miscreant

After seeing an interview with director Matthew Saville, who seemed as intelligent as any film maker you could care to name, I was interested enough to go out and track this one down. And it doesn't disappoint. Certainly visually it is wonderfully well executed, and the sound is strong too. The dialog is sharp, subtle, and at points hilarious (and supremely Australian).

Unfortunately, the downside is the disjointedness of the plot line. To me it seemed yearning to be free from a plot line as a major source of interest (and focus instead in the pure dialog and landscape - certainly I feel that's where Saville's interest is). But it wasn't. There are two driving plot lines along the whole film and something happens in every scene, even though subplots are not continued, or often resolved. To me the finale was also ultimately quite generic and futile as a point of interest.

Ultimately, the words 'interesting, but not "great"' come to mind, and it fits vaguely into a bucket with several other Australian films of the last 5 years (candy, little fish, look both ways, Japanese story, etc.) in dealing with the same demographic, themes of emptiness and loss, and being willingly obtuse (artistic?) in its presentation, even if this one does have its own thing happening a little outside of that also.

The first thing that hits you with this movie is the top quality animation. Close to Ghibli. Far better than Disney and all that crap. A good show of how 2d and 3d can be used together seamlessly.

The second thing that hits you is the attention to detail in the little gags. The oddly proportioned cyclists. Huge ships and skyscrapers. The dog that barks at every train that goes past. The old woman with her whistle. Its not just that the visuals are great, but every scene is put together so well....

Unfortunately. The plot leaves something to be desired. Not that it should be a plot focused film. But they could have done better than this. Maybe it could've made a half hour quirky story. But its a bit of a stretch for 80 minutes. Might even be more exciting on the second viewing, picking out all the small quirks than the first time focussing on an unfocused plot.

The grandma was the highlight of the characters by far. The cyclists main feature was his physique, and big nose. The dog had a bunch of unconnected dreams, which seemed to lead to nothing. The triplets were just as drab when not actually singing.

The music i found was little more than generic and imitative... I'm sure a lot of the musicians pictured at the start would be turning in their graves, if it was at all possible. Still. At least the music didn't feel the need to overblow the whole film, like Hollywood tend to.

Watch this film if you are interested in visual and acoustic direction. But all in all, its hardly a masterpiece. 8/10

I caught this movie on late night cable last night and actually quite enjoyed it. Sure sometimes a few of its ideas are a bit silly (stupid?), but the comedy is overall great, the actors and actresses play their parts well, the direction is imaginative and pulled off well, and the storyline is quirky and totally non-generic. Reminds me of Kingpin (1996) - check that one out if you liked this.

For the life of me though - i still cant see wheather this is a 'teen movie', a 'pre-teen movie', or something for older people. It just seems to defy anything.

8/10 - with a smile :)