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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: LA TETA Y LA LUNA (1994)

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Teté and the Moon, The Tit and the Moon

DIRECTED BY: Bigas Luna

FEATURING: Mathilda May, Biel Durán, Gérard Darmon, Miguel Poveda

PLOT: Frustrated at losing access to his mother’s chest following the birth of his baby brother, young Teté becomes enraptured with Estrellita, a dancer who comes to town as part of a traveling show; he competes for her attentions with her husband as well as a lovestruck young man.

Still from Teta y La Launa (1994)

COMMENTS: Part of the charm – and also the frustration – of the coming-of-age film is that it relies on the point of view of someone too young to fully understand the world around them. An innocent, unburdened by years of maturity and perspective. We watch them with a combination of longing for their ignorance and sympathy for their embarrassment.

La Teta y La Luna doubles down on this by handing over the narration to its central character, Teté. Not a grown-up Teté looking back at his youthful folly with rueful hindsight, mind you, but the boy himself, speaking in the past tense but still deep in the thrall of his adolescent, unearned bravado. When he confidently tells us that he “devastated” a foe’s motorcycle, we can see for ourselves that he’s lamely kicking it to no effect. So he would seem to be an extremely unreliable narrator indeed. Except when it’s surely our eyes that deceive us. For when Teté informs us that every woman in a bodega is offering her breasts to him, what we see is exactly that. How could this possibly be? Surely this is wishful thinking to the greatest extreme.

For you see – to paraphrase Loudon Wainwright III –  Teté is a “tit man.” Ever since his newborn brother arrived, the pleasure of suckling at his mother’s teat has been denied to him, and he has been in search of a replacement. (The title pulls off a neat double meaning, referencing both the main character and his overriding obsession.) So the one thing we can trust absolutely is that he immediately settles upon Estrellita, the beautiful dancer who has just come to Teté’s small oceanfront village.

He’s hardly alone in being drawn to the comely ballerina, which complicates our understanding of the film’s point of view. Teté’s teenage rival, Miguel, is nearly sick with longing from the moment he encounters Estrellita and begins to sing to her with a voice that should earn him a gig fronting the Gipsy Kings. There’s nothing ironic or misleading about his pain. Meanwhile, Estrellita’s husband Maurice is given all the hallmarks of parody: despite looking like a grizzled and silver-maned biker, Maurice’s talent is as a modern-day successor to Le Petomane, and Estrellita makes love to him on their trailer waterbed and collects his tears in a jar while he makes her eat a baguette which he wields in place of his manhood. He’s ridiculous even as he cuts a dashing figure, but again we don’t doubt what we see. If we can take Miguel and Maurice at face value, who’s to say that Teté isn’t exactly what he presents to us?

So let us now turn to the object of all their affections. Mathilda May has already distinguished herself in these hallowed halls as a beautiful actress who is willing to put her full and uncovered beauty on display, and that reputation is certainly burnished here. If we are to believe Teté, she is ready and willing to provide him with access to a veritable firehose of milk from her bared breast. Luna’s camera is as in love with Estrellita’s chest as most of the male characters. But this objectification becomes extremely awkward in the face of Estrellita’s increasing discomfort. She dotes on her husband, and he responds with jealousy and resentment. She shows her unease with Miguel’s repeated declarations of love, but loses agency in the face of his increasing threats of self-harm. And we never even get to see what would logically be her concerns with Teté’s blunt and inappropriate requests. (For Teté, none of this appears to be sexual, but it surely is for her.) For the princess at the heart of this fairy tale, there’s a worrisome ignorance of her needs and fears. La Teta y La Luna is obsessed with Estrellita’s chest, but not much with the heart that beats underneath.

The film wraps up with a happy ending for everyone, most significantly for Teté, who gets to feed from both Estrellita and his own mother, a conclusion that bears no resemblance to anything approaching reality. The tone throughout is bright and charming, but it’s a strange and selfish lesson this tale delivers: “Persist and you’ll get what you want, fellas.” It’s a tale as old as time, but maybe it’s time for a rethink.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Completely perverted, totally surreal, but irresistibly charming.”– Henrik Sylow, DVD Beaver (DVD)\

(This movie was nominated for review by Wormhead, who called it “a surrealistic spanish/french film by Bigas Luna.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

THE SEVEN FACES OF JANE (2022)

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The Seven faces of Jane is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

DIRECTED BY: Julian Acosta, Xan Cassavetes, Gia Coppola, Ryan Heffington, Boma Iluma, , Ken Jeong, Alex Takacs

FEATURING: Gillian Jacobs, Joel McHale, , Emanuela Postacchini, Chido Nwokocha

PLOT: Jane experiences love, loss, joy, and bewilderment on a road trip mapped by eight different directors.

Scene from The Seven Faces of Jane (2022)

COMMENTS: To stimulate creativity, the early Surrealists created a game where one artist would build on a previous artist’s work without seeing it. They called the game “exquisite corpse” after a sentence born of this process, a sentence which is also the first thing the viewer sees in The Seven Faces of Jane: “Le cadaver equis boira le vin nouveau.” “The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.”

Jane is an exquisite corpse, a surrealist experiment. There are overtly surreal moments, such as the garishly eccentric diner patrons laughing at Jane (Gillian Jacobs) fighting her doppelganger. But the very design—8 directors contributing to the same story blind to what the other directors are doing—leads to Jane being the same but different in each segment, highlighting the nature of character as the collaborative product of writer, director, actor, and so on. With eight different directors, there are actually eight different Janes. (Seven segments plus bookends = eight.)

Jane drops her daughter off at camp and finds herself on a bizarre and unplanned road trip. The southern California backdrop ties the film together visually. Each director showcases it differently, but from the beach to the desert to mountain trails, from Mexican street vendors to early 20th century bungalow neighborhoods, So Cal is the mainstay in this ever-fluctuating movie.

Each segment explores someone Jane could be, or could have been. Most tell stories of love and loss and identity in straightforward or dreamy ways. But the last one, “The Audition,” directed by Alex Takács (AKA “Young Replicant”), takes the story right off the rails in the best kind of way. Set in a mausoleum and a sedan on the back of a car hauler, “The Audition” uses the absurd and the surreal to prod its character’s consciousness.

Jacobs, who is a steady force throughout, continues to deliver as someone on the brink of coming undone. Seemingly no longer able to sustain all the different versions of herself, she fights, gives up, regresses, and disappears, only to become who she needs to be when it’s time to pick her daughter up from camp.

Jane has some shortcomings. The quality of the segments is uneven, and because of the brevity of each piece, there’s no time to build sympathy for any character besides Jane. It is also a disconcerting juxtaposition to have such an ordinary subject for such an experimental movie. The Seven Faces of Jane has been called a “failed experiment.” And by the standards of a mainstream movie, maybe it is. But as an experiment, at least for the Surrealists (and this is a surrealist experiment), if the exquisite corpse stimulates creativity in the artists, it’s a success.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The problem is that most of the segments are too tied to a bland realism and narrative cliche to create the collective sense of unease and/or delightful disorientation that the surrealists prize.”–Noah Berlatsky, Chicago Reader (contemporaneous)

 

Capsules

YOUR VOTE DETERMINES THE WINNER OF THE 13TH ANNUAL WEIRDCADEMY AWARDS

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The big news in the (weird) movie world is that this year, there’s an actual overlap between the Weirdcademy Awards and the Most Conventional Movie Awards dog-and-pony show Hollywood throws together every awards season. Everything Everywhere all at Once (and its star, Michelle Yeoh) was nominated by both august bodies. Does this development speak well for the Academy’s taste? Probably not, if you look their omissions. ‘s Mad God got snubbed, despite him being an industry insider (the man worked on Star Wars, for heaven’s sake!) Hungary’s microbudgeted black and white existential quandry Cybersatan Apocalypse Nightmares doesn’t get a sniff for International Feature Film, just because it was never released and played exclusively on Vimeo for free—what snobbery! And Neptune Frost doesn’t even merit a “Best Original Song” nomination for its crowd-pleasing hit, “Fuck Mr. Google”?

Instead, we get to choose between Stephen Spielberg’s touching story about how he came to be Stephen Spielberg, more blue people from , an 80s money grab nostalgia piece where they try to switch the love interest on us and think we won’t notice, and movies about Women Talking—I mean, movies about women literally doing nothing but talking for the first 80 minutes! At least this year we can be happy if take everything.

The Oscars are a joke, and everyone knows it. But you, my friend, you aren’t content with the same-old same-old. You want weird in your movies. The Weirdcademy Awards are for you, the moviegoer whose friends roll their eyes and sigh loudly when you suggest movie night should feature a flick about a lesbian planet terrorized by a monster known only as “Kate Bush.”

Although the editors of 366 Weird Movies select the nominees from the pool of available movies, the Awards themselves are a naked popularity contest, and do not necessarily reflect either the artistic merit or intrinsic weirdness of the films involved. The Weirdcademy Awards are tongue-in-cheek and for fun only. Ballot-stuffing is a frequent occurrence. Please, no wagering.

The Weirdcademy Awards are given to the Weirdest Movie, Actor, Actress and Scene of the previous year, as voted by the members of the Weirdcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Weirdness.

Who makes up the Weirdcademy? Membership is open to all readers of 366 Weird Movies. If you can figure out how to vote in the poll, you are qualified to join. You can not be turned down because of your age, sex, religious affiliation, pronouns, vaccination status, or the fact that you once bought a Marilyn Manson album when you were 15. There is no requirement that you’ve have to actually see any of the movies listed before voting. You can vote for any or all categories.

Unlike previous years, this year, you can only vote once—so choose carefully. We’ll keep voting open until March 11  at 12:00 Noon EST, so we can announce our results before the Academy Awards and steal their thunder.

Be sure to also vote for Weirdest Short Film of the Year. To watch all five nominees and to cast your vote, please click here.

Without further delay, we unveil the nominees for the 2022 Weirdcademy Awards:





Capsules

SLAMDANCE 2023: NEW RELIGION (2022)

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New Religion can currently be rented on VOD (free on Screambox).

DIRECTED BY: Keishi Kondo

FEATURING: Kaho Seto, Satoshi Oka, Saionji Ryuseigun

PLOT: Still grieving from the accidental death of her daughter years ago, escort Miyabi’s dreary routine is shaken up when she meets a strange client who only wants to take pictures of her individual body parts.

Still from New Religion (2022)

COMMENTS: New Religion arrives at Slamdance with an assured style and polished look that belies its low budget. Using little more than colored filters, an evocative soundtrack, and some remarkable microphotography, Keishi Kondo delivers a crowdfunded wonder, shot mostly on weekends with a first-time cast, that most of the time looks like it could have come from a major Japanese studio.

New Religion relies heavily on atmosphere: its full of slow, portentous glances scored to ominous drones, hinting at horrors unseen. The sound design is a key element, so see the film with a good stereo system, if possible. The opening credits set a tone of mystery: scritching strings accompany a pan over a blood-red cityscape, which merges into a tinted tour of moth anatomy. This is followed by shots of abstract organ-like structures and a possible fetus that forms and melts before our eyes, as the music swells and resolves into a desperate drone. This moody experimental-film opening deserves comparison to the disquieting prologue of Under the Skin. We emerge from that brief storm into a quiet drama, with main character Miyabi recalling the loss of her daughter and remembering a photograph taken with the child on a beach. A scene of her and the girl staring out to sea, then slowly turning to face the camera, will recur a couple of times; its significance is eventually revealed—perhaps, although as her strange client Oka says, “memories can’t be trusted.” Miyabi moves through her life in a sad daze, obsessively watering the plants on her balcony or sitting in near silence in a grungy basement with two other prostitutes, waiting to be called up for a date. For most of the movie no one expresses much visible emotion, even when angry or frightened, which makes Seto’s desperation as her mind breaks down in the film’s second half stand out: her grief is set free, along with an irrational hope.

The film works as a melancholy drama, but contains eerie notes which are not fully expressed, haunting the story like fleeting memories. Oka, a purported survivor of throat cancer, speaks only through an otherworldly electrolarynx. He is obsessed with moths, and might be indirectly linked to a series of homicidal rampages and terrorist bombings. Who Oka actually is isn’t made completely clear, but he is a catalyst for an inhuman transformation, and he feeds on women like Miyabi whose deep emotional traumas make them receptive to whatever voodoo he performs through his photographic project. Oka’s motives are as murky as Miyabi’s grief is vivid. In the end, what he offers seems to be voluntarily entanglement in a web of dreams: dreams where the dreamer dreams of another dreamer, while simultaneously being dreamed themselves.

Kondo’s curious concoction will mesmerize and enthrall many art-horror fans. Others will find the deliberate pacing more of a chore—while still being intermittently mesmerized and enthralled. But there’s no doubt that this is a promising debut, and we salivate thinking what Kondo could do with a bigger budget—if he is able to maintain his independent sensibilities. It would not shock us to look back years from now and realize that New Religion founded a cult of Kondo.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“One of the strangest, most refreshing edge-of-genre films in recent years.”–Kim Newman, The Kim Newman Website (festival screening)

Capsules

SLAMDANCE 2023: A PERFECT DAY FOR CARIBOU (2022)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Jeff Rutherford

FEATURING: Charlie Plummer, Jeb Berrier, Oellis Levine

PLOT: Before committing suicide, Herman gets a call from his estranged son Nathaniel; meeting at a cemetery, Nathaniel brings his own son—who goes missing.

Still from A Perfect Day for Caribou (2022)

COMMENTS: Much as the film’s father and son teeter along the edge between acquiescence and despair in this ambling dialogue of a movie, Jeff Rutherford teeters along the edge between “indie” and “weird” with A Perfect Day for Caribou, his feature debut. While we generally prefer to bring attention to stranger films, if we can take the time to highlight slow-core tedium, we can take a moment here to talk about something melancholy, oddly humorous, and quietly hopeful.

Against the back-drop of close-knit upholstery, the movie begins with Herman (Jeb Berrier) dictating a final message to his son Nate (Charlie Plummer). From his scattershot remarks, it’s clear Herman’s anecdotes, pre-apologies, and side notes seem much like his life: unfocused, lacking purpose, and a bit sad. He’s prepared for his final moment, much as he’s prepared for his son to not care much what he has to say; despite this, he’s recording this rambling confession of sorts because even though he’s grasping at straws, “…the straws you grasp at—you should grasp them.” His would-be final words are interrupted when Nate calls him on his mobile phone, and the father and son meet up at a nearby cemetery, Nate’s autistic son Ralph in tow.

Thoreau said, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”; and Herman and Nate quietly face the mindless and unavoidable sadness they have endured throughout their lives, with ample cigarettes. We watch two men travel the Oregonian countryside in search of young Ralph, interrupted only be surreal memories and hopeful imaginings. Herman spends most of the film carrying a sealed parcel his ex-wife, Nate’s mother, left behind. The men meet another lonely soul on their hushed, unhurried quest: a woman who accidentally shoots at Nate followed by the immediate heartfelt shout of, “Sorry!” No big deal. They all chat, share some water, and part ways.

As a general rule, I eschew anything so overtly art-house, but there is an odd satisfaction in watching these two broken men attempt to makes peace with themselves and each other. The sweeping vistas contrast their tiny existence. Nate is wise, either in the face of or because of his fractured background. His anguish is captured by his wish for his own son: “I don’t know if these type of people exist,” he says, “but I want Ralph to feel very limited hurt.” The best he can imagine is less pain.

Nate and Herman pursue the lost boy, who leaves clues behind for them to follow: a soccer ball, a toy truck, a plastic bag; the strange—and defiant—undercurrent is underscored by Herman’s closing scene. He’s opened the box, donned a pair of novelty reindeer antlers, and can’t quite find the right position for the gun barrel on his body. Everything’s wrong, nothing fits into place, so you’ve got to keep trying, I suppose, and maybe something will eventually click.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…in its best moments, [Rutherford’s] debut reaches for the mournful everyday poetry of Wim Wenders’ ‘Paris, Texas’ or Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Old Joy.’ Elsewhere, the film feels a little determined in its minimalism, a little too cute in its brushes of absurdism. Still, it promises significant things from its young writer-director, who shows more formal nous and rigor than many neophyte directors of comparable U.S. indies.”–Guy Lodge, Variety (festival screening)