220. REALITY (2014)

Réalité

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”–Philip K. Dick

Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Kyla Kenedy, Jon Heder, Jonathan Lambert, Élodie Bouchez, , John Glover

PLOT: A young girl (improbably named “Reality”) spies a videotape inside the entrails of a wild hog her father shoots. Meanwhile, Jason, a French-speaking novice director, gets the green light for a screenplay he is working on about killer television sets, but only if he can find an Oscar-caliber scream of pain to insert in the film. Jason’s producer is also funding a fiction film from a former documentary director who, coincidentally, is using Reality as his lead actress, while the stressed would-be filmmaker finds he is having nightmares that are increasingly difficult to wake from.

Still from Reality (2014)
BACKGROUND:

  • Réalité, Quentin Duepieux’s fifth film, was a French/Belgian co-production. The story is set in southern California, although many of the characters primarily speak French.
  • Although Duepieux usually scores his own films, the only music in this film is a repeated phrase from Philip Glass’s “Music with Changing Parts.”
  • The male Award Presenter in Jason’s dream is Michel Hazanavicius, Academy Award-winning director of The Artist (the female Presenter is Rubber‘s ).

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Jason’s recurring dream where he is at an awards ceremony, awaiting announcement of the award for best groan in movie cinema history. He’s the lone human in a sea of blank-faced mannequins in tuxes.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Viscera video; eczema on the inside; this film doesn’t exist yet

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: In his short five film career, Quentin Dupieux has established a distinctive—and divisive—comic vision. His absurd sense of humor takes killer tires, dog-turd detectives, and electronica-snob cops and tosses them into twisted, self-aware scenarios. Reality sees him take a darker turn, venturing deeper into his subconscious, foraging for nightmares.


U.S. theatrical trailer for Reality

COMMENTS: In Reality, a mother reads a bedtime story to her Continue reading 220. REALITY (2014)

CAPSULE: A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (1961)

Une Femme Est une Femme

Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: ,

PLOT: When striptease artist Angela says she wants a baby, reluctant boyfriend Emile dares her to conceive with his best friend Alfred, who has a crush on her.

Still from A Woman Is a Woman (1961)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Une Femme has that certain Godardian edge to it, but it’s not strange enough to grace a list of the weirdest movies ever made.

COMMENTS: Just as Godard’s debut feature, 1960’s Breathless, deconstructed gangster movies by contradicting cinematic conventions and defying audience expectations, his followup A Woman Is a Woman deconstructs the already unreal world of the Hollywood musical. In these early films Godard shows a fondness for the genre material, even as he rips it to shreds– he’s only taking it apart, like a curious schoolboy, to see how it works. For an alleged musical—Godard actually called it “the idea of a musical”—there are remarkably few songs, and those that do come and  go in fragments. Michel Legrand wrote a lush score for the film, but Godard chops it up and doles it out in bits and pieces, just to call attention to the emotional artifice of film music. When Emile and Angela argue over whether they should have a baby, a few seconds of angry strings punctuate each of their statements; at other times, happy woodwinds pipe up, but are laid over the dialogue, partially obscuring the couple’s words. As Angela walks down a Paris street, the soundtrack cuts back and forth at random between orchestral cues, loud street noise, and silence. When she sings her cabaret number while stripping out of a sailor suit, the piano accompaniment conspicuously stops whenever she opens her mouth to sing. A background chanson cuts off as soon as she drops a coin into a jukebox and punches in the numbers. And so on.

The jokes are in the lightly absurd mode we expect from hip French films of this era (see also Zazie; Catherine Demongeot grinning off the cover of “Le Cinema” magazine is one of the many nods to his contemporaries that Godard spreads throughout the film). When they are not speaking, Angela and Emile carry on heated arguments using the titles of books they collect from their apartment’s shelves. Angela flips an omelet into the air, runs off to answer a phone call, then excuses itself and returns to catch it as it falls back onto the skillet a minute later. The subject matter (unmarried Bohemians, one of whom dances naked for strangers, casually discussing having a child out of wedlock) and a glimpse of female nudity (not from Karina) made it a naughty picture in 1961, though it was far too sweet-natured to be a dirty one. There’s a pleasant silliness to this souffle that we do not associate with Godard, who usually comes across as angry even when he’s joking (especially when he’s joking). That could be due to the presence of the vivacious Anna Karina, the Danish pixie girl Godard offers up here as the nouvelle vague’s answer to Audrey Hepburn. Between her pout and her smile there isn’t room to fit in a centimeter of cynicism. Godard married Karina during the shoot; they divorced four years later. Perhaps not coincidentally, the director’s work turned towards the sour soon thereafter.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Analytical whimsy, captivating dissonance… Infinitely inventive gaiety is but a veil for anxiety…”–Fernando F. Croce, Cinepassion (DVD)

READER RECOMMENDATION: “TOBY DAMMIT” (1968)

Reader recommendation from Steven Ryder

Note: ‘Toby Dammit’ is a segment filmed as part of Spirits of the Dead, an anthology based on ’s short stories. The other entries were “William Wilson,” directed by , and “Metzengerstein” by .

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , Antonia Pietrosi

PLOT: During a trip to Rome to film a Catholic Spaghetti Western, Toby Dammit, an alcoholic, drug-addled Shakespearean actor, falls deeper and deeper into uncertainty, pursued by a devilish young phantom.

Still from Toby Dammit (1968)

WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Any number of Fellini’s films could be given the “weird” seal of approval due to his preoccupation with dream imagery and Jungian psychoanalysis, but few are as quite deeply rooted in the surreal as “Toby Dammit.” Oktay Ege Kozak described “Dammit” as “8 ½ in Hell,” and seeing as how Fellini’s magnum opus does make the List, it would come as no real surprise to see this shorter, more blatant genre offering creep its way on as well.

COMMENTS: Spirits of the Dead, the anthology that includes “Toby Dammit,” isn’t particularly fascinating, and it is painfully obvious that Roger Vadim and Louis Malle, the directors of the other two segments, either care little about or did not know how to approach the subject matter. These are directors later made made campy science fiction flicks or serious wartime dramas, and neither of these genres reflect Edgar Allen Poe’s Gothic roots as well as Fellini’s style does. Now, if producer Alberto Grimaldi had managed to get on board, as he originally intended, then we may have been looking at a late-sixties masterpiece of horror cinema, but instead we get two forgettable entries and one incredibly weird, incredibly original Poe adaptation from one of the giants of Italian film, fresh off the critical hits 8 1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits. Fellini confessed to never actually read the story he was supposed to be filming, which may have assisted him in bringing his own enduring cinematic style to the table. Aside from the title and the decapitation finale, nothing else remains from Poe’s original tale.

The film opens with disheveled Shakespearean actor Toby, played with a distinct charisma and style by Terence Stamp, drunk on a plane, preparing to meet the producer of his next film in Rome. There is no mistake that Fellini wanted Toby, already a frazzled mess of a man, to be driven further and further into madness, and it wouldn’t be glib to speculate that the red mist his plane descends into is a symbol for the Hell that is to follow—even if the jaunty, instantly recognizable score from frequent Fellini collaborator Nino Rota says otherwise. We follow Toby on his first trip to Rome and Continue reading READER RECOMMENDATION: “TOBY DAMMIT” (1968)

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 9/25/2015

Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Finders Keepers (2015): A recovering addict seeks to recover his mummified foot from a man who found it in a grill he bought at a garage sale. Documentaries have a hard time getting on our radar, but this one is garnering all the right critical adjectives: “strange,” “crazy,” “insane,” and yes, even “weird.” Finders Keepers official site.

Forever (2015): A journalist goes to a retreat to recover from an emotional trauma, but (of course) all is not as it seems. Not too much is known about this psychological thriller, but the one review in existence calls it “a mysterious mindbender.” Forever press release.

FILM FESTIVALS – New York Film Festival (New York City, Lincoln Center, Sep. 25-Oct. 11):

While most of our attention will be on Fantastic Fest (see below), we should mention the more mainstream offerings on tap in the coming weeks at the New York Film Festival, held at Lincoln Center. There are no debuts to speak of, but the following weird films we’ve already noted from other festivals will be playing: ‘s Cemetery of Splendour (Sep. 30 & Oct. 1), and ‘s The Forbidden Room (Sep. 28 & 92), Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog (Oct. 8), and s The Lobster (Sep. 27 & 28). All of the directors will be and hand except for Weerasethakul, and almost all screenings are already “standby only.”

New York Film Festival homepage.

FILM FESTIVALS – Fantastic Fest (Austin, TX, Sep. 24-Oct. 1):

The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX may be America’s coolest theater. Their brand has grown so big that now they have franchised Drafthouses, and even distribute their own (generally weird) movies. One of the Alamo’s hippest projects is Fantastic Fest, going into its eleventh year. As per usual, there is a fantastic slate of weird movies and some neato revivals here. While there are more than a dozen “of interest” movies showing here that we’ve already noted in our entries on Sundance, Toronto, and other venues, here are some other titles that are special to Fantastic Fest:

  • Belladonna of Sadness (1973) – A psychedelic anime about a medieval rape victim who makes a revenge-pact with the Devil; never before screened in the USA. Your only remaining chance to see it (until it arrives on DVD) is Sep. 28.
  • Der Bunker – A student ends up as tutor to a child whose family lives in a bunker, and whose mother has an alien living in her leg. Sep. 28.
  • Coz uv Moni 2 – Ghanaian pidgin musical sequel (we missed the first part) with two musicians seeking revenge, meeting Dracula (“welcome to Transylvania/you will realize its different from Ghana”) and a reefer-smoking Jesus along the way. Sep. 28.
  • Darling – A young woman goes insane while taking care of an old New York house; in black and white. Sep. 25 (tonight!) and Oct. 1.
  • Follow – A Christmas-themed “descent into madness” indie. Sep. 26 & 28.
  • In Search of the Ultra-Sex – A mock sci-fi pastiche pieced together from the weirdest scenes from dozens of international hardcore sex movies from the 1970s and 1980s. Sep. 25 (midnight) and 30.
  • Liza the Fox Fairy – Set in Budapest in the 1970s, the comically surreal movie tells the story of a woman whose lovers all die, leading her to suspect she may be a Japanese fox fairy. Sep. 27 & 30.
  • Lovemilla – Finnish comedy about a young girl whose best friend is a superhero and whose parents turn into zombies when they drink, with musical numbers. Sep. 26 & 28.
  • Remake, Remix, Rip-off – Documentary about the Turkish film industry, which thrived locally in the 70s and 80s off lax copyright laws that allowed it to make cheap, unauthorized knockoffs of popular Western movies and characters (like Star Wars and Spiderman) with an Ankara spin. You can also catch original Turksploitation features like The Deathless Devil and Tartan vs. the Viking at the Fest. Catch the doc Sep. 29.
  • Ruined Heart – A “punk noir opera” about a gangster’s moll falling in love with a henchman; set in the Philippines and starring a Japanese pop star. Sep. 29.
  • The Similars – Eight people are trapped in surreal situations in a Mexico City bus station. Try it Sep. 29.
  • Stand By for Tape Back-up – VHS mashup of “Fresh Prince,” Ghostbusters and other taped ephemera with experimental transformations and essay-narration. Sep. 26 & 28.
  • Tikkun – A devout Hasidic Jew comes back from a near-death experience as a lusty hedonist. Screening Sep. 30.

We have an undercover correspondent in Austin and we should have some unscheduled guerrilla coverage from the Fest at some point—stay tuned to this site for reports. Fantastic Fest homepage.

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.

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