MIFF Session #10: ENYS MEN

Her days are made from routine. In the morning, she ventures out to a remote cliff of the island to take the soil temperature and observe the state of a small clump of white flowers with red filaments. On the way back she drops a stone into the well and listens for the sound of the fall. She goes back to her cottage and fills the columns of a notebook: April 22 1973. 14.2 degrees. No change. She zip starts the generator and makes a pot of tea and listens to the radio. The other radio, the two-way, occasionally stirs in a burst of static with a barely comprehensible voice from afar. At close of day she bathes and sleeps. Repeat.

This film is told as a series of disruptions to the rolling motion of this routine, from memories of other people (she is, on the surface at least, the only one on the island), reveries of its past as a strict religious community or a mine, to outgrowths of lichen on the flowers and then on her skin. Increasingly, her isolation is having a fundamental impact on her consciousness. She directly addresses the younger woman who appears in the house now and then but a later scene suggests that it is her younger self. At the centre of this strangeness stands a tall rock which might as easily be phallic as humanoid. Is it exercising its powers or are the powers those of an insular seclusion she projects to warm her days into definition, however nightmarish that is?

This film has been described as a folk horror and, given the protean boundaries of that sub-genre, I'll go along with it. However, I'm more reminded of a scene from The Mind Benders (1963) where a man, isolated by weather for a long time is interviewed and tells them he wasn't lonely as he had a companion. They ask him where the man went and he says, "it wasn't a man, it was an angel". I saw that on tv when I was about ten and it drilled into me and found my horror receptor. The routine day and the idea of something rupturing the routine with no sense of the world's assistance or care also reminded me strongly of life in the stricter of the lockdowns: grinding days, simple pleasures, same again.

Mary Woodvine as the woman (there are no named characters in this film) gives us all we need to understand the basics of this often abstract film. The lines of dialogue might account for about five of the ninety-one minutes of screen time; she must work with her face and physique. We get to know that she does like where she has landed, the plain task and its setting until the setting starts to include her body and then mind. If that surname rings a bell then you get a point. She is the daughter of the great John Woodvine (whose intense intelligence constructed his Inspector Kingdom in the great '70s UK procedural how New Scotland Yard) who, himself, appears as the psalms and sawdust preacher, bellowing homilies and singing hymns.

Finally of note is Mark Jenkin, writer, director and auteur of this film. His recent feature Bait was a loud and proud home made tale of the troubles of a village fisherman in stark black and white which he processed himself and added post synch dialogue. Because of this the uncorrected glitches and stains on the vision and audio became part of the cottage-built feel of the film. This time it's in such rich colour that it's almost saturated. The audio is clean and clear except where it is presented as intrusive distortion like the radio signal or the clipped synthesis of the electronic score. As with the previously reviewed Lola, there is no attempt at camping any of this up as a kind of Guy Maddin cover version; the aesthetic bears more of the look and feel of '70s and '80s BBC outings like Ghost Story for Christmas or The Appointment. That informs the deliberately disjointed progress, as well (though the intensity of it is more Jenkin's own touch). 

I felt restlessness in the audience at the screening (Forum, final night of MIFF) which I took to be disappointment. This might have been at Jenkin for making something a lot less friendly than Bait or those who might have been attracted by the term folk horror inserted into the program notes as a recently faddish hook. I was happy to struggle with its frenetic motion. Apart from anything else, it did give me the building blocks of a story I could use for my own construction. And, really, if Ben Wheatly can get away with throwing whole third acts into psychedelic slideshows (twice!) I think we can give Jenkin a go. At least he plays fair.

MIFF Session #10: DUAL

After a prologue showing a young man duelling his clone to death we meet young Sarah whose career and relationship are floundering. She eats junk food and drinks too much and now she's vomiting blood. Diagnosis cancer with 2% margin for error. Prognosis certain death within a year. But why doesn't she do what everyone else in her situation does and get a clone to train to be her for her loved ones afterwards? Um, didn't you say there was a margin for error? Forget it, you're dead, do this. So, she does.

The clone, known as Sarah's Double, is identical but for a mistake in the process that made her eyes blue, not brown like Sarah's. She emerges at Sarah's age, can speak but needs training in Sarah's life experience. What could go wrong? Well, her partner and mother like Sarah's double better and then Sarah finds out that she has gone into remission. The law states there can only be one so we're back to the prologue setup whereby the Sarahs will have to duel to the death.

Riley Stearns' satire begins with a premise in speculative fiction that, while not unknown, is not unfamiliar, what he adds is the training. Do I make my future self better or will I just create an intolerable rival while I'm still alive? So, should I make her a mediocrity who might improve herself after I'm gone. What does either say about me? As Sarah is training to kill her double (with the superbly cast Aaron Paul) she is driven by an anger from every unfair thing that has led her to this and channels it into Sarah's Double. 

Karen Gillan's performance is studiously deadpan, to the point of sounding robotic. This allows her clone to sound like her from the off but also means that differences between them need to be played subtly. That said, they have an exchange about how each speaks the name of their partner Peter. This serves the concept, the writing and the narrative but forms a block to our empathy which did bother me. This issue was handled by showing more of Sarah than her clone to keep the timeline focussed on her but it increasingly lost power when the pair shared the screen. It reminded me of the corporate ad for the cloning service which played a step too far for consistent satire. A similar moment in Being John Malkovich worked as if fit perfectly in with the whimsy of the whole film. This just feels ill-judged.

It is such choices that hamper this film from feeling as committed as it might be. Gillan seems to struggle to bring her flat voice character through to us. There are inconsistencies in the scheme that are left untended like the question of why the law has met the problem the way it has. A little work on the greater social response might have fixed this. Nevertheless, if you can buy into the premise, just keep your eye on Sarah's side of the story and you should enjoy this idea-driven tale. 

MIFF Play #2: THE HUMANS

A family gathers for Thanksgiving at the New York apartment of one of their number. The evening is plagued by loud sounds from the upstairs neighbours and big boomy noises from the family members as they find things to fight about (mostly success or failure). Performances are finely turned in this psychodrama the like of which I have seen too often and which offers nothing of substance to the subgenre. The visual approach is pleasant, highlighting the darkness at the edge of all lighted areas, until you lose count of how many shots of the characters captured in frames of doorways. While it is necessary to make family groups like these explosive or snide or bitchy there should also be a balance struck to give at least some of them enough empathy or even development for viewers to chew on. This was adapted for the screen by its author and director from his Broadway play. I can imagine the play having some impact just from that extra charge of live performance. It feels as though we are being promised something for the end and there is something that happens but it's so inconsequential (I will not call it subtle) that it happens, passes and the whole thing finds a place to end. And, sorry, while I hate the term pretentious used as derision but anyone who calls their play The Humans is just asking for it.

MIFF Session #9: LOLA

Flashes of film running out of sprocket or brief broken images. A woman narrates a wish for someone to find the film she is recording. Credits and then we're in London during the blitz. Two posh young sisters operate an invention that can see into the future. It's like a huge bakelite console eith globe glowing at its centre. Through the misty noise of the screen we see David Bowie sining Space Oddity. The women put the machine (the Lola of the title) to use averting civilian deaths by leaking details if future air raids. They become known as The Angel of Portabello.

When the army catches up with them they share the technology for the war effort. All fine until someone puts out an eye ... or plays the phenomenon and subverts it like them dem Jerries. The war now looks lost. Instead of David Bowie there's now a soundalike who sings about marching and public executions. Twists of fate are dealt at dizzying speed. Is there a way out?

I was expecting and would have been happy with a Guy Maddin tribute. But this is something else, again. Andrew Legge (whose rap sheet I am now determined to investigate) has fashioned a kind of elevated hobbyist film with real acting, more than passable writing with some fine concepts. However arch some of the humour or goofy the concepts this is a serious period sci-fi whose tone lies somewhere between retro-found-footage and the kind of what if already established by Mollo and Browlow with their extraordinary It Happened Here. Oh, and there's lovely opportunity taken with the distressed old film stock look: the air invasion CGI looks as real as anything else on screen and ends up epic and terrifying.

If it gets loose in the second act when it should be tight and some stretches need trimming to avoid repetition of information, Lola yet makes it through as a diverting progression for a film maker who has struck his own invention of a retrograde cinema that has a genuine reason to exist. Guy Maddin is unassailable for camp loopiness that creates a parallel cosmos. Legge might well be ready to show us more earnest adventure. The world is still large enough for both.

MIFF Play #1: MASS

Two couples meet at a church hall to sit down and talk. The theme of the day: your son killed mine. throughout the discussion, blame is laid and deflected, positions shift, the obvious confronted or dismissed, and all the things that might be uttered in this situation find voice. As they leave the awkward safe harbour and speak their hearts and minds the defences are lowered and searing truths leap out. This is the whole film (plus a tough final testimony) but that also means it's a gruelling near two hours of poignant dialogue and magisterial performances which is why you're watching.

The themes of parenthood and responsibility as well as the flaws in an educational system that tolerates bullying fall and land on an America numb from increasingly frequent school shootings and the culture that allows them to continue (though the film is careful to avoid the kid buying guns online theme as it would muddy already difficult waters) Instead of the screaming fest you might expect from this you get a lot of dynamics in pace, emotion and intensity from the central quartet of character actors. The mighty Ann Dowd, constantly dealing with a stone of guilt as she tries to plead understand for the child who became a mass murderer. Her husband, clinging to a few strands of mitigating details, struggles with his own denial. Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton, as the parents of one of the victims, hold in tempests of rage behind fragile social observances.

The setting in a room on church premises is also poignant but in an unexpected way. None of these people declare themselves affined to religion and the sect itself (Episcopalian/Anglican) is chosen as a kind of neutral territory while retaining the sense of sanctuary. While there is use of church music at one point to suggest healing it is the music rather than its religious setting that has the effect. That's indicative of the thoughtfulness and seriousness of this film whose title combines the notion of a sacred ceremony and the unimaginable violence of a school shooting. See it if it appears in cinemas or on streamers. Don't be daunted by the gravity of it, it's so well turned you'll more guided than manipulated.

MIFF Session #8: SOMETHING IN THE DIRT

A pair of down and out-ers find themselves in the same run down apartment block in L.A. and get to talking. The newcomer Levi goes off with the promise of furniture for his new place until he goes into the country to live. While both are helping with the couches and chairs they notice that a bizarrely shaped glass or crystal that Levi has found in the flat has levitated and cast strange patterns on the wall. As both are out of luck but intrigued they decide to record it and see if they can make a documentary about it for a streaming giant. It does happen again and they arm themselves with recording equipment as more weirdness starts taking place. As we see this we are also informed, through a series of talking head interviews that the documentary they have been making has not gone to plan and involved tragedy. Someone among the original duo and the expanding cast and crew has died.

Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead have made a career making big concept movies on tiny budgets. Instead of going along Roger Corman lines of fashioning miniature mainstream outings they've followed the more arthouse or mumblecore style by which a flat video look or strained visual effect is played for real and takes gravitas from its humble circumstances. Resolution was mostly a dialogue but expanded to include a well described spiral of phenomena around a plain story of one friend detoxing another. Spring was like Splash for fans of H.P. Lovecraft. The Endless notched everything up with a more complicated universe that accommodated something of the debut in its expansion. While this was progressing, the duo was assisting other film makers with like minds to add to the universe with small but impressive outings like She Dies Tomorrow or After Midnight. Then Benson and Morehead made the more mainstream Synchronic with a higher profile cast and a more focussed time travel plot. It was not received with the joy from the fanbase that all the others and the offshoots had been. My take on that is that it was considered an overreach, too much budget but not enough for the look and feel to lift them into the mainstream celestium, a kind of unintended sellout. I liked the film but understood why fans of the duo didn't. 

Something in the Dirt feels like a way of rebooting the style to include the rich enthusiasm of the earlier films with the pleasure of higher production values. The catch is that it's their most claustrophobic piece yet, caging us in with the two characters (played by Benson and Morehead themselves as they did in The Endless). It's like a one for them/on for us deal except you get both of those at once. In a way, it's a little like an autobiographical sketch of the partnership itself as it has to do with the ambition to create extraordinary things with scant means with the slick to-camera interviews serving as a reminder of what it might look like on Netflix or Shudder.

While we're dealing with that we are watching the constant threat to the project through each character's vulnerability. John is part of an evangelical Christian apocalyptic sect with eyes on a coming apocalypse. He keeps unearthing new details about Levi's police record and institutional life. There are tough reckoning moments for both at the hands of the other while a general passive area is maintained by both new friends. While John sees a new face of electro-magnetism, Levi thinks the phenomena are making him defy gravity. All this is fuelled by a series of discoveries that might as easily be coincidences as connections. Perhaps it's a kind of lockdown story where simple and reasonable complaints fermented into big stinky conspiracy theories and bizarre redrafts of concepts like freedom. We are in there with them almost exclusively for nearly two hours. 

 I recently saw Jordan Peele's Nope, a large scale seamlessly produced epic of sci-horror. It had a good-sized pot of concepts which it fulfilled impeccably in a self-aware blockbuster fashion. It was clever and huge and had a lot to say about the pursuit of spectacle and the way that's done in movies. In the narrowest of justifications for the comparison, Id put it up against the far more ragged Something in the Dirt with its breathless trialling of pattern vs coincidence any day. Peele marshalled massive resources for his piece and deserves the accolades he's raking in. But for me, I left the cinema for the Benson and Morehead movie with the sense of it expanding as I let it settle into form. Between the two, give me the punky take over the slick one every time. But that's just me.

MIFF Session #6: YOU WON'T BE ALONE

A village woman makes a pact with folkloric witch figure whereby the latter won't kill the woman's child, Nevena, in infancy but take her after the girl has had a chance at life. The witch, Old Maid Maria, who looks like one of the damned in the Hellraiser movies, agrees but scratches the baby anyway, removing her voice. The mother hides her daughter in a cave for years but to no avail. The child is claimed by the Maria and taken. She is then inducted into the life of a body jumping demon known by the locals as a wolf-eatress. Told to go and fend for herself, she does, going from body to body, learning, each time, about the ways of humans that she witnesses for the first time since leaving seclusion. These transitions are not always smooth and some are near disastrous as one life is taken, another is assumed. Now and then a wolf-eatress is discovered and dealt with by fire. That's always on the cards.

This cinema verite folk horror tale feels like it has been told to you from childhood and you are only now seeing it unfold in visual form. There is very little expository guidance and you are essentially in the same position as Nevena learns with each transition, about marriage, sex, social order and so on and the Breughelian expression of them that we, too, will find alien. Of particular note is Noomi Rapace's turn as a young village mother who learns of domestic violence, narrated by the initial actor playing Nevena. She must mime her way through each local ritual or custom like gossip or female servitude in marriage (Nevena's lack of voice applies to everyone whose body she assumes). Other incarnations variously amuse or confront. Since we're talking about performances here, I can't leave until I've mentioned how magnetic and edgy turn by Annamaria Marinca in the role of the demonic Maria who offers a command so gently confident it renders her intimidating every time we see her.

Shot in a claustrophobic 4X3 ratio, the colours and life of the Balkan countryside are brought vividly and claustrophobically to life, illustrated from a sourced score of mostly classical pieces. While the beauty of the land and nature might remind of a Terrence Malik, the violence and hard superstition might more recall a Red Psalms or Wicker Man. this leads to a problem: just after the halfway mark, we have seen so much of the procedure of the wolf-eatress escape through body jumping or educate herself by it and old Maria turn up for check-ins the overall arc starts grinding down. The finale offers strong and definite action but we are exhausted by then and wish we had seen the end about twenty minutes earlier.

That said, there is so much promise and creativity on screen that I'll be looking out for the further films of Goran Stolevski whose next project (according to himself at the Q&A) will be a contemporary comedy. I'll be in the queue.

MIFF Session #5: THE NOVELIST'S FILM

An elegant novelist, Jun-hee, waits outside a bookshop, finishing her vape before she goes in. The manager emerges, greeting Jun-hee as an old friend. They have a conversation about how they've drifted and their careers. The manager invites her in for tea and the assistant shows the writer some of the sign language she's learned before the writer repeats the phrase she's asked for several times until she has it. Afterwards, they stroll to the new building and take their leave. Jun-hee rides the lift of the building and uses the pay telescope until someone who recognises her approaches her, they have a chat until the newcomer's husband, a film director (who has been hiding at the sight of Jun-hee) and the conversation is pleasantly awkward. They have coffee and ....

This is a Hong Sang-soo film, and like all of his others, is a kind of Kurbickian comedy of manners in which a few insubmersible units are set in a sequence that ends with a hint. The chance encounters keep coming, there's makgeolli by the bottle and takeaway on the table and everyone gets drunk. Jun-hee berates the film director (who had rejected her screenplay the last time they had anything to do with each other: that's why he was hiding) for shaming the film actor they meet in the park for wasting her youth. Jun Hee decides she wants to make a film herself with the actor, Gill-soo which happens and which we partially see.

Jun-hee's idea for the film is very like a Hong film; a beautiful young woman in the park talking about beauty and nature. What's missing is the arch dialogue and humour of awkwardness played in static setups that might be from silent cinema. We might take a moment to notice it, with the dialogue ramping up, but Director Park's wife is so annoyed and restless by the conversation in which her husband is been slammed that she slowly twists away from it until she resembles an op shop mannequin. When Jun-hee are talking over food at a diner a young girl arrives at the window and stares at Gill-soo, clearly a fan. They notice her but she moves on. Then, she's back with the same possessed stare. Gill-soo gets up and exits to talk to her. We don't hear a word of their conversation but we can make it up for ourselves. Finally, after the probable only screening of the titular novelist's film everyone is a little numb and alone. But we aren't.

Hong's extraordinary output has him release about two feature films per year (MIFF usually has the latest two) and I try to make each one. While the above might suggest there is a sameness  to them it is due more to the difficulty of explaining their qualities rather than any genuine uniformity. Hong is fascinated by what happens in spoken communication, its bright declarations and veiled purposes and all in between and beyond. Most are delivered in his native Korean but when he has the opportunity to add languages he takes the opportunity for ever more rarefied fun. With this he returns to the basics and provides more of why we who are fans locked on to him in the first place. It doesn't feel like treading old ground as much as finding more detail in it.

MIFF Session #4: MILLIE LIES LOW

Millie has a panic attack on the plane that would be taking her to New York and a opportunity of a lifetime in her future career as an architect. After a struggle, she is allowed to disembark. After stabilising, she tries to get another flight but they don't come with the massive discount she's just squandered so she has to think. The local loan shark back in Wellington requires collateral and time. She has to think again and then, step by step, she finds a way of pretending she's living it up in New York while evading the attentions of her friends and family until she can solve the problems her plans keep dishing up. She is driven but she's also about to learn what life looks like without her.

This fable of denial and redemption works a treat. Someone, somewhere along the creative timeline made a wise decision to keep the signature crisp deadpan of Kiwi humour to the background. I love the banter and plotting of Wellington Paranormal and What We Do in the Shadows that have the extraordinary obey the shrivelling laws of the mundane but the focus here is on Millie and it can't be all laughs. Karen O'Leary does appear as a security guard (effectively the same as Officer O'Leary in Paranormal) but her appearance does add a plot point about how Millie got her New York scholarship. The rest is played for progress of the fable as Millie has some lessons in store.

Ana Scotney, front and centre as Millie, gives us the lot as she variously implodes with anxiety, judges, gets drunk, rages or falls into crushing acceptance. That decision to play the comedy expectations down at the start allows her performance to stretch and we need to be able to simultaneously cringe from her and hope she gets through even the worst of her deceptions and manipulations. Two moments of this turn stand out for me and both of them are quiet. Still at the airport we get a commercial for her University in which she stars, talking about her opportunity, business suited with straightened hair. Cut to reveal she is watching herself on her laptop. Self conscious, she closes the computer lid but we've cut to a wide shot which reveals the same ad is playing behind her on the giant display. She notices and, bound by the attention overload, sinks into her seat and pulls her hood tighter around her head. The second moment feels so natural it could be a happy mistake. Millie is driving with her mother as they talk about the situation and Millie's predicament. Her mother speaks a malapropism, thinking appointment is the antonym of disappointment. The error hangs in the air as Millie's smirk turns into something with a lot more sadness. The difference between the scrubbed corporate action doll of the ad and the wild-haired survivalist she's become is expressed exactly in that instance.

The rest of the cast, mostly young (student friends of Millie's) are written with more depth and joy than you might expect with such a solidly solo story and the sense of the camaraderie and bitchiness of student culture (which Millie herself has played ruthlessly) feels real. Sam Cotton's popular young lecturer is the comedy standout outside of Scotney herself. While he initially plays the Kiwi comedy style to start with he is given scenes later that carry more weight and even gets to be a little icky and weird. The score is electronic and effective in supplying the swelling low frequency rush of anxiety and another motive using a rhythmic buzz that suggests a phone ring set to vibrate, adding urgency. 

While there are clear comparisons to be made with Catcher in the Rye or It's a Winderful Life this film reminds me more of the kind of thing that New Hollywood film makers were churning out in the early '70s, character-forward slices of life like Five Easy Pieces or Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. I would have liked a touch more of the pretty city of Wellington but as with the quirky humour this story is not about that but Millie and the low lies that bade her to lie low. The final moment that really only uses lighting and exposure to suggest to us what has happened to Millie and the characters tightest around her is testament to the message: keep it low and let it grow.

MIFF Session #3: SISSY

Two kids, Sissy and Emma, pledge enternal friendship on a home video. Years later, Sissy looks into our eyes and speaks words of comfort. She's become an influencer, preaching wellbeing to hundreds and thousands of fans worldwide. As she checks the pings of love responses her pupils expand from all the seratonin. Later at the chemist, she meets grown up Emma whose bright, wide staring close up sends far more enthusiasm than it receives. After starting with such devotion from the video we can fathom Sissy's (sorry, it's now Cecilia's) standoffishness. Maybe it's just the passage of time. Undaunted, Emma invites Cecilia to her engagement party and that's it. Well, no. 

As everyone is getting drunk and emboldened to wrestle each other for the karaoke mic, Emma and Cecilia find the old warmth and Emma extends an invitation to her hens retreat that weekend. Cecilia breaks and agrees. Then, step by step, Cecilia manages to wrong foot everyone else, and retreats to the background, unnoticed, having gone from great massive online love to this. There's also an old score which we've glimpsed in flashbacks; Alex, scarred from an childhood incident involving Cecilia, freaks at Cecilia's appearance at the chalet and doesn't let up. Flight or fight, Cissy?

Horror comedy usually falls on one side of the divide and stays there. Exceptions include Arsenic and Old Lace and Scream, separated by about fifty years. Capra's film works because he starts where he lives, in comedy and adds the spiky horror moods and references as the plot accelerates. Craven starts in his home territory of convincing horror and folds the comedy in until it's hard to tell the difference. Most attempts at the mix fail, usually giving it up for laughs. That's not a bad thing, American Werewolf in London and Whacko are still enjoyable movies, it's just that it shows how hard it is to sustain the balancing act. Both jokes and scares depend on tension and while the payoff of one differs from the other, they both need that clench to keep it fresh.

Sissy does a few things right here by using the social awkwardness as a fuel for suspense and some convincing and very funny social interactions which can turn sharply into discomfort. Then, when it's time for blood and gore, delivers gleefully on those. Themes of narcissism, true friendship or fame are clearly drawn and appropriately for a comedy writ large, the one thing we don't quite get when we need it most is horror movie tension. The first kill comes easily from the situation but others feel too drawn out to put all the dialogue in rather than complete the gag. One kill has no apparent motive, which robs it of stakes, and while the action of it works, feels included for the effect.

Too picky? Maybe. Perhaps I should just recall that this film's ancestors include the Scorsesean Ingrid Goes West, the post Trump Tragedy Girls which added genre shocks to what began and ended as satire. My screening included a Q&A with one of the directors, the producer and, very satisfyingly, the composer (a figure lamentably missing from most such festival occasions) who was very eloquent and accurate in describing his range from Giallo to Disney in scoring the film. One point that the producer made, and poignantly, was that to keep the film from becoming dated too quickly, they held back on representing social media technology as. And that's really the point. Regardless of how Sissy became Cecilia, she did, and the childhood she had was bound to bring its own issues to a reunion. At that level, Sissy is a stunner of a debut.

MIFF Session #2: LYNCH/OZ

Film makers and critics provide their thoughts on the link between the work of David Lynch and The Wizard of Oz? Eh? Well, when you consider that Wild at Heart is practically decorated with Oz references, brick my yellow brick, and quotes and nods abound in the back catalogue from Eraserhead, through Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, there's a lot to deal with.

Whether it's the concept of wind which triggers the story of Wizard of Oz, to the wind of influence once the cinematic flop found a massive audience with the advent of tv, including a young and receptive David Lynch. It might be the notion of the membranes between parallel universes, nudging or even rupturing and pouring into each other, the personal story of Lynch's friendship with fellow odd bod John Waters, or the convoluted but fascinating journey back to the notion of home, the traveller weathered but wonderstruck.

Depending on the deal struck between the contributors and the ringmaster Alexandre O. Phillipe, these contributions are prevented from becoming talking head interviews by a restless montage illustrating convergence or collision with whatever could be found to throw at the screen. The results vary - John Waters sound like he's genuinely reminiscing, whereas Karyn Kusama's written piece feels carefully constructed to keep some wild concepts under rein, undercurrent neo-horror team Benson and Morehead sound the most formal and the rhapsodic David Lowery's final word gives us the home we've started to dearly crave after so much bombardment.

Film essays can vary from the worthy to the inspiring but they don't always make it back to port. Mark Cousins dazzled with his mammoth Story of Film but faltered with The Eyes of Orson Welles. The Real Charlie Chaplin made it in by keeping things spare and inviting to digest. Lynch/Oz, by contrast, shouldn't work at all. While I'll admit to feeling fatigued after the hour mark I let it charge on and felt rewarded by the final chapter's warmth. I remember thinking that it might take a second viewing just to keep hold of some of the chief concepts and then thinking that I wonder if I would do that? One of my screening companions suggested he would if it turned up on streaming. There's the solution.

Phillipe has made a career of films about film. 17/52 is about the shower scene from Psycho (17 setups in 52 seconds of screen time) Others include examinations of the Star Wars phenomenon, Ridley Scott's Alien, the interview feature Leap of Faith about William Friedkin's The Exorcist, and so on. From this you might expect an approach given to over density but there is significant variation in the results. This subject was born dense and each of the participants accepted their homework assignment with evident glee. It is that glee that keeps us listening as the notions gush past, a reminder that film makers like Lynch, Kubrick or Welles all but beg for such mature age student style study through their innovation and teetering mix of persona and style. One it brought to mind, though: I have a copy of Wizard of Oz on 4K that I haven't yet watched. Itching, now.

Seen at Hoyts. Perfect sound and picture. QA with director did not go wayward.

MIFF Session #1: THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN

As the subject of this documentary has had a slow but genuine rethink in the past decade or so, thanks to YouTube and scrubbed up remasters of his classic works, I wondered if I would be in for archaeology or hagiography. I got a serve of both, ranging from platitudes that had the sheen of packaged depth but also genuinely thought provoking musings on the uses that the famous and well loved can put to their celebrity.

Using a blend of film loops, re-enacted interviews and press conferences, film distortion and manipulation, and a constantly hand-holding narration, The Real Charlie Chaplin first takes us through the expected streams: rags to riches, film tinkerer to innovative auteur before settling into a number of phases highlighting both the celebrated and controversial aspects of Chaplin's life and work.

A sequence on the straining trouble he took to find the joke in the flower girl scene in City Lights illustrates the kind of obsession we more readily associate with Stanley Kubrick. What at first feels like an overstretched comparison between Chaplin and Hitler does finally land with a focussed examination of the Great Dictator and its powerful final speech (I welled up all over again, even though it was clearly an illustration of creative power rather than a purely celebratory moment). And then there is the elephant in the room that has to do with the age differences between Chaplin and his wives which only grew as he aged and bore more than a few hints at his darker side. This adds depth rather than sensation and is the better for it. After that sequence we are compelled to view the man through both public and private selves, such as we can know them.

This is a feature documentary that extends well beyond the worthy toward the essential. Early cinema remains one of the swiftest timelines of an art forming and innovating in service and defiance of its public. And the comics like Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd worked like Trojans to match the galloping possibilities of cinema with its value as amusement. Any time you see a current comedy that winks at you with its high concept, whether it's an Adam Sandler vehicle or Being John Malkovich, the basic tools that the pioneers found in the early 20th century remain in place. This film seeks the mind and conscience behind the pratfalls and majestic set pieces in an idiom that cheekily joins in the fun it's describing. Can't ask more than that in a movie about Charlie Chaplin, now can ya?

Seen at the Forum. Oh, to everyone who seemed to gleefully cough without the courtesy of wearing a mask in this third plague year, put it on when in a confined place like a cinema, you monster-flapping barbary geese! I've a good mind to get Monique Ryan back down here to deal with you.