his company, conversing with him on his politics, beliefs and past. He determinedly seeks the truth of Mitterrand's early association with Nazism and the Vichy government. Mitterrand suffers no false modesty and is proud that he's never been nailed for alleged misconduct during those years.

Guediguian is not overly concerned with verisimilitude in this riveting film, but evokes events to enable a more open reflection on power and truth, and to illuminate the real man behind the statesman.

GrodsCorp says:

Old man shares a life's worth of wisdom with and justifies a life's worth of actions to fawning young biographer. Interesting but nothing special.

They say:

The trade in human flesh is a brutal business driven by an international network. In his Promised Land, Amos Gitai delivers a tough portrayal of one woman's journey into the nightmare of Israel's white slave trade.

The film opens with several women of Eastern European descent huddled with Bedouin men over a campfire in the Sinai Desert. The group waits the dawning of a new day, but this delivers no trace of a 'promised land'. Corralled like four-legged chattels in a market, the women are paraded and traded, and then transported to a seedy brothel. But while Gitai portrays a harrowing world of exploitation and dehumanisation, the film is not without hope, which comes in the figure of Rose.

Gitai's films have become increasingly impressionistic, and Promised Land is no exception. The film's spare, indirect dialogue and its use of multiple tongues (often without subtitles) build the story obliquely, underscoring the lack of humanity in the flesh trade and the pure functionality of its relationships.

GrodsCorp says:

This film was shocking. Shocking as in dreadful but also literally shocking. The Editor has never seen so many people walk out of a film before. The Editor has also never covered his eyes in a film before. The raw depiction of the sex trafficking trade was sickening. Zero stars for the film as a work of art but five stars for the effectiveness of the message. The Editor has just donated $50 to Project Respect, an Australian organisation fighting sex slavery, and $50 to an international organisation, Coalition Against Trafficking In Women.
Art:
Message:

They say:

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival, Peacock is the auspicious directorial debut of Gu Changwei. One of China's most accomplished cinematographers, Gu has worked with such filmmakers as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, so it comes as no surprise that Peacock is, at the least, a beautiful film to behold.

Peacock portrays 10 years of the life of an ordinary working-class family that is coming to terms with the cards life has dealt it. At her parents' behest, Weihong works at an orphanage, but her crush on an officer makes her long to join the paratroopers. Instead, she winds up in a loveless marriage to a humble government official. Like Weihong, her brothers also struggle with the challenges of life in the changing environment of 1970s' China.

Peacock has a melancholic tone that is leavened by moments of wonderful tenderness and humour. “The compassion and empathy Gu has for his characters and their behaviour, observed without judgment or condescension, mark him as a true storyteller.” - Hollywood Reporter

GrodsCorp says:

At 2 hours and 10 minutes this film is about an hour too long. Boring, disjointed and lacking any real point, one star for having a couple of genuinely funny bits.

They say:

Dystopian post-apocalyptic blah-di-fucking-blah-blah

Goobermetrics + TAC (The Amy Commission) say:

Turgid, tedious, laborious film. Vanilla Sky was interesting in comparison.

I rate this a steaming pile of shit.

They say:

On 26 October 1979, the president of South Korea was assassinated. The man behind the barrel was the president's own chief of the secret service, KCIA boss Kim. In this rambunctious and burlesque film, Im Sang-soo portrays the last day of the president's 18-year reign, focusing on the president's tawdry evening entertainment with his cronies… but, hey, no fun before a lecture on discipline and the evils of democracy. Im assembles a top brass cast for his depiction of political carnage, which featured in Directors' Fortnight in this year's Cannes Film Festival.

GrodsCorp says:

Cracker of a film mixes black comedy with a history lesson. President gets bang from a gun while getting liquored up in readiness for a bang from a hooker. Incompetent people run around everywhere and eat noodles. Rolicking good time.

They say:

Faith, conscience and evil lie at the very heart of Volker Schloendorff's masterly new film, The Ninth Day. Based on a true story, this measured and deeply compelling film explores one of the most morally bankrupt moments of modern history. Kremer (Ulrich Matthes) is a young Catholic priest incarcerated with many of his peers at Dachau concentration camp. Unexpectedly he is given nine days leave to return to his native Luxembourg. This is, of course, no act of benevolence. Kremer is given an ultimatum: he must convince the local bishop to abandon his quiet but potent acts of resistance and support Nazism, or else be returned to Dachau where he and his beloved family will perish. This already powerful story gains much complexity as Kremer and his nemesis, SS officer Gebhardt (August Diehl), who himself trained for the priesthood, engage in a supremely choreographed debate about the temptation and fall of Judas.

The Ninth Day charts the test of one man's faith in a time of great moral depravity.

GrodsCorp says:

Priest escapes hell only to face a rotten ultimatum: endorse Nazi religious truth or be returned to hell. Lonely battle against personal temptation in world of insanity.

They say:

Robert De Niro presented Stolen Life director Li Shaohong with the top prize at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. Li Shaohong is one of the most prominent female directors working in China today. Banned in its homeland, the film revolves around teenage Yan-ni, whose prospects look bleak. Even her peasant family believes she is not going to amount to much. But when Yan-ni is accepted into a nearby university she believes she has found a way out. On her first day at school she literally runs into the very attractive Mu-yu, who immediately begins to court her. Yan-ni is getting a good education and is living with the man she loves, soon to be married, when she begins to get inklings that Mu-yu is staging an intricate scam, one that he has pulled off before.

GrodsCorp says:

Nice young girl meets devil disguised as nice young guy. Her promising university career cut short by a bun in the oven that young boy is cooking for sale to highest bidder. Young girl discovers truth and is quite pissed off.

They say:

A jolting reminder of the ongoing problems caused by South Africa's apartheid past, Forgiveness follows a white man's quest for reconciliation, and the attempts of his victim's family to deal with their loss.

Former policeman Tertius Coetzee feels guilty about the violent crimes he committed in the past. Granted amnesty by the Truth Commission but torn apart within, he travels to the fishing village of Paternoster in a quest for forgiveness from his victim's family. Unsurprisingly, he's greeted with mixed response and has a growing awareness of the complexity of coping and forgiving: rage, sadness, resignation and a desire for revenge are the inevitable emotions along the road to community acceptance.

Forgiveness is an urgent and moving portrait of human catharsis, and a film of real cultural significance. The first South African feature to deal with the politics of reconciliation since the end of apartheid, Forgiveness was awarded major prizes at the film festivals of Durban and Cape Town.

GrodsCorp says:

Dude with sad eyes deals with pain and begs for punishment. Big gentle black man gets only funny lines in film but plays them well. Testosterone pumped boys look like dicks while strong young woman character shines.

They say:

The mesmerising 3-Iron, which won him the Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival, again proves Kim Ki-duk deserves his reputation as one of the world's leading outsider filmmakers. Exemplifying Kim's rare ability to combine elegance, poetry and raw power in his filmmaking, 3-Iron — like his recent Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (MIFF 04) — is a singular creative vision.

Homeless Tae-suk lives like a phantom, temporarily squatting in houses he knows to be vacant. Never stealing or damaging his hosts' homes, he's like a kind ghost, helping out around the house, doing the laundry, making repairs, watering the plants. When he meets Sun-hwa, a living shadow who's been imprisoned in her life by an abusive husband, he's unable to remain anonymous. Bound by unseen ties, they go about forging their own strange future.

Structured around a series of beautifully orchestrated metaphors, 3-Iron is a profound allegory about possession, the visible and invisible, and speech and silence. It's also one of Kim Ki-duk's best films.

GrodsCorp says:

Dude who doesn't talk goes around doing lots of confident facial expressions. Picks locks, eats food, fixes stuff and gets caught whacking it. Meets girl who should know better than to go out with guys from the wrong side of the tracks. Everyone hits golf balls at each other. Lack of dialogue makes for easy subtitle reading.