One Big Giant Muthaforkin

Fantasia, or How I Managed to Avoid Seeing Any Horror Films at a Genre Film Festival

Fantasia 2004 has been my first experience at a film festival. I’ve been looking forward to it for some time and I decided that if I was going to lose my festival cherry, I’d go all-out. No half-measures for me. My friend and I split 40 tickets between us – my share was seventeen, but I’ve since bought several more. Of course, that wasn’t nearly enough, so I’ve taken Fantasia into my bedroom. You’ve heard me, the fun doesn’t end when I leave Concordia’s Hall and De Seve theatres. In my spare time I’ve been borrowing Asian films from my local university library. The past few weeks have been an orgy of Asian cinematic pleasure. But more on that later. For now, the films :

(I will try to avoid spoilers by giving no more information about the films than is available on Fantasia’s web site. But it’s often wrong! –ed I know, I know. But I based my film selections on their descriptions, so I think it’s fair to give the readers no more information than I had going into the movies. Except whether they’re good, you mean. –ed Oh, shut up and let me get on with it!)

Azumi (Day 1)

‘Azumi’ was the very first film I saw at the festival, and I think it was the perfect start. I’d already seen it and loved it, and I own the DVD; I think seeing it on the big screen with a Fantasia audience helped ease me into the festival mindset. The director is Ryuhei Kitamura, and I’ve seen his work described as ‘hyper-kinetic’ and ‘hyper-violent’. Well, it is. There’s an exuberance to his films, an excitement for the medium that can be felt in the composition of Kitamura’s shots and the way he stages scenes. He plays with conventions, and his takes on zombie-horror (Versus) and the popular man-fighting-with-demon genre (Aragami) are both refreshingly unique and inspired bits of film-making. Even ‘Sky High’ which is a fairly unremarkable movie, apart from the terrible sword fighting, has a visual flair that I enjoyed. But ‘Azumi’, to me, stands in a different league. The version at Fantasia was edited down slightly, with a couple of minor subplots missing from the film. The overall effect of the cuts was to make the movie more comic and while I prefer the slightly more dramatic version, the audience responded very enthusiastically at the screening I attended. Fantasia audiences applaud loud, and often – especially when there’s violence, which Azumi delivered in abundance.

‘Azumi’ is about a group of young assassins that have been trained from early childhood to be the most deadly fighters in Japan. The title character is the only girl in the group and the best fighter among them because of her incredible speed. And Azumi is FAST, whether taking on ninjas or warriors or effeminate killers. Kitamura has a knack for directing combat, making it visceral and violent and exciting, but he also knows when to ease up and allow for a moment of introspection or toss in a bit of comedy. Ultimately, ‘Azumi’ works for me, it worked for my friend and it seemed to work for the audience, judging by the enthusiastic applause at every bloody death.

9/10

Wonderful Days (Day 2)

My friend suggested we see this one, and I agreed because the Fantasia program described it as ‘masterful’. That word gets me every bloody time. I have to admit, I thought the animation was fantastic, particularly the integration of traditional character animation with CG techniques. But the pedestrian plot about an ecological Armageddon and the wafer-thin characters really dragged down a film I wanted to like. The whole ECOBAN and DELOS thing wasn’t confusing, it was just dumb. I appreciate a bit of social commentary, but Wonderful Days really had very little worthwhile to say. The story concerned a city, built long ago by a group of eco-nuts in anticipation of a global catastrophe, which powers itself on pollution and simultaneously cleans up the environment. It’s an interesting premise, actually. But ‘Wonderful Days’ gets bogged down in tedium, not going particularly far or taking advantage of its initial promise.

Where the film succeeded was with its beautiful visuals, and I have to admit that it was an absolute pleasure to watch. But I can’t truly say that I enjoyed it. After the movie I reread the program and noticed that it was the ‘blending of CGI, cel animation, miniatures and live footage’ which is described as ‘masterful’. Sorry, Fantasia program guys, my mistake this time. ‘Wonderful Days’ was gorgeous, but ultimately hollow.

5/10

The Tesseract

I don’t really know what I expected from ‘The Tesseract’ and I’m still not entirely sure what I thought of it. My friend hated it, but the film didn’t provoke that strong a reaction in me either way. I appreciated the non-linear storytelling, and the way in which the interconnected stories of the hotel guests are gradually revealed to the audience. But the film broke down in its last third, once the characters left the hotel. While it may be difficult to say what ‘The Tesseract’ is, I can say with great certainty what it’s not. It isn’t a science fiction film, despite the groovy title and the cool bullets-shooting-from-the-wall-in-Matrix-bullet-time effect. It isn’t an action film, despite the fact that the Fantasia program refers to ‘Ong Bak’ in the film’s description. Actually, a quick check on IMDB leaves one wondering whether Oxide Pang has any connection at all to that superb martial arts film. And as for the whole ‘storm of gunfire and chaos’ thing, again quoted from Fantasia’s program, don’t buy it. The film is at its best when it takes its time, explores its characters and their interactions – the wounded assassin, the drug mule, the psychologist and the Thai street urchin. They, and the dilapidated hotel in which they find themselves, are the heart of the story, and it would have been a better movie if the filmmakers had understood that.

6/10

Last Life in the Universe

I’ve seen three movies in one day before, but not in theatres. So by the time ‘Last Life in the Universe’ began, I was exhausted. What’s more, both of the films I’d seen earlier in the day failed to live up to my expectations. Neither was bad, really, but they weren’t that good, either. ‘Last Life in the Universe’ more than made up for any lingering disappointment. It’s an intimate, personal film about two damaged people trying to connect on some level. There’s occasional violence (cue the Fantasia audience applause) but it’s more a film of quiet moments. The main character, Kenji, is a Japanese man who has been living in Bangkok for some time. He’s depressed, suicidal, and he seems to be completely emotionally detached from his surroundings. Everything about the movie feels genuine, despite some truly bizarre situations which arise. It is Kenji’s acceptance of - or perhaps indifference to - the events occurring around him which draws us into the story. His isolation and loneliness are palpable and his reactions to even mundane events are unusual, so when he fails to react to the out-of-the-ordinary it only seems fitting. The relationship that forms between him and a Thai woman, forced to communicate in English because neither speaks the other’s language, is honest and well developed.

‘Last Life in the Universe’ was not only one of the highlights of the festival; my friend and I decided that it is the perfect movie with which to test a relationship. If you find someone who has the patience to sit through this admittedly slow film, and the insight to understand and appreciate it, grab on tight and don’t let go. If not, well, it might be a good idea to keep looking. I, myself, plan to find a likely candidate and try it out on her at the earliest possible convenience. If I can drag myself away from the movies, that is…

8/10

Tube (DVD Interlude)

The days were blurring together at this point. Somewhere around the place where I realized I’d seen six films in three days I started losing track of time. It didn’t help that I was renting movies to watch in my time ‘off’ from the festival. In any case, at some point I rented the Korean film ‘Tube’. It was fun, if not very deep. I enjoyed the action, and the characters were reasonably interesting. Especially the guy with his arm handcuffed to the pole. It was a pretty fresh take on a genre which has been done to death in the past few years – the hijacking/hostages/kill-all-the-bad guys type of film. Like ‘Die Hard’ but on a train! And with Koreans! I’m not going to get into too much detail, but I will say that it made for a couple of hours light enjoyment. Oh, and the intoductory gunfight kicked the shit out of my sound system. One of the best bits of surround sound I think I've ever heard.

7/10

Legend of Evil Lake (Day 3)

I love a good action movie. If it’s got martial arts, magic, possession, the undead and elements of police procedural, even better. And if it takes place in ancient Korea, well, I’m majoring in Asian history. You’ve got me. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a particularly good action movie. I appreciate how hard the filmmakers tried, but ‘Legend of Evil Lake’ was a confused, failed attempt to combine many different elements into a cohesive movie. The opening was disappointing, although the whole burning-letters-on-face thing has always been cool. Hell, Peter Jackson did it! Sort of. Anyway, the main character was pretty bland and the whole love triangle story just didn’t really work for me. I’m not saying it was terrible, just that the film never quite managed to live up to its own aspirations - and I think that’s a shame. The film wanted to be ‘Sword in the Moon’ (we’ll get to that in Report 2) but it wasn’t. ‘Legend of Evil Lake’ was an interesting effort with many good ideas. But on the whole it left me cold.

4/10

Doppelganger

I often rely on first impressions when I see movies. That’s not to say that I don’t allow films to grow on me over time, or with repeated viewings. ‘Wonder Boys’ is a quirky film I gradually grew to like, and it took me some time. But sometimes I’ll see something and my initial reaction is so viscerally, deeply positive or negative that no number of subsequent viewings can change it. ‘Doppelganger’ wasn’t bad, if you take ‘not bad’ to mean ‘like swimming in a rancid pool of liquid feces for two hours’. ‘Doppelganger’ felt like a betrayal, because my positive first reaction was undone by the utter shit which followed. The movie began like a horror film. There was a creeping sense of dread, the call on the phone, and the girl walking through her house. There was the whole ‘if you see your doppelganger, you die’ bit which was reminiscent of certain recent horror films. And then it all went to hell.

Let me give a bit of background on my relationship with the horror genre. I love it, but I’ve recently made the decision not to watch horror films in the theatre. My problem is that I get TOO into the movies, too involved with the characters and the stories. In short, I get too bloody scared. I jump several feet in the air at any loud noise. I get tense, my hands get cold. Lately, I’ve had to stop looking. Hell, Harry Potter 2 scared the piss out of me. Look, when you don’t tell someone with raging arachnophobia that there are HUGE FUCKING SPIDERS in a movie, that’s totally not cool. I spent a good portion of that film with my head buried in my friend’s shoulder – it’s a good thing I wasn’t interested in her, because there’s nothing quite as pathetic as the sight of a 6’1 guy squealing like a little girl and hiding his face in abject terror. So that’s why I stopped going to horror movies. It’s cute and kind of nice when a girl clutches your arm during the scary bits, especially if she’s a prospective girlfriend, but not so much when you clutch back, whimpering, and jump at the slightest provocation. At home I can pause the film, catch my breath and relax. Anyway, the end came when I had to keep my eyes closed through a significant portion of Dreamcatcher. And not because it was bad, which I've heard was the reason most people stopped watching. No, in my case I was plain terrified and I think that’s sad. So no horror for me at Fantasia, nope, not happening.

Now where was I? Oh, right, ‘Doppelganger’. Look, it was just bad. There were moments that weren’t terrible – moments that actually felt pretty good. But looking back on it, those moments are like when you come up for air in that pool of shit I mentioned above. Breathing is something you take for granted normally, but not when you're immersed in feces. You breach the surface and gasp for a breath, trying to take in as much as you can. It still smells bad, but when you’re in that pool and you get a whiff of air, at that particular moment it’s like a revelation. Don’t ask me how I know, just take my word for it. And the whole premise of the film dumb. Okay, he’d be scared to meet his double ‘cause the girl told him he’d die. But why the hell does he hate it so much? Damn, if I found another me hiding out somewhere, and together we could do all the stuff I’d always wanted to do, I’d be happier than a fat kid in Belgium. I mean, hell, if you can’t like yourself then what’s the point of living, right? Right? Oh, and the ending was ridiculous. And I don’t mean implausible. I mean stupid beyond all reason. Fantasia describes ‘Doppelganger’ as a ‘rollicking roller coaster for the intelligentsia’, and claims that it ‘eschews experimentalism and embraces its trashy/brainy split personality’. I’d like to have eschewed the whole damn movie and spent the evening watching something where the smell of shit didn’t permeate every nook and cranny of the theatre.

2/10

Knightingale

Here’s a longtime FanTasia fan with his take on things: