The Genre Director - FANTASTIC PLANET SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL

I know how hard it is to make a movie, especially when the budget is the smell of an oily rag. So I bring that perspective to this new role, a judge at a film festival, FANTASTIC PLANET SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL to be precise. All the films I screened were daring concepts and noble efforts. Here are my thoughts on a few of them.

STREGOI

“Do you have any other symptoms, other than hunger, insomnia, and wanting me to stick my finger up your ass?” A vampire movie with dialogue like that certainly gets my attention; one of many dead pan lines in this Rumanian black comedy of the undead.

A man returns from Italy to his Rumanian village, which roils with distrust, old emnities, shifting loyalties. He gets caught up in a land theft/murder conspiracy when his name is forged on a death certificate, and bodies keep re-appearing. Rumanian vampire folklore has intriguingly different rules to the Bram Stoker model, and the script layers in plenty of Rumanian issues: corruption, communism, gypsies, 20th Century ghosts, the EU. etc. Writer director Faye Jackson correctly stages the comedy for dry humor, realistic responses amid absurd situations. The mystery unravels at a measured European pace. The tone is understated. The gothic elements are more creepy than icky and shocking. Good prosthetic work though. This is a Euro-Comedy of Manners between vampires and their victims. Perhaps also it is a political allegory for what has happened in Rumania in the 20 years since the Ceausescus were executed. Plus ca change…? Catalin Paraschiv makes an engaging hero. The well chosen local cast perform in English. This will deservedly ensure a wider audience, though the accents occasionally obscure key words. I wonder if they shot a Rumanian language version for local release at the same time. In a way, I would probably have enjoyed such a subtitled version more. I am a sucker for subtitled movies. (SUSPERIA has a much smarter script if you see it in any language other than English.) But hats off to first timer Faye Jackson for her mature approach to delivering the thinking person’s vampire movie. It’s a worthy follow up to LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Best vampire movie ever). Hopefully every culture will put its own unique spin on the genre. Tasmanian Vampire Movie, anyone?

SAMURAI AVENGER - THE BLIND WOLF 

Unlike STREGOI, frequent extreme gore is the point in Kurando Mitsutake’s loving homage to the Samurai genre subset exemplified by the LONE WOLF AND CUB & HANZO THE RAZOR series. The fake opening title, in both Japanese and English, posits that this print is the full version of the classic movie, with all the shots originally censored for extreme bloodletting restored.  Long thought to be lost, it continues, these shots, worn and scratched though they are, have been re-instated.  As SAMURAI AVENGER unfolds, whenever geysers of blood erupt and body parts fly, the grossest shots get the GRINDHOUSE emulsion scratch treatment. It’s a wry aside to us Samurai genre geeks. We know we are in good hands. (BTW: Remember the restored WICKER MAN. …the cut scenes re-mastered from an old print. And, since we’re on the subject,  why did they remake it? With Nicholas Cage?! Aaagh! And change it? Grrr… WTF! ) It’s OK. I’m calm now… The movie is well shot in striking desert locations. A lot of fun is had at the expense of classic Samurai plot cliche’s. My only complaint: I wish all the swordplay was up to the standard of the role models it is satirizing. KILL BILL is a pretty hard act to follow, admittedly, but writer/director/star Kurando Mitsutake nonetheless delivers some outrageous moments -  like the topless - and subsequently armless! - swordswoman.  I loved the cut between the frontal shots of her breasts being exposed to the profile close ups of the nipples standing out like threatening weapons. On guarde! (I know, I am a sick and wicked puppy, but I fenced epee for three hours today…)  This movie will ship a lot of DVDs and be a favorite on the midnight circuit. Kurando Mitsutake deserves full marks for quite an achievement on an obviously slender budget.

ERASER CHILDREN

When George Orwell was asked what he thought the fate of humanity would be, he replied: “Imagine a boot stamping a human face…for ever.” The anger that seethed under that prophesy is certainly at the heart of this Orwellian update to the corporate fascist future. Slavery looks good in a suit, indeed. This film takes Terry Gilliam’s dystopian satire BRAZIL and ramps up the comedy playing. I wonder whether playing it straight and letting the natural absurdity of the situations get the laughs might have been a better approach. To be fair, I saw an unfinished screener alone on DVD. My response might have been different if I had attended the sold out festival premiere. Movies are best in a group experience. What I liked was the complexity of ideas the film was trying to put across, and director Nathan Cristoffel’s visual and editorial inventiveness in expanding what were obviously slender resources. Fionn Napier Quinlan is good as the hapless protagonist. This film should become a webisode series. There are so many serious social, industrial, technological issues this concept could debate with humor and insight. Then, how do you get sponsorship for a piece so anti-consumerist? Orwell’s warnings need to reach a generation that scarcely reads. This kind of micro-budget production is perhaps the only way to get these ideas out there.

2 B

How about Geo-Ethical Nanotechnology, Trans-Humanism, and Personal Cyber-Consciousness for bold ideas in futurology? These are at the core of this art house Sci-Fi entry, originally entitled TRANSBEMAN. If you google The Terasem Movement you will learn more about the philosophy behind this movie, which is consequently something of a thesis play, proposing the death of death. OK. I’m interested. Given the challenge of such an enterprise, full marks to writers Eric Nadler and Richard Kroehling for getting these ideas across as coherently as they have. The film opens with a quote from Robert Heinlein: “Everything is theoretically impossible till it’s done.” Applies to low budget film making too. But director Kroehling covers the paucity of his budget and restrictive settings by flooding backgrounds with primary colors, choosing good angles, and playing with narrative structure. It’s good that actors with visibility like James Remar and Kevin Corrigan were prepared to tackle complex subject matter like this. Special praise to Hayley Dumond (Mrs. Keith Carradine) for her cameo as a right wing pundit Fembot. She nails the Nancy Grace (today’s Madam Defarge?) self righteous narcissism perfectly. Former Miss Teen Georgia Jane Kim is a knockout as Remar’s created being, genetically swept of human failings. 2 B is more brain food than classic Sci-Fi entertainment. But it’s great that someone had the courage to back it. Sci-Fi should be about ideas first, and not dependent on spectacle and VFX to get our attention. Not that I mind spectacle and VFX…Can’t wait for AVATAR.

1 AND ONLY

1 and 0nly represents more brain food, and is even more festival/arthouse/experimental in its treatment. A scientist, environmentalist, genius, lives alone, isolated on an uncharted island 189 nautical miles from the mainland. He blindly focuses on what is important - the final stages of his plan to unleash a device that will destroy all human DNA…But this is not like any mad scientist picture you have seen. Director Martyn Park makes excellent use of fever dream music to propel nicely shot well edited montages that slowly unravel the mysterious premise of this cautionary tale. Certainly too slow for middle of the road Sci-Fi fans. It’s hard to do metaphysical allegory on this budget level and hold the attention at feature length. But I was intrigued. Just before my patience began to thin, it all made sense thanks to Christopher Baker’s extraordinary lengthy monologue to the camera. That is an amazing JCVD performance moment. Poignant and utterly truthful. In a mainstream movie he would get a nomination.

CRYPTIC

What if you called your old phone number, and found yourself speaking to your old self, on the day of your mother’s apparently accidental death 8 years ago? Throw in a bit of FREQUENCY, RUN LOLA RUN, and RETROACTIVE. Sounds like a J-Horror premise, but CRYPTIC avoids special effects and J-Horror stylistic flourishes and opts for a measured, somber telling of the tale, grounded in the emotional reality of the characters. Jadin Gould as Jesse aged 10 and Julie Carlson as Jesse at 18 are a good match for each other and deliver heart tugging performances that engage you immediately. The plot develops slowly, perhaps a little too slowly for the ADD generation, but suspense builds with each communication between the two Jesses, and the plot is never totally predictable. Personally, I would have used a more mobile camera style to create a brooding momentum, and more punch in the set pieces, but that’s just me. This writer director team clearly know what they are doing and have a good career ahead of them if they build on this standard.

Thanks to FANTASTIC PLANET for having me on the judging panel. It’s great that Australia now has its own Sci-Fi and Horror Film Festivals, giving new talent a chance to be noticed in a noisy and crowded marketplace. I hope these annual events can grow in importance and influence.

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