Melbourne International Film Festival 2019 Week 3 Report: PARTICLES, SOMETHING ELSE & IRON FISTS AND KUNG FU KICKS

After watching 40 films, the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has come to a close for another year. Before we get into the reviews for the final week, I wanted to list off my Top 5 films of the festival. As noted before, a lot of these films will unfortunately never grace Australian cinemas again, as they’ll either be dumped onto home media or just never see the light of day down under again. Here they are:

1. Something Else (Jeremy Gardner & Christian Stella)
2. The Art of Self Defense (Riley Stearns)
3. The Unknown Saint (Alaa Eddine Aljem)
4. Pain & Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)
5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)

Now time for my final reviews for the festival.

Particles (Blaise Harrison)

When Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, many people pointed fingers as to who was responsible; one of the more absurd choices was that the Large Hadron Collider was to blame. Before its big experiments became a daily routine, the powerful particle collider was anticipated by some to be a world ender, creating a black hole that would immediately cease life in our universe, others speculated that it transported us to a different dimension – similar features, but divergent outcomes for those within. It’s this sense of scientifically-driven change, the feeling of waking up and feeling like the world you know is no longer the same, that drives Blaise Harrison’s Particles, a languid, meandering drama that never materialises into anything as interesting as its pointed premise implies.

Next to the base of the Large Hadron Collider lies a minor French town, which houses Pierre-Andre, aka P.A. (Thomas Daloz), a ragged teen whose living through the basic steps of puberty alongside his c*ck-eyed friends; they riff together in a garage band, score pot from crooked dealers and stay up late whilst coasting through their fleeting days of school. Throughout these sessions of idle stagnation, P.A. starts to notice some subtle, but unsettling incidents occurring, hillsides wobble, people disappearing and mysterious lights shining in the sky, all signs which point to some form of UFO surveillance, an after-effect of CERN’s experiments or just visual consequences of P.A.’s youthful usage of drugs and alcohol.

This ain’t Stranger Things – these strange phenomenons barely seem to bother P.A., whose more wound up about his middling relationship issues than the possibility of a different dimension colliding with ours. Hell, his indifference is met by Blaise Harrison’s script, whose laboured metaphor for transformative transition into adult wastes its solid ideas on an incredibly banal character who charges an even more dull journey. The Large Hadron Collider shenanigans may be the story’s hook, but it only punctuates a mere fraction of the narrative, with extended time dedicated to the Harmony Korine-ramblings of its core cast of kids. This is a drug trip that ain’t worth taking – an experience I’d rank as one of the festival’s worst titles.

Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (Serge Ou)

Serge Ou’s Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kick is easily the most action-packed entry at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival; packed with the best fights, strikes, showdowns from kung-fu history, dating back from its origins in Chinese Opera to becoming a tool of rebellion in modern Africa. A slick, accessible package that delivers an abridged history of martial arts in films covers all the familiar bases, from its evolution as a genre, to how the acrobatic nature of these disciplined sports eventually permeated all facets of pop culture, from the American box office to the world of break-dancing.

Spinning a web of talking heads, archive footage and VH1-styled title cards, like a kung fu kick, this is a documentary that comes at you thick and fast, mirroring the films it’s covering by never stopping to take a breath. Efficiently paced with a relentless swiftness, it recalls the similar factual cinematic celebrations of Aussie director Mark Hartley, whose films opened up worldwide audiences to the forgotten times of the Ozploitation era and other off-beats moments in international film history. Whilst more audiences may be more attuned to the broad beats of martial arts; Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, its influence on the blaxploitation boom of the 70’s and their modern-day descendants, there’s enough insights, anecdotes and old clips to ensure there’s something for even the most seasoned professional.

Something Else (Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella)

Mounting Before Sunset for the midnight crowd might sound like a difficult task, but the unnatural blend of social realist-romance and outrageous monster mayhem seems seamless within the capable hands of Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella, whose third collaboration Something Else demonstrates the fluid adaptability of genre cinema. Gardner’s script does an ingenious job of uniting the disparate tropes of the mumblecore drama and minimalist horror that uses the fantastical to allure audiences into a very real story of feeling trapped; whether it’s geographically, in a relationship, or a holed-up cabin fending off a ferociously clawed creature.

Armed with a shotgun and a brewery’s worth of beer, Hank (Jeremy Gardner) is a man stuck in a surreal state of isolation; His partner of ten years, Abby (Brea Grant), has mysteriously left him, only leaving behind a vague note and a stream of rose-tinted memories, soap opera-filtered reflections that punctuate Tom’s daily routine of sulking and barricading. This has coincided with the advent of a unseen figure who lurks outside his remote mansion, desperate to tear its way inside each night. Don’t worry; the common conclusion to draw between the two events is explicitly noted by the despondent bar owner, and Gardner’s erudite knowledge of horror cinema history means there’s plenty of twists in-store, the fun of Something Else is uncovering it all alongside Hank as each dark night ticks by.

The only figures to encroach within his realm of brooding domesticity is his best friend Wade (a scene-stealing Henry Zebrowski) and brother-in-law Shane (Justin Benson, who alongside creative partner Aaron Moorhead, also produced this), the town’s sole sheriff who insists the shadowy beast is merely a hungry black bear. There’s a thick atmosphere of paranoia that starts to permeate each frame, as not only do we anticipate the nocturnal return of whatever’s waiting in the woods, but also Abby, as we watch their relationship begin and break through the flashbacks of their decade-long bond. It’s both a mutually macabre and melancholic experience, all confidently delivered through Christian Stella’s beautifully composed camerawork.

Similar to James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, there is a thematic (and at one point, literal) connection to The Battery, with the utilisation of music being used as a conduit to retrieve lost connections and rebuild memories; Ben listening to this fabled CD player in The Battery is practically the only object keeping him grounded in a world overrun by zombies, and in Something Else, Hank’s regular rotation of records and high school mixtapes are the only thing – alongside caskets of “Peanut Noir” wine and booze of course – keeping him going each day. This is smart, steady filmmaking, a horror title with a real head on its shoulders.

Do any of these upcoming festival films interest you? Let us know in the comments!