{The Silence of Joan}
{Le Havre}
{Beauty and the Beast}
{Old Cats}
MIFF thus far
4 films, tweeted and rated accordingly:
The Silence of Joan (Jeanne Captive)
Le Havre
Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête)
Old Cats (Gatos Viejos)
369 minutes of film
1 man with a docile cockatiel on the tram (on way to first film)
A conversation with a man who was raised by cinephiles and 8 years of age when Beauty and the Beast premiered at the festival in 1952
4 bridal parties (sighted on way home from fourth film and all making most of the winter sunlight)
My Melbourne International Film Festival began with a man and a cockatiel on the 112. So tame was this man’s pet cockatiel, she sat perched on the top of the seat opposite him. Upon occasion, he would reach over and with forefinger caress her neck and run his palm over her back. All the way into the city, this pair travelled on crowded tram, and I took it to be a good festival omen. He proclaimed her “the best cockatiel in all of Australia” and I deemed this somewhat quietly surreal encounter a good cinematic beginning.
Indeed, thus far, I have yet to see a film without an animal. From a canine who follows a preacher, Laiki in Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Harve, and Isadora and Enrique's adorable old cats by way of those hissing swans in Cocteau’s surrealist poem.
