My Top Ten EIFF Highlights

Once more unto the breach my friends. I’m back and I’m ready for my annual cinematic adrenalin shot in the arm. The Edinburgh International Film Festival is back and the twain shall coincide once again.

I’ve been so often now they should just make me their official mascot. Fortunately I’ve recently had myself cloned eight times and this means I can now franchise myself out in order to attend every screening, public talk, press conference and party that the festival now in its 63rd year can throw at me.

This year I’ll be able to spread the joy, stress and reviewing workload across all of my other selves.

We’ll all meet every morning for power breakfasts where I’ll rotate the jobs so none of my industrious copies misses out on something they really want to see.

The hungover copy of myself could even take a day off and no one would know I’ve gone while the alert, neat and freshly shaved copy asks interesting questions at press conferences and makes witty poignant observations on the film he’s just seen over drinks in the bar afterwards. That’s the version of me that’s quite charming. Apparently. You’d like him so I’m told.

However, I foresee a few technicalities. The problem might be that all of myselves, since they are essentially me, will all want to see exactly the same thing. Several Dylan’s sitting in a row in the dark making exactly the same notes on the same film might be counterproductive.

It also might freak out other cinema-goers when they realise there’s an entire row of identically besuited cinephile clones all scribbling away at exactly the same moment in the dark. Imagine having to tell myself to be quiet or turn my phone off – how embarrassing.

Imagine the loud collective audible sigh from all of us when we all realise the film is out of focus and we all have to get up at the same moment to get it sorted. Distracting for other people I can tell you.
Also the press office would have to deal with so many requests and hand out eight identical press passes and with today’s issues on identity theft, can you imagine the problems?

What if a terrorist stole one of my passes? And how would one of me blag into a party if another of me had just already done so a few minutes earlier? It wouldn’t look good. And eight of us all going up at the same time to get eight free drinks at parties, queuing up in the toilet at the same time. I can really see myself getting on other people’s nerves.

It sounds almost exactly like a film. It’s perhaps slightly Being John Malkovich, but less interesting. Ok, time to drop this train of thought.

The reality will be more prosaic. Like my editor phoning me early in the morning just over a month ago to tell me the festival press launch was in two hours time at The Filmhouse. Yeah I knew that. Well I knew it was somewhere. It never occurred to me it would be at The Filmhouse – it was just far too obvious. Wood for the trees type thing. And what if it was all just a dream….or even better: just a film...
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EXT.DAY.PRINCES STREET GARDENS.

We pan down from a westerly view St Cuthbert’s Church with its clockface showing 10.05am.

The pan continues down and comes to a rest on the tranquil gardens and fountain.

Suddenly a lone figure (INTREPID FILM JOURNALIST) in a dishevelled suit screaming ‘Aaaarrghh’ runs full tilt into frame form the right heading out of frame to the left.

His beanie hat which acts essentially as a hairnet over the ‘dragged through a hedge’ look he’s recently adopted flies off his head and lands on the grass behind him.

He runs back to fetch it, cursing profanely at this microscopic delay and kicks aggressively at a group of pigeons which fly off in every direction. He puts the beanie hat back on and runs out of frame.

INT. DAY. FILMHOUSE. 10.10 a.m.

Our panting and dripping with sweat like he has swine flu INTREPID FILM JOURNALIST signs in, wiping his forehead and tucking in what little dignity he has left. Normality resumes.

After coffee, croissants and strawberries the assembled throng of journalists and dignitaries head into the main cinema to hear a welcome and introduction by the producer and director of the film festival (Ginnie Atkinson and Hannah McGill) and a half hour showreel of clips providing a taster of the following months programme.

The initial announcement that it would last half an hour made me groan inside but once it was finished I realised I could have sat there for another hour lapping up chunks of celluloid heaven.

From what I saw which was admittedly a very modest selection from a much larger programme it looks like its going to be a very good year.

The original and influential guru of low budget film making Roger Corman will be here in person alongside a retrospective of his work (I cant wait to see Bloody Mama with Shelley Winters on the big screen).

This complements all the usual UK and International premieres of first and second time features, cutting edge documentaries, special events, lectures, shorts, animation and galas that form the core of the festival.

The clips on offer at the launch were a mixed bag from across all of these strands and from those clips and from a quick peruse of the programme I’ve come up with an initial top ten hit list of must sees. Now remember, this top ten will mutate as the festival itself unfolds and hidden treasures are revealed just as anticipated delights unexpectedly disappoint. On top of that, my top ten must see list is purely my own choice, it is of course what I would want to see.

In no particular order they are:

1. Darren Aronofsky: in Person This is the peculiar and uniquely visionary director who brought us the ultra low budget head messing Pi, the disturbing yet lyrical Requiem for a Dream, the bold and visually arresting (but otherwise incomprehensible) The Fountain and lately the Oscar nominated resurrection of Mickey Rourke in the heart rending The Wrestler. A singularly unique and poetic voice in modern day cinema, any cinephile worth their salt should jump at the chance to hear this director discuss his career and perhaps if you’re lucky take a question from your good self. 22nd June, 6.30pm at Cineworld.
2. Sam Mendes: in Person Another heavyweight director of an entirely different calibre. The relatively young and precocious talent of the London theatre scene turned film maker bagged an Oscar after bringing us a flying plastic bag in the instant classic American Beauty, a visually engaging look at gangster life in The Road to Perdition and a study of modern warfare in Jarhead. He even reunited Jack and Rose for more relationship struggles in Revolutionary Road and on this occasion will be discussing his career the night after the EIFF’s opening gala of his latest film Away We Go. 18th June, 6pm at Cineworld.
3. Roger Corman: in Person The prolific master of the independent B movie, Corman’s legend continues to grow as the years pass as his influence on modern film making becomes all the more apparent. If you’re a budding film maker and just want to get something made then perhaps this is the man to take notes from. 24th June, 6pm at Cineworld
4. Fish Tank After her impressive debut feature Red Road, Andrea Arnold brings us another take on troubled souls in this relationship drama following the fortunes of teenage tearaway Mia. 21st June, 8.15pm at the Cameo & 24th June, 3pm at the Cameo.
5. Spread It’s become a bit of a tradition over the last few years to have local lad David Mackenzie’s latest offering either launch or prominently feature at the festival. Having directed Ewan McGregor into his best performance in the existentialist and bleakly brilliant Young Adam, Mackenzie tries his hand helming in Hollywood this time with Punk’d’s poster boy prankster Ashton Kutcher as something of an American gigolo. I was always impressed by Kutcher’s straight turn in The Butterfly Effect so it’ll be interesting to see him in another serious lead role. 22nd June 8.30pm Cineworld & 24th June at 9pm Cineworld.
6. Antichrist A late addition to the programme. Love him or loathe him Lars Von Triers recent Cannes shocker comes to the burgh to test the mettle of us hardy Northern folk. A fan of his work to date and as I adore Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg I cannot wait. However I’m prepared to be disappointed as I heard it earned a mass of boos and walkouts as well as applause. A visually poetic study (intended to be Tarkovsky-esque) of a grieving couple who lose their child, whatever the outcome it’s a must see and will be a talking point around the watering holes of town. Contains (apparently) strong real sex and graphic self harm so not for the squeamish. Cineword June 24th.
7. All Tomorrow’s Parties Not just a film but an event in itself. Not many people saw Jonathan Caouette’s astonishing and disturbing debut Tarnation made on i movie and incorporating years of his own home movies he shot as a kid – it was the low budget grungy Blue Velvet of its day for the slacker generation and it blew me away. Now he’s teamed up with film maker Luke Morris and assembled hundreds of amateur filmmakers clips of music festival events and partying. It will be shown, apparently, in the round at a interactive audience event at the HMV picture house in Lothian Rd. on 24th June and as a film at The Filmhouse the day after at 6pm.
8. Modern Love is Automatic One cynical friend reckons I just like the look of the girl in the PVC suit. Well that’s true but there’s more to me than that. The clip shown of this was very enticing. I’d guess that it’s a low budget black comedy about a disillusioned nurse decides to spice her life up by moonlighting as a dominatrix. Now that’s what I call a pitch. 20th June Filmhouse 11.15pm & 27th June Filmhouse at 10.45pm.
9. Crimson Wing If you’re a fan of the Planet Earth series and enjoyed Microcsomos then this is for you, a Disney channel documentary on the life cycle of the pink flamingo. Think March of the Penguins – except…er…its flamingos. Jaw dropping nature photography and a score by the Cinematic Orchestra. What more do you want? Cineworld 25th and 26th June.
10. Van Diemens Land ‘Hunger is a strange silence.’ Well I can tell you I’ve actually seen this now and it stays on the hit list. A cross between Deliverance and Alive and looking like a classic Tarkovsky film doesn’t really do it any justice but gives you a ballpark direction of the subject matter. This is a true journey into the heart of darkness of the human soul. Based on old news reports of convicts on the run from a British colony in Tasmania in 1822, this is an imaginary retelling of what might have happened to the men as they forge their way through the countryside’s endless forests is one of the most visually arresting, suspenseful and to be quite honest most stressful films I’ve seen in many years. I hid behind my hands on a couple of occasions and I’m a hardened hack. But its worth seeing just for the slow motion helicopter shots of swaying trees and vast landscapes of bleak wastelands but it’s also a nerve shredding and gripping tale that takes elements of thrillers, revenge dramas, horror films and nature documentaries and blends them all together seamlessly. Its testament to director Jonathan auf der Heide that despite almost nothing ever happening in the frame it is completely gripping from start to finish. Contains a few brief moments of graphic violence. 18th June 9pm & 22nd June at 10pm at The Filmhouse.