VIFF: The Crimes of Mike Recket

Okay, so: following up on that Bruce Sweeney piece below, The Crimes of Mike Recket is definitely worth seeing. It's NOT an ensemble piece akin to Dirty and Last Wedding - perhaps that style of filmmaking is not something Sweeney is interested in anymore? - but nor is it quite so focused on a single character as American Venus. It's interesting on several fronts, actually: bearing in mind that I haven't seen Excited yet, it's a surprise to see Sweeney playing with genre (the detective thriller) to this extent; and it's also interesting to see him dispensing with a linear sequence of events, moving back and forth in time in a way I don't recall him doing previously - a self-assured move. It's also more overtly political than his previous films, which seemed to use political and social issues as a means of exploring character; here, character is used as an investigation into political and social issues. (The less you know beforehand, the more you'll like the film). I was surprised to think of Skip Tracer at a couple of points, and of Karel Reisz/ James Toback's The Gambler, but I don't want to elaborate further - certainly the film isn't really like either of those movies. Nicholas Lea and Gabrielle Rose are very good in it, and Tom Scholte pops up briefly. Suddenly I'm eager for my DVD of Excited to arrive, so I can see where it fits in Sweeney's body of work... A much more detailed description of the film can be found here, if you want it, but you're probably better off just trusting me that it's worth a look.

I may cease blogging about the VIFF for a bit. Antiviral and Berberian Sound Studio probably don't need me to cheerlead them, and I've got some other writing to focus on for the next week. I'll resume my VIFF consumption (and VIFF blogging) next week, after I've had a chance to see more films. Meantime, the new film by Dogme co-founder Thomas Vinterberg, The Hunt, sounds like a must-see, doesn't it? (Maybe John Furlong should check it out). And doesn't Blackbird sound interesting? Did y'all notice the documentary on Kubrick and The Shining, Room 237? (Probably worth taking time to look at Rob Ager's Youtube analysis of that film, in advance).