Cape York Peninsula

Winter on Market Street, and it’s time to switch off one’s phone and retreat to the cinema cave for the 12 days of hibernation known as the Sydney Film Festival. From the 50 or so films I caught this year, my top five (in no particular order) are below.

Afire

• Afire is the latest from writer-director Christian Petzold.
• When they arrive at the house, they find out they will be sharing it with Nadja (Paula Beer).
• Afire is a wicked comedy about everything going wrong and the capacity of “the quake of love” to transcend this, to pull us out of ourselves into a genuine engagement with the world.

A Storm Foretold

• Trump’s former mover and confidant Roger Stone may be an easy target for this documentary from Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen.
• Guldbrandsen’s footage from camera and phone is intercut with archival material, some involving nasty explosions of street violence.
• Guldbrandsen’s documentary is an intimate and effective image of a political operator, remarkable for what Stone allows him to capture on camera.
• Read more:
  Why Congress can't curb Trump's power to commute Stone's sentence and pardon others

Rheingold

• Rheingold is an irreverent, riotous, rags-to-riches, macho gangster yarn from German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin.
• While other biopics often painfully try to recreate the sense of reality of the subject, Rheingold joyfully dispenses with any sense of reality from the beginning, delighting in its own absurdity and exploiting the fabulous nature of its premise for all its cinematic worth.
• Rheingold is an amoral, violent and kinetic cinematic romp.

Sisu

• Sisu, from Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander, is set in 1944.
• The Nazis, led by equally stoical psychopath Bruno (Aksel Hennie), seize the opportunity and attempt to rob Aatami of his gold.
• The premise of Sisu is patently absurd, but it works so well because it is played seriously for all its worth.
• Every aspect of Sisu is well done.

May December

• Twenty or so years earlier Gracie and Joe were all over the tabloid headlines.
• Gracie, in her mid-30s, had a sexual relationship with 13-year-old Joe in the pet shop where they worked.
• Berry is playing Gracie in a new Hollywood movie and wants to understand her character.
• Read more:
  Hollywood has got method acting all wrong, here's what the process is really about

Other great ones

• The problem with top five lists is that great films are invariably omitted.
• This year this seems to be more the case than usual, with at least ten other films that could make the list.
• It is an exceptional film and will probably be one of the best of 2023.

Only two terrible films

• There were only two films I regretted seeing.
• Because the acting is so bad and the dialogue even worse, the whole thing becomes very irritating to watch.
• Alas, 50 films, around a third brilliant and only two duds?