Hey folks, Harry here - This year at FANTASTIC FEST - the programming team was blessed with the addition of Todd Brown, the maestro behind TWITCH FILM which also happens to be my favorite, non-AICN movie website. Why? Because Todd and the team he's assembled have created a site dedicated to seeking info on the movies that so many never get to see. The strange and unusual - the truly independent and international productions. He keeps track of World Cinema better than any other website that I've ever been introduced to - and we finally got to meet this year at Fantastic Fest - a few days afterwards - he wrote to ask me if I'd be interested in him doing a wrap-up / highlights column about the most promising stories, trailers, posters and pics from his site. It would help his traffic out - and it would help all of you to have a weekly reminder to check out what is going on over there. We're calling the column... INTERNATIONAL EYE CANDY - and right now... you're checking out - Issue One - here's Todd...

International Eye Candy
October 3, 2007




Triangle

A bit of a controversial choice to launch the first International Eye Candy column, TRIANGLE was generally raked over the coals when it played Cannes this year. I was one of a small handful there who really liked the film and even I concede that it has major problems in the first act – or at least it did at the time, reports are the film didn't have a significant re-edit since that screening, but the directors did work over the sound and have been tuning the film, which they didn't have time for in advance of Cannes. Anyway, TRIANGLE is a three part “puzzle” film, with a central concept that sounds like a drunken bet between three of Hong Kong’s finest as much as anything.

Here’s the deal. Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time In China), Ringo Lam (City on Fire) and Johnnie To (Election) got together to make a film. But this was more a game of one upmanship than a collaboration. Hark would begin, shooting the first third of the film and establishing the basic scenario before passing it off to Lam. Lam would then have to make sense of what Hark had done and continue the story through the central act before passing it off to To, who would conclude. In the original cut the Hark segment was kind of a mess as he was obviously trying to trip up the two directors following him but Lam and To were up to the challenge and it ends very, very well.

You’ll find more information and an English subtitled trailer here.




From Hong Kong crime film to Norway, where we find VARG VEUM: BITRE BLOMSTER, which translates to Varg Veum: Bitter Flowers. This film is a major event in Norway, the first of six announced projects based on the hugely popular noir detective Varg Veum, created by Gunnar Staalesen.

Staalesen acknowledges a large Raymond Chandler influence in his work, so you know what to expect: hard men who drink a lot, break each other and don’t talk much about their feelings. Throw a stellar cast – the lead is from Hawaii Oslo and the observant will recognize a few other faces in there – and stunning cinematography into the mix and my hopes are high for this.

More information and trailer links here.




To move from modern noir to the old school variety we head to Argentina and Ricardo Darin’s directorial debut LA SENAL. Now, Darin may be new to directing but he’s certainly not new to film or noir in general. The man was featured prominently in Fabien Bielinsky’s crime thrillers Nine Queens and El Aura and while Bielinsky’s untimely death last year – he simply collapsed while doing some commercial casting in Brazil – left an enormous hole in Argentina Darin seems to have learned a thing or two from working with him.

Bielinsky’s films are both modern noirs, both crime capers set in current times but for his debut Darin – who also stars – has gone right back to the roots of the genre, opting for the full on 50’s era experience. Production design on this thing looks absolutely stellar and Darin has the perfectly weatherbeaten face for the role. Yum.

Website and Trailer links here.





Right! Enough criminality for now! For something entirely different we head to South Korea.

Don’t let anybody tell you differently, Korea’s in a pretty major slump right now with far too much of the industry either waiting for Bong Joon Ho, Kim Ji Woon or Park Chan Wook to revive things with whatever they cook up next while the rest seems to be rushing to crank out cheap, formulaic knock offs of what’s been popular over the past few years. Well, people haven’t really been buying it and the box office has sagged badly as a result but there are exceptions. Last year saw the release of a crime caper film titled Tazza: The High Rollers (also known as War of Flowers) and when that film became a huge sleeper hit – ending up in the all time top five at the Korean box office – the producers went back to the source to see if there was anything else in the well.

The source was comic writer Heo Yeong-Nam and, yep, there was plenty in the well, in this case the graphic novel that has now become LE GRAND CHEF. Shot in a glossy style that reflects the comic book origins – image panels and speech bubbles both appear in the trailer – the film follows a pair of young chefs in a high stakes cook off to win the knife used centuries before by the shamed Royal Chef to cut off his own arms in disgrace. And personally I’d kind of like to know how he managed the second one.

English subtitled trailer here





What the hell, it’s time for a costume-epic! The title’s ULAK and it’s a Turkish period actioner with some supernatural overtones.

As anyone who follows cult film knows Turkey has a long, long history with pulpy b-movies and that heritage lingers on today. The country has been making waves in the arthouses with their serious indie dramas but the country produces far more pulpy genre films than anything else and even the more serious minded efforts like this one show lingering traces of Turkey’s filmic roots with exaggerated reaction shots and extreme angles. More often than not that campiness spoils things but in this case it seems just restrained enough and balanced off against some stellar production work that I think it may be a winner.

Website and trailer links here




Another period action piece here, this one big budget Russian fantasy 1612. This one could go either way, I think, and it’s got some weird tonal things going on in the trailer but DAMN the production design is gorgeous. Russian film is exploding right now, there’s a huge amount of talent there, and because they haven’t figured out what does and doesn’t work yet they still produce a lot of stuff that would never, ever be made anywhere else. Such as a film that puts scenes of a pretty unicorn trotting through a field next to one of a man’s head being impaled on a sharp stick.

A little note on the costume and armor detail here: they actually went out and hired well known armorers to work on this so the details are all accurate. Yes, those winged cavalrymen – they’re Hussars – really existed. Sweet.

Trailer links here




Some people have been rough on Julien Leclerq’s sci-fi action picture CHRYSALIS for being a bit light in the story department and I can see their point but what it does it does incredibly well and I think that on a technical level it’s one of the most impressive debut films I’ve ever seen.

What does it do well? Kick ass action sequences and an entirely believable vision of a future Paris, all buffed up to icy precision. When Leclerq opts to travel the digital road he does a remarkable job of blending things together without seams but he mostly meets his goals the good old fashioned way: by actually going out and building stuff. Full marks, too, for featuring a seldom-seen Israeli martial art on screen.

Review, website and trailer links here.




Back to Turkey now for a good old fashioned slice of religio-horror. MUSALLAT is the story of a young couple haunted by mysterious forces, the general badness building up until the husband is possessed and things generally go downhill from there.

One of the intriguing things about Turkey, for me, is the incredible fusion of cultures and influences there. These sorts of films generally work best when they come from a culture that takes the core concepts seriously and with its deep, deep roots in both Christianity and Islam, Turkey certainly does that. But it also has a strong western influence that leaves Turkish film free to explore sex and violence in ways that you’ll NEVER see in films from any other Islamic country and you get that, too. And maybe it’s the fact that I’ve actually been at a live birth that gives the birth scene in the trailer the bit of oomph that leaves me squirming in my seat, but I don’t think so.

Website and trailer links here




The latest from the Brazilian director of acclaimed Bus 174 has already got people all worked up in his homeland and it hasn’t even released yet. The story of an elite officer, TROPE DE ELITE’s depiction of poverty and corruption has got the police so worked up that a faction of them are working to have the film banned and the resulting publicity has got the public interest up so high that tens of thousands of bootleg copies are being distributed all around the country.

Politics aside, what does the film look like? Really damn good. Very well shot, very tense, the violence handled with a realism that gives it a healthy kick.

Website and trailer links here




And now back to Argentina for LA ANTENA, a film that does its very best to defy description, but here it goes … a nod to 1920s expressionism and silent film this is a sci-fi opus about the evil Mr. TV who has stolen the voices of the entire country except for one lone singer who he needs to complete his dastardly plan.

Black and white has survived as a medium because in the right hands it’s bloody well gorgeous and director Esteban Sapir clearly knows his way around it. This thing manages to be retro and futuristic and the same time, drawing on the traditions of the past to make something new. Beyond that the trailers are simply stunning. It’s taken a little while for word to get out on this one but it’s starting to get out on the festival circuit now, so keep an eye open.

Website and trailer links here