Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Oh, what a year we have in store for us folks. If what I’ve seen so far is any indication, this is the year to tuck a bottle of Prozac into your festival survival kit and prepare for some heavy soul searching, drunken nights with buddies wondering what the meaning of it all is. Yes, Fantastic Fest this year is HEAVY. And dark. And it doesn’t always end well for the protagonists. That’s not to say in any way that the films aren’t awesome. On the contrary, this year is indicative of our times – and as is customary when our civilization stands in dark times - we make dark art, some of the best dark art there is in fact. This year’s crop is proof of that. It is an incredibly ballsy assembly of warped and brutal films, mixed in with, what I’m certain will be a number of truly inspired fun ones as well. Unfortunately for me, they only sent me a few of the latter in advance.
Three of this year’s must see films are LET ME IN and BURIED (both of which you can read my reviews of today) and Simon Rumley’s brilliant (and unspeakably disturbing) RED, WHITE AND BLUE, which I wrote about earlier this year. Here’s a brief sample:
RED, WHITE & BLUE is not a nice film. It is not a fun film. In fact, it is not what anyone in their right mind would call an enjoyable film. But it is something of a brilliant film; a dark, brooding, macabre piece of fiction that will leave you feeling a lot like you did the first time you watched REQUIEM FOR A DREAM or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. Director Simon Rumley wants to challenge you; he wants to make you cringe, reel and question the morality of 3 relatively despicable people. And when he’s done doing that, he wants to tie you up in knots.
This is a film about sharing some terribly disturbing ideas with you. It is a film about monstrous things without a single one of the characters being a monster. As much as each is despicable, so too are they equally pitiable – a pitiful human being driven to become who they are by circumstance or twist of fate. You don’t walk away hating any of them; you simply walk away thinking that while not a one of them got what they truly deserved, the film couldn’t have ended any other way. And the whole ordeal will kind of turn your stomach.
Read the complete review here!
If you missed this at SXSW and are attending Fantastic Fest, lock this movie into your schedule. It is a film that will haunt you.
SOUND OF NOISE
Also on the must see list is SOUND OF NOISE. This fun, badass little Swedish film is something of a hipster musical crime drama. It’s the story of a group of six drummers, each of them revolutionary hipster artists who have eschewed the establishment and are eager to perform what amounts to musical terrorism: performing increasingly dangerous songs with available items located at the scene of their crimes. Each piece of performance art causes more mayhem than the one before it and soon after it begins, the police have tasked a dedicated anti-terror task force detective to hunt them down and bring them to justice. Fortunately for them, he also happens to hate music.
Imagine if you will a group of cutting edge, disenfranchised members of STOMP leaving the troupe and deciding to see what will happen when they experiment with using bulldozers, and you are beginning to get the idea of this. Each musical number is performed in full in the film, resulting in a number of fun, catchy sequences that are as amusing to watch as they are to listen to. This is exactly the type of thing you’ll want to see here on the big screen, in an Alamo theater with great sound. Delightful, strange and so much fun, this is the film this year I will definitely be seeing again. Be sure this one is on your schedule.
KIDNAPPED
Holy shit. I mean, fuck. Holy shit, man. This is…this is…I’m not gonna lie…this one will get to you. KIDNAPPED is a home invasion movie, and for the first half or so, the only thing to set it apart from any other home invasion movie is its cinematography. Shot in a series of long, single takes and often shot over the shoulder of the protagonists, the film draws its strength from its slow methodical approach, its riveting, powerful performances and its carefully choreographed blocking and action. The film is just stylish as hell, beautiful to look at and clearly an achievement in direction and organization. If it weren’t for the second half of the film, I would still recommend this based solely upon how well made a film it is.
But the second half becomes so brutal, raw and unrepentantly cruel, that I can’t help but give it the strongest of recommendations. The film’s final moments had me on the edge of my seat, twisting my stomach into knots and wondering whether anyone at all would make it out alive – invader or victim. There are some kills in this thing that will gut the audience and elicit howls – and the film’s final 30 seconds will stun and shock you with its audacity. I’ve seen a lot of home invasion films in my day – they’re cheap and easy to make – but this is quite possibly the best I’ve ever seen; there is nothing cheap or easy about it.
Honestly, I can’t get the film’s final shot out of my head. It just won’t go away.
CARANCHO
Perhaps all this genre is a bit overwhelming and you want something a little down to earth. The Drama CARANCHO is exactly what you’re looking for. While still technically a crime film, CARANCHO is the story of an ambulance driver and a crooked ambulance chasing lawyer who fall in love amid the seedy world of the Argentinian car insurance racket. The film opens up explaining how dangerous driving in Argentina is. As one would expect, the film is full of hard to watch car accidents and followed by scenes of ambulance driver/aspiring doctor Lujan treating and trying to save those patients as hard up lawyer Sosa is forced by the local corrupt law system to prey upon these people and get them to sign over a large percentage of their settlements.
The film showcases the corruption of a morally bankrupt system while simultaneously offering up a love story of a man desperate for redemption and a woman who just wants to do some good in the world. It’s a wonderful piece of acting in a dirty, bloody film. Of course, being a Fantastic Fest film, things begin to get a bit violent and the ending is something of a nail biter. Unlike KIDNAPPED before it, while the ending is memorable, it isn’t nearly as satisfying and those that find issue with this film will do so with its ending. While I dare not spoil it here, it’s going to make some grumble on the way out, but doesn’t ruin the movie enough to make it not worth seeing. On the contrary, everything about the film is so spectacularly well done, that the ending is at least forgivable (if not fitting.) This film has a lot of soul and tons of heart and shouldn’t be missed.
Until next time friends,
Massawyrm
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