This film follows writer Kent Nerburn (Christophier Sweeney) as he travels with native American / Indian elder Dan (Chief Dave Bald Eagle) who chooses to refer to himself as Indian, and his best friend to find the truth of the native American / Indian experience. It is an eye opening film that doesn't shy away from portraying the cultural misunderstandings between Nerburn and Dan, nor does it flinch from the struggles of the Indian peoples against the white colonisers of their land and the enduring shadow that history casts over communities and families.
I was to some extent confused by this film, I had expected it to be a documentary, which it obviously isn't, then I thought it was a dramatisation of a real life story, but then I read that Nerburn's book Neither Wolf nor Dog is a novel, but after reading reviews of the book I think mostly it's a true story. Certainly the stories that Dan tells of his people's lives are truth, and truth that we all could benefit from hearing.
I do however suspect that in terms of really learning about the history and lives of native Americans / Indians, the book will offer much more than the film, which isn't a criticism of the film, it's just an acknowledgement that a book can pack much more substance into its pages than this film packed into its 90 minutes, insightful though those 90 minutes are.
Neither Wolf nor Dog is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1805, 24 June at Odeon.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Endless Night.
The Lure.
Homo Sapiens.
Belles Familles.
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
Showing posts with label eiff16. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eiff16. Show all posts
Friday, 24 June 2016
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Endless Night - film review
Endless Night is the heavily fictionalised story of Josephine Peary, played by Juliette Binoche) an arctic explorer who in the early years of the 20th Century set sail to meet her husband the explorer Robert Peary who was on his way to the north pole.
Josephine sets off into the arctic ice with two Inuit guides and Bram (Gabriel Byrne) despite everyone telling her she was foolish. Even after Bram's death she refuses to take anyone's advice and forces the guides to accompany her further. She eventually finds herself at her husband's base camp shack where she meets Allaka (Rinko Kikuchi) who turns out to be Robert Peary's mistress.
The heart of the film focuses on the relationship between the two women, but it is also a study of Western colonialist attitudes. Josephine tries to show Allaka that using cutlery properly is more important than finding nutritious local food. She states bluntly that the Inuit reverence for nature and respect for hard weather is nothing compared to her husband's world changing conquering of the North Pole. She chastises Allaka for casually sleeping with her husband, while Allaka sees no problem with having kept a man warm in cold weather.
The difficulty of surviving the arctic cold is very clearly evoked in this film, as the two women resort to ever more desperate measures to find food and heat.
Will the two women bury their differences and come to some kind of mutual understanding through the long Arctic winter? Will they ever be reunited with Robert Peary?
This is an edited version of the 2015 film No-one wants the Night.
Endless Night is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1820, 24 June at Filmhouse and 1540, 25 June at Odeon.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Lure.
Homo Sapiens.
Belles Familles.
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
Josephine sets off into the arctic ice with two Inuit guides and Bram (Gabriel Byrne) despite everyone telling her she was foolish. Even after Bram's death she refuses to take anyone's advice and forces the guides to accompany her further. She eventually finds herself at her husband's base camp shack where she meets Allaka (Rinko Kikuchi) who turns out to be Robert Peary's mistress.
The heart of the film focuses on the relationship between the two women, but it is also a study of Western colonialist attitudes. Josephine tries to show Allaka that using cutlery properly is more important than finding nutritious local food. She states bluntly that the Inuit reverence for nature and respect for hard weather is nothing compared to her husband's world changing conquering of the North Pole. She chastises Allaka for casually sleeping with her husband, while Allaka sees no problem with having kept a man warm in cold weather.
The difficulty of surviving the arctic cold is very clearly evoked in this film, as the two women resort to ever more desperate measures to find food and heat.
Will the two women bury their differences and come to some kind of mutual understanding through the long Arctic winter? Will they ever be reunited with Robert Peary?
This is an edited version of the 2015 film No-one wants the Night.
Endless Night is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1820, 24 June at Filmhouse and 1540, 25 June at Odeon.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Lure.
Homo Sapiens.
Belles Familles.
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
Tuesday, 21 June 2016
Homo Sapiens - film review
Homo Sapiens, directed by Nickolaus Geyrhalter, is a profoundly depressing meditation on the possible end of human civilisation. There is no human presence in the film, no people are seen, there's no dialogue and no voice-over. The static cameras show us various abandoned sites including theatres, places of worship, settlements, fun fairs, medical facilities and offices. There are no subtitles to give context or to tell us where the sites are. The only sounds are wind, rain, birds and insects, the only movement is that of birds, or things being moved by the wind.
The lack of voice-over or other context allows the viewer to imagine the story behind each site - why was this place abandoned? In some cases it seems clear - the funfair drowning in the rising tides, the settlement abandoned to the encroaching sands, the nuclear installation abandoned after a nuclear catastrophe, the buildings destroyed by war, but others are much less obvious. I found myself wondering why didn't people go back and salvage the materials from these offices? Why haven't they demolished the structures and replaced them? It's just so much loss of potential for the buildings and for the land they stand on.
In some cases nature has started to reclaim the buildings. Even so, however beautiful it is to see ferns growing over an abandoned village, doves flying in and out of an abandoned tower or birds of prey circling over cooling towers, I was left mostly with a sense of despondence.
This is the end of human civilisation.
Homo Sapiens is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
2055, 23 June and 1305, 25 June both at Cineworld.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Belles Familles.
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
The lack of voice-over or other context allows the viewer to imagine the story behind each site - why was this place abandoned? In some cases it seems clear - the funfair drowning in the rising tides, the settlement abandoned to the encroaching sands, the nuclear installation abandoned after a nuclear catastrophe, the buildings destroyed by war, but others are much less obvious. I found myself wondering why didn't people go back and salvage the materials from these offices? Why haven't they demolished the structures and replaced them? It's just so much loss of potential for the buildings and for the land they stand on.
In some cases nature has started to reclaim the buildings. Even so, however beautiful it is to see ferns growing over an abandoned village, doves flying in and out of an abandoned tower or birds of prey circling over cooling towers, I was left mostly with a sense of despondence.
This is the end of human civilisation.
Homo Sapiens is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
2055, 23 June and 1305, 25 June both at Cineworld.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Belles Familles.
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
Monday, 20 June 2016
Belles Familles - film review
Jerome Varenne (Mathieu Almaric) pays an unexpected visit to his mother (Nicole Garcia) in France en route between Shanghai (where he works) and London (where he and his colleague and fiance (Chen Lin (played by Gemma Chan)) are due at an important meeting). What is intended as a flying visit is extended as Jerome becomes involved in the family's protracted wrangling over their country estate in Ambray.
The action of the film centres on the family melodrama as secrets are revealed and enmities come to the surface. In the background is the local governmental power play over the fate of the family's estate and in fact other green spaces in the town. Will the mayor preserve the family's historical home or will he allow to become the focal point of a luxury gated community or will it in fact disappear in a new industrial zone?
I wanted to know more about the way the local government was working here but for the balance of the overall film it was right that those issues were pushed into the background and after all isn't that how it happens in reality? We're all more interested in who's sleeping with who than in the future of our communities and too many people are only interested in country estates and green spaces for the money they can make out of them.
That sounds cynical of me, but don't let it put you off watching this film which is entertainingly melodramatic all the way through. And the background story about rampant development of green spaces may strike a chord with a lot of people (certainly with residents of Edinburgh).
Belles Familles is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
2030, 22 June and 1530, 25 June both at Cineworld.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
The action of the film centres on the family melodrama as secrets are revealed and enmities come to the surface. In the background is the local governmental power play over the fate of the family's estate and in fact other green spaces in the town. Will the mayor preserve the family's historical home or will he allow to become the focal point of a luxury gated community or will it in fact disappear in a new industrial zone?
I wanted to know more about the way the local government was working here but for the balance of the overall film it was right that those issues were pushed into the background and after all isn't that how it happens in reality? We're all more interested in who's sleeping with who than in the future of our communities and too many people are only interested in country estates and green spaces for the money they can make out of them.
That sounds cynical of me, but don't let it put you off watching this film which is entertainingly melodramatic all the way through. And the background story about rampant development of green spaces may strike a chord with a lot of people (certainly with residents of Edinburgh).
Belles Familles is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
2030, 22 June and 1530, 25 June both at Cineworld.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Olive Tree.
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
Saturday, 18 June 2016
The Olive Tree - a film review
Alma, a young Spanish woman is devastated by her grandfather's descent into taciturn dementia and is convinced that his decline is caused partly by the recent selling off (by his sons) of an ancient olive tree from the family's olive grove.
She finds out that a German 'sustainable energy ' company bought the tree and has installed it in the lobby of their headquarters in Dusseldorf. She persuades her Uncle and also Rafa (who I wasn't quite sure whether he was a cousin or a farm employee) to accompany her to Dusseldorf to reclaim the tree and bring it home to grandfather.
Along the way her mission becomes celebrated by a group of people who recognise that the German company is not as sustainable as they claim to be.
Can the trio rescue the tree in time to help grandfather regain his health?
This is a moving film about family and the traditional connections to the land and how one tree can become the symbol for an environmental protest.
The Olive Tree is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1800, 19 June at Cineworld and 2040, 21 June at Odeon.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
She finds out that a German 'sustainable energy ' company bought the tree and has installed it in the lobby of their headquarters in Dusseldorf. She persuades her Uncle and also Rafa (who I wasn't quite sure whether he was a cousin or a farm employee) to accompany her to Dusseldorf to reclaim the tree and bring it home to grandfather.
Along the way her mission becomes celebrated by a group of people who recognise that the German company is not as sustainable as they claim to be.
Can the trio rescue the tree in time to help grandfather regain his health?
This is a moving film about family and the traditional connections to the land and how one tree can become the symbol for an environmental protest.
The Olive Tree is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1800, 19 June at Cineworld and 2040, 21 June at Odeon.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
Friday, 17 June 2016
Death is Only the Beginning - a film review
"Death is only the Beginning" is a quote from the brilliant The Library Suicides which got it's world premier today at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It is a phrase that could equally apply to the disappointing film, The Correspondence.
I've long been fascinated by astronomy, particularly string theory which at least in theory predicates the existence of parallel universes and thus the possibility that we have doubles, and that ghosts could truly exist. So the concept behind The Correspondence appealed, two astronomers have an affair and he keeps communicating with her after his death. Plus it's by the same director as Cinema Paradiso!
Sadly, the film is a disappointment. The romance between Professor Ed Phoerum (Jeremy Irons) and student (and part time stunt woman) Amy (Olga Kurylenko) lacks emotional intensity, mostly because it consists almost entirely of her tearfully watching grainy videos of his messages from beyond the grave and interrupting her social engagements to read his text messages. It also fails as a thriller, the storyline, which in other hands could well be gripping, just comes across mostly as silly. It fails scientifically too, though towards the end there is a brief extract from Amy's research which implies the kind of thing the film was trying but failed to achieve. The highlight (really) is the beautiful chocolate labrador with big eyes who appears every now and then seemingly trying to give Amy messages from beyond the grave. Oh and the beautiful scenery of the Professor's Italian hideaway.
A much more successful film is The Library Suicides, a beautifully constructed Welsh language thriller set in the National Library of Wales. Never has a library seemed more a place of mystery and menace (and we discover a new use for those sliding, space-saving book shelving units). Twin librarians Ana and Nan (both played by Catrin Stewart) are devastated when their mother (a famous novelist) commits suicide and suspect that her biographer was actually responsible for killing her. The twins set out one night on revenge..... The narrative is tensely plotted, helped by a very atmospheric soundtrack and lighting (though at times a little more light would have been helpful). Secrets are gradually revealed along the way making for a very satisfying thriller. The setting in a library (where everything is a copy of the original as one of the twins says) is an ideal location for a meditation on memory and storytelling - whose memories are these anyway and who has the right to tell the story? Well worth watching.....
These films are showing as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival:
The Correspondence: 2035, 17 June at Filmhouse and 1520, 19 June at Odeon.
The Library Suicides: 1820, 17 June and 1545, 18 June, both at Cineworld
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
I've long been fascinated by astronomy, particularly string theory which at least in theory predicates the existence of parallel universes and thus the possibility that we have doubles, and that ghosts could truly exist. So the concept behind The Correspondence appealed, two astronomers have an affair and he keeps communicating with her after his death. Plus it's by the same director as Cinema Paradiso!
Sadly, the film is a disappointment. The romance between Professor Ed Phoerum (Jeremy Irons) and student (and part time stunt woman) Amy (Olga Kurylenko) lacks emotional intensity, mostly because it consists almost entirely of her tearfully watching grainy videos of his messages from beyond the grave and interrupting her social engagements to read his text messages. It also fails as a thriller, the storyline, which in other hands could well be gripping, just comes across mostly as silly. It fails scientifically too, though towards the end there is a brief extract from Amy's research which implies the kind of thing the film was trying but failed to achieve. The highlight (really) is the beautiful chocolate labrador with big eyes who appears every now and then seemingly trying to give Amy messages from beyond the grave. Oh and the beautiful scenery of the Professor's Italian hideaway.
A much more successful film is The Library Suicides, a beautifully constructed Welsh language thriller set in the National Library of Wales. Never has a library seemed more a place of mystery and menace (and we discover a new use for those sliding, space-saving book shelving units). Twin librarians Ana and Nan (both played by Catrin Stewart) are devastated when their mother (a famous novelist) commits suicide and suspect that her biographer was actually responsible for killing her. The twins set out one night on revenge..... The narrative is tensely plotted, helped by a very atmospheric soundtrack and lighting (though at times a little more light would have been helpful). Secrets are gradually revealed along the way making for a very satisfying thriller. The setting in a library (where everything is a copy of the original as one of the twins says) is an ideal location for a meditation on memory and storytelling - whose memories are these anyway and who has the right to tell the story? Well worth watching.....
These films are showing as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival:
The Correspondence: 2035, 17 June at Filmhouse and 1520, 19 June at Odeon.
The Library Suicides: 1820, 17 June and 1545, 18 June, both at Cineworld
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Mine.
The Islands and the Whales.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films
The Mine - a film review
Based on a true story, The Mine follows young civil servant Jussi, charged with overseeing the environmental permit for Talvivaara, a company wanting to open a large nickel mine that would bring jobs to one of the poorest parts of Scandanavia.
It slowly becomes clear that not all is well. The company is lying about the environmental assessments, lying about the level of potential pollutants in the waste water that would be produced by the mine and denying that there are sizeable uranium deposits in the area.
The action takes place largely in comfortable offices, where civil servants and business men make deals behind closed doors, turning a collective blind eye to the damage they could potentially do to the environment if things go wrong and ignoring EU regulations designed to protect the environment.
Jussi needs to decide whether he will also turn a blind eye or whether he will become whistle-blower.
Then in 2012, a tailings pond at the mine burst, resulting in a leakage of 1.4 million cubic meters of toxic water which poisoned the surrounding countryside.
The storytelling is admirable restrained and the tone and content are all too depressingly believable.
Based on a true story, The Mine is a tense drama shining a light into the dark corners of local government corruption.
The Mine is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1815, 19 June at Odeon and 1555, 21 June at Filmhouse.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Islands and the Whales - culture and marine sustainability in the Faroes.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.
It slowly becomes clear that not all is well. The company is lying about the environmental assessments, lying about the level of potential pollutants in the waste water that would be produced by the mine and denying that there are sizeable uranium deposits in the area.
The action takes place largely in comfortable offices, where civil servants and business men make deals behind closed doors, turning a collective blind eye to the damage they could potentially do to the environment if things go wrong and ignoring EU regulations designed to protect the environment.
Jussi needs to decide whether he will also turn a blind eye or whether he will become whistle-blower.
Then in 2012, a tailings pond at the mine burst, resulting in a leakage of 1.4 million cubic meters of toxic water which poisoned the surrounding countryside.
The storytelling is admirable restrained and the tone and content are all too depressingly believable.
Based on a true story, The Mine is a tense drama shining a light into the dark corners of local government corruption.
The Mine is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1815, 19 June at Odeon and 1555, 21 June at Filmhouse.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
The Islands and the Whales - culture and marine sustainability in the Faroes.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.
Wednesday, 15 June 2016
The Islands and the Whales - a film review
The Faroe Islands lie between the UK and Iceland, and are infamous for their whale hunts. The Islands and the Whales, a documentary film showing at the Edinburgh International Film Festival takes a close look at the Faroese culture and the sustainability of the islands' traditions and the wider oceans.
The Faroes are beautiful, the landscape in this film is stunning. But life here is hard, the land is not fertile and the weather is not kind so it's difficult to grow crops or raise livestock. Traditionally the Faroese people have needed to harvest the oceans and that means eating fish, seabirds and whales.
Things are changing these days. The fishermen and bird hunters recognise that populations of their prey are declining, some of them seem to shrug their shoulders and carry on, but others show more concern. A local doctor is carrying out tests into mercury levels in the local population, aware that mercury accumulates in the whales and that is passed onto humans, leading potentially to impaired development and neurological problems. Again some people shrug their shoulders and carry on, while many are reducing their consumption of whale meat.
Representatives from Sea Shepherd visit the Faroes to try to prevent the whale hunts. It's obvious that they have no awareness of local culture or of the difficulty of finding food on the Faroes. Although I have a great deal of sympathy with the organisation, they did come across as culturally insensitive and according to a Faroese interviewed in the film, Sea Shepherd are actually strengthening local opinion in favour of whale hunting as people band together against what they see as cultural imperialism.
The Faroese feel they are losing their culture. The first roads were built only in the 1950s and things have changed rapidly since then. The narrator speaks of the old time Huldufolk, magical creatures that used to live in the islands in the days when the Faroese lived in balance with nature. However since the introduction of electricity, the Huldufolk have disappeared and the old balance has been lost. "Nature used to be big and people small, but now it's the other way round".
This is not an easy film to watch at times, featuring as it does close up scenes of whale hunts and crates full of dead puffins, but it offers important insights into culture and ocean sustainability and it seems clear to me that the local doctor has a better chance of ending the Faroese whale hunts than Sea Shepherd ever will.
The Islands and the Whales is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival:
2045, 17 June and 1325, 19 June both at Cineworld.
Plastic waste in the oceans is one of the issues that comes up in this film, I blogged about making crafts with ocean waste in today's 30 Days Wild blogpost which you can read here.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.
The Faroes are beautiful, the landscape in this film is stunning. But life here is hard, the land is not fertile and the weather is not kind so it's difficult to grow crops or raise livestock. Traditionally the Faroese people have needed to harvest the oceans and that means eating fish, seabirds and whales.
Things are changing these days. The fishermen and bird hunters recognise that populations of their prey are declining, some of them seem to shrug their shoulders and carry on, but others show more concern. A local doctor is carrying out tests into mercury levels in the local population, aware that mercury accumulates in the whales and that is passed onto humans, leading potentially to impaired development and neurological problems. Again some people shrug their shoulders and carry on, while many are reducing their consumption of whale meat.
Representatives from Sea Shepherd visit the Faroes to try to prevent the whale hunts. It's obvious that they have no awareness of local culture or of the difficulty of finding food on the Faroes. Although I have a great deal of sympathy with the organisation, they did come across as culturally insensitive and according to a Faroese interviewed in the film, Sea Shepherd are actually strengthening local opinion in favour of whale hunting as people band together against what they see as cultural imperialism.
The Faroese feel they are losing their culture. The first roads were built only in the 1950s and things have changed rapidly since then. The narrator speaks of the old time Huldufolk, magical creatures that used to live in the islands in the days when the Faroese lived in balance with nature. However since the introduction of electricity, the Huldufolk have disappeared and the old balance has been lost. "Nature used to be big and people small, but now it's the other way round".
This is not an easy film to watch at times, featuring as it does close up scenes of whale hunts and crates full of dead puffins, but it offers important insights into culture and ocean sustainability and it seems clear to me that the local doctor has a better chance of ending the Faroese whale hunts than Sea Shepherd ever will.
The Islands and the Whales is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival:
2045, 17 June and 1325, 19 June both at Cineworld.
Plastic waste in the oceans is one of the issues that comes up in this film, I blogged about making crafts with ocean waste in today's 30 Days Wild blogpost which you can read here.
You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:
Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Bugs - are insects the food of the future?
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.
Tuesday, 14 June 2016
Hunt for the Wilder People - a film review
From Taika Waititi (director of the brilliantly funny What we do in the Shadows) comes the equally brilliant and funny but entirely different Hunt for the Wilder People, the highest grossing New Zealand film of all time, showing at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Ricky (Julian Dennison), a difficult teenager is placed in a new home with Belle (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill). He's just settling in, when Belle dies unexpectedly, leaving the teenager alone with reluctant foster father Hec. Social services don't like this set up and warn the pair that they will be coming to take Ricky back into state care. Ricky knows that this means Juvenile Detention as no other family had been found willing to take him. He runs off into the bush, pursued by Hec and the two end up living in the bush for months setting off a nationwide manhunt.
Ricky struggles at first with rural life and is for example shocked by the violence of Belle's slaughter of a wild pig (a scene that foreshadows a later encounter with a wild pig in the bush). However when he and Hec have to take to the bush, he proves remarkably adaptable. The two survive by hunting game and foraging wild plants and always keep one step ahead of the not very competent manhunt - lead by Paula (Rachel Head) a social worker who is clearly enjoying this chance to play at being a police officer. Meanwhile the pair gain notoriety, partly through saving a ranger's life and partly through the power of social media.
The relationship between Ricky and Hec is beautifully drawn, the two clearly become closer as the film goes on, but Hec always retains his prickliness and Ricky his trouble-making tendency. Ricky's love of reading (and his habit of writing bad haiku!) rubs off on Hec, just as the older man's practical outdoor skills rub off on the teenager. In a touching scene, Ricky advises Hec on how to get over losing his wife, using phrases he's obviously heard from his own counsellors in his time in social care.
But how long can these two misfits survive in the bush before the law catches up with them?
Based on the novel Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump, this is an entertaining coming of age film set in dramatic scenery (I'm sure the New Zealand Tourist Board love this film!).
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival:
16 June SOLD OUT and 2030, 25 June at Cineworld.
It will be released into UK cinemas on 16 September.
Earlier today I saw the excellent film Bugs - you can read my review here.
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.
Ricky (Julian Dennison), a difficult teenager is placed in a new home with Belle (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill). He's just settling in, when Belle dies unexpectedly, leaving the teenager alone with reluctant foster father Hec. Social services don't like this set up and warn the pair that they will be coming to take Ricky back into state care. Ricky knows that this means Juvenile Detention as no other family had been found willing to take him. He runs off into the bush, pursued by Hec and the two end up living in the bush for months setting off a nationwide manhunt.
Ricky struggles at first with rural life and is for example shocked by the violence of Belle's slaughter of a wild pig (a scene that foreshadows a later encounter with a wild pig in the bush). However when he and Hec have to take to the bush, he proves remarkably adaptable. The two survive by hunting game and foraging wild plants and always keep one step ahead of the not very competent manhunt - lead by Paula (Rachel Head) a social worker who is clearly enjoying this chance to play at being a police officer. Meanwhile the pair gain notoriety, partly through saving a ranger's life and partly through the power of social media.
The relationship between Ricky and Hec is beautifully drawn, the two clearly become closer as the film goes on, but Hec always retains his prickliness and Ricky his trouble-making tendency. Ricky's love of reading (and his habit of writing bad haiku!) rubs off on Hec, just as the older man's practical outdoor skills rub off on the teenager. In a touching scene, Ricky advises Hec on how to get over losing his wife, using phrases he's obviously heard from his own counsellors in his time in social care.
But how long can these two misfits survive in the bush before the law catches up with them?
Based on the novel Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump, this is an entertaining coming of age film set in dramatic scenery (I'm sure the New Zealand Tourist Board love this film!).
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival:
16 June SOLD OUT and 2030, 25 June at Cineworld.
It will be released into UK cinemas on 16 September.
Earlier today I saw the excellent film Bugs - you can read my review here.
Disclaimer: I have a press pass for Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.
Are Insects the Food of the Future? A film review
This is the time when 30 Days Wild meets Edinburgh International Film Festival. As has been the case for a few years now, I have a press pass for the festival and will be reviewing films that have a natural history or environmental theme along with a few that take place in rural locations and a couple just for the fun of it. I will also continue blogging my natural history thoughts and sightings for 30 Days Wild so for the next couple of weeks I may be doing more than one blog post a day!
When I lived in Malawi, many people ate insects as a natural part of their diet but I never actually had the chance. I didn't want to just buy insects from the local market without being sure I would know what to do with them and never knowingly had the opportunity elsewhere (and I admit, I didn't seek out the opportunity!). People who did eat Malawian insects assured me that most species were crunchy and tasted nutty.....
From then on, I've been interested in the concept of insects as food, though I've never eaten any (except perhaps for the occasional aphid accidentally eaten on a picnic). One of the main reasons I'm interested in the idea is that insects may be the food of the future, or at least the protein source of the future.
This is the topic covered in Bugs, an excellent documentary showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Chef Ben Reade and researcher Josh Evans have, as part of the Nordic Food Lab, spent three years travelling the world documenting how and where insects are eaten as part of traditional diets. They start by focussing on taste and their obvious enjoyment of the insects they eat (including queen termites, honey ants and maggoty cheese) is enough to make you want to try the same. From there they move on to ideas around sustainability, visiting sustainable farms that harvest insects in ways that ensure future supplies won't be affected. They also are concerned about workers rights in the case of one project where the bright lights, used to lure giant grasshoppers, are causing the workers to go blind. In Kenya they discuss how many Kenyans are getting tired of Western style food and wanting to reclaim their traditional sources of food, including insects, which could reduce hunger in that country and also lead to less land pressure from growing maize or grazing cattle. The film makers seemed genuinely interested in addressing these concerns rather than trying to make money from insect protein, they expressed more than a little concern that multinational companies might see the opportunity for making vast sums of money by for example by making insect based burgers to replace beef burgers and this leading to unsustainable farming of insects.
One element of the film was a meal, presented as an airline meal of the future, which quite frankly looked far more appetising than any airline meal I've eaten (not that I've been on a plane for many years now!). Having said that the film did contain a certain 'yuck!' factor, which naturally lead to discussions around people's attitudes to eating insects.
As a vegetarian, often mostly vegan, I would argue that going vegan would be the most effective way to reduce the land needed for agriculture and so most efficiently feed the expanding human population. However, realisitically, I don't see everyone going vegan unless it's forced on us and this film certainly presents a compelling argument that insects could well form part of our future diet.
Bugs is showing at the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1810, 16 June and 1330, 18 June both at the Odeon.
See a film for 30 Days Wild.
When I lived in Malawi, many people ate insects as a natural part of their diet but I never actually had the chance. I didn't want to just buy insects from the local market without being sure I would know what to do with them and never knowingly had the opportunity elsewhere (and I admit, I didn't seek out the opportunity!). People who did eat Malawian insects assured me that most species were crunchy and tasted nutty.....
From then on, I've been interested in the concept of insects as food, though I've never eaten any (except perhaps for the occasional aphid accidentally eaten on a picnic). One of the main reasons I'm interested in the idea is that insects may be the food of the future, or at least the protein source of the future.
This is the topic covered in Bugs, an excellent documentary showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Chef Ben Reade and researcher Josh Evans have, as part of the Nordic Food Lab, spent three years travelling the world documenting how and where insects are eaten as part of traditional diets. They start by focussing on taste and their obvious enjoyment of the insects they eat (including queen termites, honey ants and maggoty cheese) is enough to make you want to try the same. From there they move on to ideas around sustainability, visiting sustainable farms that harvest insects in ways that ensure future supplies won't be affected. They also are concerned about workers rights in the case of one project where the bright lights, used to lure giant grasshoppers, are causing the workers to go blind. In Kenya they discuss how many Kenyans are getting tired of Western style food and wanting to reclaim their traditional sources of food, including insects, which could reduce hunger in that country and also lead to less land pressure from growing maize or grazing cattle. The film makers seemed genuinely interested in addressing these concerns rather than trying to make money from insect protein, they expressed more than a little concern that multinational companies might see the opportunity for making vast sums of money by for example by making insect based burgers to replace beef burgers and this leading to unsustainable farming of insects.
One element of the film was a meal, presented as an airline meal of the future, which quite frankly looked far more appetising than any airline meal I've eaten (not that I've been on a plane for many years now!). Having said that the film did contain a certain 'yuck!' factor, which naturally lead to discussions around people's attitudes to eating insects.
As a vegetarian, often mostly vegan, I would argue that going vegan would be the most effective way to reduce the land needed for agriculture and so most efficiently feed the expanding human population. However, realisitically, I don't see everyone going vegan unless it's forced on us and this film certainly presents a compelling argument that insects could well form part of our future diet.
Bugs is showing at the Edinburgh International Film Festival:
1810, 16 June and 1330, 18 June both at the Odeon.
See a film for 30 Days Wild.
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