Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a great wrap-up from the NYFF which has a rare appearance by cult legend Alejandro Jodorowsky talking about his work and the work of others. You'll also find reviews for the great creature feature THE HOST and Nacho Cerda's THE ABANDONED! Enjoy!!!
NYFF... Alejandro Jodorowsky, the greatest living filmmaker, graced New York City for the first screenings of his masterpieces “El Topo” and “The Holy Mountain” since the 1970’s. Neither film has achieved distribution in America due to a longstanding feud between Jodo and rights-holder Allen Klein, but that is due to end soon, as ABCKO Films has been restoring the legendary pictures for a proper DVD release. While there is regret that neither screening offered a fresh print of the films, we were getting a peek at the new ABCKO transfers, and boy, are they gorgeous. There were still discoloration issues and a few overtly digital enhancements, though all parties claimed the transfers were still a work in progress. Whatever the case, the American cinematic public will be truly blessed the day both films attain distribution. Widely regarded as the first ever midnight movie, “El Topo”, Jodorowsky’s second recorded film (before “Fando Y Lis”, Jodorowsky claims he directed a mime film called “The Transposed Heads” that was lost forever) is perhaps the strangest, most unforgettable western of all time. Jodo stars as an invincible gunfighter who travels the west on horseback with his unclothed, primitive son. When he comes across a dilapidated monastery, he decides to leave the son behind in favor of a shapely female companion, who in turn demands he become the greatest gunfighter in the desert. In order to achieve this, he finds himself coming after the four contenders to that throne. However, he loses his humanity in the process, and when his companion falls for another woman, he is killed in an act of selfish sexual rebellion. Underground, he is reborn, cared for by a collection of the physically disabled and disregarded. They have been shut out of a lawless western town because of their deformities, though El Topo’s newfound pacifism helps bridge a gap between the two worlds as a vaudevillian performer. But what of this young, black-clad stranger who has arrived at this godless town of prostitution and slavery at the same time? To boil “El Topo” down to a mere description, synopsis or review is folly, but if this reminds any of you of the trials of Jesus, you’re on the right track. Like most Hispanic filmmakers, Jodorowsky is particularly fascinated with Christianity, though his target seems to frequently be the malleability and hypocrisy of its practitioners. El Topo is incensed that the villagers worship false gods, equating belief to a strong hand in Russian Roulette, while black slaves are treated like sexual conquests before hangings. One of the items forgotten from the first time I saw “El Topo”, on a beaten down VHS dubbed in English but with Korean subtitles, was how strong the music was, and here, that comes through in full detail. The colors are vibrant, too- Jodorowsky’s imagery is second to none, and the beauty in violence is explored through his work through the most gorgeous colors one can imagine. However, certainly, Jodo is not PETA’s favorite filmmaker- after the fifth or sixth simulated rabbit death, a man behind me complained loudly and stormed off in a huff. After the screening, the sprightly, joyous seventy-eight year old Jodo did a lengthy Q&A. Highlights: -He absolutely LOVES Guillermo Del Toro, because he is fat, and also because of his movies. He also considers himself a Paul Verhoven lover, and he adores “Starship Troopers”. -He doubts his ability today to film his script for “Son Of El Topo” because there are no investors eager to work with him, though he admitted the rapturous response during the Q&A had him excited. Actors willing to be in the film include Santiago Seguro, Nick Nolte, Alfonso Arau and Marilyn Manson. -He marveled about the ability for older men of every type to find love and lamented the end of his previous relationship with a woman who wanted a child. He is currently dating a Vietnamese girl thirty-seven years younger than him. -Marilyn Manson became a huge fan of his overnight, suddenly recommending “The Holy Mountain” to everyone, particularly fans through his websites, giving Jodo a new fanbase. Manson also wanted to be married off by Jodo, but only if he had the white jumpsuit he wore in “The Holy Mountain”. He didn’t, but a tailor made a remarkable replica. -He has since made peace with Allen Klein, as they both remarked about how old and beautiful they both were. Jodo also made sure to go into detail on how Klein’s client at the time, John Lennon, was instrumental towards bringing “El Topo” to the masses. In the audience, Sean Lennon nodded approvingly. -Both “El Topo” and “The Holy Mountain” will be getting brief theatrical runs before showing up on DVD, possibly in NYC at the IFC Center. -Jodorowsky didn’t do a Q&A for “The Holy Mountain” as it was a Saturday midnight screening, though he did openly admit he never tried drugs before or during “El Topo” but was introduced to LSD through initiation for “The Holy Mountain”. He spoke about his desire to work with a guru for the film, and then spent a week sleepless, enduring the effects of the drugs. And it shows. “The Holy Mountain” is a fever dream, more elaborate, terrifying, funny and expansive than “El Topo” in every way. Much like Jodo’s previous films, “The Holy Mountain” isn’t at all married to narrative, beginning with the persecution and mistreatment of a would-be savior, crucified with flowers before eventually being used for a mold of his body and being forced to carry a cross with his armless, legless friend. This Jesus-figure yearns for something else, in the form of the Alchemist, a white-suited guru who recruits him with champions from each planet in order to participate in a soul-cleansing pilgrimage to the summit of the Holy Mountain, where enlightenment lies. There are sights in “The Holy Mountain” that you can’t un-see. Jodorowsky creates intricate set-pieces the way fat people stack pancakes- each scene can be taken on its own as the most audacious moment in the entirety of seventies cinema. Revolutions spawn blood made of bluebirds, men bathe in the mist of their melted feces and in the end man must face the ultimate illusion of the film form. It’s heady stuff, enhanced by Jodorowsky’s calming, mesmerizing performance as the Alchemist, a role originally intended for John Lennon. I returned to the New York Film Festival on Monday and faced one of two options. I could have gotten up early and hoped for a rush ticket to David Lynch’s supposedly impenetrable “Inland Empire” or I could have come in during lunchtime for Joon-ho Bong’s Korean monster movie “The Host”. Upon hearing “Inland Empire” was three hours long, I opted for “The Host” and ended up with a genre classic. “The Host” has been purchased for an American release in January (and, in theory, an eventual American remake), and I urge you to do everything in your power to see it when it is released. If marketed right, this thing can make a billion dollars, Korean subtitles be damned. “The Host” begins with a flashback to an American army base in Korea six years ago. An American scientist chides a Korean lab technician for lack of cleanliness and demands he empty out toxic chemicals into the river. When the underling protests, the American makes it a military order, therefore setting the stage for the rest of the film’s straight-faced insanity. Not only are we dealing with a classic science-gone-bad creation, but we also have the inferiority complex of Korea in relation to America established in harsh tones. We quickly end up in modern day, where an idle-minded goof-off working at a food stand with his father and daughter discovers a massive, people-eating beast emerging from the river and galloping on its hind legs, destroying local camp grounds. The beast eventually grabs the daughter and ventures out into the water, leading the family (including a brother-sister combo of an unemployed college graduate and an archery wiz) on a quest to recover the girl. However, in addition to the monster, the family also has to fight government burecratic red tape, with the government acting quickly in the wake of the beast’s attack to quarantine attack victims and pronounce the beast’s presence as unleashing a flesh-eating virus onto the unsuspecting public. It soon becomes clear that the Korean government is taking its cues from America in order to preserve order, a task that involves higher-ups making some devastating decisions. Without being gory or disgusting, “The Host” features a number of startling sequences involving the hideous creature, rendered through flawless computer effects from the guys at WETA. It’s a marvel of a creation, causing massive amounts of mayhem that you instantly believe even if you’ve become accustomed to picking out CGI. But there’s also a lot of comedy, mostly disseminating from the family at the film’s core. They mock and degrade each other and yet that affection never vanishes as they find themselves becoming closer during a terrible tragedy. Odd to say, but this is the movie “Little Miss Sunshine” should have been. Afterwards, a miscalculation led to my having to run from 66th Street to 11th and 3rd Avenue for the second feature, an advance screening of the first full-length film from Nacho Cerda, “The Abandoned”. While I haven’t seen Cerda’s previous work, the supposedly gruesome short films “Genesis” and “Aftermath”, I had heard that they were extremely involving and difficult to watch. An extra draw was the presence of one of the movie’s three co-writers, one Richard Stanley. Stanley’s been gone for awhile, doing a couple of documentaries that show up on the new five disc set for the cult classic “Dust Devil”, but it was awesome seeing his name on the big screen again for a horror film. Oddly enough, while it’s true that many horror films have female protagonists, it’s especially unusual when, at the film’s start, they are forty years old, and especially odd that they are never at any point sexualized. The forty year old in question is Marie, a single mother of German descent now living in California. She has opted to finally retrace her roots, hoping to learn the truth behind what we see in a pre-credits sequence, when a woman’s truck abruptly stops at a tiny cabin in Russia, leaving her dead in front of two crying babies. Once she hooks up with a foreboding travel guide who has summoned her with new information regarding the location of the cabin, she heads into the dark forest with a monosyllabic guide. Naturally, they get separated and she ends up alone in the cabin. It’s not a stretch to say the cabin is haunted, but by what? She finds a man there, Nicolai, who claims to be her brother and also wants to learn the truth about their parents. Nicolai should come across as a helpful, friendly guy, but he’s played by Karel Roden. You may remember Roden from “Hellboy”, or any other of a succession of bad guys- here he’s playing a regular guy, but guess what? Still creepy. The movie has some heady ideas and a fairly downbeat, pessimistic view of one’s curiosity towards their origins. The Russian backwoods are a dark, depressing place, and the setting isn’t something that’s really gonna bring in the big audiences. And that confused me- who is the movie for? There’s a lot of complex ideas being thrown around that I have to confess I didn’t entirely get the first time around, including (zombie) dopplegangers, the despair of being a middle-aged woman and even time travel (!). At the same time, a few moments are genuinely scary, and it’s safe to say, you’ll jump in your seat more than a few times. Cerda really knows his way around horror imagery. Still, the movie was surprisingly not that gory, leaving one to wonder how this movie would fare compared to stuff like “Saw”. If anything, it’s like a mixture of “The Shining” and “The Grudge”, with the unsatisfying elements magnified- confusing structure, loose, undercooked ideas, an unusual setting and a difficult, remote cast. I got to be a part of a focus group after the movie, and most were generally positive about the experience. However, the consensus was as far as a horror movie it may have been too much of a thinker, and the audience greeted it with the expected amount of hostility. It’s certainly a curiosity what could be trimmed, as it was a fairly short movie, though one hopes they don’t take it down to PG-13 level, because the genuine scares in this film are certain to haunt audiences for quite awhile. Anyway, I'm Fabfunk. Rock and roll.
