No meaning to the title, it just came up in a drunken conversation.
I have been busy at film festivals so thought I’d share a roundup of what’s cool.
Amsterdam Fantastic film festival
Illustrator Dave McKean and writer Neil Gaiman got together to create this fantasy tale of a girl’s struggle with adolescence. At a key point in her life she enters a fantasy world where she has to fight to decide which side of her personality survives to live on in her future, the dark brooding bad girl or the more optimistic good one. The fantasy world in full of beautiful images and surreal characters that will please Dave Mckean fans, with a gorgeously layered, organic collage feel that belies the CG nature of the environment. The story is a little lame, like a modern day “Labyrinth”, but the young actress is cute and believable. Worth it for the visuals and crazy beasts and beings she encounters.
The King 2005
Gael GarcÃÂa Bernal is a young gun straight out of the army who goes in search of his real father, now a family friendly preacher in Texas. Initially reluctant to acknowledge his child from wilder years, Elvis (Bernal) begins to infiltrate the family, seducing his unknowing half sister. Excellent eerie and thoughtful exploration of morals and family with long lingering shots of a sleepy Texas town. The penultimate scene is a master of suspensful camera work, and the ending leaves you feeling strangely ill-at-ease and uncomfortable.
A tacky and cheap TV show that investigates the paranormal goes to interview a Welsh farm girl apparently impregnated by aliens. English director Jake West goes all out in a mad combinations of splatter-fest-zombie-alien schlock with a good dose of English humour. Starts with some really dodgy dialog and acting but once the actors find themselves in 7 shades of shit (literally) the movie picks up a hell of a pace with gambolling aliens chasing ourheroess who are stranded on a Welsh island. Worth it for the scene where the cameraman uses a combine harvester to shred the aliens across wheat fields to a soundtrack of “Motivation farming music” - The Worzels “I’ve got a brand new combine harvester”. Genius. Would have been improved by some more judicious editing, and a little more time spent on script and performance, but for low-budget British sci-fi, a bloody good effort.
Sci-Fi London Festival
Bizarre Japanese black comedy composed of 5 mostly independent stories. Again overlong in places but full of surreal and comedic characters characters and situations. The most memorable being the man who attempts to kill his wife repeatadly only to find her back at home, silent but filled with ever increasing rage and fury and determined to elicit her revenge. This film includes some visually rich production design, especially of the huge home of the warring couple, which is a a tapestry of colour pattern and eccentric lighting (the coloured light behind the fridge!). It also manages some sweet and tender moments as in the story of the father who becomes a bird, whose youngest son is alone in celebrating in his fathers metamorphosis but attempting to help him learn to fly.
More to come, by I am in England and it’s time for Sunday lunch - Hooray!