MY BROTHER THE DEVIL Gets Ready For Sydney Film Fest

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The Sydney Film Festival is like a lot of the local film fests: it plays a lot of interesting, quality stuff, along with a bunch of pandering bullshit that tries to dress up like quality, interesting stuff.

Twitchfilm has listed the trailer for promising My Brother the Devil as its ‘trailer of the day’ for the Sydney Film Festival, and it’s not hard to see why: this one has just enough to keep us genre-enthusiasts interested, all the while ticking enough boxes to keep Mrs. Tasteful from dropping her monocle.

Now, I’m totally cool with mixing genre elements up with low-key, familial drama. Hell, done right, it’s astounding (I’m looking at you, This Is England), but it often just feels like a cheap way to get middling dramas to feel more Important by injecting some lurid thrills in there aimed at a wide-bracket.

Not to say that My Brother the Devil is necessarily doing this. The trailer shows a lot of promise – the cinematography in particular looks quite special. And I’m a sucker for family dramas revolving around crime – it’s just such fertile ground, and I dig the minorities-in-suburban-England take on this, as the sense of alienation these kids are feeling, even in the trailer, is palpable.

It follows two Egyptian brothers, the older of which is mixed with drug dealing gangs, who wants a better life for his younger brother, away from the violence he is mired in. Again, this is all fertile ground for a heavy crime flick, or a moving drama, but something about it just looks a little tired. Have a watch of the trailer, tell me if I’m wrong, but it just seems like the kind of fare that’s designed to get some momentum behind it at the festivals like this, but do little beyond that. It seems just a little too keen on mentioning all its important themes through character’s dialogue. Like it might be horribly earnest and pander to a festival audience who’re just out to see films that make them feel better about themselves, and generate conversation topics that are edgy, but not too edgy, with their rich friends over shithouse coffee later on.

And that, Sydney Film Festival, is why you should fly me up and pay me to be a correspondent.

It really is too early to tell, though, and I’m maybe being unfair – it’s quite possible that they’ve just cut a bit of an awkward trailer to try and hedge their bets on audience. Regardless, I’m (quietly) barracking for this one, as it seems to have some decent performances from the kids in it, and has a unique enough perspective that it’ll probably be worth a watch. Just be strong, and be the best you can be, My Brother the Devil, and I’m there with you all the way.

Well, most of it. No squares allowed.