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2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART THREE

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Montréal 2025

More than once I was quickly impressed by a film’s animation only to discover that I was only watching the production company credits.

7/30: Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo

Crank down the musical score by half, and this would land in a far better place. Tsai Chia Ying attempts something risky here as he aims to fuse deep character emotion with ghostly horror. Chia Ming awakens every morning from an overhead drip. Every morning: this love-struck fellow is stuck in a loop wherein he witnesses the object of his affections die somehow while on a hiking trip taken to search for the remains of a mutual friend lost to the haunted mountains. Major No-No Points are awarded to the original trio, who decide to cut through a rather creepy barrier in the surrounding woods, accidentally disrupting an esoteric ceremony. Very nearly ending badly, the movie upgrades from regrettable to merely “meh” with its final, actual, conclusion.

$Positions

Mike meets his daily struggles with unwavering optimism and friendliness, which is no small feat in face of director Brandon Daley’s ceaseless abuse. Crypto (oh how I loathe you) sinks its talons in our hapless hero, clouding his judgment with every dip and spike. We follow a series of increasingly nasty twists of fate (and concurrent ill-decisions) as Mike’s already crummy life hits rock bottom—making true an early, optimistically-stated declaration that no, he’s “nowhere near the bottom yet!” With polyamory, drug addiction, medical debt, and somewhat more urine consumption than I might have preferred, $Positions is simultaneously icky, wacky, and heartfelt. Special shout-out to leading man Michael Kunick. I passed him after the screening commending his performance as one of the best depictions of Job to hit the screen.

Désolé, Pardon, Je m’excuse

Like many of her generation, office-worker Ella loves Internet videos. Unlike many of her generation (at least, I hope), she loves Internet videos released by a Continue reading 2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART THREE →

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2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART ONE

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Montréal 2025

The Fantasia commercial, about the Fantasia audience, before the Fantasia screening, really spoke to me.

7/16: Fragment

The festival pulled a fast one on me this year, adding a day to the front end. Arriving at the bus depot just after 5 o’clock, I made it first to my hotel, then to the accreditation office around 6:15: just in time to wander into Kim Sung-yoon’s directorial debut. Fragment is a well-acted drama about grief and culpability. A little disjointed at the start (as could well be appropriate, considering the topic and title), it finds its footing as the characters creep toward a reconciliation of sorts with their circumstances. The young leads are all commendable, with a special shout-out to the kid sister. She suffers no nonsense. Fragment is not a film made for me, but nonetheless I must admit it left me touched. (A good touch, that is.)

7/17: The Wailing [El llanto]

Pedro Martín-Calero, you fiend! There is a great deal to enjoy about this story of the supernatural: an evil presence (creepy old dead guy, from what I could glean) has haunted a series of women in a family, moving from mother to daughter when the former succumbs to despair. This is something of two movies in one, when I feel it should have been three. The chronicles of the characters are all well paced, and the scares are real. (The hook here is: this entity can only be seen through video capture, be that the large camcorder of the mother as a youth, or the ubiquitous smartphones of the latest victim.) Sound design is dead on, with the titular wailing emanating from a tower block whose second story room is always up for sale. The mood is set, details established, and then, BAM: it’s over.

I suppose there are greater sins in filmmaking than leaving me all too curious how this occult situation is resolved.

7/18: “Nyaight of the Living Cat”, Episodes 1 – 4

Tomohiro Kamitani and , judging from their specially recorded video introduction for the Fantasia screening, are two chill middle-aged guys with a love for cats. Or at least a love of global apocalypses involving cats. Although, perhaps the feline menace is safely Continue reading 2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART ONE →

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FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (2025)

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Reflet dans un diamant mort

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DIRECTED BY: ,

FEATURING: Yannick Renier, Céline Camara, ,  Koen De Bouw, Thi-Mai Nguyen,

PLOT: Retired superspy John D. finds his routine of drinking by the seaside interrupted when a lithe body washes ashore, triggering chaotic flashbacks to his days as a secret agent.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Cattet & Forzani whirl their inspirations in a blender while pushing a cornucopia of sub-genres up to and past the breaking point — including the popular kink, “CMNKWF”. (That’s “Clothed Male, Naked Katana-Wielding Female,” for those not in the loop.)

COMMENTS: There are two early giveaways that Reflection is going to be an oddity of excess. One is the long list of production companies. This is not uncommon for smaller-budget European films, but Cattet’s and Forzani’s film goes a bit beyond that, suggesting the filmmakers needed to scrape around to find brave investors. The second, foreshadowing the coming bombast, also appears in the credits: a blast of hyper-Bondian murder blasts and stabbings, with diamonds erupting from the colorful silhouettes of the victims, before a pleasure boat sinks down behind a growing blood-water column of text. And, as this is a European spy movie, there’s also the early topless scene, wherein a young woman exposes her breasts while tanning in a hotel’s private beach—exposing the diamond piercings that set off our film’s hero’s chain of memories.

And what a hero! Old John D. has the weathered good lucks of an erstwhile man of action, and young John D. has all the panache, pluck, and pizzazz that might reasonably (indeed, perhaps unreasonably) distilled into one superspy. The developments are a little hard to follow at the start, with intercuts of Old and Young John’s adventures. By the third act, we’re facing a massive explosion of double-dealings, glorious gadgetry, and face after face torn and otherwise peeled from John’s ultimate adversary, the manifestly deadly femme known only as “Serpentika”.

Cattet and Forzani exist somewhere above the speed of Ritchie and the grisliness of Tarantino, all while flirting with—and, on occasion, ravishing—the ambiguous meta-cinematic maneuvers of Fellini. With little room to breathe between outlandish capering (at least Old John’s timeline travels at a somewhat staid pace), the combined effect of the various shady machinations is to leave the viewer benumbed with bloody scintillation. Clawing together coherent memories of the chain of events, I can only roughly recall that one of Young John’s charges, an oil mega-baron, was murdered—but not before he kills John’s true love, a dashing young Black woman clad in a high-tech mirror dress, segments of which she leaves behind to allow John to follow her.

Or does the evil oil baron murder her? The narrator’s recollections are as murky as his cocktails. But there are roulette wheel orgasms, pentuplicate ninjas, art-and-murder by oil slick, and an unbelievable parade of increasingly dangerous (and art-house-styled) rogues standing between John and his vengeance. After you watch Reflection in a Dead Diamond, you will clamor for these Belgians to craft the next Bond movie. I’m sure the suits in charge of the franchise will gladly sacrifice the 100% clarity for the 100% boost in oomph and style.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“John’s drifting memories are a dizzying kaleidoscope of surreal free associations, lifted from the clichés and conventions – the cartoonish credits, the casino games, the clandestine meetings, the global players, the masked assassins, the absurd gadgets, the sadomasochistic sex and the kickass fights – not so much of a Bond movie (although Testi does resemble an older Sean Connery), as of the endless European ripoffs that appeared in the wake of Bond… a deep dive into the genre’s established imagery and grammar that goes beyond mere postmodern pastiche into something more artful and abstract, even quintessential, and all sexed up with the filmmakers’ characteristic kink.” — Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: ELSE (2024)

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Else is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Thibault Emin

FEATURING: Matthieu Sampeur, Edith Proust, Lika Minamoto

PLOT: A shy young fellow and an outgoing woman he recently met shack up together during a lockdown as a strange, body-altering disease runs rampant worldwide.

COMMENTS: Intricate foley work, meditative shots of organic geometry, creepy flesh holes in the wall, a sparky female protagonist, and laconically philosophical overtones: Thibault Emin’s narrative feature debut is a mélange of ingredients as offbeat as the inhabitants of an apartment for the cinematic French middle class. There’s whimsy; there’s melancholia; there’s paranoia; there’s political messaging; the style’s heady as a strong cognac; and there are lots and lots of creepy body morphing closeups, leaving to the viewer to run the cerebro-emotional gamut from “Oooh,” to “Ick,” to “Hmm..” And it’s accomplished with tasteful eroticism sprinkled throughout.

This is art-house drama with requisite lashings of romantic comedy. The aptly named Anx, who is often anxious, doesn’t quite fear being with others, but rarely seeks their company. He prefers to tinker away amongst the relics of his childhood home. He hosts a party, however, and there makes the acquaintance of Cass, a manic-pixie-dream-girl in the true French mold, who first forces him out of his shell, before the strange disease converts her into his… But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anx and Cass are stereotypes in many ways, but at least they’re believable. (Having attended a particular variety of liberal arts college in the early Aughts, I have met both of these archetypes in the flesh.) Seeing as we spend nearly the whole film with this pair, in one apartment, it is no small relief that their doings remain largely within the realm of the relatable and interesting.

Far more interesting is the nature of the affliction which begins striking down the world’s citizens within the first twenty minutes or so. It’s a skin condition (you have been warned), which has hints of mineral development along the lines of metamorphic rock formation (you have now been intrigued, I’d wager). The makeup effects—eventually morphing into set design, if you gather my meaning—are a wonder to observe, as the victims struck down by this ailment do not simply die: in most cases, they become something Else.

Else‘s building blocks are sourced, built, compressed, stretched, and twisted from and into any number of things. And the title and film—like the featured disease—isn’t explainable: it’s just there. There for us to ponder on, chuckle at, think about, and occasionally reel from with squicky ill-ease.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“To be honest, the theme of the movie should’ve tipped you off already, but just in case, get ready for goo, sticky things, and lots of weird close-ups…” — Lucy Muñoz, Cut to the Take (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: GWEN AND THE BOOK OF SAND (1985)

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Gwen Et Le Livre De Sable

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Voices of Michel Robin, Lorella DiCicco, Armand Babel, Raymond Jourdan, Jacques Ruisseau

PLOT: Sometime “After the gods have left…”, what remains is a desert landscape in which a few animals and nomads make their home; the only danger being the Makou, something that drops objects of various size onto the desert floor, forcing the nomads to live underground. Gwen, an orphan, falls in love with a strange boy, Nokmoon, who is taken away one night by the Makou. She and Roseline (a 173 year old woman) set off on a journey to retrieve him; in doing so, they encounter a mysterious cult.

Still from gwen and the book of sand (1985)

COMMENTS: The post-apocalyptic tale is a genre of its own, but when you take post-apocalypse and desert and put them together, you get The Road Warrior. It’s practically the template followed by its own sequels and countless homages/ripoffs. And when it comes to non-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy, the template is Dune. These stories are usually heavily plot-driven, with a relentless forward momentum.

Gwen is desert post-apocalypse in a poetic mode. The title might make one surmise that the title character will undergo a series of adventures and challenges for the next hour or so, but it’s not so. The movie is gentler than that. It’s paced leisurely; there is a plot, but it drives lightly. Instead, the film focuses on visuals: characters walking across the sands on stilts, landscapes littered with objects such as oversized utensils and eyeglasses, close-ups of the pincipals. And it’s all the more striking for being animated with a gouache paint palette, which softens things, giving the impression of a dream. (One visual reference that I twigged was Henri Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy.”)

Gwen is about mood and atmosphere: the surreality of the landscape, how the nomads live in this world, how they hunt, how they travel. There’s little explanation of how this desert came to exist, other than the oblique “the gods have left,” or of the Makou. And that’s to the film’s advantage, especially as things get more surreal and the introduction of the Makou Cult (which includes pointed satire of religion). Although there are what could be referred to as “antagonists,” there’s no outright villain, as there would be in a more standard treatment. The music of Pierre Alrand, a longtime collaborator of Laguione’s, adds to the moody atmosphere.

Fantastic Planet, another French animation with a similar mood and adult approach, is Gwen‘s closest relative. Planet, however, is much more brutal in approach. Gwen is made for adults, but it’s family-friendly—although it’s probably way too slow and not antic enough for young children (although the visuals may attract them). Older kids could get more out of it, though again it’s paced much slower than current animated films. Fans of , and especially of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, might also get into the film’s rhythm and mood.

Gwen‘s first ever U.S. release on 4K and Blu-ray comes from Deaf Crocodile, in a limited or standard edition. The movie has a commentary by Samm Deighan, along with an interview with director Laguionie by Dennis Bartok and an intriguing video essay by Dr. Will Dodson and Ryan Verrill. The Limited Edition includes a 60 page booklet with essays by Laguionie, film historian Jennifer Barker, and critic/DC house writer Walter Chaw, as well as a slipcase with new art by Beth Morris.

(This movie was noimated for review by Russa03, who said it was “a surrealist, post-apocalypse animation and it’s beautiful to boot.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Gwen And The Book Of Sand (4k UHD + Blu-ray)

Gwen And The Book Of Sand (4k UHD + Blu-ray)
  • A teenage girl and her 173 year old companion take an epic journey in French director Jean-François Laguionie's hauntingly poetic animated classic.
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