MIFF Day 3 continued

Princess
(Dir. Anders Morgenthaler, Denmark, 2006)

MIFF says: "Anders Morgenthaler’s debut animated feature came careening into audiences on the opening night of Director’s Fortnight at Cannes just months ago... Adopting a distinctive animation style heavily influenced by harder edged Japanese anime, Princess also features moments of grainy live action for flashbacks and video footage. Acerbic and deeply troubling, this is a caustic, blood-spattered attack on the porn industry."

I say: Although neither as caustic, violent or dark as I'd expected, Princess is definitely a fascinating film to watch. Its blend of animation and live action and its morally flawed hero (who thinks nothing of exposing his 5 year old niece, who he is trying to save from the world of porn and its seedy influences, to brutal violence in order to do so), ensure that it's great to watch for multiple reasons. Defintely one to talk about with your friends afterwards as well.

Just don't take it as a call for censorship.

"Oh no, I don't believe in censorship," Morgenthaler told The Age. "If there were censorship in Denmark, this movie would not have been made and then we couldn't have the discussion. I'm very fond of sex and I'm very fond of the liberal values we have in Denmark, but we have to distinguish the wonderful liberal attitude from the porn industry, which is only a business. Because they couldn't care less about how liberal the thinking is. They just want to sell stuff."

What he would like to see, he says, is schoolchildren being taught to analyse all media, including pornography, more critically, diligently and often. "From the fifth grade! From very, very low, they should see a porn scene and learn to relate to what they are looking at. Maybe that way they'll see people as they are" - people like them, as he says, caught at the lowest ebb of their lives and callously exploited - "and why they are taking these decisions."

See it if: You want to see a film that presses multiple buttons - with a sledgehammer.

Midnight Movies: From the Margins to the Mainstream
(Dir Stewart Samuels, USA, 2005)

MIFF says: "Between 1970 and 1977, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, Perry Henzell’s The Harder They Come, Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and David Lynch’s Eraserhead became synonymous with a new movement in filmmaking. Through interviews with these filmmakers, Samuels elucidates the hidden history behind films that pushed social boundaries and gave credence to poor taste."

I say: This enjoyable if somewhat pedestrian film is a basic primer to the world of midnight movies, those late night screenings of cult classics that were synonymous with Melbourne's Valhalla Cinema when it was still based in Richmond. Although its focus is on the primary examples of the genre, the film still manages to encompass a range of social and economic issues related to the changing tides in 1970's culture. Its US-centricity may grate, but the nostalgic clips of the likes of Rocky Horror and Eraserhead, coupled with interviews with the primary figures responsible for the rise of midnight screenings, ensure that it entertains.

See it if: You want a nostalgia trip, or are a film-culture fan wanting a narrow-focus view on the primary films of the genre.