Hey Harry and Fellow Movieholics,
These are just some real fast reviews. I’ll have more fully fleshed, flecked out, rippy-dippy-dolly stuff ahead. For now, here are some quickies before catching sleep in time for Day Two of Fantastic Fest 2008.
Late Bloomer
Dir: Go Shibata. Japan.
A man with severe disabilities akin to Stephen Hawking’s welcomes an attractive college co-ed as a caretaker for two months. She plans to write her thesis about her experiences with him. Predictably, unreciprocated romantic feelings blossom for her, but his loneliness is so tangible that nothing feels false. Bold risks pay off due to unflinching, confident direction that goes unbarred in stylized sequences. Yet in more restrained sections nuance fills gaps between words. The deliberately lo-fi mini-DV cinematography births imagery coming from the primal muck of unease. It’s ether similar to the original Tetsuo: The Iron Man or even Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise. Characters are rendered with such vulnerable humanity that when improbable macabre non-supernatural stuff happens in the last third even skeptics will believe, although many will find it jarring.
Cargo 200
Dir: Aleksei Balabanov. Russia.
I saw this originally this summer at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It definitely deserves attention. It plays again Sunday Sept. 21 @ 9:15pm in Lamar 3. My thoughts from L.A. Fest:
This is one of the most fucked up movies I’ve encountered lately. There are perverse disturbed scenes worthy of Takashi Miike. Russia 1984, a couple go dancing, drinking, and foolin’ around. Meanwhile, a Marxist atheism professor’s car breaks down on a dark county road. Both parties wind up at the same farm. The professor asks for help and is coerced into drinking vodka with the farm’s owner while debating God’s existence. The couple arrives later to score bootlegged vodka. Murder follows. Balabanov piles on coincidences so large that there’s either a huge plot at work or an allegory of how the USSR treated its citizens. Balabanov is fucking with you for sure. All this is mixed with rape, dementia, and a cold-blooded cop who’s a blank canvas of evil. If, like me, you enjoy wacko Miike, then hunt this down.
Muto
Dir: Blu. Argentina. 8 minutes.
There’s more creativity packed into this short than in most feature-length movies. Graffiti literally keeps sprawling and mutating along walls and ceilings in surrealistic forms in an almost continuous long shot. Imagine Don Hertzfeldt with more traditional surrealism influences combining animation with live action shots. Blu is definitely a director to watch for in the future.
Finally, I’d like to add to the praise Let The Right One In is receiving. I caught it at LAFF also and think it’s a worthy contender for year-end lists. That’s it for now. I need sleep so I can trip out!!! Hmmmm, maybe I shouldn’t sleep at all.
-Psychedelic
