Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #143: Beatriz's War (2013).

In this loose adaptation of the story of 16th-century Frenchman Martin Guerre, Beatriz (played as an adult by screenwriter Irim Tolentino) is a young girl living in East Timor just after the Indonesian invasion in 1975. She lives a life of absolute squalor until she meets Tomas (played as an adult by Jose da Costa), who will soon become her beloved husband. Soon after they marry, however, the occupying Indonesian forces subject Tomas to a forced disappearance, something which sadly proved very common in military dictatorships of the era, and Beatriz is left to her own devices to endure poverty and the occupation. But she refuses to believe Tomas is dead, a faith which is rewarded sixteen years later when he returns to their village. This soon mystifies Beatriz, however, when she notices how greatly Tomas has changed: has he seen things that damaged or corrupted him, or is he an impostor? Now Beatriz has answer these questions, while avoiding becoming a casualty of the civil war being fought around them, in order to save both their lives.

Beatriz's War is the first feature-length film ever made in East Timor, and it's a great start. The production values and acting, as you may expect, are quite low, but that's perhaps unintentionally helpful because it reinforces just how tiny their film industry and economy are, and the content might've had less impact with flashier visuals anyway. This is a brave and mostly successful attempt to remind the world and particularly East Timor about their own complicated and violent recent history, through a quite unusual romance narrative. It also, however, offers a hopeful and vivid snapshot of Timorese culture: proud, resilient, maternal (the women are depicted as generally being in control in each tribe) and resourceful.

Directors Luigo Acquisto (an Italian-born Aussie) and Bety Reis (who's Timorese), working with just $200 000, blend their visions very cohesively together and pull no punches with this very daring and forceful yet intimate material. The result is an historical story told in such a way that it really feels current and local, for better or worse, and Tolentino's screenplay and lead performance both provide sturdy anchors through it. Thanks to cinematographer Valeriu Campman, Acquisto and Reis also offer a strikingly lush evocation of East Timor's largely untouched forest/beach landscape. Beatriz's War is one you will want to fight with Beatriz herself. 

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #142: Short Term 12 (2013).

In her first film lead, Brie Larson is Grace, the young head supervisor of the residents of Short Term 12, a group home for troubled teenagers. She lives with her colleague and long-term boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher, Jr.) but is very reluctant to confide in him. This continues even when Grace learns she's pregnant and plans to have an abortion. At work the main focus is on Marcus (Lakeith Stanfield), who's on the cusp of leaving the facility and doesn't feel ready for that. Meanwhile, the supervisory team welcome new member Nate (Rami Malek, who could've played this role in a coma). When Grace bonds with new patient Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a girl with a history of self-harming, she discovers a secret about Jayden's family past which resonates rather unpleasantly with her. Now as her own problems begin to snowball, Grace must keep Short Term 12 in order while cleaning her personal mess up.

Writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton, adapting his own short film, based Short Term 12 on his own experiences working in a facility for wayward youth, and it's a solid debut. His direction is very calm and non-judgmental in how it treats this story's two sides, and his screenplay is filled with dialogue that feels appropriate and authentic for each character. He also draws a luminous central turn from Brie Larson, who very shrewdly brings Grace's real reasons and passion for doing what she does out gradually for more emotional effect, and Gallagher, Dever, Stanfield provide engaging support, but Malek is totally wasted as I said. If I must fault his work anywhere, it's in how to my mind Cretton's efforts to narratively blend Grace's professional and personal conflicts don't quite gel in some parts. However, overall I do think his effort withstands that.

Short Term 12 also hit a chord with me because while I never had to be in an institution, growing up with autism spectrum and anxiety disorders meant I frequently had to attend therapy with or without other such children and teens, as well as my high school's special education unit which was frankly a minefield of incompetency. Anyway, this was clearly familiar and personal territory for Crettin, and he treads it with unwavering sincerity, compassion and objectivity. Short Term 12 is just lovely.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #141: The Little Death (2014).

Sex and romantic comedies are almost as old as cinema itself. 2014's The Little Death, however, is a delightful twist: it's a comedy about sex and romance. It's an anthology piece about five average couples and their sex lives. Maeve has a depraved sexual fantasy which her boyfriend Paul (writer-director Josh Lawson) is very reluctant to fulfill; Evie and Dan (Kate Mulvany and Damon Herriman) to re-light their fire with role-play; Rowena (Kate Box) finds she becomes horny when her husband Richard (Patrick Brammall) experiences heartbreak; Maureen's (Lisa McCune) less lucid moments make her husband Phil (Alan Dukes) fall back in love with her; and in my personal favourite story, call-centre operator Monica (Erin James) becomes embroiled as an interpreter in a quite salacious phone call with deaf artist Sam (T.J. Power). Tying them all together is Steve (Kim Gyngell), a registered sex offender who distributes Golliwog-shaped gingerbread men and whose consistently dreadful timing provides the running gag.

This is undoubtedly for me the best and funniest Australian film comedy in years. Lawson has managed to concoct five separate story that work in an interlocking manner because together they represent any relationship's progress. Lawson also succeeds alongside in making each couple and their predicaments nonetheless feel distinctive, and he never judges or critiques them even though his comedic approach is pretty pointed. He also draws very funny and sympathetic performances from his whole cast including himself, with Power and Box being especially entertaining.

The title references a French phenomenon, "la petite mort." The Little Death isn't, therefore, actually about death. But while watching it., you may just die laughing.

Let's hear it for the educators.

School. That word can evoke nostalgia, scorn, or a mix of both from those who've left it. None of you need the cliches; you've all been there and I'm sure you've all seen school depicted in pop culture.

But never mind, for now, the subjects we're taught at school. I want to focus here on the people who teach them to us. One of my former teachers sadly died last week (RIP), so I'm feeling reflective and hence, maybe, why I've chosen that as this entry's topic.

I'm sure we all had teacher, at any level of our education, who we hated; I know I've had some who I hate to this day. But regardless of that, there is no profession more noble or selfless than teaching. Teachers give at least eight hours or their time, for most of each year, to train children, teenagers and even young adults sometimes about important subjects, as well as to impart wisdom from their increased life experience onto the next generation. In most cases, they do this - alongside administering strictness when necessary - because they want all of their charges to shine.

I also think, most of the time, teachers deserve sympathy for how often they must also be disciplinarians. With how surly and disobedient youngsters can be, it's no wonder so many teachers become disillusioned. (University or college lecturers, however, never have to do this, in my experience, because all tertiary students actually want to be there.)

If I drag this out I think it will become romanticised. So, in conclusion, don't let a few bad eggs spoil the carton. Let's give it up for teachers and their profession. After all, education doesn't end with a graduation.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #140: Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018).

Teenaged Don Wallace (Finn Cole) is stuck at home with his pampering mum when, thanks partially to her prodding, he decides to enrol in an elite boarding school in rural England known as "Slaughterhouse." Soon he then arrives on campus to find that under the control of headmaster Michael Sheen, it's a melting pot of bullying, cliques, caste systems and even land fracking. He shacks up with Willoughby Blake (Asa Butterfield), the one kid at school who refuses to forget about a tragic recent suicide there and seems to be at risk of following suit when he's not plotting revenge on cruel head prefect Clegg (Tom Rhys Harries). Meanwhile, in less morbid moments, Don catches the eye of posh but kind Clemsie (Hermoine Corfield) clumsily tries to woo her. It all takes a turn for the undead, however, when a bumbling school employee (Nick Frost, whose cohort Simon Pegg also appears as a lovestruck house master) encounters an eco-protest in the neighbouring woods. Now a mysterious underground labyrinth is revealed and the site fracking is about to awaken something inhabiting it.

Slaughterhouse Rulez sprang from the minds of director Crispian Mills and critic Henry Fitzherbert, and I think they've concocted a fresh and very exciting school-based horror comedy. By taking the setting and (initial) premise of coming of age in a British boarding school a la Tom Brown's Schooldays and injecting it with a very gory and obscene supernatural twist, this turns out to be a wickedly fun juggling act of educational satire and loving homage to horror. Mills paces and frames each scene with real but rational panache, also ensuring to fully develop the character dynamics particularly among the pupils, and he and Fitzherbert provide thoroughly authentic-sounding dialogue that also doesn't dilute or forego the local lingo. Cole, Corfield and the established Butterfield make a very relatable and committed trio of heroes and the adult stars all let their hair down here with relish, especially Sheen.

But best of all and most importantly, the horror concept is given a shamelessly rollicking and gratuitous treatment the whole way. I found this one to be fun on a stick - or a stake. Slaughterhouse Rulez indeed.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #139: Welcome to Marwen (2018).

For Mark Hogencamp (Steve Carell), life has recently been very challenging and unusual. A drunken mention of how he enjoys wearing women's shoes copped him a beating from a white supremacist group, which left him with severe amnesia and PTSD. To cope with those afflictions, he's created, out of various dolls, toys and artistic backdrops, a fantastical land called Marwen where he frequently and publicly recreates WWII air battles. In a rather Wizard of Oz-style fashion the dolls all correspond with people in his real life, with him leading the charges as Cap'n Hogie. A Belgian witch doll named Deja Thoris (Diane Kruger), like the Edgar Rice Burroughs character, is out to stop Hogie from becoming attached to any woman. But after Mark is finally convinced to take his attackers to court and the hearing descends into him imagining it as a Nazi attack and fleeing after which the trial is postponed, he meets and quickly falls for his new real-life neighbour Nicol (Leslie Mann, who also plays her Marwen counterpart), but that's not mutual.

I was immediately interested in this movie when learning it was from Robert Zemeckis, easily one of my favourite directors, and screenwriter Caroline Thompson, who wrote Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas (I also have a Tim Burton fetish), but my lingering main thought about it is that it's bar none the strangest movie Zemeckis has ever made. It's like Tropic Thunder meets Ruby Sparks meets Team America: World Police, believe it or not. Zemeckis and Thompson do treat Mark's troubled situation with clear impartiality and sensitivity, and the visual and model effects are seamlessly integrated particularly for what's now a pretty minor budget ($50 million). Carell's and Mann's performances also convey that impartiality and sensitivity also. But the real problem here is the story itself. It's actually based on fact (the real Hogencamp is shown at the end), but for me its recreation here just sorely lacks any obvious narrative trajectory; no establishing and solving of a problem, in other words. Therefore, it just didn't quite grab me. Zemeckis' usual composer Alan Silvestri's quite lazy score also doesn't help.

Zemeckis and Thompson are still really capable of great work, but I'm afraid I can see why Welcome to Marwen flopped critically and commercially. 6/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #138: Shoplifters (2018).

In Tokyo, a non-biological family inhabits a derelict house amidst abject poverty. Former day labourer Osamu (Lily Franky), his laundry service worker wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) and elderly widow Hatsue (Kirin Kiki) are the main breadwinners, but Hatsue manages this with her late husband's pension and Osamu does it by shoplifting. Into this he has also roped their two children, both illegally adopted: hostess Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) and much younger Shota (Kairi Jo). Osamu and Shota have patented a special mode of hand signals to pull their thievery off, and it usually works. But all is not so peachy at home, particularly when Osamu and Nobuyo choose to take in Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a girl of Shota's age with a family life suspicious in different ways. After they learn of a police investigation into Yuri's disappearance, they give her a new identity, wardrobe and haircut. Then after Shota has a moral conflict during a car theft, a very precarious series events result in him being hospitalised and then arrested. This predicament puts the "family"s very union and welfare in great jeopardy.

Writer, director and even editor Hirokazi Kore-eda won the 2018 Palme d'Or at Cannes for Shoplifters and that's usually a result that makes my ears prick up, but honestly I don't know how I feel about this film. It's certainly universal in its central themes - poverty, family and desperation - but at some point, my attention faltered as there are several stretches of it that I found just too self-contained to be fully compelling. Intimacy in art can be deeply affecting, but as this is a tale of a so-called family at odds with their immediate surroundings, as opposed to just one character in that boat, I found it often to be too intimate. I think Kore-eda could've achieved a more engaging result without shifting thematic focus by doing it as interlocking stories with several such families (related or not).

Nonetheless, Shoplifters does provide quite a lucid and objective snapshot of modern-day urban Japan from the lowest street level, beyond the bright and cheery world of J-Pop, anime, video games and IT which I think so many of us Westerners now define Japan as. Kore-eda also draws very natural performances from his cast, especially Kiki and Jo. I didn't hate Shoplifters at all, and maybe it just needs several viewings for me to truly embrace it. But it's a movie with a story I just would have told quite differently.