So this year I haven't done the "book a billion films and don't go home ever for two whole weeks" thing, which is my usual caper for the Melbourne International Film Festival. I have scaled down my filmgoing due to:

a) financial disincentives, namely poverty

b) health related disincentives, namely scurvy

c) mental health related disincentives, namely insanity

d) film related disincentives, namely the quality of the films last year interesting me less than they have in past years.

If one scales back, of course, the cinematic grass appears a whole lot greener, so to those peeps who find themselves bamboozled by the scale of things and don't know how to scale back, here be my advice:

1. See all Japanese live-action films that are only shown once. They will never be seen again and they are nearly always brilliant (special mention goes to their naturalistic dramas in which two people will, for example, converse on the nature of gravity while a giant twig grows slowly out of the side of one of their thighs). So far, the Japanese Film Rule has never lost me a customer.

2. See any documentary on any topic that interests you or potentially might interest you. The doccos are usually good and often on interesting topics. Sometimes, doccos are more interesting than their topics imply.

3. See, where possible: Korean, Iranian, Icelandic or American indie films that won't get distribution.

4. If you like story, avoid films described as "bleak" or "meandering". If you enjoy cinematography, book online and take popcorn.

5. Become a member. Skip the queue.

If you're going to the film festival on a full pass, may I suggest the following:

1. You know that V8 vegetable juice? Secure an intravenous drip on a pole.

There's a certain trend I'm not enjoying at the moment, when it comes to writing. I'm not enjoying the fashionable films or books we're supposed to find "important" because they're about people who fail to communicate.

During the Melbourne International Film Festival, maybe two thirds of the films I saw were about husbands failing to communicate with wives, parents failing to communicate with children, murderers throttling people because of secrets unuttered.

Then I decided maybe the problem was that this trend is permeating film. I bought a few books. I read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and "We Need To Talk About Kevin", the first of which is about a family whose lack of truthful communication makes them numb and angry strangers, and the second of which is about a family whose lack of truthful communication makes them numb and angry strangers.

Reading each book, watching every film, I was always hanging out for the ending. There has to be a pay-off, I thought. There has to be a reason for all this repressed miscommunication being rammed down our throats. Surely the interesting thing isn't the lack of communication itself? Surely there's more to this writing than "people shouldn't keep secrets" or "people don't talk to each other anymore in this soulless society" or some similar indictment on the contemporary world?

But apparently emotionally stunted repression with predictably dichotomous results is so hot right now.

I'm bored by it. Bring on the talking. Bring on Aaron Sorkin's novel-writing career. Dickens Does Post 9/11. Somebody SAY SOMETHING, for crying out loud.

I don't know if it's the novelty wearing off (this is my second year with a full festival pass) but this year's MIFF was ALMOST completely uninspiring.

What makes me say almost is the documentaries. Other than the documentaries and a few stand-out films (Teeth and Eagle Versus Shark which will get a release anyway) there was nothing but bleak, grim, and baffling.

Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. So long as there's something to counter-balance it. (I have to be careful here because I suspect film funding in this country at least is dependent on the liberal use of the words "bleak" and "harrowing" in 100 word synopses).

But, as we can see from the most seriously bleak subject matters (for example War Tapes, a gruesome documentary about the Iraq war which actually had the audience laughing), there has to be a point to the bleak and harrowing, or else at least some degrees within it (some unharrowing non-bleak elbow room) in order for an audience to gain anything from the experience. Otherwise, one gets the impression that life is comprised of silent brooding individuals bursting with malcontent, wandering barren landscapes with bare limbs and a latent sexual yearning.

Just saying. It's a style. I find it boring. Bit of variety would be nice.

I hereby rate some of the films I saw according to the above rant:

4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days - bleak (about abortion), includes silent brooding and mild malcontent. A Bleakness rating of 8.5 (some hope for humanity hinted at through main character). My rating: 5 (points for actually telling a story and for the way it was shot, which made Stewart want to move to Budapest).

Zoo - bleak (about "animal lovers" if you get my bleak and harrowing drift), includes music that would drive the will to live out of most people, also contains dark and brooding re-enactment scenes. Actually a pretty ordinary documentary - badly put together.

Once - mildly bleak but thick layers of optimism through the ludicrously optimistic medium of song. Bleakness rating: 3 (everyone looked cold and poor and their lives were in ruins). My rating: 5 (would be more but the motion of the camera made me want to hurl on the person in front of me). Very pleased it ended the way it did, which was both bleak and also not bleak.

Also, don't Irish people sound gorgeous when they say the word "gorgeous"?

Lost in Bejing - holds the honour of being the only film I walked out of. Bleakity bleak bleak. Worse still: bleak without purpose. Also, any film that supposes rape is funny and we don't ever find out why (I got someone to tell me the ending) is in my opinion a shit film. Bleak rating 9 (but I feel this gives it too much street cred - it wasn't even TRYING to be bleak. It thought it was funny and endearing. Which made it accidentally bleak. Which is somehow worse). My rating: 0.5 (that's because there was a scene with the husband singing while he ate noodles which reminded me of someone I liked once).

Great World Of Sound - flat, depressing, predictable, infuriating. I heard someone trying to explain the point of it to someone else afterwards and their friend replied, "But so what?" So what indeed. It was about people who were conned, which is interesting if a) the con is interesting or b) it's an actual documentary (like Conman Confidential, which was excellent). Bleakness rating: 8.5 (low rating due to pointlessness of bleakness reducing bleakness impact). My rating: zero. Should have left for this one too, but thought the ending might be a zinger. Ha. Ha. Ha.

9 Star Hotel - had the advantage of being a documentary, so at least it's a TRUE bleak situation. About Palestinians working illegally on Israeli housing construction. Bleakness rating: 7. Mine: 3.

Hot House - again at least it was a bleak documentary. About Hamas being operated from Israeli jails. Bleakness rating: 6. Mine: 4, just because listening to people talk about suicide bombing on behalf of future generations is something you don't come across too often in the western media.

Wrestling With Angels: Tony Kutchner. Documentary about a playwright. Bleakness rating: 0.5. My rating: 7 (documentary too long and not that brilliant but subject matter carried it).

Your Mommy Kills Animals. Documentary about animal welfare and animal rights groups with a terrorist twist. Bleakness rating: 1 (all questions were answered - all bleak and harrowing possibilities were explained and you knew what to do with them... where to go next, what needed addressing etc. Bleakness with direction.) My rating: 8.5

Beyond Our Ken - brilliant documentary. This is one of the hopes of the side this year. Bleakness rating: 1 (if only because stuff like that happens to people like Cornelia Rau, but it's not super bleak due to the fact that things like this documentary exist to present alternative viewpoints for people - such as several in the audience - who need to question kenja). Check it out, this will get a release. My rating: 10.

We Are Together - documentary about South African AIDS orphans singing. Kind of like Choir of Hard Knocks but South African and the orphanage burns to the ground while people die of HIV infections and Paul Simon pats people on the heads. Bleakness rating: I would say 5 but actually 2 because the uplifting elements and the clever construction of the docco mean it never feels flat or drifty. My rating 9.

Sicko - docco. Coming out in a minute (another problem with this year's film festival - what do you MEAN they were trying to get The Simpsons Movie as the opener??). Bleakness rating: 1 (outweighed by humour - thanks Mike). My rating 9.

The Boy On The Galloping Horse - bleak story about noncommunicative family bursting with unsaid long-buried discontent, headed nowhere, through beautiful scenery. Very surprised to see it didn't receive funding from any Australian film bodies, but I guess there were no lakes photographed and nobody glanced upwards towards a blistering sun at any point, so it probably missed out due to those oversights. And, you know, it's not Autralian. But then, neither is Spielberg and his projects get subsidised. Bleakness rating 10. Mine: 1.

Grace Is Gone - great film about a war widower (John Cusack). Bleakness rating 6. Mine: 9 (bleakness tempered by sensitive handling of subject matter, lovely performances, nonbleak ending).

Conman Confidential - documentary about conmen. Bleakness rating 1. Mine: 9.5.

The Hottest State - Ethan Hawke's film. Bleakness rating 1. Mine: 9. I was so glad to be watching a film that wasn't "harrowing" that my rating of this might be tempered by glee. Still, liked it. Shut up.

The Cats of Mirikitani - yay - documentary which addresses historical and cultural bleakness AND personal triumphs in a way that isn't remotely patronising or sentimental! Huzzah! Bleakness rating: 0. Mine: 10.

Interview - Steve Buchemi attempting to be Woody Allen. Bleakess rating: 1. Mine: 4.5.

Time - South Korean film about plastic surgery. Bleakness: 5 but add 1 for baffling WTF element. Me: 3.

How Is Your Fish Today? Baffling, bleak, scenery implying world failing to understand inner turmoil unexpressed by anyone. Bleakness: 8.5. Me: 1.

Yella. Oh shut up you bleak, baffling, pointless, meandering, beautiful, wafting thing. B: 10. M: 1.

There are about fifteen more but WHO CARES!

Now, back to our usual programming.

Deadlines! Huzzah!

Hey, let's make a short film about a woman who's married to a famous boxing coach and who gets massive headaches and nosebleeds and suddenly remembers she has a pencil wedged in her brain, the removal of which might render her blind. We could include the following line from our main character:

"I remember tripping over and the pencil I was holding seeming to disappear."

Or we could re-enact that scene. A four year old girl, a bit of a stumble, a missing pencil, fifty-five years of blinding headaches. Check it out. Sometimes I think my life ain't so bad after all.

In other film news, here are some reviews:

We Are Together - a documentary about a South African orphanage full of kids whose parents died of AIDS, where the kids just happen to sing soulful, confident, gorgeous African songs with these enormous grins on their faces, while dreadful stuff happens all around them - more AIDS deaths, the orphanage burning to the ground, and... last but not least... salvation comes in the form of Alicia Keys and Paul Simon solemnly patting kiddies' heads and proving once again that white men ain't got no rhythm. Still, they raised enough money to build another orphanage so at least they're using their best intentions for the best results. Great docco because it reminds viewers that Africans die of AIDS while we in the West have drugs. That was the one thing I was left wondering, though: did these families know how to prevent HIV?

And, one more for the "dreadful and shithouse" list: Great Wall Of Sound. I was actually angered by this film. It was so frustrating, so depressing but with such little purpose, and it led nowhere, said nothing, and taught me only that two hours is a long time.

This was okay - interesting because of the people in it and because of the whole concept of Palestinians building mansions for Israelis while they live in cardboard boxes (also includes a very interesting conversation about "their holocaust" versus "our holocaust") but otherwise a little too gentle and wafty and going nowhere we haven't been before.

Beyond Our Ken, on the other hand, was a brilliant example of a documentary that you don't think you "need" to see (because it's about an Australian "energy transferral" cult) but when you leave you feel like you've been exposed to a certain kind of behaviour that teaches you what humans are capable of - ie you've watched an actual megalomaniac psychopath in action. And his victims. Also, the filmmakers cannot have predicted the ending, but they did a brilliant job of leading us towards it. This one should get a release.

Hot House - another depressing film about the middle east, in this case a documentary about Hamas and how it's partly run out of the Israeli prison system. I was a bit sleepy during this film (it was at The Greater Bloody Union - a sleep chamber) but the film was interesting in parts - particularly the bit where an ex-newsreader mother of three kids talked about why she helped a suicide bomber blow up a restaurant full of Israeli kids, then went to work and did a news report on the massacre, knowing she might be put away for life and never see her kids again.

Also saw a documentary about Tony Kushner who wrote Angels in America. Made me wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life, but it was great to see. Not the best docco in the world (could have done without the endless music rehearal scenes in the middle) but a very inspiring glimpse at a playwright who can get away with writing a seven hour play. Also, I'd love to see his Maurice Sendak collaborations.

Shame - documentary about a Pakistani gang rape enacted apparently "legally" on a woman to avenge another family's daughter's honour. Some of the key facts were hazy and the documentary was rambling and strangely put together, but it was an interesting demonstration of different kinds of power. The rape victim had no power and lived in constant fear, but when her story hit the Western press, she basically asked for electricity in her village and she got it. She asked for a school, she got it. Similar to the South Afrcian documentary above, the power of the West is a hideously double-edged sword.

One last thing. Check this out. Your Mommy Kills Animals - a documentary about something I studied at university, so I wasn't as surprised as some of the audience, but the new "terrorism" twist is interesting, particularly in the light of the new Federal police powers.

And that's enough for today. My Lord there are lot of films in the world - a lot of stories worth telling and a lot of stories best left untold. Also a lot of people standing in the foyer afterwards who must be wondering what's happened to my power of speech. It's official - three films in a row or more renders me rambling and confused. As you can tell.

Oh my God if I see one more film my head might explode.

There's a whole week left of the godforsaken festival, bless its cotton socks, I've loved almost every minute of it. HOWEVER:

Please no more sandwiches for dinner.
Please allow me to excercise my limbs in daylight hours.
Please no more cold home-made pasta in a tub eaten clandestinely under cover of darkness.
Please enough with the smell of popcorn.
Please never show me the friggin telstra ad again with the dog going for the walk.
Please just take all the seats out of Greater Union and let us sit on the floor. Heaps more comfortable and much less chance of accidentally sitting on the knee of the person next to you.
Please no more fun invitations to do exciting things from lovely friends which would involve actually going outside.
Please can we reschedule my birthday?

By the way, in case you're wondering what ELSE is going on, the films have been good/middling/excellent. I miss the Asian focus from last year, I realise, with the hilarious and gorgeous Japanese and Korean films. However, saw an Australian documentary about Kenja yesterday that was worth the Greater Union seats. Starting to think the docos are the highlight this year. Also liked Sicko, which was very Mike Moore but somehow he's now using that to his advantage. Plus, you know, he's no fool, and he's very good at what he does. Makes you want to move to France, too, which should piss off all the right people in America.

More updates on films as soon as I figure out what I've seen.

Another day another stinking deadline.

Deadlines make the film festival less fun because you spend the two hours of each film thinking, "This had better be worth me not writing that proposal for that thing that's due TOMORROW. COME ON, YOU STUPID FILM, SHOW YOUR TRUE COLOURS! Bah, piece of European psychological drama procrastinatorial CRAP!"

Anyway. Not that any of the films so far have been truly crap (with one or two exceptions, below). But, you know, the pressure is on in all sorts of ways.

I will write up on the other films I've seen so far but yesterday I saw The Hottest State, which I greatly enjoyed despite the odd dip into sentimentality - I think it was truly an interesting film (not least because of the casting choices - Ethan Hawke playing his own father, someone else playing his younger father, and someone else playing his young self, but also because of some of the writing, which was really lovely).

I saw a documentary about an American-born-Japanese homeless artist who was locked away by the American government during WWII for being an "alien" and who had his citizenship revoked. Here he is, sixty years later (aged 81) painting pictures in the streets of New York. Suddenly the planes hit the twin towers down the street and he's the only person left standing in the neighbourhood by night time. The filmmaker actually moves him into her house and gradually helps him sort his life out. The parables between his situation and the current fears that allow governments to lock people away and revoke their citizenship were not unnoticed but never preached. Hm. Yes, it rocked my socks. Just a really, really good documentary. It's called The Cats of Mirikitani, but it's not showing again in the festival, so google it and get the DVD.

Anyway shuttup I have work to do.

PS. Last night I sunk to the festival low: lamb souva for dinner in between films. Orange juice in case I get scurvy.

It has been correctly pointed out by Daniel (he who shall sell the rights to his functional MIFF program for nine trillion dollars) that I have named all the films I liked and have in fact been remiss by not naming the one I have shitbagged.

There are two films I have not enjoyed this festival. They are:

The Primo Levi documentary, which I frankly don't know why I thought I'd like anyway, excecpt that I'm interested in Holocaust literature and have never read Primo Levi so wanted to be inspired. I did not feel inspired. I instead felt tired and (as I have said earlier) I slept fitfully throughout. It was a baffling, disjointed, badly thought out documentary, in my humble opinion and full in the knowledge that I am not among the demographic it appeared to be aimed at (those obsessed with Primo Levi).

The second film (the one I took my friend to) was also a documentary, and it was a case of "which venue can we get to fastest". It was a documentary about a Viennese fair, much like Luna Park or the Royal Melbourne show. It would have made for a fantastic seven minute documentary, but my GOD it was a dull two hours. Shot after shot of old, dead fairground "highlights" with a deadly serious narration about the "room of mirrors" changes people's lives forever as their imaginations run wild. Extremely depressing, richly bizarre in about three parts (those were the parts you'd keep for the short documentary - they were mildly entertaining) but if you can imagine a feature length documentary about the royal melbourne show, where each ride is examined in forensic detail but with no irony... you're almost there.

That'll teach us for picking at the last minute.

Saw two films last night. Exit (baffling) and Yella (baffling).

I am no longer in the mood to be baffled, and have decided that films whose sole result is the entire audience going, "So, hang on, he was the guy from before, with the gloves. Right? And he killed the first woman but her husband was the dude in the carpark making the telephone calls. Or were they the same person"? are now, officially, boring to me.

With that in mind, I will continue from here on with fresh eyes. Any one else got any recommendations?