Down Under (Australia, dir. Abe Forsythe)
In December of 2005, race riots broke out in the suburban town of Cronulla near Sydney, Australia. Thousands of white Australians got together in a show of force against Lebanese citizens and immigrants. Down Under takes place during the riots and follows two carloads of characters, one white and one Lebanese. Hassim (Lincoln Younes) wants nothing to do with any of it but reluctantly agrees to join Nick (Rahel Romahn) to go looking for his brother Farouk, who has gone missing. Gentle stoner Shit-Stick (Alexander England) is enlisted by racist Jason (Damon Herriman) to join Jason’s “patrol” because he’s the only guy Jason knows with a car. As the day drags on, the two groups of men are unwittingly on a collision course that will have tragic consequences. Down Under is very funny all the way up to its finale, when writer/director Abe Forsythe plays out his characters’ intentions to their logical conclusions. That gear-stripping tonal shift at the end of the film would be tough for anyone to pull off, but Forsythe has given the audience ample time to form sympathies with these characters, and when they actually do things that will ruin their own and others’ lives, it’s positively gutting.
Split (USA, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a glum outsider who was invited to a birthday party for a classmate out of obligation. She gets a ride home with the birthday girl Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Claire’s best friend Marcia (Jessica Sula), but they’re kidnapped in the mall parking lot by Kevin (James McAvoy). They wake up imprisoned in a room and quickly learn that Kevin is not just Kevin--he has 23 personalities, including a cold-blooded matriarch and a 9-year-old boy. Some of Kevin’s other personalities are trying to reach out to his therapist Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), but Kevin is determined to outsmart her and use the kidnapped girls as a sacrifice for “The Beast,” a previously unmanifested evil personality with superhuman abilities. Split is a fun thriller, although it deals clumsily with some potentially problematic material. It’s mostly a showcase for McAvoy to do a variety of styles of character, from the goofy little kid to the prim but cruel old woman to a flamboyant fashion designer with a thick East coast accent. It’s also something of a return to form for writer/director Shyamalan, whose recent detour back into lower-budget filmmaking seems to have creatively reinvigorated him.
Zoology (Russian Federation, dir. Ivan I. Tverdovsky)
Natasha (Natalya Pavlenkova) lives with her mother and their ancient cat. She works in the offices of a zoo with a group of bitchy women who constantly gossip and make fun of her. One day she decides to see a doctor for an unusual issue: she has suddenly grown a tail. The doctor takes this in stride and refers her to a specialist to get x-rays, but before long people in town are talking about an evil woman with a tail who can kill with a look. Even as this strange situation unfolds, Natasha finds herself in a tentative, unexpected romance with a younger man who happens to be her radiologist. For most of its running time, Zoology is a poignant and observant character study of a character type who rarely gets the spotlight. Natalya Pavlenkova is excellent as Natasha, and when her world changes it’s touching to see her come to life. It also means the film is genuinely upsetting as it moves into its finale, which takes a hard turn into very dark territory. So much so, in fact, that it’s tough to recommend without the caveat that it may leave you with some seriously unpleasant things to think about long after the credits roll.
Fantastic Fest 2016: Day 6
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse
Aalavandhan (2001, India, dir. Suresh Krissna)
Celebrated soldier Vijaya (Kamal Haasan) is on the verge of marrying his longtime girlfriend Tejaswini (Raveena Tandon) when he decides to introduce her to his disturbed twin brother Nandha (also played by Haasan), who lives in an insane asylum. Nandha sees Tejaswini as the same kind of manipulative woman who destroyed Nandha and Vijaya’s family, and vows to “save” Vijaya from her. He escapes from the asylum and goes on a rampage, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Can Vijaya stop his brother before it’s too late, or will Nandha’s mad genius overpower him? Aalavandhan is the craziest film of this year’s Indian rep screening sidebar by a wide margin. Even if it just featured this amazing double lead role from massive superstar Haasan--who gained 30 pounds and shaved his head bald to play Nandha--it would be something special, but the film goes on a number of wild tangents that push it over the edge. There’s a lengthy sequence in the first half in which Nandha hallucinates himself and others into an animated action scene that is truly jaw-dropping. Despite the wall-to-wall insanity, the film is expertly paced. At 190 minutes, it’s the longest single film that played Fantastic Fest this year, but its running time flies by. By the time the film gets to a ridiculous car chase sequence designed by Australian stunt legend Grant Page (stunt coordinator for Mad Max and Stunt Rock among many others), Aalavandhan has secured its place in film history as one of the wildest action spectacles of all time. Huge thanks to Fantastic Fest for giving attendees a chance to see this on the big screen!
Faultless (France, dir. Sebastien Marnier)
Constance (Marina Foïs) has just turned 40. She finds herself abruptly evicted from the flat, and with nowhere else to go she returns home under the pretense of taking care of her elderly mother. Six years have passed since she left, and things have changed. Her old boss is reluctant to give her another chance after she walked out without notice before, and her former lover Phillippe (Jérémie Elkaïm) has a young son. When young Audrey (Joséphine Japy) applies for Constance’s old job, Constance invades Audrey’s life by posing as a prospective client and befriending her. Marina Foïs gives a spectacular performance as a character who is damaged and reckless, but whose issues run far deeper than they initially seem. Creating such a character with whom the audience can empathize is a tightrope walk, but Foïs handles it beautifully. Faultless may feel a little cold in its technical precision, but as the tensions coiling throughout the film start to snap in the final act it becomes chilling in an entirely different way.
Popoz (Netherlands, dir. Martjin Smits & Erwin Van den Eshof)
Ivo (Huub Smit) and Randy (Sergio Hasselbaink) are best friends who became cops thinking their lives would turn into one long 80’s American action movie. When they try to apply that philosophy to a hostage situation, things go very badly and the guys end up in jail. Even though they’re no longer cops, they end up crossing paths with criminal mastermind Mercator (Pierre Bokma) and going deeper undercover than they ever have before in order to bring down his cocaine trafficking empire. Popoz is a feature based on characters created for a sketch comedy TV series for Comedy Central in Europe, which has never aired in the States. Familiarity with the show isn’t required to enjoy the film’s absurd humor; co-directors Martjin Smits and Erwin Van den Eshof explained in a Q&A following the screening that the bits on the show are self-contained and characters regularly die only to return in the next segment. The movie never goes quite that far, but it does allow for a lot of weird touches sprinkled in with tons of action film goofs and more of the jokes land than miss. It’s enough fun that I’m really curious to see the series on which it’s based, especially given some of the more bizarre outtakes shown in the film’s end credits.
Raw (France, dir. Julia Ducournau)
Justine (Garance Marillier) is an incoming freshman at the veterinary school where her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) studies. The upperclassmen have aggressive hazing rituals, and when they insist Justine--whose entire family are strict vegetarians--eat raw meat as part of her initiation, she balks. Alexia pressures Justine into complying, and almost immediately Justine begins suffering major physical reactions. She soon learns she also suddenly has a taste for raw meat, including humans, and her relationship with Alexia curdles into a bitter rivalry. Raw is a brilliant debut feature for writer/director Julia Ducournau, a smart and surprisingly funny examination of burgeoning sexuality and the rift it can engender between close family members. In some ways it is reminiscent of John Fa
wcett’s Ginger Snaps, but it’s much more complex and nuanced than that film. Aside from some similarities to the themes they explore, the main parallel between the two films is that they are both defined by a pair of excellent lead performances by young women. Garance Marillier and Ella Rumpf are both fantastic, and they help catapult Raw into being an instant classic in female-focused horror cinema.
Shin Godzilla (Japan, dir. Hideaki Anno & Shinji Higuchi)
On an otherwise uneventful day in Japan, a large creature lurches out of the sea and lays waste to everything it passes as it runs on an erratic path through the nearby city before returning to the water. While the government tries to formulate a response--consulting scientists, passing relief bills for those who were in the creature’s path, holding press conferences to prevent panic--the creature returns, doubled in size, and sets out on a new round of massive destruction. Can the government stop this monster before it completely levels Tokyo? And how much paperwork is going to be left in its aftermath? Godzilla in Shin Godzilla seems to obviously be a metaphor for the 2011 Fukushima disaster, as the focus in the film is squarely on the lumbering machinations of government that have to happen to get anything done in a large-scale crisis. Godzilla is on screen and trashing Tokyo for maybe 20 minutes of the film’s two-hour run time, but the destruction is truly spectacular and the new take on the creature is more creepy and imaginative than it first seems. The other 100 minutes jump around from conference room to conference room, with large on-screen title cards displayed for every one of the film’s dozens of speaking parts, locations, military vehicles and weapons. If this sounds dry, it’s also slyly funny: one running joke involves nominal protagonist Rando Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa) getting an increasingly lengthy job title every few scenes, and there’s more than a little shade thrown at America’s mercenary response to the creature’s discovery. It’s an interesting approach to take, and it pays off. The final shots of the film hint at a much different and exciting possible direction for a sequel, so hopefully enough fans rally behind Shin Godzilla to make that happen.
Fantastic Fest 2016: Day 7
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse
Khal Nayak (1993, India, dir. Subhash Ghai)
Highly successful career criminal/terrorist Ballu (Sanjay Dutt) is finally captured by the ambitious Inspector Ram (Jackie Shroff). But before he can pay for his crimes, Ballu orchestrates a daring escape, and Ram is back to square one. Ram’s girlfriend Ganga (Madhuri Dixit) goes undercover to help capture Ballu again, but as she gets closer to him and learns the story of his tragic life Ganga finds herself falling for the villainous rogue. Khal Nayak is the oldest film on this year’s Indian film repertory sidebar at Fantastic Fest, a massive hit in 1993 and a film that has been hugely influential in Indian cinema. Kumail Nanjiani was at the fest and did a brief intro to the film, talking about growing up watching Indian films in Pakistan with his family and how this film in particular made a big impression on him. It’s easy to see why: driven by a great performance by superstar Sanjay Dutt and packed with catchy songs and elaborately staged musical numbers, Khal Nayak is hugely entertaining.
Nova Seed (Canada, dir. Nick DiLiberto)
The evil hybrid human/animal Doctor Mindskull has been waging war against humanity, and his development of a secret superweapon is poised to tip the struggle in his favor. Desperate to stop him, the head of Earth’s military forces sends another hybrid creature to assist a human strike force. But when they uncover the secret of Mindskull’s ultimate weapon, the chase is on into the forbidden wastelands where Mindskull hides. Nova Seed is a fun, fast animated sci-fi feature informed heavily by Heavy Metal and the art of Jean Giraud (Moebius). It would be fun enough as it is, but the fact that director Nick DiLiberto made the entire film with a handful of other people (a few people make up the entire voice cast) is seriously amazing. It’s action-packed and slyly funny in addition to its impressive design. The use of vocal sounds instead of sound effects only adds to the handmade charm of the film, which feels like the sketchbook of an imaginative teenager sprung to vibrant life.
The High Frontier (Poland, dir. Wojciech Kasperski)
Mateusz (Andrzej Chyra) is dragging his two teenage sons on a “vacation” to a remote border station in the mountains between Poland and Ukraine. Shortly after they arrive, Konrad (Marcin Dorocinski) appears in the distance and stumbles into the station. Mateusz sets off into the snow to find Konrad’s party, leaving the boys to take care of the injured, freezing man. When Konrad wakes up, he quickly proves to be something very different from the victim of chance he appeared to be. The High Frontier is a tense, claustrophobic thriller that pits the intimidating and amoral Konrad against two very naive young men. It’s well-staged and shot, and Dorocinski is great as the devious Konrad. But the film drags a bit in the late running when it should be ramping up, and a pair of side characters who don’t have much impact on the story take up too much screen time. Director Wojciech Kasperski masterfully evokes the bone-chilling cold and the isolation of his unique location, making especially fine use of sound design to evoke the feeling of being trapped inside during a bitter snowstorm. It’s a solid, well-acted thriller, but ultimately it’s not terribly memorable.
The Zodiac Killer (1971, USA, dir. Tom Hanson)
The American Genre Film Archive and Something Weird Video recently entered into a partnership to restore and preserve films from their vaults, kicked off with a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for a 4K film scanner. The first product of that partnership is a new restoration of Tom Hanson’s bizarre 1971 film The Zodiac Killer. The story behind the film is one of those one-in-a-million things that make so much of exploitation film history endlessly fascinating: Hanson, desperate to help catch the real-life Zodiac Killer, decided the best way for him to help bring the reign of terror to an end was to make this movie. He used some details from the actual Zodiac killings and mixed them liberally with wild invention and speculation, including depicting the killer wearing Groucho Marx glasses and a zippered hoodie with a large Zodiac logo on it. He also depicted the killer’s daily life as nearly a sitcom, interacting with lecherous old men and horny housewives when he’s not spending too much time talking to his pet rabbits. AGFA and Something Weird have taken a similar approach to preservation and restoration as home video imprint Vinegar Syndrome, attempting to replicate the look and texture of the film as it was originally projected from grainy film prints. The results are exciting, and give cult/exploitation film fans something to look forward to as they continue working through their archive of forgotten gems.
My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea (USA, dir. Dash Shaw)
Dash (Jason Schwarztman) and his best friend Assaf (Reggie Watts) run the school newspaper with Verti (Maya Rudolph), but they’re having a tough time selling in a world where print is dead. Dash becomes jealous of Assaf and Verti’s budding romance and prints a new issue full of smear stories about them, which leads to a reprimand that prompts him to dig for a real story. He finds it in the dusty school archives: proof that the school’s principal falsified documents regarding the safety of the new gymnasium on the top floor of the building. Dash is sentenced to detention, and soon after the cliff on which the school is set breaks off and falls into the sea. Dash, Assaf, and Verti join forces with Lunchlady Lorraine (Susan Sarandon) to outrun the rising tide and escape the sinking building. Propelled by a bouncy score by Rani Sharone, My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea is fast-paced and very funny, with great work from its voice cast. Comic artist Dash Shaw has made an impressive debut feature here, splashed with vibrant color and charmingly hand-drawn and painted. It’s beautiful to look at, especially on the big screen.
Fantastic Fest 2016: Day 8
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse
Magadheera (2009, India. Dir. S.S. Rajamouli)
Motorcycle stuntman Harsha (Ram Charan) crosses paths with Indu (Kajal Aggarwal), and when they accidentally touch he is jolted with memories and emotions
he can’t explain. He sets off on a quest to win her heart, but her villainous cousin Raghubeer (Dev Gill) also has his sights set on her. As if this wasn’t dramatic enough, it turns out those memories and emotions Harsha experiences were flashbacks to a past life. 400 years earlier this same story played out with tragic consequences, but with the help of Solomon (Srihari)--another reincarnated player in the old story--Harsha may have a chance at reuniting his soul with his beloved if Raghubeer doesn’t kill them both first. The most recent film in this year’s Fantastic Fest Indian repertory sidebar, Magadheera is a wildly entertaining action/fantasy from director S.S. Rajamouli. Rajamouli’s most recent film was 2015’s Baahubali: The Beginning, one of the biggest box office hits in the history of Indian cinema. He also directed 2012’s Eega, in which a young man is reincarnated as a fly to take revenge on the gangster who murdered him. Clearly Rajamouli has no shortage of imagination, and Magadheera has more than enough impressive musical numbers and crazy action sequences for five movies. Once again, huge thanks to the festival programmers for giving American audiences a chance to see these films on the big screen!
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