The Melbourne International Film Festival runs across cinemas in Melbourne from August 6 through until August 23, and offers up a diverse range of features, documentaries and short films.
ALL FILMS REVIEWED BY GREG KING
LAST UPDATED AUGUST 18
BODY BLOW.
The fourth feature film from Australian writer/director Dean Francis, the low-budget Body Blow is a messy, trashy, camp and erotically charged pulp neo-noir that visits the familiar tropes and characters of the genre through a queer lens.
Aiden (Tim Pocock, from tv series Dance Academy, etc) is a celibate and self-destructive policeman whose past misdeeds have meant he has been reassigned to work for an undercover unit based in the heartland of Sydney’s gay scene. His supervisor is the hardnosed Steele (AFI award winner Sacha Horler, from Praise, etc), whose father was a legendary but corrupt cop. Steele leads Aiden into the clutches of her still powerful father, and Aiden is slowly drawn into the underbelly of Sydney’s gay scene.
He meets Cody (Tom Rodgers), the handsome, drug addicted twink bartender and sex worker. Aiden falls into the orbit of Fat Francis (drag queen Paul Capsis), a powerful drug lord and bar owner. This leads him into a dangerous world of drugs, sex, murder and corruption. Aiden is torn between his duty as a police officer and his obsession with Cody.
Much of the film is set around Sydney’s iconic Oxford Street strip with its gay bars and sex clubs, and it almost becomes another character in the film. Francis and his cinematographer Franc Biffone (the documentary Not Only Fred Dagg But Also John Clarke, etc) have shot the film in a garish, saturated and neon lit blue and purple palette, which gives the material the aesthetic of those lurid and gritty direct to video sexy thrillers of the 90s. The pulsating electronic score from Andreas Dominguez drives the film, and Pocock has also contributed to the film’s soundtrack.
The cast deliver deliberately exaggerated and heightened performances that create an air of unreality. Making his feature film debut here Rodgers brings a cheeky style, self-confident attitude and flamboyant mannerisms to his performance as Cody. But he also suffuses the character with a hint of vulnerability. Pocock brings a hard edge to his role as the flawed Aiden.
Body Blow is not perfect, but it makes for a perfect late-night film.
ON THE ROAD.
On The Road follows Veneno (Victor Prieto Simental in his film debut), a handsome young drifter who frequents truck stops for casual sex and drugs. He is on the run from vicious gangster and drug lord El Eulos (Mariano Lopez Sosa), who used him and many other youths as sex slaves in his compound. Veneno is carrying a bag of drugs with him. He hooks up with Muneco (Osvaldo Sanchez), an experienced long haul truck driver. As they drive across the highways of northern Mexico Veneno’s past threatens to catch up with him and places them both in danger.
This gritty, erotic queer themed drama from Mexico is a brutal and edgy examination of sex, violence, masculinity, queer identity, and connection set against a harsh and unforgiving environment. It won the Queer Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
This is the fifth feature film for Mexican writer/director David Pablos, whose filmography often deals with gritty and confronting material that probes Mexico’s darker underbelly. Road films are often about liberation, freedom, escape, rediscovery, alienation, loneliness, redemption, trauma and the past, but Pablos gives these familiar tropes a darker edge here.
The evocative and visceral cinematography from Ximena Amann allows audiences to experience the sweat and heat of the setting. He bathes the films in a darker palette that highlights the sleazy setting of the roadside truck stops that are used for casual sex hookups.
Pablos creates an air of tension as the film develops. He deftly crafts a balance between violence and intimacy. There are a couple of explicit sex scenes. Flashback sequences slowly reveal Veneto’s backstory, and these are steeped in sexual violence and have a jarring quality.
Pablos elicits strong performances from his two leads who bring their marginalised characters to life. The charismatic newcomer Simental brings a mix of vulnerability and swagger to his performance, Which is tempered with a hint of bitter experience. He develops a strong rapport with Sanchez, who brings a hard edge to his performance. Pablos has populated the film with a number of non-professional actors as peripheral characters, an oddball collection of whores, gangsters and truck drivers, which adds a sense of authenticity.
PRESSURE.
Based on a true story, this engaging, intelligent and superbly acted drama is set on the eve of the D-Day invasion of France in 1944.
General Eisenhower (played here by Brendan Fraser), the supreme commander of the allied forces has assembled a team of meteorologists and charged them with giving him an accurate forecast for the day of the proposed landings – originally Monday June 5, 1944. Eisenhower’s team is led by Krick (Chris Messina), upon whom he has relied in the past.
But Churchill insists on having one of his own men lead the team. Enter Group Captain Stagg (Andrew Scott), a dour and humourless Scot. Stagg clashes with Krick, disparaging his reliance on historical weather charts to forecast a clear day. Instead, Stagg forecasts storms, high tides and torrential rain, suggesting that the invasion be delayed, much to the horror of General Bernard Montgomery (Damian Lewis). Tensions rise as the two men constantly clash and Eisenhower is uncertain of which of the two meteorologists is accurate and which one to trust. The tension is palpable as Eisenhower weighs up his decision.
Pressure is based on the 2014 stage play written by actor and playwright David Haig. Most of the drama takes place within the confines of the drawing room where the meteorologists work, but Australian director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai, etc) and Haig have attempted to open up the drama beyond its stage setting – especially with their depiction of horror of the D-Day landing itself, an intense sequence that will recall the opening of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan.
Maras has assembled a solid ensemble cast to bring these historical figures to life. Fraser is full of bluster as Eisenhower, upon whose shoulders rests the decision of the timing to launch Operation Overlord. Scott captures Stagg’s prickly nature, but he also conveys his intelligence, dedication and strength of his own convictions. Damian Lewis is nicely arrogant and insufferable as the British General Bernard Montgomery. And Kerry Condon presents a more sympathetic figure as warrant officer Summersby, Eisenhower’s loyal and indispensable assistant, and her solid presence balances out the raging testosterone on display.
Pressure is a fine and gripping drama centred around one of the most significant historical events of the twentieth century.
