Tag Archives: Isaac Ezban

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CAPSULE: PARVULOS (2024)

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Párvulos: Hijos del Apocalipsis; AKA Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse

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

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DIRECTED BY: Isaac Ezban

FEATURING: Carla Adell, Mateo Ortega Carsillas, Leonardo Cervantes

PLOT: Three brothers struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world while caring for two zombies caged in their basement.

Still from Parvulos (2024)

COMMENTS: A tale about family in times of extreme change. Isaac Izban, the Mexican auteur of films like the mind-bending and space-bending Incident (2014) or the deeply-layered Similars (2015), known for its political undertones, returns with a slightly more conventional, yet still eccentric combination of family drama and zombie apocalypse. But let’s take things from the start.

We follow three brothers—two kids and their older teen brother—struggling to survive in a world where the rules have changed dramatically. Everything seems typical to post-apocalypse fans, at first. A pandemic has decimated the population, while a not-fully-tested vaccine had serious side effects, creating hordes of zombies. Parallels with the recent Covid pandemic haunt the story, but there is no explicit analogy, just a new take on common tropes of the genre.

The twist brings something new to the table. In their basement the boys are hiding two zombies, scavenging and collecting food for them. Who could they be? When the youngest brother Benjamin discovers they are his parents, the boys begin an effort to tame the dead and remind them who they are.

The film could develop as a parable on toxic family dynamics, with the parents being wild zombies, but it doesn’t want to go there. It remains, even at its grossest moments, a wholesome combination of family drama and post-apocalyptic themes, targeted at a teen audience of the main protagonist’s age. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but it’s not as deeply layered or rich in allegory as Ezban’s earlier works.

Parvulos is formally inventive. The faded color palette, resembling black-and-white photography, gives an eerie and melancholic tone. Wide shots along with distorted audio underline some of the tensest moments. There soundtrack is rich: composers Edy Lan and Camilla Uboldi, close collaborators of director, creates a wide range of tones, from ominous orchestral music to uplifting beats with lyrics in English.

The story continues through a series of encounters of the boys with other survivors. A picture of the new state of the world gradually emerges, with deadly cults roaming around (another common trope of apocalyptic fiction). But the tale remains fresh by keeping the family dynamic between the kids and their zombie parents at its heart. It is an intriguing premise, and there are even some WTF moments here, as when the zombies have sex or, chained to their seats, attend a festive Christmas dinner.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an ambitious, eccentric, ultimately memorable tale of juvenile brothers’ survival after civilization’s death by plague.”–Dennis Harvey, Variety (festival screening) 

Capsules

2024 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: AND THE REST, PART TWO

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Montréal 2024

I have taken so much complimentary coffee from the drinks stand in the lobby that I’ve grown somewhat furtive about it.

7/25: Rita

It’s impossible to deny the power found in Jayro Bustamante’s follow-up to his prior Fantasia feature, Piggy. The story, based upon a real-life incident that remains unresolved, concerns a 13-year-old girl who finds herself a ward of the state after running away from an abusive father. On the inside, she encounters various themed gangs—angels, fairies, bunnies, stars, and a fifth, more feral group whose nature eludes me—and is quickly taken under wing of the dominant Angels. Each of these form a function, both narratively and visually, and it is with them that Bustamante attempts to paint a fantastical veneer on a horrible set of circumstances. Unfortunately, he hedges his bets: Rita would have been more powerful as a realistic portrayal of the reasons and conditions of this prison; alternatively, it is not nearly wondrous enough, with the hints at fairy-tale trappings (the crone of a social worker makes for a perfect evil witch, and the pixie-dust powers of the Faery gang are a delight to witness) not coloring the underlying bleakness to any great degree. Still, it has some great set-pieces, as well as convincing performances from the few hundred girls cast from around Guatemala. Uneven, but recommended with reservations.

This Man

Dream Scenario meets J-horror in a fast-moving fusion of romance, comedy, frights, and existential philosophizing. Tomojiro Amano pivots around these loci with a story about a centuries-dead dark wizard seeking vengeance on humanity by appearing in dreams, dooming the dreamer. Deaths pile up, both squicky and hilarious (sometimes both), as two affable cops try to get to the bottom of the mystery (the senior of the pair always says, “It could just be a coincidence”; it’s assuredly not a coincidence). The story focuses on a young mother who consults a freelance sorcerer—he left his group because he disapproved of some of their activities—which results first in the tragic death of her daughter (which is also kind of hilarious), and culminates in the most action-packed-yet-action-bereft supernatural showdown I’ve seen. Bravo for thrash-industrial mystic mummery.

7/26: The Silent Planet

I’m always happy to observe areas of Earth that don’t look like they belong on this planet. Wherever Jeffrey St. Jules filmed this Continue reading 2024 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: AND THE REST, PART TWO →

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2018 FANTASIA FESTIVAL: A SECOND SLICE OF STRANGE

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Ambiance

Demolition is going on not too far from my window. Apologies in advance for any typos or misinformation; I’ll blame the occasional ground shudderings and Carbon Monoxide I’ve been reading warnings about.

7/17: The Nightshifter [Morto Não Fala]

Poster from NightshifterNightshifter‘s director, Dennison Ramalho, has been hovering around the periphery of the Fantasia Festival with shorts for over a decade now. During that time has met José Mojica Marins (of “Coffin Joe” fame), looking for that filmmaker’s ring (a gift from ‘s wife) on the dark floor of the cinema, as well as Ken Russell (of Ken Russell fame) at the Fantasia screening of A Serbian Film.

What Ramalho brings to the table in this outing is a refreshing bit of horror (!) revolving around a morgue attendant, Stênio, who can speak with the dead. When he makes the mistake of misusing their information he is doomed to be haunted by an incredibly angry and bitter (and dead) wife. While it is marred by a too-obvious score (we’re already dealing with corpses, murders, morgue prat falls, and haunting) that focused too much on the jump-string section instead of maintaining a quiet unease, the Nightshifter still manages to pack a bit of a punch. Its necessarily troubling finale is gratifying in its way, too, as Stênio rises to the challenge of accepting his fate. More from Ramalho will likely be a good thing for horror fans.

7/18: Boiled Angels: the Trial of Mike Diana

Trusting the voices inside my head, I took in a screening of Frank Henenlotter‘s latest film early this afternoon. This the Henenlotter of Basket Case fame: what would attract the interest of this genre filmmaker? Nothing less than the once obscure, now infamous trial of Mike Diana: the only artist in American history to have been found guilty of obscenity. Though it’s a talking-heads documentary, Boiled Angels naturally enough skirts along its periphery, using narrated illustration segments and gee-whiz-colorful meets Dear-God!-extreme examples of comics both from Mike Diana and much of American comics’ underground history. Various luminaries provide remarks, from Jay Lynch and Stephen Bissette (who testified for the defense) to George Romero and . What makes this documentary stand out in particular is that the filmmakers reached out to Mike’s adversaries and gives those players not just screen time, but also a fair shake. Must see for afficionados of underground comics: Mike Diana took Continue reading 2018 FANTASIA FESTIVAL: A SECOND SLICE OF STRANGE →