CineCola's 59th Cork Film Festival Top 10

9 - CHARLIE'S COUNTRY by Rolf de Heer

 

Rolf De Heer's new drama set in the Aboriginal Community of Australia neither overplays the emotional side nor over sentimentalises their everyday struggle in a cultural context that still naturally seems to discriminate against them. Charlie's Country is a film that is largely driven by its titular character, and we follow his everyday struggles to live with dignity in a setting where white laws endanger his traditions and eventually supports a less fulfilling lifestyle. While the restrictive storyline may unravel with a coldness that could alienat some of its viewer, the structure of the film is effective also because of its iconic leading actor David Gulpill, whose very imposing on screen presence is enough to carry the film on his shoulders.

8 - HIDE AND SEEK by Joanna Coates

 

Joanna Coates depicts utopia through her story of four young characters, two boys and two girls, living alienated in a countryside house and their close bond developed through love, nakedness and sexuality. Hide and Seek is a film that seems to naturally shift the viewer out of its comfort zone by leaving grey areas in its plot and character's backgrounds but also with its sometimes explicitly sexual and bold defiance of certain conventionalities that have walked hand in hand with cinematic portrayals of these particular themes. The admirable cinematography overwhelms the physical nature of the almost entirely improvised performances, while Coates herself through this film seems to re-discover feelings of humanism that recall a riveting mix of classic literature figures such as DH Lawrence as well as the cinema of the sexual revolution of the sixties.

7 - DUMMY JIM by Matt Hulse

 

Matt Hulse tells a little known true story about a deaf mute long distance cyclist and the journal he compiled about how he accidentally cycled his way from Scotland to the Arctic Circle. An inspiring tale, channelled playfully and creatively by the filmmaker who builds the film as a sensorial experience accentuated by its careful use of sound and vision down to its particular. With its exciting and often colourful imagery compiled by shots taken with different film stocks or digital cameras, spanning from poetic representations to narrative re-enactments, this is a film full of meaning that is also sensible to the deaf mute community with its attention to detail such as the use of fonts for subtitles. Dummy Jim can also be admired for its creative post production process and editing which not only intensifies the sensory journey but also channels a tradition of documentary filmmaking represented by Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera.

6 - DETONATOR by Keir Politz and Damon Maulucci

 

A family man on the verge of burning bridges with his past as a Philadelphia punk rocker is forced to reluctantly revisit those days when out of the blue comes his former band mate and gets him in big trouble. Detonator is a journey into the night that allows its drama, comedy and thriller elements to influence the narrative through a natural and well balanced pace as well as excellent character developments and, in particular, the leading interactions between its leading characters with radically opposed personalities - portrayed perfectly by Lawrence Micheal Levine and Benjamin Ellis Fine. In the end, it is also a fascinating and real exploration of its setting of Philadelphia and its punk culture, but one that never plays out too aggressively or loudly thus fulfilling a reflective approach on its studies of struggles with man's struggles with impending maturity and coming of age.

4 - 1971 by Johanna Hamilton

 

The story of how a group of activists stole documents out of an FBI office and exposed their illegal surveillance programme, a programme overseen by controversial figure J. Edgar Hoover. Despite Johanna Hamilton retaining a feeling of the atmosphere of the times in which this story is told, 1971 feels terribly modern especially in today's world of Occupy Movements and WikiLeaks. To add to the prestige of the project is the fact that she gets to meet these Robin Hood figures for the first time ever. On top of that, the film is very entertaining with its effective use of re-enactments that reveal the behind the scenes machinations of the deed, and an approach that comes close to fictional filmmaking.

3 - DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN by Patrick Ryan

 

Unusual for Irish cinema, but for this reason all the more invigorating. Darkness on the Edge of Town is an ambitious and bold modern western set in Kerry, that even dares to define genre conventions by credibly casting teenage girls in the leading tough and rough roles, parts carried on with credibility by the respective actresses. The story is that of a teenage sharp shooter who longs to avenge the killing of her estranges sister. Little does she know, unlike the viewer, that the perpetrator of the unholy deed is none other than her best and only friend. Impressive visuals, often stylised and shaped by Asian cinema influences, this is also quite a remarkable feature debut by Patrick Ryan executed with confidence and shaped by underlying psychological noir which, to his credit, was also made with a micro-budget.

2 - TRIPTYCH Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires

 

Despite the title, which refers to a particularly common narrative structure, Triptych by Lepage and Pires is far from being conventional. The story revolves around three characters - a woman struggling with mental illness, her sister who is about to undergo delicate brain surgery and her surgeon who has an unhealthy drinking habit he claims is the only thing that will stop his hand from shaking. Unhappiness, love, present, past, beauty, culture, humanity and religion are only some of the themes that intertwine artfully and creatively in a film that at once aims to charm and shock the viewer in equal amounts through a genuine portrayal of its characters, but also with bursts of creative intelligence and unusual yet enriching features, such as the inclusion of real archive footage or, in a particularly harrowing sequence, footage of real brain surgery. Magnetic from start to finish, this film constantly challenges the viewer and constantly finds new ways to do so whilst keeping a balanced narrative and far from disregards the importance of its story.

1 - PATRICK'S DAY by Terry McMahon

 

Following his bombshell debut feature Charlie Casanova, Terry McMahon returns to the big screen with a remarkable film that recalls the works by the likes of Douglas Sirk and John Cassavetes. Patrick's Day is about a young man with schizophrenia discovering love through a fortuitous encounter with a suicidal flight attendant. Upon discovering the affair, however, the mother gets in the way and hires a crooked cop to keep them apart. The filmmaker handles the heavy theme of mental illness with care and sensibilities, providing perhaps one of the most rewardingly realistic representations of schizophrenia in cinema to date. However, the film neither starts nor ends with here, and works perfectly well as a universal coming of age drama as well as one that focuses on the right to intimacy. The powerhouse screenplay is flattered by its very real characters, somewhat unembellished in their imperfect natures. They in turn are portrayed perfectly by the cast, particularly Kerry Fox in the role of the mother and newcomer Moe Dunford in the role of the central character - a greatly challenging role that required a high level of credibility. Aside from that, one can equally admire the great cinematography and extensive use of close ups - techniques that often even take the viewer out of a comfort zone and glorifies the amazing emotional and psychological depth of the story.