MIFF NOTES: A Dragon Arrives! (2016, Dir. Mani Haghighi)

Taking honours for the most bizarre mash-up at the festival, Mani Haghighi's A Dragon Arrives uncomfortably fuses together mockumentary, making-of, and period supernatural action adventure. The Frankenstein monster that results is as thrilling as it is incomprehensible.

Haghighi plays of his film's disorienting structure, framing reality within fiction within reality, till one has to just throw one's hands in the air and go along for the ride. With cinematographer Hooman Behmanesh, the hammering music of Cristof Rezaei to accompany, and a trio of charismatic and very stylish leads (Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh and Ehsan Goodarzi) that ride is well worth it.

I'm hoping someone picks this up for a season sometime later in the year because behind the landlocked Portuguese shipwrecks, underground monsters and secret police, I'm convinced A Dragon Arrives has further secrets to reveal, including some cleverly disguised political commentary.

If nothing else, I'd get to jump on the roller-coaster again.

★★★★

Trailer:

A Dragon Arrives! screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.