Hurrah! Forget those polar blasts, because just about the very best time of the year is upon us. Yes, I'm talking about the fact that the New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is on, right now, even as we speak. I know this for a fact, because instead of my usual thing of looking at the programme and circling lots of films and then going to none, I actually have already been to a festival film, on the opening night no less.
The film the Beloved and I went to see is called The Lobster and, to me, it was a brilliant choice to open the festival because it reinforced everything I think about film festivals. Not to give too much away, The Lobster stars Colin Farrell as a man who checks into a hotel and if he doesn't find a partner by the time he has to check out he will be turned into the titular lobster. If this seems like a weird plot, that is because it is, yet it still makes more sense than every plot of every Transformers film.
One of my favourite things to do with the NZIFF is to read the review quotes in the festival programme, then try to imagine what the film will be about. My favourite quotes this year include "... a positive carnival of transgression" (Tale of Tales); "One of those films in which nothing happens" (The Postman's White Nights); and "... Monty Python sketches as written by an existentialist philosopher" (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence). In the programme The Lobster was described as an "... exquisite dark comedy in the age of Tinder". Personally, I preferred the one I found in The Guardian that said it was "superbly clenched" because "clenched" is one of those words that always causes intrigue, no matter the context.
To me, the perfect festival film should be intriguing on as many levels as possible. It doesn't have to be a perfect film, or even a particularly good film, just as long as you leave the cinema wondering what the &^%$ it was you just watched. In terms of being inexplicable, The Lobster ticked the box perfectly, and definitely set an ideal tone for the NZIFF.
It is directed by a Greek bloke and is one of those Euro-films where the money is cobbled together from all over the show (Ireland, France, Britain) but only finally gets funded when you throw a bankable star (i.e. someone the Americans have heard of) into the already baffling cultural mix. All of this makes The Lobster ideal film-festival fodder in that the audience are engaged right from the beginning, asking themselves all manner of questions. What the %^$#? Did that just happen? How the hell did this get made? And, ultimately: is this great or is this complete *&^%, because I have no freaking idea any more.
