ANYONE who has immersed themselves in the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival over the last nine days or so probably knows exactly what director Darren Aronofsky means when he calls the capital "Edinblur" – the name he gave the place after a hectic few days here with his debut film Pi ten years ago. The Wrestler director's In Person event has been just one of the highlights of what has been fairly whirlwind event this year.
My own rapidly blurring memories include the donkeys, organists and hula-girls on Lothian Road outside the All Tomorrow's Parties screening; having my eardrums drums blown by Mogwai (ATP again) and gently tortured by Gael Garcia Bernal's impromptu Spanish language version of Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me (at the Rudo & Cursi premiere); suffering the sauna-like conditions of the Filmhouse while trying to watch Blaxploitation parody Black Dynamite (seriously guys, no air conditioning in June?); experiencing the lyrical delights of East Midlands rap courtesy of Le Donk; being grilled by Adventureland star Jesse Eisenberg about Burke & Hare and, of course, seeing some pretty good films (and some not so good) along the way.
It's something of a shame, then, that after what has been a mostly fascinating festival, it should be drawing to a close on such a depressingly bland note with tomorrow night's European premiere of Adam, a cutesy Hollywood take on autism. As the film's titular 29-year-old Asperger's sufferer, Hugh Dancy doesn't quite go – to quote Robert Downey Jr – "full retard," but he's on the spectrum, and the film certainly conforms to the clichés of this most specious of subgenres by treating his condition as an adorable character quirk, one that allows him to form a tender relationship with his gorgeous new neighbour (Rose Byrne) while teaching us important life lessons about being honest with our feelings.
You only have to compare it to Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot's brilliant adult animation movie Mary and Max to see how bad it really is. One of the highlights of the festival's middle weekend, this also dealt with Asperger's syndrome, but in a far more sophisticated, interesting and unsentimental way thanks to a beautifully crafted, insightful and often very funny script detailing an ongoing epistolary relationship between an awkward Australian schoolgirl (voiced by Toni Collette) and an obese New Yorker (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Indeed it's a shame Edinburgh didn't give this film the honour of closing the festival.
Elsewhere, it was also too bad the festival wasn't able to secure a few more of the big, talking-point films from Cannes for the Gala section. Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Pixar's Up were sorely missing in a line-up that included dreary middlebrow fare such as the latest Crash rip-off Fragments, French prestige picture Seréphine, Rebecca Miller's protracted quirk fest, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and David Mackenzie's vacuous American debut Spread. Having said that, fashion documentary The September Issue went down well at its premiere, especially every time its subject, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, tried to register something approaching human emotion.
The last-minute addition of Lars Von Trier's Antichrist gave the festival a bit of a jolt, too. Personally, I hated the film and thought it was little more than a tediously provocative joke at the audience's expense, but I've met others who have liked it for those exact same reasons, and I've overheard plenty of debates about its merits (or lack thereof), which makes it a great film for a festival such as Edinburgh.
Kudos, too, for giving Edinburgh audiences the first opportunity to see Andrea Arnold's astonishing Fish Tank, which featured a remarkably assured performance from newcomer Katie Jarvis, who celebrated her 18th birthday the day after its premiere last Sunday evening. It was great, too, to be amongst the first to see Moon, the excellent debut film from British promo director Duncan Jones. Though Jones must now be sick of having people ask him about being David Bowie's son, when the film was finally unveiled it turned out to be that rarest of things: an ambitious, low-key, sci-fi film fuelled by provocative ideas rather than amped-up special effects.
Both Fish Tank and Moon also proved British cinema can compete with the best films from around the world, and festival favourite Shane Meadows provided some entertaining back-up with his riotous new film Le Donk. Shot in five days for £50,000 with an entirely improvised script, this faux documentary about a rock 'n' roll roadie (Paddy Considine) and his sublimely-named rap prodigy Scor-zay-zee, might have been more of a throwaway piece of fun than a full-blown feature, but that didn't make it any less valid. If anything it was a heartening reminder not only that British cinema can be extremely funny, but that there are a wealth of stories are out there waiting to be told in ever more inventive ways. It's just a shame no-one seemed to tell any of the Scottish filmmakers that. Both Wasted and Running in Traffic were excruciating and borderline unwatchable, the kind of films that mistakenly believe wallowing in the misery of the under-classes is automatically the stuff of compelling drama. The Scottish-Irish co-production Wide Open Spaces wasn't much better. A lame buddy-com about a pair of wastrels who take a job helping construct Ireland's first Famine Theme park (and doesn't that description just make your heart sink?), it served up zero jokes, very few insights into male friendship and featured Ewan Bremner at his goofy worst.
Only the Edinburgh-set Crying With Laughter had any life about it, thanks largely to ballsy central performance from Stephen McCole as a hard living stand-up who has the worst week of his life after reconnecting with an old schoolmate. Frustratingly, while the film was intriguingly structured to show how a comedian's daily experiences work their way into his material, the thriller element of the plot became increasingly preposterous, to the point where debut writer/director Justin Molotnikov had to resort to having a character with dementia suddenly reveal all the key information necessary to bring proceedings to a head.
It's not really good enough and, admirable though the festival's commitment is to showcasing and supporting Scottish film, perhaps if it exerted a little more quality control, instead of operating what appears to be a quota system, it might encourage up-and-coming filmmakers to be as daring and original as Darren Aronofsky was when he made Pi (which, incidentally, was made for a fraction of the cost of even the lowest-budgeted Scottish playing in the festival).
That kind of daring was present in the festival in the form of Van Diemen's Land, a stunningly shot Australian film charting the disastrous attempts of a group of convicts to escape into the Tasmanian wilderness. Artfully directed by first-timer Jonathan auf der Heide (who told me he had his cast-and-crew screening on his 30th birthday!), it was a mature, atmospheric and hugely accomplished film. And it wasn't afraid of taking risks either. In an effort to remain true to the Irish roots of it real-life protagonist, Alexander Pearce, lead actor and co-writer Oscar Redding moved to Ireland to learn Gaelic so he write it into the script, giving the whole thing an even stranger, more alien quality. Now, why can't our filmmakers be this ambitious?
• To find all of Alistair Harkness's Film Festival reviews, visit
www.scotsman.com/artsblogCRITIC'S CHOICE
Best of the Fest, Edinburgh, 28 June, various venuesAs the EIFF draws to a close, here's one more chance to catch some of its highlights, including Van Diemen's Land, Mary and Max, Moon and Fish Tank.
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