Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #275: Porto (2016).

 

Mati (Lucie Lucas) is French; Jake (Anton Yelchin, in one of his posthumous appearances) is American. Randomly, they encounter each other in Porto, Portugal, and quickly fall in love. But very soon they must separate and resume their individual lives back home.

This 2016 effort from director Gabe Klinger and his co-writer Larry Gross draws obvious inspiration from Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, but it changes the setting from Austria to Portugal and spices the narrative up sexually quite a bit, as well as employing a more literally classical aesthetic where Before Sunrise was reminiscent of the '90s indie and grunge movements. That was a wise approach, as it helps Klinger and Gross to make their film feel more independent and distinctive. Klinger also paces it insightfully and patiently, with his framing and photography choices very appropriate. Lucas and Yelchin (to whom the movie was dedicated) also show solid chemistry and each give understated, natural turns, and the soundtrack is simple yet haunting. Overall, Porto is an engaging and striking portrait of young, fleeting, international romance.

Fabulous Festive Features.

You might like entertaining the kids with Home Alone,

Which would also work if you're grown-up but sentiment-prone.

Then after the kids' bedtime you could drink a wine or just a Fanta,

And have some subversive laughs with Billy Bob, the Bad Santa.

If you feel like something to leave you nice and tremblin',

There's always that one starring those cute but dangerous Gremlins.

But if that's still too wholesome for you and doesn't go the extra yard,

Then you can't go wrong with John McClane fighting through Die Hard.

Once you've seen him survive through all that hurt and mess,

You could unwind with something lighter, such as The Polar Express.

That one tells a story set in numerous different lands,

But its themes are universal, just like those of Edward Scissorhands*.

If you feel like holiday laughs that could happen in any location,

Then you can join the Griswolds on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

There's also a comedy substitute for encountering reindeer and a sleigh,

It's a frantic Arnie looking for a Turbo-Man in Jingle All the Way.

Then again if something more oddball is your ideal fare,

I recommend you sample some of Tim Burton's classic Nightmare.

But if you just want something to savour with your husband or wife,

Do I really have to name it? You can't go past It's a Wonderful Life.

Those are just some Christmas movies to watch before turning out the lights,

But for now I say merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

(*You all knew I'd somehow sneak that one into this, huh? I'd never forgive myself otherwise.)

A very scary experience I had this week.

It's Sunday, the 19th. I disembark the bus home from Emu Park to Rockhampton, and I'm walking home from the stop as I go up Farm Street. Midway through that street, a guy sees me from across the road and beckons me over, literally with the hand signal. I'm immediately confused and surprised as almost nobody seems to do that anymore; meanwhile I can't cross yet anyway due to traffic. So he now sings out to me "Hey, mate!" Once the street's clear I hesitantly cross over to him and we start talking. He firstly praises my Millennium Falcon backpack, saying it makes me look like someone from Comic-Con. I thank him for that but secretly think he's just trying to lull me into a false sense of security. Over about the next ten minutes I learn his first name is Carl and we make small talk and I try my best to be polite but I repeatedly tell him I have to be getting home. Every time I say that he offers me a lift home but I decline that, although he just won't leave me alone. He also has the exact appearance of an underworld figure (as stereotypical as I know that is to say, it was utterly true here), has been drinking this afternoon and claims to have some memory problem because of a brain operation for which he even shows me his scar, which is disturbingly macabre. Again now he offers me a lift and, seeing no other way of jettisoning him, I very reluctantly accept this time.

That's only where the terror starts, it turns out. When I get in I'm unsurprised to see empty beer cans all over the floor and he drives like a hoon. Then, as we approach my street, he even asks if he can come into my place! Obviously I say "No" and he then whines, "I can't?" Now, as we enter my unit estate he then actually says he's coming in but I still don't let him. Now we're stopped and I'm afraid, but that fear then spikes when he opens the compartment between the seats - meanwhile, I'm looking around to see if he has a weapon stored anywhere - and I can only think he's about to produce a gun to shoot me with. Instead, however, he just pulls some paperwork out to show me. Nonetheless, I'm too frozen in terror to even register what he's saying much less what the paperwork's for. I can't even talk, in fact. Thankfully and luckily, though, he then seems to notice just how terrified I am and he reluctantly lets me go by myself, and then drives off.

By now it's almost 6pm, and it takes me most of the night to calm back down. But all the while, I still hope he forgets about me and that I never see him again.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #274: 1982 (2019).

 

The 1982 Lebanon War has just broken out. Schoolteacher Yesmenee (Nadine Labaki) is in charge of a class that includes Wissam (Mohamad Dalli), who's fallen in love with his classmate Joanna (Gia Madi) and doesn't know how to tell her. As he sets about trying to do that, Yesmenee and all her colleagues have to do everything to hide the reality and closeness of the war, and their own concerns about it, from their young charges.

1982, from writer-director and co-producer Oualid Mouaness, was Lebanon's submission for the 2019 Best International Feature Film Oscar and although it wasn't nominated for that, it still makes quite an impression; at least; it did with me. Working a story of childhood innocence around warfare is a risky and challenging prospect as it can lead to either emotional overkill or war and its consequences being trivialised, but here I thought Mouaness, who presumably himself grew up during this conflict, got the balance of sweetness and dramatic heft just right. If you're expecting actual war scenes here, don't. Instead, there's a cute and restrained exploration of puppy love and the resultant anxiety and hesitancy with the Lebanon War more as a backdrop to that, the conflict being more directly explored in Yesmenee's arc. It all culminates in what I found to be an initially confounding but ultimately quite wise and strikingly realised animated climax.

Mouaness applies a very suitably patient approach to his directing and pacing, and his screenplay lets both the child and adult characters talk and behave realistically regarding both their ages and their shared situation. Dalli and Madi make engaging young protagonists, but Labaki proves her versatility (she also directed the brilliant 2018 Lebanese film Capernaum) and gives the best performance here, bringing Yesmenee to life with admirable control and grace. There is no score but I suspect that creative choice was made for restraint, and the cinematography and editing also smartly reflect that. I don't think 1982 is quite in the same league as Grave of the Fireflies or Au Revoir, Les Enfants to name but a few, but for movies about childhood and war it's easily a cut above most others. 8/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #273: Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night (2021).

 

In 2022, a massively multiplayer online virtual reality roleplaying game titled Sword Art Online is launched, and on 6 November ten thousand people log into it for the first time but then discover they cannot log out of it. The creator Akihiko Kayaba (the voice of Koichi Yamadera; David W. Collins in the English dubbed version) then reveals himself to tell the players they must defeat all one hundred floors of Aincrad, the steel castle in which the game is set, if they want to be able to log out. If they die inside the game or have the headgear they're wearing removed, they will also die in reality. Asuna (Haruna Tomatsu; Cherami Leigh in the EDV), who has logged into it with her friend (Inori Minase; Anairis Quinonis in the EDV), initially struggles with having living inside and beat the game, until she meets knowledgeable lone wolf Kirito (Yoshitsugo Matsuoka; Bryce Papenbrook in the EDV), who joins forces with her.

This second entry (after 2017's Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale) in the anime movie series based on Reki Kawahara's light novel series Sword Art Online: Progressive is technically amazing, with intoxicating animation and Yuki Kajiura's pulsating music score. But before seeing it I was unfamiliar with both the novel series and the previous film and while I could follow the narrative well enough, I didn't find very much here to appeal to people who weren't already avid fans of the franchise (here I think I should note that Kawahara also wrote the screenplay). I certainly detected no backstory to help non-fans familiarise themselves with the story, anyway. Director Ayako Kono demonstrates an enthusiasm for this narrative and a lucidity with keeping the visuals consistently crisp, but again I think she needed to make that narrative appeal more to people who were going to see it without knowing the franchise's previous entries, as I think it's safe to say that was probably inevitable that some viewers would be in that boat. As it is, Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night therefore underwhelmed me. 6/10.

On the Morrison Government's proposed new religious rights bill.

This week in Australia, one matter has dominated our national political discussion and its news coverage. The Morrison Government has tried to legislate an extension to the Religious Discrimination Bill, which, as its name clearly suggests, protects Australian citizens from discrimination based on their religious or spiritual beliefs. Morrison, an active member of the Hillsong Church, has actively and publicly championed this extension of the Bill, and I sincerely agree all citizens are entitled to think whatever they choose to.

However, the issue I take with this amendment to the Bill, and indeed what has made it so topical and contentious, is the freedom it will grant religious Australians to discriminate against other groups, namely, of course, the LGBTQ community. Australia legalising same-sex marriage in 2017 sparked, perhaps unsurprisingly, a backlash from right-wing politicians and religious groups who, as Morrison then stated, were now finding themselves in the minority.

Well, if that's true, maybe now they have a chance to become able to empathise with groups including the LGBTQ community who have been marginalised, albeit for entirely different reasons, for centuries. Whether they will all be willing to do that is, of course, another question altogether and, I suppose, their own choice. But, at least in theory, now Australians of faith are coming to understand how most religious people have historically made those other groups feel.

The Morrison Government on Wednesday struck a deal with several more moderate members of its Liberal Party, agreeing to make changes to other legislation in order to protect openly gay school students from discrimination in education, in return for said MPs supporting the Bill. This will apparently mean removing Section 38.3 of the separate Sex Discrimination Act, which enables religious schools to discriminate against students and staff on the grounds of sexuality, gender identity, marital status and pregnancy. Meanwhile, however, the Religious Discrimination Bill, if passed, will also extend to discrimination in employment.

Numerous legal experts and rival politicians have publicly criticised the Bill, with University of Sydney law professor Simon Rice claiming it is "bizarrely complicated" as it is "trying to dress up freedom as discrimination." Victorian MP and Reason Party founder and leader Fiona Patten says it will licence bigotry. Monash University law associate lecturer Liam Elphick said, "It's a drastic overreach from the federal government and something we've not seen in the last 40 years of discrimination laws in this country. There have been plenty of examples in recent years of religious schools in Australia excluding gay teachers. This bill only makes it easier for them to do that," while Tasmanian lawyer and former anti-discrimination commissioner Robin Banks argued, "Discrimination law is about enhancing social cohesion by asking us to think about things before we say them or do them. This is the opposite of that."

As our Federal Parliament has now concluded sitting for 2021, the Religious Discrimination Bill is in limbo. Personally, come 2022, I hope it is not passed.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/01/religious-discrimination-bill-moderate-liberal-mps-strike-deal-after-protection-for-gay-students-promised

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-s-the-proposed-religious-discrimination-law-about-20211129-p59d6q.html