HIGHLIGHT #3. Push Bike + other short films
I watched a buttload of short films over the course of this weekend. Some where hilarious, others humbling, some pretty shit (film festival choices so often baffle me!) and a few I will struggle to forget.
Some highlights:
- Vinyl: the story of an African family struggling to fit into Australia. Very little dialogue, no simple charectisation, no flashbacks, no need to explain everything about their tortured background. A story told through images.
- The Wake: a short slice of life piece that didn’t bother with three act structure. It just let us in for a minute, crafted some strong characters and told a bigger story through some snapshot insights.
- Monkey Bar Mafia: a crime film set in a primary school, where the top Mafioso is a greasy haired year seven, the police are the highly organised network of teachers, and the big heist is a quest to retrieve a confiscated footy card from the principal’s office. It’s fun, fast paced, colourful and completely unrealistic whilst still being quite genuinely suspenseful.
- Push Bike: this was my favourite. Like Vinyl, it’s almost all non-dialogue; a story told through images, glances and thrilling performances. It’s dark little film that follows a lonely mother in her late thirties, as over one evening of unfortunate events, she moves through despondence, humiliation and real terror before discovering an unexpectedly gentle, and deeply sensual, connection from a point of absolute fear. I could not tear my eyes away from the at once disturbing and touching story.
Summary: filmmaking is endlessly versatile. Also, I’m kinda now in the mood to make a darker film. Not something about terminal illness or suburban poverty, but something that just moves into darker thematic territory. As the ever wise Freya said to me, as we sat around waiting for Stuffed to screen: “maybe it’s something you have to do, both to help you learn about filmmaking and to help you learn about the darker part of yourself.”
OOOOOH, hella insightful.
Much lovin
xxxx magda
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