Some overlap here with the programming at this year’s Fantastic Fest, so I’m curious to see what TheNorthlander thought of two of the most entertaining films I’ve seen all year long.
Hi and welcome to The Northlander's 19th Stockholm International Film festival report number 6.
This report is a combination of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, since I've spent some time doing other things these past days that I couldn't clear from my schedule. December is a busy month, and on top of that I'm in the middle of moving to Gothenburg on the west coast - which, if you ever decide to visit Sweden, is the best city to go to.
This time we'll start out with this little independent film that's been sold out I think on all screenings this festival, or at least the ones I could attend. I did finally get a seat though for this last show even though I had to fight to get it. The Grand, where it was shown, is a small cinema not owned by the major chain SF that owns almost all cinemas in Sweden after their competition went bancrupt last year. It's famous for being the cinema Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was walking home from when he got assassinated back in 1986, something that's sort of become Sweden's answer to the JFK assassination.
They also serve excellent coffee here.
ANYWHERE, USA
USA
Directed by Chusy Haney-Jardine
This was this film's last screening at this festival, and something had told me I just had to go see it. The blurb in the magazine and on the website didn't make it out to be THAT great, although maybe a fun watch. But there was something about it anyway.
ANYWHERE, USA starts off with a voice over monologue about the theme of the film that evokes MAGNOLIA on a small scale, well sort of anyway. If you imagine MAGNOLIA, but without the cast, the soundtrack or the budget - and more humor with tons of heart, then you're on the right track. The first story is about a relationship going wrong somewhere in redneck country, told from the point of view of one of the friends of the girl as she's telling a mutual friend of theirs what happened. They (the couple) really loved eachother, but the guy had some problems and she eventually kicked him out. So he and his RC racing midget friend is having a few beers when he tells his friend about the pistachio he found which brought all this on. His friend thinks it's obvious she's a terrorist because she's never had any middle eastern nuts before, and so they get started with getting to the bottom of this in some pretty hilarious ways. The comedy here is actually very Coen, in a BIG LEBOWSKI sort of way.
The second story is about a woman who ends up accidentally leaving the store with a guy's niece in her back seat. The niece - Pearl - played brilliantly by writer-director Chusy Haney-Jardine's own daughter, who at a very young age already has an impressive CV as an actress. She played B.B. Kiddo in KILL BILL PART 2, and she was also in the horrible Hollywood remake of DARK WATER as well as SPIDER-MAN 3.
Keep a lookout for Perla Haney-Jardine, she is going places. She's got so many great moments in this film - there's one where she's sitting at a table across from her uncle, looks up at him, her bruised cheek showing because she took a pair of plyers the night before after numbing herself with some whiskey and digs out a tooth. She looks at her uncle across from her, leans forward, grabs his shirt with both hands and pulls him towards her, pissed off as hell, saying 'There's no motherfucking tooth fairy!'
There's nothing like hearing a girl around 8 or 9 saying the word 'motherfucking' with that kind of sincerety.
And she's right too (hope I didn't spoil THAT one for anybody...).
The last story is about a rich man in his 50s who's successful although maybe not that bright. During dinner with his wife and teenage son, he has an epiphany that they don't know any black people. They should probably meet some black people. His son starts choking on a piece of meat and his wife sees this idea a bit more realistically. You can't just walk up to a person and meet them because you don't know someone who's black. He doesn't agree though, he thinks it's a great idea and they should probably do something like that. As he continues this discussion, he gives his son a short heimlich manouver, then gets back to his seat.
His wife later says she's had an epiphany too - she doesn't know any RC racing midgets.
The man goes out on his adventure, to meet a black person.
It's this kind of humor that this film is completely loaded with. I'm telling you guys, you have GOT to see this movie.
It is Fucking Great.
This is what MAGNOLIA would look like if the Coen brothers had made it on a zero budget with only unknowns.
DO. NOT. MISS. THIS.
THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND (LA POSSIBILITÉ D'UNE ÎLE)
France
Directed by Michel Houellebecq
I saw this, based on one thing, and one thing only. It was described as dystopian sci-fi.
OK so I'm partial to science fiction, as long as I don't have to go to conventions and glue rubber nose bridges on my face and stuff like that. Dystopian futures, cyberpunk, time-travels, Charlton Heston, The Twilight Zone, that's cool stuff to me, and so I figured what the heck. I'd give it a go.
Also, I only had time for one movie on Wednesday due to another engagement involving free alcohol and funny hats that I had to attend.
THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND is based on a book by the guy who directed the film, and he also wrote the screenplay. Apparently there has been some talk about this book that I had missed, but he got to adapt it for the screen himself apparently. I've read on google (the source of all truth) that this film has been critisized for being not that great, and I can certainly understand that.
It's slow, pondering, kind of boring, and overly vague. I mean, it's written and directed by the guy who authored the novel and that doesn't always work out for the best. Sometimes, that's good.
Sometimes, not so much.
BUT, this ia not a film completely without quality, and two days after seeing it, it HAS kinda grown on me. I mean, I like science fiction stories, and this certainly is one.
It's basically about a guy who takes over his father's cloning business and what happens to his clone several generations later.
What's cool about it, despite all those flaws I just mentioned, is that it looks, feels and plays a lot like a 1960s sci-fi movie. Something along the lines of FARENHEIT 451 or PLANET OF THE APES - it's in THAT kind of sci-fi category. Pre-STAR WARS sci-fi. We live in an age where, if STAR WARS had been made today instead of 1977, Will Smith would have been cast as Han SoloThere aren't too many movies made like that anymore. Also, the image of his 25th generation clone walking through the sandy desert of what was once a living, green planet with a walking stick made me remember Mercer from DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? by Philip K. Dick.
Maybe this film is better for hardcore fans of the novel or the author. Maybe the sci-fi elements raise what would otherwise be a pretty bad film and save it from being worse than it is. I keep thinking of that MST3K episode with OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORYBANK starring Raol Julia and how it could have been even worse if it hadn't been a sci-fi movie. There's something about the OVERDRAWN episode that makes me want to watch the original film for some reason.
THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND is by far much better than OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORYBANK seems to be, but I think you're gonna have to really like sci-fi to get nything out of this one.
IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?
UK
Directed by John Crowley
This is the first of the three films I saw on Wednesday. I had it marked as a Might-Take-A-Look-At film, so I had no idea going in what to think of it. Except that it stars Michael Caine.
As it turned out, I'm glad I caught it.
IS THERE ANYBODY THERE? stars Bill Wilner, who played Will Proudfoot in SON OF RAMBOW - the kid with the mother in the sect - and this one is also set in the 80s. 1987, to be precise.
Edward, (Wilner), lives with his parents in a big house in the UK, and they have turned it into a retirement home. Edward is a lonely 11-year-old with not that many friends and the kids in his class thinks he's kind of a spaz. He's also become a bit obsessed with death, or rather what happens when you die. So when an old man who lives in their house - in what used to be his room none the less - dies, Edward hides a tape recorder under his bed to see if he can record the voice of the old man's ghost. This becomes somewhat of an habbit of his, meaning he also records other people who die all the other people that goes into a room after a death.
One day, an old man in a funny camper moves in. His name is Clarence, played by the always great to see Michael Caine. He's a former magician, who has a hard time with people mostly due to the fact that he has regrets about fucking it up with his wife once and then never getting the chance to put it right before she died and now he's got nothing left really, and getting old is killing him.
I think you get the picture here; this is a sweet but kind of sad drama between an old man and a young boy who become friends.
It's not the newest concept in the world for a drama, but it is a very good film. I enjoyed it immensly, and if you do too I'd like to offer up a similar film that's a bit older but reminds me a whole lot of this. It's an old Swedish film from 1994 that they show around christmas time every year here, and it's called KAN DU VISSLA JOHANNA?, starring Per Oscarsson, a legendary actor in this country.
So if you see IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?, and like that one, you should check out KAN DU VISSLA JOHANNA? too, if you can get hold of a copy.
Or vice versa.
NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION
Australia, USA
Directed by Mark Hartley
My planned schedule for today was to see IS THERE ANYBODY THERE? at 5pm, then HUNGER at 6.30pm, then RED at 8pm and then THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD at 10pm. That would have forced me to watch like three movies in a row without pause for food (thank you, popcorn) but that was the plan.
These films do tend to cut it a little close however, and HUNGER was showing at a different theater - Sture - and I didn't really feel like having to run today so instead I went in to see this Ozploitation doc which was showing at the same theater. I figured I might still make it to RED in time afterwards even though this started a bit late.
Also, after hearing so much about it on AICN, OZPLOITATION was something I didn't want to miss.
We're introduced throughout this film, to different genres in Australian low budget genre film from the 60s onward, and we get interviews and inside facts from a whole bunch of people including actors, producers, critics, and Quentin Tarantino.
First up is the nudiesploitation from the hip 60s, and how that got started, then we move on to horror - I wrote down a few titles there - then action movies... I think of all the films they bring up, I had seen two. One was the obvious MAD MAX, and the other was BMX BANDITS, which I remember because my best friend back when I was a kid used to love that film in the 80s and talk about it obsessively while we were playing BMX SIMULATOR on the Commodore 64 or EXCITE BIKE on the NES.
MAD MAX is one of those films that were banned in Sweden, three times even in 1980, 1982 and 1983. Despite almost four minutes being cut by the last time, it still didn’t pass. I’m not sure if THE ROAD WARRIOR made it either, or at least, it was really hard to find in video rental shops as well in the town I grew up in. According to the Swedish Film Censorship Body – Statens Biografbyrå’s website (found here: http://www.statensbiografbyra.se/home.htm ) it was never released as far as I can tell. So the only one I had seen until like maybe I was in my late 20s was BEYOND THUNDERDOME.
Don't worry though, I had a MAX marathon a few years ago and THE ROAD WARRIOR immediately became one of my absolute favorite action movies ever just like that.
I need to see more Australian genre films. I made a list based on this documentary, some of them just looked so awesome I couldn't help it.
If you haven't, you need to see this documentary. If there is the slightest bit of nerd in you, you need to find this film and see it.
Are you still here? I said go see this documentary. Go!
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (JOHEUNNOM NABBEUNNOM ISANGHANNOM)
Korea
Directed by Ji-Woon Kim
I'm gonna say this right away. I just got out of the theater, and I'm gonna actually take a break in writing the review for IS THERE ANYBODY THERE that I was writing.
Normally, I would stick to writing one review at the time, but this time I'm just gonna take a break from that, do this one that I've just seen, and then go back to that one because I can't focus on anything else right now.
Why?
NOODLE WESTERN FUCK YEAH!
Holy crap that was sweet! You got your treasure map, everybody's chasing the treasure and eachother and sweet, sweet gunfights in the streets, on horse backs, in brothels, cars, motorcycles with sidecarts, anal chopsticks, wicky-wicky-wild-wild-east, music so great I gotta say it twice - the music is great, so great in fact I gotta say it twice. No slo-motion action, no shakey cam, just beautiful shots that land perfectly where they should... I can't believe how cool this movie pulls off being. And the kill count is through the fucking ROOF here.
I'm gonna buy this on Blu-ray when it comes out, I need to see how many kills there are.
You remember the first time you watched ARMY OF DARKNESS? Or the first MATRIX? You thought that was pretty damn cool, right? I just had that feeling all over again for maybe the first time since maybe 1999. Which is good in every way. It's just this weirdly perfect blend of Sergio Leone, Robert Rodriguez and Stephen Chow.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is not the best film this festival, but it's one of the coolest and most thoroghly entertaining movies I've seen in a long, long, long time.
It just looks like it's having such a fun time being an action movie you can't help but to be happy for its sake.
Also, I'm getting this soundtrack. Oh yeah, I'm getting it.
Personally, and I know I'm gonna take a lot of heat for saying this, but I tend to not like Korean films. I don't like OLDBOY, for example. Or THE HOST for that matter. It didn't do anything for me. Not the octopus, not the corridor fighting... The only Korean film I've ever enjoyed was A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, and that's one of my favorite horror films. It's so fucking creepy the way you've got this really nasty ghost story with that beautiful cinematography and music... I just love that film.
Then, when I came home today, I realized THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is directed by the same guy who directed A TALE OF TWO SISTERS.
It's just so different in style and genre, but it's still so damn great. Now I have to see his other work as well.
This one FAR exceeded all my hopes and expectations. Why didn't someone tell me it was THIS awesome?
So there you have it, another report done. I think, if I plan this correct, there will be three more after this.
I've still got AUSTRALIA, EDEN LAKE, EMBODIMENT OF EVIL, GOMORRA, THE CHANGLING, ASHES OF TIME REDUX, SURVEILANCE, THE CHASER, SPARROW left that I REALLY wanna see (if I can fit them into the schedule that is). I won't make it to all of them, I will most likely make a few others. Difficult to see.
Always in motion is the future.
/The Northlander
