I’m still not sure about the New Zealand International Film Festival’s ‘Autumn Events’.
The NZ Film Festival Trust introduced them last year to replace the World Cinema Showcase, their annual presentation of films that had gained prominence post-NZIFF and/or been skipped over during the programming of the NZIFF itself. The WCS was born of a time when smaller film festivals were concentrated in and around the NZIFF, a situation that hasn’t changed much in the last couple of decades – Documentary Edge and the Resene Architecture and Design Film Festival immediately precede the NZIFF in late May/early June, and festivals like the Telecom Asia Pacific Film Festival, the Italian Film Festival and the Goethe-Institut German Film Festival still ride in on the NZIFF’s coattails. WCS was designed to fill the dead period post-Oscars, and it did a pretty good job of it.
It was at the WCS I first saw Charlie Kaufman’s audacious and incredible Synecdoche, New York, the film with the definitive Philip Seymour Hoffman performance; Sion Sono’s brilliantly bugnuts live-action manga Love Exposure; Terence Davies’ intricate and heart-rending adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea; and the entrancing rotoscope memories of Alois Nebel. I understand the reasons for shifting tack – money, growing competition from the likes of ReelBrazil and the Alliance Française French Film Festival – but it’s just not clear if the Autumn Events are a net positive, especially when it comes to off-season discoveries (I don’t recall the Film Festival Trust saying that the films that would normally be programmed for the WCS would be shifted to the NZIFF, though I’d be delighted to be corrected).
The real drawcard, though, is a digital print of Carol Reed’s masterclass thriller, The Third Man
That said, I won’t deny my excitement for some of this year’s Autumn Events, announced yesterday. I heard fantastic things from friends about the 4K digital restoration of Lawrence Arabia when it screened in Auckland and Wellington last year, and its arrival in the South is well overdue. The opportunity to see Brando’s landmark performance in On The Waterfront on the big screen is enticing; a Stanley Donen musical in the Regent/Civic/Embassy should be a treat; and Hayao Miyazaki’s swansong, The Wind Rises, is one of my most anticipated films of the year. And there’s Aguirre too, which, um... well, if it’s your thing, sure.
The real drawcard, though, is a digital print of Carol Reed’s masterclass thriller, The Third Man. Dime-novel writer Holly Martins’ derailed trip to Vienna is one of the sharpest and most compelling post-war noirs out, hiding its hand until breaking point and showing it with a cheeky, iconic flourish and one of the tensest third acts in thriller history. Joseph Cotten’s great to watch as the grumbly Martins, and Orson Welles is effortlessly cool as Harry Lime, an amoral cad with a sharp wit and a sharper smile. The film looks stunning, all sharp contrasts and crumbling gothic architecture, and if the print is the same as that used for the inexplicably out-of-print Criterion DVD, it should be outstanding. If it took the loss of the WCS to get a run of this film in New Zealand, even for a bare few nights — well, I can live with that. I guess.