X-Files in New Zealand

Here's our pick of the festival flicks

30.06.2001

The Herald's TimeOut writers have been working through a stack of festival preview tapes. Here's what the square-eyed squad liked ...

House of Mirth: If you prefer your costume drama to pay respect to telling detail and the pregnant pause, then this adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel could be just the ticket. It's long, lugubrious and laced with a treachery which belies its widescreen nostalgic beauty. Gillian Anderson makes a remarkable leap from TV's sexiest alien-buster to a woman whose flirty pride and lust for life is gradually laid low by crucial errors of judgment. Not for the faint-hearted.

Harry, He's Here to Help: A tale of pure enchanting menace from the dark side of the male psyche, this French thriller from director Dominik Moll is also a good reason for not feeling guilty about keeping up with old school friends.

The Devils on the Doorstep: If you see one film about mid-20th- century Japanese military aggression this year, avoid the day of infamy one and make it this searingly funny and affecting black comedy set in an occupied Chinese village, where the locals have been forced by rebels into holding Japanese prisoners under the invaders' noses.

Series 7: A satire on reality television might be a soft target for a big screen comedy but this send-up, about a series with handgun-toting contestants from all walks of life stalking each other, is by turns grim, touching, and worryingly prescient.

Purely Belter: If you've not yet had enough of doughty northern English battlers playing, tooting, stripping or dancing their way out of misery and poverty, Purely Belter is for you. This film about two teenagers' schemes to earn �1000 for Newcastle United season tickets maintains the guts and the quality.

State and Main: David Mamet turns his razor gaze on Hollywood, an institution with which he has had an at-best-uneasy relationship. His snappy comedy about a film crew descending on a quaint New England town is rich with fine performances, which range from Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker mercilessly sending up their own star status, to Philip Seymour Hoffman who makes a wonderful romantic lead.

Yi Yi/A One and a Two: This near-three hour movie about the travails of a middle-class Taiwanese family starts with a wedding and ends with a funeral. In between, director Edward Yang brings every member of the Jian clan - even granny who spends most of the film in a coma - to vivid life in this engrossing, gentle saga.