By Peter Boyle
After hearing about Tanner '88 — the six-hour TV serial that inspired Tim Robbins' Bob Roberts — at the launch of Melbourne's 42nd International Film Festival (June 4-18), I went to see Bob Roberts.
Now I have to see Robert Altman's Tanner '88, a "mockumentary" of a US political campaign which festival director Tait Brady describes as "too good to be shown on Australian television". One reason people go to film festivals is to catch those gems that may never make it to the box or the local cinemas.
The idea of using a pretend documentary to comment on politics in the age of mass media mind manipulation is so ... postmodern. The film maker gets to use all the "dirty tricks" of the medium to subvert its usual conservative message. But while the slick Bob Roberts did the job on right-wing politicians, I did feel a bit manipulated by the movie and uncertain about whether it would help an audience recognise the same dirty tricks used by Democrat President Bill Clinton. Does Tanner '88 do better?
More clever deconstructing and subverting takes place in a number of interesting documentaries that will feature in the festival. Twist is a funny look at the origins of this craze, exposing yet another bit of culture stolen from Harlem, and Forbidden Love uses the '50s pulp novel treatment of lesbians in a similarly entertaining but subversive project.
This should not leave the impression that the festival is all seriousness and heavy politics because there is a rich range of films, from the best of escapist magic to the bizarre. The feature films include Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet (Golden Bear prize at the Berlin Film Festival); the Montreal Film Festival Grand Prize-winning Argentinean film, Dark Side of the Heart by Eliseo Subiela; Sally Potter's Orlando; and many more. Hot from Cannes is the closing night Australian premiere of Tracey Moffat's
trilogy of ghost stories, Bedevil.
But at the launch Brady did make a fairly strong point of showing some of the world's best feature-length documentaries because near universal government austerity is threatening this important class of film. Also, quite a few films at the festival make strong political points, like Werner Herzog's Lessons Of Darkness, a mini-epic about the Gulf War story that the network news dared not televise.
There is a section devoted especially to looking at the issue of violence and film; pride of place there is the Austrian feature, Benny's Video, by Michael Haneke.
There are some interesting-looking films from Iran, including Nargess by woman director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad — a story about people living outside Islamic law — and Once Upon A Time Cinema by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a film about films and the politics of films.
Screenings are at the Astor Theatre, Kino Cinema and the State Film Theatre. Programs can be obtained by ringing the festival office: (03) 417 2011.