Welcome to the 10th annual Fantastic Fest film festival here in Austin, Texas. This is my daily recap which over the next week will primarily recap the film experiences I have has 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. Let chaos reign!
BLINDBlindness is perhaps the most successful cinematic endeavor I have seen chronicling what it means to have lost your sight. A terrifying concept to all of us, a reality to others. Ingrid has recently lost her sight and despite the support of her husband has become withdrawn, retreating to the safety of their apartment. Her isolation comes at a cost though and soon her imagination and efforts to visualize aspects of her life she can no longer see soon blur together and affect her judgment, relationships and well being.
Blind is a intense, intimate and perhaps even voyeuristic look into the psyche of a individual dealing with the loss of vision. Ingrid is a writer and in efforts to continue her work and maintain her ability to visualize elements of reality she tries to cling on to her memories of paces and people, layering them together, Blind shows us her world. It is an incredibly creative and beautifully constructed film, realities are blurred, subtle shifts occur in scenes and other characters are drawn into Ingrid’s construct, often influences by her own fears and desires. More detail will give too much away and Blind is best experienced fresh.
The opening is superb, giving nearly tactile sensations as the protagonist feels her way around her world. Ellen Dorrit Petersen is wonderful in her portrayal of Ingrid, whether it is the sad, quieter moments alone in her apartment or the emotional exchanges with her husband. Credit to her and the scriptwriters for handling her situation with an immense sadness and quiet grace. Incredibly intimate, this is a exposed and vulnerable individual struggling with her place in the world pondering her own limitations in this new phase of her life.
The fact that this is Eskil Vogt’s first feature film is impressive. There is a confidence and technique to Blind that is startling. Exceptional editing and framing complement a thoughtful and affecting script and approach. It is a gut wrenching and a imaginative examination of loss and loneliness yet deftly leaves a sense of hope.
PURGATORYPurgatory is a slow burn, pared down, Spanish horror film. It tells of a married couple, Marta and Luis, who after the loss of their child try to rebuild their lives. Having just moved into a new apartment building, Luis is called away to work leaving Marta alone to answer a knock at the door. Her neighbor is in need of someone to watch over her young son Daniel as her husband has been rushed to hospital. Reluctantly, Marta agrees, being the only person in the building, but and her efforts to engage Daniel are rebuked, instead he finds evidence of her loss and begins to toy with her, suggesting her son’s ghost is in the apartment. The games reach a point where Daniel becomes convinced himself that Marta’s son may indeed be with them.
Purgatory is simple but effective. Opening scenes establish a tangible sense of loss and damage to the couple, notably Marta played superbly by Oona Chaplain (Game of Thrones). Sergi Mendez gives a very natural performance as the invasive and abusive Daniel. His work really does help make the films efforts to blur the lines between the supernatural and the warped games of a child work really well. Most of the film takes place in a single, stark apartment but editing and scripting keep the film moving at a good pace.
Overall, the film manages to captures the agony of losing a child, a recurring theme at this year’s Fantastic Fest, as well as the vindictiveness of our younger generation, unsurprisingly also a theme here, with aplomb. Great emotional performances come from the two main cast members on which the whole film hangs. A quieter horror thriller but done very effectively.
OVER YOUR DEAD BODYTakeshi Miike marks his return to the horror genre, his old playground that gave us Audition and Ichi the Killer. Kosuke and Miyuki are a pair of lovers cast together in a staged adaptation of classic ghost tale Yotsuya Kaidan. The plot is Shakespearean in its nature, ambition, betrayal, murder all mesh together as Kosuke’s character marries and murders his way to a higher social position in feudal Japan. But the staged ongoings are mirrored by the actors real lives in present day. Distrust is sown, infidelity and ambition drive a wedge between the couple and the film blurs the lines between the two, descending into an abstract reality.
Over Your Dead Body is something to be applauded from a technical standpoint. The set design and framing of the play and its representation of feudal Japan is exquisite. It is a slow burn film; it takes its time to build. There is a coldness in much of the performances, an emotional detachment in the early stages that make it hard to engage with the film. As the tension mounts cracks form in the veneer and it becomes far more gripping. The horror aspect is up to the previous standards of Miike; less gore but compensated by the more grounded nature of those people involved.
If you’re a fan of Miike then you will relish his return to horror. It is more focused than his earlier work, perhaps refined after his work on 13 Assassins and Hara Kiri. This accomplished technical aspect is to be applauded but leaves the film with a cold feel, lacking that gleeful frenzy that so marked his more memorable works is sadly missing. There is more here to appreciate than to enjoy.
Day 5 was also host to the Fantastic Awards and Fantastic Feud, both recommended for their magnificent entertainment value and neither recapped due to my fuzzy memory.
