Four years after the release of MeTube 2, the bondage opera performers from outer space are back again.
FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2020: MUSING ON MEMORY – THE OAK ROOM (2020) AND KRIYA (2020)
Or, “Dead Dad Double Feature”
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Screening online for Canadians at 2020’s online Fantasia Film Festival
Happenstance, more than anything else, brought me a double feature that centered on the deaths of fathers. Cody Calahan’s The Oak Room is best described as a “Canadian thriller”: subdued, sparsely-populated, and blanketed in driving snow. Showing up after closing time at his father’s favourite bar, Steve requests his old man’s ashes. Paul, friend of the father, bartender, and all-around bastard, has them—in a tackle box. But he demands that Steve pay up “what he owes” before handing them over.
The Oak Room‘s action takes place in two different, but eerily similar-looking drinking dens. What seems a simple story of a ne’er-do-well son returning after his father’s death becomes a collection of stories: Steve’s story about “the Oak Room”, Paul’s story about Steve’s father’s story about hitch-hiking in his 20s, Tommy Coward’s story about the goings-on in the Oak Room, and, twice, Michael’s story about his father’s pig farm. For those counting at home, that’s five interlocking pieces of one narrative—each unlocking a piece of a puzzle. By the time the unclear ending rolls around, each narrators’ unreliability sloshes into the stew of truth and fiction, and the film’s seemingly scant body count may rise. Or, is Steve—seemingly some kind of idiot drifter—merely harnessing the power of storytelling to trick the bitter bartender?
In Sidharth Srinivasan’s Kriya, a DJ named Neel gets more than he bargained for when he returns to the home of Sitara, a fiercely attractive young woman who catches his eye. Expecting sex, instead he finds he’s been drafted into being a male mourner for her father’s death rites. Sitara’s family is incredibly traditional, and Hindu tradition demands that the father’s son lead the ceremonies. But Neel is not this man’s son—and he realises too late that he’s gotten roped (at times, literally) into an attempt by the family to break a generations’-long curse. Pity poor Neel.
The Oak Room is obviously a thriller, and Kriya is obviously a horror movie, but they stand out in the same manner that they stand together: both meditate on the death of a patriarch, and both explore the vagaries of human memory and tradition. Steve’s father, Gord, told stories; his son does the same. It is an attempt to make sense of things, perhaps improving on the past through retelling (“goosing the truth”, as explained by bartender Paul). Kriya echoes this technique of ritualizing a narrative through repetition, focusing much more blatantly on rites—centuries old, in this case. Kriya‘s first third is almost entirely devoted to the death rites of Sitara’s dying father; it’s final third is almost entirely devoted to the magical rites that relate to the family curse.
The thread tying these films together–films made 7,000 miles apart, about two very different cultures–was a reminder of why I love cinema and how it underscores the universality of humankind’s need to tell stories. It has been no small relief that even though Fantasia’s festival trappings have been canceled this year, the stories continue.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 8/28/2020
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Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
FILM FESTIVALS – Imagine Film Festival (Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Aug. 28 – Sep. 6):
Imagine isn’t a festival we normally take note of, but when we saw the trailer below, we figured it was worth a mention this year.
Sleepless Beauty (2020): Brutal Russian thriller in which a girl is kidnapped and forbidden to sleep. The poster and synopsis compare it to torture porn features Saw and Martyrs. Check out the brief glimpses of artwork in the hallucination sequences, however: enough of these might tip the movie into the truly weird column.
Other, older weird (and weird-ish) films screening at Imagine include Bliss, Blood Machines, and Lake Michigan Monster.
Imagine Film Festival official site (in Dutch).
IN DEVELOPMENT (CROWDFUNDING):
5000 Space Aliens (2020?): Experimental animator Scott Bateman’s pitch is to assemble a film composed of 5000 one-second shots of people, taken from public domain/found footage sources and then rotoscoped or otherwise digitally altered, scored to minimalist electronica. It’s an expanded version of his short titled “600 Space Aliens.” At this writing he’s raised $2000 of a requested $4000 dollars, with less than a month to go; funds are earmarked for festival submissions. Perks include DVDs, the soundtrack, and the chance to be one of the featured aliens. A two-minute excerpt is available on the Kickstarter page, for the curious. 5000 Space Aliens at Kickstarter.
IN DEVELOPMENT (COMPLETED):
Steven Soderbergh re-edits: The recently unretired and incredibly active Steven Soderbergh has been spending his quarantine productively. He’s written three screenplays, including a sequel to his 1989 breakthrough feature Sex, Lies and Videotape. He also tinkered with new director’s cuts of 2002’s Full Frontal and 1996’s canonically weird satire Schizopolis (unfortunately, he made it shorter). Most significantly for us, however, he announced that he’s completed his long-awaited re-edit of his weird 1991 thriller Kafka. The writer/director brags that this new version is “radically different, something else entirely.” No word on how it will be released, though, but we’ll definitely take a look when it’s available. Indiewire delivered the news.
ONLINE EVENTS:
Guy Maddin and James Naremore – Maddin will discuss The Chase (1946) and film noir in general in an interactive Q&A. Online via Zoom. Free but registration required. Sponsored by the Indiana University film department. 8/28 at 7 PM ET. Indiana University Cinema event notice.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
Aenigma (1987): Eighties occult slasher set in a girls’ boarding school. While not regarded as one of Lucio Fulci‘s “better” movies, the synopsis describes a “grisly surrealism,” and Video Vacuum said it contains “some of the most bonkers imagery Fulci ever put on film.” On Blu-ray from Severin with a commentary track by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson and other special features. Buy Aenigma
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989): Read our review. The latest Shout! Factory collectible steelbook release of a Hayao Miyazaki classic, a DVD/Blu-ray combo. Buy Kiki’s Delivery Service
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984): A pacifist post-apocalyptic princess tries to stop a war between two tribes. Another steelbook release from Shout!, with the same extras as GKIDS previous release in different packaging. Buy Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Shining Sex [La Fille au Sexe Brillant] (1977): An alien and an android turn a stripper into a sex slave who kills with her genitals. Softcore erotica from Jess Franco that Mike Haberfelner dismissed as “too weird a concept to be brought across as a mere series of sex scenes.” Another Severin Blu-ray; the film has never been released uncut before now. Buy Shining Sex
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
Independent theaters are cautiously starting to reopen across North America at diminished capacity, and we’re seeing a trickle of new screenings. We expect this section to grow slowly throughout the fall. You’ll have to use your own judgment as to whether it’s safe to go to movie theaters at this time.
- Anaheim, CA
- Austin, TX
- Denver, CO
- Alamo Drafthouse – Donnie Darko (2001), 8/28-30
- Kansas City, MO
- Screenland (Armour)
- The Holy Mountain (1973), 8/28-30, 9/2
- Vertigo (1958), 8/29, 9/1
- Screenland (Armour)
- Omaha, NB
- Alamo Drafthouse – Donnie Darko (2001), 8/29
- Tuscon, AZ
- Tustin, CA
- Vancouver, BC
- The Rio
- Mandy (2018), 8/28
- Fight Club (1999), 8/31
- Come and See (1985), 9/1
- Pink Floyd the Wall (1982), 9/3
- The Rio
FREE MOVIES ON TUBI.TV:
Big Man Japan (2007): Read the Apocryphally Weird review! Hitoshi Matsumoto‘s crazy kaiju mockumentary is now listed as “leaving soon”; if you haven’t seen it yet, now’s a good chance to correct that omission, at no cost to your pocketbook. Watch Big Man Japan free on Tubi.TV.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: Grab your muskets and shrooms! Saturday’s weird Amazon Watch Party will be the canonically weird classic, A Field in England (2013). Please join us at 10:15 PM ET for the screening. As usual, we’ll post the link to join around 10 PM here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
Next week we’ll be wrapping up our remote coverage of Fantasia Festival 2020, highlighted by Troma Studio‘s return to classical drama with their typically transgressive take on “The Tempest”: #Shakespeare’s Shitstorm. We’ll let the remaining titles be a surprise. Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2020 CAPSULE: TEZUKA’S BARBARA (2019)
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Screening online for Canadians at 2020’s online Fantasia Film Festival
DIRECTED BY: Macoto Tezuka
FEATURING: Gorô Inagaki, Fumi Nikaidô
PLOT: Yosuke Mikura, a popular writer facing a creative lull, meets Barbara and develops an obsession with her.
COMMENTS: Damn it, Barbara, you were so very close. Your devil-may-care manic-pixie-dream-girl self was crafted by one of Japan’s most renowned manga artists. You were brought to life in a ragged city milieu, spouting poetry. You toyed so mischievously with the mind of a famous young writer. Your mother constantly wore a helmet-hat made out of cherry cordials. You knocked back 50-year-old single malt Scotch like the pro I always wanted to be. And you just up and dropped the frickin’ ball—right on my eyeball.
It is only because I want to give Osamu Tezuka a fair shake in the future that I won’t hold Tezuka’s Barbara against him. His work might someday actually achieve the weirdness I was looking for, instead of just shamelessly flirting with it. Yosuke is a dull cipher of a protagonist, but that’s fine; all the better to provide the viewer a lens through which to witness the following: frantic lovemaking to a living mannequin cut short by a deft, head-removing smack from a liquor bottle; unsettling voodoo-doll machinations targeted against Barbara’s romantic rival; sociopolitical commentary in the form of Yosuke’s scheming fiancée’s scheming-er father; an all-nude “old religion,” hyper-ritualized with body-oiling wedding ceremony; and promises of necrophilia followed by a cannibalistic snack. But everything collapses into gauzy, melodramatic mush.
If you hear bitterness in my tone, I can assure you it’s there. I had the Apocrypha Candidate review all lined up in my head as I watched Barbara. I was going to compare it to Naked Lunch, due to the films’ shared urban filth and dissonant jazz score. I was going to quip that “Barbara is exactly the girl that Céline and Julie would have met and eaten strange candies with during their Junior year abroad.” Now, I won’t be able to revel in the clever observations about how Barbara captured low-literary romance with high production values.
Instead, I found myself on tenterhooks waiting for the movie’s half-dozen-plus weird ingredients to turn the corner; “weirdus interruptus” doesn’t even begin to describe the disappointment. This is a review written out of spite, and I wouldn’t blame management for not posting it. However, as Yosuke needed to get Barbara out of his system, I desperately needed to get Barbara out of mine.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2020: LABYRINTH OF CINEMA (2019)
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DIRECTED BY: Nobuhiko Obayashi
FEATURING: Takuro Atsuki, Rei Yoshida, Yukihiro Takahashi, Takato Hosoyamada, Yoshihiko Hosoda, Tadanobu Asano
PLOT: Japanese teenagers find themselves thrown into the movies screening at a cinema on the last night before it closes.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA LIST: Nobuhiko Obayashi’s final movie, completed only months before his death, is an exuberant, monumental, poetic and surreal ode to the power of cinema.
COMMENTS: I’d advise letting yourself get lost inside Nobuhiko Obayashi‘s Labyrinth of Cinema. Due to the way it hops around between eras and genres, the story may be easier to follow for those familiar with pre-WWII Japanese cinema; but given that the movie begins by introducing one Fanta G, a time-traveler who arrives in modern-day Onomichi, Japan, in a spaceship with goldfish floating inside it, it’s fair to say that narrative logic is not uppermost on Obayashi’s mind. This is a movie with atmosphere to absorb and imagery to intoxicate.
“Movies are a cutting edge time machine,” Fanta G tells us. “You’ll experience time lags in this movie.” You have been fairly warned. After he lands his spacecraft in the harbor and makes his way to Onomichi’s only cinema for the all-night war movie marathon, we’re introduced to the rest of the main characters. Noriko is a 13-year old schoolgirl from a nearby island who almost always appears onscreen bathed in an idyllic blue light. Teenage film buff “Mario Baba” is smitten with her; he sits in the audience with two companions, a nerdy aspiring historian and the son of a monk who intends to become a yakuza. As the first feature begins, Noriko climbs onstage and begins tap dancing in front of the screen; when she hops into the film itself, no one in the audience bats an eye. The three boys soon find themselves mysteriously absorbed into the screen, as well. But the movie keeps changing, and the trio find themselves involved in musicals, samurai films, and wartime adventures, playing out various scenarios, but always pursuing Noriko, who serves both as damsel in distress and an ever-receding symbol of the epiphanic power of cinema itself. The skipping-through-film-history format plays out like a live action variation on Millennium Actress, but with an even more dislocated plot.
Most long movies are slow-paced, languorously stretching out to fill the available time, but Labyrinth of Cinema jets like a rocket through its three-hour tour of Japanese cinema. This makes it exhilarating, but also a little exhausting. Besides the constantly shifting plots—the teenage trio find themselves in new roles, facing new adversaries, every five minutes or so—Obayashi constantly switches styles. He recreates traditional genres, but also throws his own immersion-breaking visual trickery onscreen: vertical wipes, big blocks of primary color, actors enclosed in circular irises that resemble the Japanese flag, blazing computer-generated sunsets, and sidebar text commenting on the action (when one character first appears, he shows us a legend cheekily explaining “we don’t know his name yet”). Along the way we get plenty of the surreal touches we’d expect from the mind that gave us Hausu, including a piano tune played by bullets, and an emotional death scene with a woman who just happens to be sporting a Hitler mustache. Many such surprises lurk inside this maze of movies.
The pace slows a bit after intermission as the story makes its way towards its climax at Hiroshima. A strong and consistently humanist anti-war theme runs through the entire film, but the main focus is always on the cinematic form itself. Labyrinth of Cinema is an ode to the ways in which movies both distort and inform reality; it’s Obayashi‘s love letter to the art to which he devoted his life, shown as much from the perspective of a fan as of a craftsman. While doubtlessly the epic could have been edited down for clarity—and might have been, had Obayashi survived to tinker with it further—much of the movie’s ramshackle extravagance would have been lost. I’m not sure we would want to lose a single second of Obayashi’s last gift to the world.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: