Kontrol

After crashing the Melbourne Festival opening party last night (literally - apologies to the bartender at the mercy of my wayward elbow), and being mesmerised firstly by Rineke Dijkstra's  I see a Woman Crying (Weeping Woman) at the ACCA opening

then by Santiago Sierra's burning K



- the dancing flames licking the cold Melbourne air, purple violently clashing against vibrant yellow, igniting the sweet smell of fire so foreign in the city.  Accompanied by a satisfying stunned hipster silence, (most blissfuly oblivious to the symbolism of this spectacle - the grand finale in the world wide destruction of letters calling a death knell to 'kapitalism')...

This evening was a sublime medley of dinner, wine and dessert at the wonderful Journal Canteen. 

A fantastic prelude preparing us for the beginning of the festival proper in the best cinema seats in Melbourne - ACMI.  We had come to appreciate the hectic and complex inner workings of the intriguing Anton Corbijn in his most recent biography Inside Out.

In love with his music video clips



and photography

and having already enjoyed the previous film documenting his (dare I say it) more fascinating earlier years in Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn.  Filmmaker Klaartje Quirijns’s Anton Corbijn: Inside Out delves into the psyche of this intensely driven Dutch artist.  One senses it's a keep-moving-lest-drop-into-the-abyss kind of momentum that propels the incredible commercial success of this dark photographer.   This film reveals the present day story behind the only man who could so honestly capture the romance of Ian Curtis in the phenomenal 2007 biopic Control.

All this and the festival's only been going for 24 hours...