All posts by Giles Edwards

Film major & would-be writer. 6'3". @gilesforyou (TwT)
Interviews

HIGH ON THE FARM: A CHAT WITH KAREN SKLOSS (2017)

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Meeting on the patio of the Irish Embassy ((Not the actual embassy, but a nearby pub where Fantasia-types gather most every night.)), I enjoyed an extended conversation with Karen Skloss, the director of The Honor Farm (2017, reviewed here).

Karen SklossAll right, this is Giles Edwards from 366 Weird Movies here with the director of The Honor Farm, Karen Skloss. We’re going to discuss the first fictional feature she’s directed, having previously directed Sunshine, a 2009 documentary that played on PBS and elsewhere concerning the nature of pregnancy, your daughter…

Karen Skloss: And changing family values, I guess, and looking at motherhood and women’s place in the family and structures…Kind of like a personal essay film. A very personal story; the “personal is political” kind of thing.

366: I read, courtesy of IMDB, that you did a little of previous work in film editing. Is that how you started in the filmmaking business?

KS: I still do it, right now I’m editing Andrew Bujalski’s new movie, I’m really excited about it.

366: Now is what do you think will be your future career? Focusing on editing? Focusing on directing feature films?

KS: I guess it’s a slow transition to… [At this point, bar noise grew excessive] …I kind of wonder if we should be outside.
I guess we’ll take a field-trip with this recorder and keep our fingers crossed. [Traveling outside, far quieter.]
Now we’re talking! I had a vision, and no one separates a director from her vision.

366: Except for the producers and money-men, right?

KS: [Laughs] Right! Now, this is more like a cafe interview.
Yes, 2009 was my last feature, my directorial debut, with lots of editing in between, and now some more editing. But it’s cool, because I’m going to get another one off the ground soon. I would love to direct as my “bread and butter”, but I also love editing, so it’s totally fine.

366: Your preceding movie went back about a decade, with the family ponderings. You mentioned [at the screening] your daughter was a teenager now, so I presume she was born well before the movie that concerned her and you.

KS: Yeah. It’s funny, I started shooting while I was pregnant. It was one of those projects that happened slowly while I was working as an editor and doing other projects. I was slowly doing this personal essay over many years.

366: Obviously getting into film is a dream for a lot of people. Did Continue reading HIGH ON THE FARM: A CHAT WITH KAREN SKLOSS (2017) →

Capsules, Miscellanea

2017 FANTASIA FESTIVAL: MOVIES & MAYHEM IN MONTREAL, VOL. 1

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7/13 : Arrival

Nine hours in a train, thirteen hours securing Wi-Fi, and a whole ton of walking. All this adds up to your correspondent’s arrival to the 2017 Fantasia Film Festival. No sleep? No problem. This party’s got everything you need to stay on your feet.

Things began with a power-house slaughterfest, Doom-style, with Jung Byung-Gil’s latest picture, The Villainess. Countless dead bodies filled this tale of deadly women, murder agencies, and betrayal. Disarmingly introduced by the commendably low-key director, The Villainess is an ultra-violent assassin revenge movie with a strange “rom-com” interlude. I strongly suspect that would give Byung-Gil a high five after watching it.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable was introduced by no less than Japan’s consulate general, whose gracious speech was followed by some snazzy fantasy-rock violin. Unfortunately, things began to disappoint immediately thereafter; so much so that, having given Jojo a chance for half its length, I had to  duck out. Somehow I didn’t get the memo that most of the other attendees received: that this movie was amusing, stylish, and worthwhile. Ignorance of the series no doubt worked against me; the only other culprit I can think to blame is my sobriety.

I have no worries, though. Peeking ahead at the weekend, I find I will be booked solid with very promising titles. As midnight approaches, my first festival day winds down to a close. Tomorrow: three movies, with the action starting at 10 AM. Wish me luck out here; I’ll keep the reports coming.

7/14 : Travel-Size Review, The LaPlace’s Demon

Awkwardly titled, pleasantly unnerving. Giordano Giulvi’s The LaPlace’s Demon is a through-the-looking-glass take on the horror genre, replacing the fear of the supernatural with the terror at the hyper-rational. Eight souls are lured to an ominous mansion high atop a peak on a deserted island and trapped inside. Within, they find a clock-work model of their opulent prison, with eight white pawns. The all-knowing Professor Cornelius explains, via video-tape, they are part of an experiment to see if free will exists. As the pawns inside the model begin moving in sync with the visitors, real fear sets in when one pawn disappears—and an ominous Continue reading 2017 FANTASIA FESTIVAL: MOVIES & MAYHEM IN MONTREAL, VOL. 1 →

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: THE HONOR FARM (2017)

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DIRECTED BY: Karen Skloss

FEATURING: Olivia Grace Applegate, Louis Hunter, Katie Folger, , Mackenzie Astin

PLOT: After a disappointing senior prom, Lucy and Annie ditch their dates and join up with a clutch of hearse-driving students who are heading to the haunted prison, the Honor Farm, to take psychedelic mushrooms; Lucy slips in and out of reality as events take alternatingly sinister and joyful turns.

Still from The Honor Farm (2017)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: The Honor Farm is an unlikely fusion of “teen-coming-of-age” drama and “teens-in-danger” horror. Combined with the rampant symbolism (a prom, a stag, and a donut), things might just be weird enough for us.

COMMENTS: Shroom-chomping teenagers, a dreamy hearse ride, an abandoned prison, and a looming stag adorn the universe of The Honor Farm. This fun mix of ingredients from filmmaker Karen Skloss jumbles together with gusto, emerging as a horror-tinged and symbolism-soaked high school drama. The New Age blood-dream opening sets the ambiguous tone of calm and dissonance that continues throughout the feature.

Waking from a dream at the dentist’s office—a girl does have to have her teeth as white as possible for prom, you know—Lucy (Olivia Applegate) seems all set for the first big night of her adult life. After her beau nearly vomits on her in the back of their rented limo, Lucy and her friend Annie (Katie Folger) run off to a nearby gas station and encounter a group of senior girls in an old red hearse. One City of Women-style ride later, the gaggle of teen ladies arrive at the outskirts of the “Honor Farm”, an old prison with a bad history of brutality. Lucy meets dreamy (and interesting) high school boy J.D. (Louis Hunter), who doles out the mushrooms. After a bout of faux-intellectual philosophizing, teen-style, ambiguous events begin in earnest. Cue the horror music.

Narrative tricks and references abound. When one young woman attempts to channel to a dead boy, J.D. leads Lucy through a tunnel opening in parallel. As we see the tunnel exit collapsed, the ritual, too, is interrupted. We award points both for the arrival of a dentist with laughing gas as well as a vision of a sacrifice victim posing the riddle, “What has no end, beginning, or middle?” Answer? A donut, obviously. And oh yes, Skloss also tucks in faerie ring imagery (mushrooms, again), the goddess Diana-as-Stag spirit guide, and a flaming playing card with a purpose. (This last example could almost be a meta-reference to “The Simpsons” “Twin Peaks” parody: “this suit burns better.”)

Though I may be rambling here, Skloss never does. Those who’ve read my reviews know that I’m a big fan of efficient films. At 77 minutes, The Honor Farm certainly isn’t over-long, but neither does it skimp on narrative and character development. Lucy is at a new place in her life, wanting to “feel something real.” Ironically, it takes unreal experiences to satisfy this craving. The Honor Farm has just the right levels of teen-comedy, scares, myth, and ambiguity to sit well with itself. Kudos.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“While there are definitely some interesting aspects to The Honor Farm, it often succumbs to a lack of focus, ultimately feeling like a mishmash of five different movies with none of the elements coming together in a truly complimentary way by the end of the film. Skloss offers up a hypnotic coming-of-age tale with shades of horror—there’s some supernatural stuff thrown in, as well as a weird cultish subplot… I just wanted more for Lucy on her journey of self-discovery than what we ultimately get here. The film does offer up some stunning cinematography, particularly during The Honor Farm’s more surreal moments during Lucy’s fantasy…”–Heather Wixson, Daily Dead (SWSX screening)

366 Underground

366 UNDERGROUND: SUGGESTIVE GESTURES (2013)

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DIRECTED BY: David Finkelstein

FEATURING: David Finkelstein, Cassie Tunick

PLOT: A montage of concrete and abstract symbols, a dialogue of nonsense sounds and philosophizing, and an ever-present labyrinth: there is no story, per se, but a series of audio-visual landscape vignettes, as a combination of words and images collide.

Still from Suggestive Gestures (2013)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Suggestive Gestures clearly falls into the category of “weird”—which is to its credit. A lot of times one can be on the fence and hem and haw about weirdness. It isn’t really a movie, however, as much as a video art installation piece.

COMMENTS: Considering the nature of Suggestive Gestures, I strongly suspect that the filmmaker would be pleased to hear that I had a dream about it last night. In that dream, I fully understood the depth of its symbolism and the pertinence of every bit of wordplay. In fact, I even wrote a witty and lucid review. Alas, I woke up, and it was just a dream — here below this line I see blank chunks of “Comments” still to type. However, I am undeterred: David Finkelstein’s “movie” was a pleasure to watch, and I’ve been obliged to write about “movies” that were far otherwise.

My original write-up for the “Plot” section was the words, “not applicable,”, and I wonder if I should have stuck with that. The opening of the film was subtle enough that I thought perhaps I was watching a little production company animation before getting to the opening credits. I was mistaken. What was being shown was the canvas, as it were, on which all the subsequent events were to be painted: a stylized maze with what looked like an aloe plant at the center. Once the spinning pink glasses showed up, I realized taking plot notes was going to be a fool’s errand. At that point I just sat back and let the sights and sounds wash over me like a refreshing wave.

Combining (purposefully) low-level computer graphics with two talking heads, it suggested to me, oddly enough, what Begotten might look like as an elaborate HyperStudio project done by . The male character (David Finkelstein) comes across as a neurotic Super Ego, counter-balancing the various ravings and rants of the female (Cassie Tunick), an Id-like being. Glued at various times to a symbol-strewn backdrop (birds flying through the ground, water flowing in the sky, jagged rocks labeled “sharp” dropping on and slicing other images), they partake in a sort of meta-discourse that, as the artists’ description relates, relies as much on the words’ sounds as the words themselves. This went on (somehow enjoyably) for approximately 75 minutes before melting into the opening maze image.

I apologize if I’ve expressed myself poorly, but I’ve never reviewed such a thing as Suggestive Gestures before. To anyone with the vaguest interest in the description I’ve provided, I recommend you give it a go—as something new and intriguing, it hits the mark nicely. I mean the following in no way as dismissive, but I think its best placement might be on a loop in your hotel room. Puttering around, getting ready to go out, you can absorb the images, fuse them with the words, and find yourself contemplating the various sounds and branches of a word like “glorious” as you go through your busy day.

Suggestive Gestures: Trailer from David Finkelstein on Vimeo.

Capsules

CAPSULE: OBSESSIONS (1969)

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DIRECTED BY: Pim de la Parra

FEATURING: Dieter Geissler, , Tom Van Beek, Donald Jones

PLOT: A carefree medical student’s life is thrown into disarray when a painting falls from his wall, creating a peep-hole to the neighboring apartment where he witnesses a world of LSD-fueled rape and murder.

Still from Obsessions (1969)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The oft-hyphenated phrase, “by-the-numbers”, springs to mind when thinking of this picture. Trying to be a ian thriller, a drug morality tale, and (perhaps) a soft-core pornographic movie, Obsessions fails on all counts—with the only weird thing being that somehow let his name be associated with it.

COMMENTS: There is unfortunately little useful to say about this mish-mash of a Dutch film. The press release and DVD blurb hype it up as best they can, going so far to claim that Obsessions helped to jumpstart “auteur cinema in Holland.” That may well be true, but that’s something better explored by a film scholar (that is, some other film scholar). As it stands, all by itself, on its own, as a movie, it stands… kind of wobbly. Thinking back on it now, the only clever bit occurred during the plot setup in the opening credits.

A heavy, framed picture of a modified Van Gogh portrait (with super-imposed razor poking at the poor man’s ear) falls from the thin wall of Nils Janssen’s apartment, bringing with it a hunk of plaster and leaving behind a perfectly-sized peep-hole. Through this new portal, Nils (Dieter Geissler), an affable medical student, sees and hears strange doings across the way, finding that it’s not all scooters, cognac, and medical school in his trendy downtown world. His improbably attractive girlfriend Marina (Alexandra Stewart), a journalist for a fashion magazine with a sideline in pop-news, joins in his… “obsession” …and the two try to unravel a bizarre crime spree involving LSD, a series of addled young women, a fat drug-dealer with a lazy eye, a con posing as a US Army officer, and a masseuse who plies her trade with her feet. Before you can say “tight slacks,” things go south when the criminals discover they’re being spied upon.

Had this rambling plot been in the service of a pornographic endeavor (something the Netherlands didn’t shy away from in the 1960s), I’d feel more sympathetic to it. The amateurism of the acting, staging, and dialogue (not sure how involved Scorsese was in the writing; he was in his mid-20s at the time and only in town for another project) all smacks of high quality smut or low quality drama. For better or (more so) worse, Obsessions is the latter–and all the Hitchcock references and “gee-whiz!” camera tricks can’t change the fact that we travel through the film’s ninety minutes with a mix of incuriosity and relief at its brevity.

Pim de la Parra and his confrère Wim Verstappen went on to achieve notoriety a couple of years later with their full-blown adult feature, Blue Movie. Afterwards they cruised through the 1970s with a series of “mature” titles interspersed with the occasional drama and experimental film. While it seems P de la P could have pursued one direction or another after his late-60s crime-thriller, I’d wager that either genre isn’t any poorer for him having stepped away from it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Filled with arty montages, plentiful nudity, and Hitchcock references galore (note all the stuffed birds everywhere), Obsessions is a really odd one, mixing old school thriller tropes, chic ’60s fashions and decor, and sleazy kink, all with that percolating Herrmann music underneath.”–Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital (Blu-ray)