THAT SUGAR FILM
★★★☆
Damon Gameau in That Sugar Film.
PG, 90 minutes. Q&A screenings until Thursday, March 5 (see thatsugarfilm.com)
Australian actor turned director Damon Gameau, who surprises his body with 40 teaspoons of sugar a day from supposedly healthy foods in this brightly entertaining but also informative documentary, takes his time making polite points in this examination of sugar's health dangers, but after visits to America and an outback indigenous community along with scientific testimony his case is straightforward and more than a little scary. Hidden sugars mess with our minds and bodies, and while there's nothing here a strong episode of Catalyst couldn't establish, lines such as "my liver cells are dying" certainly provide persuasive illustration. CM
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL
(affrenchfilmfestival.org). Palace Cinema Como, Balwyn, Westgarth, and Brighton Bay, and Kino Cinemas, Wednesday, March 4 to Sunday, March 22.
One of the annual standards on the Melbourne cinema calendar launches its 26th edition with a reasonably diverse selection of French cinema, with new films by Francois Ozon (The New Girlfriend) and Celine Sciamma (Girlhood) joined by Cedric Jimenez's The Connection (3 stars, MA, 135 minutes). A muscular, Scorsese-infused policier, the film stars Jean Dujardin (The Artist) as a magistrate assigned to 1970s Marseilles who takes on a heroin syndicate boss (Gilles Lellouche). This is the real life flipside to events that inspired William Friedkin's The French Connection, and while Jimenez can't match that classic, he provides suitable twists and moral flexibility. CM
EPIC INTIMACY: THE CINEMA OF ZHANG YIMOU & GONG LI
(acmi.net.au). Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Friday, March 6 to Sunday, March 15.
The relationship, on and off screen, between Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and actress Gong Li led to a succession of notable films, including selections from this season such as 1991's Raise the Red Lantern and 1994's To Live. The pair have also reunited professionally for Coming Home (3 stars, PG, 109 minutes), an effective if somewhat politically careful melodrama. A couple, played by Gong Li and Chen Daoming, separated by the Cultural Revolution (an event presented with muted memory) and unable to reunite despite the former's dedication to the latter. One thing that hasn't changed: Gong Li's masterful technique and Zhang Yimou's dedication to it. CM
CHARISMATIC AGITATORS AND FLAWED GENIUSES: THE CINEMA OF PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON
(melbournecinematheque.org). Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Wednesday, March 4, 11 and 18.
With his new film Inherent Vice just weeks away, this compelling season assembles the first five features from a masterful American director just entering his middle years. A Los Angeles native drawn repeatedly to the embrace of makeshift families, Paul Thomas Anderson's early films revealed a consumptive energy, a prodigy's visual ambition, and an ear for prickly dialogue. There's Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood (4 stars, M, 158 minutes), a study of intoxicating greed anchored by a bravura lead performance from Daniel Day-Lewis that matches epic filmmaking to corrupted character traits. CM