Featuring: Vincent Cassel, Jeremy Chabriel
Director: Ariel Kleiman
Writers: Sarah Cyngler, Ariel Kleiman
Movie website: www.partisanfilm.com.au/
Australian release date: Thu 28 May, 2015

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: A compelling expression of controlled rage at tyrannical abuse of power and corruption of innocents.

Review:
This audaciously impressive off-the-edge feature film debut from Australian director Ariel Kleiman drops the viewer smack into the perplexing insular world of a weird, dilapidated hidden commune. No clue is given to its location, and to add to the sense of geographical confusion, the characters speak with a mix of accents, predominantly French. The place has the appearance of an abandoned apartment complex. It is cut off from the outside world, access being via a series of concrete tunnels and shafts with secret entrances unconvincingly camouflaged. In the distance is a shitty-looking town, basically a gathering of grim high-rise apartment blocks. It’s a strange, logic-defying, disorientating set-up, post-apocalyptic in feel, and never explained. Continue reading Partisan movie review →

Featuring: Josh Lawson, Bojana Novakovic, Damon Herriman, Kate Mulvany, Kate Box, Patrick Brammall, Alan Dukes, Lisa McCune, Erin James, TJ Power, Kim Gygnell, Lachy Hulme
Screenwriter/Director: Josh Lawson
Movie website: au.eonefilms.com/films/the-little-death
Australian release date: Thu 25 Sep

Reviewer: rolanstein
Verdict: A smartly performed, written and directed comedy that reclaims ground fenced off by political correctness with humour, compassion and finesse.

Review:
This terrific feature film debut from writer/director Josh Lawson is a comedy built around sex (its title is a translation of a French colloquialism for orgasm), but to label it a “sex comedy” is to mislead. That label suggests triviality, an adult romp inviting descriptors like “naughty”. The Little Death is far more sophisticated than that and anything but trivial – which is not to say it’s short on laughs. Indeed, as a comedy it works a treat. But it’s also edgy and subversive in pushing into areas of taboo and mostly mildly deviant sexual behaviour not to shock or outrage, but because sex is fascinating in its paradoxes and diversity of expression, lends itself to comedic dramatic treatment, and is legitimate territory for artistic investigation. Continue reading The Little Death movie review →