Though I'll be watching the Oscars on Sunday with no small amount of interest in who receives awards, I genuinely do believe that the most important part of awards season is the period between nominations being announced and the actual ceremony; it's a decently-curated list of good films and a manageable bit of pressure to see and discuss them now. For the live-action shorts, it's even more; while the animated and documentary shorts have some outlets to get seen, if not as many as features, these films' best chances to find an audience are undeniably in the blocks that play theaters in the lead-up to the ceremonies.
It shouldn't be that way; there's often greatness in these films and a streaming service that could get people to watch one of these rather than just dipping into The Office again could do a world of good, but the algorithms are fickle and would need to be trained to serve up these small, generally independent productions. Maybe I'll try and start training Prime to offer them to me this spring by finding what I can and watching a bunch; in the meantime, this showcase is their biggest stage.
"Une Soeur" ("A Sister")
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 4 February 2020 in Landmark Kendall Square #9 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
The first one included in this year's batch is "A Sister", written and directed by Delphine Girad, which opens with a nervous woman (Selma Alaoui) and an agitated man (Guillaume Duhesme) in a car, driving down a dark road. She says she needs to call her sister Lucie, who is looking after the kids, and anybody watching can see that she's choosing her words carefully to avoid upsetting the driver. After a minute, it rewinds to also show the woman on the other end of the call (Veerle Baetens), which paints a much different picture.
Girad takes these simple building blocks and creates a tight little thriller, a game of cat-and-mouse that isn't exactly low-stakes to the people involved but which is pointedly limited in space and where specific threats are not entirely laid out. In telling this story this way, she is applying genre trappings to something more urgently real, pointing out that for many women, a lot of everyday life can be as nail-biting as any suspense picture but much less fun, with Alaoui and Baetens making sure that even moments that can play as cool or collected come off as ill-conceived bravado or with frustration and resignation. These women know this bad situation, but that doesn't make handling it easier or less dangerous
Girad gets a lot out of simple environments, and the cinematography by Juliette Van Dormael is so aggressively not showy that it sometimes can seem frustrating, as there's rarely any extra light, so it's fairly dark inside the car - and darker still in flashbacks to earlier in the evening - while the lights are down back in the city as well, just dim enough to make "Lulu" seem clearly defined but anonymous. Depending on presentation, viewers may sometimes feel themselves squinting to catch what is going on, though it certainly captures how much situations like this happen outside of view.
"Brotherhood"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 4 February 2020 in Landmark Kendall Square #9 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
We move from Belgium to Tunisia for "Brotherhood", which begins with a shepherd (Mohamed Grayaâ) and his sons putting down a goat that has been felled by a wolf, something older son Chaker (Chaker Mechergui) is having a hard time mustering the stomach to do. Chaker is, in fact, his second-oldest son, with Malek (Malek Mechergui) just returning from Syria with new wife Reem (Jasmine Lazid) in tow, hidden behind a burqa and pregnant. Though mother Salha (Salha Nasraoui) is forgiving, the circumstances of Malek's return sit as poorly with Mohamed as his reasons for leaving.
The audience learns those in time; writer/director Meryam Joobeur has a knack for letting important pieces of information reveal themselves without the film stopping for a character to shout them and then slowing down enough so that the viewer has a few moments to chew on them without much distraction. That one can feel her doing this is interesting because one can often sense that Mohamed is not reconsidering things in that way, at least not until he's finally got every last piece. Joobeur nevertheless lets the idea of how that mindset can be dangerous as well as unkind simmer, even though the very first scene highlights a decisiveness that expects a lot out of his family.
It's a nice little performance, meshing well with that of Salha Nasraoui, giving this married couple a history that hasn't soured despite the amount of wear they both display; they get how to argue passionately enough that one feels how strongly the pair disagree and a sense of the line that both know not to approach and how bad it would be to cross it. Jasmin Lazid does very nice work even when almost completely hidden behind black cloth, and while Joobeur wanting to keep some cards close limits what Malek Mechergui can do a bit, the scenes between him and what I presume (from the shared last name) are his real-life brothers are terrific, underlining the sense of familial bonds even when the older characters are speaking about something less purely emotional but more easily defined.
"The Neighbor's Window"
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 4 February 2020 in Landmark Kendall Square #9 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
"The Neighbor's Window" is a sitcom plot that someone decided to take seriously, starting with thirty-ish Alli (Maria Dizzia) and Jacob (Greg Keller), parents of rambunctious twins with another baby on the way, noticing that the attractive new neighbors across the way haven't bothered to put up drapes or blinds or the like before getting it on in their new apartment. They never really get around to it, and over the next year or so, the older couple never really stops looking, even if it prompts both a little jealousy and reminders that they aren't exactly those sort of free-spirited 22-year-olds any more.
Filmmaker Marshall Curry and his cast work to elevate the story over a Friends subplot, with discussions of the meaning of why Alli and Jacob watch coming early rather than in an epilogue and a more dramatic twist coming somewhere around the midway point, but it the story doesn't quite make the jump from coming across an experiment in playing a comic trope straight to playing like the anecdote that gets simplified. The film also feels like the characters' lives are built around the times they're looking out the window with references to the rest of their existence not quite organic. Relatedly, it's also got one of those endings where the bad fortune that befalls others transparently exists solely so that the protagonists can learn from it
Still, that last scene has co-star Juliana Canfield doing her level best to turn the perspective around, even if the material just doesn't seem to be there. Keller and especially Dizzia do well with what they're given as well, making asides about their kids being a handful pull their weight in keeping things moving. And if the bulk of the film often feels by-the-numbers, the sequence where Alli is unable to look away at the moment when it would be most mortifying to have the neighbors see her watching is likely enough to get the entire short nominated on its own.
"Saria"
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 4 February 2020 in Landmark Kendall Square #9 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
Bryan Buckley's "Saria" opens with a great sequence of its own, with a sizeable insect zipping across the floor, and in a way it's both the woman whose heavy footsteps it dodges - vermin that endangers the orphans under her care and also the kids, small and easily endangered even if they are sometimes quick-witted enough to skitter out of the way. Saria (Estefanía Tellez) certainly is; the pre-teen may not yet understand big sister Ximena (Gabriela Ramírez) being interested in boys, but she's brave and quick-witted, with a plan to escape this place and flee to America, even if it means walking 2,500 km from Guatemala. And when Ms. López (Imelda Castro) subjects her to horrific punishment for mouthing off in class, that only makes her more determined.
Based on a true story and performed in large part by children who were present during the events of 17 March 2017, "Saria" appropriates its namesake's bluntness, forsaking any euphemisms for how many of the children in this "safe home" are regularly being raped and otherwise abused and instead having the girls talk frankly about it and scream the fact in protest as they flee. Buckley infuses the film with hot rage from beginning to end, making sure to leave very little room for any sort of idealized innocence or ideas that this was an avoidable tragedy where people were trying their hardest. Even if it was, his insistence on maintaining Saria's point of view until moments before the end means that the audience will see very little room for forgiveness, and will have to connect their own dots of just what awaits a group of dozens of Latino kids at the American border. It's harsh, but an earned harshness, careful not to exaggerate in either direction, not sanitizing the situation or making the kids too wise.
The young cast is very good for being either non-actors or on some of their first roles, with Tellez and Ramirez especially good. Buckley handles the more active parts of the film nicely as well, making for a fine climax even if the epilogue is a bit curt.
"Nefta Football Club"
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 4 February 2020 in Landmark Kendall Square #9 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
After that heavy true story, it's fun to finish up with "Nefta Football Club", a fun shaggy-dog story where a goat wearing headphones is lost in Algeria and found by a pair of brothers across the border in Tunisia - who also find the many packages of white powder in its saddlebags, which older brother Mohamed (Eltayef Dhaoui) figures he can sell, although naive, football-loving kid brother Abdallah (Mohamed Ali Ayari) has another idea.
Yves Piat's film is endearingly odd, the sort of thing you could easily see being the first act of a Coen Brothers-style caper that gets weirder and more twisted as it goes along, so it's actually somewhat impressive that he knows where to stop, establishing just enough to make the eccentric premise work but also limiting things to the point where it can come in for a smooth landing after 17 minutes. Piat is good at packing everything he needs into that space - set up something that will pay into the climax as local color early, make the smugglers' differing interests part of the plot, get from one thing that needs to happen to the next with snappy jokes that nevertheless don't make the kids sound like miniature adults, that sort of thing.
On top of that, the film's got two separate entertaining odd couples, with Lyès Salem and Hichem Mesbah having a bit of a Laurel & Hardy thing going on the one hand and Eltayef Dhaoui & Mohamed Ali Ayari having great sibling rapport on the other. Ayari is especially fun, a ball of kid-brother energy who is able to sell that Abdallah is a bright kid while also having the sort of wide-eyed innocence that can throw a major wrench into his brother's plans.
"Nefta Football Club" and "A Sister" are my favorites from the package, although I wouldn't bet against the rawness of "Saria" in terms of who actually receives the award. Mostly, I just want it to be easier to quickly find a good short or three two watch when I've got fifteen minutes or a half hour to fill.
Showing posts with label Tunisia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tunisia. Show all posts
Friday, February 07, 2020
Friday, December 13, 2019
Fantasia 2019.20: And Your Bird Can Sing, Dare to Stop Us, Jessica Forever, Tokyo Ghoul S, and Dachra
Look, folks, I got the review for Tokyo Ghoul S up on eFilmCritic (under whose auspices I was awarded a pass to this festival) before its two-night run, and I've been covering a lot of other movies while they're in theaters, and somehow it means that these just kept getting pushed forward to the point where I'm trying to see if I can watch these things online now because it's been so long since the specific festival and the circuit in general. So a couple of these are basically going to be me saying I saw them.
Kimi no tori wa utaeru (And Your Bird Can Sing)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
It would be nice to say that this film make enough of an impression on me that some part of my brain flashes to it when I read its English-language title, but that's not really the case; I just get a loud rendition of the Beatles tune (and, for that matter, just that line of the song). It's okay enough as a movie, but feels like a lot of the Japanese indies that have been playing Fantasia of late - a main character in his early twenties who doesn't betray much ambition, the pretty girl who seems to have a little more going on in the same orbit, and a fair amount of drinking, karaoke, and hook-ups that lead to the potential relationship sputtering or flaming out. There are a couple of funny moments and the sort of clear, disappointed take on the world as it is today that might make this group of films be recognizable as a movement in ten or fifteen years, but not a moment that makes it a must-see.
It's good enough, though. Director/screenwriter Sho Miyake has probably inherited the narrator (Emoto Tasuku) just being credited as "me" from the source novel, which had me confusing him with his roommate Shizuo (Sometani Shota) a lot in the early going, as Shizuo seems more the focus, with Sometani delivering what you might call a dull-knife's-edge performance - there's not necessarily a lot about Shizuo to be impressed with - his lazy passivity probably invites more disdain - but there's just enough spark to him, especially his powerful crush on co-worker Sachiko (Ishibashi Shizuka) to make the audience want more from him. Ishibashi is thankfully given just enough material to make Sachko more than just an idealized girl who's more than the guys deserve, even if the film is not going to stretch its focus far enough to compare how young women are handling this seemingly dead-end life to their male contemporaries.
That's probably in part because they're seeing the manager and there's this perception that sleeping with older guys is a path to mobility that young men don't have (which may have the tiniest grain of truth but is also a sign of other problems), which is too bad, because it camouflages how the movie also has some solid ideas about generational issues. Even when they haven't vanished down a self-destructive hole like the narrator's mother, the're people like humorless, petty assistant manager Moriguchi or manager Shizon, who aside from sleeping with his young female employees always looks at least a little drunk. If the previous generation is so impressive, how does the next find the inspiration to "mature"?
Lots of Japanese movies seem to be asking that question lately, and this one does too, even if it doesn't exactly have that memorable an answer.
Tomerareru ka, oretachi o (Dare to Stop Us)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
I have probably, over the course of attending this genre festival and other events like it, gotten myself a pretty warped perspective on what filmmakers are a big deal. When it comes to Japanese filmmakers, for instance, I know very little Ozu, but a movie about fringe icon Koji Wakamatsu? Let me clear my festival schedule for that! Truth be told, there's probably more drama to be found in that anarchist maniac's orbit than that of a respected genius, although some may be a bit disappointed that Dare to Stop Us takes place more within that orbit rather than focusing on Wakamatsu himself.
Instead, it's told from the perspective of Megumi Yoshizumi (Mugi Kadowaki), a young woman who seems to be on the fringes of the art world when she meets a friend Michio "Spook" Akiyama (Soran Tamoto) in a cafe, asking if she knows any girls that could pass for 15 for a pink film he's working on (the producers of these short skin flicks didn't care what sort of messages the filmmakers put in so long as they had the requisite number of sex scenes). She will wind up before the camera in films with names like "Female Student Guerilla" for Wakamatsu (Arata Iura), whose anti-establishment cinema is rooted having been arrested when authorities thought he was a yakuza. He attracts a varied group of writers from Atsushi Yamatoya (Shima Ohnishi) to critic-turned screenwriter Haruhiko Arai (Kisetsu Fujiwara) to Megumi's crush Kenji Takama (Ku Ijima), and Megumi eventually becomes a good assistant director, but as Wakamatsu's fame grows and stabilizing force Spook leaves, the situation at his studio becomes more unpredictable as he's emboldened to take on more radical projects.
Wakamatsu is the leader of this cohort and the one whose name is best known nearly fifty years after the events of these movies, but the film does not spend much time demonstrating his genius; the filmmakers show fleeting glimpses and recreations of his work from this period or spend much time demonstrating any particular genius in his methods. Arata Iura doesn't go the full "abrasive, abusive genius" route, instead recreating the sort of charisma that has a person floating just far enough above the rest to seem extraordinary while still being close enough to grasp onto. He's magnetic, but just certain enough of his own genius that he can shrug off turmoil underneath him.
Full review at EFilmCritic
Jessica Forever
* ½ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
At some point during Jessica Forever, I started wondering if maybe this whole thing was a fantasy of some character or other, because that's the only way it starts to make some sort of sense, but absent some more concrete indication from the film itself, it's hard to justify that interpretation, even if it does leave the movie a weird mess of uncertain wish fulfillment badly masquerading as world-building. At best, you can say it's a fable, but it's a dull one, unsatisfying as entertainment.
The film opens with a group of lost boys conducting a sort of raid/rescue; Michael (Sebastian Urzendowsky) is about to be captured or put down by a bunch of drones, but other orphans like himself, led by the beautiful Jessica (Aomi Muyock) save him, and whisk him away to a sort of camp in a large house where they stay together, hunting for food and supplies in disciplined units. When the authorities track them down, they relocate, this time to an island, where Michael meets Camille (Maya Coline) while he and one of the other boys are bathing at the beach, and she seems to like him. The thing about tight-knit groups like Jessica's teenage orphans, though, is that things start to unravel once you add a new element to it.
So, just what is this thing that filmmakers Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel (with script collaboration from Mariette Désert) have made? It feels dystopian for a while, but that falls away as Michael and a few of the other boys start coming into contact with outsiders on the island. There's maybe something to say about how life goes on otherwise even if an oppressive regime is cracking down on vulnerable people like these orphans, but it's not something people talk about. So maybe it's a fantasy, either of Michael's or of these dozen boys collectively, where they're still basically children even if their bodies have passed adolescence, the only girl they have to deal with a crush-worthy babysitter who never scolds and showers them with toys, leading them on adventures of the sort that boys like this find thrilling. It makes as much sense as anything.
Full review at EFilmCritic
Tôkyô gûru 'S' (Tokyo Ghoul S)
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Tokyo Ghoul S is a "more of that" sequel; it doesn't particularly expand the mythology or have its characters grow and change that much, but delivers audiences another serving of what they enjoyed about the first. Folks who liked the live-action Tokyo Ghoul movie that came out a couple of years ago will likely have fun with this one, and those who missed it won't be overwhelmed. It's not the most ambitious franchise entry, but it doesn't send the series off the rails.
As established last time, "ghouls" live hidden among humanity, unable to eat much other than human flesh and able to fight with extra limbs. Ken Kaneki (Msataka Kubota) is unusual in that he started out human but was given transplant organs from a ghoul; he now works at the "Antieku" coffee shop that caters to ghouls, alongside Toka Kirishima (Maika Yamamoto). Most of the ghoul community understandably keeps out of sight, but Shu Tsukiyama (Shota Matsuda) is not most ghouls - known as "The Gourmet", this trouble-making idle riche type lives to dine on the finest and most unusual human specimens, like the model with different colored eyes he hunts in the opening. A chance encounter with Ken sends his cravings into overdrive - a human with the flavor of a ghoul? How delicious and transgressive!
You would think that some of the ghouls that Ken met in the first movie would have noticed that he smelled incredibly delicious, but to be fair, most of them are trying to live quiet, minimally-murderous lives, and have thus made a habit of repressing their predatory instincts. Not that the screenplay by Chuji Mikasano shows any particular need to explain that in such a way, and it's actually rather striking in its relative lack of ambition: After the first film introduced a whole semi-hidden world, the people making this one banish the Commision of Counter-Ghoul Operations to the sidelines despite the exceptionally high-profile murder that opens the movie, and tend to tread water with Ken and Toka keeping their secret from their human classmates/best friends. The supporting characters from the first are, at best, used as potential hostages and victims here, as the scope narrows to focus on Ken and his immediate problems, making it personal.
Full review at EFilmCritic
"Limbo"
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
I saw this, but can't say that any particular details are coming back to me four months later. But this here's a log so I'm logging it.
Dachra
* * * (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Dachra is being described as the first horror film from Tunisia, and that alone makes it worth seeing for some - aside from it being fun to have one's cinematic passport stamped by as many countries as possible, this sort of genre film often says a lot about how people see themselves in general and by what frightens them. And if that's not something one is particularly curious about, it's also a pretty darn decent scary movie, even if it does occasionally show some rough edges.
It follows a group of three journalism students, Yasmine (Yassmine Dimassi), Bilel (Bilel Slatnia), and Walid (Aziz Jbali) who, looking for a story that will really excite their professor, decide to investigate a girl in a mental hospital (Hela Ayed) who emerged from the woods twenty years ago and seems almost feral. They learn just enough to find where she was found, and it leads them through a path to a hidden town, where they meet a friendly host in Saber, though a pregnant goat-herder tells them to run. Alas, their car is broken, it's about to get dark, and Saber can't help them get to town until the next morning. But there's an empty house or two, and maybe this dairy from a couple decades ago will make interesting reading for Yasmine.
Writer/director/editor Abdelhamid Bouchnak doesn't stray far from the basics here; there are definitely moments when it feels like he dropped a cult compound in the middle of The Blair Witch Project, and seasoned horror movie fans are going to have immediate suspicions about what all the meat drying between on the outsides of the various buildings really is. He never goes about it in half-hearted manner, though, making the path the team follows to this Dachra area enjoyably lurid, with the other end matching it with every attempted step out of this place seeming to put the characters into a bigger hole (at least, those that don't meet impressively bloody ends).
Full review on EFilmCritic
Kimi no tori wa utaeru (And Your Bird Can Sing)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
It would be nice to say that this film make enough of an impression on me that some part of my brain flashes to it when I read its English-language title, but that's not really the case; I just get a loud rendition of the Beatles tune (and, for that matter, just that line of the song). It's okay enough as a movie, but feels like a lot of the Japanese indies that have been playing Fantasia of late - a main character in his early twenties who doesn't betray much ambition, the pretty girl who seems to have a little more going on in the same orbit, and a fair amount of drinking, karaoke, and hook-ups that lead to the potential relationship sputtering or flaming out. There are a couple of funny moments and the sort of clear, disappointed take on the world as it is today that might make this group of films be recognizable as a movement in ten or fifteen years, but not a moment that makes it a must-see.
It's good enough, though. Director/screenwriter Sho Miyake has probably inherited the narrator (Emoto Tasuku) just being credited as "me" from the source novel, which had me confusing him with his roommate Shizuo (Sometani Shota) a lot in the early going, as Shizuo seems more the focus, with Sometani delivering what you might call a dull-knife's-edge performance - there's not necessarily a lot about Shizuo to be impressed with - his lazy passivity probably invites more disdain - but there's just enough spark to him, especially his powerful crush on co-worker Sachiko (Ishibashi Shizuka) to make the audience want more from him. Ishibashi is thankfully given just enough material to make Sachko more than just an idealized girl who's more than the guys deserve, even if the film is not going to stretch its focus far enough to compare how young women are handling this seemingly dead-end life to their male contemporaries.
That's probably in part because they're seeing the manager and there's this perception that sleeping with older guys is a path to mobility that young men don't have (which may have the tiniest grain of truth but is also a sign of other problems), which is too bad, because it camouflages how the movie also has some solid ideas about generational issues. Even when they haven't vanished down a self-destructive hole like the narrator's mother, the're people like humorless, petty assistant manager Moriguchi or manager Shizon, who aside from sleeping with his young female employees always looks at least a little drunk. If the previous generation is so impressive, how does the next find the inspiration to "mature"?
Lots of Japanese movies seem to be asking that question lately, and this one does too, even if it doesn't exactly have that memorable an answer.
Tomerareru ka, oretachi o (Dare to Stop Us)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
I have probably, over the course of attending this genre festival and other events like it, gotten myself a pretty warped perspective on what filmmakers are a big deal. When it comes to Japanese filmmakers, for instance, I know very little Ozu, but a movie about fringe icon Koji Wakamatsu? Let me clear my festival schedule for that! Truth be told, there's probably more drama to be found in that anarchist maniac's orbit than that of a respected genius, although some may be a bit disappointed that Dare to Stop Us takes place more within that orbit rather than focusing on Wakamatsu himself.
Instead, it's told from the perspective of Megumi Yoshizumi (Mugi Kadowaki), a young woman who seems to be on the fringes of the art world when she meets a friend Michio "Spook" Akiyama (Soran Tamoto) in a cafe, asking if she knows any girls that could pass for 15 for a pink film he's working on (the producers of these short skin flicks didn't care what sort of messages the filmmakers put in so long as they had the requisite number of sex scenes). She will wind up before the camera in films with names like "Female Student Guerilla" for Wakamatsu (Arata Iura), whose anti-establishment cinema is rooted having been arrested when authorities thought he was a yakuza. He attracts a varied group of writers from Atsushi Yamatoya (Shima Ohnishi) to critic-turned screenwriter Haruhiko Arai (Kisetsu Fujiwara) to Megumi's crush Kenji Takama (Ku Ijima), and Megumi eventually becomes a good assistant director, but as Wakamatsu's fame grows and stabilizing force Spook leaves, the situation at his studio becomes more unpredictable as he's emboldened to take on more radical projects.
Wakamatsu is the leader of this cohort and the one whose name is best known nearly fifty years after the events of these movies, but the film does not spend much time demonstrating his genius; the filmmakers show fleeting glimpses and recreations of his work from this period or spend much time demonstrating any particular genius in his methods. Arata Iura doesn't go the full "abrasive, abusive genius" route, instead recreating the sort of charisma that has a person floating just far enough above the rest to seem extraordinary while still being close enough to grasp onto. He's magnetic, but just certain enough of his own genius that he can shrug off turmoil underneath him.
Full review at EFilmCritic
Jessica Forever
* ½ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Salle J.A. DeSève (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
At some point during Jessica Forever, I started wondering if maybe this whole thing was a fantasy of some character or other, because that's the only way it starts to make some sort of sense, but absent some more concrete indication from the film itself, it's hard to justify that interpretation, even if it does leave the movie a weird mess of uncertain wish fulfillment badly masquerading as world-building. At best, you can say it's a fable, but it's a dull one, unsatisfying as entertainment.
The film opens with a group of lost boys conducting a sort of raid/rescue; Michael (Sebastian Urzendowsky) is about to be captured or put down by a bunch of drones, but other orphans like himself, led by the beautiful Jessica (Aomi Muyock) save him, and whisk him away to a sort of camp in a large house where they stay together, hunting for food and supplies in disciplined units. When the authorities track them down, they relocate, this time to an island, where Michael meets Camille (Maya Coline) while he and one of the other boys are bathing at the beach, and she seems to like him. The thing about tight-knit groups like Jessica's teenage orphans, though, is that things start to unravel once you add a new element to it.
So, just what is this thing that filmmakers Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel (with script collaboration from Mariette Désert) have made? It feels dystopian for a while, but that falls away as Michael and a few of the other boys start coming into contact with outsiders on the island. There's maybe something to say about how life goes on otherwise even if an oppressive regime is cracking down on vulnerable people like these orphans, but it's not something people talk about. So maybe it's a fantasy, either of Michael's or of these dozen boys collectively, where they're still basically children even if their bodies have passed adolescence, the only girl they have to deal with a crush-worthy babysitter who never scolds and showers them with toys, leading them on adventures of the sort that boys like this find thrilling. It makes as much sense as anything.
Full review at EFilmCritic
Tôkyô gûru 'S' (Tokyo Ghoul S)
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Tokyo Ghoul S is a "more of that" sequel; it doesn't particularly expand the mythology or have its characters grow and change that much, but delivers audiences another serving of what they enjoyed about the first. Folks who liked the live-action Tokyo Ghoul movie that came out a couple of years ago will likely have fun with this one, and those who missed it won't be overwhelmed. It's not the most ambitious franchise entry, but it doesn't send the series off the rails.
As established last time, "ghouls" live hidden among humanity, unable to eat much other than human flesh and able to fight with extra limbs. Ken Kaneki (Msataka Kubota) is unusual in that he started out human but was given transplant organs from a ghoul; he now works at the "Antieku" coffee shop that caters to ghouls, alongside Toka Kirishima (Maika Yamamoto). Most of the ghoul community understandably keeps out of sight, but Shu Tsukiyama (Shota Matsuda) is not most ghouls - known as "The Gourmet", this trouble-making idle riche type lives to dine on the finest and most unusual human specimens, like the model with different colored eyes he hunts in the opening. A chance encounter with Ken sends his cravings into overdrive - a human with the flavor of a ghoul? How delicious and transgressive!
You would think that some of the ghouls that Ken met in the first movie would have noticed that he smelled incredibly delicious, but to be fair, most of them are trying to live quiet, minimally-murderous lives, and have thus made a habit of repressing their predatory instincts. Not that the screenplay by Chuji Mikasano shows any particular need to explain that in such a way, and it's actually rather striking in its relative lack of ambition: After the first film introduced a whole semi-hidden world, the people making this one banish the Commision of Counter-Ghoul Operations to the sidelines despite the exceptionally high-profile murder that opens the movie, and tend to tread water with Ken and Toka keeping their secret from their human classmates/best friends. The supporting characters from the first are, at best, used as potential hostages and victims here, as the scope narrows to focus on Ken and his immediate problems, making it personal.
Full review at EFilmCritic
"Limbo"
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
I saw this, but can't say that any particular details are coming back to me four months later. But this here's a log so I'm logging it.
Dachra
* * * (out of four)
Seen 30 July 2019 in Auditorium des Diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia International Film Festival, DCP)
Dachra is being described as the first horror film from Tunisia, and that alone makes it worth seeing for some - aside from it being fun to have one's cinematic passport stamped by as many countries as possible, this sort of genre film often says a lot about how people see themselves in general and by what frightens them. And if that's not something one is particularly curious about, it's also a pretty darn decent scary movie, even if it does occasionally show some rough edges.
It follows a group of three journalism students, Yasmine (Yassmine Dimassi), Bilel (Bilel Slatnia), and Walid (Aziz Jbali) who, looking for a story that will really excite their professor, decide to investigate a girl in a mental hospital (Hela Ayed) who emerged from the woods twenty years ago and seems almost feral. They learn just enough to find where she was found, and it leads them through a path to a hidden town, where they meet a friendly host in Saber, though a pregnant goat-herder tells them to run. Alas, their car is broken, it's about to get dark, and Saber can't help them get to town until the next morning. But there's an empty house or two, and maybe this dairy from a couple decades ago will make interesting reading for Yasmine.
Writer/director/editor Abdelhamid Bouchnak doesn't stray far from the basics here; there are definitely moments when it feels like he dropped a cult compound in the middle of The Blair Witch Project, and seasoned horror movie fans are going to have immediate suspicions about what all the meat drying between on the outsides of the various buildings really is. He never goes about it in half-hearted manner, though, making the path the team follows to this Dachra area enjoyably lurid, with the other end matching it with every attempted step out of this place seeming to put the characters into a bigger hole (at least, those that don't meet impressively bloody ends).
Full review on EFilmCritic
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