Tag Archives: Hitman

CAPSULE: INFLATABLE SEX DOLL OF THE WASTELANDS (1967)

Kôya no datchi waifu; AKA Dutch Wife in the Desert

DIRECTED BY: Atsushi Yamatoya

FEATURING: Yûichi Minato, Shôhei Yamamoto, Masayoshi Nogami, Noriko Tatsumi, Mari Nagisa, Miki Watari

PLOT: A shady real estate agent hires a hitman haunted by the killing of his girlfriend to take out the gang responsible for the kidnapping and torture of his mistress.

COMMNETS: Every day at three o’clock in the afternoon a woman screams and the phone rings. It rings while off the hook, it rings when disconnected, it rings even half-buried in the sand of a desert wasteland. Shô always knows when three o’clock strikes because Rie tells him so. At three o’clock five years ago Shô murdered Rie—when she tried to call him and no one answered the phone.

Real estate agent Naka wants to hire a hitman, so Shô waits for three o’clock in a sunblasted middle-of-nowhere. The client needs to know the assassin of his choice can hit his target in three shots or less. Rie screams as Naka leads Shô to a lone evergreen tree, the only one around for miles, because the blood of “snitches” waters it. Shô chops it down in thirteen shots.

After this display of marksmanship, Naka takes Shô back to his city office. He shows the hitman a disturbing film reel of black-hooded goons recording their sexual abuse of Sae, the woman Naka wants Shô to rescue. Naka himself can be glimpsed in the background, tied to a chair and blindfolded, forced to listen while his girlfriend screams. Shô complains about the poor quality of the entertainment. He can’t see anything in a picture so grainy. Naka admits the film might be wearing out. He must have watched it a hundred times by now.

Shô agrees to take the case. He returns to his hotel room to find a naked woman waiting in his bed. He smells more than cheap perfume and forces her into a bathtub. Mina serenades him with a song overflowing with double entendres. Of course she’s part of the trap, she admits it, but Shô’s not like other gangsters. She wants to help him. He clutches his gun while succumbing to her advances, aiming at the door, ready to fire whenever his enemy enters the room.

Wastelands contains all the classic tropes of film noir—an emotionally compromised detective, a slightly seedy and suspect client, a femme fatale—and then some. Fans of may notice eerie similarities to Branded to Kill, also released in 1967 (they make a perfect double feature). Director Atsushi Yamatoya was one of the Guru Hachiro writers responsible for Branded‘s script. Callbacks ricochet like a volley of gunshots across both story arcs: three o’clock, rings (expensive in Branded, cheap in Wastelands), insects, an antagonist named Kô, hitmen obsessed with their reputations, a (maybe snuff) film within the film.

Both movies share a similar sense of fatalistic black humor and a dynamic visual style. The cinematography always goes for the unusual. Odd camera angles enhance ambiguities of space and perspective, adding to the disorientation. A scene with a character walking up a flight of stairs rotates so “down” becomes left with “up” heading to the right. When a henchman gets shot and slumps over a bar counter the camera tilts with him. The rest of the scene remains skewed as though we’re now viewing the film through the lifeless eyes of a corpse.

Plentiful shoot-outs punctuate the action and every actor who gets shot milks his death scene for all it’s worth. By contrast, the female characters lie around motionless and silent. Whether drugged or sleeping, or worse, it’s hard to tell. Aside from Mina, who radiates a voluptuous vitality (repeatedly rejected as untrustworthy), the others, both living and dead, become indistinguishable.

The final confrontation between Shô and the target of his revenge occurs as a protracted contest recalling Branded‘s Hanada and No. 1. After some creative trash talk (“I can see your heart” – “What color is it?” – “Sickly green” – “You’re colorblind”), they vow that by 3:30 pm tomorrow one of them will die.

Like a fly struggling to escape from a forgotten whiskey glass, time traps people in its vise. Outside a window Shô now sees the desert wasteland surrounding him, the same tree still there standing by its lonesome, as if he never shot it down in the first place. Even Sae and Rie begin to resemble each other. Can Shô save the one if death has already claimed the other?

One possible interpretation of the title implies the entire story takes place in a hellish afterlife where ghosts doomed by their former selves relive their last agonizing moments on earth. A blast of fire burns behind the opening credits. Everyone complains about the heat, but there’s never any air conditioning to cool their tempers. There’s nothing but heat (except for Shô’s lighter, which never works whenever he needs a cigarette). This inferno reduces not only women to puppets. The men jerk each other around by strings, but they’re all tangled together, everyone incapable of escaping their own personal purgatory.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“..an enigmatic and paradoxical title, perhaps capturing something of the film’s hybrid, even contradictory nature… It should come as no surprise that Yamatoya, directing from his own script here, had previously helped write Seijun Suzuki’s similarly surreal and abstract take on hitmen, Branded to Kill…”–Anton  Bitel, Little White Lies (2020 screening)

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CYBERSATAN APOCALYPSE NIGHTMARES (2021)

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DIRECTED BY: Niko

FEATURING: Csaba Molnár, Zalán Makranczi, Diána Magdolna Kiss, Niko

PLOT: A hitman takes on a series of jobs delivered to him by a pizza courier.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA LIST: Hazy dream-noir creeps into every darkened corner of this film as an unnamed hero eases slowly toward sanguine annihilation. That’s the dramatic way to phrase it. More prosaically, Cybersatan Apocalypse Nightmares rides along a weird alleyway of deadpan, hazy narration, zero budget, and big ideas, transporting the viewer to another world of specific details wrapped in general ambiguity.

COMMENTS: Well, that was something: and with a title like Cybersatan Apocalypse Nightmares, it had better be. I cannot rightly say I’m sure what this movie is—not specifically. “Nightmares” is just about right, with its dream-like haziness; “Apocalypse” is implied, with its apparent dystopian setting; the “cyber” prefix is apt, as virtual, augmented, and telephonic reality come under criticism. The “Satan” element fits, too, I suppose. We do meet him, or at least an earthly incarnation of Hellish designs. But Cybersatan Apocalypse Nightmares is far too light-hearted, in its roiling-boiled noir detective kind of way, for the threat of pretension suggested by its title. Of the many things this movie is, pretentious it is not.

It’s almost Christmas, and our protagonist starts out back-footed, having to justify his meat-grilling methods to his video-game entranced son. This man, referred to variously as “killer” and “cop” (Csaba Molnár), has the aged look and cynical wit of a private detective from a century prior, going about his grim business wearing a smirk and a trenchcoat. A cigarette is nearly always jammed between his lips. And he is closely associated with two other consumables: meat, which he eats at every opportunity; and milk, a jug of which he always has in-pocket to administer to each assignment’s final victim. He’s of a mind that things are getting worse, musing that after decades on the job, “we’re at the same place. Or not. Even lower.”

Cybersatan Apocalypse Nightmares draws on and film noir (making this exercise particularly noir-y, as much of Dick’s output was also tinged by that genre). Computers abound—and they are the enemy. Among his semi-random encounters, Cop chastises a handful of Gen Zed kids for living their lives merely staring at their phones. But Cop isn’t much better off than these drones, as he suffers from his own pointless distractions in the form of internal monologues he wishes would just shut up. It is likely we meet the titular “Cybersatan” in the form of the film’s one weak point. Whether it is the direction, the script, or the actor, something is problematic with Zalàn Makranczi’s performance as a Cyber-/Cloud-/Binary-Messiah, but that made his fate all the sweeter to witness.

In the haze of well-made-with-no-money scenes, two stand-outs make me look forward to more from this Niko guy. Cop is driving between assignments, falling asleep behind the wheel. This transitions seamlessly into a dream sequence wherein Cop is gripping a railing at an empty cabaret, passed out, as Cop dressed as a custodian Santa Claus emerges with a broom. (“What is going on?”, you may ask. I have no idea.) The second comes after the bullet-heavy climax, when Cop is absorbed by an 8-bit entity emanating from the massacred computer banks. White lights, black stetson, and our hero takes a seat to ponder the void.

You can visit the Cybersatan Apaocalypse Nightmares homepage for more information, including upcoming festival screenings and future distribution.

CAPSULE: POSSESSOR (2020)

AKA Possessor Uncut

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , ,

PLOT: In the near future, secret elite assassins carry out their work by possessing the bodies of innocent parties through a neural implant; Taysa, a top Possessor, has trouble on her latest assignment when the subject proves capable of sporadically suppressing her control.

Still from Possessor (2020)

COMMENTS: “This film has not been modified from its original version” is an odd notice to see on a movie in its first run. Releasing Possessor as Possessor Uncut is meant to play on the fact that Brandon Cronenberg’s second feature was refused an “R” rating, and the director declined to make the cuts (involving both sex and violence) required for the “restricted” rating. Thirty years ago that would have been a big deal, meaning no advertising in newspapers and boycotts by mainstream theaters (and Blockbuster Video). Nowadays, unrated movies—especially provocative art-house pictures and sordid genre films (Possessor fits both categories)—get theatrical releases all the time with little hoo-ha. Still, after watching a possessed hostess plunge and twist a knife repeatedly into her privileged white male target in Possessor‘s opening sequence, you will understand why they are making a big deal out of the “uncut” nature of this project. Possessor‘s violence is graphic, well-done, and fits the film’s disturbingly sociopathic tone.

Specifics of the technology that allows Possessor‘s assassins to ply their gruesome trade are left largely to our imagination. Some details are plot-important, however: possessors are psychologically tested to make sure their individual memories remain intact after a job, and technicians warn that it’s safe to inhabit the host bodies for only about 72 hours. Storywise, there is actually not a lot to follow: top hitwoman Taysa Vos (Risenborough, looking like she’s inhabiting the body of a young ) is feeling the stress of her lifestyle, spontaneously recalling scenes from her work life as she’s trying to re-establish her bond with her estranged husband and son. Her chillingly businesslike boss (Jason Leigh) calls her in for a lucrative job that involves possessing a man to murder his CEO father-in-law-to be as part of an extremely hostile takeover scheme. Things go badly, naturally, as Taysa finds that her neural connection with target Colin (Abbot) isn’t as steadfast as usual. The subject regains some measure of free will, complicating the job.

Like his father, Cronenberg fils knows when to ratchet up the unease with subtle touches (an establishing shot of skyscraper slowly spinning along the frame’s axis) and when to unleash the hounds. One of the odd features of this film is that our putative protagonist is, by necessity, off screen for most of the action. Her psychological motivations are equally absent; we don’t get any overt explanation as to why she does what she does, what makes her good at it, and why she’s willing to risk her family—and her sanity—for her distasteful job. This blankness makes her seem all the more of a monster, a perfect psychological parasite. The trippy sequences where she and her target battle for control of the body’s will feature images of molded mannequin heads melting and reassembling, and of Risenborough trapped in an ill-fitting mask. The imagery suggests not so much a Persona-styled existential crisis as it does a metaphor for a character battling for her own humanity. While not as aggressively weird as his unsettling debut film Antiviral (no celebrity steaks on offer here), Possessor is dark in the best/worst way, and will satisfy your desire for soul-freezing chills.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This Cronenberg’s work is just as odd, bloody and twisted as that of his old man, but he’s not imitating the twistedness… whatever else it is, ‘Possessor’ feels authentically weird.”–Mick La Salle, San Francisco Chronicle (contemporaneous)

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DREAMLAND (2019)

AKA Bruce McDonald’s Dreamland

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Bruce McDonald

FEATURING: , Henry Rollins, Juliette Lewis, Lisa Houle, Tómas Lemarquis

PLOT: A burnt-out trumpeting virtuoso is to play at the wedding at the castle of a disgraced countess, while a burnt-out hitman has a crisis of conscience when he discovers his boss is trafficking young girls.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Having Stephen McHattie double-act as two soul-crushed sides of the same tarnished coin lends Dreamland its own oddness, but that is almost subsumed as a manic climax erupts at a sinister wedding between a nut job who thinks he’s a vampire and girl of fourteen. However, it’s the overall—you guessed it—“dreaminess” of the movie, grounded in an altogether real pathos, that makes Dreamland much weirder than its fellow bad-guy-gets-redemption tales.

COMMENTS: The ending credits for Bruce McDonald’s latest movie gave notice that it was “filmed on location in Dreamland.” Were I not somewhat familiar with major European cities, I might have had half a mind to believe it. The non-specific geography encapsulates the overall atmosphere of Dreamland: strange goings-on in a shabby metropolis at the foot of an imposing, high-walled fortress. The neon grit of the atmosphere feels like it was scraped off the cracking leather shoes of the protagonist after having just stomped through mean streets on mean business.

Dreamland starts with a montage flourish of well-heeled and well-armed degenerates leaving an airport and climbing into an awaiting limosine. Having just looked at some Tinder-style photos of young girls, a very bad man gets half a sentence out before being shot in the head by his limo driver—none other than our nameless hero (Stephen McHattie). Defiant, with his scraggly haircut and gumshoe get up straight from the ’70s, he’s rewarded with a fat wad of cash from his boss Hercules (Henry Rollins), then with the unfortunate revelation that Hercules has just branched out into the kiddie-prostitution business. The nameless gunman’s next assignment: collecting and delivering the “right pinkie finger” of a disgraced trumpet player (Stephen McHattie) for an alleged slight against Hercules. When visited by a young boy whose sister went missing, the assassin knows the girl’s fate: to be married off to the deranged brother-in-law of local royalty. The hitman, having hit bottom, decides to take a stand.

Whether or not Dreamland would work hinged on two things: the effectiveness of the stylized haze of thought and vision between set pieces, and Stephen McHattie’s ability to convince as the two leads. The latter first. In both roles, McHattie conjures a Dashell Hammet archetype of the world-weary man, with each character having its own twist. While the trumpet player’s mind has been ground down (in his case, by heroin), it’s the hitman’s soul that has been hit hard. Combined, they’d make a perfectly broken Sam Spade, and watching them talk with each other is simultaneously eerie and hilarious. This ties in with the stylized interludes: the killer is struck by haunting visions, and the musician is “able to be in two places at once.” Their paths keep crossing, and the hitman’s fight for what is right contrasts with his counterparts shame at not being able to take any action.

Reading that back to myself, I realize some fairly heavy stuff went on in Dreamland, yet the film spins along in a vibrant fashion. Garish nightclubs merge with dispiriting city streets and homicidal pawnbroker’s wives aid against gun-toting boy gangs; but the image of McHattie’s face—either as the haunted gun man or the wryly smiling maestro—dominates. And once again I find myself making this sound heavy. I suppose that heavy it may be; but it is also, one might say, dreamy.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Canadian director Bruce McDonald serves up a beautifully imagined and gorgeously realized offering with his latest film, the genre-blending Dreamland. With its story of two very different men who look hauntingly alike and an act of violence that causes them to meet, the film mixes surrealism, horror, fantasy, and modern noir.” -Joseph Perry, Diabolique Magazine (festival screening)

LIST CANDIDATE: SNOWFLAKE (2017)

Schneeflöckchen

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Adolfo J. Kolmerer

FEATURING: Reza Brojerdi, Erkan Acar, Xenia Assenza, David Masterson, Judith Hoersch, Alexander Schubert, David Gant

PLOT: In near-future Berlin, Javid and Tan find their fate preordained by a dentist’s ever-changing movie script as they pursue vengeance for their family’s deaths while in turn being pursued by hit men hired by the daughter of two bystanders they murdered while on their quest.

Still from Snowflake (2017)

WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Imagine, if you will, the cross-section where Delirious and Fight Club meet Adaptation as an action-revenge-comedy littered with comic book energy and political commentary presented through the lens of a German director of commercials. Snowflake definitely has the chops to join its 358 other pals, even if we’re forced to pass it over for the official 366-count tally.

COMMENTS: I admittedly “like to like” movies; however, I generally don’t like gushing about much of anything. That said, I beg your forgiveness if I fall into hagiographical tones over the next few paragraphs, as I have not been this much blown away by a movie for quite some time. Adolfo Kolmerer’s feature debut, Snowflake, not only defies succinct description (other than strings of superlatives), it would perhaps defy logic if it weren’t so expertly crafted by the screenwriter and so deftly presented by the director.

Snowflake‘s story concerns a series of interlocking revenge-focused stories. Javid (Reza Brojerdi) and Tan (Erkan Acar) are two long-time friends whose families died during a fire, possibly lit on purpose by xenophobic forces in a close-to-now, chaotic Berlin. Eliana (Xenia Assenza) seeks vengeance on these men for having murdered her parents in a kebab restaurant. Eliana’s bodyguard Carson (David Masterson) reluctantly agrees to introduce her to his estranged father (David Gant), who had been locked away for his homicidal-messianic tendencies, to help line up a string of unhinged murderers. Javid and Tan’s troubles are compounded when they discover that all their actions—indeed, everyone’s—seem to be determined by a dentist (Alexander Schubert) who dabbles in screenwriting. Hovering in the background is a vigilante superhero, a guardian angel nightclub singer, and a rather nasty bunch of neo-fascists aiming to stage a comeback.

Snowflake definitely has its own “feel”, while at the same time it tips its hat to its predecessors. , obviously; he seems to be credited now with influencing all manner of roaming-narrative crime movies. , too; the dentist-cum-puppet-master not only directs the action from his laptop, but in several sticky situations finds that his characters have tracked him down to make demands. (This leads to a number of the film’s funny moments, such as when Tan demands of him, “Think of us as the producers and you as the screenwriter. We give you an idea, and you have to make it work, no matter how stupid it is.”) Snowflake‘s political tones unfold slowly, beginning with some seemingly incongruous footage of an interview with an ex-police commissioner expounding on his nationalist ideas, and ending with the discovery of a hidden training facility for just-about-Nazi super-soldiers.

Ultimately, Snowflake stands as its own movie. Using a bold style while slavishly following scripted narrative logic, Kolmerer continued to amaze me at every twist and turn. I was so engrossed during the on-screen action in one scene that I had actually totally forgotten the “artificiality” of the whole narrative construct. By the film’s end I was left with a pleasantly extreme feeling of frisson, and perhaps even a shortness of breath. In order to keep myself brief, there are countless things I haven’t been able to touch upon. But I ask you to take my word for it that Snowflake is as beautiful and unique as its namesake, as well as a damn sight more hilarious than a crystal of frozen water.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a dizzying, hilarious film that combines post-Tarantino action/crime drama and Charlie Kaufman’s metafictional surrealism with exhilarating results.”–Jason Coffman, Daily Grindhouse (festival screening)