Of all the things I look forward to each year the Melbourne International Film Festival is more than one on a list, it is akin to a jewel in a crown of peculiar make. Six days in, eight films seen so far, and I am hoping that what remains, what is still to come, I am hoping does not fly by. I’ve mentioned before I like to prolong the finale, the full stop, the ending, the book’s last chapter, the rolling of the credits. I like to leave the Durrell family in Corfu before inevitable gallop to the finish line, and just now, the Dorrit family in the Marshalsea. (Serving as a bookend to either end of my whole days spent at the cinema, I am reading Dickens’s Little Dorrit. I have not read it before and I love it.) I like to prolong the good stuff, no matter how cracking the conclusion. No matter the fireworks promised. So far, this festival, I have been to a village in the wake of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, learnt of double agents and the plans they scuppered, before feasting in Shanghai. Highlights for me, so far have been Harutyun Khachatryan’s Border, Garbo: The Spy and Jan Hřebejk’s Kawasaki’s Rose. And I’ve enjoyed Medal of Honor, Wang Quan’an’s Apart Together, The Day Will Come. So to, I have seen the Russian epic Exodus: Burnt by the Sun 2, and began it all with Around a Small Mountain.
Now I am home, playing catchup with some of the things overlooked before next I tread my well-worn path to cinema door and find myself once more seated inside and in a state of eager anticipation.
{The films in order as thus far seen. (Stills gleaned from various film sites.)}
