So that’s it. Life for The Editor can return to normal now that every spare moment won’t be spent sitting in a darkened room with smelly strangers watching foreign films of varying quality. Let’s have a glance at Ed’s stats after 11 movies:

Best film: The Host
Worst film: Lunacy
Average film rating: 3.2/5
Average film walkouts: 1.1/5
Average pretentious clapping: 2.2/5
BPM sightings: 27%

Now it’s time for Bicycle Pump Man to climb back under the rock from whence he came and prepare his thermos for MIFF ‘07. Ed can’t wait to see him there.

Film rating: 5/5
Walkouts: 1/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 4/5
BPM sighting: Yes

Screened in Director’s Fortnight, this film is, at once, a revelation (one of the few at Cannes this year) and a reaffirmation of filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s ability to mould humour, socio-political satire and visceral kicks.

At a US army base in Seoul, an American officer gives the order to dump litres of out-of-date formaldehyde down the sink and, consequently, out into the main river of the city. Six years later, families are enjoying a day on the banks of the River Han when something slithers from the water, causing pandemonium and snatching a high-school girl from the embankment. The US military quarantines the river environs, claiming the creature is host to a horrific virus. The girl’s family, convinced she is still alive, arm themselves and slip through the US military cordon to hunt down the creature.

A thrilling, genre-bending hybrid, Bong’s film veers between monster shocks and deadpan humour with a dose of sharpened parable thrown in for good measure. Bound for instant cult status, fans of inventive cinema should clear their calendars for this one.

Arriving 20 minutes early The Editor was shocked to find the line already stretching out of the Capitol Theatre down all the way to Collins St. Once inside the cinema Ed luckily managed to find a half-decent seat while hordes of poor suckers had to settle for front or back row posture killers. Five minutes after Ed, Bicycle Pump Man walked in, saw the scenes of carnage and, in anger and frustration, shouted “jesus christ!” It was eerily reminiscent of Begbie from Trainspotting.

This was one of the best films The Editor has ever seen. After being terribly impressed with Bong Joon-ho’s Memories Of Murder at MIFF ‘04 there was no need to even read The Host’s synopsis before booking a ticket. If you’re going to do a mutant monster flick then why take it too seriously? Bong Joon-ho’s trademark directorial style of character farce and slapstick-but-classy comedy raises this film far above any other of its (various intertwined) genre. If The Host doesn’t get a screening on SBS in the next couple of years import the DVD any way you can.

Film rating: 4.5/5
Walkouts: 1/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: Yes

From its opening shot, Detlev Buck’s Tough Enough is as uncompromising as its title suggests, another example of the emerging power of new German filmmaking.

Fifteen-year-old Michael Polischka gets a rude awakening when his mother breaks up with her rich doctor boyfriend. With little money of her own, she’s forced to move them into a dumpy apartment in a rough ethnic neighbourhood, far from the posh suburbs in which they had grown accustomed to living. Beatings and extortion make public high school miserable for Michael. Life at home isn’t much better.

A chance meeting with urbane crime lord Hamal and his henchman, Barut, turns Michael’s life around. They take him under their wing, in part because his honest face makes him the perfect guy for drug deliveries to local dealers. But when a big delivery goes astray, Polischka is obliged to provide Hamal with some new proof of his loyalty… and this time the test won’t just involve money.

A gritty and compelling tale of youth in the council flats of modern Berlin. Young dude wants to do good but falls in with The Wrong Crowd, leading to one of the most tense and emotional film conclusions possible. Ed didn’t breathe for four minutes.

Film rating: 4.5/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 2/5
BPM sighting: No

A trio of suburban 12-year-olds deal with the traumas of adolescence, as the death of a peer sends shockwaves through their lives in Michael Cuesta’s latest offering.

Insecure and self-conscious, Jacob suffers survivor guilt after his twin brother dies in a treehouse fire set by two other youths. His rage leads him to visit the perpetrators in prison, where a surprising friendship begins to form. Meanwhile, Jacob’s friend Leonard, who survived the fire but lost his sense of taste and smell, enrages his obese family when his condition leaves him with a reduced appetite. Malee, seemingly self-possessed but suffering a deficit of familial love, expresses her budding sexuality by fixating on one of her mother’s therapy patients.

With echoes of Todd Solondz’s (Happiness) slightly surreal treatment of everyday lives, Twelve and Holding is a mesmerising and darkly humorous portrayal of the traumas of adolescence.

This outstanding film was an engrossing tale of three pre-teenagers’ lives after the tragic death of their twin brother and friend. With just the right balance of reality, emotion and humour Twelve And Holding forces you to fully engage with the awkward but believable themes and events. Ed must grudgingly hold back half a point for the slightly unrealistic happily-ever-after final montage of shots.

Film rating: 3.5/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 2/5
BPM sighting: No

Off-kilter with a refreshingly sly wink to the great outdoors (think Deliverance as psychotherapy), Champions sees actor David Wike in his directing debut. The result is a tight ensemble piece that takes a skewed view of a quarter-to-midlife crisis.

Seeking harmony in nature, three dysfunctional young men (played by Wikes, Kevin Corrigan and Ebon Moss Bachrach) head off for a weekend in the country to assist an eccentric uncle on his so-called farm. The only problem is the uncle runs his operation like a military manoeuvre where planting spinach beside bok choy is cause for civil war.

As these confused men spend more time together, tensions start to build. A young woman enters the picture, as does a wayward cop and a gender-bending farmer, and before long, the trio’s bucolic weekend starts to get a little challenging… and things just keep getting stranger and stranger.

As writer-director-actor, Wike has cooked up a spicy stew of eccentric characters who come alive through their loopy conversations and unique personality ticks and foibles.

The dodgy sound mix betrayed this film’s low budget but it was heartening to see such a solid, if unimaginative, film (shot on video). The story was a paint-by-numbers affair about some quirky-yet-likeable characters providing some laughs on the way to a happily-ever-after ending. A pleasant film.

Film rating: 1/5
Walkouts: 4/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

Master of surreal cinema Jan Svankmajer’s new feature film is a joyous trip, an explication of his firmly held belief that life is lunacy and the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, with a leading character inspired by the Marquis de Sade, Lunacy is an allegory for the crazy world we live in. Young Jean, plagued by maddening nightmares after his mother’s funeral, is invited by a Marquis to spend the night in his castle. After helping him conquer his fears through a blasphemous orgy and a ‘therapeutic’ funeral, the Marquis takes his guest to an asylum where the situation is unstable, at best…

A gradual descent into celluloid lunacy, not helped by the atrocious seating arrangements at the Regent theatre where anybody sub-two metres is guaranteed to have some dick’s head blocking the subtitles. A truly disappointing movie experience. Make no mistake: Ed’s cool with silliness on screen, but he’d prefer it to have a tad more meaning than this.

Film rating: 4/5
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5 (and I joined in, in a golf clap kind of way)
BPM sighting: No (although this may have been because it was a sell out)

Quite apart from how magnificent the title of this documentary is, The Great Happiness Space was easily one of the best things I have seen in this year’s festival. The documentary was a truly intimate insight into the lives and motivations of male hosts in clubs in Osaka and their female clients. The issues of trust, “love,” and guilt for misleading the women who pay thousands of dollars to spend time with the male hosts at their clubs in order to take their money are beguiling and complex. As the film progresses, you learn that many of the female clients are themselves in the hostess or prostitution business, driven to male hosts in an attempt to buy happiness and love or driven to prostitution in order to support the habit. The film is full of candid interviews - the characters reveal things to the camera that you would not expect them to reveal to anyone, given how little trust they have for almost everyone they come into contact with and how hardened they have become to human relationships. I feel for the male hosts and the female clients in the film the way you might feel for a war veteran who has been forced to kill, and kill again. No human should have to repeatedly encounter the murderous, hate-filled part of human nature, just as no human should have to deal in the cynical game of buying happiness and the illusion of love that these lost souls engage in, year after year, for a “living.” It’s incredible, how many ways we find to live a life.

As a documentary maker, I was envious and impressed at the honesty of the interviews, the consistently good observational camera work and the diligence and perserverance of the film-makers to be present in all sorts of situations which must have been emotionally taxing. As a documentary watcher, I was educated, perplexed and fascinated by the true life characters on screen and was carried along by very good editing from one theme and point of the story to another. I thoroughly recommend this film, congratulate its makers, and send hopeful prayers to its characters.

Film rating: 2.5/5
Walkouts: 2/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 4/5
BPM sighting: No

Did I say that Takeshis’ was weird? That was before I had Funky Forest: The First Contact as a reference point for Japanese cinematic oddity. This film was about what it would be like to channel surf as an alien. It contained innumerable skits, some narratively related in a party-drug dream-like way. I enjoyed it because it was funny and outrageous but at times the sexualised alient bits were somewhat on the gross, discomfiting end of the spectrum and made me wonder about the kinds of minds that came up with it…
The humour was a mixture of the bizarre, slapstick, sexually inappropriate and senselessly violent and the laughter in the audience was more often the “I can’t believe someone pitched this idea and got funded to film it” kind.

There were a few poignant moments of contact with our inner child, our inner loser, our inner wannabe-Japanese-DJ; but it was contact with our inner alien that this film was all about.

Film rating: 2/5 (The Editor); 2.5/5 (J, The)
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 4/5
BPM sighting: No

A meditation on absence and longing, 4:30 is about a moment - and a young boy’s attempt to cling to it, escaping his drab reality. Told entirely from the perspective of the boy, it concerns his relationship with a listless 30-something year-old tenant who is nursing a broken heart. Seemingly without supervision and longing for human contact, the boy tries all he can to make a connection through physical and metaphorical walls in that hour between night and day.

Filmmaker Royston Tan considers 4:30am to be the loneliest time – “too late to go to sleep yet, at the same time, too late to be awake.” As opposed to language, Tan capitalises on gesture and expression to convey the film’s universal theme of loneliness.

The Editor says: J, The reckons that festival director James Hewison has a bet with himself that he can chuck at least one big word into each film introduction he presents before screenings. The other day he got “maelstrom” out, and before this film he used the words “cacophony”, “ubiquitous”, and the phrase “oasis of calm”. 4:30 certainly was an oasis of calm and it was working really well until about the 55th minute when The Editor started thinking about needing to go to the dentist. Note to all filmmakers: ultra-long shots of face acting are an excellent way of transmitting feelings, moods and thoughts. But why not break it up with a bit of dialogue or movement? And whatever happened to story? The audience worked out that the kid was screwed up but that’s about it. Throw them a few more clues.

J, The says: This film started out well. There was something about the editing of each individual sequence which made it feel like they were the exact right length – for about 30 minutes anyway. Then I started getting a bit restless and the echo of both the film director’s and James Hewison’s voices saying before the film ‘This is a quiet film….” began to ring with ominous clarity in my mind – probably because there was so little going on in the film itself to distract me. I liked the poignant moments and I had a tear in my eye when the Korean “uncle” moved over for the little screwed up boy to sit by him on the stairs – their first moment of contact after about 60 minutes of tiptoeing around each other. But I felt pretty frustrated at the end of the movie and the learned from this movie that a film needs some action, any action, to break it up and make all those long sad shots have an impact. Quiet films can include quiet action and make the quietness even more soulful! And hey – what the hell happened? I don’t think it is too philistine of me to want some story – not a lot, not Spielberg dollops of plot – but some.

Film rating: 2/5
Walkouts: 1/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 0/5
BPM sighting: Yes

A furious, hyper-realistic window into the very bottom of the Copenhagen underworld, the blockbuster hit Pusher, the debut feature from its 25-year-old director, was instrumental in putting Danish cinema back on the international map post-Dogma.

It tells the story of Frank (Kim Bodia), a grunting, down-on-his-luck pusher who defaults on a major deal after his dim-witted friend Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) turns him into the cops. The consequences prove to be dire.

Propulsive, kinetic and constantly threatening to spiral out of control, this film is tough-minded and sharp, satirising the twisted conservatism of its criminal denizens.

Think Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in Danish and without the rhyming slang. This genre film of gangster cliches was not exactly the Dogme killer it was hyped to be. In fact, Pusher nearly satisfied half of the rules of Dogme filmmaking (1, 3, 4, 5). But if you’re going to make a gritty gangster film then the visual style should be gritty too — and this was one of the film’s redeeming factors. However, the film ended frustratingly with no ending and cynics (The Editor) would note the perfect lead-in to the film’s two sequels.

Film rating: 3.5/5 (J, The); 3.5/5 (The Editor)
Walkouts: 1/5 (J, The); 1/5 (The Editor)
Pretentious clapping at credits: 2/5 (J, The); 0/5 (The Editor)
BPM sighting: See Takeshis’ (J, The); No (The Editor)

J, The says: This is an excellent film.

About halfway through it, I had serious misgivings. I went to see this film without really reading the blurb in the guide, because my cinematographic idol Christopher Doyle shot it. He also shot all of Wong Kar Wai’s really good films, and as far as I am concerned, he is an absolute genius with a lens. I know I am gushing. I just think this review needs context.

So I was prepared to love this film regardless of storyline, but about an hour into it and I was bored. Everything was moving sloooooowly. I was sick of the time we were spending with the main character and his guilt, with very little intrigue to punctuate it. I was getting close to even being disappointed with Mr Doyle’s colour grade, which was depressingly washed out, greyish green to match the ocean I guess.

All was forgiven, however, in the last 30 minutes of the film. I am sure you have had the same experience before - you are watching and waiting, watching and waiting, you don’t want to walk out and leave with a disappointed feeling but are praying that something is going to happen soon - and it does.It’s not that something extra suddenly happens on the screen or the style of film changes to one you are more accustomed to enjoying. It’s simply that you hit the zone. You and the film are keeping the same rhythm. You get it. You like it.

I am not going to give away the story in this review. But I am going to say that the last few dialogues and the interactions between the hitmen in the film are what made it for me. I left all full; a slightly stunned feeling in my gut, as if those hours and hours (probably one, all told) of boring time in the dingy hull of a ship with the lead character had carved out a space there unbeknownst to me and the final half hour filled it up. Thank goodness I didn’t walk out. I get to continue my adoration of Mr Doyle and I get to add another director (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) to my must-see lists. Go and see it and if you do - stay until the end.

The Editor says: J, The is essentially spot on. This film would’ve got a 4/5 instead of 3.5 if only they remembered to employ an editor. A unique and impressive cinema experience provided you’re in the mood for a quiet and contemplative style of film.

Film rating: 2.5/5 (J, The); 2/5 (The Editor)
Walkouts: 2/5 (J, The); 2/5 (The Editor)
Pretentious clapping at credits: 1/5 (J, The); 3/5 (The Editor)
BPM sighting: I saw a man who met the description provided by Ed but without the critical pump (J, The); No (The Editor)

J, The says: This film was weird. I honest to god wish that I got Japanese cinema, art, books - culture. The fact is, I really like it. I read every Murakami novel I can find; Yayoi Kusama is one of my favourite artists; and I risked hail damage to my beloved new bicycle to go and see Takeshi Kitano’s latest offering to yakuza films today at the Festival. I came out of the Forum bemused and amused in fairly equal measure. Takeshi took a step inside his own mind and gosh, look at all the things he found there: layered and blurred lines of dream and reality; fears of failure and self-confidence defeaters in the shape of a scary skinny Japanese woman who kept wanting change for 10,000 yen notes and an array of other annoying characters; and downright kookiness personified as a boy who dances as a geisha and two big, fat comedians dressed in tutus who just keep popping up wherever Beat Takeshi goes. There are lots of the shoot ‘em up scenes we have come to know and love from Takeshi’s films, except the difference is that he keeps shooting the same people in this film, over and over and over again, and they just keep on coming back. And did I mention the cross-dressing singer and the giant caterpillar?

I didn’t get this film, but when I stopped thinking about it and sort of looked at it out of the corner of my eye, I kind of did. If I read Jung’s dream books and read up on Japanese psychology I might get there yet. If you are going to see it, my advice is not to think too much - the narrative structure is not what you are used to.

The Editor says: J, The is basically spot on. This was one freaky film that didn’t at all follow traditional narrative structures, but was instead like a bunch of seemingly unrelated scenes with tenuous links criss-crossing all over the place. It was funny in parts and boring in others. 90% of the walkouts occured during that bloody tapdance scene. I’d be keen to see this dude’s other films if only to help explain this one.

Film rating: 3/5
Walkouts: 0.001/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

Jafar Panahi introduced his film last night, dedicating it to his daughter who, at the age of 11, snuck into a soccer game to watch it with her pa. The girls in the movie were not so lucky. The film’s action takes place largely as dialogue amongst the girls, mad soccer fans, and the soldiers who have to stand guard over them and take them to be arrested for dressing as men to try and get into the stadium to see the Iran-Bahrain qualifier for the World Cup. I have to admit, I got a little bit bored with the limited number of sets and locations and the limited amount of action outside of these conversations. But I was the one who picked this Iranian film from the MIFF Iranian focus program, wussing out of more serious and depressing fare, instead asking for my lessons about the plight of Iranian women to be served up with comedy. So perhaps I can’t blame the film for its light-on plot, and the director may well have been limited in his locations for the film’s action by the subject matter he was shooting - women disobeying the law by trying to watch the soccer. Overall one to catch on the box when it comes to SBS, but no need to do the whole MIFF queue for it except as a show of solidarity with Iranian women and soccer fans both.

Film rating: 3/5 (The Editor); 4/5 (J, The)
Walkouts: 0/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 0.5/5
BPM sighting: No

The result of a remarkable experiment, 9 Square Meters for Two was written and performed by actual inmates of Baumettes Prison in Marseille, France. Essentially, these 10 men, who were merely trained in the technical aspects of camerawork and then encouraged to let their creativity run wild, became the actors and directors of their own tumultuous, though enclosed, lives by taking part in this ongoing prison program.

A purpose-built set was erected within the penitentiary’s walls to the actual size of a standard cell (nine square meters) so to assist them in differentiating between real and imaginary situations. We never know how they came to be locked behind bars – and they don’t necessarily look like criminals – but we are provided with a very clear, and often startlingly, cinematic window into the individual frustrations, loneliness, indifference, confrontations and claustrophobia that cloud their daily existence.

The Editor says: Besides running about 15-20 minutes too long this film was a fascinating and engrossing insight into prison life beyond the standard prison film cliches. The end product of this truly fascinating filmmaking experiment is a credit to the creativity of the inmates who wrote, shot and starred in the film. Although filmed on a fake cell set, 9 Square Metres For Two successfully blurs the line between reality and fiction.

J, The says: I agree with Ed that this film went a bit too long but despite that was a really intriguing film. It showed me stuff I will never (I hope) otherwise gain insight into - life inside a grotty, nasty little cell with one other person and no way out. I get cabin fever if I sit at my desk for more than two hours; now I have seen this film, I can just begin to imagine what it must be like to be stuck inside for hours on end, and years on end in the larger prison complex. I really liked the way the film opened, with the prisoners’ close-up shots of their walls and interiors, giving you a strong sense of how cramped everything in there was. And the characters were very engaging. People always sound like philosophers when they speak in French, even if they are simply describing the pictures on the walls. Or maybe it was the whole incarceration experience that made these guys sound like that. Hmm. Maybe both.

Film rating: 4.5/5
Walkouts: 2/5
Pretentious clapping at credits: 3/5
BPM sighting: No

Three generations of a family pursue their own peculiar desires in György Pálfi’s Taxidermia, a film that revels in the crude physicality of human condition.

Following a Hungarian family line down three generations, the story starts with Vendel, a hair-lipped orderly working in an isolated outpost, who deals with his loneliness and the constant browbeating from his superior by indulging in voyeurism. Following a grotesque coupling between Vendel and his superior’s wife, a son named Kálmán is born, who grows up to be an Olympic speed-eater. While competing in a Bulgarian eating championship, he becomes enamoured of Gizi, a hefty competitor. Their union produces the third generation in the form of Lajos. As an adult, Lajos is a gaunt taxidermist who spends his spare time raising mutant felines and caring for his morbidly obese father.

Recalling elements of John Waters’ debauchery, David Cronenberg’s physi-ological obsession and Monty Python’s absurdity, Taxidermia is a truly unforgettable film – but not one for the queasy!

What a way to kick off MIFF ‘06! This absurdist romp through three generations of losers in rural Soviet Union had The Editor laughing, groaning, wincing and staring agape in equal measure. Sublime close up shots of the body (external and internal) along with subtle use of special effects, excellent acting and a stunning script made this film a once-in-a-lifetime experience. From a directing point of view it is a real study in mass spewing on cue.

Although there were a good few walkouts this film is worth sitting through if your stomach can hack it. Those who shut their eyes during medical procedures in House (McBec) should stay home.