Sydney Film Festival 2010: Bill Cunningham New York

“Clothes are like people’s armour to the reality of the world”

Bill Cunningham captures fashion photographs for the New York Times and is well-known for his street and social pictures. “We all get dressed for Bill” Anna Wintour says. We see her briefly stop for Bill while ignoring the other photographers. “When he puts his camera down, it’s death”.

Bill is a man of contradictions. Even though he adores people who wear the most fabulous clothes and those who have the most eccentric personal styles, he himself is the antithesis of his photographic subjects. He wears a blue worker’s coat on a daily basis. Practical? Yes. Fashionable? Not really. He also uses tape to patch up a raincoat because “they’re going to be ruined anyway”. There is a refreshing nature in his character, he’s not the kind of person one would expect to be successful in an industry that functions by portraying a certain, and an idealised image.

Halfway through the film I was struck with a question. Why on earth did Bill pursue a lifelong career in fashion photography? I mean, why fashion? Why not architectural, commercial or maybe even travel photography? Why not portraits?

Then I hear him talk about his photographs. He literally loses his breath from excitement when he talks about the tiniest of details. Tiny fragments of beauty that many miss and only few can notice. He photographs fashion because it’s what makes him get out of bed in the morning. It’s pure passion.

Bill doesn’t just capture pictures of clothes but the mentality, the mood, the personality of the people he photographs. Isn’t fashion just an extension of our inner self? A visual representation of who we are or, in most cases, who we want to be. He doesn’t just capture the trends he, as one person in the film puts is: “captures life”.

There was a particular scene that made me cry, the interview when he was asked why he goes to church. There’s a moment of silence then he puts his head down and weeps.

Although it was highly emotional and allowed us to see another side of Bill, I felt that the interviewer was being too pushy. Instead of letting us see it come out naturally in a less impetuous setting, we see the reaction forced out of Bill. Yes, he did warn him first that they were going to be very personal questions. But something about that scene made me very uneasy.

Maybe this is just me becoming protective over Bill. In less than an hour, I fell immediately in love with him. Bill to me became like the role model grandfather. The one that always gave you the most insightful advice about life and how to live it, the one whose random thoughts said out loud can easily become a life motto, or a quote to live by for the younger generation.

This may sound very cliché but this film was truly inspirational and, well, changed my perception of the world.

I’ve always wanted to move to New York and I’ve always thought that to survive in such a harsh city brimming with the most competitive people in the world, one needs a heavy dose of narcissism, superficiality and vanity. This film made me re-think that attitude.

It’s very easy to dismiss the fashion world as being materialistic, superficial and shallow. But people like Bill show us that even in an industry where appearances and images are paramount, scratch the surface and you’ll always find a deeper purpose.

Next Sydney Film Festival review: Last Train Home. Sorry for taking so long with these.

Photo Credits: 1, 2,3,4

Sydney Film Festival 2010: The Loved Ones

"Is it finger-lickin' good?"

It certainly was. We're only halfway through the year and Australia has already given us a two-punch knockout with Animal Kingdom and now this.


I cannot tell you how much I've been craving for a fun, well-crafted horror/comedy film. Re-watchings of Drag Me To Hell has not been enough. The Loved Ones gave me the fix I so desperately needed. It was outrageous, fun, gruesome, and totally wild - all blended (with a dash of pink, of course) in one heart-stopping night at the movies.

The film's plot is simple: A timid high school teen (Robin McLeavey), with the aid of her father, captures a fellow schoolmate (Xavier Samuel) after being rejected to go to the school prom with him. So they decide to hold a private prom in their house. To say anything more would ruin the whole film. Just think Carrie meets Saw.

 McLeavey plays a character here that I think, upon its release, will fast become an icon. She's just so funny and..well...crazy. Literally!

It has those moments where you go: "they're not going to actually do that, are they?"
Then they do. Laughter and gasps ensue.
 Plus the soundtrack is brilliant. They chose the best song as an anthem for a character in the film. Everytime I hear that song now, I giggle.

SPOILER ALERT

Even though it was fun I have to point out a very minor flaw. The zombie-people in the basement didn't really work for me. Yes, it did go with the ridiculousness and the absurdity of the story but when they were revealed  I just went "Really? Zombies?" Maybe it's just me getting really sick of the zombie genre, or seeing zombies on screen but for a film that had so many fresh ideas the whole weird monster/pet in the basement idea felt a bit like stale air. However, according to the director, the "method" that they used to create these zombie-people is scientifically possible, so the whole idea doesn't really take you out of the film's world.

SPOILER END
Apart from that I think the film has enough goriness to satisfy audiences who like that aspect of the horror genre. It has well-drawn and interesting characters, plus smart and witty one-liners to satisfy people who like their horror films to be "smart". It provides plenty of laughs for people who like to laugh and at a sweet and short running time of just 90 minutes, it's short enough so that people who always complain about long movies, can't complain with this one.

So basically it's an audience pleaser.

Photo Credits: Blue King's Hat, Running, Blue Injection, Daddy, Poster/Title

Sydney Film Festival 2010: The Tree

"It's not a tree, it's an octopus!"

My second film of the festival, which I saw at the magnificent State Theatre was also the closing film for the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Julie Bertucelli and starring Charlotte Gainsbourg which you might remember from Von Trier's Antichrist from last year (I certainly remembered her, in fact I couldn't get that film out of my head when I was watching this).


The story is about a family living in rural Australia and coping after the sudden death of their father.

Gainsbourg plays the mother struggling to keep the family together and a young actress, Morgana Davies plays the daughter who discovers that the spirit of her father has transferred to the tree next to their house. She talks to him there, plays with him and even built a memorial for him with his belongings scattered around in the branches.

Although we hear the faint whispers of the father's voice, the film never takes the supernatural route instead focusing on the drama within the family. The tree only serves a representation of the father, a tangible entity and  one that literally hovers, protectively, over the household.


The Tree explores the necessary 'moving on' part in the grieving process, and tells a simple story of a family trying to live their lives after a terrible loss.

The film was shot beautifully, having a light, airy feel to it during the daytime and a very dark, quiet atmosphere during the night - which complimented the setting quite well.


But it felt like it was made for television with one person in twitter tweeting that the story is better suited as a novel, not so much as a film. I cannot recall any scene that resonated or became memorable. I feel like I've seen all this before.  The performances were fine, especially by Gainsbourg and Davies. But honestly, I found it hard to write this review because there's really not much to say about it. It wasn't terrible but it was lukewarm.


Screenshots from the trailer.

NOTES ON THE GO: My thoughts so far about the Sydney Film Fest

So I'm currently sitting outside the Dendy Cinema waiting for my next screening of 'Last Train Home'. I've just seen another documentary about one of fashion's most influential photographers, Bill Cunningham. I'm not going to write my review of the film just yet because I feel I should give it some time first and really think about it. I think most of the films I've seen deserves more time for contemplation (...or maybe Jesue's just too lazy to write a review so quickly, maybe Jesue procrastinates too much, maybe Jesue doesn't know what to think about the films and have no fucking clue what they're actually about...) Or maybe my cynical self needs to just shut the hell up.
Moving on...The film festival so far has been fantastic. In every screening there's always a sense of community and an atmosphere that can only come out when you put a whole bunch of people who truly love film together in one room. This is something that I find is lacking in most of my movie-going experiences. I love it when people applaud and cheer when the credits start rolling and I love it when people share a collective gasp from a particularly shocking moment. I love it when the whole room suddenly goes dead quiet when an emotional scene is playing in front of us and I love it when the walls of a theatre literally shake when the whole audience laughs. Yes, my name is Jesue and I'm a film festival addict.

Sydney Film Festival 2010: Last Address (short) and Beautiful Darling

I just had my very first film festival experience and I must say I was very impressed with the film festival crowd. Everyone was dead quiet when they needed to be. Everyone laughed at the right time and the lady sitting next to me was even taking notes during the film, so I was comfortable enough to use my Moleskine to take down notes myself without the fear of looking like a stuck up wanna-be film critic. It was a whole page of chicken scratches but I was still able to decipher it afterwards (I'm getting really good at note-taking in the dark - so yay for me).

But let's talk about the movies.

Last Address

The documentary had no actual “plot” to speak of or any kind of complex film structure, and it contained no dialogue. Just simple exterior shots of a number of houses and apartments in New York that had been inhabited by people who have passed away due to an AIDS related disease. It's a tribute to remember the victims of an incredibly sad epidemic that took the lives of so many people. The interesting thing was there were no photographs of the people, just their names and the address and of course, the shots of the houses and the neighbourhoods surrounding them. It was very quiet save the noise of an occasional car passing by or the flapping wings of a pigeon flying overhead.

Using the images of their homes was very touching and made a more significant impact because those places that they lived in ultimately became a second memorial for them. When homes are vacated, our physical presence leaves yet somehow a fragment of our spirit lingers. It reminded me of what Alain de Botton wrote in his book Architecture to Happiness: "It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation”

Beautiful Darling

This is another documentary based on the life of one of Warhol’s Superstars – the aptly named Candy Darling, a transgender whose single goal in life was to become a famous Hollywood superstar. She died at the age of just twenty-nine and she wasn’t able to do everything she set out to do. But she did enough. She was an inspiration for many.

On the surface, she is superficial, self-obsessed and narcissistic but she grew up being constantly rejected by people around her, no one really understood her but she would never have survived if she wasn’t any of those three things.

There was an interview in the film with someone commenting that Warhol always liked people who had shame, he was attracted to them. Candy Darling felt like she had shame but it was always quickly hidden. She hid it behind a veil made up of her outlandish personality. It made it more painful to watch the clips of her talking about her life, you could see she was hurt and that there were other things going on inside but she really had no other way to express that.

The most touching moment in the film was in the end, when one of her close friends, Jeremiah Newton, was fussing over her funeral arrangements and wanting her to be safe. It wasn’t very subtly placed in the film, it was preceded with a clip of Candy talking about how there was never anyone special in her life, and how she didn’t have a man to take care of her. But for some reason, it worked and it was hard not to shed a tear.

Photo Credits: 1 and 2 (Beautiful Darling)

Actress Profile: Kristen Stewart + photo spread & interview from Flaunt Magazine

Growing up as a shy, soft-spoken, very timid pre-teen (not anymore, apparently) I took refuge in films that spoke about me and what I was going through. One of those was the 2004 film Speak starring Kristen Stewart who plays a voluntary mute. I fell in love with her and enjoyed her other films as well: Panic Room and Zathura and more recently Adventureland starring alongside Ryan Reynolds.

Imagine my horror when I heard the news she'll be starring in Twilight, but after seeing the film I thought she did pretty good with the role she was given and I'm glad it boosted her career while catapulting her to stardom. Apart from Anna Kendrick she's the other actress I like seeing in the Twilight series, both make the movies not as bad as some people quickly judge it to be.

I cannot wait to see her develop as an actor and play more mature characters but in the meantime, I'm itching to see her in The Runaways which I'll hopefully get to see in the Sydney Film Festival next week (if the tickets don't sell out yet).

Now here is an excerpt from an interview in Flaunt Magazine where we learn why we shouldn't twitter when around Kristen:

“He was nice,” she concedes. “He didn’t ask for a picture. That’s good, because then they go and Twitter them and then the paparazzi know where I am and they drive to my location and it gets crazy. Twitter fucks me over every day of my life. Because people go, ‘I’m sitting next to Kristen Stewart right now’ and then they show up. I see people on their phones and I just want to take these cookies and throw them. It’s like ‘Get off your fucking phone and get a life!’ I get so mad. It’s like you’re trampling on someone’s life without any regard. And it’s rampant. Everyone can do it now. Buy a camera and you’re paparazzi; get a Twitter account and you’re an informant. It’s so annoying.”

Oh how I love her! Damn those annoying paparazzi, leave Kristen alooooonneee!

Ok, Enough talk. Here's some photos of Kristen looking super sexy wearing rock, borderline sci-fi glam in a photo spread from Flaunt

Looking dangerous with a very lethal accessory

NOTES ON THE GO: Freelance writing. Yay or Nay?

I've been working at a local pharmacy for almost a year now. It's been good so far and it has given me funds to satisfy many of my material needs, which includes endless supply of art/fashion magazines, Moleskine notebooks, coffee, vitamin water, organic shampoos, goat's milk soap. You get the idea. I know this makes me seem super shallow but don't judge. I'm working on it.

Lately I've just been getting bored and thinking of focusing on my writing (and school) instead. So this led me to the idea of doing some freelance writing for money. I have a number of publications in mind (Spook, Spitpress, Voiceworks). Anyone out there know of other publications who are happy to accept submissions from a young writer with a special interest in the field of arts and entertainment? STOP. This is sounding like my resume. Or a job advert: Desperate povo writer in need of cash. Help?