Mothers are supposed to feel an instant, unbreakable bond with their newborn child; or at least, that’s what we’re led to believe. Austrian director, Johanna Moder’s new film, Mother’s Baby, bleakly reminds us that this isn’t always the case.
Forty year old music conductor Julia (Marie Leuenberger) and her loving husband, Georg (Hans Löw), desperately want a baby. When nature doesn’t deliver, they seek the help of Dr Vilfort (Claes Bang), a renowned fertility specialist. In Vilfort’s pristine private clinic, Moder introduces early on an axolotl, a strange looking amphibian that catches Julia’s interest but comes to haunt her (and viewers) later in the film.
With Dr Vilfort’s treatment proving successful, Julia and Georg wait expectantly for the birth of their longed for child. Yet the birth is a difficult one. The baby is whisked away by a medical team as soon as it is born. Moder captures Julia and Georg’s muted shock as they are kept in limbo waiting to meet their baby. When Julia finally gets to hold her baby, she seems underwhelmed, even detached from the child. Julia’s struggle to breastfeed only heightens her disappointment. An overly zealous midwife played by Julia Franz Richter doesn’t help as she pushes Julia to bottle feed instead.
Once home, Julia, long used to being in control in her professional life, continues to struggle to bond with her baby. Usually surrounded by music, the weirdly silent baby she has birthed, starts to unnerve her. Is there something wrong with the child or is Julia paranoid? Hans’ instant bond with their son, who Julia persists in referring to as ‘it’, adds to Julia’s distress.
In one particularly tense moment, Hans returns home from work to be greeted by the sight of Julia engrossed in her music, oblivious to her unfed baby. Julia’s sudden identity shift from world class conductor to stay at home mother has hit her hard. Hans fails to understand, reminding Julia as they argue that ‘It’s what we agreed!’. Is Julia’s lack of maternal connection with her baby a tell-tale sign of postpartum depression or is there something more sinister at play?
Increasingly frustrated by Julia’s unexpected reaction to new motherhood even the normally placid Georg starts to doubt his wife’s mental stability. Returning to Dr Vilfort, Julia insists there is something wrong with her baby, demanding answers from the preternaturally cool physician. In what smacks of medical misogyny, Vilfort condescendingly suggests Julia is the problem. We cringe as Georg joins cravenly with the doctor in agreeing that Julia needs help.
Moder’s psychologically chilling story of new motherhood achieves its aim of unnerving its viewers so that they feel vicariously the altered reality of the postpartum phase. Billed as a dark comedy, the film is inconsistent in creating humour; nonetheless, Moder is successful in capturing the absurdity of motherhood in a world which continues to unfairly insist on idealising maternity.
The German Film Festival previewed at Palace Cinemas with the Australian première of Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Hysteria. This 104-minute political thriller left the crowd hushed and visibly rattled on the way out. On a film set that unravels after a burned Quran is discovered, Hysteria is equal parts whodunnit, social essay, and psychological pressure cooker.
Büyükatalay wastes no time striking the match. When the sacred text is smouldering among the props, blame ricochets between the director, the star, a slippery producer and a van-load of asylum-seeker extras. Class, faith and power lines are drawn in seconds; alliances fray just as quickly. This film proves you don’t need a big budget to create tension. The tension comes from the people, not the pyrotechnics.
One of Hysteria’s thrills (and frustrations) is its refusal to hand you a neat answer. Every scene forces you to ask: whose version of events do I believe, and what does that say about me? Büyükatalay is less interested in solving the mystery than in showing how easily images of “the Other” override the human being standing before us. That makes for an unsettling watch, but it’s precisely the point. Cineuropa praised the film’s “important inquiry into the representation of migrant minorities”, even as it noted the narrative leaves viewers “confused”. Confusion about how you want the story to pan out and who turns out to be the protagonist and the antagonist.
As a 24-year-old intern, Elif Devrim Lingnau anchors the film with wide-eyed resolve that gradually hardens into fury. Refugee extra Said (Mehdi Meskar) and Director Yigit (Serkan Kaya) spar with her in tightly coiled exchanges that feel one breath away from violence. Nicolette Krebitz steals scenes as a calculating producer who knows exactly how far an image can travel once uploaded. The casting is strong, there are no weak links.
The use of close-ups in Hysteria traps the audience inside green-screen warehouses and cramped caravans. The pacing is fast; the 104 minutes fly by. Cinematographer Julian Krubasik ensures we feel connected to every character in every shot.
This film may leave you feeling cold if you love films that end all tied up neatly with a little bow. Hysteria is a must-see for viewers who relish cinema that sends them out into the foyer to debate morality, identity, and media manipulation. Behind every flame lies a darker truth.
Büyükatalay’s sophomore feature doesn’t just hold up a mirror; it shatters it, then asks us to pick up the shards and see which reflection we choose. Catch it while the German Film Festival programme runs nationwide, and check session times via the Palace Cinemas website. Take a friend; you’ll need someone to argue with on the tram ride home.
The HSBC German Film Festival presented by Palace runs from 2 May – 21 May, in association with German Films. In 2025, the festival will showcase the best contemporary German cinema direct from major festivals in Europe, plus a selection from its German-speaking neighbours, Austria and Switzerland.
To book tickets to Hysteria, or for date and session information for any other films in the festival, please visit https://germanfilmfestival.com.au/.
Blur: To the End is a documentary that takes fans behind the scenes of Blur’s long-awaited return to the studio to record their first album in over a decade. The film captures the band’s journey, from their reunion in Hong Kong to the creative process of making new music, offering a mix of nostalgia, humour, and candid moments.
Those looking for a 101 on Blur’s history or surprise revelations of previously unknown secrets from the band’s past will have to look elsewhere. This movie is for lifelong fans. It’s not an introduction to Blur or the band members. It’s for fans who know the mythos and are excited to tune in for the latest chapter.
Though the documentary focused on the lead-up to the new tour and the creation of the new album, the audience gets a peak behind the scenes at the surprisingly calm creative process of talented people with a complicated history. A group of people who love the music and want to keep feeding that love, in whatever form it may take.
While the film gives little context as to how the band met or how they bounded, many nostalgia-filled stories are exchanged between the members as though they are catching up over a pint in a pub. Continuously rewarding the long-term fans of Blur, fans who will be excited to see welcomed along to this next chapter.
The film has a very intimate feel, even for a documentary. The audience is shown the band members’ homes, where the bandmates wear their comfort with each other casually. This does mean that the tone can lean oddly morbid at times. When they are philosophising about life and their relationships, it feels like an end-of-life reflection rather than an acknowledgement of a midpoint. The mid-50s might not be the prime rockstar age, but 50 is far from the end of their musical life.
Given the zeitgeists piqued interest in Brit-pop, with the oft-talked-about Oasis reunion on the horizon, it seems like a missed opportunity not to explore the musical impact Blur had in leading the British bands of the ’90s. Instead, the focus is where they are now, only looking forward.
Truly what you glean from this film is that it is hard to be in a band. It’s much like a family. You all love one thing, but personal dynamics can often get in the way.
To be this successful and this creative after a long and turbulent time together is no small feat. What we see is a group of people who have a genuine love for each other and the music. Gone are the glitz, the glamour, the tension of early rock and roll-dom. Here, you get to join some old mates catching up over Victoria Sponge.
This is a story about a very unsure, depressed, anxious young man who just happened to form the greatest rock and roll band of all time.
I’m a fan. I’ve been a fan of The Rolling Stones since I can remember. Like The Beatles, they’ve always been in my orbit. As a child of the 90s and 00s growing up with parents who were children of the 60s and 70s, their music was always in the atmosphere. I’ve watched the documentaries, read the authorised biographies, Keith’s immense book “Life”, and the unauthorised ones. I’ve screenshotted the photos for the fashion and bought the Stones t-shirts.
Mick and Keith were childhood friends who bumped into each other at a train station when they were teenagers. Keith was going to art school at the time, and Mick was studying at the London School of Economics. Keith spied a couple of records Mick had under his arm. A Muddy Waters LP and Chuck Berry’s greatest hits were all it took for the greatest rock and roll duos to come together. The glimmer twins were born.
Mick and Keith started hanging out at the jazz bars in London, where they met Charlie Watts and Brian Jones. The boys formed a band. They advertised for a bass player, and Bill Wyman answered the call. And then the well-known dot points that go something like;
An English cover band for American Rhythm and Blues, hanging with the Beatles, Satisfaction, Marianne Faithful, drug busts, rock and roll circus, Sympathy for the Devil, Anita Pallenberg, Brian dies, Mick Taylor joins, Hyde Park, Hells Angels, exiled in France; Bianca Jagger, more drug busts, fashion, America, Keith arrested in Canada, rehabilitated, Ronnie Wood, stadium band, middle-aged rockers, Jerry Hall, older rockers, greatest hits albums, Sir Mick, Martin Scorsese, crossfire hurricane, 50th anniversary, tour tour tour, Charlie passes away. And here we are in the present.
Brian Jones has always been a dot point in music history.
For a band that’s been going on for as long as the stones have, 2024 coming up to 62 years – they’re official date of conception being 1962 – the interest in their story, music and the passion of their fans is a beautiful thing. They continue to be the soundtrack to countless generations, producing a best-selling studio album as recent as 2023, Hackney Diamonds. The Rolling Stones have always been relevant. It’s hard to think of them as new and up-and-coming. Especially with the inclusion of Bill Wyman in the documentary, now an old man in his 80s.
Brian Jones and the Stones is not an in-depth portrait compared to others, like “Crossfire Hurricane,” but it does give an intriguing look at Brian Jones.
I knew Brian was the catalyst in getting the stones together, and I knew he came up with the name after Muddy Water’s song “Rollin’ Stone” This was his vision for The Rolling Stones, being a cover band of Muddy Water, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson. It’s not a pop band performing their own compositions about Satisfaction or Jumping Jack Flash. Which is such a crazy notion for us fans. You can see why Mick and Keith and the rest of the band couldn’t see Brian’s blinkered view on this. The Stones were hit makers, no question about that. And I wouldn’t be so brash as to call Beggars Banquet or Between the Buttons ‘pop’. This is Rock, albeit popular rock.
Through this film, Brian’s complexities are explored in a melancholy way. Many friends and comrades describe him as a sweet guy, an immensely talented musician, and a gentleman. And then, as success grows, money comes in, opportunities for debauchery come, and his other side comes to the fore. He was a complicated guy before being a Rolling Stone.
His parents kicked him out as a young man for getting his girlfriend pregnant. And a pattern emerges. He charms his way into the homes and families of each new girlfriend he acquires before he is 25—five on the filmmaker’s count. Five children were born to five different women. The first is put up for adoption. The film takes the girls’ point of view as the narrators of Brian’s story, which is a great take, I think. The love he showed them mixed with the abandonment. He’d move in with the girlfriend’s family, get her pregnant and casually move on. Back on tour, back as a Rolling Stone.
One of his girlfriends describes him as a gentleman who would open doors for her and be loving. “When he met my mother, he kissed her hand. Who does that?” Well, most people would say a guy who knows how to play the field does that. A guy who was without a home or loving family and needed one to live with. Sadly.
One unhappy tale comes from Linda Lawrence, mother of his son Julian. Linda needed money from Brian, raising their son on her own, and Brian just laughed at her from his balcony. Brian was with Anita Pallenberg by this time. Perhaps not the best influence on a guy with crippling low self-esteem. Anita Pallenberg, who later went on to date and have children with Keith Richards, is no shrinking violet.
Humans all have the capability of good and evil, and Linda believes that Anita Pallenberg brought out Brian’s vicious side—teasing people and spiking their drinks. When you mix that with fame, money, every available drug in his system, and his band growing tired of his moods and unreliability, Brian’s fate feels like a foregone conclusion.
This is a documentary for the fans. Vintage Stones on the big screen. Their early, unpolished performances in black and white in little theatres across England and Europe, Mick Jagger becoming THE Mick Jagger, singing in a turtleneck jumper, well before the jumpsuits and lavish costumes. We’re taken back to London in the 60’s, a promised land that will always be rhapsodised and always looks cool to those of us who were never there.
Brian was a lost soul with a glimmer of hope to reach his full potential with the stones. A boy who longed for his parents’ approval, the parents who kicked him out before he was making money. When the drug busts were happening in 1967, Brian sent a note to his parents asking, “please don’t think badly of me”. Heartbreaking. Especially with the letter from his father found years after Brains death.
Brian needed to escape something: a pain, a deep insecurity, the five children he had but didn’t know, the girls he abandoned. And drugs were his way to do that. I came away feeling not in awe, just desperately sad for him. An interviewer asks him about his songwriting. You see Mick and Keith stop their pretend chatting in the background and shoot their gaze over to see what Brian was going to say. To Brian’s credit he says it’s not him who writes the hits, it’s Mick and Keith.
“What would you do differently now that you know how hard you have to work?” is the next question for Brian. “I’d do it all the same, 100 times over.”
Brian Jones. Gone but not forgotten.
The British Film Festival 2024 runs from Nov – Dec 8. To book tickets to this or other films click https://britishfilmfestival.com.au/ for session and venue details.
