Welcome to the 9th annual Fantastic Fest film festival here in Austin, TX. This is my daily recap which over the next week will primarily recap the film experiences I have as well as touch on the mental and physical status of the Festival going folk, myself included. My entertainment is guaranteed but please, pray for my well being. To the fest!
MOOD INDIGO (Some Spoilers)
Here was a bit of a treat: the first US screening of the new film from Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep, Be Kind Rewind) which currently has no US distribution deal so who knows when it will surface on these shores.
The film opens and shows us the whimsical life of Colin (Romain Duris), living in Paris his days are animated affairs; literally. The visuals in this opening make use of stop motion and show everyday objects such as a doorbell or blender becoming magical items. Everything takes on its own spin in ways reminiscent of Pee Wee Herman or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Colin lives a life of frivolity supported by a small personal fortune; he has a personal chef/lawyer/friend who caters to his needs and a best friend named Chick. Over lunch one day Chick reveals he has fallen in love with a girl over their shared love of a writer. Colin insists he has to fall in love too and is taken to a party and introduced to Chloe (Audrey Tautou). Their romance begins; they date, fall in love and marry. While on their honeymoon, Chloe falls ill and as her condition deteriorates, so does the world they live in.
The first part of the movie is an extraordinary and wondrous achievement where the mundane becomes magical. Frivolous, decadent and disposable. These words sum up Colin’s life. Surrounded largely by enablers and an enabler himself, he is ill-equipped to handle the changes in his fortune that come as the movie develops. Soon he and all around him begin to pay for their wanton excess and the film transitions with a decay setting in on both the world and palette of the film. As Chloe is drained of life so too is the movie drained of magic and color and Colin and his friends must face up to the responsibilities and consequences of everyday life. It is a gradual and heartbreaking change but a lesson about living without care or considering the consequences. This latter portion is pretty hard viewing at times but still peppered with some dark, humorous moments.
A negative facet to proceedings is the somewhat cold, detached performance from the cast, notably Audrey Tatou. A quirky turn yes, but the emotional resonance from the second half of the film would have been more powerful if she had turned in something that had made me fall in love with her myself. Instead Gondry seems more interested in imbuing scenes with technical whimsy such as dance scenes with elongated limbs or a ‘live in’ mouse helping with various aspects around the house. The world he creates has more character than the people who live in it and so we are taken through the whole gamut of emotions but not necessarily for the right reasons.
I have summed up to people that the movie is the equivalent of giving someone a puppy for an hour and then crushing that puppy to death. Wonderfully beautiful and brutal in equal measure, Gondry has again produced a mesmerizing piece of cinema that is a gut punch of emotion but just falls slightly short of greatness.
THE GREEN INFERNO
Fantastic Fest usually hosts 2–3 ‘secret screenings’ and this year was no different. Unaware of the title, we took our seats and were joined by Eli Roth presenting The Green Inferno. This film was picked up for distribution at the Toronto International Film Festival and as such this was declared to be the final screening before general release, whenever that will be.
The Green Inferno is basically Roth’s take on the cannibal movie genre. The film introduces us to a group of college kids involved in an activist group taking a trip to Peru with the intent of halting the destruction of an indigenous tribe in the rain forest there. They arrive, manage to halt the construction and soon, after chastisement from local police, find themselves on a plane back to the US during which a malfunction causes them to crash. The survivors immediately encounter the aforementioned tribe and…well…shit happens.
This ‘buildup’ took around 40 minutes. The purpose being character development I believe. Sadly this was not achieved. I understand this is a cannibalism movie but some decent lines and delivery could have helped the film in these early stages. Dialogue is not this film’s strong point. The encounter with the tribe onwards gives the film a different lease on life. Filmed in a real village deep in the Peruvian jungle, the inhabitants were used as the natives in the film. These scenes, with the students held captive, each succumbing to their fate in different grisly ways, were actually handled pretty well. I don’t feel the ‘cannibalistic’ scenes were overly intense, there were other themes dealt with during this segment I found to be a bit more disturbing. Sadly, although an improvement, the first half of the movie being so awful only serves to undermine the latter half.
I will say the Q and A was pretty interesting, we had insight into the search for a location, negotiating with the tribe to use their village for filming and how they compensated them for their involvement. Apparently the tribe were first introduced to the concept of what a movie is and were shown Cannibal Holocaust, which they thought was a comedy. There is apparently plenty of behind the scenes footage shot which MAY make it’s way to the eventual Blu-Ray release. Finding and scoping out the village, interacting with the locals, introducing them to various technologies and concepts… that interests me more than seeing the film again. That being said, the portrayal of the villagers was distinctly one-sided, a somewhat exploitative act perhaps? The village was shown the film and had the scenario explained to them but a question lingers over how much they actually understood about what was going on.
I’m sure some people will love it, many raved about the reverential inclusion of previous cannibal movies in the credits and the respect it paid to them. But I can’t help but think that people deserve better, it doesn’t take a large budget or a big name actor to inject some integrity into a film, as this festival has solidified further in my mind. The Green Inferno is underwhelming and a missed opportunity to utilize a great resource in the native people to produce a film that had a bit more substance than just shock value.
MARUYAMA THE MIDDLE SCHOOLER
One of my picks pre-fest was this film about a school kid who trains to develop the ability to lick his own penis. With most insane sounding Japanese movies you nearly always get more than you bargained for and this film was no exception.
Maruyama is a kid with a vivid imagination, imagining crazy scenarios such as his parents being aliens or secret agents. During one such daydream the idea of licking his own penis enters his mind, from there on out it occupies every waking moment. He trains, he stretches, he takes hot baths to ‘increase flexibility’ all to achieve this aim. A new neighbor moves into his tower block and soon after a spate of murders begins in the neighborhood. Maruyama begins to suspect this new arrival and his possible connection to the deaths. However, his imagination begins to play far too active a role in his investigations.
A large portion of the film deals with these co-inhabitants of the community with tales about an elderly neighbor with dementia and his musical abilities, Maruyama’s mother’s obsession with a Korean soap actor and the discovery he is the apartment building’s new electrician, and many others. Ultimately, all these amusing side stories come together into an over the top action daydream sequence before the real ending which takes on a somewhat darker tone dealing with the truth behind the killings and how Maruyama’s imagination is not that far from the truth.
The synopsis may put off many from watching this film but it is not what it appears to be, there is a charming weirdness going on but the writing and characters are funny and endearing and the manifestations of Maruyama’s imagination are inventive and hilarious.
At its core, Maruyama The Middle Schooler is not a fucked up example of Asian cinema, instead it is a trippy insight into the overactive imagination and sexual awakening of a young boy. A sweet and touching film with tons of charm and hilarity that deserves a wider audience than it will probably get.
KID’S POLICE
I rounded out Day 4 with one of my most anticipated films, Kid’s Police. Based on a Japanese TV show, the film is about a police investigation unit that has been exposed to a gas turning them into children by the focus of their investigations, the Red Venus crime syndicate.
We open with a fantastic montage giving us a quick introduction to all the members and their real ages that sets up the film perfectly, each kid fitting into one of your general cop stereotypes, the rebellious younger one, the older food junkie, the brooding and wily Chief and a rookie, who at 27, has not been exposed to the gas but hilariously (despite being the only adult in appearance) is toyed with and spoken down to by all his superiors in spite of their situation. The actual plot is fairly interesting, Red Venus is causing trouble, the team fractures, regular cops take over and mess up while the special division all forge their own investigations, gradually reuniting to take them down. Standard cop movie stuff, but handled well with the extra dimension of the cast being kids and dealing with those additional problems; or in some cases the advantages such a predicament brings.
Kid’s Police is not a crazy over the top movie or silly spoof, it actually plays out as a pretty decent crime thriller, it just so happens the cast are kids. The characters demand and usually get the respect they deserve and the child actors play it straight for the most part. Fuku Suzuki is pretty amazing as the Chief, hell he even won the award for best comedy actor at the Fantastic Fest awards… his hair, man… his hair is beautiful! The whole cast really do turn in great performances, often a movie can stumble when a child actor is involved, here we have six of them, all brilliant. Most of them get some development in the film, one meeting with an ex-lover, one with conflicted emotions over being undercover in a school and another enduring a tortuous ordeal of having his ‘undercover parents’ force him to audition for a movie role. We see them in their world, dealing with crime and also how their real lives have been interrupted by their transformation.
This movie had its roots in a TV show and that is probably a better medium, reminiscent of the Danger 5 film/show screened at last years fest. I think some would tire of it over the length of a feature but personally I loved it. The handling of the characters in this situation was tonally perfect, not played to be a spoof. And the cast, kids included just nailed it. A hell of a lot of fun.
NANI?!