Featuring: Rinko Kikuchi, Nobuyuki Katsube, Shirley Venard, David Zellner
Director: David Zellner
Screenwriters: David Zellner, Nathan Zellner
Movie Website: www.palacefilms.com.au/kumikothetreasurehunter/

2014-15 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 16-22 March, 8pm
Joondalup Pines: 24-29 March, 8pm

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: Compellingly weird after a slow start, but seriously undermined by a bum premise that is just not credible.

Review:
There’s a fundamental problem here and it’s serious, mum: the premise. Twenty-something Tokyo based Kumiko is obsessed with the Coen brothers’ movie Fargo, or rather, the suitcase of loot one of the characters is seen to stash deep in the snow. She spends her time after work cooped up in her flat, which she shares with cute pet rabbit Bunzo, re-watching the stashing scene over and over on an old video player (why would she persist with such a relic?). When the worn out tape finally gives up the ghost, she buys a DVD player to continue her investigation until she is certain she has pinpointed the location of the suitcase, whereupon she ups and leaves for America without notice, determined to recover her “treasure”. Continue reading Kumiko The Treasure Hunter movie review →

Featuring: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Clara Wettergren, Vincent Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius
Director: Ruben Östlund
Screenwriter: Ruben Östlund
Movie Website: www.magpictures.com/forcemajeure/

2014-15 Lotterywest Perth Film Festival season dates:
Somerville: 27 Jan-1 Feb, 8pm
Joondalup Pines: 3-8 Feb, 8pm

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: A well-acted, mostly well-written and beautifully shot piece, marred by a couple of jarring and mystifying scenes

Review:
A Swedish family – successful husband Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), his luscious wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two kids (a boy and girl, completing an image of the perfect nuclear family) – are seated at a table at a top-floor restaurant of a luxe ski resort, looking out over the snowfields. The weather is gorgeous, their food has arrived, they are at the beginning of their hols and everything is dandy – then there is a rumble and a tsunami of snow rolls down towards them from on high. Controlled, assures hubby/daddy. But the rumbling builds and the snow looms up at them. Screams, the mother covering her kids with her body as best she can as the world turns white, visibility zero. Dad? Um, well… Continue reading Force Majeure movie review →