Last chance gasp this weekend to score a screening at Sydney Film Festival.
Here are three top flight, first class recommendations.
ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL starts out as mirth mystery and descends into something much more sinister.
Driving home from a fancy dress party decked out in a glamorous mask, Shula comes across a corpse on the road. On closer inspection she realises it is the body of her uncle, Fred, her mother’s brother.
Eschewing ambulance or cops, Shula calls her mother, cannot reach her and then calls her father. Dad’s advice is bizarre. Then suddenly, Shula’s cousin, Nsansa appears, drunk and disorderly, who decides to call the cops.
The local constabulary advise they’ll be there in the morning and to stay calm in Shula’s car overnight.
The mystery of Fred’s death remains but his actions as an incestuous paedophile rise to the surface as his blood family and his widow’s family go at it in ritual carve up of his property.
Writer director Rungano Nyoni mix of allegory and realism in an awesome gobsmacking movie.
THE SECRET AGENT isn’t some wham bam espionage extravaganza but a slow burn political thriller circa 1977 Brazil. Winner of Best Director and Best Actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, THE SECRET AGENT follows Marcello, widowed father of a young boy who returns to his hometown to be with his son and to uncover the truth about his mother by securing employment in the local bureaucracy.
Living a dual life, he inadvertently and ironically becomes a friend of the local police chief while at the same time attracting a price on his head from a regime flunky.
His father in law runs the local cinema so there are delicious cultural cross references in the film from Jaws to The Omen and a pop soundtrack that increases the late Seventies vibe. If you’re a VW Beetle enthusiast you’ll be in seventh heaven.
An absolute and unmitigated charmer, THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is hands down the most hilarious film of the event.
Comedian collaborators Tim Key and Tom Basden co write and co star in this daft and dreamy comedy about an eccentric millionaire who pays an extravagant amount of money to stage a private concert by the now disbanded duo, McGwyer and Mortimer. Key plays the eccentric entrepreneur, Basden the still in the business McGwyer and Carey Mulligan the now retired Mortimer.
Mulligan alone is worth the price of admission but THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND mother-lode of comedy gold from script to performance gilds this gloriously absurd, awkward, eloquent, priceless picture.
If you’re not laughing within the first minute, better check your pulse.
The 72nd annual Sydney Film Festival (4 -15 June 2025)
