“Body Memory”‘s title refers to the idea that our physical bodies don’t only remember our own individual experiences, but the joy and sorrow of our ancestors as well.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 3/29/2013
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 on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Blancanieves (2012): This modern silent film retells the story of Snow White, set in the world of Spanish bullfighting in the 1920s. It looks closer to The Artist than to Guy Maddin, but we’d be thrilled if the powers that be release just one silent film per year. Blancanieves official site.
Los Chidos (2012): A gringo interrupts the strange and lazy days of a taco-gorging Mexican family when he’s forced to stay with them after his car breaks down near their hovel. This attack on Mexican macho culture (directed by a Hispanic man, thankfully) includes cross-dressing, gross-out shock scenes with feces and menstrual blood, and alienation techniques (male voices dubbed for female characters and vice versa). Playing LA at the Downtown Independent Cinema for one week, and also screening at the Boston Underground Film Festival Sunday, Mar. 31 at 2:15. Los Chidos Facebook page.
Mental (2012): This Australian black comedy/satire involves a politician who hires a crack-smoking hitchhiker to play nanny to his five teenaged daughters, each of whom believes she suffers from a mental illness. We would have passed over mentioning this one if not for some reviewers declaring it “surreal, uncontrolled, frenzied,” “bewilderingly strange,” and “just plain nuts.” Mental official site.
Room 237 (2012): Read our capsule review. This survey of conspiracy-minded fans bizarre interpretations of The Shining (e.g., the movie was Stanley Kubrick‘s coded confession that he faked the moon landing) serves as both a testament to the power of film to fire the imagination and a warning about how personal obsessions can transform a work of art into something unrecognizable to others. It’s simultaneously available to view on demand
Wrong (2012): A man looking for his lost dog encounters bizarre characters and risks losing his sanity. This is director Quentin Dupieux’s followup to his weird hit Rubber, and per the official synopsis this one is “equally bizarre.” This one is also available for on demand
IN DEVELOPMENT:
The Young and Prodigious Spivet (est. 2013): A 12-year old child prodigy with a bizarre family hitchhikes across the U.S. to accept an award for discovering a perpetual motion machine. Adapted from a popular novel by the always-interesting Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with weird stalwarts Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, and (obviously) Dominique Pinon gracing the cast. In 3D (sadly). No official site yet, but here’s an article from firstshowing.net.
NEW ON DVD:
Alois Nebel (2011): A rotoscoped Czech film noir about a mysterious visitor who visits a disturbed train dispatcher to unearth guilty Cold War secrets. The New Wave is long gone, but the tiny Czech film industry continues to innovate and astound. Buy Alois Nebel
The Death Wheelers [AKA Psychomania] (1973): Bullfrog-worshiping bikers kill themselves so they can come back as living-dead cyclists. Re-releasing old movies with new (or at least unfamiliar) titles is a time-honored exploitation movie trick, and aptly named bargain-distributor “Cheezy Flicks” isn’t above resorting to it—this film is better known as Psychomania. True fans may want to search for Severin Films restored release, but this one will be a few dollars cheaper. Buy The Death Wheelers [Psychomania]
From Beyond (1986): See description in Blu-ray below.
“Mystery Science Theater 3000: Vol. 26”: Have 26 volumes of this seminal bad-movie mocking series already been released? We say keep ’em coming ’till there’s nothing left in the vaults! This set brings us comic deconstructions of Bert I. Gordon’s technicolor fantasy The Magic Sword, surprising proof that Kathy Ireland can’t act thanks to the misfire comedy Alien from L.A., the dangerous death rays of Danger! Death Ray, and the unexpected appearance of Minnesota Vikings running back Robert Smith (the series’ only guest star) in The Mole People. Buy “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Vol. XXVI”
Phantasm II (1988): The direct sequel to the Certified Weird Phantasm (1979) has a grown-up Mike still haunted by the Tall Man. This sequel was a little more conventionalized than the seat-of-the-pants surrealism of the original. Shout! Factory gives it “Collector’s Edition” treatment with lots of extras. Buy Phantasm II
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Dead Sushi (2012): Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha) makes 3-4 absurd, gory horror comedies per year. This one involves killer sushi (not “really good” sushi, but sushi that must be kickboxed into submission to keep it from eating you). Buy Dead Sushi [Blu-ray]
From Beyond (1986): Director Stuart Gordon followed up his cult smash Re-Animator (1985) with another adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story with much of the same cast as his first hit. This “Collectors Edition” is only available as a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack. The movie is currently in our reader-suggested review queue. Buy From Beyond [BluRay/DVD Combo pack].
Phantasm II (1988): See description in DVD above. Buy Phantasm II [Blu-ray]
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.
OUR HOSPITALITY (1923)
Our Hospitality (1923) was Buster Keaton’s first true feature film. Keaton’s previous “feature,” Three Ages (1923) was actually three short films assembled together. There was both an artistic and a commercial reason for this: Three Ages was a parody of the similarly structured D.W. Griffith feature Intolerance (1916). Additionally, Keaton had proved his audience appeal in shorts. Metro Pictures realized the inherent risk of a Keaton feature, and the structure of Three Ages created the option of breaking it down into three shorts. Fortunately for all concerned, Three Ages was a commercial and critical success.
Our Hospitality may be seen, in retrospect, as a model for Keaton’s features and a precursor to The General (1926). What separates Keaton from his peers (Chaplin, Lloyd, Langdon) is the way his character integrates into a larger narrative. That is not to say that Keaton’s films are not character driven, but the character serves the narrative, not vice versa.
Our Hospitality opens with a prologue of the ongoing feud between the Canfields and the McKays. A young Canfield and the McKay patriarch are killed in a rainy shoot out at night. To avoid the curse of the feud and further bloodshed, the McKay widow takes her infant son, Willie, and sends him north to New York. Meanwhile, the Canfields swear revenge.
Twenty years later, Willie (Keaton) is the personification of a 19th century New York Yankee, adorned in a dandified suit. His mother has since passed away when Willie learns he has inherited his father’s estate. Imagining a southern mansion waiting in the wings, Willie hops onto the next train like a salmon returning to its birthplace. Before departing, he is warned by his guardian to stay clear of the Canfields.
The trip south foreshadows the archaic world Willie is about to enter. The train itself is primitive and, naturally, encounters numerous mishaps along the way. Luckily for Willie, the ordeal is made bearable because his fellow passenger is a pretty girl (Natalie Talmadge, the first Mrs. Keaton). Unfortunately, Willie’s spawning choice here, unknown to him, is a Canfield daughter.
There are numerous aquatic metaphors. Willie stands apart from his fellows, like a fish out of water, with city clicker suit and queer umbrella. While fishing, he catches a minnow, throws it back, and then gets pulled into the water by a bigger fish. Willie’s mansion turns out to be a dilapidated shack and he unwittingly finds himself in the home of his sworn enemies. True to Southern hospitality, the Canfields vow not kill Willie while he is a guest in their home. When Willie learns of this, he naturally tries to remain a permanent houseguest. Almost forced out, Willie is saved from leaving by the sudden appearance of a heavy downpour. A dam blows up, nearly drowning Willie, but it also safely conceals Willie from his predators, the Canfield boys. In a reversal of the fishing line, Willie is tied, by rope, to a Canfield son. Both get hauled into the water. A descent into the rapids brings further peril, as does a waterfall. Willie dangles over the waterfall like that salmon on a line. Yet, it is the waterfall which unites Willie with his girl, allowing him to spawn.
Our Hospitality is replete with inventive sight gags (a tunnel is cut to fit the train, a horse’s rear-end is disguised as Willie in drag), but it’s really a sophisticated, yet simple retelling of the Romeo and Juliet narrative.
Next week: Sherlock Jr. (1924)
CAPSULE: STOKER (2013)
FEATURING: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman
PLOT: A girl’s father dies on her 18th birthday; the uncle she never knew she had shows up soon thereafter and installs himself in the isolated house she lives in with her lonely mother.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s not weird enough, although Chan-wook Park fans should find enough perversion, violence and sublime cinematography to keep themselves engaged in it.
COMMENTS: From the long-lost uncle right out of Shadow of a Doubt to a subversive quotation to Psycho‘s shower scene, Stoker is Chan-wook Park’s Hitchcock tribute movie. But where Hitch was a master of plotting as well as suspense, Park substitutes high stylization and on-the-nose perversity for carefully shaded storytelling. The events of Stoker are highly implausible, and the characters act like dancers in a psychosexual ballet rather than three people mourning the loss of a beloved breadwinner. The triangular character structure draws you in, presenting sets of relations—mother/daughter, uncle/niece, and widow/brother-in-law—which shift throughout the tale. Allies will become enemies, buried family secrets will be uncovered, and Uncle Charlie, naturally, is not what he seems. Oh, and blood will flow when longings grow unchecked. Stoker unavoidably flirts with the Electra complex, as mother and daughter compete for the attentions of the surrogate father figure, the new Man of the house. Mysterious Uncle Charlie, whose very existence was unknown until he showed up at his brother’s funeral, is a figure of fear and desire to young India. The way he tries to win the 18-year old’s allegiance by waiting for her in his convertible parked next to the school bus would creep out Chris Hansen, and the way newly widowed and prematurely lonely mom Evelyn courts Uncle’s attention would boil Hamlet’s blood. There are a lot of naughty, nasty possibilities in a tale that teases a potential transformation into a taboo love triangle, but it has less transgressive sting because nothing onscreen bears much relationship to reality. Characters show up as if by magic when the script calls for it, ominous music plays for no obvious reason, and no one’s reactions are very believable. (You’ve got to call the police when you find that first body, folks!) The way India’s feelings for Charlie flow from disdain to prurient interest and back again, in particular, makes little outward sense; the vacillation only reflects her conflicted attitudes about sex and upcoming adulthood. Unannounced dream sequences further distance us from reality. A near-rape plays twice; the second time through, it’s unclear whether it’s meant to be a continuation of the previous scene, or a new version re-imagined as a sexual revenge fantasy. All of this is presented neither with a repressed Freudian subtlety (the way a Hitchcock would have handled it) or with a balls-to-the-wall operatic insanity (the way we might have expected a Chan-wook Park to treat such material). Stoker instead exists in the netherworld between the real and the surreal, the realm of melodrama. It’s like a too-logical dream that’s uncomfortable precisely because it’s not bizarre enough to meet our expectations. And although the script proffers the twists we’d expect in a thriller—secrets are revealed fast and furious in the third act—in the end, much of the plotting just seems lazy, particularly in a senseless, character-arc-erasing final scene that caps things off with a meaningless shock. On the plus side, the slow-paced Gothic tenor of the drama is refreshingly different from typical Hollywood “realism,” and Park grants us a couple of wonderful moments—a breathy erotic piano duet (of a Philip Glass composition made expressly for this movie) and a striking shot where Nicole Kidman’s hair transforms into a field of grain. In the end, Stoker is lurid, loopy, and occasionally lovely, no masterpiece but a passable guilty pleasure.
Korean director Park had to work with a translator on the set, and so the actors may have been largely left to direct themselves. This may be why some of the performances seem subdued, while Park’s camera is as vibrant as ever.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
LIST CANDIDATE: AMELIE (2001)
Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain
DIRECTED BY: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
FEATURING: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Dominique Pinon, Rufus
PLOT: An introverted and imaginative Parisian girl devotes herself to secretly helping those around her, but is it only because she’s afraid to go after love herself?
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: If Amélie makes the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies, it will thanks to the “sliding scale” rule: the better a movie is, the less weird it needs to be to qualify. While Amélie has more than its share of literally magical moments, it’s a little hard to swallow that something this universally beloved could qualify as “weird.” Describing it, fans will often resort to such “weird-lite” adjectives as “peculiar/odd/quirky.” Still, it is a much-adored movie, and it may be a worthwhile addition to the List to represent the more whimsical side of the weird.
COMMENTS: Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, the two early 1990s collaborations between Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, were spicy-sweet concoctions. Each was at heart a romantic fantasy, whether the story was about lovers rescued from cannibals or fairy tale orphans adopted by circus strong men, but a note of piquant surrealism always added bite to the sentimental overtones. When the pair split, it became clear which one was the romantic and which the weirdo; without Caro’s dark humor grounding him, Jeunet was, for better or worse, set free to soar into the stratosphere of whimsy. So comes Amélie, a life-affirming trifle which is about twice as tickly and almost as substantial as the bubbles rising off a glass of Dom Perignon. In Audrey Tautou, Jeunet found the perfect actress to embody his pixie girl who secretly enters the lives of others to bring joy or justice. Tautou has huge, liquid brown eyes that look like cross between a six-year old girl’s and a puppy dog’s. She’s incredibly beautiful, but so cute and girlish that it’s impossible to lust after her; it’s almost impossible to think of her as a sexual creature at all. And for most of the movie, she isn’t; her amiable frigidity is the source of altruistic superpowers, and overcoming her lack of sexual selfishness constitutes her heroine’s journey. Amélie’s childhood background is delivered breezily, complete with animated crocodiles and suicidal pet fish. She grows up as a sheltered introvert with an imagination that brings her skies full of bunnies and teddy bears; as a new adult, she shyly enters into a squeaky clean movie version of Paris that comes dangerously close to kitsch (you half expect to see characters walking around in those berets and striped shirts actors wore in Benny Hill sketches to indicate they were tres French). Fortunately, there are interesting, conflicted people sitting around in cafés with thorny problems for her to solve, including rejected lovers, hypochondriac tobacconists, abandoned wives, and cruel street grocers. She secretly and shyly manipulates their lives, largely as a way of avoiding her own attraction to a man whose hobby is collecting pictures discarded at photo booths; she eventually succumbs to her desires, but putters about with oblique stratagems for meeting her beau that involve various disguises, puzzles and scavenger hunts as she delays her own happiness as long as possible. It may sound insufferably cute, like a diabolical plot by some French Frank Capra to turn Americans into a bunch of Francophilic wimps, but it really is legitimately charming, grandly cinematic, and amusing. Wonderfully unreal, magical diversions abound, such as glowing hearts, talking photographs, and people spontaneously dissolving into puddles. The TV channel that’s beamed into Amélie’s Montparnasse flat features nothing but the bizarrest programming: one despondent night, she watches her own funeral parade on the tube. Frothy, funny, and French almost to a fault, it’s easy to see why this uplifting movie has won so many hearts over the years; the film is harder to resist than Tautou’s smile. Still, I note that, despite its overall exceptional quality, Amélie doesn’t feature that one tour de force scene, like the bedspring symphony in Delicatessen or the incredible teardrop sequence from City of Lost Children, to hang its hat on. Jeunet without Caro, to me, is like McCartney without Lennon; and although I appreciate Amélie for what it is, part of me will always think the script would have been punchier if one of Caro’s cannibal butchers has popped up to thin out the cast.
After they ended their partnership, Jeunet went on to unprecedented success with Amélie; his film school friend Marc Caro’s directorial career did not take off so well. After 1995’s City of Lost Children, Caro did not direct a solo feature until 2008’s sci-fi flop Dante o1. He has found work as an art director, however, including designing sets for Gaspar Noe‘s spectacular Enter the Void, the third Certified Weird project he was involved in.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “Nobody,” who called it “a beautiful and unique movie.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)