Tag Archives: Childhood

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)

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DIRECTED BY: Wolf Rilla

FEATURING: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Michael Gwynn, Martin Stephens

PLOT: All the women of child-bearing age in the Midwich  become pregnant after a mysterious period of unconsciousness; their offspring have a distinctive appearance, mature rapidly, and behave in a manner quite unnatural.

Still from village of the damned (1960)

COMMENTS: For two years running, I have celebrated Halloween here with a classic 1950s goofball–monster showcase. So here we are, on the cusp of the 60s, and lots of things look familiar: we’re back in black-and-white, we’re back in England, and something is once more out to get us. But it’s a little different this time. This time, the beasts aren’t strabismus-afflicted giant birds or giddily bouncing brains. They’re children, notable for their platinum hair, their glowing eyes, and their sociopathic behavior. This time, our monster feels earnestly threatening.

We don’t get to them right away, though. The film cleverly serves up its surprises and horrors at a deliberate pace. We must first work through the mystery of the lengthy period of unconsciousness, which the authorities investigate seriously and thoroughly, diligently working through experiments that culminate in a terrible sacrifice. We never get a full explanation for that occurrence, though, because we’re quickly on to the conundrum of the many immaculate conceptions and the havoc they wreak among the populace. In fact, we’re well into Act 2 before we get our first encounter with the enigma of the curious children themselves, who can solve puzzle boxes as toddlers and who get revenge upon their mothers when the feeding bottle is too hot. (The filmmakers were right to forego the original title of John Wyndham’s book; “The Midwich Cuckoos” would have been too much of a giveaway as to the childrens’ origin.) This sense of compounding catastrophes keeps you off-balance like the residents of Midwich, never able to relax before the next dilemma arrives.

The children are appropriately creepy. Lead child David (Stephens, unconvincingly dubbed) does most of the talking, serving up uncomfortable sociopathy by directly confronting the shopkeepers who think them an abomination, or helpfully suggesting to his father that, “If you didn’t suffer from emotions, from feelings… you could be as powerful as we are.” However, the young terrors do most of their intimidation without words. A walk through the town shows the residents in a mixed state of fear and revulsion, responding to the cliquish collection of quiet children as if they were a rowdy biker gang. Luckily, all they need to do is put on their best wish-you-to-the-cornfield look  and the townspeople’s reactions do the rest. They come by their fears honestly, because we’ve seen that the children’s disapproval carries with it the threat of death. This is most evident in Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960) →

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CAPSULE: RIDDLE OF FIRE (2023)

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Riddle of Fire is currently available for VOD rental or purchase. Blu-ray release coming later this year.

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DIRECTED BY: Weston Razooli

FEATURING: Phoebe Ferro, Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters, Charles Halford, Lio Tipton, Lorelei Olivia Mote

PLOT: Three miscreant kids search for a speckled egg they need to get the password to the TV, encountering a real-life witch on their quest.

Still from RIDDLE OF FIRE (2023)

COMMENTS: Riddle of Fire plays out like one of those kid-centered live-action Disney movies of the 70s, if the tykes were foul-mouthed (but still endearing) thieves, and the director was a drugged-out hippie. Tomboy Alice, chaste love-interest Hazel, and young Jodie (whose incongruously adult one-liners are all duplicated in subtitles in case you have trouble understanding his adoewabul accent) have no idea how good they have it on summer vacation, riding around big sky country on dirtbikes with paintball guns and no responsibilities. Preferring air-conditioned adventures, they hatch an elaborate plan to steal a next-generation video game console, but find their summer ruined when they discover mom has password-protected the smart TV. Suffering from a cold that will soon send her into a NyQuil coma, mom agrees to allow them to play for two hours if they bring her a blueberry pie. This sets the trio off on a quest which proves increasingly complicated, as they cannot obtain the pastry without first completing a series of mini-quests, culminating in the search for the film’s big MacGuffin, a lucky speckled egg. Unfortunately, the last carton of such eggs falls into the hands of a gruff “huntsman,” who also serves as hired muscle for a cult of taxidermist witches (who have a whole Mandy-for-kids vibe going on).

Shot on 16mm film (a choice that reinforces the antique feel) in summer-green mountain forests, this “neo-fairy tale” is an American folktale for the Playstation age. The landscape is speckled with red amanita toadstools, suggesting the permeating prevalence of witchcraft, while also nodding to the drug culture. The three (later four) moppets are all likable, despite being pint-sized hoodlums; their “us against the adult world” solidarity makes them easy to root for, and their loyalty to their sick mom softens their brattiness. The script, which incorporates video game tropes as naturally as fairy tale ones, is tightly constructed, leaving little to chance in its intricate web.

Although it mostly plays as a kiddie adventure flick of the type common in the 70s and into the 80s, Riddle of Fire puts oddball spins on the material whenever it can. Even taking the magical realist element of “The Enchanted Blade Gang” out of the picture, the tale has the feeling of a childhood memory: half-experienced, half-imagined, with off-key notes fluttering about. When the children steal their console, they celebrate by dancing around the prize singing a song that’s half old English nursery rhyme, half magical ritual. They sometimes slip words like “yon” or phrases like “that rather ghastly, chilling doll” into their casual conversations. Things really get strange in their 4 A.M. trip to “The Hall of Fortunes,” a mixture between a roadhouse bar and post-apocalyptic trading post where all the adults drink 40 ounces, and the only other kid in sight is painted blue and holding a trident. Since they’re unfamiliar with the adult world, the kids don’t have a sense of how terribly wrong this entire setup is; it’s a hallucination based on a hazy understanding of what grown-ups do when they’re not around.

The irony of these children undergoing the magical adventure of a lifetime in a quest to play in a much less imaginative digitized world is delicious. Somehow, we actually celebrate with the little reprobates when they achieve their goal of sitting on their butts and clicking buttons all day, which is a testament to how much we buy in to the crazy premise debuting director Razooli conjures here. Riddle of Fire is full of stylistic and cultural references, but somehow still feels largely sui generis; it will be fascinating to see where the newly minted auteur goes from here.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… both grounded and fantastical, sweet and sad, a beautiful snapshot of childhood where kids are allowed to be weird little gremlins with opulent tastes and bad attitudes.”–Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central (contemporaneous)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MOON GARDEN (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Ryan Stevens Harris

FEATURING: Haven Lee Harris, Augie Duke, Brionne Davis

PLOT: Trapped in a coma, 5-year-old Emma must find her way to her parents while avoiding the insatiable maw of a hollow fiend.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Colors have rarely looked so beautifully “off” as they do in the Moon Garden, and that’s just the start. Making respectful nods to the likes of Svankmajer, Gilliam, and other luminaries, it would be remiss to bury this as a capsule. It is a dark, vibrant movie for children—and a perfect gateway into weird cinema.

COMMENTS: Moon Garden …

No… no. Please give me a moment, as I need to collect myself. This film may just as well have been made with me in mind. It is dark, but accented with beautifully saturated colors; the frame is almost constantly littered with broken oddities; the pacing is brisk but never rushed; and it features one of my favorite storytelling archetypes: the fearless little girl. With the help of several ideal influences, Ryan Harris has crafted a contained little marvel of a movie, showcasing considerable creativity and an impressive performance from a wide-eyed newcomer, his own daughter Haven.

Family strife hits quickly, as young Emma is woken before dawn one morning by her mother, Sara, so the two can “chase the sunrise.” Bundled into the car, their would-be escape is thwarted by the girl’s father, Alex. Emma plays on the stairway while her parents argue, ultimately escalating to a blow-out fight. Emma interrupts them with her own fury, and storms out of the room, right down the stairs, crashing to the bottom, and falling into a coma. This is where the real story begins.

Moon Garden was filmed with vintage camera lenses, on expired 35mm film stock. Through these damaged goods, Ryan Harris encases the narrative in a fuzzy/glossy bell jar through which we observe the subconscious action. Flashbacks to happier times interrupt Emma’s journey through her mind; but as the memories grow more recent, domestic strife grows more prominent. She is also interrupted by glimpses of the world outside her mind. Mostly, though, she is interrupted by an entity I’ve dubbed “the Mouth Man.” This voidful creature inflates from a nothingness after Emma’s tear travels down a creaking network of pipes to a sub-subconscious netherworld, her mind’s dark and creepy basement.

Anyone familiar with Gilliam’s Tideland or Svankmajer’s Alice will immediately appreciate the parallels with Harris’ film. Emma’s dream quest is hindered by the Mouth Man, but aided by a kindly musician, who gifts her the portable transistor radio she uses to pursue her parents’ voices. And her fight against darkness is mirrored by clues about her mother’s battle with depression, and her father’s battle facing the melancholy—and apparent irrationality—of someone whom he dearly loves. Moon Garden is a serious film filled with equal parts wonder and fear. It also ends at the perfect moment, on an eye-opening shot. In some ways, admittedly, the story mimics the most pedestrian of Hallmark Channel tearjerkers. That Ryan Harris (alongside his daughter Haven) render this experience a beautifully scary journey, is commendable. But it is the curious clatter of mystical symbols and set-pieces that make Moon Garden an alluringly strange delight.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…while it seems churlish to be so harsh on what is obviously a labor of love, one can’t help but wish Harris was more influenced by the actual weirdness of a Jodorowsky or the Czech New Wave instead of a pale imitator like Terry Gilliam. On the other hand, there’s a lot of undeniable talent on display here.”–Daniel Gorman, In Review Online (contemporaneous)

Moon Garden [Blu-ray]

Moon Garden [Blu-ray]
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CAPSULE: SKINAMARINK (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Kyle Edward Ball

FEATURING: Dali Rose Tetreault, Lucas Paul, Ross Paul, Jamie Hill

PLOT: Young Kevin and Kaylee find themselves in the house alone late at night, hearing bumps, seeing poltergeist activity, and eventually conversing with unseen voices.

Still from Skinamarink (2022)

COMMENTS: Everything you’ve heard about Skinamarink is true. Yes, it is made up of often-silent, oddly-framed, static-fogged shots of doors, lamps, and Legos. The sparse dialogue is occasionally inaudible. Items move mysteriously and gravity is briefly reversed, but the liveliest action comes from public domain cartoons. There are no clear explanations, and some of the information we do receive is contradictory. It’s boring, and it’s mesmerizing, and it’s tedious, and it’s terrifying. Even its most ardent defenders will likely concede that, at 100 minutes, it’s unjustifiably long. It may be best conceptualized as unedited, jumbled security camera footage from a child’s nightmare.

Skinamrink defies analysis. It puts you into the point of view of a child dealing with a nighttime world that’s simultaneously familiar and strange, your mind coping with your lack of understanding by filling in details. As much as any film we’ve ever reviewed, Skinamarink invites you to create your own narrative, whether you view it as a supernatural haunting, a metaphor for abuse, or simply a feature length immersion in childhood fears. If you’re looking for clues, perhaps pay attention to the first line of clearly spoken dialogue, which occurs twelve minutes in—although even that nugget of information is capable of multiple interpretations.

I can’t unconditionally recommend Skinamrink, but I can’t deny its power, either. As with all experimental cinema, your results will vary in proportion to your disposition, your patience, and the amount of work and imagination you’re willing to put into it. I will say that, if you’re not frightened off by excessive minimalism and the idea of murky visions, whispered conversations, and twisted nostalgia for a time when you were frightened of the boogeyman and monsters under your bed appeals to you, then you should definitely seek out Skinamarink.

Skinamarink got an unlikely theatrical run for a microbudget film, generating good word of mouth, bad word of mouth, and bitter arguments among horror fans. Though falling well short of inciting a Blair Witch style audience mania, it’s safe to assume the project has more than earned back its $15,000 budget.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The point of view that the camera shows is, seemingly, sometimes that of one or the other of the children, but the skewing and fragmentation of perspective suggests an attempt to recover the unworldliness and incomprehension of early childhood, the fragmentary incoherence of children’s experience, even the psychoanalytic substitution of heavily cathected and weirdly dominant minor objects or visions to stand in for much more momentous ones… Yet the movie’s horrors and uncanny aspects mostly remain at the theoretical level… The images appear to be the tip of an iceberg, but there’s no iceberg beneath them.”–Richard Brody, The New Yorker (contemporaneous)

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: LA TETA Y LA LUNA (1994)

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Teté and the Moon, The Tit and the Moon

DIRECTED BY: Bigas Luna

FEATURING: Mathilda May, Biel Durán, Gérard Darmon, Miguel Poveda

PLOT: Frustrated at losing access to his mother’s chest following the birth of his baby brother, young Teté becomes enraptured with Estrellita, a dancer who comes to town as part of a traveling show; he competes for her attentions with her husband as well as a lovestruck young man.

Still from Teta y La Launa (1994)

COMMENTS: Part of the charm – and also the frustration – of the coming-of-age film is that it relies on the point of view of someone too young to fully understand the world around them. An innocent, unburdened by years of maturity and perspective. We watch them with a combination of longing for their ignorance and sympathy for their embarrassment.

La Teta y La Luna doubles down on this by handing over the narration to its central character, Teté. Not a grown-up Teté looking back at his youthful folly with rueful hindsight, mind you, but the boy himself, speaking in the past tense but still deep in the thrall of his adolescent, unearned bravado. When he confidently tells us that he “devastated” a foe’s motorcycle, we can see for ourselves that he’s lamely kicking it to no effect. So he would seem to be an extremely unreliable narrator indeed. Except when it’s surely our eyes that deceive us. For when Teté informs us that every woman in a bodega is offering her breasts to him, what we see is exactly that. How could this possibly be? Surely this is wishful thinking to the greatest extreme.

For you see – to paraphrase Loudon Wainwright III –  Teté is a “tit man.” Ever since his newborn brother arrived, the pleasure of suckling at his mother’s teat has been denied to him, and he has been in search of a replacement. (The title pulls off a neat double meaning, referencing both the main character and his overriding obsession.) So the one thing we can trust absolutely is that he immediately settles upon Estrellita, the beautiful dancer who has just come to Teté’s small oceanfront village.

He’s hardly alone in being drawn to the comely ballerina, which complicates our understanding of the film’s point of view. Teté’s teenage rival, Miguel, is nearly sick with longing from the moment he encounters Estrellita and begins to sing to her with a voice that should earn him a gig fronting the Gipsy Kings. There’s nothing ironic or misleading about his pain. Meanwhile, Estrellita’s husband Maurice is given all the hallmarks of parody: despite looking like a grizzled and silver-maned biker, Maurice’s talent is as a modern-day successor to Le Petomane, and Estrellita makes love to him on their trailer waterbed and collects his tears in a jar while he makes her eat a baguette which he wields in place of his manhood. He’s ridiculous even as he cuts a dashing figure, but again we don’t doubt what we see. If we can take Miguel and Maurice at face value, who’s to say that Teté isn’t exactly what he presents to us?

So let us now turn to the object of all their affections. Mathilda May has already distinguished herself in these hallowed halls as a beautiful actress who is willing to put her full and uncovered beauty on display, and that reputation is certainly burnished here. If we are to believe Teté, she is ready and willing to provide him with access to a veritable firehose of milk from her bared breast. Luna’s camera is as in love with Estrellita’s chest as most of the male characters. But this objectification becomes extremely awkward in the face of Estrellita’s increasing discomfort. She dotes on her husband, and he responds with jealousy and resentment. She shows her unease with Miguel’s repeated declarations of love, but loses agency in the face of his increasing threats of self-harm. And we never even get to see what would logically be her concerns with Teté’s blunt and inappropriate requests. (For Teté, none of this appears to be sexual, but it surely is for her.) For the princess at the heart of this fairy tale, there’s a worrisome ignorance of her needs and fears. La Teta y La Luna is obsessed with Estrellita’s chest, but not much with the heart that beats underneath.

The film wraps up with a happy ending for everyone, most significantly for Teté, who gets to feed from both Estrellita and his own mother, a conclusion that bears no resemblance to anything approaching reality. The tone throughout is bright and charming, but it’s a strange and selfish lesson this tale delivers: “Persist and you’ll get what you want, fellas.” It’s a tale as old as time, but maybe it’s time for a rethink.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Completely perverted, totally surreal, but irresistibly charming.”– Henrik Sylow, DVD Beaver (DVD)\

(This movie was nominated for review by Wormhead, who called it “a surrealistic spanish/french film by Bigas Luna.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)