Best of 2012, part 2 - April Fools

I am sorry for keeping you waiting so long for the second installment of my year best list. I wanted to make a list featuring all the good stuff that was left without theatrical release - those that went straight to DVD or only had a limited festival screening. Well, I am all the more proud of the conclusive list made here and now. All of these films are lesser known, but well worth searching and checking out.

10. Thunder Gun Express (USA)
Director: Amos Santo

This low-budget action movie owes a big debt to Wages of Fear as well as William Friedkin's Sorceror. In post-apocalyptic Philadelphia, a shipment of experimental guns to the military gets hassled by a gang of outlaw bikers. Obviously, if the guns got in the wrong hands all hell would break loose. But even more dangerous is that secretly one of the trucks in the convoy contains a casket of highly explosive chemicals that could level off several city blocks.

The cast and crew are almost unknown, but they do tremendous work here. The film isn't afraid to experiment with your fast-paced action movie storytelling quite a bit. We see the anguish in people's faces in close ups in the midst of fighting, and surprisingly also spend quite a lot of time to view the ordeal from the biker's point of view. Mark my words, director Amos Santo will make it big one of these days.

9. Octopus Slime (Indonesia)
Director: Patar Lando

Okay, I admit that this is not a good film as such. But this so-called "horror" movie is hilarious in its own right. The Indonesian tradition of making the most hilariously outrageous and madcap exploitation movies truly still lives large today. This cheesefest concerns a nuclear power plant disaster releasing fallout to the sea, which of course makes the octopuses sprout legs and learn to walk on land and prey on the flesh of the people. Not to spoil too much of the story, but it manages to tie together robot butlers, evil clowns and a scientist who saves the day with a power drill. Laughed myself silly.

8. Oliver's Arrow (Surinam)
Director: Roo Okinagabe

African film industry is rising and many countries have started to produce intriguing films based on their native legends and stories. Case in point is this film from Suriname, which updates an old folk tale. A small child travels the African plains, handing the animals their jobs in the circle of life. As he arrives to the mountainside, he finds reaching the mountain-dwelling animals troublesome. On the way, he falls in love with an eagle, that sometimes takes the form of a young girl.

I like the world-view where there is no clear good and evil, and characters are either attempting to do their duties or dismissing them because of their own personal reasons. All the talking animals are animated traditionally, while humans are portrayed by actors, Roger Rabbit-style. The story brings to mind the Kirikou movies, and this proves to be as stylish as they are.

7. Space Orcs (Orkusu spaisu, Japan)
Director: Isagawa Oni

This Japanese splatter has a surprisingly heavy athmosphere. It's a bit too much to compare it to Alien, when more suitable comparisons would be Sunshine or Dante 01. Cross-bred with Braindead. A cargo shuttle finds out that a mysterious breed of yes, Space Orcs, is on their tail. Initially seeming like an odd alien race, there's a lot more sinister secret behind the monsters.

Violence is inventive, gruesome and very, very silly at the same time. The CGI shots are reserved to outerior shots of spaceships and the vastness of space. The titular monsters are done with good old-fashioned rubber masks. Which is good that they hid mostly in shadows, hiding the clunkiness of that departement. This is a really rare breed, a convincing sci-fi story that forces you to think, yet serves our most primal blood-hunger and makes us laugh at the same time. A future cult movie.

6. Prognosis: Negative (Israel)
Director: Lamar Fuleh

A talkative spy thriller from the Middle East showcases much of the daily routines of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency. Agent Avi Azulai (Rami Fortis) discovers his partner is a traitor. In order to determine how he has been infiltrated he has to go through old files, and at the same time goes through his own history in the agency. His mission is to set up a trap to the enemies, but instead he finds out he might have not been on the side of the good so firmly as he has believed.

Naturally, this is on Israel's side of the Palestinian conflict, but that doesn't stop it from questioning the nation's policies. Morally, it's set on a grey area, questioning a lot of Israel's status of free speech, right to religion and even the power of the government. This is told mostly in dialogue scenes, with only a few outside shots. It's captivating stuff to watch. This would make a good double feature with The Gatekeepers.

5. Boyfight 2 (Luta meninos 2, Brazil)
Director: Fender Lasco

The first in this series of Brazilian crime action was brutal, the second one delves a lot deeper. Drug cartels kidnap children in the slums, forcing them to fight for money. In the first one, a full-grown former fighter Del (City of God's Leandro Firmino) rose to a battle against his mob overlords, reflecting Spartacus in a modern-day environment. Now, Del has risen to a public campaigner for having raids to stop the illegal fighting rings. Yet dirty politicians attempt to keep the slums isolated and quiet, particularly since Rio's tourist season is approaching. Del must fight on two fronts.

The film does seem to overplay Rio's crime problems a bit, but since director Lasco offers some of the most jaw-dropping action scenes of recent years, one can forgive a little jump into fiction. After all, the film shines light on how corrupt the society is that doesn't even bother to check into something as horrifying as boyfighting. The style is kept gritty and Firmino is as good as ever.

4. The Bonar Law Story (UK)
Director: Ollie Islington

Based on an old script written by none other than Monty Python's John Cleese back in the 1970's, it's no wonder this surreal comedy took this long to make. For one, the release of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and the discussion in Britain afterwards eerily seemed to echo a lot of Cleese's text. Later, a lot of his lawyer character here was rewritten for Archie Leach in A Fish Called Wanda. This is a pitch-black satire on the reception of art and entertainment. It concerns the trial of a filmmaker whose latest experimental film has had a series of rather peculiar effects on the audience. Or the rag-tag team of bullies and higher-ups just finds to blame an already down-on-his luck man for their own crimes.

The film's biggest surprise, as well as it's strength, is it's odd turn to surrealism in the third act. In contrast, modern technology is better suited for visions such as people growing a billion years old in seconds. The risque sex sequences would have been hard to get through the censors back in the day. The film seethes with the good, old-time John Cleese wit and comedy, both physical as well as banter and keeping up appearances. Comedian Islington is a worthy successor and makes the lofty Python satisfied with his vivid storytelling skills, even if Cleese had denounced the script before the project started.

3. Harvest of the Blood Oranges (India/USA)
Director: Oren R. Peli

Who could've known that the director of Paranormal Activity actually had the chops to make a good horror movie? It helps that the funding comes from his native India, even if the film is in English. Bollywood superstar (and True Lies villain) Art Malik makes an early appearance that essentially casts him in the role of Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea.

In a vast Indian orange farm, foul play is afoot. The battle for the inheritance of the farm makes a jealous uncle summon shadow demons from the netherworlds. They lurk within the trees, day or night. As most horror films are used to having jump-scares in the dark, Peli manages to bring the genre to light and somehow use the heat of Indian Summer in his advantage. The film feels sweaty, uncomfortable and, crucially scary. Well done, Mr. Peli! Now, please stay where you are.

2. Ponce De Leon (The Netherlands)
Director: Len Paulaner

The Dutch adventure film of a famous explorer who may or may not have discovered the fountain of youth. Ponce (Derek De Lint) is a conquistador attempting to prove that there are mystical Inca treasures hidden in the jungle, but have his expedition cut short as all the other members keep dying. nevertheless, he presses forward. In a double role, De Lint also plays a 1930's explorer Paul Lindtmann that has similar obsessions of the jungle. Is he a reincarnation or even Ponce himself having survived for so long?

There's a real Indiana Jones-like quality with the adventure here, with a lot of native mysticism, raw willpower and cliffhanger-like situations. The flashback-like cutting style is familiar to anyone who has watched Lost. Unlike that series, however, this film raises a lot of questions but doesn't bother to give a left-handed explanation to even the major ones. There's a real mindfuck ending that makes one want to return to the jungles with Ponce again and again.

1. Changing Season (Canada)
Director: Sally Avril

Blue Valentine and Take This Waltz meet Terrence Malick. This out-of-sequence story of a marriage crumbling down is exhilaratingly sad and visually stunning. Lenny (Edwin Autridge) is happily married to Anna (Katharine Isabelle), but when he meets a new business partner Brett (David Lawrence), he seems to start to question his sexuality. We don't know what becomes of the men, but we cut forward to the following winter when Anna is alone, her life crumbled and afraid to trust anyone.

Much like life in general, the film tends to have a soft focus around its story. Director Avril plays a lot with symbolism and intercuts the personal drama with a lot of breathtaking nature scenes. In a sort of Lynchian manner, several scenes are also done with crude stop-motion animation. While heartbreaking, it's also inventive, surprising and more than a bit odd. There's only so many relationship stories one can tell, but this film proves that the number of how they can be told are endless.

Easter Special: White Rabbits and March Hares

Rabbits have proved to be a popular theme for this blog, so in lieu of better ideas, why not return to the well this easter? A White Rabbit is a driving force throughout Lewis Carroll's classic satirist fairy tale Alice In Wonderland. Carroll's story has prevailed so long since it offers something in equal measures to children and adults. In addition to rabbits there are bounds of other memorable characters and contents from nonsensical wordplay to studies of varying states of madness throughout the story (as well as it's sequel Alice's Adventures Through The Looking Glass). With such a bountiful subject matter, filmmakers through decades have been able to pick 'n mix contents for adaptations as they have chosen.

With Alice, colorful surprises are plenty, not unlike with what you get from easter eggs. But like easter eggs and their toys, the qualities vary from delicious treats and delightful wonders to saccharine yucks and grade-C toy-making. I'll take a look at three live action adaptations of Carroll's story, varying in quality. Happy Easter!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (UK, 1972)
Director: William Sterling

This British adaptation seems to be a work against the Americanization of Carroll's story. It emphasizes the language, puns and jokes in a very British manner. The movie rolls out famous comedians in minor cameos, and does songs a plenty. Yet, it doesn't offer much more of anything than its American counter parts, say Disney's animated adaptation, already have.

Besides a few chills down your spine, at least.

Alice (Fiona Futterton) is played by a full-grown woman here, trying to pass off as a young child. The girl falls asleep on a picnic (with Lewis Carroll himself, played by Michael Jayston) and she dreams of chasing the white rabbit down its hole to a magical land of talking animals and living playing cards and such. Meeting various occupants of Wonderland, she eventually finds herself in the court of the King and Queen of Hearts (Dennis Price and Flora Robson).

The animals are presented here with actors in (quite creepy) fur suits and make up. The film plays up the whimsy and glorifies the oddness, yet comes off as boring. The songs are dull, the staging bad, the acting, particularly by Futterton atrocious. Spike Milligan and Michael Hordern make the biggest fools of themselves, running around in stupid griffin and turtle suits, goofing around just because. The joyless film comes off as a heartless and disposable adaptation. Off with its head!

★

Alice (a.k.a. Něco z Alenky), (Czechoslovakia/Switzerland/UK/BRD, 1988)
Director: Jan Švankmajer

"This is a story for children - perhaps", exclaims the narration at the beginning of this half-animated classic. Indeed, while kids can enjoy is, they have little need for a film such as this, since most of their daily entertainment is filled with unnatural wonders anyway. This is more pointed at adults who have lost their imagination and a sense of wonder with their mundane lives.

The first feature film by the legendary Czech stop motion animator Jan Švankmajer dismisses the set-up of treating Lewis Carroll's story like a fairy tale. His animation re-imagines the story to take place in a mundane environment. Characters and situations are ordinary household objects or toys, brought to life by a child's imagination. It has a dreamy logic to it, wherein anything can happen.

Alice (Kristýna Kohoutová) sees a stuffed white rabbit rise up from its display case and run away. She follows the critter to a writing desk drawer. She consumes cookies she finds that make her grow, as well as drinking ink makes her shrink. Soon, she will have to defend her actions against enraged animals. Stuffed socks and stockings make for caterpillars, cardboard cut-outs for playing card soldiers and royalty. Many animals presented are a blend of taxidermy subjects, bones and toys.

While the young Kohoutová is quite sweet in her role, Švankmajer isn't one to play up too much of cuteness. His characters can pull ugly faces, act intimidatingly or petty and are generally more of a menace, yet not in a scary way. Their carefully done movements are different for every character, and the animation is incomplete enough to give an otherworldly impression. Therein lies the director's biggest charm. The film is edgy enough to be exciting without flashy colors or changing scenery. The movie doesn't show too much, and lets the viewer fill out the blanks with his or her own imagination.

Strange, charming, endlessly surprising and joyful, this is the best Alice In Wonderland adaptation by quite a wide margin.

★★★★★

Alice in Wonderland (USA, 2010)
Director: Tim Burton

Burton's blockbusting belly-landing is a Socratic ideal of everything that is wrong with Hollywood today. It's a flashy re-imagining of a popular story, with more emphasis done on appearances than on story, character development or any contents. Colorful, CGI work (also in 3D) hides the hollowness of it all, and the story is so hallow, it brutalizes Carroll's ideas to a cheap Lord of the Rings knock-off. Marketability is the king here, off with their heads to any artistic endeavors.

The film passes itself as a sort-of sequel to Carroll's events. Alice (Mia Wasikowska) has grown to be 19, and is to be married. Yet she has other ideas and runs off. Encountering the White Rabbit, she follows it down the rabbit hole again, down to Underland (which is what Wonderland is called in this piece of shit).

Meeting her old acquaintances, Alice learns that she is a Chosen One, a legendary hero that will defeat the reign of the tyrant Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and her man-eating Jabberwocky. Writing this synopsis down, I still can't believe how much this sounds like a committee had written this in order to cash in on the most profitable trends going on at Hollywood.

Burton, always one for more visual approach than a coherent storyteller, of course revels in this. The re-imaginings of famous characters from the story have jumped straight out of his drawings. And they do resemble a junior high school student's margin drawings. But they are marketable, so whatever.

The film does have a good cast, even if Burton doesn't bother directing them that much. Alan Rickman as The Caterpillar and Stephen Fry as Chesire Cat in particular are so great choices for their roles, one has to wonder why anyone else didn't get the idea before. Michael Gough has his final film role as the voice of the Dodo. Crispin Glover in all his craziness is a perfect fit for the Knave of Hearts. Pity all these character actors are interchangeable within the story. The only minor character whose role is emphasized within the story (for better or for worse) is of course Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter. Who, in the name of shallow quirkiness is named, obnoxiously and pointlessly, Tarrant Hightopp.

Ughhh.

Depp has grown to be such a major star, he gets to do pretty much whatever he wants on the set. So, here he goofs around as if there was no one directing him at all. His horrible Scottish accent comes on and off at points. Much of made of him having to become a warrior in the dire times, since Undeland needs it. Depp's final dance sequence is so dreadful, I'd like to wipe that memory out of my mind entirely.

There are a few amusing enough jokes within all of this. But as a whole it's loud, obnoxious and altogether indifferent. And inexplicably, this marketing ploy worked like a charm. The movie made over a billion dollars profit for its parent company Disney. O tempora, O mores.

★ 1/2

Docpoint 2013

Room 237. 

Not too long ago, another of Helsinki's biggest film festivals took place. As always with DocPoint, the focus was on the year's most exciting, thought-provoking documentary films from around the world. There were several interesting movies to be seen, and it's took a while, but here's a brief look into this year's crop.

The Gatekeepers (Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)
Director: Dror Moreh

Will there ever be a chance for peace in the Middle East? Impossible to say, but at least not if one doesn't study both points of view of Israelites and Palestines. While at first glance this documentary about Israeli chiefs of Security seems to be on Israel's side, it provides criticism to the endless cycle of violence as well.

The film succeeds in contrasting the personalities of all the former leaders of Shoh Bet, or Shabak, the Central Israeli Security Agency. They provide insights on how the nation viewed various threats and wars. The endless cycle of violence has made the men develop a hard shell around them, yet there are points of them reminiscing bloodshed that are quite emotional nevertheless.

The stories of these men are filled with exciting details, confidential information, intrigue and contradiction. Their stories help one to understand at least Israel's dire need to keep its face and appear threatening and all-powerful. It's one of the reasons why the two sides can't really come to terms. This is an important reminder of how a life of ordering massacres affects the human psyche, and what comes from a nation that treats each of its foreign problems by reacting with more violence.

★★★★

The Queen of Versailles (USA/UK/Netherlands/Denmark)
Director: Lauren Greenfield

Here's a story of a wealthy family that lost everything. While this story's true, it might as well be a sitcom. The main characters are self-centered, dim, greedy, oblivious to any realities in life, and, sure enough, in a constant state of Arrested Development.

Before 2008, real estate billionaire David Siegel and his trophy wife Jacqueline loved to flash around their cash. They build skyscrapers, pay to have their daughter win beauty pageants and in the most outrageous move, build a multi-billion dollar mansion in the same vein as Louis XVI's Versailles Palace in France. Yet with the economic collapse, the Siegels lose their fortune. For the most part the film features them grasping onto last remaining shreds of their wealth.

Since the Siegel's are rich sleazebags, they refuse to recognize the moral of the story - the gambling, borderline illegal actions and political horsetrade having gotten them into the mess they are in. When the shoe's on the other foot, they blame others for destroying them and attempt to bounce back by doing the same mistakes again and again. It's incredible how dumb, vain and all-around unlikeable the main couple comes off, but it just makes the movie more intriguing. They don't care the least.

This movie is a testament to this age, a story on how people overemphasize surfaces, appearances and superficial values. They delude themselves to think they are happy when they can raise envy and outrage. But underneath all that surface is but a husk of a soul, one that has a child's idea on how society works, refuses to take responsibility and is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

★★★★

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (UK/Ireland)
Director: Sophie Fiennes

Leftist philosophy superstar Slavoj Žižek delivers another video essay using film clips from old movies, self-irony and societal critique. And, as always it is highly entertaining. This time around the lovable lisping Slovak talks about how Ideology has shaped the world around us, and can be seen in various cultural product we wouldn't necessarily expect to. Case in point are movies, both old and new, obscure and blockbusters, documentaries and fantasy.

While The Pervert's Guide to Cinema had (albeit a flimsy) thread with which to follow, this time around Žižek seems to ramble on whatever comes to mind. That's not to say the film is sloppy, on the contrary the scenes replicationg various film styles are done carefully and to a good comical effect. A lot of the things discussed are quite familiar to anyone who has ever read an article by him, seen his lecture or the documentary film Žižek! I, of course am guilty of all three, but still I enjoyed immensely to hear these theories again in another, more entertaining format. Whether I agree or not is another thing, but the strength of Žižek is that he doesn't pander but provokes and speaks out his mind. Thus, it's up to the viewer to decide what to make of it.

★★★ 1/2

Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present (USA)
Directors: Matthew Akers, Jeff Dupre

The conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović has had a long career of putting herself into her art since the 1970s. She has done this to such extent that without art at 63 years of age, she feels like a quite lonely, vunerable and uncertain person. The film chronicles her preparation fot the retrospective of her career at New York's MoMA. But it isn't just a case of putting art work on a gallery. Abramović also prepares to sit and stare at the museum guests all day, every day for three whole months.

Abramović's career has much been characterized by the search for boundaries of art. Not only allowing art lovers to look at art, but looking personally back at them is a concept as simple as there is. On a smaller scale, it could be done by anyone. Doing it with thousands of museum-goers day in, day out takes a lot of courage and endurability. But when does meeting another person, not saying one word, become art? Is it only when the other party is a respected artist by profession? The surrounding of a retrospective adds up plenty to the work, it puts on the emphasis that the artist is still present in all of her past work.

The film is ponderous and heartfelt, and like its focus, almost unbearably intimate. Just the sight of Abramović's stare brings some guests to the brink of tears. Documentarists Akers and Dupre explain Abramović's history extensively and understandably. The film is not qute as experimental as its subject matter, but it does feel like a real experiment, and makes ponder both the nature of art and humanity by itself. Not a small feat.

★★★★

Room 237 (USA)
Director: Rodney Ascher

The ominous, creepy atmosphere of the 1980 film The Shining, as well as the well-known perfectionism of director Stanley Kubrick, have made the movie larger than life. Since Kubrick tended to refuse to put all the pieces together, there was much left for individual interpretations. Thus, there are plenty of people obsessing over the film and coming up with several outlandish renditions of its meaning.

The documentary is illustrated almost solely with film clips, mostly from The Shining, but also from Kubrick's other films, as well as unrelated movies which deal with cinema-viewing and audience perception like Lamberto Bava's Demons. The interviewees are only present by sound and they are not recognized with texts or anything. It is a democratic approach, putting all the interpretations to the same line, whether observant or bug-out crazy.

Obsessing over the movie, some people have spotted out odd visual clues that provoke imagination, such as the unnatural geography of the Overlook Hotel. The theories surrounding the film's horrors sexual nature, or the retread of American bloodshed from history, seem kind of plausible. And then again, there are people who insist Kubrick framed the moon landings and uses the film to confess this to his wife. Danny's Apollo 11 sweater on one scene is the key proof of this cuckoo theory. Nevertheless, it is intriguing to hear both these accounts, and all in all the film both puts The Shining into a new light, all the while not taking anything from the mystical aura of the masterpiece. On the contrary, adding up to it!

★★★★

Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir (UK/Italy/Germany)
Director: Laurent Bouzereau

As controversial as directors come, there's no denying Roman Polanski is a character as fascinating as his films. This documentary is an attempt by his long-time friend Laurent Bouzereau to allow the man to speak his mind himself. Polanski spills his life story while on house arrest in Switzerland, waiting whether he will be handed over to US authorities for imprisonment or not.

Predictably, the story hinges on the major three disasters of Polanski's life: Fleeing the Nazi regime as a child, the relationship with his wife Sharon Tate and her consequent brutal murder by the Manson Family, and the director's actions on Jack Nicholson's house with a drugged-up minor, as well as the travesty of a trial that followed. Polanski is a humble man who doesn't attempt to shine his own shield too much and carries his tragedies as well as his successes like his current wife and children. Yet for a film titled Film Memoir, the movie glosses over Polanski's body of work in favor of a character study. His films stem from his private life, so you can't entirely seperate them, but I for one would've been eager to hear more insights on making a large number of brilliant films that disturb and challenge to this day.

★★★

Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (UK/USA)
Directors: Ice-T, Andy Baybutt

The rapper that brought you Cop Killer is convinced that hip hop saved his life from life on the streets. Since Ice-T owes the music a debt, he attempts to serve it by going around his peers, rap legends and super stars, asking what makes the music matter. The array of artists is quite impressive, from MC Melle Mel through Ice Cube and Chuck D all the way to superstars of the modern era like Kanye West and Eminem.

This is another one in the series of music documentaries that attempt to serve as a gateway to a world of certain genre. It attempts to serve the field as evenly as possible (yet focuses on the most commercial side), leaves out niche groups and offers little information to true aficionados of rap's history. It's always nice to see music legends talk about their work and how they create their verses, so it's an entertaining piece but far from true art mastery.

★★★

Men At Lunch (Ireland, 2012)
Director: Seán Ó Cualáin

The famous photograph about the building of New York, hanging on the walls of bars around the world, has inspired this historical documentary. The movie attempts to find out who were the men sitting on a girder on top of the Big Apple eating their lunch without any fear of falling. Thus, it is a story about labor in the time of the Great Depression, and by extent, immigration.

Unfortunately, since the film is Irish, it is very biased. It attempts to prove a confession heard in one pub to be conclusive, while newspapers and competitions have come to different solutions that are dismissed entirely. Likewise, the story is quite thin since there is little evidence on who's who in the picture. The lazy, archival storytelling style is one for sunday afternoon TV documentaries, but doesn't really work on a big canvas. This could've been an interesting detective story, now it's as bland and unjournalistic as they come.

★ 1/2