This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from jenfa. Make your own badge here.
w[[20060617]]
>reviews - 53rd annual sydney film festival <
starfish hotel [mon 12.06.06]
fascinating style and intriguing plot - part thriller, part satire, part mystery. you find yourself lured into an alternate world within everyday society - the mundane is shot with such emphasis that it almost seems surreal.
allusions to alice in wonderland abound - most notably in the form of a rabbit-man (your average joe in a rabbit suit promoting on the streets.. until he starts developing paws.. and growing fur.. )
while there's still a few cliches (plot revolves around a love affair, turns out rabbit-man escaped from the psychiatric ward) the film was overall a wonderfully stylistic representation of a critique on the consequences of human temptation - as brought about by the restrictions on humanity posed by the need to adapt to civilisation's social norms.
mind game [sat 17.06.06]
totally, utterly blew my mind.
from start to finish i was just gaping at the screen - shocked, awed, dumbfounded. the animation was confronting to say the least - you're bombarded with an astonishing array of art styles and music, hugely divergent themes, and amazingly hilarious scenes that seem to critique human nature, and the trappings of our modern society. (cue multiple replays of the protagonist's death scene - he gets shot up the ass - in pixelated format, a shape-shifting god in technicolour, and being swallowed up by a preposterously large whale - whose trappings include extinct species of marine life, and a man who has been inside for 30yrs and has managed to have acquired for himself a home complete with a kitchen, bath and toilet, and a drawbridge.... in addition to amassing a huge amount of junk ranging from dolls to motors to uhhHH.. mannequins)
just when you think you've started making sense of the whole story and predicted the ending, it hits you with a rapidly paced montage that completely disorientates you all over again..
