Celebrate the Small Things 22-8-25

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things.

What am I celebrating this week?

Lots of things, actually.  I finished my job on Wednesday which was sad and weird.  I am so close to finishing the new book I can smell it.  Not sure the last half is any good, but it's something to work on.  And I only have one more film left to see in the film festival.  Well, two actually.  I got a ticket for an extra screening of one on Wednesday, but one left of the regular screenings.

What have I seen?

The Ballad of Wallis Island about a man who wins the lottery and pays his favorite band to come to the remote island where he lives to play a concert just for him.  This was a real feel-good film.  Funny and poignant and just a little twee, I enjoyed it very much.

One of the highlights this year for me is the film I was given a ticket to at the last minute, Peacock.  It's Austrian and quite absurd, about a man who works for a company that provides people to be companions for any situation.  Need a father for your kid's take Dad to work day?  Hire Mattias.  A partner for a pretentious outdoor concert?  Mattias.  A son for your 60th wedding anniversary celebrations?  Again, Mattias.  But when his wife tells him she doesn't know who he is anymore, things start spiraling out of control for Mattias.

Ellis Park is a documentary about Dirty Three /Bad Seeds musician Warren Ellis.  Since 2020 he's been supporting a nature reserve in Sumatra and in this film he goes there for the first time and meets the woman running the place, the local staff and all the rescued animals.  I enjoyed it very much.

The Mastermind is a film by master of slow cinema, Kelly Reichart.  It's a heist film, but a heist by an unlikely suspect and for reasons you don't fully understand until close to the end.  I didn't love it to be honest.  I found the main character weak and irritating - which was probably the point- but the ending was a nice twist.

Back in 1993 when I worked on the film festival, I saw a wonderful documentary about Leni Riefenstahl that led me to write at least one essay on her work and troubled reputation.  This week I saw a new doco about her which I thought would be more interesting than it actually was.  The 1993 docs benefitted from the fact she was still alive and could talk to the filmmakers.  This doco had only that footage and her many interviews, extensive archives and recordings to draw from.  She's definitely a complex character, but I'm not sure if she believed her own mythology about herself, or if she really was kept in the dark about much of what the Nazis were doing.  I suspect the truth is probably somewhere in between the two.

Twinless was another delightful film with a perfect balance between humor and pathos.  It's about a young man whose twin brother Rocky has recently been killed in an accident and who's struggling with the loss.  In a support group, he meets Dennis who claims to have also lost a twin brother.  A friendship develops between them,  but Dennis' presence at the group was predicated on false pretenses - he 's actually one of Rocky's one night stands and the reason Rocky was killed in the first place.

One more tonight, and then I'll be home in the evenings again, mostly.

What are you celebrating this week?