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Montréal 2022
All you had to do was give Giles a chance—
And now I’m gonna do my dance.
7/28: Freaks Out
Come one, come all, to the Half-Penny Circus. Witness the aerial insect artistry of Cencio the albino! Giggle at the pratfalls of Mario the magnetic clown! Behold the raw strength—and ample fur—of Man-Beast Fulvio! And delight in the electrifying acrobatic artistry of Matilde, who powers light bulbs with the touch of her fingers!
This assembly of war-time freaks must work together to save Israel, their fatherly emcee, and thwart Franz, a six-fingered seer who has foreseen the downfall of Hitler and so wishes to harness the powers of four super-powered performers he has seen in his dreams. Gabriele Mainetti has made an action-packed comedy about the nature of family and challenges of being an outside. Franz Rogowski’s performance as “the 3rd Reich’s Cassandra” is alternately menacing, heart-wrenching, and comedic: he liquidates any “freaks” who do not live up to his standards, cowers in the withering judgment of his brother, and can toddle through danger as ably as Charlie Chaplin, replete with a loooooong-barreled luger as cane stand-in (this also doubles as a charmingly oblique reference to Tim Burton’s Batman). In his character, Franz as Franz has created perhaps the most sympathy-eliciting Nazi I’ve ever seen, a tragi-comic figure who strives for acceptance from the blustering half-wits he’s been surrounded by his entire life. Let me slide in a Recommended icon here…
That will do nicely. Check out Freaks Out as soon as you can.
7/29: Huesera
The latest addition to the increasingly explored “pregnancy-related-psychological-horror” genre, Michelle Garca Cervera’s feature debut (!) uses a classic (actual) horror narrative to illustrate that no, motherhood is not for everyone—certainly not for Valeria, the pregnant protagonist—and no, mothers, as a whole, are no better than other women just for having given birth. Huesera‘s heroes are the childless women: the “spinster” aunt who recognizes the dangers Continue reading 2022 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: “BACK AGAIN”, PART THREE
This should have appeared in the 
I had unfortunately missed seeing this on the big screen as both screenings conflicted with other films. However, even on a modest 41″ television in a darkened cubicle, Rustam Mosafir’s proto-Russian adventure fantasy proved itself to be one heckuva ride. Filled with sword fights, betrayals, mysterious pagans, and some crazy berserker-juice, The Scythian was everything one could want in a medieval adventure yarn. In particular, the score (which is something I’ve noticed I’ve been noticing a lot more) heightened the historical and mystical tones. Both the diegetic music from traveling performers and the ambient tribal chanting grounded the old world feeling; things cut loose a bit more during a fine bit of fighting when the chants were paired with some sick heavy metal guitar. While criticized in its homeland for a lack of historicity, I was more than happy to overlook incongruities from a millennium ago.
With four directors covering 86 minutes, you get about twenty-one minutes per director. I’m not sure how the assignment was divvied up (though conceivably they could had one for the animation, one for the voice acting, one