By Travis Johnson
The program for Revelation Perth International Film Festival 2018 was launched last night with all due pomp and circumstance, with hotly anticipated New Zealand comedy The Breaker Upperers announced as this year’s opening film.
Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami direct and star in the film as best friends who run an unconventional business breaking up couples for cash. Executive produced by Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows), The Breaker Upperers is described as “…a joyous, hilarious film.”
Also on the cards this year is a retrospective of works from the late, great Hal Ashby, one of the leading voices of the New Hollywood generation. Ashby’s The Last Detail, which recently got a sorta sequel in Last Flag Flying, will screen, along with Shampoo and Being There, plus the documentary, Hal.
Other film highlights include:
American Animals (dir. Bart Layton – The Imposter)
Telling the (almost unbelievable) true story of a quartet of university students who plan what they think will be the perfect robbery, the award winning American Animals is a beautifully realised contemporary heist movie. The film follows the amateur criminals as they shift almost inexplicably from imagining the crime to planning it. Avoiding the pitfalls that could befall a film that recreates a true crime, American Animals instead adopts a dynamic hybrid approach that adds another layer to the film and serves to underpin the drama in new and unexpected ways.
Downrange (dir. Ryûhei Kitamura – Versus)
A beautiful sunny afternoon, a long rural road, and a surprise blow-out sees a group of friends stranded by the roadside, unaware that the blow-out was the result of a bullet and that a sniper has them in his sights. The ensuing roadside mayhem spins into a nightmare for the six friends. Tense, blood splattered, and entertaining, Downrange will have you thinking twice about driving on deserted rural roads…
Five Fingers for Marseilles (dir. Michael Matthews)
Twenty years ago, Tau (Vuyo Dabula), one of the Five Fingers, fought to defend his community from corrupt cops. Now he’s returned home, hoping for an easy life. But there are others with different ambitions for the town of Marseilles, and Tau, like every great western hero, has to rise to the occasion.
Set in a South African shanty town, Five Fingers For Marseilles offers a unique, contemporary spin on the western. Beautifully shot by Shaun Lee, the South African landscape becomes the natural setting for film.
Ghost Stories (dir. Andy Newman and Jeremy Dyson)
Adapted from their successful stage play of the same name, writers and directors Andy Newman (best known for working with illusionist Derren Brown) and Jeremy Dyson (The League of Gentlemen) have created a film that owes much to the British supernatural gothic horror movies of the sixties and seventies. With a cast that includes Martin Freeman, Derren Brown and Paul Whitehouse, Ghost Stories is an uncanny pleasure.
Lost Gully Road (dir. Donna McRae)
In a house deep in the woods Lucy (Adele Perovic) waits for her sister, alone and largely isolated in a remote, small cottage. However, there is something uncanny about the house and there seems to be a strange presence within its walls. But the dangers Lucy faces may also come from more familiar sources. As the film slowly unfolds Lucy’s physical and psychological isolation become more apparent, as Lost Gully Road explores the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of Lucy’s world.
Let the Corpses Tan (dir. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani)
Following a gold bullion robbery, an abandoned, crumbling Mediterranean village seems to offer the perfect hideout for Rhino and his gang. But not all is as it seems in the rundown village, the home of bohemian painter Luce. While hiding from the law the gang face sun, sex, violence, and surreal dreams, meanwhile the cops are already on the way, the bullets will fly and the blood will flow.
A homage to ’70s Euro crime thrillers, exploitation movies, maybe even the more outre-westerns, and with a glorious colour palette and genuinely inspired visual aesthetic to match, as well as a great soundtrack, Let The Corpses Tan is already developing a cult following and it’s easy to see why.
Razorback (dir. Russell Mulcahy)
Quite simply one of the most legendary of Australian cult films, Razorback was one of the great films to come out of the “Ozploitation” period immortalised in Mark Hartley’s epic documentary Not Quite Hollywood.
Beth is a journalist on the hunt for a story about animal treatment in the deep, dark outback but a terrible accident puts paid to her career as a giant boar is on the loose terrorising all and sundry. The problem with this animal – aside from its inordinate size – is that other wild pigs come under its control…as if wild pigs weren’t wild enough!
RocKabul (dir. Travis Beard)
The local Producer of last year’s Rev smash Meal Tickets – Brooke Silcox – comes back to the rock and roll table with this great look at Afghanistan’s only heavy metal band and the risky endeavour of playing this illegal music in this fractured place.
At the outset of the film, Qasem, Pedram, Qais, Lemar Yosef are members of the head-banging outfit District Unknown (DU), and they can hardly play – tuning up is something you do when you play onstage, not when you rehearse, right? Enter Australian journalist Travis Beard whose admiration for the boys and his own love of music begins to channel things in a much more productive way to a point of significant international success and local notoriety. In Afghanistan however, nothing can be taken for granted and the hopes that blazed so brightly for the band and Travis collide with political and social realities.
You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
The always excellent Joaquin Phoenix delivers an intense, powerful performance as Joe, a traumatised veteran, haunted by his past, who tracks down missing girls for a living. But then he is called upon to rescue the daughter of a senator, and slowly everything begins to unravel.
Multi award winning director Lynne Ramsey (We Need To Talk About Kevin and Morvern Callar) returns with her critically acclaimed adaptation of Jonathan Ames’ novel, crafting a tense, brooding film that doesn’t let-up from the opening moments, You Were Never Really Here plays as a tense, psychological drama that defies genre. The film received a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes.
All up, over 180 films, 25 world and international premieres and 57 Australian premieres will feature at this year’s event.
“We simply can’t stand still,” festival director Richard Sowada enthused. “For 2018, we’re delivering in areas of art and culture that takes Rev right to the very front of the exploration of what a film festival can be. It’s very exciting for us and we hope for audiences.”
Other highlights of this year’s festival include the Revelation Music Days program, a line-up of international, national and local musicians playing venues across the city; the Industrial Revelations stream, aimed at fostering skill-sharing and community in the film industry; the Revelation Academic Conference, and more.
The 2018 Revelation Film Festival runs from July 5 – 18. For full info and tickets, head over to the official site.
