The final seven days of my NZIFF 2018 Film Festival experience was fortunately a little less packed than the first weekend, first week or second weekend -- and I could see the light at the end of the festival approaching. While I had nine films in the last seven days, fortunately they were arranged as three days with two films, three days with one film, and one day without any films -- so I even had a day/night at home to myself, which was much less rushed than the rest of the last fortnight!

Below are some thoughts on the final set of films in my NZIFF 2018 experience. (There are extra days in the NZIFF 2018 Wellington with one extra film -- "Sign O' the Times" -- and a bunch of extra screenings, but I am not trying to squeeze any of those in, as other parts of my life have calls on my time in the second half of August...)

McKellen: Playing the Part

"Ian McKellen" is a famous English actor, a star of "stage and screen", who is also openly gay in later life (and much less openly gay in his early years, to his regret).

The spine of the documentary is a single (recent) interview with Ian McKellen reminissing about his life and events. Into that is cut archive material from the times and performances discussed, and some recreations of events discussed. It felt like the movie did a good job of convering the wide range of Ian McKellen's career -- from early stage experience at Cambridge through touring companies, and actor-led collectives, and then on into the screen performances for which he became known in later life. Into that was mixed the life experiences of growing up "different" -- both growing up gay at a time that was not talked about, and also about "playing make belief" at the time other boys were playing sports.

One of the more touching parts of the interview is when Ian McKellen talks about "playing himself" -- which "well known" Ian McKellen is he going to present, for the audience. It is a topic that is returned to throughout, and I got the impression his public appearances as himself end up being "edited highlights" of what he is best known for performing. Yet the documentary also manages to show us a little of the Ian McKellen below the surface.

Definitely recommended if you have followed Ian McKellen's career, or like biographical documentaries.

Desert Hearts

"Desert Hearts" is set in the Divorce Capital of America, in Reno, Nevada, in the late 1950s. At the time it was necesary to establish residence for six weeks, and then Nevada (single party) divorce law could apply. An entire industry grew up to cater to well to do women who took six weeks out of their lives to qualify for a Nevada divorce. Mixed into that was the Nevada Gambling History -- in Las Vegas, but also elsehwere including Reno, Nevada which had the advantages of being near the Sierra Nevada (and thus skiing and scenary), and also near the border with Northern California and thus accessible to weekend visitors. These two elements form the backdrop of "Desert Hearts".

At its essence "Desert Hearts" is a movie about a woman who has fallen out of love, being seduced to love again -- by a much younger woman; the movie is recognised as one of the earliest positive depictions of a lesbian relationship on screen. But it also shows the complications of such relationships at a time that the society is not ready to accept them, although not as violently as was shown in Rafiki.

Between the recognisable country music soundtrack, and the 1980s production feel (to a movie set a couple of decades earlier), it is a fun "retro" romantic movie, worth seeing if you have not already, even though it is not a perfect movie.

Happy as Lazzaro

"Happy as Lazzaro" is a multi-layered Italian movie -- part social commentary, part cautionary fable, part exploration of exploitation of the naive. The eponymous Lazzaro is a hard working, rather naive, worker as a share cropper on an Italian tobacco farm, owned by a Marquise, and ruled over by a rutheless manager. He never ages, or even changes clothes, throughout the movie -- although the aging of other characters suggests the movie timeline covers decades.

Throughout the movie viewers are taken on a journey from "happy hard working rural farmers" through "exploited labour" (constantly in debt sharecroppers) through the lives of those who exploit them, and the way those exploited then in turn exploit others such as Lazzaro. Just as one settles into this tale of poor rural life, a cascade of events change it and shine another light on the characters.

It is a very thought provoking movie. I came out of the screening not really knowing what the film was about... but I think it is mostly about questioning all the layers that it reveals for view. I can see why it won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes this year (along with 3 Faces which was also in the NZIFF 2018, but unfortunately I could not schedule).

Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen

"Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen" is what happens when you challenge the youngest son of two famous New Zealand film makers (Merata Mita and Geoff Murphy), who works as an archivist at Nga Taonga Sound and Vision, to make a film to understand his mother's history from before he was born.

The film is a loving exploration of the career and live of Merita Mita from a time before the baby of the family was born, which includes a huge amount of archive footage -- both from the family archives, and also from her many films and public experiences. Into this archive footage is mixed many interviews with his older whanau -- the brothers and sisters from his mother's earlier relationships, who were alive for those formative times in Merita Mita's career.

As someone who grew up just as some of the events that made Merata Mita's name were happening -- the occupation of Bastion Point, and the Springbok tour in 1981 -- the movie also provided me with an adult context for those events that I only somewhat understood as a young child, and showed how formative they were for New Zealand society.

I think it is a movie that every New Zealander should see. Merata Mita's film making, at the time the only independent Maori woman film maker, documenting critical events in New Zealand history, is a key record of important parts of our history.

My only wish if the movie were remade is that the distracting gimick of showing the full width of the film emulsion and parts of the previous/next frame were used much less sparsely -- perhaps a few seconds and then push into the frame. There are multiple extended sections of the movie with amazing footage which are difficult to watch as there are constantly flickering things in the edge of the frame. I appreciate the desire to anchor them as "archive footage", but at some point the presentation is obscuring the message.

Mega Time Squad

"Mega Time Squad" is Kiwi As, and an extremely entertaining tale of small town New Zealand, small time gangsters, and the Mega Time Squad that sets out to overthrow the gang boss, and in the girl. It is a awesomely fun, budget, action comedy, that just happens to use use time travel -- and especially crossing the time lines -- as an additional character in the movie.

I think this was the most enjoyable movie of my entire NZIFF 2018 experience -- and I am not at all surprised that the two small, inconveniently timed, screenings that NZIFF Wellington included were both sold out. Nor that it sold out very quickly in other festivals it has been included in. Sadly it does not even seem to be coming back for extra screenings.

I hope some of the theaters pick it up, or it becomes available for online streaming soon, as I think all New Zealanders should see "Mega Time Squad" -- it is a rare treat to see real New Zealand in screen without the cultural cringe. It also seems extremely likely to do well in geeky fan events and film festivals -- Tim Van Dammen, the writer/director, said that was the audience he was aiming for, and he seems to have hit the target perfectly with something that should appeal to anyone with a love of great budget movies, or playing with "crossing the streams" of time travel. It feels like it could become a cult classic "B movie".

"Mega Time Squad" is also a reminder of just how far movie making technology has been democratised. It was filmed on a Canon EOS C300, and edited and rotoscoped (oh so much rotoscoping!) on affordable equipment -- needing just lots of time for the post production. (I think the editor, Luke Haigh, editor of other New Zealand movies, also really made the film a success through great timing -- both getting into and keeping the plot going, and also getting the beats right to make the comedy in the film flow.)

The Ancient Woods

"The Ancient Woods" contains a lot of great footage, of Baltic forest scenes large and small... which are basically jump cut together. There is no narration and no subtitles, leaving the audience to make up their own story for each section. It feels like the footage was taken first, and then eventually after a lot of time, there was a decision to "make something" out of that footage... and as much as the footage is great, I am not sure that it really succeeds as a feature film, especially when compared with BBC or David Attenborough style nature documentaries.

I enjoyed the variety of nature shown, and especially enjoyed the care taken to film subjects large and small in away that one simply could not see without a very good hide and a lot of patience. But I also found my attention wandering repeatedly during the film, and particularly later in the film wondering at the choices of scenes jump cut together without any attempt at smoothing the transition. The start/end bookending each other do frame the movie -- and I especially liked the opening to guide one into a meditation on nature -- but in between even the ordering is seemingly random.

If you like watching nature, in a natural environment, and making your own interpretations, you may well enjoy the film. Even then it feels like it might play better as a series of shorts to be watched over time; it certainly feels like that was how it was filmed.

Wings of Desire

The modern 4K restoration of "Wings of Desire" is gorgeous -- most of the film feels like it was shot in 4K, rather than shot 30 years ago on film. (Apparently due to the number of film processes required to produce screening prints of the mix of black and white and colour footage, the original screening prints were six analogue genenerations of processes away from the original camera negative, and rather less clear as a result; so this is probably the closest to the original intent the movie has ever been seen.)

Shot in West Berlin, only a couple of years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the film shows the lives of everyday Berliners from the perspective of two angels who spend their days wandering the city tapping in to what it is like to "be alive" by listening to their inner monologue. Mirroring those every day inner conversations and anxieties of the humans that the angels watch over, is the desire of one of the angels to experience being alive themself -- particularly when they fall in love with a young circus performance who can sense their presence (but not see them).

I liked "Wings of Desire" the most of the earlier Wim Wenders films I have seen -- particularly more than the Road Movie Trilogy, shot a decade earlier also in West Germany. But I think I mostly enjoyed it visually, as a representation of the division of Germany, and especially of Berlin, and what had happened to a once thriving (and once again thriving) unified city -- but the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performances are also an audible slice of the 1980s.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Hedy Lemarr invented Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum radio in the early 1940s (during the early years of World War II), and obtained a patent (in her birth name; Hedy Lemarr was a stage name, as Hollywood considered her Austrian birth name to be "unpronouncable"). She gave the idea to the War Department, who both laughed at it as unimplementable and classified it for the duration of the patent. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum radio is the basis of modern inteference-resistant communication protocols like Bluetooth.

While Hedy Lemarr's invention was clearly ahead of its time, and the proposed mechanical "piano roll" implementation was obviously somewhat impractical (but not impossible), it seems obvious that her invention was rejected mostly because she was an outsider -- and because she was a stunning Hollywood actor that the War Department perceived as meddling outside her area of expertise. Sadly she never received a cent for her invention, although in the last 20 years it has been more widely recognised as a foundational invention.

The documentary covers Hedy Lemarr's early Austraian life, including her early film career, then escaping the imminent Nazi occupation of her home town (Vinena) to London then Hollywood, and then on into her Hollywood career, independent film making, and inventions. Sadly her later years seem to have been a combination of plastic surgery to attempt to retain the public image of "Hedy Lemaar" and then becoming increasingly reclusive, even from her own family (one sad piece of the movie is a granddaughter both saying she receied signed publicity photos of her grandmother, Hedy Lemaar, from the 1940s, and that she only saw her grandmother in person twice :-( ).

It is an excellent documentary, about an important topic. As with Elizabeth Friedman and the early ENIAC Computer Programmers it is nice to see recognition for key inventive work is not being falsely confined to one stereotype of "the inventor" as much these days.

The Cold War

"The Cold War" is beautifully cinematography, captured in Academy Ratio in black and white, which sets it immediately in the (early) Cold War period it is trying to depict. The scenes shown, especially the "schools" for producing fine singers/dancers to show of the superiority of the Communist system, and the political influence over those schools, are individually well done.

Unfortunately the storyline as a whole feels unbelievable. The NZIFF programme describes it as the "turbulent love of two musicians caught between East and West", but to me it did not even really feel like they loved each other, let alone were "caught" between East and West. The two start off together, and then one of them leaves entirely of their own choice (and the other does not, entirely of their own choice); they then see each other periodically under various pretenses, do not really get along, and eventually one of them leaves again and the other attempts to follow.

I found the film most interesting when I started to view it as an exploration of a woman using her power to get what she wanted, whatever form that power took. She seduces the teacher in charge of admissions, informs on people, carries on affairs, marries, has children with men, etc, in order to further her own goals. It was nice to see a woman's part with agency, even in a film that barely passes the Bechdel Test. The male lead character in contrast seems to just make a series of poor choices, through some form of oneitis (and/or not knowing what he actually wants), and seems to externalise the blame for those choices he made. Even in this light, the ending of the film, while "romantic", seems entirely unsupported by the storyline.

The film is possibly worth seeing for the cinematography, and historical recreation. But definitely try not to think too much about the plot.

Conclusion

The Wellington NZIFF 2018 had a great selection of films -- it seems better (at least for me) than the last several years. I even got great to pretty good seats throughout, so the pain of booking was worth it. According to the NZIFF festival director, in a speech before the "closing" film ("The Cold War"), Wellington has already exceeded attendence records, with a few days of extra screenings to go, and Auckand also hit attendence records. So we are promised a festival for 2019! I am looking forward to it, after a break to recover :-)