Giveaways RT119
DVD: Mystery Road
Indigenous writer-director Ivan Sen’s award winning Beneath Clouds (2002) and Toomelah (2011) are followed by yet another distinctive feature film. “With its small-town setting, cowboy cops and a good guy in pursuit of justice, Mystery Road has more than a hint of the Western…Visually, it’s as clearly delineated as a graphic novel, displaying a predilection for close-ups and figures silhouetted against sunset landscapes…Sen has employed the framework of the whodunnit to create a striking piece of cinema whose stylisation enhances rather than overshadows this story about a misfit cop probing a town with a rotten, racist core” (Katerina Sakkas, RT116)
5 copies courtesy of Transmission Films
DVD: Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell
Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley turns to documentary to examine the mysteries of her late actor mother’s life, using her father’s home movie footage and recreations in the same style that sync beautifully. Polley had always looked different from other family members, but beyond a bit of joking (characteristic of this clan) the truth does not come out until the director begins interviewing likely suspects and discovering their sometimes odd perspectives on the matter. Most engaging are her ‘interrogations’ of her father and his documented version of events. This is fine, un-melodramatic autobiographical filmmaking. KG
5 copies courtesy of Madman Entertainment
CD: The Necks, Open
“Open [is] a sparse work of bare percussion, tinkling chimes and gentle pianistic gesture…arranged in reference to a recording made by [drummer Tony] Buck of a Monochord, a droning stringed instrument tuned to one open pair of notes. “I’m not sure at what point we decided to start with the monochord,” says [pianist Chris] Abrahams. “We walked into the studio and the only thing we thought of was that we wanted to make something sparse…We didn’t want it to build too much, we wanted it to flow through a number of different scenes rather than a teleological build up of crescendos—that was the main brief” (Oliver Downes, interview with Chris Abrahams).
5 copies courtesy of The Necks
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RealTime issue #119 Feb-March 2014 pg. 56
