The 60Th Edinburgh International Film Festival Or, Why You Don't See

The 60th Edinburgh International Film Festival Or, why you don’t see many German comedies

In today’s permissive society, few taboos pornography in today’s society. Gaspar half-remembered bad dream. While far are left. Sex is everywhere. Anything goes Noe’s segment was as cheery and life- more conventional in terms of style and in our impolite society and we’re free to affirming as his previous films Irreversible narrative, The Ring Finger , is how talk about it whenever and wherever we and Seul contre tous while BritArt stalwart Secretary might have turned out had it want. Sam Taylor-Wood’s film of a man been directed by David Lynch. Dark, sexy Sex just isn’t shocking anymore. masturbating alone in the desert had and mystifying, it’s a film that gets under If the best cinema holds up a mirror to nothing to say but at least looked pretty. your skin. our society then this year’s Edinburgh Perhaps the best segment was Larry Uber-geek Kevin Smith finally unveiled International Film Festival had mirrors on Clark’s documentary Impaled , which Clerks 2 , the long-awaited sequel to his the ceiling, was wearing a gimp mask and offered a critique of the porn industry by 1994 breakthrough hit and a welcome sniffing amyl nitrite. Now in its 60th year, exposing its workings; he gives a young return to form. What plot there is revolves Britain’s longest running film festival isn’t man the chance to audition a series of porn around one of our slacker heroes quitting quite ready for the pipe and slippers just actresses and to star with the actress of his his dead-end job for marriage and the yet. choice. The final result is anything but good life in Florida, leaving behind his best Sex and its censorship was the major erotic. mate and the woman he really loves. preoccupation of Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Sex was played for laughs in two very Vulgar, profane and funny, Clerks 2 Not Yet Rated . Having run afoul of the different films this year, Germany’s Black features, ahem, ‘inter-species erotica’ and monolithic Motion Picture Academy of Sheep and The Oh In Ohio from the US. A takes pot-shots at racism, religion, the America (the industry body who award film sophisticated and rather gentle comedy, disabled, the Lord of the Rings trilogy (‘... classifications in the US) in the past, Dick’s The Oh In Ohio chronicles one sexually all about the walking. Nine hours of hobbits documentary set out to expose this cabal dysfunctional middle class wife’s (Indie walking. Man, even the trees walked in that of secretive, self-appointed moral darling Parker Posey) search for an movie!’) and all things pop culture. But guardians by, how else, hiring a couple of orgasm, which involves seeing an Annie there’s a sweetness that runs through the lesbian private detectives to track down Sprinkle-style hippie sex therapist, movie that the original lacked, a poignant the board members responsible for giving experimenting with sex toys, dallying with affection for his slowly maturing his and other filmmaker’s movies the Heather Graham’s wholesome lesbian characters, a sign perhaps that Smith restrictive NC-17 rating. While there’s a before finding fulfilment in the arms of himself is growing up. certain amount of amusement to be had Danny De Vito’s swimming pool installer. This year’s crop of British films were a from watching a lesbian private detective Gentle and sophisticated aren’t words that mixed bag, none of which you really felt the go through someone’s garbage, Dick has could be used to describe Black Sheep . need to see in a cinema. In fact Shoot the serious points to make; namely that an Crude and vulgar, Black Sheep proved why Messenger , the BBC’s controversial racial inherent double-standard exists at the so few German comedies gain a release in identity drama appeared on primetime TV a heart of the MPAA that penalises the UK. They’re not funny. scant week after it’s Festival screening. independent films while favouring the A dreamy eroticism suffuses Seven The rest were the usual mix of life-affirming major studio releases that are its bread and Heavens and The Ring Finger . Shot in both triumph over adversity and gritty urban butter, and exposing the MPAA’s hypocrisy film and high-definition video, Seven drama with the Michael Powell Award when it comes to portrayals of sex and Heavens is a dark, disjointed love story and going to Brothers of the Head a cod- violence (sex = bad, violence = good). It’s may be the most formally challenging film drama/doc about a fictional band featuring no surprise then that when Dick submits of the Festival. With it’s splintered conjoined twins who single-handedly his film for classification in the final reel he narrative, distorted soundtrack and invented punk. I may have made it sound receives the dreaded NC-17 rating. hallucinatory images that waver in and out more fun than it was. Also sure to get an NC-17 rating is of focus as if the film were projected on the Far more crowd-pleasing were three Destricted , a collaboration (consisting of surface of a pond (an effect achieved by films from the US, Hoodwinked , a five short films) between prominent artists shooting through layers of rippled glass), Rashomon -style retelling of the Red Riding and filmmakers exploring the place of Seven Heavens is hypnotic and feels like a Hood story firmly in the post-modern

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tradition of Shrek (‘Ah, “the wolf did it” ... wears the titular pumps ends up getting Harabati and Them . Reminiscent at times talk about profiling’) which delighted kids, their feet cut off. Best of the bunch of Michael Haneke’s Caché , Hotel Harabati big and little, Wristcutters , an afterlife love however was William Kaufman’s The was a sedate, measured examination of a story where the path to true love never runs Prodigy , a low-budget gangster thriller with middle-class couple’s mental unravelling smooth, not even when you’re dead, and an unkillable bad guy straight out of an 80s after a chance encounter with a Middle the hit of this year’s Sundance, Little Miss slasher flick that delivered the kind of Eastern-looking gent who never poses any Sunshine , where the ultimate dysfunctional down-and-dirty thrills you want around real threat. By contrast, the terrors family (including a suicidal gay uncle and a midnight. plaguing the nice bourgeois couple in heroin-snorting, curmudgeonly Grandpa) Even The Prodigy ’s demonic killer would Them are all too real, a point hammered pile into a camper van and drive cross- probably think twice before tackling the home by the fact that the events portrayed country to cheer on 7 year-old Olive in the German girl gang in Brigit Grosskopf’s in the film are based on a true story. They final of the Little Miss Sunshine beauty gritty Princess . Harsh, bleak, brutal and might be selling Al Gore’s eco- pageant. Smart, funny and refreshingly funny, Princess is the kind of film Ken documentary An Inconvenient Truth as ‘the saccharin-free, Little Miss Sunshine has Loach would have made had he been an most terrifying film you’ll ever see’ but trust you rooting for the hopeless underdogs angry young German woman. And it isn’t me; it’s Them . even though you know they can’t possibly afraid to thumb its nose at Citizen Kane Which isn’t to say that An Inconvenient win. with an ironic final scene payoff. Truth isn’t scary. It is. Without resorting to One of the highlights of any EIFF are the Perhaps the best American films of the cheap effects or Michael Moore-style Late Night Romps; visceral, extreme slices Festival both featured performances by the buffoonery, Al Gore (who jokingly refers to of future cult cinema which in the past have same actor, Jeremy Renner. In Neo Ned , himself as ‘the man who used to be the given us the Ringu movies and Takashi Renner plays Ned, a Nazi skinhead who next President of the United States’) Miike’s Audition , films every bit as likely to falls in love with a young black woman who makes his case for the dangers of climate shock and offend as they are to entertain, believes she is the reincarnation of Adolf change and global warming in a cool, and this year was no exception. H6 — Hitler, while in Twelve And Holding he’s a rational manner, presenting his evidence Diary of an Assassin was a repellent study suicidal ex-fireman who becomes the clearly and concisely, his low-key but of a Spanish serial killer and featured some focus of a 12-year-old girl’s awakening relaxed delivery lending Gore an everyman nauseating scenes of sexual violence; sexuality. In both films Renner gives subtle, quality that he so sorely lacked during his demented French horror movie Sheitan expertly judged performances that hint at doomed Presidential campaign, making mixed devil worship and an almost goatlike the vulnerability and humanity of such him a persuasive champion of some bitter Vincent Cassel in what felt like a Gallic disparate characters. Get used to him, he’s truths. The US Presidency’s loss may yet Wicker Man ; The Red Shoes reimagined going to be around for a while. prove to be the world’s gain. Powell and Pressburger’s dark fairytale as Post 9/11 paranoia cast its dark shadow a Korean splatter movie where anyone who over two very different French films, Hotel David Watson

An Inconvenient Truth, Paramount Pictures 2006.

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