Courtesy of FAM, a subsidiary of CQUniversity Mackay Library Society.

Admission:

Members: $5.00
Non Members: $9.00

Enquiries: 4940 7536

Email: CQUniversity Library Mackay

Film Suggestions:

We value suggestions for new films from our members. Our policy is that we aim to screen only arthouse/non-commercial films which aren't to be screened at local theatres. For any suggestions, please email the Library.

Once

Language: English
Starring: Geln Hansard, Marketa Irglova, Bill Hodnett, Danuse Ktrestova
Director: John Carney

The Irish romance ONCE may be a musical, but it is miles away from the traditional Hollywood idea of people bursting into song. Glen Hansard plays the guy, a street musician who is playing for change when he meets the girl (Marketa Irglova), an immigrant from the Czech Republic. The pair immediately bond over their shared love of music (he is a guitarist, and she plays the piano), and the film chronicles their tentative relationship. Both are weighed down by plenty of baggage: his songs are fueled by a painful breakup, and she is a young mother who left her husband behind in her native country.

Like the independent favorite Before Sunrise, ONCE is a simple, sweet drama that doesn't rely on an elaborate plot. With its use of digital video and handheld cameras, ONCE matches its spare visual style to its intimate mood. Each moment feels stolen from real life, and the story is at once familiar and fresh. Driven more by music than by dialogue, ONCE features a stirring soundtrack of heartfelt indie rock sung by Hansard and Irglova. Before his foray into film, director John Carney played bass in The Frames, and his passion for music is clear in this modern musical that hits every note perfectly

(Review by Rotten Tomatoes)

An Old Mistress

Language: French (English Subtitles)
Starring: Fu'ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute, Yolande Moreau, Michael Lonsdale, Anne Parillaud, Jean-Philippe Tesse, Sarah Pratt, Amira Casar, Lio Isabelle Renauld, Léa Seydoux, Nicholas Hawtrey and Caroline Ducey
Director: Catherine Breillat

Set in Paris in the year 1835, Ryno De Marigny, is betrothed to marry the aristocratic Hermangarde. However, as he confides to his fiancee's grandmother one evening, he has, for ten years, enjoyed the favours of his mistress, Vellini. After the wedding, the liaison between De Marigny and Vellini continues.

Set at around the time of the better-known DANGEROUSE LIAISONS, this is an adaptation of a novel by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, who died in 1889. It's the first period piece from Catherine Breillat, whose previous films have invariably dealt, with at times confronting candour, with contemporary love and sex.

(Review by David Stratton - ABC)

Irina Palm

Language: English
Starring: Marianne Faithfull, Miki Manojlovic
Director: Sam Garbarski

Maggie, a 50 year-old widow, desperate to make some money to pay for her sick grandson's life saving operation in Melbourne, goes down a path she wouldn't have imagined and ends up in a sex club in Soho. Maggie starts earning the money, but is fearful of how her family and friends will react if they discover her secret. Along the way she develops a friendship with the club owner Miki and the other workers.

A film festival favourite, that's endearing and surprisingly funny.

Won an Audience award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007

Inside Paris

Language: French (English Subtitles)
Starring: Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Joana Preiss, Guy Marchand, Marie-France Pisier, Alice Butaud, Héléna Noguerra, Judith El Zein, Annabelle Hettmann, Mathieu Funck-Brentano and Lou Rambert-Preiss
Director: Christophe Honoré

INSIDE PARIS begins a couple of days before Christmas, when three young people wake up one morning in bed in a Paris apartment. They are Paul, his brother Jo, and Alice, Jo's ex girlfriend. Jo assumes the role of narrator, explaining that Paul has recently broken up with Anne.

Jo makes a bet with Paul that he'll get to the Bon Marche department store within half an hour but he's sidetracked by three young women, including Alice, to whom he still owes money. Meanwhile Mirko, the brothers' father, is preparing a Christmas tree when his ex-wife, their mother, makes an appearance.

The tone of INSIDE PARIS is similar to that of the early French New Wave films of the late 50s, and Louis Garrel seems to have inherited the mantle of Jean-Pierre Leaud. There are references to Jacques Rivette, Jean Eustache, Milos Forman and to Jacques Demy (a long telephone conversation between Paul and Anne is sung!) but INSIDE PARIS goes beyond mere homage. This fresh and very attractive film not only has an assured feeling for the city of Paris itself, but is has a very poignant and truthful sense of the difficulty of maintaining relationships and the feeling of loss when loved ones drift apart. It's both funny and sad, filled with rich characters, lively and assured in every way.

(Review by David Stratton - ABC)

It's George: A celebration of Gershwin

The program opens with serenades and concertos by Gershwin, featuring Rhapsody in Blue, and is followed by the film ‘An American in Paris' and a Themed Supper.

An American in Paris
Winner of the 1952 Oscar for Best film plus five other Oscars, An American in Paris is the story of Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly), an American GI in Paris after World War II, hoping to further his career as an artist. He is chased by an influential heiress and falls in love with a young French girl (Leslie Caron). With songs and other music by George Gershwin, including the famous ‘An American in Paris', this vibrant and colourful (won Oscars for Best Set Decoration, and Best Costume) film is a real dance fest. Gene Kelly was also the choreographer and it's said to be his favourite film.

I Served the King of England

Language: Czech (English Subtitles)
Starring: Ivan Barnev and Oldrich Kaiser
Director: Jiri Menzel

Winner of the Critics Award, Berlin Film Festival 2007, this entertaining saga is a comedy that follows the romantic exploits of a central character. Our hero, Jan Dite, is an earnest and naïve everyman, who provides a mirror to Czech society in the years before, during and after the Second World War. The film follows Dite in his pursuit of riches, as he works as a waiter in a series of increasingly fancy establishments, finally becoming an hotelier. It's an opulent production.

With its visual humour (including inspired moments of slapstick), brilliant incorporation of music and likeable pint sized lead character, Menzel has created a decidedly Chaplinesque farce with a very modern flair.

Before the Devil knows you're dead

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney
Director: Sidney Lumet

The title of legendary director Sidney Lumet's superb new thriller comes from an Irish toast: "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

Brothers Andy, and Hank carry out an armed robbery on a small family-run jeweller. A bold and unnervingly suspenseful drama, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD is one of the best films Lumet has directed in his very long career. The fantastic performances are a high point of the film. Hoffman is masterful as a cold, calculating individual and Hawke's desperation is painfully real. Their distraught old father Charles, has rarely been better.

(Review by Margaret and David - ABC)

The Painted Veil

Starring: Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Diana Rigg, Toby Jones
Director: John Curran

The Painted Veil, originally written as a novel in 1925 by Somerset Maugham has been brilliantly recreated by director John Curran as a melodrama and moving love story, shot on location in beautiful Guangxi Province in China.

EDWARD NORTON excels as the romantic lead, a bacteriologist, who marries spoilt London socialite Kitty. They leave immediately for Shanghai where Walter has been posted. When Kitty conducts an indiscreet affair with a diplomat she is abandoned by her husband and sent to a cholera infested outpost. She turns to local nun and their civil servant for company.

The richness of the film is enhanced by the music of Alexandre Desplat, clever cinematography and gorgeous costume design by Ruth Myers.

(Review by Margaret and David - ABC)

Four Minutes

Language: German (English subtitles)
Starring: Monica Bleibtreu, Hannah Herzsprung, Sven Pippig, Richy Müller, Jasmin Tabatabai, Stefan Hurt, Vadim Glowna, Nadja Uhl, Peter Davor, Edita Malovcic, Kathrin Kestler, Christian Koerner, Amber Bongard, Dietrich Hollinderbäumer and Dieter Moor
Director: Chris Kraus

Formidable, 80-year-old Miss Kruger, has worked at the same women's prison ever since she started out as a nurse while the Nazis were still in power.

She teaches piano to anyone willing to learn, but few of the inmates in this tough establishment are interested in tinkling the ivories - until the arrival of Jenny, who, despite her violent nature, proves to be a consummate player.

Jenny prefers what Miss Kruger calls ‘Negro music' to the classics the old lady demands, but even after the young prisoner brutally bashes a sympathetic
male guard, Miss Kruger perseveres with her and trains her for a forthcoming concert.

Writer-director Chris Kraus manages to avoid melodramatic excesses in this tale of perseverance and redemption, allied to an odd couple relationship.

(Review by David Stratton - ABC)

Brick Lane

Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, Christopher Simpson, Lalita Ahmed, Naeema Begum, Bernard Holley, Harsh Nayyar, Lana Rahman, Harvey Virdi and Zafreen
Director: Sarah Gavron

BRICK LANE, adapted from the prize-winning novel by Monica Ali, is about Nazneen, who arrived in England from Bangladesh at the age of 17 to an arranged marriage to the much older Chanu. Thirteen years later she is the mother of two daughters. The year is 2001.

Nazneen dutifully accepts her husband's bombast and authoritarianism. But when she meets the much younger Karim, who delivers the materials for her piecework at home, an attraction flares up. Nazneen's life is contrasted through the film with that of her sister who has stayed behind in Bangladesh, where their youth was idyllic in many ways, tragic in some.

Things change for these Bangladeshi immigrants after 9/11 but this is not an overtly political film, it is really the inner journey of Nazneen, beautifully conveyed by Tannishtha Chatterjee.

It's a debut feature for director Sarah Gavron and, although the pace is somewhat languid at the start, the film really starts coming together in the second half. The depiction of Chanu is beautiful, he's not demonised at all, but rather pathetic and sweet. It is, like all immigrant stories, about identity and Nazneen's journey is both painful and touching.

(Review by Margaret Pomeranz - ABC)