Donald Clarkespent the first half of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival nipping from screening to screening and soaking up the atmosphere. Here's what he learned
WHAT ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE DOING HERE?
And good luck to them. On Friday night, the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival hosted a screening of Kim Ki-Young's greatly admired – though hardly mainstream – 1960 Korean masterpiece The Housemaid. Introduced by Thierry Fremaux, director of the Cannes Film Festival, the picture, whose tale of romantic obsession points the way towards later Korean shockers such as Kim Ki-duk's The Isle, played to a packed audience in the IFI's larger auditorium. The huge Cineworld 17 was equally jammed for Laurent Cantet's fine The Classand Paolo Sorrentino's brilliant Il Divo. Take that, Iron Man.
WHAT ARE THE GUESTS UP TO?
English author Neil Gaiman, in town to discuss Coraline 3-D, an animated adaptation of one of his most popular books, made sure to keep us informed of his every move via Twitter. He was getting on a plane. He was preparing for interviews. He couldn't get his hair straight. Tom Hardy, star of Bronson,got into some fine Grade A-swearing after the film was screened.
The most winning turn came, perhaps, from tiny Robert Donnelly, the young star of Margaret Corkery's agreeably peculiar Eamon. "I'm making a cartoon with Liz Hurley, Willem Dafoe, and Willie Nelson next," he said without seeming to boast.
Elsewhere, following interviews with this writer and others, Gaiman continued to Twitter. “Irish journalists remain my favourites in the world: actual conversations,” he wrote. He’s great, that Gaiman.
WHAT WERE WE LAUGHING AT?
There was wry sniggering at the screening of Bent Hamer's rather wonderful O'Horten. Returning to the gentle surrealism of earlier films such as Eggs and Kitchen Stories, the Norwegian director took another simple tale – a train driver faces retirement – and injected spooky magic into it. Eamon, in which Irish director Margaret Corkery sent a couple and their son on a dreary holiday, offered another dose of sardonic absurdity.
The funniest film of the opening few days was Armando Iannucci's cracking In the Loop. A loose spin-off from his magnificent BBC sitcom The Thick of It, the film followed a British MP and his foul-mouthed handlers to Washington, DC, where they discovered quite how unimportant the special relationship has become. "Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean that it's not true," a spin-doctor explains.
WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST MAINSTREAM BUZZ?
The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival has always made sure to include at least one mainstream picture for every Romanian incest tragedy. Gran Torinoand Cadillac Records, both of which open in cinemas today, were, respectively, valedictory and celebratory. The opening film, John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, in which Sister Meryl Streep suspects Father Philip Seymour Hoffman of sexually abusing a student, was a tad theatrical, but gripped its audience throughout.
For this writer, the biggest popcorn-friendly thrill came, however, from Henry Selick's Coraline. This stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's young person's novel uses 3-D to great effect in its efforts to spook children and move adults. Indeed, it caused me to reconsider my dismissal of the 3-D process. Mark Coralinedown for the 2010 Oscar for Best Animated Film.
WHO’S CHEWING THE FURNITURE AND WHO’S BURNING UP THE SCREEN
There were plenty of great performances in the opening burst of films. The entire cast of The Class, Laurent Cantet's study of life in an inner-city French school, acquitted themselves with grace and dignity. One can easily see how – to the surprise of many – the film secured the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Toni Servillowas unearthly as Giulio Andreotti, former Italian Prime Minister, in Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo.
But there really was no competition for the best performance prize. Tom Hardy, hitherto best known for playing a villain in Star Trek: Nemesisand Bill Sykes in a TV version of Oliver Twist, was jaw-droppingly kinetic as Charles Bronson, Britain's most violent prisoner, in the unambiguously titled Bronson. This is one of those rare turns that cause viewers to lean back in their seats for fear of having their heads bitten off.
ENOUGH OF THE FACETIOUS STUFF. WHAT’S THE BEST FILM SO FAR?
Nicolas Winding Refn's Bronson, dealing with violence in the British penal system, will remind many of A Clockwork Orange, but the film also nodded towards the glorious absurdity of early Ken Russell. The Classproved worthy of its high reputation, and Everlasting Moments, a touching study of a female photographer who began work in the early 1900s, proved that Jan Troell, one of the Swedish masters, is still capable of great work.
Still, the best film of the first half of the festival was, surely, the profoundly peculiar, deeply weird Il Divo. Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian director of The Consequences of Love, has finally found a subject – the decline of politician Giulio Andreotti – worthy of his structural invention and visual flair. He may even deserve the Volta (JDIFF's award for career achievement) that he received following the screening.
WAS THERE A BOUNCY CASTLE TOO?
Having made a prior appointment with Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, I was unable to make it to the most bafflingly ill-defined function of the festival. On Tuesday evening, Clive Owenturned up at the Academy to talk to the editor of Empire"Five stars all round" Magazineand participate in something described (halfway down the programme note) as a "Graphic Novel themed event".
This bizarre jamboree also included a set by the “renowned DJ Yoda”, some mastering of ceremonies by an MTV person, and graffiti from a chap named Maser. There was no mention of face-painting or donkey rides in the blurb. What the heck?
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