MIFF 2013: 3 x 3D

Peter Greenaway, Jean-Luc Godard, Edgar Pera (Portugal)

By Ryan Heath

Two cinema heavy weights (Peter Greenaway and Jean-Luc Godard) join up with prolific but lesser known Portugal Auteur Edgar Pera, to shed an intelligent, thought provoking and at times damn right terrifying meditation on Cinemas medium of the moment, 3D.

The movie is split into three segments, starting with Greenaway’s visually stunning, brief history of Guimaraes (the film was financed by the Portuguese city), whilst Godard, in true Godard style, leaves the audience squirming, as his montages cinema old and new, asking questions and pointing fingers at…well, this requires multiple viewings.

Pera’s finishes off the triptych with a Lynchian-esque nightmare, where the focus seems to be squaring on us, the spectator. What all three do accomplish is way to use the aesthetic to truly benefit an idea, or a story, though also how to truly confront an audience that may be all too well desensitised. What is accomplished is a refreshing take on the third dimension that may restore interest in a medium that has left a lot of people jaded.

 Ryan Heath is a handsome man who works at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne and is also an actor.