Two sets of photos from the first show of the Day!
First up, the co-writer/director/star of "You Don't Read Enough", Emilia Michalowska, and co-writer/director Noa Kozulin, who commented that they were both the children of immigrants whose mothers both said the title to them on the regular.
After the feature, programmer Carolyn Mauricette welcomed
Darkest Naomi writer/director Naomi Jaye and original novelist Martha Baillie; like the title character of Jaye's film, both Mauricette & Baillie have been library workers, mentioning that you find a lot of people in real life like in the film, waiting at the door for them to open in the morning and hanging around until closing time. They talked about how it was a tricky adaptation because the novel took the form of various incident reports, which wouldn't translate to film.
And we finish with Mitch talking to
Rita director Jayro Bustamante. The film hails from Guatemala, which is a small country that doesn't have a lot of infrastructure for even a film of this scale, especially one where the cast was almost entirely young girls: They basically had to create an academy from the ground up - with 500 prospective actresses! - and then cast the graduates. If I recall correctly, roughly half made it into the film in one way or another, and some were finding other work since.
There were a number of folks from Guatemala in the audience - well-represented in the Q&A period, especially - which added something to the "thank you for this movie" intros which I often find kind of odd (especially when it's more or less the entire comment). There are variations on scandals like this all over the world - Native American boarding schools in Canada and the U.S., church-run sweatshops in Ireland, etc. - but it's got to be weirdly gratifying to see your small country's horror story memorialized well enough to play foreign film festivals because that probably means it is well-done enough to stick at home.
"You Don't Read Enough"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 24 July 2024 in Salle J.A. De Sève (Fantasia 2024: Septentrion Shadows, laser DCP)
I love that the title of this short would be comprehensible nonsense even if it's not actually mentioned within the film; there are just things about parental relationships of this sort that feel universal even if the specifics are extremely personal and random. The actual story is basically nonexistent: At 4:10pm, Kasia (Emilia Michalowska) gets a call from her Polish-immigrant mother saying she'll be home in about twenty minutes. This does not happen, and Kasia worries, resolves not to worry, and worries some more, all while thinking about how fraught their relationship has been.
The kick to it, though, is the moment when she starts thinking about what a burden would be lifted if something has happened to her mother, and the presentation and cutting is close to marvelous, keeping this undercurrent of guilt as opposed to doing a hard cut in and out of a pleasant reverie, but that's not how it works most of the time. It's just enough to have the ending bit not just be an amusing anticlima.
Darkest Miriam
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 25 July 2024 in Salle J.A. De Sève (Fantasia 2024: Septentrion Shadows, laser DCP)
Titles are funny; this movie with the name "Darkest Miriam" really didn't do much for me, but seeing in the end credits that the original novel was named "The Incident Report" made it click into place a bit more. How often is the title a marketing tool and how often is it the hub to which one is connecting the other pieces of the story? It doesn't change the movie much, but it does reframe it.
The audience doesn't hear much from Miriam Gordon (Britt Lower), dark or otherwise at first, as she leaves home and bikes to the library where she works, near a nice park in the center of Toronto, leading story hours and reshelving books. Soon, though, she is giving a list of the various oddballs who frequent the branch but still mostly reserved. Things change, though, when a fellow cyclist knocks her into a hole that has been excavated in the street and she stares up, dazed, for some time. The next morning, she awkwardly leaves her medical examination over the personal questions, but she seems okay and more assertive, actually approaching the cute slovenian cabbie/artist, Janko Priajtelj (Tom Mercier) who often takes lunch in the park at the same time.
Apparently the novel consists of the incident reports of the title, letting the documentation of something odd happening in the library and elsewhere rather that focusing on Miriam directly, and they're the moments of the film that often have the most punch: They're where we get to hear Miriam's voice and get a point of view that's wry rather than flat, and Lower's delivery is arch enough to emphasize both the remove and the insight into her mind. Once the film finishes, it can maybe sink in that it's been a series of incidents to be filed away and sorted, discrete and more indicative of the larger world than the entirety of her story.
Britt Lower is great, at least, slowly adding to what initially seems like an informed blankness as the film goes on, occasionally displaying a powerful anxiety as she realizes just how blank she maybe is. Through long stretches where one maybe starts to wonder if this is leading anywhere, she, at least, is always fascinating. She and Tom Mercier play well off each other, with Lower, Mercier, and screenwriter/director Naomi Jaye having a good sense of how to make Janko pushy and prickly where Miriam tends to retreat without looking like he's steamrolling her. They don't have to be soulmates here, just a couple folks who at least work together now, and the film is comfortable at that level.
They and the interactions with relatively random folks at the library work well enough that it can sometimes highlight that Jaye doesn't do quite so well when it's time to unambiguously center Miriam. The story that has her at the center (a stalker placing unnerving letters in books) is too centered around a reference rather than her interactions with people; unpacking her past happens piecemeal and often in quiet, possibly-metaphorical images and memories that aren't quite flashbacks. There's a certain logic to it - Miriam is who she is in large part due to things that happened at a slight remove, rather than to her directly - but it makes it possible to disengage.
I never did, not entirely, but it was hard not to feel that while the film created a number of small segments that mostly work together, the effect was often not to increase their importance in the moment but to diminish the larger tragedies. One can get to the end and feel like it should have been more affecting.
"Piggy ½"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 July 2024 in Salle J.A. De Sève (Fantasia 2024: Animation Pllus, laser DCP)
Writer Kuo Po-shen and director Fish Wang are not exactly subtle with their intentions in "Piggy ½"; it's a science-fiction film that is meticulously constructed to make a specific point, and that construction is heavy-duty: They do not want to simply posit a world that makes the horrors of ours sharper by creating analogs that feel truthful because of their intent, but a machine where you can see each part working, how they interact, and how they came to be constructed. Where some might avoid that level of detail lest a viewer feel that some specific piece invalidates the point or causes the story to fall apart, they apparently consider rigor convincing.
They're not wrong, although it can make bits slow going as anthropomorphic piglets Bob and Mei await the "ritual" that will determine whether they and the others of their generation will be become laborers or "canned goods", because their homeland does not have enough resources to support them all. Bob, in particular, is a natural rabble rouser and rebel, but his defiance and exile will, if nothing else, help sharpen his instincts as he learns more of what goes on behind the curtain maintained by the priests.
There's a lot of work to do, getting all the world-building in and also building it as an adventure for Bob and creating some nifty images. Wang doesn't exactly do two things at once all that much, so things can be rather deliberate at times, not so much obviously shifting from one gear to another, but concentrating very hard on the current goal, even as it shifts to new goals cleanly. It's never dull, though; the designs and animation are quite nice, the voice work is strong and emotional even if you're getting the actual dialogue from subtitles because you don't speak mandarin, and the finale is suitably big and bold. It maybe meanders a bit there, but a viewer can enjoy the audacity of it without worrying too much about it undercutting the central metaphor.
Animalia Paradoxa
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 25 July 2024 in Salle J.A. De Sève (Fantasia 2024: Fantasia Underground/Animation Plus, laser DCP)
Animalia Paradoxa is the sort of movie where, after a certain point, each fade to black has the audience wondering if the movie's done. Not necessarily because one is ready after a half hour or so (though one may be), but because the story is wispy enough and so much about examining its present rather than pushing to a conclusion that it could be. When it doesn't, for better or worse, you repeat the process in another ten minutes or so.
It takes place in an urban dystopia, the sort of place where seemingly only the most blandly brutalist buildings have survived, although with enough density that there's not much chance of seeing anything other than a sky that is never anything other than gray. Somehow, an amphibious humanoid has wound up in the center of all this, trying to gather enough water from scant rain and occasional leaking pipes to take the occasional bath, scavenging food and trinkets which he can use for trade, hoping to find a way back to the sea.
Filmmaker Niles Atallah doesn't necessarily leap straight into this creature's tale, though, opening with stop motion that leads to found footage of newsreels and educational footage, kind of building one of those things where the main narrative is a couple layers deep so that one doesn't take it quite so literally or as hard science fiction, although it's not really necessary. These bookends and occasional digressions are enjoyable enough in their own right, and they're where the various different artists and craftsmen who came together to make this film get to show their stuff. It's dark but playful in the same way as Guy Maddin or Jan Svankmajer.
There's plenty to like in the main film between those bits; it's the sort of mixed media creation that intrigued by its juxtaposition of marionette, contortion, and stop-motion animation, the exaggeration and decay especially effective in this post-apocalyptic setting, where you're never entirely sure whether the world is now populated by actual mutants or just a twisted society. There's an impressive manner of getting a lot out of a little; our amphibian protagonist gets a lot of mileage out of a mask, grippy-lookimg sneakers, and odd posture, for example.
It's a slight story, though; this creature and many of the humans it interacts with are silent, and thus any goal of teaching the sea rather than just surviving day to day has to be inferred from relatively little. The residents of this crumbled city are more a handful of interesting designs than a community, as is the big (and striking to watch!) finale. It's also dusty and gray enough that one might think the film is black and white until the occasional hit of color, so the film will only occasionally startle with its incentive world.
It's kind of boring, really, a piece of art that often demands a lot of investment for relatively scant returns. This sort of thing isn't particularly meant to be mainstream or commercial, but it would be nice if all of the individual pieces performed some sort of alchemy as they came together to become an interesting movie rather than nifty little bits.
Rita
* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 July 2024 in Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia 2024, laser DCP)
Rita is better than a lot of films where the push is how true and important the story is. That's perhaps both because of and despite how magic-realist the film is; if you can get through the first ten or fifteen minutes where it is practically shouting how eccentric and fantastical it is, it manages to establish the right amount of distance and not be an exercise in fetishistic recreation of atrocities. It's familiar, in some ways, to the audience which will actually seek out and watch this film, and the challenge is to make an impression, which it meets.
It opens with a police vehicle driving deep into the Guatemalan jungle to a fortress; the prisoner, Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz) is a 13-year-old girl who has run away from home and has now fought back against her father because he was targeting her even younger sister. She's assigned to a room where the girls where angel wings, and after some hazing, the other girls - tall, abrasive Sulmy (Ángela Quevedo), young Bebé (Alejandra Vásquez), leader Terca (Isabel Aldana) - begin to accept her, and in fact believe she is to be a crucial part of their plan to flee and stage a protest on international Women's Day.
The angel wings and other dorms where girls sport different fantastical accouterments are not entirely for show; there's a current of magic realism in the film that is maybe a little stronger than just symbolism. Even with all that, though, the film is still at its most affecting when it's matter of fact, with young teenagers speaking plainly about their abortions or having the staff taking glamor photos of the inmates that they more or less openly exploit. The filmmakers do pretty well in terms of finding a way to both give the villains respectable veneers and also play up how a lot aren't actually hiding.
The young cat is pretty darn good, especially when you consider they are almost all not just making their debuts but basically spent a few months learning the trade because Guatemala doesn't have much of a film industry. Giuliana Santa Cruz and Ángela Quevedo, the young ladies playing Rita and Sulmy, respectively, could become stars if there's any opportunity for them, displaying toughness that never feels like just imitating adults. The adults are solid enough, too, but after thinking about the film, it's impressive how much they stay back most of the time, letting the young women be front and center for their story. A climactic scene views them almost entirely through bars even as they're driving the action (or, in a way, inaction); they are not the focus here.
It's a grim film even with the veneer of fantasy and bursts of action and activity; writer Jayro Bustamante stays resolutely on-message, by and large avoiding moments of relief when some sort of good fortune gets Maria or one of the other girls out of trouble. There is something unsettling on how he makes use of the vast majority of the cast being adolescents - it's a tropical climate with no air conditioning so the girls are often stripped down but there's a sense that there are adults enjoying the view - which increases the creep factor without necessarily having to pummel with cruelty, and he's also good at creating a thrill when the girls put a plan into action. He also often twists the knife by having visitor's days that show the nice woman who had taken Rita in, just to point out that there could be a better way, and this system is designed to maximize cruelty rather than solve problems.
In some ways, the scene that's going to stick with me is one of the simplest and most against the grain, as a bus full of people pulls a girl in and tries to protect her; for all the power evil has in this movie, it is still hiding and covering up, because those are people's instincts, and one hopes the world can remember that.
Rita is far from a hopeful movie, but it's one that recognizes that evil is not a universal constant.
This Man
* ¼ (out of four)
Seen 25 July 2024 in Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia 2024, laser DCP)
What the hell happened to Japanese horror? It used to be a major draw for genre festivals like this and surprisingly strong on home video, full of stylish images and genuine dread on the one end and nutty Yoshihiro Nakamura gore on the other, and this year there only were only live-action movies in the genre at Fantasia this year and one of them is this thing. I mean, it's horror - someone should be doing something weird and interesting!
It gives us a somewhat extended introduction to Yoshio Yasaka (Minehiro Kinomoto) and his eventual wife Hana (Arisa Deguchi) before introducing others - schoolgirl Rei (Miu Suzuki), teacher Nishino Yoshikawa), Yoshio's co-worker Anatsuji, Hana's friends Amie and Saki, etc. People around them start dying gruesome deaths, and word gets around that some had been speaking with their therapists about seeing the same man in their dreams before they died. As the police have no leads on a seemingly supernatural phenomenon, and people around the Yasakas begin to fall, they eventually consult with freelance sorcerer Unsui for answers.
That it sort of starts off from the same premise as the more respectable
Dream Scenario is most likely bad luck, but not only does this not have the Japanese equivalent of Nicolas Cage, it doesn't have any really interesting characters, just some generic types whose intersections seem random and whose impulses to kill are random but not disconcertingly so. There's no recognizable hook to its mayhem, whether it be a darkly understandable motive or character one feels some particular affinity for, or even dread at the nihilistic meaninglessness of it. Like another recent horror movie,
In a Violent Nature, it's the surface of the genre, the gory aftermath of attacks and the arcane remedies, with anything for those signifiers to represent stripped out.
That other movie was at least competent in its filmmaking;
This Man mostly feels sloppy. It turns out to be very easy to get lost or think that something might be significant when it's not when there's nothing that demands particular emphasis, and the human brain tends to see patterns where none exists in that case. I've got a note about how many women in the film are wearing yellow sundresses, for instance, but it's not a trigger or the sort of wardrobe choice that helps one tell a number of characters with the same figure and haircut apart, but just a seemingly random choice that makes the movie more confusing than it has to be.
The filmmakers don't seem up to making its supernatural weirdness weird. When a cop jumps to "malevolent dream entity" as fast as one does here, that's a story that this movie isn't telling, and one can't help but think of what Kiyoshi Kurasawa would have done with reports that this was escalating. The world sure wouldn't have looked as normal as it does from that point, for sure. And while the filmmakers probably couldn't afford something like the exorcism at the end of
It Comes, what they do instead is just a poor substitute, almost a comical parody of how often we've seen these repeated Buddhist prayers showing how it's the pacing, editing, and sound design that make those scenes work, because there's no power in their absence.
Maybe I'm unfairly comparing it to classics here, but festival selection is a filter, and this feels like something that wouldn't have passed through in previous years. It's got the surface aspect of those J-horror movies, but none of the chilling core that made them thrilling even before they had style applied ot them.
