Fantasia Experience

Le Grand Chef (Yun-su Jeon)

Nintendo DS has awesome games where instead of being a half-orc pirate or a space mariner you’re simply a lawyer, a doctor or a cook. And that’s the reason why I thought an Asian movie about Chefs can be great fun. They know how to make the most mundane activities exciting and surprising.

In Le Grand Chef, we have two cooks competing in a national contest. What can you expect? Well, the best question would be what not to expect, because that’s what the movie throws at you. We have people getting poisoned by one of those crazy Pacific fish. We have a frantic competition to see who finds the best charcoal, and how that unfolds in a convoluted family intrigue. We see one of the cooks sacrificing a dear member of the family as the only way to keep in the competition. And we learn the amazing secret for a sublime ramen.

The tone is goofy, the movie looks great and the actors play along in light, tongue-in-cheek, but solid performances. Although it’s based on a manga, the plot flows naturally and the different episodes suddenly reveal a greater purpose: The movie firmly states some lessons about the Korean pride and culture while tackling the slippery subject of the Japanese domination of the past. It’s deep stuff. While we basically eat to stay alive, we shouldn’t fail to see there’s a lot more than our old sack of bones we’re keeping alive with every dish. What we eat reflects who we are, it’s a cultural value ingrained from generations of ancestors. This, and not saturated fat, might be the reason why fast-food sucks so hard. McDonald’s might be a place full of bad food, but the real problem is that it is a place full of sad people. Let’s learn with the Korean.

…And I mentioned Nintendo, a Japanese company, to justify why a Korean movie could be fun. After watching the history lessons in Le Grand Chef, I should never commit this mistake. Oh well. I’m living proof some idiots just never learn.

Audience rating: 5 claps
Audience best reaction: In every funny scene, a girl that would laugh EEK EEK EEK. I swore there was a poodle in the room. Also, the tender scene where a cow weeps.

Before the Fall (F. Javier Gutiérrez)

When Le Grand Chef ended in one theatre, this Spanish movie had already begun in the other. I come in running and, sure enough, it’s packed. I don’t want to disturb people again, so I walk slowly, leaning against the walls ninja-style, using my best owl vision to find somewhere to sit, and hit my head against a spotlight in the wall. Hard. Still thinking of my dear fellow moviegoers, I bravely hold the natural expression of pain shaped as a combination of shouting and cursing. But the spotlight does a loud TOIIIING sound and everybody turns their head to check who the idiot is. I wonder if spotlights can laugh, those bastards.

The movie has a very intriguing scenario: A meteor will crash on earth and all life will be extinct in 3 days. There’s nowhere to run. Amidst the chaos in the city, the movie’s hero and his mother decide to reach the rest of the family in the Spanish countryside. There, they find a house with 5 kids, and no TV signal. Nobody there knows about the upcoming fate. Should they tell? And should they also tell that a psychokiller just released from the prisons - the wards went home and unlocked the cells - might be heading their way seeking revenge?

I was thought using psychics to know how long your life would be was a bit stupid. Knowing when you’re going to die is a lot worse than not knowing. All your future plans become meaningless with the sudden realization of the pointlessness of it all in proportion to death. That's what the people in this movie must face. Cling to whatever is important to you for the remaining days, because that’s all you’ll get. For a grandmother, it’s joining the family and trying to make the best of the 3 days. For a psycho, it’s getting his revenge before nature takes the chance away for good. For the struggling and bitter uncle, there’s no point in anything.

This brings two different interesting aspects. First, it’s refreshing to see an anti-hero that has a reason to act like an asshole different from “Look how cool and cynical I am”. He reserves to himself the right not to give a damn and spend his last moments alone with his ghosts. Which are many, as he is the family loser.

Second, how enjoyable a movie can be when every single person is expected to die at the end? Quite enjoyable, is the surprise answer. The suspense works fine, making for a quite uncomfortable watching experience.

There’s another chilling factor: Only 2 in the cast of 7 are adults, excluding the killer. So, if there are victims in this psychopath movie, chances are children will get murdered. Waiting to see if the director would go that far shows one of the refreshing aspects of Fantasia Festival. There’s no taboo in showing things that are a no-no in American productions, if it will serve the purpose of the plot. Actually, if any kid will be killed, it would be an act of mercy, as our anti-hero keeps brutalizing them. It reminded me to my road trip around Spain and how I was shocked by how uncontrollable the little kids were, always running, shouting like crazy and vandalizing every piece of medieval architecture they could put their tiny hands on. This Spanish flick knows they deserve every kind of suffering coming their way.

The movie looks beautiful, it’s very directed and acted, and the intensity is there all the way. The only thing I found a bit wanting was the final confrontation. It holds together by the intriguing plot, but on the other hand it’s a killer movie with not enough blood, gore and no humour to speak of. I’m more into suspense than killings, but Before the Fall is a clever movie, although one that might not leave a long aftertaste.

Audience rating: 3 claps
Audience best reaction: The thick silence after a certain scene with a shotgun.

After the bleak flick I need something fun to do, so I pass by a costume party where everyone was wearing bling. One guy knows I had tickets for a load of movies in Fantasia and offers money for my [REC] session the next day. An opportunity for profit! However, for the sake of my personal movies ritual I’d rather not give up my place in the first potentially truly scary movie in the Festival.

Posted by Fábio at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

A busy Saturday, curiously filled with movies in Spanish. I start with my first horror movie in Fantasia, the Peliculas para no dormir. The complete project has 6 one-hour movies made for the Spanish TV, and Fantasia showed two of them on the big screen:

La habitacion del niño (Alex de la Iglesia)

A haunted house story, or something quite like it. We see a couple with a baby moving into a spooky house. They are happy, a point is made clear in a conversation they have in bed. She says “We are so happy. Almost too happy. It scares me.”, to be replied by the husband words of wisdom: “You feel this way because you went to Catholic school…”

It turns out existential guilt is not the only reason for fear. Angry distorted shouts over the baby intercom make a much more solid one. When infra-red cameras are installed, it gets way worse. The images reveal a man there with the baby.

And from here the characters make something very, very rare: They act exactly like you and me would. Ok, maybe not the part where the hubbie almost stabs his sweetheart. But suffice to say they explore the possibility of a burglar, they tell the police right away, they install alarms and new locks. Realizing it didn’t work, they get the hell out of there.

It may not sound exciting, but this believable behaviour does wonders in the way of making you care. It doesn’t hurt that the two main actors are very strong. Although the wife is really hot and the guy is uglier than any nerd in the audience, they show a great chemistry. You actually don’t want anything bad to happen to these fellows. The dialogue is amazingly sharp, with many funny moments. So, yeah, I’m saying that this has believable reactions, well-written dialogues and superb acting. Horror movies usually have the opposite, so these alone would make me recommend it. On top of that, it’s quite scary, especially when we see things through the infra-red camera.

When the phenomena gets an explanation, it goes a bit towards the nonsense side, but then you are so engaged that you’ll happily swallow anything they throw at you, including some stretched quantum physics.

Para entrar a vivir (Jaume Balagueró)

This one is crazily stylish. The cinematography is gorgeous, the images are as spooky as they get. Before anything happens, you’re already afraid of whatever might be coming. The problem is that what comes is not particularly interesting, it is a cat-and-mouse game between a crazy psycho and potential victims in a locked building. And when the hunt begins, the characters, not having watched the previous movie, do exactly the opposite of what any human being in the same situation would do. Lots of facepalm moments there.

Amazingly, it holds together well, because it doesn’t take itself seriously. In a certain point the killer even emulates Jack Nicholson in The Shining. So, instead of serious material, we get a series of wink-winks to slasher film fans. Because it’s all delivered in so much style, it’s quite effective.

Suffice to say this movie got the most enthusiasm from the audience. Each time one of the would-be victims would rise again in the best Monty Python “I’m not dead yet” fashion, the audience would cheer as if he was Lazarus.

So, for both movies…

Audience rating: 4 claps
Audience best reaction: In the second movie, when the killer searches for her glasses putting her hand in the kitchen sink drain, then the camera cuts to the hero’s eyes, then to the shredder switch…

With a full hour before the next movie, I go find a restaurant in Crescent Street, a magnet for weird playboys and clueless tourists. I enter an Italian place that’s trying a bit too hard to look posh, but I love my pasta and I need energy for more 3 movies. At a table next to me, girls with artificial blonde strains in their hair, and their sunglasses (inside the restaurant) are big enough to match the biceps of their companions. One of the dudes has both arms fully tattooed, including the hands. I wonder if that’s some kind of pre-condition to enter the place, as in front of me a middle-age couple is eating, and the lady is using a tank in order to show her tattooed shoulders.

Thankfully it’s easy to find other things to look at, as there’s free wi-fi coming from some other place. I have to investigate the source.

La Antena (Esteban Sapir)

I came in 10 minutes late and it was a bad move. The room was absolutely packed. It took me another 10 minutes disturbing everyone with my big head until I found a seat. I didn’t think so many place people would be interested in checking an Argentine black and white mute film. Or almost mute. The movie takes us to a world where the almighty TV corporation had removed the voices of all the population, except for a singer called, er, THE VOICE, and her son, that for one of those ironies of fate had no eyes and spent the whole movie asking “Mommy are you there?” - I guess you can’t have everything in life.

And that’s the lesson I learned today, folks, apart from the redundant allegory on the power of media, massive culture and dictatorship. The main interest for this movie would be technical. Each frame is carefully planned, the light, shadows, perspectives, clothes, situations and expressions are extremely surrealistic and made to mimic the sci-fi movies from the very early cinema. There’s even a reference to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, that I only know from the pieces seen in Queen’s Radio Gaga video, but it’s very intellectual to mention this movie in a blog. The subtitles when people were “speaking” were also interesting, they would be part of the scene and sometimes interact with the speakers. The ever-present music would use themes and little noises in synch with the action, almost as if an orchestra was there playing live along the movie.

So it’s an experimental piece, incredibly well-done, but I wonder what for. Who’s paying a ticket to watch something that is only trying to look like it came from an obsolete era? I couldn’t help thinking the target for this is only festivals, the people involved might be more interested in more showing their credentials than actually making a movie. But what do I know? That’s why my rating in this blog/diary is the very scientific “perceived amount of clapping”. This time it was somewhat timid. Impressive technical skills are probably not enough to make for a completely satisfying experience.

Audience rating: 2 claps
Audience best reaction: My after-lunch-power-nap rocked by mellow tango music. Thanks La Antena!

Posted by Fábio at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

Machine Girl (Noboru Igushi)

A schoolgirl loses one of the arms, but is rewarded with a prosthetics machine gun and seeks revenge on her foes.

Just by reading the line above you probably don’t need to know anything else to decide if this flick is for you. Anyways, let me help with more detail:

It’s bloody. Very bloody. The machine gun makes one hell of a mess, with bullets literally destroying the poor targets bodies.

It’s campy. Very campy. The girl meets her brother and the camera closes up on his ambiguous loving smile and shiny eyes, while mellow classic guitar sounds fill the background. A female foe opens her robe to reveal her deadly drill-bra. The fights, dialogues and FX are just ridiculous.

It’s funny. Quite. More so if you happen to laugh at übergruesome deaths. But the enemies introducing themselves with motions and shouted names just like a Power Rangers kind of show cracked me up.

It’s sexy… Kind of. Depends on how into Japanese schoolgirls with machine guns you might be. The girl in question makes sure she’s wearing lace lingerie underneath her ragged uniform to help trigger your impure thoughts.

It has to be mentioned that our heroine runs out of bullets at some point. Then she finds a chainsaw that’s lying around… Did I say the movie is bloody yet? Well, it gets worse.

How campy is too campy or just plain dumb? That’s a very subjective matter, but I’d recommend this movie as good, warped, shallow fun. See it with a bunch of friends.

Audience rating: 5 claps
Audience best reaction: A not too subtle upskirt and the last death scene. I’d rather not spoil it, but I can say it hardly gets more outrageous than that.

So the bloodbath inspired me to go eat something, I went for a walk along St. Catherine to check the joints. The first one I see is McDonald’s, I chuckle thinking “Not on this life”, and keep walking. 5 blocks after, and only 20 minutes before the next movie, I just go back and order a quarter-pounder trio. A man has to know when to give up. But I need to find another cheap quick place around, as I have no intention to do a supersize-me-kinda blog.

Genius Party (Atsuko Fukushima, Shoji Kawamori, Shinji Kimura, Yoji Fukuyama, Hideki Futamura, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe)

The cool thing about animations is that everything is possible. Suspension of disbelief is immediate when your eyes see drawings instead of pictures. The bad thing about animations is that everything is possible. The flick might fall into self-indulgency and forget to take you where it’s going.

The 6 cartoons in Genius Party hit those extremes in different degrees. One in particular is simply made of flashing lights and a dude that looks like Benicio Del Toro uttering existential mumblings that I’m probably too stupid to follow. At the end of this one I did the proper Brazilian let’s-express-feelings-loudly thing and hollered a “WHAT?” causing the only positive reaction from the audience.

UPDATE: To my surprise, this episode is registered for the posterity in the hugely entertaining Gazette blog Ciné Files. Go figure.

To compensate this bore, we are treated to a very pretty anime that starts with 2 high-schoolers skipping class under the oath of not thinking of tomorrow or the future, just for a day. They decide to catch a train towards the ocean and everything goes wrong. The quiet mood, surreal situations and beautiful images got me to the point I was holding tears when the cheesy final scene hit the screen.

But perhaps not helping the whole movie work as a satisfactory experience, the best cartoon is the second one, showing us how a snotty innocent kid can stop yet another giant-robots invasion to Japan. What starts as typical sci-fi Japanime turns out to be a celebration to the chaos of creativity that makes us humans, and the art of making cartoons. It may be a self-pat on the back, but beautiful nevertheless.

Audience rating: 3 claps (Each cartoon, except the existencial one, had its share of applause, but the enthusiasm was steadily dwindling)
Audience best reaction: When a droid spits his cigar up to better spin and shoot robots surrounding him. The camera switches from the gun action to the cigar slowly flying up and then falling back. The anticipation of him finishing the killing and catching it back with his mouth made everyone cheer, the amazing conclusion made the house go down.

Pye-Dog (Derek kwok)

The movie begins with such good production values that I was sure I’d be in for a great ride. The cinematography was just gorgeous, the music touching, the actors charismatic... But the plot is just lacking. When it ended I had the impression I had just watched a very forgettable soap-opera episode. Kwok surely knows how to shoot a movie, but even that starts to get annoying. The movie is telling you how cool the camera angles are instead of making you care about what’s in front of the lens. Especially the action scenes, expected in a mobster movie, don’t feel like they belong. Even the Hitchcockian shooting in a carrousel feels more rip-off than homage.

Audience rating: No claps

Afterwards there was a birthday party in the Plateau. Cake, booze and a good time was had by all, with the exception of the girl that had her balance sense a bit affected, fell from her bike on the way out, hit her head against a parked truck and passed out. She came to fairly quickly after spooking the heck out of everyone, but the worst part was the neighbours complaining about the noise we people make while worrying about a bleeding girl on the street. Those things still deeply impress me in Canada and it’s inevitable to feel creeped out by how raw people here can be in their interactions. This is way scarier than any genre movies, where the monsters are very visible and a chainsaw might take care of them. The “you’re invading my space” vibe that so many people showcase is not as easily dealt with, and sometimes I’m afraid it will get the best of me.

Posted by Fábio at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike)

So Fantasia starts for me with Takashi Miike. I know how warped he can be, and how that can go quite bad or fricking awesome. This time he came up with a western, but using Japanese actors speaking a broken English in a very exaggerated interpretation. It is a parody, and if we are to believe Miike's vision, the Japanese see the American westerns as a pretty darn ridiculous movie genre, and he's happily trying, if not to convert us, at least to make us accomplices in his mockery.

Before the movie began, we were introduced to a very special guest in the audience: Gordon Liu, martial arts legend and maybe most known to normal people as Pai Mei, the weird master that coaches the bride in Kill Bill. He received the standing ovation, and only after doing research for writing this post I realized that the restored 35mm copy of his movie The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, showing the next day, was a very big deal. And I wasn’t going to see it. 50 movies and I was already failing to see relevant stuff. Losing major nerdy points there.

The movie starts with the only American actor in the cast: Quentin Tarantino. It’s a fun response to the brief Miike’s appearance in the Tarantino-produced Hostel, and a public confirmation of their mutual admiration. It’s great that not all American producers are dedicated to present Japanese movies to the masses in the shape of sad, soulless, pointless remakes. Tarantino took the martial arts genre and gave it his own original take. Miike is doing the same with the most American genre, showing what he sees in cowboys stories. All in good fun, and maybe even because of the obvious parody, fascinating. For exactness sake, it might be worth mentioning that the movie hints at the Django character from the Italian trend of "Spaghetti Westerns", thus the name "Sukiyaki Western". So at the end of the day it's a Japanese vision of the Italian version of a very American genre. And whatever gets lost in translation, well, that's the whole point.

The guns are used in a zen way, with the best cowboy just aiming to the air to kill his targets. Samurai swords are drawn. The cowboy attires are mingled with accessories and colors that wouldn’t be out of place in a Kabuki theater. And the movie itself has a play-like feel to it. Sometimes an obvious fake, painted Mount Fuji and sky would be the backdrop. Sometimes the background music is done in the movie, with actors playing the instruments. There’s numerous mentions to the War of the Roses, and a bandit insists his name has changed from Kyomori to a more Shakespearean “Henry”.

Don't be fooled by the poster: This is a wacky comedy with no obligation to coolness. If you like to laugh at pathetic characters and over-the-top situations, this is your movie.

The audience gladly participated, laughing on queue (especially when Tarantino, in a weird old man make-up, utters that he loves to hear the name of one the characters, “Akira”, because he is an “anime otaku”) and offering an ovation at the end.

Audience rating: 5 claps.
Audience best reaction: When the cowboy does the mandatory jump from the window on his horse, with matrix style freeze-frames.

After the movie I briefly crashed the nearby opening party, but as I was already tired and too introspective for my own social good, leaving early and going home to sleep was actually the best idea.

Posted by Fábio at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

That's the result of 2 days using a customized spreadsheet to help me come up with a schedule contemplating the most movies around the more mundane life. 50 tickets and an unflattering angle.

The posts here describe the daily moviegoing ritual and brief movie reviews. I am not interested in writing full reviews with synopsis and actors lists, it is easy enough to refer to the Fantasia Site, IMDB, etc for these. This blog is about personal impressions, sometimes just related to the quality of the movie, sometimes related to what notes it strikes in me. The only grading system I'll list is the audience applause. They know better.

Posted by Fábio at 5:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

This is a diary of 2 weeks of my life. I have been writing this diary in Portuguese, but I realized it was only fair to share this experience with the people surrounding me as I live this experience.

I decided to spend a load of time watching crazy asian movies, horror movies, animations and all the good stuff in the Fantasia menu. For those of you that don't know, it's the ultimate genre movie festival in Montréal, where I'm watching 50 movies, accounting to around 80 hours in 19 days.

So, welcome to my life in dark rooms, and the few moments outside.

Posted by Fábio at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments