Fantastic Fest began this year with a bang not a whimper (though there are plenty of films with whimpering in them if that's your thing). The first three days of my 12th year at this festival remind me how damned old I'm getting. I don't know how I used to watch movies all day and all night and then write up every single one I saw. I guess that was before they started showing such damned great films every night in the midnight hour. I was home writing until 3am instead of arriving home AT 3am. Regardless, here are some of the best moments for a fest that is the only thing hotter here in Austin than the weather.
I can't imagine more perfect bookends for this than the opening night film, ARRIVAL starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, and the *absolute phenomenon* to put it in the simplest, least-nuanced words that is a performance by ICHY-O. There's still a day left in the first half, but everything packed into these three days is a week's worth of experiences.
I think no more perfect film has ever played Fantastic Fest than ARRIVAL. Denis Villeneuve follows up SICARIO with this screenplay adapted by Eric Heisserer from the Ted Chiang short story "Story of Your Life". In it, Amy Adams is recruited to help the U.S. Government learn to converse with mysterious aliens who have appeared simultaneously over 12 points on Earth. As seen in the trailer, much of the conflict in the story is between Adams' Dr Louise Banks and the military leaders represented by Forest Whitaker as Colonel Weber who she leads like children through exercises to understand the basic building blocks of concepts from which languages are assembled. As the task proves ever more difficult due to the fact that aliens think in a way that is totally... alien to humanity, she races with the help of Jeremy Renner's Ian Donnelly to find a solution in time before mankind makes a giant leap to the wrong conclusions. As a think-piece, Heisserer's script is powerful, but under Villeneuve's direction it becomes an explosive trigger of emotions. Everything from visuals to dialogue to the score and sound comes together to build a tension that grew with each moment, often leaving me on the verge of tears though I couldn't say exactly WHY. There was just such a sense of some awesome power so much greater and more knowledgeable than humanity and such a sense of the scale of events and the import of every action that choking back tears seemed the only way to keep it together until the big payoff at the end. This is science fiction at its greatest, addressing a heart-wrenching aspect of the human condition through the lens of a scientific approach. It was immediately within my top three favorite films.
Like Harry and most of the crowd, I followed up ARRIVAL with the esteemed director Park Chan-wook's THE HANDMAIDEN. I have enjoyed mixed opinions on the work of Director Park from completely love of OLDBOY and STOKER to a strong dislike for THIRST. I approached THE HANDMAIDEN therefore with no expectations. Unfortunately, I find my opinion of this film as mixed as my overall feelings for his films. The artistry and craft is on full display, with every actor's performance perfection, every shot lush and gorgeous. What then did I dislike about a film I am jokingly calling 'The Korean Black Swan'? Foremost, a matter of personal taste will be brought to bear on the film by any viewer. This one climaxes with a lesbian sex scene that plays like the most artfully presented version of a man's smuttiest fantasies, played repeatedly. I compare it to BLACK SWAN, because like that film I believe you will be hard-pressed to find a straight man that doesn't gush over how much he loves it. Gay men and women, however will have a less certain opinion. I felt the film failed to provide me emotional connection to the characters, and the gratuitous nature of the sexual content left me just wishing he would get on with the story. It is a remarkable film that should be recognized for its artistry, but in reproducing so effectively a work of erotic fiction, it reproduces the elements of that fiction which hold no interest for me in the first place. I am left after the experience piecing together the parts that I appreciate out of a less-satisfying whole.
The strongest selection I saw on day 2 was the first American film by returning festival alum and director of TROLLHUNTER André Øvredal. THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE put Emile Hirsch (Austin Tilden) and Brian Cox (father Tony Tilden) in the morgue, literally. As research for the film they both visited the Los Angeles County morgue to inform their roles as father/son undertakers/coroners. Tasked with finding cause of death on a highly unusual corpse, they awaken demonic forces seeking the usual death, destruction and chaos one might expect. A few initial jump scares made me worry they might be overused, but as the film plays out Øvredal demonstrates an expertise that clearly only used those to help establish his desired mood. He manages to make a lifeless motionless corpse far more menacing than any mere squamishness would explain and is far more effective than last year's (arguably) similar piece PATRICK. The heart of this picture, though is the relationship on display between Hirsch and Cox who feel at home and wholly geniuine as father and son.
I finished day 2 with Irish writer/director Liam Gavin's intense exploration of an occult ritual A DARK SONG. Still grieving over the untimely loss of her child, Sophia Howard (Catherine Walker) fights to convince Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) to complete a ritual of dark magic with her in order to once again speak with her lost loved one. Not everything goes according to plan as the pair, forced to live months in close quarters while completing multiple complicated rituals of cleansing, preparation, and empowerment, are not prepared to endure the abuse they inflict on each other. While movies often portray dark magic as being simple as waving a wand and shouting 'Avada Kedavra', Gavin demonstrates the intense physical and psychological difficulty as well as symbolism and tedium of study and practice required to perform such a ritual. It was a strong film with a strong message.
BUSTER'S MAL HEART written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith stars Rami Malek as 'Buster', a virtual legend living hidden in the remote mountains camping during the summer and wintering in vacation homes while their owners are away. Through flashbacks, we see the events the led Buster to this point in a MR ROBOT meets FIGHT CLUB meets THE SHINING on the way to DONNIE DARKO's house. After a strong buildup, I was disappointed by the last fifteen minutes. Malek is brilliant, and I generally liked the film, but I felt it reaches too hard to achieve something it doesn't need to do in order to succeed, and would have been better served if Smith had chosen to omit one of the influences I mentioned.
Among and between these I have also caught two very good shorts programs and also the features BELIEF: THE POSSESSION OF JANET MOSES, NOVA SEED, POPOZ, 24X36, and THE DWARVES MUST BE CRAZY. More to come...
Augustus Gloop
