Eden Court Theatre and Cinemas, Inverness, 11-15 November 2009

Nosferatu

THE 7TH Inverness Film Festival was once again testimony to creativity and innovation on a small budget, not only in terms of showcasing emerging talent in independent film (Highland, Scottish, UK and international) but in the depth and breath of the programme.

A celebration of the auteur filmmaker past and present, the festival revealed a number of hidden gems and provided the opportunity to view the latest releases including 16 Scottish and 3 UK premieres. This year’s master classes were particularly engaging and enabling for would be filmmakers, writers and producers, with the theme of authorship a strong thematic thread throughout the programme.

A Bill Douglas retrospective featuring his semi autobiographical trilogy My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home, his 1986 feature Comrades and two documentaries, Lanterna Magika – Bill Douglas & the Secret History of Cinema and Bill Douglas: Intent on Getting the Image, gave insight into the creative development of the great Scottish director/auteur.

The festival also featured several debuts by first time feature directors including Sophie Barthes (Cold Souls), David Morrisey (Don’t Worry about Me) Malcolm Venville (44 -inch Chest), Pascal Alex- Vincent (Give Me Your Hand /Donne-moi la main) and Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah).

Warwick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah was one of several significant festival highlights. The recipient of 13 AFI nominations (winners to be announced in December) and winner of the Camera D’or award at Cannes in May for best first feature film, Thornton’s superbly understated love story reveals a side of Australia seldom seen.

Described by some critics as “the first Australian film”, this is a work of intelligence and compassion exploring an aspect of Australian culture the nation has yet to fully come to terms with; the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their own land and the profound social impact of a country founded on the idea of “Terra nullius”. Thornton’s film is an encouraging indicator that an essential process of cultural re-evaluation has begun.

The Australian outback as a backdrop for romantic storytelling is brilliantly redefined in the film’s stark and uncompromising portrayal of poverty, addiction and social isolation. What shines through is the strength and dignity of the main characters in the midst of deplorable circumstances.

The central performances of Rowan McNamara (Samson) and Marissa Gibson (Delilah) are what enable us to invest so much in their story as an audience. There is incredible tenderness in what is unspoken with little scripted dialogue between them – much of their relationship as it evolves is communicated visually.

Thornton’s script and direction of the camera are beautifully handled and brilliantly understated. Hope is delivered in the ending but not in a way that undermines the personal or collective suffering at the heart of the story. An important and thought provoking film, Samson and Delilah will no doubt sweep the AFI’s this year, and deservedly so.

Departures Okuribito by director Yôjirô Takita was the winner of the inaugural 2009 Inverness Film Festival Audience Award. An Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film and recipient of 10 Japanese Academy Awards, the film received the most audience votes, followed by Niels Arden Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s popular novel. (If like me you missed the Departures screening at this year’s festival you can catch it when it returns to the Eden Court cinemas in February.)

The unique design of the IFF Audience Award, a sculpture in bronze by Harris-based artist Steve Dilworth, captures the ephemeral quality of light and shadow flickering on a screen or in flame. At its core is a phial of air described by the artist as a “primal token from the Outer Hebrides”, a reference to the “same landscape Stanley Kubrick filmed using a red filter to depict Mars in his masterpiece 2001, a Space Odyssey“. It seems extremely apt that a work of art so uniquely of its place and creatively expansive should represent the festival in its journey abroad.

The opening night gala screening The Boys Are Back presented a life affirming and satisfying drama directed by Scott Hicks (Shine). With fine performances from Clive Owen, Nicholas McAnulty and George Mackay, the film explores the relationship between a father and his sons following the death of his second wife.

While there are elements of the film (use of soundtrack and the appearance of Joe’s dead wife) that are pure audience manipulation, the emotional impact of the film remains genuinely affecting throughout. As a humane and sensitive study of family relationships, separation and grief, the film hits all the right marks.

Cinematography by Greig Fraser exploits the South Australian light and landscape, providing a breathtaking setting for the story, emanating natural warmth from the first frame to the last. Well acted and crafted with a resoundingly uplifting effect on the audience, this was the perfect film for opening night.

Rabbit Without Ears Keinohrhasen, directed by Til Schweiger, provided a wonderfully unexpected comedic highlight of the festival. This hugely enjoyable romantic comedy (four words I’m usually unable to place in the same sentence) was smart, laugh-out-loud funny and extremely entertaining. One Day Removals by director Mark Stirton was also enthusiastically received by the audience. Shot in two weeks in digital, this imaginative and refreshingly black comedy follows a very bad day in the lives of two white van men as they unwittingly unleash carnage in rural Aberdeenshire.

Richard Jobson’s Masterclass, The Role of the Director, was a thoroughly inspiring examination of the crafting of moving images, utilising the latest technology and exploring the creative possibilities of shooting on a small budget. In a culture dominated by product over creative process, Jobson’s approach is extremely encouraging. At its heart is a love of the collective experience of cinema, establishing a human connection through the medium and the inherent responsibility of the artist as creator.

Jobson’s mantra of “show don’t tell” reasserts the importance of grappling with visual language to create an aesthetic and vocabulary equal to your vision. The contemporary role of the director as craftsman, technician, producer, social commentator and potential agent for change is exemplified by Jobson’s ongoing work and its portrayal of violence and masculinity.

Drawing on examples from his own work, 16 Years of Alcohol, New Town Killers, I Am Digital, A Woman In Winter and The Journey, Jobson discussed the importance of visual narrative and design, the symbiotic relationship between sound and image, working with actors, development of a script, storyboarding, production and editing.

Finding “what is at the heart of your own voice” and asking the vital question of how far to you intend to push the media you’re using could be equally applied to all artistic disciplines. Jobson’s creative approach driven by the desire to actively challenge one’s own ability and skills with a craft-based approach to technology is refreshing and dynamic. His infectious energy, sheer self determination and absolute belief in not diminishing the scale of ambition according to budget constraint is a potent source of inspiration for emerging artists/directors.

“Convergence of media” through use of stills photography, animation, gaming and digital film techniques is one of the most interesting aspects of Jobson’s work, having implications in the potential distribution of independent product to a global online audience.

Jobson’s latest release, The Journey, a project with Emma Thompson created to raise awareness about the reality of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe into the UK, is part of a wider programme of art installations, viral campaigning and distribution of the film to millions of online subscribers through The Guardian. The Journey is a harrowing and confrontational film, a descent into the hell of sex slavery and the invisibility of its victims in our society for which we are all responsible.

The Script Factory master class Assessing Scripts, led by Ludo Smolski, gave valuable insight into the industrial context of the script as “the currency of the film industry”. This fascinating and informative course examined the essential elements of story design; premise, structure, genre, character and craft, as a foundation stone for film development.

The whole process of “Unpacking the script” delivered in two sessions over two days was extremely stimulating, analysing each essential component of the text, patterns of expectation from an audience in relation to genre and the actual mechanics of storytelling.

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s 1922 silent masterpiece Nosferatu was a joy to behold on the big screen in spite of the somewhat limited scope of David Allison’s live accompaniment. The premise of this special event was propitious; there is nothing better than the feeling of rediscovery when live performance of sound and silent film are brought together.

The exploration of a Scottish dimension to the Nosferatu legend in the form of 19th century Scots traveller and narrator Emily Gerard also showed promise (Gerard was reputed to have brought the word Nosferatu to Western Europe, inspiring Bram Stoker’s Dracula.) However, Anne Marie Watson’s voiceover was totally miscast and clumsily written, possessing the tone and language of a newsreader or patronising school teacher rather than a voice of experience leading us convincingly into the tale.

Created in an age of cinema when invention was key, Murnau’s exploration of darkness and light provides a wealth of rich material for artistic reinterpretation. Utilising the visual language of German Romanticism and Expressionism, the tonality of the film, both moral and physical, and its use of silhouette, shadow play and high contrast composition are arguably the key to any musical interpretation.

This need not be in terms of literal musical styles or in the obvious use of leitmotifs. There are subtle ways of using a variety of soundscape to capture the essence of a scene and contribute to the action, pace and rhythm of the work, together with an understanding of the value of silence. The power of sound to inform how we read an image, leading us deeper into the film and its themes felt lost in this translation.

David Allison’s accompaniment felt overlaid rather than integral to the original visual work. A dramatic scene such as the movement of Count Orlok’s shadowy hand slowly reaching into the heart of our heroine should not be wallpapered over by inappropriate easy listening guitar music.

Admittedly having been spoilt by the quality of Neil Brand’s performance at last year’s festival I had an extremely high expectation of this performance. Despite misgivings about the soundtrack, seeing Nosferatu again was an absolute pleasure, rekindling what is so inspiring about this era of filmmaking. Murnau’s visionary aesthetic of the 1920’s remains magical, imaginative and resoundingly powerful today.

Described as “part city symphony, part visual poem,” The Solitary Life of Cranes by Eve Weber captures the heightened perspective of voices we seldom hear. The film’s ascent to the skyline over London with voiceovers by crane drivers observing the ebb and flow of humanity beneath them is wonderfully revealing.

Observing the routines and patterns of urban existence, the shifting weather and the inner life of buildings, this is an unexpectedly contemplative and engrossing film. Like the crane drivers we experience the state of being “cab happy” in the cinema, the camera leading us into silence and solitude while the rest of the distant world rushes past.

A more extreme view of humanity emerges in Coco Schrijber’s intriguing documentary Bloody Mondays and Strawberry Pies, exploring the polarity of human response to boredom. Narrated by John Malkovich and with excerpts from Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Dostoyevsky’s Notes FromThe Underground, the film explores boredom from a number of perspectives including a pie-maker, stockbroker, artist and mass murderer. The way that narratives overlap and represent boredom as a precursor of creativity, mediocrity and atrocity is one of the most compelling aspects of the film.

Two showcases of shorts were presented this year with additional screenings prior to main features, a tradition which I hope will continue. Shorts give an exciting glimpse of emerging talent and among this year’s selection Karelian Cowgirls /Oudoille Oville by Mintu M&aauml;ntynen, Pollphail by Matt Lloyd, Silence by Ava Lanche and Believe by Paul Wright (Winner of The Leopards of Tomorrow International Short Film Competition at the 62nd Locarno Film Festival and the Promotional Award for Directing Talent at the Winterthur International Short Film Festival) were distinctive for their stylistic interpretation of subject.

The most challenging and visually arresting film of this year’s Festival, FILM IST. A girl and a gun by Gustav Deutsch, utterly defies audience expectation of genre. A musical film drama in five acts, the film echoes the Germanic song cycle tradition and the subversive spirit of Dada and Surrealism. Hundreds of moving images drawn from 11 international film archives have been removed from their original context and collaged into a one of a series of new works.

Excerpts from documentary, fictional, pornographic, political propaganda and scientific footage are juxtaposed in such a way that our sense of structure and narrative are eluded. This film felt like pure Schoenberg – resonant with beauty and discord. The only discernable structure is provided by ancient mythology with excerpts from Hesiod, Sappho and Plato.

The fragmentary nature of text – written, auditory and visual – maintains absolute resistance to any safe or familiar notion of cinematic narrative. There is almost a total breakdown of visual language we expect from film in order to rebuild it, consequently a sense of creation and destruction fills every frame. FILM IST asks an essential question; “what is cinema?” challenging how we attribute meaning to the moving image.

A girl and a gun is a visual journey of discovery like being led into a labyrinth where found footage is a repository for our collective unconscious. As the images unfold you have no idea where the film will take you, there is no option other than to embrace the experience in all its serenity and disturbance. The relationship between sound and image is powerful and the rhythmic quality of some sequences totally mesmerising.

This is particularly true of the first act, Genesis, where the quiet emergence of the soundtrack flickers to life with rings of flame, the sensuous drift of imploding smoke and molten earth. This cosmic movement is followed by the emergence of life in nature and in human form, a dance between order and chaos, purity and depravity, “to be continued…”

This is the art of the found object, where accident – film condition, scratches and colouration – become part of the visual quality of the work. In many ways the projected image reminded me of a multilayered etched surface pulsing with life, death and desire. The final image, a gun pointed at the audience and fired with a final frame of spattered residue echoes the impetus of the whole work, to explode our ideas about what film could or should be.

IFF 2009 presented a diverse and extremely enjoyable range of screenings and events, a four day celebration of cinema that was both thoughtful and highly entertaining. Consistent with the quality of programming to be found year round at the Eden Court Cinemas, the annual festival continues to be an amazing showcase of the very best in world cinema past and present.

© Georgina Coburn, 2009

Links

• Inverness Film Festival