SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2014.

By picking my way through the schedule I managed to avoid any Bella Tarr imitations or accounts of oppressed South American Marxists, which may have been concealed in the Twenty Dollars a Ticket Thicket. What I saw would have fitted comfortably into the neighborhood Multiplex or the art cinemas down the road, where sure enough a swathe of them appeared the following week. This was good news/ bad news.

Particularly intriguing was Bai Ri Yan Huo/ Black Coal - Thin Ice a curious departure for the Chinese/Hong Kong cinema, a crime piece without the hustle of their action cinema. It did manage to field an on screen last man standing shoot-out and a murder with ice skates but even these are staged in an accidental, half realist style. Harbin cop Liao Fan screws up a body fragments in the coal conveyor belt investigation and finds himself drawn back into events involving the purport victim's impassive widow. It is both a noir with a femme fatale and nocturnal, Edward Hopper influenced images and also a record of the tackiness of Chinese provicial city life, the two making an unfamilar mix.

Director Diao Yinan made a winning personal appearance, nervously fronting the screening and fielding questions in Mandarin. We can hope to see his short filmography extending now.

Isao Takahata's exceptional Tale of Princess Kagyua.

Even more impressive was Kagyuahime no monagatori/ The Tale of Princess Kagyua the probably last film of animation Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, whose 1988 Grave of the Fireflies made up half of the company's retrospective. The new film is a genuine masterpiece turning the Tenth Century narrative into an entertaining, complex, alien experience, which takes days to absorb and maybe years to understand. Forget Lord of the Rings! We're not used to seeing the  fantasy mystery elements or the elaborate court life of the Japanese costume movie animated in these water colour tones.

Takahata had always been overshadowed by his associate Hayao Miyazaki and it's no surprise to find the same thing happening in Mami Sunada's Documentary Yume to kyôki no ohkoku/ The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, concentrating on Miyazaki making As the Wind Rises, while Takahata struggles with Princess Kagyua in a building down the road. The studio's white cat gets more attention than Takahata. The film is instructive when watching the crews working away on paper, with not a computer in sight, or seeing the voice tracks laid down successively to still and line animation images. It it goes into the valuable record box.

Other documentaries included Frank Pavich's Jodrowsky's Dune, a handsome film-that-never-was account fielding Jodo and some of the celebrity talents drawn into his wake. Steve (Hoop Dreams) James' Life Itself was much grimmer, spending a disproportionate time on Roger Ebert's cancer wracked decline, brave as it was. It didn't do justice to critic Ebert's individual contribution to the film scene.

Characteristic of the festival was Daniel Burman’s Argentinian El misterio de la felicidad / The Mystery of Happiness - more middle class feel good in the manner the director's Family Law. We know pill popping blonde wife Ines Estevez is going to take off her glasses and we’re all going to go to the sea side but it’s agreeable. It has the edge on Zach Braf's I  Wish I Was Here, which kicks off nicely with a character based jokey account of wannabe actor Braff facing a crisis so severe that he has to take his kids out of Jewish education, while father Mandy Patinkin sucumbs and brother Josh Gad     prepares for Comicon.  The film sags at the end, with Kate Hudson struggling with the more sentimental material. More of the same but not as good was Sophie Fillières' Arrête ou je continue/ If You Don't, I Will with Emanuelle Devos and Mathieu Almaric as a prosperous middle aged couple, whose marriage is coming apart. Films like this will devalue the currency of the admirable leads to Audrey Tatou level.

Kool Shen & Huppert Abus de faiblesse.

Catherine Breillart is someone else whose market value takes a pounding after the quasi autobiographical Abus de faiblesse/Abuse of Weakness, where Isabelle Huppert is a stroke victim movie producer taken for everything she owns by a none too plausible con man, echoing the Breillart/Christophe Rocancourt affair. It lacks the transgressive impact we value in the director's work. The Dardenne brothers are establishment critics’ fetish film makers - no frills coverage of Blue Collar issues. In Deux jours, une nuit/Two Days One Night having Marion Cotillard along among their regulars does no harm at all, as she tries to convince fellow workers keeping her job is more important than their bonuses. The film carried off one of those dodgy festival awards.

Even closer to the film festival norm we get Louise Archambault's Gabrielle, with mentally challenged Gabrielle Marion-Rivard demanding an adult life she is not able to sustain. The improvised scene where Canadian celebrity singer Robert Charlebois rehearses with the thrilled choir is particularly endearing. Enthusiastic co-star Alexandre Lamy showed up to field questions.  Ritesh Gartra's Indian The Lunchbox is a local colour romance that has made a surprise cross-over into international art house hit. Endearing characters are undermined by implausibilities. Add Two Faces of January a Patricia Highsmith adaptation with Virgo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac a trois in an uninvolving Greek  sixties intrigue and Frank which is pretty much what you would expect when the British Film Institute gets into movie making - moments of interest with Maggie Gyllenhall doing "On Top of Old Smokey" and Michael Fassbender in a dome head.

Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?, Michel Gondry’s high contrast doodling played over Noam Chomsky’s pondering on Big Issues is something new. Not My Diner with Andre revisited. With Willow Creek  the endearing Bobcat Goldthwaite does Blair Witch but there’s some Island of the Dead in there too. The shift from tourist trap gags into scary movie is remarkable. David Gordon Green's Joe takes the Pineapple Express/Eastbound and Down lot into grim. Nic Cage is the strong man among the Austin bottom feeder tree killers. The ultra violence may be too much for the multiplexes.

Time was when the Sydney Film Festival was the highlight of the local year. Now it's become a chore. Though the aim is pulling in crowds that see the banners flapping on lamp posts, determined or even casual film goers can still find things to enjoy but the days of risk taking, when to ignore it could be to miss a once only chance at something substantial, seem to have passed, along with a program book that gave you detailed credits and retrospectives that introduced major unknown talents. Are these films really more substantial than the work of Leonardo Petraccioni, Alex de Iglesia or Feng Xiaogang to pick a few names that assert from a bit of travel or checking ethnic DVD sources?

We are left with the same question. Where is there for the serious movie enthusiasts to go now?