Hey folks, Harry here... This time... The Flying Monkey has my favorite line written perhaps all year. In his paragraph review of Takeshi Miike's GOZU he says, "This will never be optioned for a remake by Tom Cruise..." That made me cry laughing. If you've seen the trailer for GOZU, if you've seen GOZU... that line would make you cry. I would kill to see Tom Cruise try to remake this... His brain would explode. His organs would rupture. He couldn't do it in a million years.
Hey Harry,
It's that pesky Flying Monkey again! While the Toronto International Film Festival continues for the public, the press and industry screenings ended yesterday evening. Hereare a few quick notes on the remainder of my viewings...
GRIMM
Grimm: This was one of those movies that looked better on paper than it did on the screen--a contemporary resetting of the ideas and themes found in Grimm's fairy tales, following the path of two 'innocents' (adults, but still rather childlike) who are abandoned by their father in the forest(presumably in the Netherlands, where the film was made) and who must face dangers and obstacles as they journey to a relative's distant home. Some amusing scenes early on, especially when they are held captive by a farmer and his homely, sexually frustrated wife, but the story soon loses momentum and becomes as rambling and episodic as many of the folktales that inspired it. Well made for what it is, but feels redundant in a festival context, where a number of other films more successfully covered similar ground.
NICOTINA
Nicotina: One of those cheery Rube Goldberg-type contraptions in which a dozen or so characters are all conniving and angling, crossing and double crossing (and killing and disinterring) their way towards a spectacular treasure--in this case a cache of 20 diamonds offered by the Russian mob in exchange for a list of Swiss bank accounts and their passwords for the next 24 hours, burned onto a CD. For a movie in which practically everyone dies, Nicotina has a bubbly infectious quality and is effortlessly enjoyable to watch, but its similarities to Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (which themselves were derivative of other caper/chase films) keep it from being a complete knockout. Good production, good performances, terrific latin music, as befits a film from Mexico.
THE HOURS OF THE DAY
The Hours of the Day: Well, well, what to say about this one. Abel lives with his mother and manages her clothing shop in Barcelona. He has a girlfriend but their relationship is going nowhere; he has a friend who is about to be married and who is looking for some money to start a new business venture. He cooks, he shaves, he argues with his employee about her severance pay should he decide to sell the store. He also ineptly strangles and bludgeons two people, days apart, for no apparent reason and with no real consequence. No investigation, no repercussions, no remorse. No story. That's it, that's the whole film. The audience for this is, as they say, 'self-selecting'. Well crafted and well acted, but--for me, at least--a maddening bore.
HAUTE TENSION
Haute Tension: Another disappointment, this French slasher-in-the-countryside film does indeed rack up some 'haute tension' before it goes wildly off the rails with a twist that renders the whole film incoherent (they might as well have said that the dog was dreaming the whole thing) and gore that goes so far over the top that it becomes silly. I would rather have seen Marina de Van's film Dans ma peau (In My Skin) or Eric Valette's Malefique programmed instead.
ANTENNA
Antenna: After the disappearance of their youngest child, Marie, a Japanese family goes completely crazy and comes apart at the seams. This was another near-miss: on one level movingly performed with some scorching scenes, on the other so slow-moving and psychologically screwed up that you want to scream "Get therapy! Get therapy!" over and over until the closing credits. When one son starts cross-dressing as his missing sister to please his mom while the other is being smacked around by an S/M dominatrix, you know you've travelled right through Tennessee Williams territory and you're out in the middle of nowhere.
GOZU
Gozu: However, nothing is crazier than this goofy yakuza horror comedy, one of the nine or so movies made this year by the uniquely talented Takashi Miike. A Gozu is a demon from hell with the body of a man and the head of a cow, and by the time it arrives in the film it comes off as completely normal--you see it and say to yourself, 'Oh, look--a demon from hell with the body of a man and the head of a cow.' It all starts when a gangster with conflicted loyalties accidentally kills his brother and then ends up in a rundown town that may as well be a gateway to hell for all of the bizarre characters that populate it. When the brother's body disappears from the car, um, complications ensue: they include a coffee shop full of weirdos, an inn run by a horny 'milkmaid' and her brother, said demon from hell, and the appearance of the dead brother in a young woman's body. When you get to the scene with the soup ladle--well, who knows what you'll do. I laughed--it was hilarious. This will never be optioned for a remake by Tom Cruise, and it will probably never be released in North America, so keep an eye out for it in Asian DVD stores. Makes no sense; lots of fun.
MAQBOOL
Maqbool: Still with me? This is a gritty Bollywood take on Macbeth by way of The Godfather. (Yes, there are musical numbers, though they're relatively low-key and naturalistic by Bollywood standards.) Shakespeare is interpreted rather freely in this story of Maqbool's rise to power within the organized crime syndicate in Mumbai's Muslim community. (Whether there actually is an organized crime syndicate in Mumbai's Muslim community or if this is a nasty slur against them, I can't really tell.) Intricately plotted and beautifully told, starkly violent and surprisingly uncompromising (though, true to form, the few illicit kisses in the film are seen in silhouette), this was an excellent reinterpretation of a familiar classic, and--pardon the pun--well-executed by everyone involved.
UNDEAD
Undead: It was hard for this film to live up to all the hype that preceded it. Still, it's a very entertaining--if not particularly scary--horror comedy in the vein of Dead Alive and Return of the Living Dead. Suspicious meteorites fall on a small town in Australia, bringing on a bit of that zombie action we all love. Could it be the work of...aliens? Not much innovation here (at least not until the final 20 minutes or so, which feature some unusual plot twists and visual effects) but heartfelt, energetic, funny and gushing with blood and body parts. Cool ending. It likely won't have the same crossover appeal of Cabin Fever, but it's a ton of fun all the same.
SAVE THE GREEN PLANET
Save the Green Planet: Let me start by saying--I loved this movie. If you were to take Seven and set it in South Korea, replace the seven-deadly-sins thing with abducting/torturing/killing-suspected-alien-leaders-from-Andromeda (who, by the way, communicate telepathically through their hair), give the Kevin Spacey character a loyal and loving female assistant who somersaults on a tightrope to 'Besame Mucho'...oh, and make it a comedy...well, I've said too much already. Hyperkinetic visuals, wonderfully deranged storytelling, some brilliant lines and sight gags plus the best use of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' since The Wizard of Oz. Easily one of my festival favourites,this is a must-see.
NINE SOULS
Nine Souls: This was my last film and, while it was overlong and a bit too abstract at its conclusion, it was a fine achievement overall and a great end to the last ten days of movie madness. The film starts out as a lively comedy about nine prison escapees racing to unearth a stash hidden away in a time capsule in the cornerstone of an elementary school near Mount Fuji. Some agreeably comic and surreal elements are introduced along the way as each escapee's past and personality is revealed, but a certain darkness begins to creep in over everything until the nine are struggling, together and apart, to stay alive and reunite with those people and moments they loved prior to their incarceration. Toshiaki Toyoda made Blue Spring, which was shown at the festival a few years back. This film makes good on the promise he showed then, and left me eager to see what he comes up with next.
Films I wish I'd seen: 21 Grams, Good Bye Lenin!, Kitchen Stories, Memories of Murder, Jeux d'enfants, Zatoichi, Ong-Bak Muay Thai Warrior, God is Brazilian and Love, Sex and Eating the Bones. Films I wish everyone had seen: The Best of Youth, In This World, Forest, Save the Green Planet, Twist.
Time to give these wings a rest,
TFM
