Two affable Irish filmmakers, George Kane & Shane O’Brien, took the time to talk with us about their collaborations, their projects, their backgrounds, their restaurants of choice, and, oh yes—their newly-shown-outside-of-Ireland-for-the-first-time feature film, Apocalypse Clown!
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DIRECTED BY: Yuval Adler
FEATURING: Nicolas Cage, Joel Kinnaman
PLOT: A father-to-be is waylaid at gunpoint while en route to the maternity ward, and instead spends the evening surviving his kidnapper’s increasingly odd and desperate outbursts.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Idiot that I am, my initial thought was, “Nah. This is exactly the kind of movie Nicolas Cage would star in these days,” only to recognize some moments afterwards that, oh yes, that necessarily means it’s a weird ride.
COMMENTS: There’s an honesty to Yuval Adler’s film. It’s in the title, where we’re told up front just what emotion to succumb to. It’s in the song playing under the opening credits, heralding both a plot point and a celebration who this movie is for. (Hint: it’s for you, but not just you…) And it’s in the first, murky appearance of Sympathy for the Devil‘s raison d’être, the old man himself, Nicolas Cage. This is a vehicle for weird cinema’s favorite high caliber nutjob, and it appropriately takes place in a literal vehicle. Sure, sure, there are some segues: an amusing gas station aside, an extended diner freakout, and a Dantean expository oratorio in a labyrinth of big rigs. But this is about Nic Cage, in a vehicle, with his red hair and red lounge-jacket and assorted weapons and intermittent Boston accent.
Knowing the star and the premise, you know whether or not you’re going to watch this already. But I would like to take a moment to highlight two ancillary, but still important, elements. First, allow me to share the good news. This is a deliciously gleaming film. In case you’re not aware, it begins in Las Vegas, and though driver and passenger leave the Strip early on, they bring the colors with them.
Cage’s “passenger” does the heavy lifting (never has red hair looked so doofy, frightening, and appropriate as in this movie), but the film’s palette does its share of overtime to complement the bright, bright shock above the his maniacal face: the cool blues recurring around the bamboozled driver; the dreamy electro-greens during an inspired performance of Alicia Bridges’ “I Love the Night Life“… Frankly, it’s a visual delight, particularly when the flames burst during Cage’s operatic rant.
Second, as you have probably guessed, is the bad news. But bad, well, that’s somewhat too strong. With an experience like Sympathy for the Devil, it’s borderline ungrateful to opine about the ending. We’ve had the pleasure of riding with a nutso Cage for ninety minutes, so damn the whys and wherefors! But an esteemed media colleague suggested that it may have been better—certainly more (which, we know, is a synonym for “better” in this case)—if the inverse had occurred. At the time I agreed, and still, for the most part, do. I got to thinking this past day, and began to wonder if there was any “ideal” way to wrap up this evening trapped in a car with Nicolas Cage. Presuming you can sink your teeth into his particular brand of ham, the only disappointing part is the meal’s completion. Mandy managed to end the dinner with a masterful touch of psycho-cutesy. But Yuval Adler just kinds of stops the car, turns the ignition key, and leaves us to wander off with a mere “oh, okay” after an evening of “oh dear Lord!”
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
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DIRECTED BY: Eddie Alcazar
FEATURING: Stephen Dorff, Karrueche Tran, Moises Arias, Jason Genao
PLOT: The development of a life-prolonging elixir brings humankind to the brink of collapse, until two celestial brothers conspire to subdue the potion’s creator.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: We were all waiting for Guy Maddin to make a David Cronenberg movie. That mash-up so far eludes us, but we do have Eddie Alcazar sliding this cocktail our way—with some further madness thrown into the mix.
COMMENTS: An exciting combination of feelings percolates within me. On the one hand, I feel immediately compelled to attempt a description of what just happened to my eyes and ears; on the other hand, a part of me advises waiting to see just how this mélange of influences and particular vision coagulate. Considering I will probably never know just quite what happened, I am erring on the side of catering to my enthusiasm, even at the near-certain risk of flirting with vague utterances of confusion and satisfaction.
Via the production-distorted lens of auteur Eddie Alcazar, we crash through symmetric dissections of something organic, flipping, sliding, and morphing before the motion stills somewhat, and the glass eye of a camera lens comes into view—a lens focused on Sterling Pierce, a brilliant scientist who has nearly perfected a product (and it is assuredly a product as much as anything else) dubbed “Divinity”, which promises not only to stop aging, but reverse its worst effects. So long as you do not stop consuming it. At some unclear retro-future point in time, we meet a cadre of nubile, leotard-clad women who oscillate between ephemera and physicality, and who we are told hold the key to rejuvenating the dying planet. Two small stars plummet to earth whilst Jaxxon Pierce (son of Sterling, and perfecter of “Divinity”) giddily fucks a groupie.
That description hints at a major caveat of sorts: we have seen this story and these themes before. Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” plays a major part, particularly when Jaxxon is jacked-up with concentrated “Divinity.” His slow, extreme morph, and his well-intentioned genetic ambitions, also brings to mind the “ADAM” phenomenon from the “Bioshock” video game. Alcazar crams body horror through a soft-focus black and white, while the dark science plays reassuringly on cathode ray. Plutocratically dystopian advertisements whir us through societal developments, and we’re never more than a few seconds away from a shot of staggeringly buff guys (or in one favorite bit, a buff breakfast, in the form of “Flexi-Os.”) The whole narrative (minus flashes-back, some twenty-four hours of mysteriousness and revelry) rushes though a weird vein straight into our brain’s “What the…?” centers until the climax.
This melange catapults Divinity from mere Apocrypha Candidate into a worthy recipient of our coveted “Weirdest!” badge. While the first seventy-odd minutes are as much of so much as one might hope for, the finale destabilizes like a punch straight to the occipital lobe. A stop-motion show-down, cryptic symbology burning in the night sky, an exterior vaginal POV glimpse, and the emergence of an entity I have never seen before in my life left me with just one reaction (shared by most of the surrounding audience): a “hah!” of sheer disbelief. You know what I’m talking about. In case you don’t, hunt down Divinity. It’ll cure what ails ya.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
Bright lights and an ambient hum in the Green Room didn’t stop Giles Edwards and Larry Fessenden from talking about his latest movie, Blackout, as well as filmmaking in general. (They also agree in principle to exchange Poes).
Audio only link (Soundcloud download)
Mind the Podcast plug!
Tales from Beyond the Pale: “Scary Audio Dramas”
Giles Edwards reads Fall of the House of Usher
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With (very modest) French at my disposal, and the inestimable assistance from the cheerful translator Alexandra Mendel, I was able to have an illuminating chat with director Stéphan Castang, whose feature debut Vincent Must Die enjoyed a well-received North American première on Friday night at the Fantasia Film Festival.
366: Hello, et comment-allez vous?
Stéphan Castang: Très bien, merci-vous.
366: Je suis avec “366 Weird Movies”, and I am with the director of Vincent Must Die, Stéphan Castang, and your film opened in North American yesterday evening to much enthusiasm, I know I enjoyed it, so thank you—merci beaucoup pour parler avec moi ce matin—and I will go right into this.
This is your first feature film, and I would like to start by asking about transitioning as a director from “shorts” to “full length.”
SC: The transition was almost evident for a long time. I worked as a theater actor for a long time, and always wanted to write and direct movies. Over ten years, I have directed five short films, while I was still working as an actor. Then, ultimately, I was offered the Vincent Must Die project.
366: That leads nicely to my next question, the writer, Mathieu Naert… how was it that you ended up with that script and, bearing in mind that this would be, as your first feature, your first major impression in the world of cinema, what was it that drew you to want to bring this particular script to life, as first time as a director of a major film that would be a major decision to make, introducing yourself to the world?
SC: The producers Claire and Thierry made me read the script. Initially, I thought I’d read it, then refuse it. However, when I read the script, I liked a lot of things, and found a lot that was inspiring. First, there was the idea in, a kind of promise, of multiple genres within that film. I also liked the concept of speaking about violence, without much explanation or context, outside of any sort of debate. I also liked that I had the freedom to enrich the movie with my own neuroses and humor. Finally, I also liked that I could keep working on it during the final phase. For me the final phase of a movie is the editing.
366: Another director I spoke with talked about the editing as the “completion” of the film. You mentioned “enriching it with your neuroses”: what, if you could, did you add to the base script in pursuit of this enrichment you mention?
SC: How did I enrich the movie with my own neuroses? You’d first need to speak with my psychiatrist. With the basic scenario, initially Vincent was the only one affected by this violence. However, I thought it would be interesting if he met others who also lived with this. In the original script, there were no explanations where this violence came from, but I liked the idea of “contamination,” so within this frame I thought it interesting that, by the end, Vincent is also contaminated. In the final scenes, we can see that sometimes love can be an escape from this, so long as we’re not blind to the violence within ourselves.
366: Wonderful explanation, thank you. To address a specific in the film, there was a somewhat long shot on a piece of artwork in the psychiatrist’s office. This was very obviously a choice that was made, and I wondered if you might elaborate on what that painting is and why you wanted it to feature so prominently, because it’s a good three to four seconds, which is, these days, is sort of a long time for holding shot of a stationary object.
SC: The piece is a [J.M.W.] Turner called “The Last Voyage”, and I thought it important to show this painting because it has two important elements. First, it is a ship, the second is the fire, so an escape, but also a premonition of catastrophe. It was also important to show this scene [particularly] after the internet research montage; I thought that after all these images, it was interesting to show a more archaic [image]. It is a scene I really loved. During the editing phase, I was told I might need to remove it. But, I wanted to keep it.
And if I were Vincent, this would have been a short film, because I would have gone to the therapist, and he would have just killed me.
366: It looks like we are almost out of time, so I have two questions to wrap up with here. Now that you’ve made a big splash at Cannes, and I saw the big splash you made here, I’m hoping you have some future projects lined up. And the question I like to close all my interviews with filmmakers with, what’s your hometown, and can you recommend a restaurant there?
SC: My hometown is in Bourgogne-Dijon, and I recommend “chez moi”.
366: You’re the second director in a row who’s said that.
SC: I suppose I could recommend “Schwarze” [laughter; it is featured in the movie]. In terms of future projects, I don’t speak much about that. One element I like [to pursue] is mixing genres. I feel humor is really important, especially when laughing at something that is not supposed to be funny.
366: C’est vingt-deux minuts après onze, et il faut que je vous quitte. Merci beaucoup, and thank you both very much, et bonne chance!
For this willing to risk middling-audio quality and some poor French on the reviewer’s part, here is the link for you!
![Divinity [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41y4nj5K98L._SL500_.jpg)