HIGH UP IN THE TREES

I thought I saw you there...

Dear you,

I thought I saw you there. In Hastings by the sea. Upon closer inspection, I see that I was wrong. It was a trick played upon me by my own eyes. Not you at all but a giant wave crashing against the ledge.

Kisses from this lone and befuddled snowshoe hare,
X

+ The pencil squiggle you see on the reverse side of this postcard, near to the snowshoe hare's foot was a detail already on this postcard when I purchased it. By chance of placement, it looks now like his hind foot and tail. A long tail for a hare, it is true, but a tail all the same.

The small production.

{Dear Dad, this is how 1,000 poetry books are collated and bound, and all during a film festival. This is what those tweets meant.}

This is how things looked at home during the Melbourne International Film Festival and subsequent weeks. (In neighboring room, piles of folded washing yet to make it to cupboard and other daily particulars, but this is no home tour but a peek at a home poetry production line. Besides, I have always been fonder of fiction over fact.) When not seated in darkened theatre eating honeyed cashews between cinematic sessions, Louise and I worked on the collating and binding of some 1,000 poetry books for Australian Poetry. The above is how things looked before we set to work. It is ready and waiting. Load your brush with glue and set to work on those red spines. One, two, three, four. Collate, collate, collate.

Australian Poetry, to celebrate Dads and all things related, invites you to Dear Dad Revisited

Sunday September 4th, 2011

Wheeler Centre
176 Little Lonsdale Street
Melbourne

1.15 – 1.45pm

(Copies of Dear Dad will be available for purchase. Alternatively, you can order a copy online.)

+ This is how 50 poetry books are bound.

With a hispid hare for company, I am not lonely...

Dear you,

Now in Venezia, as no doubt you can see. With a hispid hare for company, I am not lonely. Together, we feel as though we have stepped into Daphne du Maurier’s short story The Birds. We’d been warned, of course, but still, that’s not quite the same as experiencing it for one’s own self. Can’t ever be, can it.

Hat wear in great demand here, especially for those who like to arrive at their destination unsoiled.

Send goggles, please do,
X

A gathering of stalls and amusements for public entertainment.

{To market we go, with boxes packed of our postcards and greeting cards, Thelma's stuffies and pins.}

Thank-you to all our friends, family, and the dear alike, who popped along to Thread Den’s North Melbourne Market on Sunday previous. It was, it always is, very good to see you.

This is for you:

{A journey to imagine.}

And for those of you who could not make it along, this is for you:




{The Lithuanian Club's ballroom was dark and in its heyday I've no doubt lovers swooned and glided cheek to cheek beneath the chandeliers. Nevertheless, Louise managed to take the above two photos of our stall on iPhone (hence the graininess). Thought you would like to see them, all the same.}

A gathering for dancing.

{Old friends by the sea, Red Fox Return and I still don't trust them. Two card designs previously sold out have been reprinted especially for you.}

Dust off your rarely called upon ball gown, air the suit of its mothball scent; we’ve an invitation to extend that requires regalia of dress. This Sunday the 21st of August, my Mum will be having a stall of her Thelma’s handmade delights, and we will be joining her, Louise and I, with our greeting cards and paper wares. Our stall is table number 14 in none other than the ballroom of the Lithuanian Club in North Melbourne. Do come along and say hello, in costumed finery or otherwise.
 
Thread Den presents The North Melbourne Market
Lithuanian Club
44 Errol Street
North Melbourne
 
Sunday August 21st, 2011
 
10am – 2pm

+ Red Fox Return and I still don’t trust them, have been reprinted and are now available through our online store. It’s good to have these old friends back. For those of you who may not be able to make it along on Sunday, you can purchase these reprinted friends through our online store individually, as a pair, or as a set of five (of the one design).

Yours in cipher to unscramble...

Dear you,

It was the forest spiny pocket mouse that first alerted me to it, the giant golden communication device in Tangier. Stand, speak, deliver. (Or, stand, squeak, deliver as said rodent explained to me.) This device, this large contraption, is what I have been using to talk to you. Its public positioning in a busy street keeps one polite or beholden to code, especially for the communicating of love odes, but it will have to do.

Yours in cipher to unscramble,
X

Fin.

{The Mill and the Cross}

From sumptuous beauty of black and white to glorious earthy hues, Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross was a delicious favouirite of the festival from me. I’ve longed to step into a painting. I was grateful for the chance to walk through such a marvellous digital tapestry that has recreated (in a sense) Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Way to Calvary (1564). With Rutger Haur as Bruegel himself and Charlotte Rampling as the Virgin Mary, add in 500 hand sewn costumes, and clouds collaged from New Zealand, and this film was every inch of it beautiful to behold, delve into and decipher, reading the familiar language of the symbols. That it took three years to weave such rich painterly fabric will come of little surprise.

I want the viewer to live inside the painting.
Lech Majewski

(I have yet to see The Garden of Earthly Delights, featuring Bosch’s painting as its ground so perhaps I will try to and soon.)


{Detail of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Way to Calvary (1564).}


{Cave of Forgotten Dreams}

I have seen albino crocodiles of all things, and Fred Astaire dance parallels drawn in a cave of animals beautifully drawn in Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. In the French Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, the horses and lions on the wall have danced for some 32,000 years, chiefly unseen. Herzog muses, what would the crocodiles make of these prehistoric drawings? And the bear that made those scratches into the rock face too: what did he or she make of the imagery? Was it some attempt at mark making and gesture too? The contours of the rock describe the three-dimensional shape of the animals on the wall, some with their legs shown several times repeated to suggest the movement of said dance. Such movement through repletion is breathtaking; as is the way those animal portraits are drawn.


{Life in Movement}


{Familiar Ground}
 
Last up, Life in Movement, a documentary aptly titled, it left me feeling inspired and with full awareness of my own body. (You cannot slump in your seat when watching dance, can you?) The work of late choreographer Tanja Liedtke was amazing to see, as was her own video footage of herself as she worked out chorographical ideas and future sketches. Those particular video scenes were intimate and revealing. From movement powerful, controlled, expressive, and intelligent, we were projected, Louise and I, into our Sunday second screening. Into a film of such stillness and deadpan humour, it took me some time to settle into this new pace. A large wet tree branch sticks out from the fireplace and fails to properly alight and warm, an inflatable blue figure dances; a man from the future, six months from now, brings a warning in Stéphane Lafleur’s Familiar Ground, my festival sendoff before another year. These two, one a documentary, the other a film; one about movement, the other stillness in part; one about the body and all the brilliance it can do, the other, slow movement and bodies restrained by parkas, snow gloves and Skidoo helmets. In all, this pair made for a good end to the sensational hoopla of a festival.

To the festival this is, for me, as much about the cut lunch and the coffee and friendship as it is about great and challenging film: thank-you, it has been a swell festival, MIFF. And to our pets, Omar, Olive, Percy, Misha-non-penguin: thank-you for accepting our absence in the nest.

From beginning to end
The Silence of Joan (Jeanne Captive) (Philippe Ramos, 2011)
Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki, 2011)
Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) (Jean Cocteau, 1946)
Old Cats (Gatos Viejos) (Sebastián Silva, Pedro Peirano, 2010)
Silent Souls (Aleksei Fedorchenko, 2010)
Intimate Grammar (Nir Bergman, 2010)
An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)
Norwegian Wood (Tran Anh Hung, 2010)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
The Solitude of Prime Numbers (La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi) (Saverio Costanzo, 2010)
The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf, 1998)
Day is Done (Thomas Imbach, 2011)
The Kid with a Bike (Le Gamin au Vélo) (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, 2011)
Majority (Çoğunluk) (Seren Yüce, 2010)
Beginners (Mike Mills, 2010)
The Turin Horse (A torinói ló) (Béla Tarr, 2011)
Principles of Life (Principii de viață) (Constantin Popescu, 2010)
Tomorrow Will Be Better (Jurto bedzie lepiej) (Dorota Kędzierzawska, 2010)
Tuesday, After Christmas (Marţi, după Crăciun) (Radu Muntean, 2010)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)
Silent Sonata (Janez Burger, 2010)
Innocent Saturday (Alexander Mindadze, 2011)
Sleeping Sickness (Schlafkrankheit) (Ulrich Köhler, 2011)
The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, 2010)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, 2010)
A Useful Life (La Vida Útil) (Federico Veiroj, 2010)
The Little Tailor (Le Petit Tailleur) (Louis Garrel, 2010)
Life in Movement (Bryan Mason, Sophie Hyde, 2011)
Familiar Ground (En Terrains Connus) (Stéphane Lafleur, 2011)

The End

To sparkle brightly.

{Silent Sonata}


{Innocent Saturday}


{Sleeping Sickness}


{A Useful Life}


{The Little Tailor (Le Petit Tailleur)}

The film festival may be over for another year, but in my mind, I am still travelling. I have seen at final tally, 28 films over the 17-day period. 28 films plus one short (44 minutes) and an illustrated talk. I have seen classics on the glorious big screen alongside films new.

Over the weekend, another clutch I saw. Six more before calling it time to rest. I fell for the beauty of Cameroon as I watched Ulrich Köhler’s Sleeping Sickness (Schlafkrankheit). Ebbo (Pierre Bokma), a German doctor, seemed so at home in the place that I trusted him completely as my guide, perhaps all the more so for his shortcomings. It seems not only fair but also utterly plausible that he should, at films close, transform into a hippopotamus. This transformation from human to animal world is so subtle a depiction that had you fallen asleep, you might have missed it. Europa into a bull, Óttar into a boar, Leda a swan, and Arachne a spider, why not Ebbo into a hippo?

I have seen a few films where the ending was quiet and subtle, and one that required you to work for it. In Federico Veiro’s A Useful Life (which screened with Louis Garrel’s The Little Tailor), it is only once the Cinemateca Uruguaya (at which he is a programmer) closes that we see Jorge become the beautiful protagonist of his own film, that we see Montevideo, and that leading man quiet dance shuffle on stairs.

+ Uruguayan Cinema in a nutshell

The final MIFF shuffle
The Mill and the Cross
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
A Useful Life (La Vida Útil) (screening with The Little Tailor)
Life in Movement
Familiar Ground (En Terrains Connus)

Play on, please.

{Scenes from Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da).}

A suspect’s face is framed like an icon by light from car headlight behind — a halo of gold leaf! — and the story unfolds in slow striptease. Black night hues so rich and textural, we are driving through the Anatolian landscape. It is night-time, the headlights of three police vehicles shine like gold, I am telling you. Like a serpent, they snake and slide through the beautiful terrain. Like lava down volcano’s side. Such were the visuals that danced before the eyes, which enveloped you in inky dark velvet night caress, in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Those velvet black hues punctuated by gold. Those faces framed. All little short of beautiful. (The first half of the film which takes place during one long night-time search for the location of a body buried in the earth particularly so.) One cannot help but harvest beautiful images and stow them in pocket to later pull out when injection needed. A story that gradually unfolds before coming to light with the morning (quite literally), this is what I like to see painted before me on the screen. This is what will stay with me. The girl’s face illuminated by the lantern on the tray she carries before her as she serves tea. The face carved into the rock. Later, the loyal dog on the burial ground. The autopsy scene described only by the expression drawn on the doctor’s face, a slow realisation dawns, a mystery solved wordlessly. As with Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun), it was the colour palette I fell for, that and a story that gradually revealed itself. I am tantalised still.

A screening of Janez Burger's Silent Sonata (featuring artists from Cirque du Soleil) followed, and played as title suggests in several magical limber movements without words neither uttered nor required. I have yet to see a circus troupe, on film or in performance under the top, which I did not want to runaway and join. Can bend, will travel. (Though only one small part of this is true.)

MIFF thus far
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Silent Sonata
Innocent Saturday
Sleeping Sickness

Several more films remain. More soon, friends.

Silvered.

{Black. White. Silver. Beauty. Seven velvety stills from The Turin Horse. "The film portrays mortality, with that deep pain which we, who are under sentence of death, all feel" Béla Tarr}

Normally, my films don’t have a message. The camera is an observer that captures the atmosphere of a moment and reacts to life. I don't want to give the audience a message, I want to show it my image of the world. The camera has an objective point of view, I can only show you reality. Cinema is not like literature: It shows you only what is in front of the lense. You can't fake it.
 
It is not my job to write about films. I am happy if somebody likes my films. If someone doesn't, I have to accept it. I don't want to dictate or influence any critics. My job is done when the light is switched back on after the movie. Afterwards, everyone should relate to it through his own way.
 
(Béla Tarr in an interview conducted by Konstanty Kuzma)

+ Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (A Torinói Loi, 2010)
+ Interview | The Thinking Image: Fred Kelemen on Béla Tarr and The Turin Horse

The Turin Horse was one of the films I was most looking forward to seeing at this year’s festival and it was all I’d hoped (screening mishap and lighting blunder at the Forum aside). Brilliant and beautiful. For me it shone like the precious shiny grayish-white metal of silver.

From the movie house.

{The Solitude of Prime Numbers}


{The Apple}


{Day is Done}


{The Kid with a Bike}


{Majority}


{Beginners}


{The Turin Horse}


{Principles of Life}


{Tomorrow Will Be Better}


{Tuesday, After Christmas}

Galloping along at speed, my days at the festival have been busy and twelve days in the pattern familiar. Coffee is my fuel not unique, and with exception of a Romanian film today (Tuesday, After Christmas), it has kept the tail bushy and the eyes alert. Echinacea tablets I take to stave off any festival cold and wearies, and nuts and chocolate by handful serve to prop me up. I enjoy feasting on a handful of honeyed cashews as various punters arrive. I like to watch them as they try to spot a friend expected or otherwise in the crowd, or negotiate the steps in the half light world of the Forum, ACMI, or GU. I like to watch the film buffs that write in their notebooks and those that on illuminated screen tap.
 
Twelve days in and I have been charmed by the director, Saverio Costanzo, of The Solitude of Prime Numbers (La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi), and his lead actress, Alba Rohrwacher, as they introduced said film moments before they took a taxi to the airport. (Much as I wanted to enjoy the film, after I squirmed my way through some of the scenes of bullying and anguish, I was left feeling lukewarm.)

I have found heart-warming Samira Makhmalbaf’s film The Apple (1998) as I watched the twins Masoumeh and Zahra Naderi leave the house they had for so long been imprisoned in and explore their local neighbourhood.

I have watched characters pass up opportunities (Majority), and others take them (Beginners). I’ve seen familial relationships on screen that mirror my own, in part, right down to a Jelly Roll Morton at the ivory keys childhood soundtrack.

I have been beguiled by those tiny Zurich scenes that out the window played and artist Thomas Imbach’s honesty to paint so revealing a self portrait through 15 years worth of messages left on an answering machine (Day is Done). Seasons change, a girl collects her mail, buildings are erected, and train carriages are beaten gold by sunset.

I’ve tapped my foot to the music of Arkady Severny (Аркадий Северный) that featured in Dorota Kędzierzawska’s Tomorrow Will Be Better (Jurto bedzie lepiej). (Her film Time To Die remains a favourite of mine from festival past.)

What began as death, ashes, open spaces and interior landscapes, at a little over the halfway mark has become films about the things that shape us, and childhood. I’ll let those Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne take me in their pocket anywhere. It may be summer and the palette brighter, but the Dardenne brothers hallmark of dark intensity for me remains in The Kid with a Bike (Le Gamin au Vélo).

I will share more soon, if tiredness permits.
 
MIFF thus far
The Solitude of Prime Numbers
The Apple
Day is Done
The Kid with a Bike
Majority (Çoğunluk)
Beginners
The Turin Horse (A torinói ló)
Principles of Life (Principii de viață)
Tomorrow Will Be Better
Tuesday, After Christmas (Marţi, după Crăciun)