Category Archives: Melbourne International Film Festival

MIFF progress report #3: A Touch of Sin and Call Girl

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

call-girl-posterThe third and final part of my report back from the 2013 Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) looks at the Chinese film A Touch of Sin and Call Girl, a Swedish neo noir set in the early seventies.

First up, Call Girl. Apparently based on actual events, this 2012 thriller was one of the real surprises for me at MIFF.

Sweden is in election mode and it is seven days before the nation goes to the polls. It’s a universe away from Iris and her best friend Sonja, two young juvenile delinquents sent to live in a home for troubled youths.

The home has virtually zero supervision and the young people seem free to come and go at all hours of the day and night. Remember this is Sweden in the early seventies, an ultra permissive, self proclaimed social democratic paradise where the authorities are thinking about decriminalizing certain types of incest and the cops crack jokes about capitalism.

Tthrough a series of unfortunate interactions the two girls find themselves drawn into the orbit of a procurer for the sex trade called Dagmar and her creepy sidekick and lover, Roy.

Dagmar runs a call girl operation. Not just any call girl racket. Her clients include senior civil servants, politicians (including the Minister of Justice) and police.… Read more

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime fiction and film from China, Crime fiction and film from Scandinavia, Crime film, Melbourne International Film Festival, Neo Noir

Tagged , , , , ,

MIFF 2013 progress report #2: Death for Sale and Grigris

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

death-for-saleMy second Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) progress report looks at Death for Sale, which played as part of MIFF’s ‘New Arabic Cinema’ section, and the French/Chadian gangster movie, Grigris.

First up, Death For Sale. I loved everything about this Arabic take on the classic heist movie.

The setting is the working class port town of Tetouan, at the northern edge of Morocco. The film opens with two men, Malik and Soufiane, waiting outside a prison for the release of their friend, Allal, who has been inside for several years on drug trafficking charges.

Each of three men is dealing with their own issues. Malik lives with his sister, mother and a stepfather who he hates. He’s also got a major crush on Dounia, a femme fatale-type hostess at the town’s sole upmarket nightclub. Soufiane is a poor orphan who lives in the dormitory of a home for boys. Allal lives with his alcoholic father and positively seethes with unrealised criminal ambition.

Life is tough in Tetouan and every one does whatever they can to get by. The three men bag snatch when they can, Malik’s sister steals from the garment factory she works in, and Dounia whores herself. Life looks like it will go on, a slow burn of frustration and petty crime, until a police crackdown results in a large chunk of Tetouan’s underworld, including Dounia, being imprisoned.… Read more

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime film, Melbourne International Film Festival

Tagged , , ,

MIFF 2013 progress report #1: Manila in the Claws of Light & Monsoon Shootout

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

ManilaA couple of weeks ago I posted on the films I was planning to check out as part of the Melbourne International Festival. Yesterday I ticked off my first two choices, the Indian noir Monsoon Shootout and Manila in the Claws of Light.

First up, Manila in the Claws of Light (or as it is otherwise known as, The Nail of Brightness). This 1975 film is considered one of the classics of Philippines cinema. I’d heard a lot about and I wasn’t disappointed.

Julio (Bembol Rocco) is a young man who leaves his idyllic life in a small rural fishing town and travels to Manila to find his childhood sweetheart, Ligaya (Hilda Koronel), who has been trafficked into the city’s sex trade. Finding himself flat broke after he is mugged, he has no choice but to take a job working on a high-rise construction site.

The conditions are brutal, he sleeps in a wooden shack next to the half finished building, and workplace deaths are common. He also has to deal with the foreman, who regularly rips the workers off for a portion of their wages and sacks anyone who complains.

He eventually loses that job and ends up homeless on Manila’s streets, where he skirmishes with criminal gangs and meets a male prostitute who tries to induct him into the world of sex work.… Read more

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Asian noir, Crime fiction and film from India, Crime fiction and film from the Philippines, Crime film, Melbourne International Film Festival, Neo Noir

Tagged , , , , , ,

Crime time at the 2013 Melbourne International Film Festival

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

grisgrisThe Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) approaches and, and as was the case in 2012, the good people at MIFF HQ have been good enough to give me media accreditation to cover some of the crime films on the program.

When I started to write this piece on my crime cinema picks for MIFF 2013, I realised nearly all my choices were films set outside of the Anglo world. This is in line with my usual practice of viewing films that I think are unlikely to get a mainstream release here. But it also reflects my growing interest in how developing or countries from the global South view and define crime cinema and crime and noir narratives.

Grigis

One of my favourites from MIFF 2011 was the Congalese film Viva Riva, the story of a small-time gangster who returns from neighbouring Angola with a truckload of stolen petrol he hopes to sell Kinshasa at top dollar. I’m hoping that Grigis, a 2011 France/Chad coproduction is as good.

Directed by French-Chadian Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, it focuses on a young physically handicapped Chadian man who earns a living as a photographer and dancer in nightclubs, but yearns to make enough money to pay Mimi, one of the hostesses in the bar he works in, to marry him.… Read more

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime fiction and film from China, Crime fiction and film from Scandinavia, Melbourne International Film Festival

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Golden Slumbers: Cambodia’s lost film industry

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

The 2011 documentary Golden Slumbers, about the destruction of Cambodia’s pre-1975 film industry at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, is the last film from recent Melbourne International Film Festival I’ve been meaning to review.

I’ve been thinking about Cambodia a lot in the last couple of weeks. My debut novel Ghost Money, a crime novel set in the country in the mid-nineties was recently released. Amongst the many themes it deals with is the lingering impact of the destruction wrought by the Khmer Rouge on Cambodia society.

Golden Slumbers deals with one aspect of this, the almost complete eradication of Cambodia’s local film industry. I’ve written previously about the destruction of the countries incredibly vibrant pre-1975 music scene. The Khmer Rouge did the same thing to actors, directors and any one else they could find who was associated with cinema.

In their effort to obliterate what they saw a corrupt society, they destroyed movie studios, burnt any movie stock they found, killed actors, directors and technicians. So comprehensive were their efforts that out of some 400 movies that were produced prior to 1975, all that is left today are a few images, some radio grabs and sound track titles, posters and a handful of the original participants.

The survivors are a strange lot.… Read more

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Melbourne International Film Festival

Tagged , , , , ,