Hey folks, Harry here... with Joe Slutt and his wonderful report from Milan's MIFED. This is pretty interesting, check it out!
This is Joe Slutt. Again, I don't know if this is cool news, but ...
Being the world traveler that I am, I have the absolute pleasure of reporting to you from the MIFED film market in Milan, Italy. Many of your readers probably have not heard of MIFED -- it is an annual bazaar of production companies from around the globe vying to sell the theatrical and television rights of their films to distributors and international markets.
Many producers at these markets also put together ad campaigns for proposed films and attempt to "pre-sell" the rights in an effort to raise capital to finance the completed product. This is why you sometimes see full-page layouts popping up in "Variety" promoting the most absurd projects, such as Eric Roberts starring in a Menaham Golan-produced remake of "M." Most of these productions never see the light of a xenon bulb.
The producers of already completed films stage wall-to-wall screenings in an effort to promote their product to distributors. Screening at the market this year are Takashi Miike's "Horror Musical," Seijun Suzuki's "Pistol Opera" and A Plus Entertainment's "Never Say ... Never Mind," an action romp starring the Swedish Bikini Team.
Unfortunately for the average psychotronic film enthusiast, MIFED defines itself as a market and not a festival. Most presentations cater to big money players who can walk into a screening room with enough money in their bank account to purchase the cable television rights to the film that is unspooling before them.
This is not to say that a resourceful filmgoer can't squeeze his or her way into a screening or two with the help of a wink and a smile. Many screenings are under-attended but companies always want a full house to sell a film to prospective buyers, which is when a stray film geek can sometimes come in handy. Such were the terms of my admittance into a singularly bizarre Japanese film from Pony Canyon called "Shokoki ˆ The Lift!"
Not to be confused with the Dutch cult favorite of a similar name ("...for God's sake, take the stairs!"), "Shokoki" opens with time-lapse renderings of the hectic workaday world of laptop-toting Japanese corporate commandos as they do whatever they spend the majority of their day doing. Within a downtown high-rise, a Domino's Pizza delivery-boy mistakenly hitches a ride upon an elevator headed south and begins to fret aloud about endangering his spotless record of 443 consecutive deliveries within thirty minutes.
As if on cue, the elevators within the building mysteriously grind to a shrieking halt. With the passage of hours, the immediate panic that erupts amongst a handful of people trapped within an individual elevator soon gives way to stultifying boredom and a succession of confessionals. A timid secretary (Risa Junna, whom some will recognize from her many appearances as a celebrity judge on "Iron Chef") laments her lack of self-confidence and her secret desire to become an actress. Her aspirations are met with cynical disregard by a sour-faced television producer who is conveniently present. He offers that all actresses are nothing more than moths drawn to a spotlight. "Look close," he argues, "and they are covered in powder." Odd visions begin to haunt the stranded professionals as if they had suddenly stumbled into a dinner party hosted by Luis Bunuel. Green slime begins to pour into the elevator through its crevices and an injured yet philosophical janitor is discovered hiding inside of a panel in the wall. Distrust and confusion begin to infect this microcosm of contemporary Japanese culture.
Little do these folks realize that an improvisational comedy troupe (Jovi Jova, a six-man crew recently featured as yakuza hoodlums in Shinobu Yagochi's "Adrenaline Drive") is also stranded in a nearby elevator within the skyscraper. The members of this troupe entertain themselves by brainstorming ideas for a film about ordinary people stranded in a similar predicament. They visualize an elevator populated with characters strikingly similar to the ones initially introduced to us. Exploring the dramatic scenarios that might erupt from such a controlled sampling of the Japanese working class, Jovi Jova's imaginations come to life upon the screen and we soon come to understand that the trapped executives may only be the conversational creation of the improvisational troupe.
It's a curious narrative gimmick but one that only exists to serve a pedestrian storyline already too reliant on parody to register with international audiences. One sequence involving the pizza delivery-boy's rebirth as the titular character of James Cameron's "The Terminator" is particularly out-of-left-field and baffling. It's incredible that "Shokoki" is being promoted as a comedy since the film's dense and existential musings on the nature of reality seem to defy most known definitions of "comedy."
I can only offer that it was probably a misguided decision on the filmmakers‚ part to introduce a narcoleptic character 83 minutes into this head-scrambling effort. Everything is too tidily wrapped up in the final reel to leave anything other than the sugary sweet gentility of an inspirational made-for-TV movie in a viewer's mouth. I doubt that I could really recommend "Shokoki" to anybody aside from the most fanatical fans of lead actress Risa Junna, since she does at least play against type to the extent that she sports a butch haircut.
The good news is that MIFED will be roaring along for the rest of the week and I hope to provide you with more updates as they develop.
