MIFF 2019 Roundup

Intro
This year I did something unlike me and went back through the old programs to make lists of what I'd seen in MIFFs going back as far as I could. My real job came in handy here as it gave me immediate access to MIFF websites going back to 1998. While it was a chore going through the entire program for each year it did let me pick up a lot of movies that had been on short lists that I still haven't got around to. Another thing was that for each screening that I could remember (most of them) I added a few notes which included whether I saw it alone or with friends. The overall picture was that some fests were very social and others were almost solo. Then, when I thought about it a little deeper, I came away from the solo (or mostly solo) fests with much more intense and profound impressions. So, this year, while I did let a few friends in on my schedule I did nothing to chase anyone up and let it happen as it would. I even exchanged sessions that had orange dots by them (selling fast) red ones (sold out) or red triangles (standby)  for more obscure and less buzzy choices. These included films I knew I wouldn't be able to interest many others in seeing. Also, I sit at the front by preference which means that I almost never have to queue as that area is the least preferred. I am the only one of the people I know with this preference so if I'm meeting someone there it means standing in queues to get a middle-of-the-road seat. Oh, and out of preference, almost all my sessions were morning or early afternoon on week days which might tell you where I was leaning.  The result was that while I don't recall the joy and the fun and the seasons in the sun of some of them the movie experience feels richer. I might well be telling myself a few things there but I can say that at this stage they are not unpleasant ones. So, while it felt more like work than fun I really enjoyed the hell out of this year's MIFF. First, the movies ...

High

In Fabric in which Peter Strickland delivers the best of everything he's already given and pumps it up and out even further. A curious and wonderful mix of absurdist comedy, kitchen sink realism and genuine eeriness. Rare.

Something Else gave us a credible relationship study turned monster movie turned rom com in a piece that proudly bore its indy cred but fought its way well out of that paper bag with depth and real surprise.

The Day Shall Come showed that Chris Morris could develop from his uneasy blend of goofy knockabout humour with dark politics to deliver a sublime weave of light satirical political humour to a hard gut punch of a conclusion.

The Swallows of Kabul might have dealt its social criticism with a heavy hand but its sheer conviction won through, supported by a winsome animation style.

Friedkin Uncut is how you do an interview movie. A great raconteur supported by a gallery of peers and clips lift it above the dvd extra that a lot of these feel like.

Middle

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead delighted with Ben Wheatley in Mike Leigh territory and loving it. I love how in the explosive family environment the climactic moment is so slight and yet decisive. I just don't know how much I enjoyed it.

The Unknown Saint was a very appealing folky fable of cunning and greed. Never felt like more but didn't really need to.

The Orphanage expressed a bitter wish from decades past, a kind of if only rather than what if. Almost perfectly realised.

Vivarium had the courage to keep going with its severe absurdism but kept losing its way and then delivered what felt like an undercooked finish.

I wanted to like Monos more than I did but it never broke free of feeling like a short film left out in the rain. The breathtaking cinematography and audio + score did a lot of work and made me wish for more at the centre.

Share stood up to sexual assault in the social media maelstrom and made some strong points about the social microcosm and added some frightening thoughts about apparent virtue as manipulation but kept falling too short of the mark.

Low

The Tomorrow Man might well have done something worthy of its great ending if it had wound back the normality it was using to throw us off with the cute old people in a rom com hijinks. A missed opportunity and near waste of a great cast.

The Lodge showed that the makers of a contemporary classic horror film (Ich Sehe Ich Sehe) can bungle their next for the same reason that made their first work: icy aloofness that bred dread there only alienates us from people we need to care about here.

Website and App

Again, I didn't need the paper guide at all as I was able to fill up a minipass over a couple of sessions using the website alone. The calendar view of the wishlist is really invaluable here. The app updated itself smoothly and was ready to use straight away. I didn't notice any new features but all the thing has to do is work which it does.

One gripe is that when you're checking on the selling fast/standby lists it opens on day one. Considering how many sessions per day for over a fortnight you have to scroll through to check something in the second week renders the feature all but useless. I prefer avoiding overcrowded sessions and exchanged tickets several times this festival to avoid them (in some cases the substitutes were better than I was expecting the original choice would be. Happily, the normal schedule opens  with the current day so it's better to check that way.

The site had some glitchy navigation in the calendar view by which if you chose a date from the dropdown you could return to the default (Friday Aug 2) but then it stopped working until you refreshed the page. If you exchanged tickets the old bookings stayed on your wishlist, crowding it up with abandoned entries. Not so bad on a browser but annoying on a phone.

For some reason drilling down to your ticket on the (at least Android) app while waiting to show it to the ushers for scanning it could shift from portrait to landscape (even if you had this turned off on your phone) and the QR code vanished, even when returning to portrait view. You had to back out of it and choose it again. Not a major glitch and easily fixed each time but it probably caused staff more than a few winces as they explained it to the punters. Why not fix the view to portrait. Who's really going to need landscape on a phone or even tablet to go through the guide?

The Venues

The Forum
The central experience of the festival for me and always feels like a great return home. Pity the festival club wasn't there this year. That last bit was one of the reasons why I didn't bother seeking out session mates this year. You had to travel to the Capitol to get a festival congregation/vibe after movie drink. I saw the Forum downstairs being used with lantern jawed security staff at the doors a few times. Folks, re-open the Forum as a bar, cafe. It's a beautiful space and feels special. I didn't even bother to try the one at the Capitol.

The Capitol
Welcome return of a beautiful cinema but for one thing: the seats (apparently refurbished) are among the most spine damaging I've tried. They are far worse than the antiques in the Comedy Theatre. Despite the beauty of the interior I will  choose against going to screenings at the Cap at future events and will not go to any ACMI-associated ones until they're back at ACMI next year (unless they get the same lunkhead who designed the seating at the Capitol).

Sofitel
I've been to this one only once before and a while ago. It's small and functional, about the same as going to a Kino auditorium. The sound system was deafening for the ads and pre-screening music but settled easily for the screening itself.

Exhibition Centre
Massive auditorium allows for an easy second from front seat for In Fabric and a pleasantly strange entrance through the endless hallway which itself is quite cinematic.

Hoyts
Guaranteed preferred seating and comfortable at this well set up cinema which always has good projection and audio. There is a triple row at the front which backs onto a walkway meaning that no one who sits like a squid out of water can reach the back of your seat with their feet.

I didn't end up going to any Kino sessions.

Audiences
People are getting worse. Well, they probably aren't. I never saw anyone keep their phone on while the movie was playing. The worst thing is still people who think their voices are inaudible or don't care if they aren't. They are followed by the physio patients of the future who don't understand that if you sit in chairs as designed it is much better for your back (except at the Capitol whose seats seem designed for those very squid monsters) and knee or kick the back of your seat. YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO COME IN CONTACT WITH THE SEAT IN FRONT OF YOU AT A CINEMA. That includes putting your footpath soiled shoes in the vicinity of anyone breathing close by. Your personal sovereignty ends when you start affecting that of other people. There is no exception to that. There was an adult family group at Monos who did take hints given to them and eventually shut up. In that case I just beamed at how punishing that film would have been to a drunkard's attention span. Knowing the contemporary cinemagoer's arrogance, I exchanged tickets from every standby session I'd booked: one or two entitled Neanderthals can be dealt with but a whole auditorium. Also, latecomers who extend their contempt for their fellow humans by talking or using what have to be prosthetic leg extensions  to make life hell for hours at a time tend to join me at the front. Not fun.

ADs
I mention these mainly because they are on before every screening so the dull ones are lived through and the irritating ones just get worse. There was a trailer this year and it was fine, simply stringing memorable images from the movies to music which gave it a sense of event. This wasn't one before screenings but put on YouTube and perhaps tv (no longer watch commercial tv so I wouldn't know). And then there was the put-your-phone-away one set in a bar in the after life. Shakespeare asks everyone how they died and among the famous and infamous there's an ordinary bloke who confesses he was texting while driving which brings the activity to a sudden halt. Most of this was actually quite funny. I won't go into the mangling of Elizabethan English as it was so bad it felt like part of the joke. The Ned Kelly confession made me wince every time as it went for too long and didn't observe its own rules. He mimes a shootout and hanging with vocal sound effects and then says Kelly's last words ("such is life") eloquently. And then in the final scene when they are at a cinema they repeat an earlier joke about his helmet which defuses the first one because when you see it again (and you will be seeing it again) the first one reminds you that the second one is coming. The first four confessions, though, are genuinely funny. But then over the end card we get Shakespeare quoting famous Brando line and feel like he does when he says it.

Eiplogue
When a low key senior rom com with a great ending and a competent if unremarkable horror movie are the worst things I can say about a whole festival then it must rate pretty highly. For reasons mentioned o'erhead this was a very comfortable fortnight o' films in good venues with mostly tolerable audiences and some real standout movies. I wouldn't want to take my misanthropic method into strict practice and might well loosen up next year and go in more groups but for this year at least going to movies by myself socialising outside the cinema was a far pleasanter experience than having to do all that organising. Anyway, for now, this is your happily exhausted correspondent from the shadows signing off MIFF for 2019.

One of the many snaps I took from the extraordinary sunset
following my final screening, heading off to a little treat
shopping and then a nice hot bath with some smoked salmon
and a Manhattan. Bye bye MIFF.