Review: JDIFF // Citywide

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WORDS Sarah Lennon-Galavan

February 13th marks the return of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, once again bringing the best international and homegrown releases to Irish screens for a glorious ten day period. With over 135 films, workshops and high profile guests such as Richard Dreyfuss and Terry Gilliam; deciding what to see certainly poses a challenge.

Receiving the most hype among the Irish offerings is closing film, The Stag. A raucous tale of pre-nuptial male bonding, the real selling point is Andrew Scott, best known for his electrifying turn as Sherlock villain Moriarty. Despite being marketed as an Irish take on The Hangover, The Stag is actually a much more nuanced exploration of what it means to be a man in contemporary Ireland, irreverently destabilising notions of traditional masculinity. Although shot in the rolling countryside beloved of Oirish narratives, the film is Ireland as from an insiders’ perspective, representative in its tone and humour (some of the best jokes are jabs at Bono and U2).

Although its primary function is to highlight what is often a frustratingly overlooked native cinematic culture, JDIFF also offers the chance to see the best in international film months before they crawl into Irish theatres. Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel is tipped to be a confident and surprisingly dark caper, heavily influenced by Austrian writer Stefan Zwig and resplendent in an expansive illustration of the director’s distinctive style. Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive, described as an existential vampire film, follows supernatural lovers Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston in a heady tribute to music and philosophical musing. Stranger by the Lake, the other, darker LGBT film that set Cannes alight, focuses on the connection between love and death against the background of gay cruising culture.

The organisers of the festival have highlighted the fact that this year’s selection is of a particularly literary bent. JDIFF is set to showcase a swath of adaptations ranging from innovative perspectives on the work of canonical authors to realising the latest literary smashes on film for the first time. Actor/director Richard Ayoade, having made a unexpectedly deft debut with coming-of-age Britflick Submarine, looks set to silence accusations of beginner’s luck with his comedic take on Dostoevsky’s The Double. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as both the protagonist and his eponymous doppelganger, Ayoade reportedly situates the dystopian narrative somewhere between Orson Welles adapting Kafka, David Lynch and contemporary Nordic comedy. Michael Polish’s Big Sur straddles the line between adaptation and biopic. Removing all vestiges of fictionality from a highly autobiographical Kerouac text, it creates an intimate portrait of the author’s life post fame and incorporates his distinctive prose through voice-over. In the realm of contemporary fiction, the fresh and powerful voice of writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has distinctive resonance, going as far as to be sampled in a recent Beyonce track. The film adaptation of her novel Half of a Yellow Sun, which features the Oscar-nominated Chiwetel Ejiofar and is directed by Nigerian playwright Biyi Bandele, charts the divergent lives of two sisters during the Biafran war.

With so many excellent films and a time frame of just two weeks, there is one way to approach JDIFF — openly. Whatever you choose to see, the experience of watching a film surrounded by fellow obsessives, and perhaps a celebrity or two, is one to be cherished.

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