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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: DEEP DARK (2015)

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DIRECTED BY: Michael Medaglia

FEATURING: Sean McGrath, Anne Sorce, Denise Poirier

PLOT: An failed artist’s last stab at success is given an unexpected boost by a mysterious creature living inside a hole in his shabby studio apartment, but the hole’s motives are not entirely charitable, and the arrangement may come at an unexpectedly high cost.

Still from Deep Dark (2015)

COMMENTS: Among the unsung heroes of modern cinema are the home-video closed-caption writers. They must not only transcribe the dialogue but provide detailed descriptions of sound effects that offer meaningful context for the mood and the stakes of a scene. Surely some sort of award is owed to the unknown captioner for Deep Dark, who was tasked with delivering a full accounting of the first appearance of the hole in the wall who will change the life of our protagonist, and came through with this masterpiece: “[eerie sounds, vaguely wet, vaguely female]”.

It’s an auspicious introduction. We’re told that the Hole has inspired Pollock, Warhol, and Patrick Nagel, and she sparks a sea change in the artistic output of tiresome whiner Hermann by expelling pearlescent orbs that drive art patrons to ecstatic distraction. Her sultry, needy entreaties (delivered by Poirier, best known for voicing the title character in the “Æon Flux” animated series) leave him completely in her thrall, so much so that it is far from surprising that she eventually demands more of him, culminating in an encounter that reveals the Hole to be, shall we say, glorious. One of writer/director Medaglia’s craftier decisions (in his only feature to date) is to leave details about her true nature or origin completely unaddressed. The mystery only enhances her power over everyone who encounters her.

What we have here is a Little Shop of Horrors scenario, in which a monster provides a loser with the key to success, only to demand more and more in return—up to and including blood. Deep Dark is clean and efficient at delivering its story in a tight 80 minutes and taking advantage of a small cast and limited locations to convey its thrills. The film looks good, too, with a crisp editorial sensibility and evocative use of locations both publicly bright and privately grimy. Outside of Poirier’s very good voicework, the actors are definitively fine, turning in perfectly workmanlike performances that deliver the material without enhancing or undercutting it. Like Hermann’s art, though, Deep Dark is missing something. All the pieces are in place, professionally delivered, but it just doesn’t feel like there are any stakes. Events unfold almost entirely as expected, and even the movie’s most graphic moments are evocative, but not shocking or surprising.

Where the film falls the furthest from the goal line is in developing a voice or message uniquely its own. There’s the hint of satiric intent—Medaglia subtitles Hermann’s art and life with ironic descriptions, a tool that will be echoed a few years down the line in The Menu—but the targets are lame and the delivery is weak, especially since there’s a strong argument that we don’t see a single piece of good art in the film. Characters who could provide depth or further complications are assigned subplots that never fully take shape; a curious landlady is the most notable, but Sorce’s influential gallery owner is frustratingly inconsistent, by turns mercenary, snobbish, and weak-minded as needed. Medaglia has his straightforward horror tale, complete with a notably interesting monster. He just doesn’t have much more than that.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Both deeply disturbing yet strangely alluring, the film offers audiences something inherently crazy and incredibly macabre… if like me you have a fondness of the strange and bizarre then Deep Dark is a film worth seeking out.” – Jon Dickinson, “Scream” (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Patricia, who called it “hilariously disturbing” and added “gotta love the weirdness of it…” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: 8½ WOMEN (1999)

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DIRECTED BY: Peter Greenaway

FEATURING: John Standing, Matthew Delamere, Polly Walker, , Toni Collette, Amanda Plummer, Shizuka Inoh

PLOT: A wealthy businessman’s son attempts to bring his widower father out of his grief by introducing him to the pleasures of libertinism.

Still from 8 1/2 Women (1999)

COMMENTS: Probably the most quoted line from Peter Greenaway’s exploration of high-class sexual adventurism comes when father and son watch Fellini’s classic 8½. “How many film directors make films to satisfy their sexual fantasies?” Philip asks. “Most of them,” his son replies. It’s a noteworthy piece of art that coughs up its mission statement so readily. Greenaway is already renowned for his treatment of sex as an artistic endeavor. By aligning himself with one of the acknowledged greats of the cinema, he would seem to be making a definitive statement on the primal urge.

It’s important to remember, however, that Greenaway really doesn’t think much of the male of the species. The two weirdest elements of 8½ Women—how much humiliation men are willing to endure to get their base needs met, and what women deem important enough to lead them to assent—are opposite sides of the same coin. Blinkered, selfish, easily distracted by carnal matters, men are always getting in their own way, and so it goes with Philip and his son Storey. These men possess staggering wealth (their fortune was built on debt collection), so much so that they can usually ignore the niceties of culture or propriety, and even then, they can think of little but their next gratification. No surprise that women recognize them for the pathetic, hollow beings they are. 8½ Women feels like an argument for mutual benefits: the men get the sexual gratification they crave, and the women get to fulfill their own needs, be they professional or psychological.

Those needs, to be certain, are kinda peculiar. Gioconda wants to be pregnant at all times, but Clothilde just wants permission to wear her old mistress’ hats, while Beryl has a thing for farm animals, a fetish that lands her in the world’s most perverse body cast. Lording over them all is Palmira, the most powerful person in the house (and probably in any room she enters) by virtue of having the most control over her reason for being there: the pleasure of shagging Philip until he drops, a fact which is completely lost on Philip’s son, who petulantly expects to be next in line.

Walker is electrifying in her power, which highlights how deliberately unsexy this movie about men who keep a harem is. This spiciest scene in the film features novice nun Griselda (played by Colette) leading the Emmenthal boys to her chamber; they are enraptured, she is paying off a debt. She’s not the only one. It’s noteworthy that when one of them actually needs something from the men–such as Mio, a Japanese woman who wants to take on the qualities of a Kabuki female impersonator–they come up pathetically short. 8½ Women never stops reminding you that these relationships are transactional, and is surprisingly cruel to anyone who dares think love has anything to do with it. (One woman is even bludgeoned over the head with a roof tile for her mistake.)

8½ Women is implicitly weird because of what Greenaway brings to any project, but it ultimately doesn’t add up to much. People come, people go, those who understand the rules get what they want. Philip and Storey may get to the root of Fellini’s imagination, but never get anywhere near the magic found there.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Like all other Greenaway movies, 8 1/2 Women transpires in a surreal setting that reflects our reality as seen through a looking glass darkly… traditional cinematic elements exist primarily to provide a framework in which Greenaway can operate to present a variety of outrageous sequences… unless you like the offbeat simply because it’s offbeat, 8½ Women may not be the best choice for an evening’s entertainment.” – James Berardinelli, Reel View (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Caleb Moss, who described it thusly: “”Peter Greenaway presents Marquis de Sade, complete with father/son homoerotic subtext, a giant pig, a woman with an odd sexual predilection for horses and swine, inexplicable earthquakes, self-aware parallelisms with Fellini, and as you may of guessed, literally half of a woman, to name some of the very least of strange, detached debaucheries in this film.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: UN PERRO LLAMADO DOLOR [A DOG CALLED PAIN] (2001)

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AKA El artista y su modelo [The Artist and His Model]

DIRECTED BY: Luis Eduardo Aute

PLOT: A series of vignettes about seven legendary Spanish-speaking painters and their relationships with their models, united by a dog which shares a name with Frida Kahlo’s beloved pet.

Imaged from "A Dog Called Pain" (2001)

COMMENTS: No doubt you’re all familiar with the Barbershop Harmony Society and the annual international barbershop quartet competition it hosts. Well, have I got news for you: just this past week, video of the 2023 finalists’ performances in Louisville earlier this year was posted online, so you now have the chance to see what the coolest kids in a capella close harmony are up to. In particular, you might want to check out the work of this year’s champion Midtown, who clinched the crown with a 12-minute mashup of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” and the old “Spider-Man” cartoon theme, a performance which turns out to consist entirely of inside jokes. It’s so deep down the barbershop rabbit hole that the explanation merits its own playlist. And if the crowd’s response is any indication, the aficionados are eating it up with a spoon.

Now, why am I subjecting you to this bizarre-even-by-our-standards digression about an arcane and nearly forgotten musical subgenre? Because for weeks, I have been reckoning with what I think of Un perro llamado dolor, Luis Eduardo Aute’s hand-crafted fantasia on the lives and artistic stylings of some of the most famous painters who ever lived, and hearing this professional and utterly impenetrable barbershop performance proved to be a fitting analogue: it’s exceedingly skilled, breathtakingly beautiful in moments, and so far up its own ass that it threatens to cross dimensions.

Aute possessed a variety of talents, from composing chart-topping songs to headlining art shows across Europe to not only writing successful poetry but inventing new forms to increase the challenge. After a while, he began to combine his talents, uniting his artwork, songs, and poems around joint themes and even expanding into film, a medium he encountered early through a job he landed as a second A.D. on ’s Cleopatra. So here is a chance for all of his skills to come together.

It’s a mammoth undertaking. Aute created over 4,000 drawings in pencil and charcoal, often aping the styles of the greats he intends to honor. His assembly is barely animation (save for a couple computer-assisted shots late in the film, Un perro unfolds at a rate of about 3 seconds per drawing), but it flows smoothly through seven different portraits united only by the subjects’ profession and the titular dog. The dog is a curious companion. Named Pain (supposedly like one of Frida Kahlo’s actual dogs, although hers were Xoloitzcuintli and not the generic hound seen here), his presence hints at the constant agony all artists seemingly feel, but he is a loyal friend, protecting his masters and their models against all sorts of villains who would do them harm.

The dangers of both the making of art and the judgment of others seem to be foremost in Aute’s mind. We watch as crowds of celebrities (especially comic filmmakers) look on at Picasso’s Guernica like a Hollywood legend, but the artist himself needs reassurance from Man Ray that he’s done something worthwhile. is portrayed as unusually vulnerable, and his model even chops off one of his hands. Francisco Goya is attacked first by flying demons, then firing squads. Aute suggests that to be an artist is to endure trauma.

But maybe not. Divining Aute’s point is purely a guessing game. If you’re not an art historian, Un perro is a baffling collection of surreal images that convey the hauntings of a troubled soul but offer little interpretation. Even if you recognize Goya and his Maja desnuda, or intuit that it’s Leon Trotsky whom Diego Rivera stabs in the head with a Soviet sickle, there’s nothing to tell you why Aute brings them together. And those are just the artists I recognized. I found myself stopping the film frequently to peruse quick biographies of the subjects of Aute’s portraits in hopes of gleaning more insight into what was going on. (I have to confess that I was not familiar with Joaquín Sorolla at all, and his story in the film remains lost on me.) It’s the purest artist’s trope: let the work speak for itself. But what the work seems to be saying here is that it’s too smart for you.

My best hope for understanding comes from the title cards, which describe Un perro llamado dolor as a “libertarian fantasy based on the work and events of the lives of the artists portrayed.” It’s a curious label, given that the main characters in the film are in no way free. They are trapped by their obsessions, helpless in the face of fantastical fears, and able to defend themselves only with pencil or paintbrush. Aute may intend his film as a celebration of their persistence and fortitude, or he may seek to make them seem smaller, more human and fragile. It’s hard to know.

The obtuse nature of the film makes it a strange viewing experience, because it feels like it’s trying hard to push you away. Aute crafts something beautiful, but the experience locks you out, rather than inviting you in. Watching it in a room full of Spanish art historians would make for a very unusual experience. Much like being in an audience of barbershop quartet enthusiasts who laugh uproariously to drive home the point that they get all the jokes… and you don’t.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The seven ‘portraits’ of assorted artists and their (usually nude) muses, starting with Goya and ending with Velasquez in no apparent chronological order, bear enigmatic titles like ‘There are no witches, but they do exist’ and proceed with a loopy, angst-filled dream logic that defies exposition.  A difficult, arcane film… will prove a hard sell outside the fest circuit, particularly since some of its profiled Spanish artists are virtually unknown here.” – Ronnie Scheib, Variety (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Wormhead. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1982)

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DIRECTED BY: Peter Greenaway

FEATURING: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Anne-Louise Lambert, Hugh Fraser

PLOT: At the finale of the 17th-century, the wife of a boorish aristocrat contracts with a draughtsman to contrive a series of drawings; unexpected pictographic clues appearing in the artist’s renderings suggest a deadly conspiracy.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Greenaway tackles his first feature-length narrative with such structure, symmetry, and formalism that it might conceivably collapse into its own pretentious confinement. However, regular spikes of ornate bawdiness and cryptic banter, alongside Nyman’s jaunty film score, render the whole affair so baroquely flippant that the inclusion of a living garden statue is merely the ultimate, strange garnish on this eccentric appetizer to Greenaway’s impending career.

COMMENTS: “It has been fancifully imputed that Mr. Neville saw you as a deceived husband.” If that withering—and scandalous—insult vexes you, I strongly recommend against attempting to endure Peter Greenaway’s high-falutin’ whodunnit. On the other hand, if you wish to pry, peep, poke, and peek at the behind-closed-doors (and at times, on-the-lawn-somewhat-obscured-by-a-parasol) doings of the sickeningly wealthy and witty, the droll and devastating—veritably, the very cream of late-17th-century excess—Greenaway’s soufflé of mannerisms, ostentation, lines, lists, longitudes, and lasciviousness baked into this country-house mystery will not only fit the bill, but fit it perfectly with a stretch of laced linen that will leave you petrified to touch it with your coarse peasant hands.

Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins), whose observations Mr. Noyes infers from prior insinuations and sketch-work, is a draughtsman by trade, and a haughty rake by inclination. On the eve of Mr. Herbert’s departure, Neville attends a soirée hosted by Mrs. Herbert, who wishes, she claims, to furnish her husband with a set of exterior drawings of their estate as a gift upon his return, in hopes of salvaging, at least, some civility in their marriage. Initially disinclined, Neville agrees only after much pursuit by Mrs. Herbert (and her daughter, Mrs. Talmann), and the inking of a curious contract which delineates recompense both financial and sexual. Mr. Herbert leaves for business, and Mr. Neville ensconces himself as he begins his work—and play.

I beg your indulgence for what is, even for me, an excess in flowery language; but such is the overwhelming effect of this strange matrix of conflicting impulses and shifting conspiracies. Greenaway kicks the door down for this one (doubtless because its vertical line displeased him) and comes swinging in full force with his painterly mise-en-scène and artful dialogue thronging the screen and speakers. Frames within frames, within frames; candlesticks joining and isolating conversers, sometimes positioned as an extension of a phallus-above-the-table (Neville’s, naturally); ordered chaos—there is nothing, it appears, left to ill-rendered whim nor faith in dreamscapes.

The “conflicting impulses” mentioned play out primarily between the pristine structure of the film (pacing, staging, scoring, framing, &c.) and the often-hilarious, invariably biting dialogue, which itself is masked with powder-splotched cosmetics and finery that could pass for a migraine. And Greenaway looooves sex on shameless display. As if imitating the outward prudish mien of its characters, The Draughtsman’s Contract conveys all manner of carnality, some of it extreme, while only ever exposing a single breast on screen. Anthony Higgins—witness to this breast, among other parts and places—is perfectly cast as the cocksure draughtsman, believing he is outwitting the conspiratorial axis of Mrs. Herbert and her daughter. Though doomed from the start, he careens toward his fate on a cloud of magniloquent artistry, wit, and lasciviousness.

As far as I could determine, the extras on Kino Lorber’s 40th anniversary, 4K release of The Draughtsman’s Contract were lifted straight from the preceding UK-only disc. Though they are scant, the included introduction from Peter Greenaway is a delightful and informative ten-minute essential, outlining the director’s intentions and providing a brief history of the film. The even briefer interview with Michael Nyman succinctly and charmingly relates how these two lovers of lists began their collaboration. Last, and by no means least, the video and sound are perfection in itself—and as Greenaway would observe, it is the deft combination of those elements that filmmaking is all about.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Agatha Christie this ain’t, but it is weirdly wonderful… the film shows a unique talent getting to grips with narrative cinema to create something which is as engaging and alluring as it is baffling and perplexing.”–Mark Kermode, BFI

Capsules

CAPSULE: DALÌLAND (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Mary Harron

FEATURING: , , Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves,

PLOT: A young art gallery intern has a brush with the strange world of during the master’s twilight years.

Still from Daliland (2022)

COMMENTS: Tucked into this quiet biopic is as apt a description of what attracts us, here at 366 Weird Movies, to the films we hunt for, enjoy, and cling to. On a cash errand for the maestro, James interrupts a gallery owner pitching a signed art print. The woman is intrigued, but hesitant, not sure what to make of the image which stands before her. “You… like it?” she asks. “I find it upsetting… I don’t think I want to live with someone else’s weird dream on my wall.” James replies, “But that weirdness, that’s what makes it original. It got to you, that’s why you’ll never get tired of it; you’ll never forget it.” He nails it, inadvertently securing the sale. Simultaneously, his description of that piece explains, as best one can, what Salvador Dalì, and all weird visionaries, are about.

Mary Harron’s film is more of an ensemble piece than the name (and grandiose subject matter) might suggest. In fact, much of the film involves Salvador Dalì (Ben Kingsley), now old, at times bordering on caricature, observing those around him: the trendy hangers-on, his friend Alice Cooper, his inspiring—but harsh—wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa), his new assistant James, and, most of all, Dalì. He speaks in third person. He performs without surcease in the presence of others. And he ages, as it is “very tiring being Dalì.” Put aside his trove of drawings, paintings, and sculptures; his life was a work of art, a performance piece for the ages.

Dalìland is polished and straightforward, but that does not make it resonate any less. While there are many searing, satirical jabs at posers and poseurs, show-offs and charlatans, Harron neither glorifies nor denigrates these oddballs and outcasts dancing along society’s periphery; those who, through their mien and flair mitigate the day-to-day blandness of those around them; the eye-catchers who make others wonder, “Just what the heck are they doing?” and who devote their life force to lending us a touch of the unreal—the sur-real, if you will. Dalì was many different people over the course of his long life, and the performer behind these acts is impossible to know. Indeed, it is clear even to a layman such as myself, that the “real” Dalì probably never existed, and Dalì could not have been happier for having achieved that.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The latest of the director’s splendidly offbeat biopics captures the madness, the comedy and the tragedy of the surrealist legend who turned his very identity into a work of art.”–Owen Gleiberman, Variety (contemporaneous)