lots and lots of movies to talk about.
First off - thank you Fantasy Filmfest, thank you so much, as I have missed almost all Berlinale in February this year due to illness and as a film freak I genuinely felt depression and the lack of my yearly filmic overdose weighed upon me. But you gave me back my light this past weekend. So, thank you!
Now, a general overview: Although I said I would go for the full program, in the end that wasn't quite possible because, candidly, my eyes kind of suffered after a full day's extreme film watching on Friday, so I had to skip two movies on Saturday which I thought were kind of "dispensable"; Riddle of Fire and The Empire. Alas, we all are getting older and surely our eyes aren't what they used to be. So I bought eye drops which helped and will be a must have provision for film fests in the upcoming years.
Two other movies I skipped were Gattaca, as well as The Roundup: Punishment, because they were on week nights. Other than that I watched the whole program, 14 showings in 3 days, and honestly, I'm still a little high on film. Let's take a look at the titles.
The romance between frustrated gym clerk Lou and Jackie, a runaway bodybuilder on her way to a contest, is speckled with jealousy, rage, revenge, uncertainty, affection, Ed Harris' very weird hairdo and big egos. It is mainly the energy between the two lead characters Kirsten Stewart and Katy O'Brian which makes this love story palpable, believable and leaves the audience in awe and fascination. And let's not forget Harris' performance as a compelling villain.
Peripherally, with Lou leading the typical life with her pickup truck and bungalow house while Jackie lives on the streets to make her dream come true, we also follow a piece of Americana spiced up with the American gym and gun culture.
It is rare that I watch, let alone appreciate a romance movie since they are usually corny, conveying the stupid message that you have to be in a certain age range, of a certain weight, height and appearance to be allowed to experience love. When I look at series produced outside of USA, it is sheer impossible to find lead couples outside of a certain type. You can't find love stories between, let's say, a taller woman and a shorter man, or two men, or trans people, or people who weigh more than average, giving the impression they don't have romances, and it's something only pretty people who look like little dolls deserve. Not only that, couples usually need to look like each other's clones - how boring and uninteresting. This, exactly, is going to generate depression, it's going to generate eating disorders and the use of drugs which help to reach a certain look.
As a woman who is about 10 cm taller than the average male in the country I grew up in, a country where the female ideal is small, childlike, petite, I had my fair share of bullying, name calling, comparisons to big animals and defiminizing comments, which was hard as a teenager. The one who saved me and helped me get over it was my first boyfriend I still remember fondly, who was an avid reader of Conan the Barbarian comics and a big fan of Red Sonja, which was his pet name for me. (And it all got better for me as I came to Germany where the average height is generally taller.) In bouts of anxiety that comes with having been bullied he used to say "İnci, it is easy to be Radiohead, to sing 'I'm a Creep'. What really takes guts is being Manowar, getting up on that stage, showing yourself and shouting and screaming!" To this day when I'm nervous or having anxiety I play Kings of Metal in my head, ahahaha! So you see how the fiction, the books, the films we consume contribute to the way we see people.
Before this turns into a lecture on the importance of inclusion, I'm getting back at what I wanted to get at - I absolutely ADORED Katy O'Brian as the strong, confident, shining, beautiful bodybuilder with a right sense of justice and heart of gold. She was beautiful. And so was Kirsten Stewart and the loved up way she looked at her co-star and they both made this movie baller and the love story interesting. Ed Harris' wig was impressive too.
Obviously a project that maker Zach Passero put his heart and soul into, he told the audience all about it in the little video speech he gave before the showing. It definitely took me back to a time I was a high school exchange student in the US of A and watching said cartoons and I appreciate that.
Pendant ce temps sur terre deals with rather philosophical questions such as "How far would you go to save the ones you love?" "How much is a person's life worth?" "Does one life hold less value than another?" brought about by the case of a young woman whose brother got lost during a space mission and who is being contacted by some alien life forms to make a deal to bring him back.
In The Invisible Fight actor Ursel Tilk displays a smashing performance as the former Soviet soldier, but later Kungfu monk with a love for Black Sabbath. A pleasure to watch, the flick nevertheless falls into a trap many films with such strongly freaky premises do - the tone of the movie, which starts hilariously changes around the middle mark into dead serious, maybe even a little tedious. I don't know if at some point the jokes get old or the plot just doesn't carry the light tone anymore, but I find it hard to go with such sudden tone changes. The movie is very much worth your time nevertheless and provides for a good time.
For those who are afraid of spiders, Sting was fine for a creature feature. Nothing more, nothing less. It can surely make for a fun movie watch but don't expect too much.
Le mangeur d'âmes/The Soul Eater is a thriller in the vein of Les rivières pourpres, only there's no Jean Reno, not even close. But it has the feel of that movie if you know what I mean. A remote little town, the inhabitants keeping secrets, children go missing... And then two murders at the same time, all victims have been downright butchered, and pathology shows they have been experiencing orgasms while they died... What a wonderful way to go. There's a very unnecessary and trite twist at the end, I wish they hadn't done that. Still, this is the kind of thriller/police procedural I would watch with my mom, she loves stuff like that.
I was very absolutely positively surprised by three movies during this festival, and the first was Boy Kills World, a revenge story set in a dystopian universe of an oppressed society. So refreshing! Bill Skarsgård literally bloody kills it as the deaf-mute fighter boy who was trained by a Shaman to overthrow the government. The pictures, the colors, the film language were all so unique, and the movie so lighthearted, well-paced and never boring that it keeps you glued to the screen all the time. Mind that there are lots of ridiculously gory-bloody scenes though, if that's something that bothers you. I had a blast watching it and the interview with one of the producers and action designer Dawid Szatarski was fun too.
I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed this! Fun, fun, fun, super pacing, hilarious performances, beautifully filmed, a fascinating look at the chaotic trade that is filmmaking - there's a lot to appreciate here.
So, not every movie is going to be great, not even during a festival with a knack for selection. Unfortunately one of the movies I was anticipating most, Suitable Flesh, was... bad. There were people leaving the cinema which didn't happen with the other films. This makes me sad too, because in his pre-show interview director Joe Lynch came across as someone really nice with a little skit he turned the interview into. But he couldn't turn Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep into a movie I could enjoy, and I will write a longer review on this under the column Based on Books, so stay tuned for that. I love the story, by the way.
A cute coming of age story, adorably acted, is what Bitten had to offer on a quiet Sunday morning, and it's indeed the kind of movie to watch on a Sunday morning, an unagitated, unassuming vampire story.
Concrete Utopia. This is it. Koreans can do film. They can make films which hit the nail on the head, which can move you, impress you, which are cinematically and thematically to the point. The last movie to surprise me is at the same time one of those perfect Korean movies, a perfect metaphor for the migration/refugee/first world against third world situation we are in.
The world has gone through some sort of catastrophe of which the nature remains unclear throughout the entirety of the movie. What we know is that all buildings lie in ruins and the weather is extremely cold. Through a streak of luck only one apartment complex remains intact and by and by the now homeless inhabitants of the neighboring apartment buildings start looking for refuge in the intact block. A voting takes place to throw these out into the cold and from there on a system is born which is based on protecting the building from those on the outside, maintaining a sustainable life management and trips to the outside to scavenge resources such as food, if necessary by force. As we say in Turkey the root of all uproar is when one eats and the other watches.
Touching, nerve-shattering adventure which will give you chills and thrills.
Oddity is a quiet ghost/ folk horror story about revenge through a golem. When a story advances as slowly and quietly as Oddity does, then jump scares are all the more effective and director Damien Mac Carthy makes full use of them here. Exactly three times did the poor chap in front of me almost jump out of his seat, which must be a compliment to the filmmakers! I can see how you would be startled by a loud noise, I too am sensitive to loud sounds, but there was in this movie also one perfect jump scare which involves the sudden change of position of the golem and it's quite something. Perfectly proper, good horror which builds solidly up, emphasizing the effectiveness of quiet humor as well as quiet horror.
My advice is to go see this movie without watching any trailers in advance if you can, and without any expectation. I'm not joking, this movie is 1h 23 min long, and I felt like only half an hour had passed when it was suddenly over, that's how invested I was in the show. If you're not familiar with the concept - this film is made in the format of a late night show during their Halloween special and weird things happen, but is it all a show or is it real? You are so into it while watching that I realized that a young men in the row in front of me was clapping his hands when the audience in the show applauded, he was joining them, the degree of engagement! I want more of this! I will write an unspoilered longer post about this movie and the surge of possession horror going around right now. The movie will start running on the 6.6.24 in German theaters, mark your calendar and please call me when you go because I want to re-watch as many times as I can.
And last but not least, the Turkish ZomRom (yes, it's apparently a genre) Cenaze/The Funeral. I am very sorry to report that this was a flop for me. The story of a funeral vehicle driver, Cemal, discovering that one of his "clients" is not dead at all offers a nice premise, and Cemal going out hunting for "food" or offering his own flesh when push comes to shove, enhance the excitement. But the mystery of Zeynep becoming Zombie, the weird religion her family practices (and which use a crooked anarchy symbol as their sign???) and the masked people wandering around their property aren't explored and clarified enough to make sense for me. Also I can't say I'm crazy about the costumes and makeup, but that's personal taste, I guess. In any case Ahmet Rıfat Şungar, as expected, shines with his stellar performance, and it is a beginning, probably a first Turkish Zombie movie, not bad in that sense.
So my friends, another festival done. All in all I had a blast of a time at the Fantasy Filmfest Nights and I can't wait for upcoming horror film events. I feel energized for the next months to come.
Comments
Post a Comment