Melbourne International Film Festival 2013 was as always an eclectic mix of film, talent and audience.
Its very hard to narrow down a small selection of films to actually attend so in the end I just narrowed my list down and based my choice on having friends to go with to discuss them films together afterwards.
The first film i saw was Frances Ha. A film set in New York focusing on a women in her late 20's struggling with her career and friendship with her dearest friend. Filmed entirely in black and white the lack of colour helps you really focus on the character and plot development but importantly look into life and the concept of viewing it in black and white or shades of grey. For half the film you kind of just wanted to throttle the main character Frances, or give her a big hug. it seemed quite dark for a huge section. By the time the film was over, as cliché as it may sound you felt warm inside. It made you smile and feel good. Although Frances Ha doesn't necessarily scream at you "this is a feel good film!" it really is in an almost deceiving way!
The second film was a documentary called Teenage, based on a novel by Jon Savage. Made up of a combination of archival footage and images, newly filmed footage created to look archival. focusing on the teenage years of youth across three nationality (British, American and German) the film starts at the beginning of the 1900's and ends as World War II comes to an end. The archival footage was fantastic and the newly created footage was cleverly done so you were aware it was new but it slotted in with the film beautifully. I really enjoy documentary films and this one was definitely on my list of films I have really really appreciated. It showed the struggles of a generation and how over time it has always been the same theories just put through different circumstances such as war and depression, struggles with rules and parents.
