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SLAMDANCE 2021: THE SHORT BIGS COMPENDIUM

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The collection of short reviews for longer, less-weird films.

Slamdance’s entire slate, shorts and features, can be watched online through February 25 for a $10 pass, $5 for students.

Hurrah, We Are Still Alive! (Hura, wciaz zyjemy!; dir. Agnieszka Polska)—Troupe of film actors is adrift and its mysterious director is mysteriously missing and…yawnnnnn. Mm, excuse me. The only way I could potentially pitch this high mumble-drama as exciting would be to provide a couple of out of context remarks like, “Dirk picks up a cat and walks through a cowboy gauntlet”, or “Dirk threatens an exotic fish.” This is the kind of movie that gets a super-solid 5/10, because it is technically well made, technically tells a story, and was technically watchable all the way through. It features pseudo-mysterious plottings, a terrorist organization, an actress with a wig that’s more boyish than her slightly less-boyish actual hairstyle, a semi-charismatic hitman, and, exotic for a New York viewer, smoking inside a disco. (This club, however, is one of the saddest party places I’ve ever seen.) It probably didn’t help that the film burns out its only energy with the exclamation mark in the title.

The Little Broomstick Rider (dir. Matteo Bernardini)—For those of you who want to experience the simple-sophisticated joys of “gekkimation” but don’t want to endure the stomach-turning creativity of more graphic fare, I highly recommend Bernardini’s charming yarn about a 9-year-old boy accused of witchcraft in early 17th-century Bavaria. Darling and detailed drawings for characters and settings, snappy and silly signs for dialogue and exposition, and flute and fife for a rousing soundtrack. Unlike myself, Matteo Bernardini did something productive during his Covid quarantine. (Not to insult my profession, mind you; but one of the perks of being a reviewer is you get a front-row view of talented people. [Not that reviewers aren’t talented people, just… ah, to heck with it. Watch The Little Broomstick Rider!].)

Taipei Suicide Story (安眠旅舍; dir. KEFF)—Well, this was probably the saddest romantic comedy I’ve ever seen, though at least the title prepared me for it. In the greater Taipei area, sometime now-ish, is a discreet little hotel where the guests are allowed only one night’s stay. This typically isn’t problematic, as the facility specializes in giving people a place (and limited assistance) to kill themselves. Zhi-Hao is a young man, and world-weary, which is something to be expected of a concierge at a Continue reading SLAMDANCE 2021: THE SHORT BIGS COMPENDIUM →

Capsules

CAPSULE: INSIDIOUS (2010)

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DIRECTED BY: James Wan

FEATURING: , Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye

PLOT: A young boy falls ill when he moves into a new house; mom is convinced the home is haunted, but when they relocate again, the kid doesn’t get better, and the apparitions get worse.

Still from InsIidious (2010)

COMMENTS:  Having launched the smash hit Saw franchise in 2004, director James Wan was still a somewhat hot name in horror in 2010, despite the fact that his intervening work had not been particularly successful. Producing independently, he once again teamed with scriptwriting partner Leigh Whannell for the haunted house flick Insidious, whose surprising box office receipts were hefty enough to launch a new four-film franchise[efn_note]Curiously, the second and fourth films in the franchise outgrossed the original.[/efn_note] and reignite his career.

Watching the film for the first time a decade after release, it’s difficult to see what the appeal was. It’s not that there’s anything really wrong with Insidious; it’s just not clear why it should succeed where so many interchangeable horrors lie forgotten. The premise is not particularly unique, there’s no breakout villain like Saw‘s Jigsaw, no special effects to speak of, no psychological subtext, nothing to tap into 2010’s zeitgeist, no killer nightmare scene that sticks in the memory. It is, in every aspect, an absolutely middle-of-the-road Hollywood-style spook show.

To its credit, Insidious leaves Saw’s torture and gore formula behind in favor of actual horror. Doors open on their own, there’s mysterious murmuring on the baby monitor, the burglar alarm goes off with no one around, and the frazzled mom sees shadow people lurking outside the window. But each decent directorial decision (a haunting use of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”) is counterbalanced by a poor one (no explanation for how the family affords a four-bedroom country estate and round-the-clock medical care on a high school teacher’s salary). The lighting drapes the spooky figures in just the right amount of obscuring shadow, and the other technical elements are professional. But the casting is ho-hum: Patrick Wilson is blah; Rose Byrne is fine, but doesn’t look much like a mom of three; is indisputably in the movie; Lin Shaye makes for an OK psychic exorcist, but her character inevitably invites unfavorable comparisons to Poltergeist‘s Zelda Rubinstein (an obvious inspiration.) On the other hand, her two nerdy, squabbling comic-relief assistants worked well (and could have supported their own spin-off comedy film).

As far as weirdness goes, the case for Insidious is slim at best. It’s no stranger than any other ghost movie you’ve seen, and comes complete with the usual deflating supernatural explanations for everything that happens. The trip through the looking glass into the spirit realm (here called “the Further”) is well done and eerie, with damned souls endlessly re-enacting ancient tragedies, deaf and blind to the living walking among them. The big bad boss demon (also the film’s Tiny Tim fan) could have been majorly scary, if not for the fact that his design reminded everyone who saw him of a certain character from The Phantom Menace (thankfully, not Jar-Jar, although that would have been a bold choice). Insidious ends with a twist that surprised absolutely no one (and may have ruined the film for some people who were willing to give it a pass up to that point). None of this, good or bad, rises to the level of weird, in our judgement. It’s ultimately a film to take or leave, to enjoy well enough and forget about as soon as it’s over. At least it’s not torture porn.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“By the time the absurdly deflating finale rolls around, Wan has managed to not only botch his own film, but sully the one cool element of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace as well.”–Nick Schaeger, Lessons of Darkness (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Rick Yeoman, who asked, “Is Insidious included? Should be. At first the movie’s great, but when it reached the climax, I found it weird. I hate the twists. Not scary anymore. Ended up funny.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: HITLER: A FILM FROM GERMANY (1977)

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DIRECTED BY: Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

FEATURING: André Heller, Peter Kern, Heinz Schubert, Hellmut Lange, narrated by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

PLOT: Hitler’s youth, rise, fall, and aftermath are all explored via inter-related vignettes, monologues, stage props, and puppets.

Still from Hitler: A Film from Germany (1977)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Syberberg’s epic is a documentary with an impossible task: capturing the full scope and legacy of the 20th-century’s most dangerous maniac. Eschewing the standard “narrated historical footage interspersed with talking heads,” the film instead aims to recreate the febrile mindset inspired by Adolf Hitler by dabbling in surrealism, cosmic imagery, mundane detail, historical cinematic allusions, and ironic counterpoint. There are also puppet facsimiles of all the Reich’s leading men.

COMMENTS: This film from Germany is, on the surface, very simple. It has no elaborate special effects. Its main set is a theater strewn with props. It uses widely available historic footage and broadcasts. It states from the start that its mission is impossible. The events leading up to Hitler’s rise, and the fallout from his catastrophic machinations, cannot be recreated in any conventional way. So Syberberg takes advantage of both his limited budget (some half-a-million dollars) and his task’s inherent difficulties to craft a reverie that fuses cosmic grandeur with the tedium of minutiae. In doing so, he has created not so much a documentary of events as a dreamscape that lands the viewer face to face with the 20th century’s greatest evil.

A ring master invites the viewer to the forthcoming spectacle, encouraging us to take part at home. Barking through a megaphone, he promises outlandish sights and sounds. Entertainment, through sketch, monologue, and marionettes, awaits. Vintage radio broadcasts blast breathtaking news of conquest and hate, while a young girl clad in a celluloid headdress wanders amidst symbolic props and across idyllic rear-projected landscapes. Academics chime in, typically directly at the camera, other times in conversation with a carved wooden Führer. Various actors play various iterations of Himmler. Hitler’s valet leads us on of his bunker and explains the Führer’s exasperating disinclination to wear the correct shoes. A likeness of Doctor Caligari presents his own side-show of esoteric relics, from the historical spear that stabbed Jesus Christ to the bottle of Hitler’s semen—not the real thing, mind you, as that has been preserved in a capsule frozen in an alpine glacier and protected by elite guards. For over seven hours, Syberberg builds a mindscape from snippets of Wagner, snatches of Goethe, and reams of autobiographical testimony from those closest to the Führer.

There is a climactic scene of sorts, involving a conversation between a scholar and the little Hitler perched upon his knee. The academic argues that, despite all Hitler’s ambitions, and with all the idiotic mistakes he made (for example, rallying against the Jews instead of co-opting them), he failed. During Hitler’s lengthy rejoinder, in which he expounds upon the reality he established even upon his death, the academic removes coat after coat from the doll, taking its garb backward further and further along Hitler’s historical sartorial path. This contrast of contemporary and future with historical delving is Syberberg’s primary tool. Despite virtually all the facts available to us—the thousands of hours of film, the unending radio transmissions, the millions of words written by observers from all sides—there is a disconnect, as if the catalyst is missing. There was a time before Hitler, there was a time after Hitler.

By the end, I was well and truly transported. Watching Hitler: a Film from Germany is, despite the bare-bones production, a transcendental experience. Each of the four acts is the length of any one standard feature film, but Syberberg had his hooks in me—so much so that I watched it all in one sitting. The art-house speeches, effective in their matter-of-fact tones and melancholy delivery; the fusion of man and doll when the Reich’s ministers expound on their greatness; the conventional drama of the scenes that still subvert with their dissonant aural cues or ironic back-projection; this all adds up to a heady experience that should be mandatory viewing for any student of history, contemporary politics, psychology, or cinema. Hitler: a Film from Germany deftly and thoroughly examines how one man’s dream of destroying the world order succeeded despite his own downfall.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“To present Hitler in multiple guises and from many perspectives, Syberberg draws on disparate stylistic sources: Wagner, Méliès, Brechtian distancing techniques, homosexual baroque, puppet theater. This eclecticism is the mark of an extremely self-conscious, erudite, avid artist, whose choice of stylistic materials (blending high art and kitsch) is not as arbitrary as it might seem. Syberberg’s film is, precisely, Surrealist in its eclecticism.” -Susan Sontag, The New York Review (contemporaneous)

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CHANNEL 366: WANDAVISION (2021)

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DIRECTED BY: Matt Shakman

FEATURING: Elizabeth Olsen, , Kathryn Hahn, , Randall Park,

PLOT: Sorceress Wanda Maximoff and her husband, the strong and flight-capable synthezoid Vision, settle down in the idyllic burg of Westview. However, their peace and comfort are regularly disrupted by nosy neighbors who are constantly seconds away from discovering their secret, outside forces threatening their safety, and the fact that their reality is constantly changing to reflect the evolution of the American situation comedy over several decades.

Still from WandaVision,(2021)

 COMMENTS: For their debut on the Disney+ streaming service, the bigwigs at Marvel Studios bypass their usual flights-and-punches formula in favor of parody, satire, and psychological paranoia. “WandaVision” turns the mystery of what is happening to our protagonists on its head by filtering the drama through the pastiche of laugh-tracked comical antics. So it’s not quite what you might expect from the box office wizards at Marvel. On the other hand, it’s still mainstream entertainment, and the patient will soon be rewarded with explanations for all that transpires.

When last seen on the big screen, Wanda Maximoff (AKA Scarlet Witch) was doing battle with purple mega-Malthusian Thanos, while Vision was dead at selfsame villain’s hands. For those who have diligently followed the Marvel Cinematic Universe through 24-or-so big screen adventures, the sight of the pair crossing the threshold as (1) married, (2) very much alive, and (3) stepping onto the set of an ersatz “Dick van Dyke Show” must surely provoke a cocked eyebrow.

But if you’ve been paying any attention at all, you’ve noticed that part of Marvel’s success has derived from its willingness to borrow beats and tropes from other genres to keep the overall superhero vibe fresh. You’re as likely to get touches of 70s paranoid thriller (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) as you are an 80s macho-buddy flick (Thor: Ragnarok). Sometimes the films even shift tone within their own running time (see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s lurch from heist comedy to haunted requiem). So the left-turn into sitcom territory is not totally off-brand.

Considering that they’ve been reduced to mere cameos amidst the cinematic cavalcade of superheroes, Olsen and Bettany seem to relish finally getting the spotlight to themselves for a little bit. Their chemistry, teased out in stolen moments in the big-screen omnibus, is genuine, and if their transformation into broad comedians still feels awkward, it’s not for lack of trying. The same Vision who triumphantly hoisted Thor’s hammer in the cinema is here reduced to belting out “Yakety Yak” as a wild distraction—but the spirit says to just go with it.

That’s surely why “WandaVision” is on our radar. It feels wrong. These characters shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, these comedic styles should not be on our TV screens in the 21st century, and for three episodes, the show resolutely refuses to explain just what the heck is going on. Of course, this puzzle box is part of what draws viewers here in the first place. Something strange is going on is Heroville, and we’re gonna try and figure out what.

And sure enough, episode 4 begins to unpack the mystery, as agents from the “real world” try to understand the mysterious goings-on. It’s hardly a coincidence that FBI agent Jimmy Woo is scribbling down the very questions that are in our own heads: “Why hexagonal shape? Why sitcoms? Same time & space? Is Vision alive?” For any viewers shaking their heads and despairing at the many unanswered questions, the plot cops are here to sort things out.

“WandaVision” represents an interesting attempt to incorporate some different flavors into the Marvel mix. Director Shakman and creator Jac Schaeffer fully commit to their odd premise, with credit sequences, theme songs, and commercial breaks to match each new setting. (In particular, episode 5 ends in a wild twist that manages to riff on sitcom tropes and inside-baseball Hollywood at the same time.) In other words, it’s weird and it knows it. But the show also wants to reassure you that everything’s going to make sense in the end; it’s weird for a reason. When you’re a multibillion dollar content factory, you probably don’t want to leave that kind of thing to chance.

Roger Ebert famously summarized the shortcomings of 2010, the belated sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, by quoting the verse of e. e. cummings: “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”. Similarly, “WandaVision” soars when gleefully vivisecting expectations for a comic book adventure series, but the needs of the franchise, and the demands of mainstream entertainment, keep it firmly tethered to the ground.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The best parts of the first three episodes are when WandaVision unapologetically leans into its weirdness… the more unexplained moments the show throws at us, and the more it pushes up against what feels like horror, the more it allows the sitcom device to really hammer home its uncanny artificiality. The result is that the sitcom beats feel even stranger, maybe even more menacing — in a way that goes beyond “these characters sure are acting unnaturally.” It makes you realize the intense desperation for these characters to be “normal,” and the tragedy that “normal” is the one thing they’ll never be able to be. When the characters sink back into their comedic shtick, then, it feels even more unnerving.” – Alex Abad-Santos, Vox

 

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CAPSULE: FELLINI’S CASANOVA (1976)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING:

PLOT: The dashing Venetian nobleman Casanova wanders around 18th century Europe seducing every woman who catches his eye.

Still from Fellini's Casanova (1976)

COMMENTS: Federico Fellini agreed to direct Casanova before he had read the Venetian libertine’s memoirs, which had only been published in 1960 in their complete uncensored form. After he did, he discovered that he hated the protagonist.

Perhaps that distaste partially explain why Donald Sutherland seems so wrong for the role of the notorious Lothario. The film’s Hollywood backers initially wanted Robert Redford for the part; Fellini vetoed them. Fellini wanted ; the suits vetoed him. Sutherland was a compromise. But, in keeping with his loathing of the character, Fellini chose to outfit Sutherland with a grotesque fake chin and nose, powder his face, and shave his head and eyebrows and replace them with a ridiculously coiffed wig and stenciled brows so that he looked like a rejected contestant from Ru Paul’s 18th Century Dandy Drag Race. It’s hard to imagine even the most desperate Renaissance floozy being hard up enough to willingly lift her petticoats for this Casanova. Perhaps that’s why, in an odd decision that bothers me more than it probably should, everyone in the movie keeps their frilly long underwear on during the manic but completely unerotic sex scenes. Casanova also has a golden wind-up mechanical owl, who pistons up and down and accompanies his assignations with a series of blips and bloops scored by Nino Rota. The lovemaking scenes are supposed to be comic—I think—but they comes across as slightly creepy, like sex scenes choreographed by an alien who’d fast-forwarded through a couple of Eurotrash sex films the night before, but didn’t have human sexual mechanics completely down.

To be fair, Sutherland does look the part of the spent, past-his-prime Casanova eeking out a humiliating living as a librarian for Count Waldstein; and the end of the film is where Fellini, too, finally shows some compassion for the drained rake. But overall, Casanova is overlong, unsympathetic, miscast, and a failure of tone. That’s not to say it’s entirely without interest, however; this is Fellini, so there’s always the possibility that some carnival with a 7-foot woman attended by two dwarfs in powdered wigs is waiting around the next bend. The costuming and set design are superlative. Fellini recreates the capitals and castles of old Europe on Cinecittà‘s indoor sets, including the impressive opener in Venice, where a giant bust of Venus rises from a canal during Carnevale as fireworks splatter the sky. Even the stormy Adriatic Sea is recreated as a sea of rustling black plastic tarps. And you can look forward to such oddities as a dinner party of necromancers, and Casanova finally discovering the great love of his life: a lifelike automaton complete with realistic artificial genitalia.

Although there’s a reason Casanova has been neglected all these years (Fellini once called it his worst movie), it easily merits a guilty peek for curiosity-seekers. In some ways, the scarcely-controlled extravagance and emphasis on mise-en-scène above all else reminds me more of early than it does late Fellini.

Fellini filmed an episode with that was cut from the final edit of the film. (Her name still appears prominently in the credits, and I kept waiting for her to show up to see what Fellini was going to do with her, er, talents).

Despite winning an Oscar (for costuming), Fellini’s Casanova was always a neglected entry in the Maestro’s canon. It didn’t even earn a DVD release in the US. In 2019, Cinecittà restored Casanova in the course of their massive remastering of Fellini’s catalog. Criterion apparently passed on it for their Fellini box set, but in December 2020, Kino rescued the film from home video limbo, sending it straight to Blu-ray.  A thoroughly-researched audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton is the only special feature of this edition.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…much less about the self-proclaimed 18th-century philanderer, his life and his times, than it is the surreal, guilt-ridden confessions of a nice, middle-class Italian husband of the 20th century… I don’t know how else to interpret this strange, cold, obsessed film, which I find fascinating, because I find the man who made it fascinating, a talented mixture of contradictory impulses, and as depressing as an eternal hangover.”–Vincent Canby, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Caleb Moss, who argues “Any question of this film’s weirdness can be directed to the scene where Sutherland performs a bizarre sex-change ritual with two women that involves a candlewax head dress…” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)