It's time for some international cinema with this year's edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. One of the last (or the earliest, depending on your point of view) festivals in the festival cycle, this year's lineup consists of some of the best movies of last year and a number of new films from around the world. I'm a bit late to the party, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean there still aren't a few gems left lying around.
Ever since I saw it last night, Sweet Country has ben steadily growing on me. It's the kind of film that sticks with you because of its bleak and uncompromising world view. There's something in the Western aesthetic of the film that lends Sweet Country a deep darkness that fails to relent even up to its very last moments.
But the context and setting of Sweet Country, 1920's Australia, provides additional layers to the story. The characters of Sweet Country have just survived a devastating war - The Great War - serving the interests of England, and there's a feeling from the townsfolk that the crown is meddling in their affairs. The greatest shadow cast upon the film is the relationship between the White Australian "whitefellas" and the Aboriginal "blackfellas", with the former treating the latter much like slaves, in a manner not unlike (maybe even exceeding) that of the antebellum south.
The movie makes it clear that the Aborigines have more knowledge of the lay of the land compared to their white counterparts, especially during a futile manhunt for Sam. Ironically, despite this, the 'whitefellas' have taken the land for themselves, the dark legacy of colonialism. One Aboriginal character laments this, saying that this place is no longer their country.
The film transforms in its last third, morphing into a sort of courtroom drama. A makeshift courtroom is built in front of the local pub, perhaps the film trying to create a space of civility within a hellish wasteland, finding justice in an unjust land. And in its final frames, it juxtaposes the image of ropes hanging from a wooden frame in two instances, both with different yet related meanings. The first - a makeshift gallows, symbolic of day to day injustice from colonizers to colonized, and the second, symbolizing something far more systemic: institutions of hegemony and oppression that normalize these day to day injustices.
And now, for something that isn't part of the festival. If the poster for The Night is Short, Walk On Girl reminds you of the excellent anime series The Tatami Galaxy, it shouldn't come as a surprise: both are made by the same animation studio and director, and both are based on novels written by the same author (they even share characters, though their stories are mostly unrelated). But even without knowledge of the Tatami Galaxxy, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl is a strange, lovely film.
It's hard to describe what the film is exactly about: it's part comedy, part musical, part stream-of-consciousness philosophical rumination. It takes place on a night that never seems to end, and it's filled with a ton of colorful characters. It's tinged with surreal and mystical elements, and the film frequently flits between realism and magical realism.
It's all whimsical and meandering, but it's the fun kind of whimsy, not unlike a pub crawl with friends. It's better to just give in to the sheer insanity of the film and let it take you on a ride.
And, occasionally, when one looks between the lines, the film talks about pretty profound stuff: the relative whimsy of faling in love, the futility (or benefit) of grand gestures of love, and the illusion (or reality) of fate. It's fascinating stuff, and one that's worth a watch in my opinion.
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