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Montréal 2025
No, I am not with the German wedding party, but it was kind of you to think so.
7/23: Every Heavy Thing
Mickey Reece drops a Brian De Palma-worthy sex-and-tech thriller on his hapless protagonist, Joe, an ad-man for a local newspaper. Stylish neon saturation, flickering screens, dangerous conversations, and an ever-rising body count steadily drip drip drip, pooling at Joe’s feet like so much stylish 1980s chic. Except Joe wants nothing at all to do with this nonsense surrounding him, and attempts valiantly to shrug off the machinations in order to lead his own, normal, hum-drum movie life. Reece once more plays around with genre (previous dissimilar genre outings include biopic and soap opera), and the fun he’s having with this project plays out in the final product. Joe’s determined passivity is relatable, and by the end you’ll agree with his friends: this reluctant hero is, for sure, “almost cool.”
The House With Laughing Windows
City dweller Stefano arrives in a remote Italian village to restore a painting in the local church. Hired by a fellow who is as diminutive as he is well-dressed, art guy checks in to the local hotel, only to be kicked out later and obliged to spend his nights at a semi-ruined old mansion. Quietly odd characters abound, hot chicks bed the outsider, and the cult of the artist whose work Stefano is restoring becomes more than a little menacing. But all told, I wish director Pupi Avati had gone full throttle. There’s danger: I want more; there’s violence: I want more; there’s atmosphere: I want more. As it stands, this movie will primarily appeal to dyed-in-the-wool giallo fans. Me, well, I am somewhat ashamed to admit there were stretches when the lull of the film score and the darkness of the theater almost tipped me into sleep.
Things That Go Bump in the East (Shorts Anthology)
“Magai-Gami” – dir. by Norihiro Niwatsukino
This must be a dry-run for a feature; but then again, sometimes that stretches things too thinly. Regardless, Norihiro’s little horror here is a creepy joy. Two young women visit a prohibited forest to encounter the titular entities for the purposes of Internet fame. A demon of hundreds of hands stares down one of the pair, who cannot break eye contact first lest she be devoured.
“Hungry” – dir. by Liu Yu Shu
Puppets pop on to the scene, bursting from black-light and golden backgrounds as Liu Yu Shu explores ancient myths. A father promises his febrile son that he’ll take him out for a meal once he completes his presentation. At dinner (much reviving), the lad and his dad meet a performer from the pageant: the spider from the show. “Hungry” is a fascinating slice of life meets ceremonial spectacle.
“Kill Tradition” – dir. by Juliana Reza
The reason behind the events in “Kill Tradition” are as unclear as they are melancholy. Or, not to mince words, tragic. Inter-enerational relationships, the burden of history, and the desperate hopes for a better tomorrow all get an airing as we watch a mother and daughter spend some quality time together before an appointed day in which the elders plan to set their unhappy plan into motion. The narrow frame captures the intimacy of the scene and setting, and the quietly heartfelt performance of the mother is impressive.
“Mom, Stay Dead” – dir. by Lee Na-hee
Little to say about this quirky, cute, tear-jerker, other than that it was nicely done and will satisfy the curiosity of those wondering how best to summon the spirits of the dead—at least in Korea. This knowledge is found through considerable study of occult sources (as evidenced by a quick pan of the camera over a girl’s book case), but it is worth noting that in the afterworld, memories aren’t what they used to be. A spooky, comic little melodrama.
“Dhet!” – dir. by Ummid Ashraf
Take pity on our poor ride-share scooterist. Customers are rude, the algorithm merciless, and now it seems that the path for his next delivery is endless. Both comedic and unsettling at turns, “Dhet!” showcases great promise. The looping roadway interweaves with itself, foreshadowed early in the short through some odd, non-Euclidean angularity of the background. Ahsabul Yamin Riad is a delight as the harried protagonist, and the audience up and guffawed when he spat out the titular line at the horror’s climax. [ED: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified Hrifat Mazumder as the protagonist rather than Ahsabul Yamin Riad . We regret the error.]
“Red Spider Lilies: the Ascension” – dir. by Koji Shiraishi
At first, I was rooting for the good guys. Then they became the bad guys. Then I learnt that those guys weren’t necessarily the greatest evil on the screen. Koji is obviously setting things up for further adventures here, as a pair of exorcists investigate a blobulous haunting at an aged household of three single women. (Their husbands having fallen out of the picture for various reasons, perhaps due to a curse from feudal days.) Trickery and silliness coexist comfortably with nightmarish demons who probably meet up with the Cenobites of a weekend for cards.
7/24: Mother of Flies
John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser: all filmmakers, all family, and in their latest outing they are probably 90% of the screen time. Mother of Flies is a meditation on disease, a spooky supernatural drama, and something of a comedy as well. It is also a reassuring return to form after their previous, less-Adams-y outing screened at Fantasia last year. Tobey Poser exudes matriarchal calm and steel as a witch who contacts Mickey (Zelda Adams), whose cancer has returned and with it a seeming death sentence. Reluctant dad (John Adams) agrees to drive deep into the woods for the three-day ceremony that is promised to save the life of his daughter.
The greatest strength of the Adams films, for me at least, is watching the family interact, bringing their natural ease and playfulness to the screen. Mother of Flies is sometimes a difficult watch, but appropriately so, seeing as this was a therapeutic film for the family themselves. But it never gets too heavy, and for once it was good to see the father not end up on the doomed end of the stick.
Winner of the “Cheval Noir” this year.
7/25: The Serpent’s Skin
Queer Underground Cinema: served up by Alice Maio Mackay; her sixth feature, I believe. The heroine, Anna, is trans, and also something of a witchy individual; though her latent powers are undeveloped. That is until she meets a new girl in a new town, who foresaw Anna’s arrival in a dream. Their romance blossoms, bigots are bullied back, and a demon is unleashed through a work of tattoo artistry. Mackay showed promise last year with Carnage for Christmas, and with The Serpent’s Skin she has proven she can craft a tightly-knit supernatural romance. I look forward to her output in the years to come.
7/26: Lucid
This is a simmering stew of memory fragments, fractured ambitions, angst, oddness, and ideas. Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall spent some six years with this project, resulting in a very personal exploration of artistry, art, and artists. Mia aspires to create a meaningful expression of herself, but is restrained by a horrible job (“Bitchin’ Chicken”? Sounds like a nightmare, but golly the hats have hats), an unsupportive teacher (though his callousness is of the kind that might bear fruit), and a mightily messed-up childhood (cult member hippie parents). What better way to overcome these obstacles than by chomping down on a candy-heart psychedelic?
Caitlin Acken Taylor owns the role of Mia, facing her trials with gritty defiance—though she is somewhat overwhelmed when a band of Performance Art thugs who seem ripped straight from Liquid Sky infiltrate her workplace. More an exploration of identity than a narrative, the film ends roughly how it begins: with Mia on her way to art class to submit her creation. Second time ’round, though, she’s far more confident cycling through the long tunnel, meaningful doll in hand.
The Girl Who Stole Time
With this magical feat of comedic timing, action choreography, and a duo for the ages, filmmakers Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan raise the bar for not only Chinese animation, but storytelling in children’s movies more broadly. Quoting from the Fantasia description, “Qian Xiao, a cheerful girl from a fishing village, dreams of becoming an actress in the big city. On her way towards the metropolis, a sudden crash changes everything. Fortunately, she survives—and as a bonus, she obtains the Time Dial, a mysterious pendant which gives her the ability to control time.”
The end result? A rollercoaster of fun, with dashes of Kung Fu Hustle-style combat, and musical numbers which, though not so memorable, don’t drag. The sharp turn toward sentiment in the final act is neither jarring nor gratuitous, but be advised that there may be tears. Highly recommended.
The Woman
Last year’s Mash Ville holds a special place in my heart as a movie which I sat through when most everyone I had entered with walked out by the half-way mark. My views on that film are sufficiently documented, so I will try to explain why I attended the screening for Hwang Wook’s follow-up: curiosity. The Woman is, so far, the least-recommendable movie I’ve sat through here, but in a thoroughly different way than Mash Ville. Slow (not in and of itself a problem), enigmatic (not in and of itself a problem), and several other quiet-crime-thriller-esque-but-character-study?-maybe genre issues weigh down the experience. It is clear that Hwang Wook knows how to make a movie, but unclear why he’s made these two. I am now on the hook for the next film from this director, to discover whether he confounds me in a third, entirely new way.
7/27: Good Game
Like a quality paint-by-numbers craft kit, Dickson Leung’s movie is formulaic and good enough. A disgraced pro-gamer is forced to join up with a rag-tag band of amateurs in his attempt to regain his position—and his self respect. Good Game hits all the predictable notes (silly underdogs, training and gaming montage, and a nail-biter finale), but hits them well, and the cast is a joy to watch on the screen. Heartwarming and exciting, it also features a neat-o gimmick wherein the LAN-party-style battles are performed by top stunt people as the avatars, allowing genuine funtime action to intersplice with the requisite keyboard and mouse clicking. Will the fallen e-sports diva win the prize alongside paunchy middle aged Internet Café owner, his plucky daughter, and a former Wuxia action star? Find out, in Good Game.
Ya Boy Kongming! The Movie
Zhuge is recognised as the most accomplished strategist of his era.”
In this Manga adaptation from Shibue Shuhei, he re-appears in contemporary Japan, trying to bring about Universal Peace through advertising slots, sports analysis, and music promotion. Brilliant or stupid? Certainly amusing.
Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy
Fan-fiction fans, have I got a science fiction recommendation for you. Kim Byung-woo brings us the story of a young man who, having followed an on-line serialized novel for all his formative years, finally snaps and sends the author an e-mail expressing his contempt for what the story became. The author replies with a cryptic challenge for the reader: starting today, at 7 PM, he’ll have his chance to devise his own ending. Unfortunately, it’s a dystopian novel, with civilization destroyed by thrill-seeking galactic species.
Slick action, fun quandaries, and, as I’ve come to anticipate ’round these parts, a good deal of rag-taggery in the mix. Among the various twists, our titular reader may have an edge when it comes to the strange processes within this “game” devised by alien chuckle-heads, but he is not the hero; and the hero in this story is not one to follow the recommendations of some nerd like the Reader.
7/28: Transcending Dimensions
Nirvana is attained through enlightenment, be that through lifelong meditation, or shot from the barrel of hitman’s revolver. Revenge melodrama meets 2001-levels of mindspace exploration by way of black comedy. What’s at the edge of the universe? “Come again”, he says, and perhaps you can find out.
Directed by outsider filmmaker Toshiaki Toyoda; 366 Staff, take note: this needs a look from another team member.
Hi-Five
By this point in the festival I tend to second-guess myself: am I too eager to please, or am I the beneficiary of a charmed selection-bias? Suffice to say, I’ve foreshadowed the obvious reaction: I Thought Hi-Five Was a Frickin’ Blast-And-A-Half!
*Ahem*. Kang Hyung-chul, director, here has the story of an… unlikely group of five ragtag types who acquire super powers from organs donated by an unexplained humanoid entity whose body apparently broke a good number of the transplant surgeons’ knives. But there is a sixth recipient, an evil and aged cult leader! Through the power of Friendship (and super-strength, and electro-manipulation, and high-speed wind, and healing, and the darling fifth member who, despite her new kidneys, doesn’t seem to have anything to add except good cheer), the five freshly minted heroes must defeat his maniacal machinations for Godhood on Earth.
This was a good time; so much so that I didn’t even mind being Rickrolled.
7/29: The Undertone
A horror film centered around a podcast gets you points for bravado. Evy spends most of this film either seated at a table with headphones on, or tending to her mother who lies unresponsively, near death, upstairs. Judging from the ambience and nuance crafted on the soundscape (premise, further: podcast involves Creepy Stuff, with Evy and her co-host listening to ten rando-submitted audio files which chronicle grisly developments), Ian Tuason knows that a gambit such as this requires Herculean depth of foley. Though not scary, per se, The Undertone capably maintains an unsettling atmosphere throughout. It didn’t much concern me what precisely was going on, but the runtime spun down zippily and it was pleasant to get lost in the menace playing from the cinema speaker system.
Diasporic Dualities (Shorts Anthology)
“Tranquil Waters, Boundless Skies” – dir. by Zhe-Yu Yang
Light comedy and deep myth come together for a ho-hum outing about the descendants of the Monkey King, and their guardianship of an ancient mirror which traps the Bull Demon King. Filial what’s-its, some martial arts, and a hapless young woman hirsuted by ancient powers.
“Indian in a Box” – dir. by Nishanth R.
Dropped right into a pit of claustrophobia, we watch a young fellow bound to a combination abacus-typewriter, advised by a voice over unseen speakers that “Work is the Right You Pay for the Room You Occupy on Earth”. Decimal sums appear above him, and he must work ceaselessly lest he be crushed by sliding walls of the box. Sweaty, black comedy with a dark and hilarious punchline.
“Pickled Rabbit” – dir. by Julie Zhu
More filial exploration, this time involving a decreasingly independent mother and her put-upon daughter. A priest explains there is an alternative to this path of decrepitude, but the cost is high. Atmospheric (love that church) and a touch creepy, I also learned that whatever the merits of “traditional Chinese medicine” might be, they are invariably unpleasant tasting.
“Carmageddon” – dir. by Tarun Thind
“Postmen of the Enigmatic Knights” is a pretty stupid name for a group, but then I consider racists to be pretty stupid people. One of them is haunted by a mischievous spirit in his van, which is for the best: he was going to use this van for a terrorist massacre. Tarun Thind impressively manages to evoke sympathy for his bigoted protagonist, however, depicting him as a stupid, desperate man being manipulated by stupid, evil people.
“Ever After” – dir. by Helen Hideko
The feels are real(s). I did not enjoy this story about a 10-year-old girl—a transplant from parts Asian to the wee country of Austria—but then, I probably wasn’t supposed to. She is bullied by her new classmates and told to buck-up by her mother. She dreams of becoming a mermaid, and chronicles her vision while suffering searing menstrual pain. The sacrifice she makes involves a fish-hook and thread, but perhaps she may transform to swim among the fish she loves.
“Skin” – dir. by Urvashi Pathania
It is not for a Mr. Whitey McWhiterson like myself to comment on the pressures felt by women of color, but “Skin” feels all too believable. A clinic has developed an all-body bleaching process to lighten one’s skin tone, providing this service in one of those delightfully unsettling Pink-Pink facilities. Urvashi Pathania brings the hammer down, but with moderation: there’s a flip side to this sinister business that is differently sinister. The ill fate of one of spa victims points toward yet another layer of societal malfeasance, suggesting there’s plenty of blame and pitiability to go around.
“Shitfly” – dir. by Julian Park
Spare some kindness for the parcel deliverer. Stuck in a van all day, malnourished and chugging energizing beverages, our package porter seems on the cusp of melting. The sweltering heat is tangible (this was partially recorded during the major LA wildfire event), and the bugs and maggots assemble. The protagonist hopes to clear his debt to the company and pay for his father’s hospice care, but he keeps getting dinged penalties by the chirpily domineering computer voice monitoring his route. Is escape possible? Maybe. But it won’t be a pleasant ride.
LifeHack
What better way to round out the second week of the festival than with an on-screen escapade about a heist? Ronan Corrigan gives us a new entry in the still-small field of “This Movie Occurs Entirely On Various Screens Within The Movie” genre, primarily through the desktop view of protagonist Whosaface (er, Peter), who devises a stratagem to rip off crypto jerkbags. Things get pear shaped when his contact information is discovered by an an heiress, and her ambitions to swipe $25 million of crypto from her father land the team in dangerous waters. This was a fun bit of capering, and I was pleased at how the “Screenlife” format could elicit appropriate tension.