DFCC and surprise film at JDIFF
Donald Clarke
We had an impressively suave line-up of talent at the Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards. Marjane Satrapi, Marian Finucane and Gareth Evans all turned up to accept awards at the perennially diverting soiree in the Irish Film Institute. This year’s (genuinely) hard-working panel comprised: President Tara Brady and Mr Donald Clarke, both of this parish; Ms Brogen Hayes of movies.ie; Ms Nicola Timmins of Average Film Reviews; Mr John Maguire of The Sunday Business Post; Ms Roe McDermott of Hot Press and Dr “Diamond” Dave O’Mahony of Access Cinema. They are all very fine people.
The eventual winner of best film was Gareth Evans’s The Raid. Working in Indonesia, the Welshman has delivered one of the most fluid, original action films in recent years. Shuffling from rugby match to airport, Gareth swanned in to wave at the punters and express his gratitude. (Apologies for the crappy photographs. My camera failed.)
L to R: Gavin Burke of Phantom FM; Tara Brady, DFCC President; Gareth Evans.
Marian Finucane, instigator and narrator of Nuala: A Life and Death, joined director Patrick Farrelly to receive their gong for best Irish film. Made for RTÉ, the picture unearths stories about Nuala O’Faolain that fairly rattle the heart.
Marian Finucane and Patrick Farrelly.
The full list of award-winners is detailed below. Most films will be coming your way fairly soon. A few have not yet received distribution or broadcast dates.
The (second) surprise film turned out to be Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must be the Place. I had already seen the picture at Cannes and thought it pretty good. As you will be aware, this is the one starring Sean Penn as an aging rock star, based in Dublin, who sets off across America in search of a Nazi war criminal. I thought the stuff with Penn was really good. He comes across as an unholy — but benign — combination of Robert Smith and Michael Jackson. It’s a very eccentric performance that just about stays the right side of madness. The film seemed less secure in its American sections. The road meandered a little too much and the drama lost a degree of focus. But it’s a very impressive, very original piece of work. You can all see it late next month.
This Must Be The Place was the second surprise film. What a waste. Filmed in Ireland by a director who has attended the festival before? We should have made a thing of it.
Given everyone was guessing it for weeks, it was a safe and predictable and boring choice – pretty much the opposite of the left-field brilliance of Casa de mi Padre. Love it or hate, that inspired passion. This was just… meh. Pretentious, self-indulgent, unstructured.
Meh.
Any idea when The Raid will be released over here?
And, off topic, any idea when A Separation is coming out? Or have I missed it?
Mikah
The Raid is currently down for May 18th. A Separation opened about six months ago.
Think today was the weakest day of the fest. Started strong with Headhunters, which was good old-darkly humoured noir-ish fun.
Then Courage, which was fascinating, if slight.
I’ve already discussed This Must Be The Place, and I think I was the only one in the audience to find Death of a Superhero to be over-sentimental schmaltz. Still, at least most of the audience enjoyed it.
And good call on The Raid as Best Picture. I can honestly say that yesterday morning’s screening was one of the best cinema experiences of my life. Between that and the Danny Elfman thing at the Concert Hall, no wonder today couldn’t quite measure up. Opening with the theme from The Day The Earth Stood Still leading into Mars Attacks? Playing a Thurman? A choir? Closing on the Batman Suite? Aural perfection.
What were your own opinions of the festival, or are they perfectly encapsulated by the awards above?
Glad to hear that you’ve got so much out of the festival, Darren. It is very mean of me (of all the clatter-fingered writers) to pick up on a typo in your post. But I love the notion that somebody was playing “a Thurman” at the Concert Hall. Poor Uma. Has it come to this? Being hammered by a percussionist from an Irish orchestra?
I am sure you meant “Theremin” and apologise for being a smart arse.
The Raid is awesome! Love it! New style of action movie! Don’t miss it on May!
director not ‘Gareth Edwards’s’ but ‘Gareth Evans’
please fix this line “The eventual winner of best film was Gareth Edwards’s The Raid”
“The Raid Lovers”
Yeah all right. Ah, hoist by my own petard.
I often take unintentional pride in being a film snob, but all pretensions were abandoned when it came to the giddy, visceral joys of The Raid. It really was a one-of-a-kind cinema experience – the biggest big screen rush I’ve had in many a years. A fine choice by the panel, and I’ll be bamboozled if it doesn’t walk away with the audience award too.
Critics and audience agreeing? Speaks volumes about the film.
@ 5: Not wrong at all, Donald. I knew it probably wasn’t a “Thurman”, but hesitated a bit on it… “he played… what was it? … um… a… thurman?”
I apologise entirely for that.
Also, for my first mental response being “Wasn’t Robert Pattinson playing a Thurman in Bel Ami?” Because I am mentally twelve.
Le Harve, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and Aurora on the last day were all superb. Andrew Kotting’s films were also a highlight. A great year it has to be said
I guessed the surprise film right last year. Chuffed with myself, I was (and still kinda am)
So pysched for The Raid.
The Raid was indeed awesome and Gareth Evans endeared himself to me further by correctly stating that Hard Boiled is the best action movie of all time.
I went to 3 movies for JDIFF
Chicken with Plums…….very good, excellent combination of graphic novel type animation and real life footage.
Mourning……………bored me to tears .
The Monk…..the best of the 3 . Excellent from start to finish .
@3
Dang it. Thanks.
The Raid, in one word, was: “Fantastincredibrilliastonishingenioustupendousuperb”
Great energy in The Savoy on a Saturday morning for this film, and (bonus) I got to meet the director and star (briefly) after the Q&A.
I’ll definitely go again when it gets a full release in May!
Apparently Gareth Evans (“The Raid” director) is heavily into the Indonesian martial art of Pencak Silat so you just know it’s not fake in this film……..I’ve only seen the trailer..
@ 12…….are you pysched for the martial arts basically.?
Crikey……the DFCC critics are getting younger and younger……….little boy blue (second image above) looks like he’s casting a very cold eye on Finucane and Farrelly
This Must Be The Place is a pile of gank. Starting out like a bad Edward Scissorhands impersonator cameo-ing on an episode of Raw, about an hour in the apparently Jewish Sean Penn gets on a ferry from Dublin to New York (seriously!?) and then makes an even less believable journey – an ‘eccentric’ WWII-revenge themed road trip, trivialising the holocaust in the most glib way imaginable. Oh and in the middle someone changes the channel to VH1 for a David Byrne music video. What an excructiating, incoherent, utter trainwreck of a movie. Please don’t ever surprise me like that again JDIFF.
Great festival for action films, Yellow Sea, Sleepless Night and The Raid (of course!) were all highlights.
Also want to mention Cafe de Flore, a Canadian film in French that blew me away with it’s use of music and overlapping stories set decades apart. The reveal of how the two stories are connected is certainly unusual.
I must say I really enjoyed This Must Be The Place, it took me a while to get into it’s pace and style, but once I did it was very rewarding. Not sure if the Dublin section worked for me though, it was only when they shifted to America that it took off.
@19 Still sounds better than Hamlet 2
(Surprise movie in ’09)
@19 colly — “…Sean Penn gets on a ferry from Dublin to New York (seriously!?)…”
Sounds like “This Must Be The Place” is up there with “Leap Year” (2010) on the geographics, at any rate
Must say I’m intrigued by reaction to “The Raid”……..apart from this basically being a bloke’s action movie danger…action…fight…cut…action…fight…..martial arts…blood…weapons… more blood, what is it, I would love to know (have only seen the trailer) that makes “The Raid” stand out, as so many here seem to think it does? Has a new genre been created?
As jaded as I am with the whole anodyne luvvie-fest that is the Oscars, you have to be genuinely happy for the people involved in A Separation.
Such a strong, resonant film. I was chuffed for them.
And the gorgeous little girl balling her eyes out.
Highlight of the night for me.
Yessiree……that Gareth Evans (beside Tara Brady above) sure does look fit…….like he ‘knows’ karate..
S Penn’s Cheyenne character “This Must Be The Place”…….agree with colly…..definitely more kind of wonky Edward Scissorhands than cross between Robert Smith and Michael Jackson…….although I can see how that possible hybrid would come to mind…
………could they not just have called in the demolition operators (crane with a wrecking ball) or used “building implosion” and blown up the building in “The Raid”………..get all the baddies in one go……so to speak….outside the box…just thinking..
…….that’d be fun……….an Irish remake of “The Raid”…….substitute Leinster House for “the house of horror and corruption”…………..”We the Citizens” carry out the raid………..no martial arts……..lot of bare knuckle boxing…….Fiach Mac Conghail and Michael Noonan end up on the roof………knuckles bleeding………think I’ll leave this up in the air..