Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Annnnnnd, round three. (ROUND ONE HERE and ROUND TWO HERE)!
Okay, this one ain't for the faint of heart, so here's the disclaimer. If you are pregnant, have a heart condition, weak bladder, are under the age of 18, attend any type of weekly services or have ever found me offensive at all, you might wanna turn the fuck around right this god damned second. Seriously. This is about to get ugly. I'm gonna use a lot of bad words and describe things that will etch themselves on the back of your brain for days. And they're not even things of my own vile graymatter. This is stuff that offended me. If the thought of something so repugnant that it offends a guy like myself scares a little bit of pee out of you, the following films are nothing you should ever gaze upon, much less think about. Ever.
But for the rest of you sick fucks, this shit is gonna skullfuck your sockets until they bleed. Prepare for a brand new reality tunnel my friends.
Taxidermia
Fuck saving the best for last. I'm gonna front load this shit. If you have an overwhelming desire to see something that will bake your mind, something that will churn your stomach or something that will offend every last sensibility that you have, look nor further than Taxidermia. This Hungarian film is so revolting, so perverse, so decidedly obscene that words alone cannot capture the grotesquerie of it. The very antithesis of taste, it makes Gummo look like one from the Disney vaults and Cronenberg's Crash look like a romantic comedy. I'm not kidding. Every time someone watches this movie God drops a kitten down a garbage disposal. That's how pissed off it makes him.
There isn't a sin (cardinal or venal), body part or biological function that isn't at some point displayed in this thing; not a corner of the human frame that doesn't have a camera jammed into it at some point in time. It is foul, disgusting and pushes the very boundaries of what the mind will accept on screen. You WILL turn your head at some point. You WILL close your eyes. There is no avoiding it. If somehow you manage to view every frame of every obscenity this film has to offer without flinching I ask but one thing. Stay. The fuck. Away from me. You are not well. Bibles spontaneously combust near the DVD and my living room smells of brimstone. There's no other way to put this – only the strongest or most disturbed of minds will be able to watch this in any sustained capacity.
That said, this film is the very definition of fucking art. Easily the single most visionary film I've seen all year, what director Gyorgy Palfi does with the camera is akin only to early Jeunet. Unique angles; long, beautifully executed single takes; unparalleled set design which sets the stage for each disturbing story. Every offense is filmed in such a way that it can never be called juvenile or base. This is brilliantly executed and profound to levels that a work this disturbing should not be allowed to be. It wears you down to the nub and by the end there isn't a level of hell this director hasn't shown you.
And yet, with the final two minutes it took me from an unexplainable level of disgust and revulsion into a state of artistic bliss as the films final sequence pulled back the curtain to show me exactly what I was watching. This is not offensiveness for the sake of it. This is art. It was as if someone wanted to bring the work of William S. Burroughs to the screen, but couldn't get the rights, so they wrote something even more disturbing and disjointed, but equally as brilliant.
I've been trying to avoid the analogy but it just won't go away. This is my generations Salo. There. Take from that what you will. NOT RECOMMENDED for anyone who's ever thought about walking out of a movie because they were offended. Highly Recommended for only the sickest, most deranged and unimpeachably perverse of you mother fuckers out there. This is an hour and a half of your life that will be burned onto your brain forever. I am now the proud possessor of images that will never leave me. Thank you Tim League.
Never Belong to Me
You know, until I'd seen Taxedermia I thought this was about as deranged as Fantastic Fest could get. Currently being referred to as "The Penis Gun" movie, this is a movie more about trying to get away with as much as humanly possible than it is about being particularly good. It's a comedy, I think, strung together in a truly bizarre fashion. Half-man/beasts, a cyborg hooker, and the infamous penis gun all culminate in something that only the Korean's could dream up.
For those of you who can't handle the raw, seething, disturbing nature of Taxidermia this will be the movie that will bake your noodle. This is about as absurd as fiction comes. With almost no real narrative structure to speak of, this film seems to change its very plot every 20 minutes or so. And it simply proceeds to get weirder and weirder until its bizarre, overly dramatic climax. Of course all of this works in its favor as you never have to take anything here seriously. It's meant to be funny in a god, that is so fucked up sort of way. And in that vein it is going to be a lot of fun.
Paired with the equally disturbing Gary's Touch a nonsensical short that will no doubt make the entire audience queasy while they shift in their seat, this is the double feature that will elicit hoots, hollers and calls for mercy, adding a much needed dose of the surreal to the day of everyone that attends. Recommended for anyone looking forward to a fun, disturbing time.
Aachi & Ssipak
Animated mayhem that seems to scream Tim league from its opening scene, there isn't a shred of me that doesn't understand why this has become the centerpiece of Fantastic fest this year. If you've seen the Alamo's trailer for this, fear not. They haven't spoiled the film with their wordy explanation of the film – they've simply translated the opening Star Wars like crawl.
We've run out of renewable energy. The only thing left is human feces, which the government regulates the production of by rewarding prolific defecators with "Juicy bars", a highly addictive product that has spawned a dangerous black market and appears to mutate people into little blue-meanies led by one big asshole Blue-Meanie. Enter Aachi and Ssipak, two douche bag criminals who want in on the lucrative juicy bar trade and seem to hit the big time when they happen across a woman who's had a number of anal chips inserted into her rectum and is awarded an abundance of Juicy bars with every shit she takes.
Sprinkle in an unbelievable amount of violence and sexual content – and add all the painstaking attention to the absurd that you'd expect from a Ralph Bakshi film, and you have what will be one of the most talked about films of the fest. But what makes this something really worth seeing is that the art is just plain gorgeous. It's a puerile and uniquely drawn universe with an incredible amount of detail and artistic talent put into it. This isn't some crappy hand drawn or flash animated 90 minute scat joke. It's a wonderful mix of various animation styles backed by what appears to be a serious budget. A lot of love went into a movie about criminals trying to horn in on the shit trade. And there's a lot to be said for that. Recommended for those looking for something to really talk to the folks back at work about, but definitely not recommended to anyone who is apt to use the words scatological and juvenile together in a sentence.
Alright folks, that's it for the pre-coverage. From here on out you're on your own. If you see me wandering around, please, by all means poke me and say hey. This is one of my favorite weeks of the year and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you guys.
8 Days. Thirty-some odd movies. Untold cups of coffee. Let's do this thing.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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