Category: Drama

TAG

Rated: MTag

Directed by: Jeff Tomsic

Screenplay Written by: Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen

Screen Story by: Mark Steilen

Based on the Wall Street Journal article entitled “It Takes Planning, Caution to Avoid Being It,” by Russell Adams

Produced by: Todd Garner and Mark Steilen

Executive Producers: Hans Ritter, Richard Brener, Walter Hamada and Dave Neustadter

Starring: Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Annabelle Wallis, Rashida Jones, Isla Fisher, Leslie Bibb, Hannibal Buress, with Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner.

Remember this track from Crash Test Dummies (1993)?

Once there was this kid who
Got into an accident and couldn’t come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The cars had smashed him so hard

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Watch Tag then try and get that song out of your head!

Instead of a kid who had an accident, we have:  Benjamin Franklin who once (apparently) said, ‘we don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.’

Taking this philosophy to heart, a group of first graders began a game of tag… that lasted for 23 years…

Tag is inspired by the true story published in the Wall Street Journal, “It Takes Planning, Caution to Avoid Being It,” by Russell Adams where every year for the entire month of May, Hoagie (Ed Helms), Sable (Hannibal Buress), Chilli (Jake Johnson) and Callahan (Jon Hamm), stalk each other – with the help of their wives – (such as Hoagie’s wife Anna (Isla Fisher), who takes the game far too seriously), until the end of the month where whomever was tagged last would have to remain the loser of the group, he-who-is-tagged, as apposed to those-who-are-not (there are no winners here), until the following year.

Although, he-who-has-never-been-tagged could be called the champion: Jerry Pierce (Jeremy Renner), the ultimate player, the elusive, never-been-caught, until self-proclaimed heart of the gang, Hoagie comes up with the diabolical plan to tag Pierce on his wedding day.

Gathering the guys from across the country – Callahan mid-interview with Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis) from the Wall Street Journal – they head back to their home-town in Washington, journalist Rebecca tagging (ha, ha) along, intrigued when she realises the grown men will go to any lengths to not be the last tagged, and really, to keep that child spirit alive; to keep in touch (literally) with old friends.

Mmmm, mmm, mmm, hmmm… mmm, mmmm, mmm, hmm, mmmmmm…

A funny story, but enough to stretch into a full-length movie?   With a little bit of heart-warming drama thrown in the mix – just!

TAG

Director, Jeff Tomsic (Comedy Central’s “Broad City”) makes full use of the stellar cast where it wasn’t the obvious that I found funny, like those slapstick moments including comedic win-at-all-costs flying leaps.  Although, the granny outfit on Hoagie was delightfully ticklish.  For me it was more those subtle changes in facial expressions that hit the mark, wonderfully built upon with the black and white heads of the cast miming, you guessed it, Mmmm, mmm, mmm, hmmm… mmm, mmmm, mmm, hmm, mmmmmm.

The use of the soundtrack was a real highlight – the film filled with 90s gold from the likes of the Beastie Boys lifting those action-packed chases to toe-tapping montages of good fun.

And that’s what Tag is all about, having fun.

Tag isn’t ground breaking, but it’s not complete crap either.

If you go in not expecting much I reckon you’ll have enough fun to warm a winter’s day and leave with a grin with a few remembered gems to giggle over, because sometimes it’s good to never stop playing.

Disobedience

Rated: MA15+Disobedience

Directed by: Sebastián Lelio

Written by: Sebastián Lelio, Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Produced by: Frida Torresblanco, Ed Guiney and Rachel Weisz

Starring: Rachel Weizs,Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola.

With Disobedience as the title, we know that we are about to enter forbidden territory, and for many of us including me, that is an irresistible destination; especially when the disobedience involves forbidden love.

While this is a story of love, delving into its yearnings, its confusions, its pain and its flashes of carnal delight, this movie is so much more than a love story.

Estranged from her Rabbi father, Ronit (Rachel Weizs) is heartsick when she learns of his death. Immediately walking out on her photographic career in Manhattan, Ronit flies back to the Jewish enclave in North London she fled so long ago. Once there, she is hesitantly welcomed into the home of her two former best friends Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) and Esti (Rachel McAdams), a devout pair who have since married, but the self-assured Ronit, with her free-flowing hair, New York chutzpah and extreme nicotine attachment, is still desperately bereft at her father’s disavowal of his only daughter.

With her own feelings torn and wondering whether she was loved, Ronit continues to rebel.

Even if this movie seems restrained by today’s salacious standards, there is an almost shocking sense of intimacy as the camera shifts in angle to take in some very private moments in the marriage of the ultra-orthodox Dovid and the dutiful Esti.

Looking down on her husband asleep after their lovemaking, Esti is confronted by an oblivious, hairy body tangled in the bed clothes; whereas Dovid, bursting into the bathroom, glimpses his wife as a misty, insubstantial spirit emerging from a cubist mirage amid the steam and the patterns created by their white shower curtain.

Disobedience

While the main story flows along with a satisfying emotional arc, this beautifully nuanced narrative is told in deep point of view, through looks and gestures as much as dialogue, with the depths of the story revealed through the intricately wrought mise en scène.

One of the first intimations of the sensuous undercurrents frothing and bubbling beneath the surface is a still life in the style of a Dutch old master painting, with a cantaloupe, lavishly encircled by ripe nectarines, cut open to expose the delicate flesh of its interior. While the camera lingers for barely a moment, this minor element is in rich counterpoint to the austere meal being stolidly consumed in the foreground.

Soon after, Dovid will ask the study group he leads, ‘Is it all about sensuality? I thought true love was about something higher.’ At this point his question is purely academic. Dovid believes he has found the answer, but he doesn’t even know question, yet.

In this layered drama, we are invited to experience an ancient code, to share in moments of exquisite beauty and the price that must be paid for inclusion: as one woman is cast as the good girl, the other as the bad (at least, in their own minds), and a husband learns about the agonising sacrifice he must make for the truth.

Are some relationships and some beliefs more legitimate than others? This movie looks intensely, engages passionately, but carefully refrains from judging.

My Friend Dahmer

Rated: MMy Friend Dahmer

Written & Directed by: Marc Meyers

Based on the book ‘My Friend Dahmer’ by: Derf Backderf

Produced by: Jody Girgenti, p.g.a., Marc Meyers, p.g.a., Adam Goldworm, p.g.a., Michael Merlob, Milan Chakraborty

Starring: Ross Lynch, Anne Heche, Dallas Roberts, Alex Wolff, Tommy Nelson, Vincent Kartheiser, Harrison Holzer and Miles Robbins.

 

Based on the true story of serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer is a tense and creepy examination of Dahmer’s life before he became a murderer.

Reminiscent of the tone used in J. D. Salinger’s, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ there’s a constant tension with signs of Dahmer’s compulsions apparent in his obsession of collecting road-kill to then soak in acid to collect the bones: external behaviour symptomatic of his increasingly disturbed mind.

Based on Derf Backderf’s critically acclaimed 2012 graphic novel, Derf writes from personal experience after attending high school with Dahmer.  Before finding out about Dahmer’s confession, Derf (his character in the movie played by Alex Wolff) considered his high school experience to be like everyone else’s.

Film writer and director, Marc Meyers asks, ‘What are those forces in one’s life that sculpt and define us? How do we become who we become? Why does one teenager find promise and his friend, meanwhile, enters adulthood broken?’

This isn’t a violent or gory film, but a character study of suspense.

Following Dahmer (Ross Lynch) through senior-high, pre-1978, the audience is shown the typical teen struggles as the isolated, unusual Dahmer is adopted by a group of boys who find his antics hilarious.

Surrounded by girls ‘aggressively’ out of their league, team-Dahmer create a high-school legend as Dahmer throws epileptic-type fits in class, in the hallway; random moments that disturb and amuse. And the antics of making Dahmer their mascot is genuinely funny, in an adolescent kind of way.

That’s what’s so unsettling about the film: the ordinary nature of kids in school being typical.

Everyone grew up with a kid like Dahmer.  But what was it that turned a kid-made-famous in school by chucking fits for attention, all for the entertainment of his new mates, into a serial killer, ultimately confessing to the murder of seventeen men and boys?

Meyer’s focusses on the characters, allowing the story to speak without flash, without overt violence like blurring the image of a gutted dog, the impression enough to evoke the heart-rending response.

This isn’t a true-crime investigation with detectives and interviews, instead, the depths of Dahmer are explored showing his struggle to connect, showing there’s wit and humour buried beneath the cold exterior.

You can see the tipping of his compulsions versus his want to be with friends changing depending on the difficulties he faces at home with his mother’s mental illness (outstanding performance of Joyce Dahmer by Anne Heche) and his parents divorcing.

His father, Lionel Dahmer (Dallas Roberts) tries to understand the bizarre behaviour of his kid, to make the effort to encourage change like buying Dahmer a set of weights to get him out of the road-kill death hut and to maybe meet a girl.

And you can see Dahmer trying yet failing to fight against his needs.

This kid is twisted and it’s difficult yet fascinating to watch.

There’s a curiousity out there, to watch the makings of a serial killer.  But this isn’t one of those sensationalised dramatic thrills.

My Friend Dahmer is more of a quiet observation made all the more disturbing through a setting of the ordinary.

 

 

In Times of Fading Light

Rated: 18+In Times Of Fading Light

Directed by: Matti Geschonneck

Screenplay by: Wolfgang Kohlhaase (based on the novel by Eugen Ruge)

Produced by: Oliver Berben, Sarah Kirkegaard, Dieter Salzmann

Starring: Bruno Ganz, Alexander Fehling, Sylvester Groth, Pit Bukowski, Evgenia Dodina, Stephan Grossmann.

Based on the semi-autobiographical 2011 novel of the same name by Eugen Ruge, and screening as part of the 2018 German Film Festival, In Times of Fading Light concerns several generations of an East German Communist family gathering to celebrate the 90th birthday of Wilhelm Powileit (Bruno Ganz), a staunch supporter of the Communist Party who is also about to receive a medal in recognition of a lifetime of service to the Party.

The action takes place over one day in 1989 in East Berlin, not long before officials opened the Berlin Wall for the first time in 28 years (its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992). In addition to family and friends, there are also some Communist Party officials present, but they quickly leave once rumours start to reach them of people defecting to the West (but whether the officials are joining the stampede or trying to stop it isn’t clear).

My knowledge of the sudden building and eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall is sketchy at best, nor was it particularly enhanced by the way this film unfolds, given its setting mainly within a family home and with the focus on an old man’s stubborn adherence to a political ideology that is being threatened by change.

The ensemble cast is composed of a number of apparently distinguished European stage and film actors, but not being familiar with any of them, and not understanding German, I relied on the subtitles to help navigate my way through the murky political and historical waters. This tended to distance me from becoming too engaged with the characters and their interactions, but there was enough significant information gradually revealed to keep me from losing interest.

The film benefitted from good production design and was effectively photographed to capture Eastern Germany in the late 1980s, with the home kitted out in what would have been the typical furnishings of the time, and with everyone appropriately costumed in keeping with their frugal lifestyles.

A drawback for me was that the film tended to be rather stage-bound, particularly in the earlier scenes, as if lifted from a Chekov play with people trapped within a defined space and uttering their lines with a sense of revealing lots of ‘Important Things’. As the day progressed, this stage-like aspect lessened, or perhaps it was because the audience became caught up more in the unfolding drama and relationships of the various relatives and friends whose convivial smiles started to freeze and crack as secrets and long-buried grievances seeped to the surface.

Bruno Ganz as the focus of the celebratory gathering was aged effectively with make-up, and was convincing as a firm believer in a political ideal who struggled to maintain his faith as others around him surrendered to the inevitable passing of a particular time in Germany’s history. The old wooden table loaded with celebratory food and the patina of many earlier gatherings represented a set of values and its eventual fate served as a metaphor for inescapable change and how not everyone can accept that change even when faced with incontrovertible proof.

If you enjoy period drama in a foreign language, with characters in no particular hurry to reveal their secrets, you may find this offering to your liking.

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Tully

Rated: MTully

Directed by:  Jason Reitman

Produced by: Jason Blumenfeld, Jason Cloth, Diablo Cody

Written by: Diablo Cody

Starring:  Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Ron Livingston.

When I first watched the trailer for Tully, I was horrified. True story. My first impression being that I was headed for a film dealing with all that’s wrong with childbearing. My suspicion was that with such a beginning, there was only one way it could end. An ode to motherhood.

Now, here is the thing. Of all people this film could have been assigned to, I was the less qualified for the job for I am childless and proud to be so. But if there is something I enjoy more than a challenge is to be proven wrong.

Tully is much more than a mother’s journey to cope with the unexpected. It is an ode, yes, but to the individuals lying within and how society looks down upon them in the face of struggle. Brave, spirited women risking their bodies, their careers, their whole lives to bear the next generation. Unrecognised, underrated, unknown.

This film reunites director Jason Reitman, writer Diablo Cody and star Charlize Theron, all of whom previously collaborated on Young Adult (2011), and has been referred to as Juno’s sequel. Probably because both these films portray pregnancy with a realistic yet magical insight.

Tully has been subject to some controversy surrounding its depiction of postnatal (or postpartum) depression and other mental illness. Those that take issue with the portrayal of these subjects do so because the conditions are never specifically named and because they feel that there isn’t enough treatment shown on-screen. Those that champion the film feel that it is more accurate for not naming the condition, since postnatal (or postpartum) depression is severely under-diagnosed, and that the film actually does a service by causing debate about these under-discussed topics.

Charlize Theron gained 50 pounds for the role. She adhered to an excessive diet of junk food, processed foods, In n Out Burger, and milkshakes. Theron would eat macaroni and cheese at 2 a.m. to help keep on the weight. Theron said that her youngest child had mistaken her for being pregnant, given the extensive weight gain, and that it took a year and a half for her to be able to shed the weight.

For me, the moral of the story is that I was dead-wrong. If there is something I learnt watching Tully is that motherhood is not a blessing nor a curse. It is an adventure of the self between who we are and who we could become. If we dare.

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Outside In

Directed by:  Lynn SheltonOutside In

Produced by: Duplass Brothers (Jay and Mark)

Written By: Jay Duplass, Lynn Shelton

Starring: Edie Falco, Jay Duplass and Kaitlyn Dever.

Jay Duplass and Lynn Shelton have created a story that goes straight to the heart and soul.

Outside In is a film about human flaws and how mistakes from the past affect our future.

After twenty years behind bars, Chris (Jay Duplass) attempts to readjust to small town life. But nothing is what it used to be. Life has moved on and we follow his struggle as he tries to catch up and find his place.

Carol (Edie Falco) is Chris’ beacon of light. Someone he desperately holds onto in a strange world he no longer recognises.

Chris’ advances on Carol transform their need for human connection into something deeper. Their relationship becoming their raison d’être.

The melancholic scenery of Granite Falls and the adverse elements, rain and fog, throughout the film set the mood of the story.

A particular scene left a lingering impression on me, when Chris finds his collection of cassettes and VHS videos in the garage. For I didn’t see the meaningless objects he left behind but a heartbreaking analogy. That of a man unable to fit in our ever-connected yet dehumanised world.

Lynn Shelton is a director and actress, known for Humpday (2009), Laggies (2014) and Your Sister’s Sister (2011).

Jay Duplass (along with his brother, Mark Duplass) first made a name for himself writing and directing several award-winning short films. His first feature film was the Sundance 2005 breakout hit “The Puffy Chair,” which went on to win the Audience Award at SXSW and receive two Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Mark Duplass is an actor and producer, known for, Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), Creep (2014) and, The One I Love (2014).

Fresh, clean and uncomplicated. Outside In made to the Official Selection of the Toronto International Festival in 2017 and won the Vision Award at the Sun Valley Film Festival in 2018. Other nominations include the Game Changer Award at SXSW Festival and the Dragon Award at Goteborg Festival.

Outside In is part of the Contemporary Selection of the American Essentials Film Festival among other interesting independent films such as Kodachrome and Pet Names.

Most of the titles are Australian premieres drawn from Toronto, Sundance, Rotterdam and SXSW, some of the most prestigious independent film festivals.

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A Quiet Place

Rated: MA Quiet Place

Directed by: John Krasinski

Produced by: Michael Bay, p.g.a. Andrew Form, p.g.a. Brad Fuller, p.g.a.

Story by: Bryan Woods & Scott Beck

Screenplay by: Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski

Starring: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds and Cade Woodward.

To put it lightly: A Quiet Place is a horrifically quiet family drama.

And I say drama as there’s two layers to this film: how the old familiar wound of guilt effects a family and the way aliens with supersonic hearing can tear any living creature into pieces, seemingly driven by a mission to exterminate.

The film is made simply, staying with Abbott family; husband, Lee (John Krasinski) and wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) doing everything they can to protect their young children after the devastating arrival of aliens 89 days previous to the opening scene.

The only way to survive is to stay quiet.

The audience is shown again and again what happens when the creatures hear, so there’s this constant tension that doesn’t let go for the entire film.

An unpretentious film, with the focus on the Abbott family and their struggle to survive the everyday, I was on the edge the whole time, jumping in fright more than once (not usual for me), living the terror right alongside pregnant Evelyn (need I say more about trying to keep quiet while giving birth) and Lee and the kids, young kids brought up in a world of silent terror.

What really got me was how Lee and Evelyn tried to keep their family safe and happy – trying to be the best parents in the worst circumstances.  So there’s this emotional attachment because of the outstanding performances of Blunt, who continues to amaze, showing absolute terror but controlled through hard-won courage, and the drive shown by Krasinski as the husband and father to protect his family: heart breaking.

It’s not often I cry in a suspense horror, but this film had all the best of an edge-of-your-seat-scare-fest with a driving soundtrack (Marco Beltrami) and nasty killing, sharp-fanged monsters alongside the reality of a family trying to survive in the worst of circumstances.

The whole cast was just so believable, you could see the fear in their eyes.

And because the characters couldn’t make sound or speak, the music and facial expression to convey emotion was just so much more important – the quiet to the complete absence of sound when focussed on the eldest child, daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), from her perspective of being deaf changed the whole feeling of the film, like the silence was used to draw you further in so when there was a clash or sudden scare, you could really feel it.

Superficially, a simple story; but the mechanics and thought put into the presentation of the film, the soundtrack, the drama of the family dynamic shown in the facial expressions and eyes of the cast pushed the suspense to maximum.

An impressive film from start to finish.

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The Party

Rated: MA15+The Party

Written and Directed by: Sally Potter

Produced by: Christopher Sheppard, Kurban Kassam

Cinematographer: Alexey Rodionov

Starring: Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas and Timothy Spall.

The Party is a film filled with cynical wit as newly appointed Shadow Minister of Health, Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) celebrates her new post by hosting a party.

Bill (Timothy Spall), husband and long-time supporter sits in a daze with a glass in hand as each guest arrives: best friend April (Patricia Clarkson) and her New Age partner, Gottfried (Bruno Ganz), lesbian couple Martha (Cherry Jones) and Jinny (Emily Mortimer), newly pregnant, and the handsome financier, Tom (Cillian Murphy) – all sitting on their own agenda as a constant barrage of political and social standpoints are thrown around the room building to their very own announcements.

A film of contrasts, and not just because the entirety is shot in black and white, but because of the contrast of ideals and personalities.  Even the music played on the turntable by Bill is a bizarre backdrop and soundtrack to the emotive tension in the lounge room; tragedy and trauma played out to the rumba and reggae creating the ridiculous and send-up to all the seriousness discussed from life expectancy related to economics and class rather than diet and exercise – a statistic Janet and husband Bill have always agreed upon – to the question of life after death.

The setting of the film is the house of Janet and Bill – there’s no hiding as each character is forced to face the crisis looming in each relationship: the dying academic, the cheating wife; each person intellectualising their emotion into a rational argument all to the sound of Bill’s insistence of playing record after record, his need for music a compulsion to express.

This is a film driven by dialogue, and the set was created and shot on stage like a play where each character slowly unravels as each reveals the next revelation – the story’s interest in the layers of rationale used as self-protection being pealed away to show the raw human hiding underneath; argument and ideals and political stances made as an adult only to show the child still hiding underneath.  Except for April.  Now a cynic.  Janet asks her best friend, ‘Have I been emotionally unavailable?’

Of which April replies, ‘It’s not a productive line of thought’.

There are so many subtle moments that got me giggling.  Small details like Bill sitting confused, a glass of red in one hand and the celebratory glass of champagne in the other.

It’s sad, it’s tragic.  And the understanding of what we cling to, to keep our ego’s intact, is examined and oh so very funny.

Writer and director Sally Potter (Orlando (1992)), states she wrote the script with an awareness of the absurdity of human suffering; the highlight for me April as she cuts through any emotion with her scathing, but not to be taken personally, remarks aimed at revealing the true and rational perspective with her unblinking eye, ‘You’re a first-rate lesbian and a second-rate thinker.’

To which Martha, Professor of Women’s Studies replies ‘April, Really.  I am a professor. Specializing in domestic labour gender differentiation in American utopianism.’

‘Exactly,’ says April.

Left with nothing unnecessary for the story to come full-circle in 71 minutes, The Party is a clever film that takes you into the claustrophobic world of relationships in crisis viewed through the lens of a political satire; the most selfless of the group the coke snorting soulless financier, Tom – now that’s cynical.

 

Abracadabra

Rated: 18+Abracadabra

Director/Writer: Pablo Berger

Produced by: Pablo Berger, Ignasi Estapé, Mercedes Gamero, Mikel Lejarza

Music by: Alfonso de Vilallonga

Cinematography by: Kiko de la Rica

Starring: Maribel Verdú, Priscilla Delgado, Antonio de la Torre, José Mota, Quim Gutiérrez, Joep Maria Pou, Javier Anton and Rocίo Calvo.

Language: Spanish with English subtitles.

If it was a choice between an egotistical, abusive and dismissive husband or a loving, appreciative but crazy murderer, who would you choose?

Abracadabra is kind of a love story, if you can call the choice between a chauvinist and a murderer romantic, mixed with weird humour and eye-brow raising moments of blood and drama and fantasy.

After Carmen (Maribel Verdú) with daughter, Toñi (Priscilla Delgado) finally drag husband and father, Carlos from watching the football to a wedding, they wonder why they bothered when he continues to listen to the football match with headphones shouting, Yes !!! right as the priest asks if anyone contends this most romantic and completely loved-up couple from marrying (their current feeling expressed in precious promises the complete opposite to Carmen and Carlos).

The wedding reception show-cases Pepe (José Mota), the mighty hypnotist, (and obsessed with the sequined, gorgeous but somewhat gaudy Carmen) daring an audience member to volunteer.  Carlos doesn’t like the way Pepe looks at his wife, so volunteers confident in his domination over the powers of the eye-lined hypnotist, Pepe.

While mocking the powers of Pepe an opportunistic ghost possesses Carlos changing him from macho-nasty to doe-eyed lovely, breakfast-in-bed included.

When Carmen and daughter Toñi realise it’s too good to be true, the last straw his greeting of Pepe with a kiss and hug, they consult the mighty Dr. Fumetti (Joep Maria Pou) to find the truth of who inhabits the body of Carlos.

And on the story goes, reaching into the bizarre with a flavour of comedy that held the film from falling into a complete mess of over-dramatisation.

It was those subtle details that were funny: the vibrant white of Dr. Fumetti’s teeth while posing as a dentist; the frothing and spitting of the real estate agent to re-enact blood spurting as a mother’s head was sawn off by the hand of her schizophrenic son… I love a bit of dark humour and there were many moments well executed (ha, ha!) by the cast.

If you don’t like funny-strange humour, then stay away.  The film was also melodramatic with emotion shown with that, hand to mouth, Oh! face, often.  But as the film plays out there was a bit of lead in the story.

An interesting movie experience into the unexpected and absurd, with the drama of weddings and unrequited love and madness that was surprising and silly, pushing the suspension of belief as the script skipped across disaster by keeping the underlying humour present in those unexpected and bizarre details.

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Pop Aye

Rated: MPop Aye

Written & Directed by: Kirsten Tan

Produced by: Lai Weijie, Deng Li, Zhang Jianbin, Huang Wenhong

Onset Photographer: Lek Kiatsirikajor

Composer: Matthew James Kelly

Starring: Bong (as Popeye), Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Penpak Sirikul, Chaiwat Khumdee, Yukontorn Sukkijja, Narong Pongpab.

Foreign Language: Thai with English subtitles.

Winner Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award
Winner Rotterdam VPRO Big Screen Award
Winner Best International Feature Film Zurich Film Festival

Popeye is the name of an elephant, a street elephant, lost now found by Thana (Thaneth Warakulnukroh), an architect reaching middle-age and realising that everything he’s worked for is now broken – like his first building about to be destroyed to make way for a new design, a new building aptly named: Eternity.

Finding Popeye (named after the cartoon ‘sailor man’) on the streets of Bangkok, it feels like a chance, a new beginning; the broken Popeye the only Being in the world to understand what it is to be taken for granted.

Leaving his wife, Bo (Penpak Sirikul), job and city, Thana sets out on a journey, taking Popeye with him on the roads of Thailand to return the elephant to his childhood home, their home.

It’s the circle of life, suddenly finding the world different – changing, always moving forward and brutal in leaving the old and weak behind: like nature.  But in nature it’s a slow process.  In the city it’s not about watching the day pass, it’s about money – and it passes fast.

The film is a classic tale of a man having a midlife crisis but shown in the unique setting of Thailand with colourful trucks, ladyboys and the relationship a man can have with an elephant.

Writer and director (debut feature) Kirsten Tan is able to show the animals with real personality – the antics of Popeye as he makes a break for it to continue his own journey from a shopping carpark, shopping trolley being dragged behind; to confused dogs barking at a giant immovable adversary; to long-eared cows lost without their cowbell to announce their coming and going.

There’s a bitter-sweet tone to this film, watching Thana project his life-crisis onto his lost childhood pet, because life is bitter and sometimes sweet.

As Tan states: “Tonally, I believe that life is—and has always been—simultaneously tragic and comic. It only depends on the perspective and distance with which one is watching events unfold. In my films, this inadvertent mixing of tragedy and comedy is important, because that is the truth of life.”

Money is an important part of life, but so is that wondering about what happened to past loves, the yearning to return home – the acceptance of others.

Pop Aye is a quiet film to show the cruel and the kind and those on their own path and how each can connect or break apart shown in a timeline that shifts back and forth but always back to Thana and his struggles – the simple things have meaning like the offer of sandals to ease tired feet, the response to hesitation, ‘They’re old not dirty’.

The meeting of the fortune teller able stop time, to ‘feel a bit like a tree.’  And Thana wants to stop the world turning.  ‘But even trees have to die.’

Pop Aye’s a film to absorb and ponder – a journey to lift the soul; not a fast-paced entertainment.

And I can relate to reaching a crossroads and the wanting to wander ‘til it all makes sense; to be able to slow down time, just for a little bit.

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