Hey folks, Harry here... Well seems that the Danish Natfilm Festival in Copenhagen has been going on for the past couple of weeks and our man on the scene, SchizoRabbit, was there to give us the highs and lows of it all. I've been lucky enough to see nearly every single film he's writing in about save for two. De Grønne Slagtere and Alive. Unfortunately he says Alive does not live up to VERSUS... However, De Grønne Slagtere sounds absolutely fucking fantastic! If you know how I can get a print of De Grønne Slagtere to screen at the ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE, let me know... good cannibal cinema is hard to come by. Here ya go...
Hi Harry.
This is my first time writing to you.
For the last couple of weeks I've attended the Danish Natfilm Festival in Copenhagen.
Here’s my ramblings on 13 of the movies shown. ( I’m not describing the plot of these films, only what I thought of them, simply because this mail would otherwise become longer than anybody would bother to read and because it would take forever to write. )
Lost In La Mancha - I really liked this movie. It's gives you an opportunity to learn about the film-making process. It reminded me a little of Full Tilt Boogie, the documentary on From Dusk Till Dawn, in that we get to experience the different sides of a crew and cast, as the moods change from happiness, when things are working out, to desperation and panic, when obstacles emerge. And it's fair to say that Terry Gilliam had his fair share of problems with getting his vision of Don Quixote to the screen. You can't help feeling sad for him and I really hope he'll succeed one day. Even though Bowling For Columbine is arguably a better, more effective film, I feel that this is a better documentary, because it's not as manipulative. It doesn't need to be, the story is genuinely fascinating in itself. Highly recommended.
Alive - Having seen Versus at last year's festival, this was the movie I was looking forward to the most. And let me tell you, it was a big fucking letdown. The only thing I really knew about it was that it would be sci-fi, and I guess I was expecting the same extremely high-paced action-nonsense that Versus delivered. Alive, however, fails miserably to deliver a single impressive action sequence! Most of the movie is pure build-up, anyway, with scenes switching between two prisoners stuck in a room, and a control room where some scientists and their crazy superiors are watching them. It isn't, however, because of its weak story that Alive fails (the plot in Versus wasn't exactly spectacular, either). No, it's the fact that during Alive's two-hour running time, all that happens seem to lead up to the end battle, which as I mentioned is a huge letdown. The only (slightly) redeeming qualities I can think of in Alive are some cameos from a couple of the actors from Versus and the fact that some of the girls in the movie are pretty hot. Apart from that, this movie isn't worth your while, be warned!
Hotel - This was the last movie I saw at the festival. I've just got home from seeing it and I'm still frustrated to have spent my money on this piece of trash. Seriously, of the over 500 films I have seen in the new millennium, this is perhaps the WORST (and yes I have watched Rancid Aluminium, The King's Guard and Frank McKlusky, C.I with hardly any problems)! This movie refuses to make any sense, it is virtually plotless and what bothers me the most is the fact that Mike Figgis has been able to gather so many big stars to take part in this embarrassingly pretentious, self-indulgent mess of a boring film. So there, I've done my best, but words cannot convey how incredibly horrible this film truly is. And please understand this: I don't hate Dogme films in general. Being from Denmark, I really liked Festen (The Celebration) and appreciated that the Dogme rules were invented to shift the focus to the story and the performances. This, however is not at all what Figgis has done. I even rather enjoyed his other experimental film Time Code and Soderbergh's Full Frontal. But with Hotel, Figgis has crossed an important line which separates experimental art from worthless garbage.
Fear X - This is made by Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish director who made the brilliant Pusher. It's a very ambitious movie and, like Thomas Vinterberg has done with his new movie It's All About Love, Refn has chosen to make the film abroad with an American cast and crew. Of the two movies I certainly like Fear X better. Vinterberg's movie is pretty pretentious and the story is kind of lame. Besides, stylistically Refn's film is far more impressive. He manages to create a feel of 'noir' and the film is at times weird in a mystical, bordering on 'Lynch-ian', way. John Turturro gives a great performance and the cinematography is beautiful. Therefore it is unfortunate that he's let down by the script which he has co-written with Hubert Selby Jr., the writer of Requiem For A Dream. It fails to tie up all the loose ends and that's a damn shame, because the rest of the movie is truly top-notch.
De Grønne Slagtere - Another Danish movie premiering at the festival. This is somewhat of an oddity. It's about two butchers who opens their own store, without any real success. However, when a man freezes to death in their cold room and they're out of chicken, well, they get an ingenious idea which suddenly makes their store extremely popular. Only problem is, they're soon out of meat… This may sound gross, but it's not a horror movie at all. It's black comedy at it's best, with two very funny performances by Nikolaj Lie Kaas and especially Mads Mikkelsen as the more psychotic of the two. What doesn't work in the movie are the scenes where the writer and director, Anders Thomas Jensen, tries to be serious and make us care for the characters. Therefore it's not as good as the fantastic action-comedy 'In China They Eat Dogs', which he wrote a few years ago. However, the humor in the movie is great and it has plenty of sharp one-liners which sent the entire audience into an uproar of laughter.
Demonlover - I watched this movie because I wanted to see if Connie Nielsen, who's Danish by the way, could pull off playing a character who's fluent in both French and English. I thought she was great and Demonlover starts of really well, too. It's interesting, stylish, unpredictable - basically all that's needed to make a great thriller. Unfortunately, the movie eventually falls apart. Refusing to end and with more and more people dying, the movie becomes very unbelievable and incoherent. Furthermore, last twist is totally superfluous. On top of that, the ending is terribly predictable, which is a shame, because I guess it could have been kind of disturbing if the movie hadn't hinted at what was coming for the final hour or so. I should probably also remember to comment on the 3d hentai short film included.. It's pretty well-made, but it's not worth seeing Demonlover just because of it. Still, there is one short animated movie that I would definitely recommend you to see at all costs. It was attached to one of the other movies I saw...
Dreamcatcher - Without going into any details, let me just say this: The Animatrix episode Final Flight to Osiris is the single most enjoyable, breathtaking piece of cinema I have set my eyes on for a long, long time. I would kill to see a full-length movie which was just half as cool as this! Enough said. It's pretty hard concentrating on Dreamcatcher after having just being wooed by the aforementioned, but that doesn't really matter, because this is a film which demands that you turn of your brain completely. With that being said, this is also one of those movies which are so incredibly bad that they're actually kind of good. I haven't read the book and the trailer doesn't even hint at the fact that this is a monster movie. Ultimately, though, it isn't the monsters that ruin the movie. On the contrary, they were what made the movie sort of fun. What is unacceptable in the movie is all the clichés. The flashbacks to the main characters' childhood and the whole plot involving the mentally challenged kid is the real horror in this movie. What's truly ironic is that, even though I absolutely despise the movie, this is probably the one (full-length) movie that entertained me the most on the entire festival! I still don’t understand what Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore was doing in the movie, though. The subplot involving them seemed kind of tacked on and unnecessary to me.
Phone Booth - This movie was pretty entertaining as well. Farrell is great. After this and his hilarious performance as Bullseye in Daredevil, Farrell is starting to live up to the hype that has been surrounding him for quite some time. Kiefer Sutherland does a good job, too, providing the sniper's voice, but in the end the movie suffers from being too similar to Liberty Stands Still. Now, I know that the Phone Booth script have been around for ages, probably long before anybody had even considered making LSS, but that doesn't change the feeling of deja vu when watching the film.
The Eye - It would be stupid to dismiss this as a rip-off of The Sixth Sense, just because it's a ghost story. Visually, it completely holds it's own, creating an incredible atmosphere, in part because of the thoroughly effective use of blurring the screen, so that the audience see what the main character, who has had a cornea transplant, sees. Or perhaps more importantly, what she doesn’t see. Because the Pang Brothers know that it's what we don't see that's scary and utilizes this knowledge very well. To be fair, some of the relationship scenes are rather dull and overly sweet, but I didn't really mind, because there's a lot of cool ideas in this movie. I especially liked they way the main character was able to see that a person had died. Not only because it was stylish, but also because it made the impact of the final scene so much larger. Don't think I gave anything away there. Tried not to, anyway. All in all, The Eye is well worth your time. Good stuff.
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance - This Korean movie was exceptional in terms of style, but in my opinion (sorry Harry! ;) the story just doesn't match the visual imagery. Obviously, a lot of the stuff in the movie are very original, but frankly, I didn't really care, because none of the characters really interested me. One thing I did appreciate about the movie, though, was the fact that it is very unpredictable. That being said, some of the scenes in the movie grossed me out. Without spoiling anything, I'll just mention the one with the three men and the women dying of cancer as an example. See Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance if you want to try something that’s different from your average Hollywood movie.
Volcano High - Now, this movie was fun! It's kind of a mix between Harry Potter and The Matrix and it has a very animé feel to it. As in Alive, the plotline is absolutely ridiculous, but it doesn't really matter much, because Alive does deliver in terms of coolness and awesome martial arts sequences. The effects are extraordinary. They actually hold up to comparison with those in major studio pictures, which is an remarkable achievement, I think, in a Korean film. Only exceeded by Devdas, a bollywood film which won the Audience Award, Volcano High was the second-most popular film of the festival. Recommended.
Millennium Actress - This animé movie is absolutely fantastic. Not only is it beautifully drawn, it also has, what I felt was missing from the otherwise great animé Spirited Away, namely a complex story and characters with real depth. While Spirited Away is pure fantasy in a dreamlike world, Millennium Actress takes place in reality. I will not even try to describe the brilliance of the storytelling, which is an absolute revelation, not only in it's originality but also on a technical level. Even though I'm normally not particularly fond of movies where the romantic elements are given too much screen time, I must say that, even though it might be a bit melodramatic at times, this movie is absolutely mesmerizing from start to finish. How Satoshi Kon has been able to make a movie which feels epic despite having a running time of less than one-and-a-half hour is beyond me. A must-see!
Battle Royale - This is a masterpiece! It is utterly phenomenal cinema, made by a director who dared to make a film the way he wanted to, even though he must've realized that controversy would be inevitable. In the end, though, forget about the controversy. What makes this film so special is the fact that it works perfectly on so many levels. It's both satire and enjoyable manga-ish action, but what it all comes down to are the well-drawn characters, wonderfully played by very young actors and actresses, and a frightening vision of a story which forces you to think the movie's dilemma through: What would you do if you were put in this horrible situation? I wish they wouldn't make a sequel, because I'm pretty sure I will be disappointed by it. RIP Kinji Fukasaku.
That’s all for now.
You may call me SchizoRabbit
