lews22 Reviews

The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (2015)

a movie that inspires hope and joy

[10/10 · 13 August 2016]

This movie is screening in New Zealand as part of the International Film Festival.

It is one of the most moving films I have seen in a long time. Yo Yo Ma and the other members of the Silk Road Ensemble are not only brilliant musicians, they are inspirational human beings.

Their passion for music and their ability to blend the music of different cultures is fully on display in the movie; sometimes their music filled me with joy; at other times it moved me to tears.

The most moving scene for me was to see the two Syrian members of the Ensemble going into the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan and reaching out to the children their with their music and their message of hope. I defy anyone to watch it with dry eyes. Truly a movie for the times we are living in.

Desperate Remedies (1992)

Glorious New Zealand Gothic

[9/10 · 26 November 2015]

I watched this again after "What we do in the shadows" reminded me of it. It is aging very well, and for my money is a superior film to "What we do in the shadows". The combination of Gothic, noir and high camp works superbly. The sets and costumes (those dresses!) are wonderful, and the music matches the emotional tone perfectly. The cast amounts to an A list of NZ actors. Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Lisa Chappell make a superb pair of self-made ladies. Jennifer Ward-Lealand is particularly magisterial and easily carries the weight of the film's central character. The men are good too. Kevin Smith died tragically young, so any movie featuring him is a treasure. Michael Hurst is suitably sleazy as the corrupt MP and Cliff Curtis has a ball as the totally decadent Fraser. A great kiwi cast in a great kiwi film.

The Ground We Won (2015)

A study of rural New Zealand in beautiful black and white

[10/10 · 17 June 2015]

A fly on the wall documentary that follows the local rugby team in Reporoa through a single season, from late summer training to playoffs in late winter.

Reporoa is in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand, and the winter climate there is wet and cold, with frequent morning mists. The mist was probably one of the key factors in deciding to make this film on black and white stock, and the results are amazing.

The camera work is breath-taking, whether conveying the grittiness (and muddiness) of the rugby games, the mate-ship of the club house, or the mist-covered landscapes.

The film focuses on three or four team members who are all connected with dairy farming, a relatively new activity in this area, so the farms have an unfinished, pioneering look to them. (The other main activity in this area is pine forests.)

Women are hardly present in the film. The central character is a solo dad with twin seven year old sons, and the three of them give the film a much-needed extra emotional dimension.

The choice of modern classical music for the sound track, using strings only, seems odd at first, but in the end it adds depth and sympathy to the portrayal of these tough, hard drinking, hard living men.

This is not a film for the fainthearted - the bawdy rugby club scenes pale in comparison with three scenes of farmers assisting their cows to give birth.

Beautiful photography, beautiful music, and a cast of vivid and unforgettable characters.