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Capsules

CAPSULE: MONDO CANDIDO (1975)

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AKA The World Is a Wonderful Show; White World

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DIRECTED BY: ,

FEATURING: Christopher Brown, Michele Miller,

PLOT: Candide, thrown out of the idealized bubble he grew up in, and has to come to terms with the hardships of real life.

Still from Mondo Candido (1975)

COMMENTS: Jacopetti and Prosperi are mostly known inventing the “mondo” film (Mondo Cane, Africa Addio), a genre of exploitative shockumentaries produced in large quantities in the late 60s and early 70s. Despite its name, Mondo Candido is not a mondo film. While retaining elements of social critique from their previous works, this purely narrative literary adaptation was a change in style for this duo of directors (and also their final collaboration).

Above all else, Mondo Candido is slightly campy, slightly grotesque fiction, loosely based on Voltaire’s emblematic novel “Candide.” Voltaire, an Enlightenment intellectual, was a skeptic, and “Candide” heavily parodied the ideas of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , especially his belief that we live “in the best of all possible worlds”. Voltaire’s humor is deconstructive, dark, and full of cynicism, and translates well to the cinematic environment of the crazy, revolutionary 70s.

The plot revolves around our young hero Candide: noble, chivalrous, pure of heart. Candide grows up in a privileged environment, inside a castle, educated by philosopher Pangloss, a caricature of Leibniz who advocates the position that our world is as ideal as it can be. However, as an adult Candide falls in love with Cunégonde, the baron’s daughter, enraging her father who deems him unworthy and throws him out. And so, his misadventures begin.

The world proves itself to be an earthly hell, and his journey takes the form of a esque odyssey. Jacopetti and Preosperi create an atmosphere of extravagant dreaminess, suggested by a playful, anachronistic, and kitschy mise-en-scène. A few graphic segments commenting on the absurdity of war could even pass for excerpts from an film.

The film establishes a quixotic narrative as Candide learns of Cunégonde’s whereabouts and makes it his life’s mission to find her again. But the ideal romantic images he has in his mind turn sour again and again, hurting him more than any physical torture ever could. He never stops his search, however, in a journey that traverses not only continents, but also eras.

If the first half of the film incorporates anachronistic elements, the latter one leaves aside any pretense of a period piece, transferring our hero into the 20th century. It plays out like an attempt to reveal the ills of the film’s contemporary era as well as explore the timelessness of Voltaire’s fiction. Familiar faces like Pangloss reappear across time, in new historical settings but with similar ideologies guiding them.

Pangloss’ ideas reveal a hidden depth towards the finale: a stoicism lies under the pretense of optimism. And this is the closest to hope this movie has to offer as an antidote to this cruel world we inhabit.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Never prone to subtlety, the directors fill every frame with surreal twists, slapstick, sexuality, and repellent images. It’s certainly not a happy, upbeat narrative, but they overflow it with dazzling sequences, plus a carnival-on-peyote atmosphere… an impossible-to-categorize, absurdist masterpiece from the demented genius of Jacopetti and Prosperi.”–Steven Puchalski, Shock Cinema

(This movie was nominated for review by TheRealBpilgrim, who called it “the forgotten Jacopetti and Prosperi film.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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Apocryphally Weird

70*. CURE (1997)

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“I sometimes wonder if I could go back to that era now… I have the will to try to go back, to do only what I truly want to do, to not think about anything. It might end up the worst thing ever. But that’s OK if that’s the case. Because 25 years from now, putting aside whether I’m alive or not, they might say ‘What a weird movies this is.'”–Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2022

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Masato Hagiwara

PLOT: Takabe, a Tokyo detective who spends his spare time caring for his mentally ill wife, investigates a series of ritualistic murders committed by seemingly ordinary people with no apparent motive. It emerges that what the cases have in common is that all of the perpetrators had recently encountered Mamiya, a mysterious man who appears to have no short term memory. Further investigation leads to discovery of an old pseudo-occultist mesmerist technique, and Mamiya emerges as more aware than he initially seemed, while Takabe’s wife’s condition continues to deteriorate.

Still from Cure (1997)

BACKGROUND:

  • Kiyoshi Kurosawa cut his teeth in V-Cinema (direct-to-video features), mostly pink films, yakuza movies, and horrors, with only a few of his creations actually getting a theatrical release. After more than a decade of paying his dues, he had proven his commercial bona fides and was finally given creative control, along with a bigger budget and a bankable actor in Kôji Yakusho, to make the movie he always wanted with Cure.
  • Originally titled Missionary (or Evangelist, depending on the translation), the name was changed to Cure to avoid religious connotations after the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attacks.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: A desiccated monkey corpse tied to a shower rod, arms crossed.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Fumie’s non-suicide; cloudy bus to asylum

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Presenting as a police procedural with paranormal elements, Cure is actually a psychologically rich exploration of the search for identity and the battle with the impulse to evil inside each of us.

Restoration trailer for Cure

COMMENTS: In my original Cure review, written after a first viewing, I somewhat presciently wrote “Cure does seem like a movie that Continue reading 70*. CURE (1997) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (2001)

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DIRECTED BY: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

FEATURING: , , , , , Tony Shalhoub

PLOT: A stoical barber develops a plan to blackmail his wife’s employer, which spirals out of control.

Still from the Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

COMMENTS: The Coen Brothers began their career in film noir with Blood Simple (1984), and much of their subsequent work has either referenced or revolved around noirish themes. Blood Simple, alongside Fargo (1996) and No Country for Old Men (2007), are classic neo-noirs in rural settings. Non-noir offerings like Miller’s Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991) still feature doomed, alienated heroes and challenging ethical dilemmas, and even The Big Lebowski (1998) flirts with noir themes with its complicated crime caper in an LA setting. But The Man Who Wasn’t There is their one take on the classic formula: post-war period setting, chiaroscuro cinematography, carefully-planned crime that goes horribly wrong, moral corruption, and a flawed protagonist increasingly resigned to his dim fate. Who wouldn’t want to see the brothers give their straightforward take on film noir, with all the moralistic nihilism that implies?

The plot is a classic noir knot: a “simple” act of blackmail leads to a pair of unintended murders, which leads to the wrong person being put on trial, which, in a roundabout way, eventually leads to misplaced but ironically appropriate justice. Our antihero, Ed Crane, is a disaffected barber who is only slightly more engaged with the world than Mersault. He tolerates his job; he likes his wife and their passionless life together well-enough, even though he suspects she may be cheating on him. His descent into crime happens on a whim, to garner investment funds after hearing a pitch by a dry-cleaning entrepreneur. He’s a man of few words, except when it comes time to deliver expository voiceovers.

In some sense, there isn’t a lot there in The Man That Wasn’t There. Although there are twists, the plot often drags, like Ed Crane’s own mundane suburban life. But for a single bad decision, Ed would not have left much of a mark on the world: he would have glided through life silently cutting hair and smoking cigarettes, dispassionate and content to watch life slip by. He’s a barber by profession, but it’s just something he drifted into; really, “that'”barber” is too much of an identity for him. As he says, he “just cuts the hair.” In the course of the film, he develops exactly two passions: once, his brief interest in dry-cleaning, and a more substantial interest in the teenage daughter of a drunken customer (it’s not what your dirty mind is thinking; he’s charmed by her faltering rendition of a Beethoven piano sonata). Both times, his sudden engagement with the world leads him to unwitting tragedy.

The Man Who Wasn’t There is, mostly, a solid, authentic rendition of the classical noir style. It only departs from the 40s formula in a few particulars. Homosexuality is acknowledged and plays a role in the plot; Ed’s slightly inappropriate fixation on Birdy also crosses a line that would have barely been hinted at by the previous cinematic generation. Further, the film is more obviously and artily existential than its forebears. The Coens humorously reference Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (absurdly, Ed’s trial lawyer wants to make it the centerpiece of his defense), which presages their more thorough exploration of the enigma of Schrödinger’s famous feline in A Serious Man. Finally, the movie’s weirdest element (perhaps its only weird element) is the mysterious usage of UFOs as a metaphor for…. something (modern man’s futile search for meaning in the universe?) But these eccentricities hardly depart much from the source homage, making The Man Who Wasn’t There a satisfying throwback to a simpler age, when people were more complex.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a curious mix of tragedy and humor filmed in stark black and white… succeeds in establishing a mood of existential absurdity..”–Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Lee Taylor. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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The Man Who Wasn't There (Criterion Collection)

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    366 Underground

    366 UNDERGROUND: CUDDLY TOYS (2022)

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    Recommended

    DIRECTED BY: Kansas Bowling

    FEATURING: Kansas Bowling

    PLOT: Professor Kansas Bowling, with a degree in “Teen Age,” draws on myriad examples of girls’ ruined childhoods to explore the dangers of impressionability and sexual predation.

    Still from Cuddly Toys (2022)

    COMMENTS: There’s a human skeleton arranged on a string, a red backdrop, an old slide projector, and a strange figure: a professor, she tells us, with her field of study situated on the grim intersection of the evil and the mundane. Shattered futures, injured esteem and injured bodies, dogged sunniness, doom, defiance, death, and rape: all these elements, across numerous (“There are 100 actresses in this film”) testimonials, flesh out this frightful and compelling, sometimes experimental and sometimes verité, mockumentary dissecting the teenage girlhood experience in all its harrowing possibility.

    These girls’ lives unfold in a murky ’70s-to-’90s era, with postcards sent from the road, nary a portable phone to be seen, and the recurring Scott Walker tune, “It’s Raining Today,” lashing ominously as crooned counterpoint to the poppy Nilsson/Monkees title track. After a brief introduction from the professor, Cuddly Toys dives right into its deadpan-dreadful proceedings with a “Miss Pre-Teen” beauty pageant, setting the tone: we’re in for a nasty ride, made just barely tolerable by the clinical absurdism of our guide and the improbable perkiness of (some of) the girls and women onscreen.

    But discomfort—to put it mildly—weighs on the viewer, and appropriately so. As a general rule, I am not prone to guilt by association, but by the film’s end I was truly appalled by the evil potential, and the evil realized by, my fellow men. I had no objections to Bowling depicting this, however. There’s far too great a streak of nastiness in the world, which menaces one sex exponentially more than the other. That said, Professor Bowling slips in a trenchant observation in her closing remarks—one which raises the question as to which sex is actually considered more disposable.

    Cuddly Toys is a mind-blowing journey into the casual cruelty found in our culture, weaving harrowing nightmares from grubby dreams. The victims are clear, and the perpetrators—though predominately male—seem to be just about everyone; there is more than enough blame to go around.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “I definitely wouldn’t shade you if this was not your cup o ‘tea, it’s weird. Part shockumentary, part arthouse fever dream, it’s an astutely delivered, if a bit meandering, pitch black mondo-comedy.”–McBastard 2000, Rock! Shock! Pop! (Blu-ray)

    Cuddly Toys [Blu-ray]

    Cuddly Toys [Blu-ray]

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    It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

    IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THREE… EXTREMES (2004)

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    DIRECTED BY: ,,

    FEATURING: , , , Im Won-hee, Kyôko Hasegawa,

    PLOT: A woman resorts to extreme measures to regain her youth, an intruder torments a film director and his wife, a young girl is haunted by a traumatic past.

    Still from Three... Extremes (2004)

    COMMENTS:  Three… Extremes started as a franchise of pan-Asian horror anthologies with 2002’s Three. A collection of short films from Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Kim Jee-woon, and , Three offered a panorama of horror from China, South Korea and Thailand. It never reached the popularity of its sequel, however, remaining obscure while the second and final installment, widely known as Three… Extremes, attained a cult status, largely thanks to a selection of contributors that included a couple of major names in  contemporary  cinema.

    Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan offers the first dish, Dumplings. It is perhaps the most infamous of the trilogy, and Chan quickly adapted it into a feature film. The plot revolves around a rich middle-aged woman attempting to regain her youth ( and her husband’s love)  by eating special dumplings that promise to rejuvenate her skin, provided by an unconventional chef. Ethical issues come to the forefront as the stuffing’s origin is revealed. Our heroine’s disgust and second thoughts give easily their way to self-destructive obsession, however. “Dumplings” is a Faustian morality play about the price of narcissism. Like Elizabeth Báthory, the countess who bathed in the blood of virgin women to remain young, our protagonist engages in grotesque acts for selfish reasons. An industrial soundscape enhances the sense of something ominous and disturbing lurking in the background.

    After the appetizer, South Korean visionary Park-Chan Wook  presents “Cut.” His story focuses on a successful film director and his wife on the night that an intruder captures them and proceeds with a series of mental and physical tortures. There is no moral justification here; this is no Saw. Instead, the explanation given is brutally honest, making the events following even more shocking. This is a revenge tale, albeit one with elements of social commentary. If you love contemporary socially-conscious genre cinema from South Korea, like Bong Joon Ho‘s Oscar-nominated Parasite (2019), this will be right up your alley (as long as you have a strong stomach for gore). At the same time, the narrative plays masterfully with the nature of reality, blurring the lines between the authentic and the staged, culminating in a series of over-the-top twists and reveals.

    The third piece, by far the most haunting, comes from Japan. Takashi Miike’s “Box” is a surreal psychosexual narrative following a young woman ridden by guilt and repressed lust. It alternates between present and past; Miike depicts the former in a cold color palette expressing grief, while warmer tones in the present hint at catastrophic passions. The flashbacks have a carnivalesque aesthetic that, along with the taboo subject matter, recalls ‘s Strange Circus (2005). The hints of supernatural horror and the morbid symbolic imagery are guaranteed to make you shudder.

    More often than not, compilation films are uneven. That’s not the case here. A strong thematic link creates coherence, as each tale is a deeply meditative take on human envy. This is thoughtful horror with a psychological aspect, essential viewing for fans of the genre.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…Miike’s ‘Box’ is the best of the bunch – a disturbing, dreamlike tale of a woman novelist haunted by dreams of her twin sister who died long ago…  The film may well live up to its title: it is perhaps too extreme for some viewers, perhaps even in bad taste at times, but you have to give all the episodes credit for being bizarre and effective.”–Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique

    Three / Three... Extremes [Limited Edition] [Blu-ray]

    Three / Three… Extremes [Limited Edition] [Blu-ray]

    • Two anthology films, six ghostly tales of terror, acclaimed directors from Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand and Japan. The ultimate omnibus of horror.

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