These days it’s rare to see crowds of movie patrons lined up around the block, waiting to congregate in front of the big screen. But you can bet on it happening during the 72nd Melbourne international film festival, which runs 8 to 25 August.
Here are 10 films you might want to check out – in addition others on the program I’ve written about previously including The Moogai, Every Little Thing and Adam Elliot’s new animation Memoir of a Snail, which is this year’s opening night film.
The Shrouds
Director: David Cronenberg / Countries: France, Canada
The octogenarian body horror auteur David Cronenberg’s latest follows a businessman and futurist (Vincent Cassel) who invents a technology that allows mourners to watch live streams of the remains of their loved ones, slowly rotting away. Because … that helps the grieving process? Cronenberg is a master at blending cerebral and sticky; films that force you to think while all sorts of fluids ooze on screen. Peter Bradshaw described The Shrouds as “an eroticised necrophiliac meditation on grief, longing and loss”.
The Magic Beach
Director: Robert Connolly / Country: Australia
Like many parents, I couldn’t guess how many times I’ve read Alison Lester’s beloved children’s book to my son. We’ve also visited the actual beach, in Victoria’s Walkerville South, that inspired the book, so I guess you could say we’re super fans. This Robert Connolly-directed anthology film, containing 10 chapters in different animation styles, will become mandatory viewing in our household.
A Century in Sound
Director: Nicholas Dwyer, Tu Neill Countries: Japan, New Zealand
Would it be easier to make a documentary about the kinds of Japanese cafes that don’t exist? They seem to have one for everything – from cat and otter establishments to cuddle eateries to those themed around robots, maids, butlers, ninjas and trains. There are also listening cafes, where customers come to hear vinyl records. A Century of Sound profiles three of these venues, exploring what they mean for Japanese appreciation of western music.
Timestalker
Director: Alice Lowe / Country: UK
Alice Lowe’s dark sci-fi comedy has a great premise. The protagonist (Lowe) keeps falling for the wrong guy (Aneurin Barnard) as they’re reincarnated throughout the ages – beginning with a meet-cute in Scotland circa the 1600s, just before the bloke’s executed for heresy. The film makes various pit stops including in 18th-century England, 80s Manhattan and a post-apocalyptic future as the characters experience new chapters in their doomed relationship.
Audrey
Director: Natalie Bailey / Country: Australia
Many films involve characters who pretend to be other people – but they aren’t usually parents taking the identity of their children. In this dark comedy a mother (Jackie van Beek) pretends to be her teenage daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) after she falls off the roof and goes into a coma. Premiering at this year’s South by Southwest, a rave review from IndieWire describes Audrey as a “satire about how much a family can perversely flourish when one cog is removed from the machine”.
Rumours
Directors: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson / Countries: Canada, Germany
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In this outre political satire Cate Blanchett plays a German chancellor hosting a G7 summit at a county estate, where a group of world leaders meet to draft a statement addressing an unspecified global crisis. Before you know it, they encounter a giant brain in a forest and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “furiously masturbating bog zombies”.
Flathead
Director: Jaydon Martin / Country: Australia
Presented in beautifully stylised monochrome, with occasional moments of colour, Jaydon Martin’s directorial debut follows a tough old-timer who drinks, smokes and cruises around Bundaberg, Queensland, flirting with Christianity and reminiscing on his days as a drug user. Billed as a hybrid of documentary and narrative drama, it’s impossible to know what’s real and what’s embellished. Not that it matters: Martin builds a richly ruminative tone and his subject/protagonist is a great find, perfectly suiting the film’s poetically rough-hewn mood.
All We Imagine as Light
Director: Payal Kapadia / Countries: France, India, the Netherlands, Luxembourg
Payal Kapadia’s romantic drama became the first Indian film in three decades to be selected for the Cannes competition, where this year it won the prestigious Grand Prix award. It’s primarily set during night-time in Mumbai and follows Kani Kusruti’s Prabha, a nurse who dreams of the return of her husband, who has relocated to Germany.
Megalopolis
Director: Francis Ford Coppola / Country: US
The latest film from the legendary Francis Ford Coppola – director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now! – is yet to be theatrically released but is already the stuff of legend: a project he has worked on for 40 years and self-financed to the tune of US$120m. Adam Driver plays an ambitious architect and scientist who has the power to control time and is pushing a new building material called Megalon. The film is dividing critics, drawing turns of phrase such as “madly captivating,” “magnificently messy” and “bafflingly shallow”.
Wake in Fright
Director: Ted Kotcheff / Country: Australia
This sweat and dust-caked 1971 masterpiece was one of the first – and best – films of the Australian new wave. A newly restored 4K version alone would have been a great reason to see it on the big screen; as an additional feature, it will be rescored live in this special screening by the Melbourne band Surprise Chef.
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Melbourne international film festival 2024 runs 8-25 August in venues across the city and regional Victoria, as well as online through Acmi. Tickets sales open now for Miff members and will open to the general public on 16 July