Tag Archives: 2020

Capsules

CAPSULE: SKY SHARKS (2020)

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DIRECTED BY: Marc Fehse

FEATURING: Eva Habermann, Thomas Morris, Barbara Nedeljakova

PLOT: Receding Arctic icebergs release a horrible, long-buried threat: Nazi super-soldiers and their flying sharks.

COMMENTS: When you make a film like Sky Sharks, you have one honor-bound duty, and one obligation. Marc Fehse—writer, director, producer, editor, costume designer, and possibly the on-site hotdog vendor—fulfills his duty. There are sky sharks. They are sleekly designed, cybernetically enhanced, and perhaps too cute (in that heartless, dead-eyed, borderline prehistoric kind of way) for their purposes. Having fulfilled his duty, the question then becomes: does Mr Fehse provide the obligatory narrative framework to support, however barely, this flock of sharks?

Angelique and Diabla Richter are the daughters of superannuated German scientist and American technologist, Dr. Klaus Richter. Under the auspices of the “Investigation of Ancient War Engine” division of Richter’s pharma-bio-mechatronic consortium, Angelique and Diabla are tasked with investigating the wreckage of Finnish plane that crashed mysteriously over the Arctic. Diabla, a field agent who hates the cold, pursues this lead along with a concurrent discovery by Richter’s Arctic laboratory team: the discovery of massive German submarine.

It is around this point that the film’s difficulties become obvious. We don’t expect too much from actors roped into a project titled “Sky Sharks” that features Nazi immortality serum and zombiesque stormtroopers flying mechanically and genetically enhanced sharks. But one does have standards, and the narrative threads feel knotted here. I’ll charitably interpret this as enthusiasm on the part of the filmmaker: Fehse has crammed just every Nazi motif, occult scheme (including the infamous “Bell” weapon), and even some Vietnam nonsense in the hopes of… In the hopes of…

That may remain a mystery. Not wishing to be a Debbie Downer, I’ll go back to the opening requisite: the sky sharks. I would have loved more of them. I want some miniatures to put around my study. The first thing that comes to mind with just the title is “Sharknado + Nazis = Sky Sharks“; this may be true, I have not seen Sharknado. But tucked here amongst the Z-grade movie violence, nudity, both combined—twice over—and, of course, flying sharks (which can cloak, too, just so you know), Fehse takes some political pot shots at his fatherland. Nazi shark riders use Krupp steel cables during a particularly gris-silly plane scene; and the hemming, hedging, and hawing of the German government representative in the “World Leaders Unite to do Something!” montage is bang-on for that country’s waffling  for the past decade.

Having seen his Nazis, sharks, and breasts covered in (fresh) blood, and have no doubt that for so long as Marc Fehse can live to beg, borrow, or steal, he will make another film. It will be with jaundiced eye, but I shall give that film, whatever it turns out to be, a fair hearing. To the rest of you, well, perhaps some ancient Nazi weapons are best left buried in the ice.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Perhaps due to its dependence on fundraising from fans, Sky Sharks feels like a film made by committee – and not a very well disciplined committee at that.” -Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN (2020)

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Sniegu juz nigdy nie bedzie

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DIRECTED BY: Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert

FEATURING: Alec Utgoff, Maja Ostaszewska, Agata Kulesza, Weronika Rosati, Katarzyna Figura, Lukasz Simlat, Krzysztof Czeczot, Andrzej Chyra

PLOT: Residents of a gated community in Poland believe a mysterious Ukrainian masseur has special powers.

Still from Never Gonna Snow Again (2020)

COMMENTS: Mystery masseur Zhenia was born in Pripyat, the closest town to Chernobyl, seven years before the reactor melted down and exploded. That event was in 1986, which means that Zhenia was born in 1979. Stalker was released in 1979.

Of course, those dates could be coincidences, but its worth mentioning that later Never Gonna Snow Again will directly quote a scene from Stalker, and the ghost of (alongside Pier Paolo Pasolini, by way of Teorema) haunts the production. This movie is thick with allusions, feints, and mysterious possible connections that never quite cohere. The premise is simple enough: Zhenia begins peddling his massage services to residents of a wealthy Polish gated community. Everyone feels incredible and energized after a session, and the neighborhood comes to believe his hands have extraordinary healing powers. It also turns out that he is a gifted amateur hypnotist whose techniques can give their psyches the equivalent of a deep tissue massage. He becomes a central figure in the lives of a number of the families living in this tract of luxurious but nearly identical suburban homes, most notably an alcoholic woman, a man fighting cancer, an aging bohemian and her drug-chemist son, a woman obsessed with her three dogs, and an ex-soldier with a nasty temper.

This setup gives Never Gonna Snow Again ample space to explore many possible avenues, from the social to the personal to the existential. It’s a movie that begs for an allegorical interpretation, but I’m not sure it plays fair with the audience on that count. The story leaves a lot of loose thematic ends, with no hints on how to correctly tie them up. Is it a parable about immigrants? A social satire of the new Polish bourgeoisie? An environmental warning? A Christ allegory? Is the story actually about Zhenia’s childhood? Why the Stalker references? Why do the children believe it will never snow again? Why do the neighbors feel better after meeting with Zhenia, even though their lives don’t materially improve? What’s the meaning of Zhenia’s relationship with dogs? Why does Zhenia speak fluent Vietnamese?

That’s just a small sample of the movie’s unanswered questions. Ambiguity is a tricky thing. Wielded well, it can produce powerful intellectual and emotional effects. But a little bit can go a long way, and loose ends are easier to deal with if there is at least one strong central idea to latch onto. When nothing links up, you are left only to appreciate the aesthetics; a hit-or-miss affair that depends on your subjective preferences. Never Gonna Snow Again impressed art-house critics, which is why it has a 94% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes and will be Poland’s submission to this year’s Oscars. Many praised Alec Utgoff‘s performance, but I found him pleasantly bland, lacking the supernatural presence brought to Teorema (a tall order, admittedly, but almost a necessary element for a fable like this to work). The cinematography and sound design are outstanding, but they’re only pieces of the puzzle. You need to be attuned to slow cinema and the subtler shades of weirdness to fall for this one.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Desire and delirium in Eastern Europe, with an undertow of eco-anxiety, make for a bizarre hybrid, somewhere between Twin Peaks and Pasolini’s Theorem…heads all the way into the territory of surreal satire to eerie and intriguing effect.”–Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily (festival review)

Capsules

CAPSULE: MANDIBLES (2020)

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Mandibules

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , David Marsais,

PLOT: Two dimwitted thugs think they’ve struck it rich when they find a giant fly in the trunk of their stolen car.

Still from Mandibles [Mandibules] (2020)

COMMENTS: The shaggy-fly comedy Mandibles showcases the more accessible side of Quentin Dupieux; it’s getting the widest American release of any of his film’s since Rubber (2010), and his best notices from mainstream viewers and reviewers. While 2018’s Keep an Eye Out was a nonstop assault of ian jokes and experiments, Mandibles (like 2019’s Deerskin) restricts itself to only a couple of deadpan absurdist premises (the giant fly being, naturally, the main one). It’s an olive branch for those who believe that, when it comes to weird, less is more.

Mandibles starts when Manu, homeless and sleeping on the beach and looking like a French version of the Dude, gets a hush-hush commission to deliver a mysterious suitcase, no questions asked, for 500 Euros. (As this is a Dupieux film, you can be sure the valise will not contain a kilo of heroin, stolen diamonds, or plans for an Iranian nuclear reactor.) Manu invites buddy Jean-Gab along on the low-key caper, but complications immediately arise when they find that the trunk of their stolen car houses an enormous fly. Jean-Gab, the marginally brighter of the two, hatches the idea to train the flying pest as an assistant for their criminal careers. The suitcase is temporarily forgotten as the two buffoonish thugs seek to enact their plan, overcoming small-scale obstacles (accidentally locked trunks, fires, car problems) as they try to avoid tripping over their own feet.  Manu’s efforts go to scrounging up food and lodging, while Jean-Gab spends his time training the fly he’s named Dominique. Through a crazy coincidence, their picaresque adventures eventually land them at a country villa where they meet a suspicious Adèle Exarchopoulos, who threatens to uncover their subterfuge—despite suffering from a novel neurological problem (the movie’s second big surreal joke).

It’s the friendship between Manu and Jean-Gab, rather than the fly’s antics, that carries the movie. These two dopes have a bit of a Bill and Ted dynamic (with their “toro” handshake subbing for the California dudes’ air guitar salutation). Their criminality is opportunistic rather than mean-spirited; in real-life, their poorly conceived scams would quickly land them in prison, but in the movie’s world they’re able to abduct people and steal property without serious repercussions. They never get anywhere; perpetual victims of their own stupidity, they have a tendency accidentally destroy all their ill-gotten gains. Their simplicity and unswerving loyalty to each other leads the audience to root for them despite their boorish behavior, however, and you even see how their insect companion could get attached to them. Meanwhile, their escapades provide just enough unpredictability and amusement to carry the slight narrative through its brisk 75-minute runtime.

Is Grégoire Ludig becoming Dupieux’s leading man of choice? He’s unrecognizable here from his turn in Keep an Eye Out, and he even shows up here briefly in a second role—again unrecognizable. He’s got a chameleonic presence and good comic timing, two things a Dupieux film can always use.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s not Dupieux’s best work, but there are enough laughs and head-shaking moments to make ‘Mandibles’ an entertaining jaunt into weirdosville.”–Carla Hay, Culture Mix (contemporaneous)