Capsules

CAPSULE: PETROL (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Alena Lodkina

FEATURING: Nathalie Morris, Hannah Lynch

PLOT: Eva is unsure of her film thesis subject until she meets a cryptic young performance artist named Mia.

Still from Petrol (2022)

COMMENTS: Petrol. Petrol. Petrol. (“Petrill?”) After twenty-four hours, I’m still chewing over this title, and how it relates to what I saw. It’s a slippery little movie, so perhaps that fuel’s slickness should come to mind. Alena Lodkina’s sophomore efforts defies easy description. It’s a character study, sure; it’s an exploration of filmmaking (our protagonist is a final-year film student); it’s got some inter-generational stuff going on. And it might just be one of those “coping with loss” kind of explorations.

But it’s hard to say. As Eva shyly navigates life—and the pursuit of a film degree—chance intervenes: first, when Eva accidentally comes across a performance arts troupe whilst traveling a cliffside with a small boom mic, capturing the ambient sounds; second, when she observes one of those performance artists dropping a locket in town. When Eva returns the locket, so begins her relationship with an enigmatic (and altogether Artsy) young woman named Mia, who by all accounts is “living her life” and, as evidenced by the narrative’s sometimes desperate indications, is a rather “deep” person.

Frankly, I didn’t find her all that deep; just young and a touch lachrymose—if perhaps occasionally whimsical. Kind of like this movie’s general energy. Magical realism rears its head at least six times. A finger snap brings a picnic spread into existence, pre-referencing a literary passage which appears later in the film; a couple of pertinent winks of the eye—one appearing from a coffee surface reflection—and strange “reflections” from behind make us question both Eva’s and our own perceptions. Who is Mia? What is art? What is film, in the context of art? Are we interconnected?

And so on. Petrol kept my interest, despite me neither knowing too well what was happening nor caring too deeply about it. Eva’s film professor is a highlight, his brief appearance a master class in diplomatic guidance as he civilly remarks that it’s important to have mastery of film rules and tropes before subverting them; and there’s her fellow student with his down-to-earth ambitions to make a movie about an abattoir cleaner contrasting nicely with Eva’s more ephemeral ambitions. But for the most part, Petrol feels like it’s running on fumes: it gets you to the destination, but not without the worry you’ll end up nowhere at all.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Alena Lodkina’s dreamlike film, about a pivotal friendship between two young Melbourne women, has a poetic and sometimes surreal narrative style that conveys a vividly emotional take on the world; it reveals profound truths about the characters, even if the precise detail of their story remains slightly – and deliciously – cryptic… tonally, it recalls the psychoanalytic turn in art cinema of the 1960s and 70s (think Bergman’s Persona).”–Jason Di Rosso, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News (contemporaneous)

Petrol [DVD]

Petrol [DVD]
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE KILLING ROOM (2009)

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DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Liebesman

FEATURING: Nick Cannon, Clea DuVall, Timothy Hutton, Chloë Sevigny, Peter Stormare, Shea Whigham

PLOT: A group of civilians who think they are participating in a paid psychological test have actually been tricked into an off-the-books government experiment testing the limits of human endurance under extreme hardship and torture.

Still from the killing room (2009)

COMMENTS: MKUltra was a CIA program with the modest aims of determining how much the human mind could be manipulated to do the bidding of others. Their goals ranged from developing irresistible interrogation techniques to enlisting unwitting civilians as assassins. (It’s a favorite topic for podcasters; the CBC’s “Brainwashed” is a solid place to start.) In 1972, the director of the project retired, saying that the entire effort had been useless; the CIA responded by giving him its highest honor and then destroying most of their files on the program. It took multiple congressional investigations for any of this to get on the record, and there will undoubtedly be much that we will never know about the American government’s assault on its own citizens.

(By the way, I really have to hand it to the CIA for the masterful troll job they performed in sharing their role in MKUltra. It’s clear that the Freedom of Information Act required them to come clean about their activities, but they certainly weren’t going to make it easy on anyone, hence the brilliantly unreadable online post they created to share the depths of their depravity.)

A pre-title card in The Killing Room makes clear that while MKUltra was publicly disavowed, there’s no way to know for sure that the government isn’t still up to something shady. After all, wouldn’t it make sense that the War on Terror would dredge up some of the old plan’s nastier elements? Thus we have all the premise we need for a familiar tale of regular people discovering they’re in a trap and desperately seeking a way out, with some rumination on Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts about liberty and security for extra seasoning. Think of it as “Cube meets the Milgram Experiment with a dash of Saw” and you’re pretty much there.

As a thriller, The Killing Room is an effectively shrewd piece of low-budget, high-stakes filmmaking. Director Liebesman exploits the claustrophobic setting with a mix of jittery handhelds, obtrusive surveillance footage, and lingering closeups. He also finds a clever balance of techniques to manipulate his audience, from ticking-clock suspense to queasy uses for blood. Most impressive, he kicks off the experiment proper with a brilliantly executed piece of shocking violence, a terrific blend of sound, editing, and acting that goes off like a bomb. Whatever it is, it’s not boring.

This is the kind of juicy-monologue, emotionally heightened movie that actors love to be in, and some really get to strut their stuff here. Hutton, in particular, relishes the darkness and toughness of his Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE KILLING ROOM (2009) →

Saturday Short, Shorts

SATURDAY SHORT: ASCENSION MILLENNIUM (2014)

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A typical day in the life of Corey Feldman, circa 2014: wake up next to a sexy blonde, struggle to put on Michael Jackson gloves, throw an inhaler to Sean Astin, pass by a pool party, take a hat hanging from the ceiling by a string, sniff breakfast while watching TV, head to the home studio to record a hit single, and get back into bed with a sexy blonde. One four-and-a-half minute tracking shots with no do-overs for goofs.

Capsules

POD 366, EP. 92: DAY OF THE DEAD SPECIAL

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Quick links/Discussed in this episode:

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:

The Birthday (2004): Corey Feldman (!) stars in this overlooked indie about a man who sneaks into a birthday party where a cult is also making preparations for the end of the world. Alamo Drafthouse restored it and is releasing it to select theaters, but more significantly, it’s now available on VOD. The Birthday official site.

Blonde on a Bum Trip (1968): A blonde chemistry student is manipulated into manufacturing (and indulging in) LSD. This reputedly incoherent drug scare sexploitationer has been surprisingly hard to find on video in the post-VHS era; Vinegar Syndrome and Something Weird put it out on Blu-ray. Buy Blonde on a Bum Trip.

Dogra Magra (1988): A man awakes in a mental asylum with no memory and is informed he killed his wife on his wedding night. ‘s final film was an adaptation of an “unfilmable” novel; a commentator once suggested the film is like a Japanese mashup of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with Last Year at Marienbad. This is the film’s North American debut, on Blu-ray from the good folks at Radiance. Buy Dogra Magra.

The Other Laurens [L’autre Laurens] (2023): The official plot description reads, “A private detective [is] forced to face the ghosts of his past when his niece asks him to investigate her father’s death.” Sounds conventional, yet it catches our attention because Yellow Veil is releasing it, and one reviewer called it “Lynchian” and “a strange film” while The Hollywood Reporter referred to “bits of dark comedy and weirdness.” Previously on VOD, now on Blu-ray with director and crew commentary and a bonus short film. Buy The Other Laurens.

Shanks (1974): Read the Canonically Weird entry! ‘s last movie, featuring as a mute puppeteer who controls corpses with a remote control, was his strangest. Vinegar Syndrome puts it out in an limited 4K UHD+Blu edition with a commentary track (by critic/historians Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw), new and archival interviews, a video essay, and a hardbound book of stills and essays. Available exclusively from Vinegar Syndrome.

The Substance (2024): Read Gregory J. Smalley’s Apocrypha Candidate review. This bizarro beauty satire was a surprise hit in theaters and with critics, despite its wacko third act. It streams exclusively on Mubi (subscription required) starting this week, with other venues sure to follow. Also showing exclusively on Mubi: “Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection,” a new short from that features Renaissance sculpture. Watch The Substance on Mubi.

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:

We might have surprise guest(s) on next week’s Pod 366, but regardless, we will keep you up to date on the week’s weird news and releases. In written content, Shane Wilson takes on another that Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue as he ventures into The Killing Room (2009); Giles Edwards drills into Australia’s Petrol (2022); and Gregory J. Smalley takes on Bertrand Bonello’s not-a-remake sci-fantasy The Beast (2023). Onward and weirdward!

Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!