Stalkers and DogVillains

One of the key attractions about the horror genre is the dual identification we share with both the predator and the prey. The helpless victims physically resemble us, as well as sharing our fears and anxietes, and yet the destructive nature of the monster is always so entertaining that we revel in the pain that it causes. With Chaw (Jeong-won Shin, South Korea, 2009), the monster in question is a huge, mutated killer boar, hellbent on terrorising the inhabitants of a small village in South Korea. These inhabitants seem mostly concerned about upholding the nice reputation of their village as opposed to actually caring about their safety, so when the boar comes calling there is enjoyment to be had at their expense. Each character is made to appear eccentric and with their own peculiar mannerisms, cementing this story as a black comedy rather than a straight up thriller; how you couldn’t at least chuckle at the thought of a giant boar is beyond me.

The primal instinct of the raging animal is to find as much food as it possibly can and devour it in a suitably grizzly fashion. Similarly, man’s first instinct when faced with such a threat is to bring out the big guns, and this is done post-haste with the arrival of hunters, armed to kill and ready for a fight.

The remainder of the film takes us away from the village and its colourful characters, and into the trees and mountains where a final confrontation with the beast that has been plaguing the lands is inevitable. The proceedings become less entertaining once the humans become capable of fighting back,with events swiftly devolving into a series of chase sequences in which the predator and prey are rarely seen in the same frame together. Twenty minutes of monotonous action and one cringeworthy explosion scene later, we find ourselves coming out of the other side wondering if we should have rooted for the boar to the very end. Some of the setpieces are wildly ambitious and often reminiscent of Alien, ensuring that this film has the potential to be big. Unfortunately for Chaw, bigger is not necessarily better.

After the loud gnashing and screaming of that particular film, the still, snowy setting of North (Rune Denstad Langlo, Norway, 2009) gave an altogether different viewing experience. Jomar is a ski instructor who, after his wife runs off with his best friend, chooses to isolate himself in the mountains. One day, however, his cabin burns to the ground, and he is compelled to take a journey across the vast, empty landscape stretched out before him in a quest for self-discovery.

Along the way, he meets a wide variety of characters, including a small girl, a confused adolescent and a lonely old man. From each of these highly entertaining and touching encounters, Jomar learns something about himself and changes, and it’s fair to say that each person he meets changes at the same time. The foreboding yet welcome sight of the white mountains is captured beautifully, especially in one scene in which Jomar skis down an enormous slope; looking on from a distance, we watch all shades of grey disappear, leaving Jomar appearing as if he is falling through a blank canvas. At 78 minutes, North never overstays its welcome, and the journey is so contemplative and full of event that we feel as if we could remain Jomar’s companions for a while longer. An experience to savour.

Two-thirds of the festival’s dates have gone by quicker than a bull asked to pay for the damages in a china shop. The end is near, but the itinerary is still packed to breaking point and there are still many more films to be seen. Today began with a sold-out screening of Ander (Roberto Caston, Spain, 2009), a fine achievement in subtlety and understated emotion, and a film that is amassing a favourable reputation already, judging by the size of the audience. It tells the story of the title character, Ander, who lives and works on a farm, isolated in the countryside. He keeps company with his grouch of a mother and finds temporary pleasure in frequent romps with the local prostitute. After an unfortunate accident, Ander is left with a broken leg, and hires a Peruvian farmhand to tend to the tasks he would otherwise be carrying out.

Events take a few unpredictable turns; in part to the film’s insistence on keeping its cards close to its chest, you can’t quite tell where it will lead. Silence speaks louder than words in some cases, and even louder speak the slight, effective gestures of each character. The camera sits at the dinner table, a regular setting and one of both confrontation and neglect; we’re able to direct our eyes in between each character as circumstances change and the setting of dinner takes on a whole new meaning in each scene. With a calm, slow pace, Ander lets itself unfold gracefully and with a finesse to its storytelling that sustains our attention right to the end.

The pace is soon quickened in Slovenian Girl (Damjan Kozole, Slovenia, 2009), in which lonely student Alexandra is trying to make ends meet with a job in prostitution. When a German client has a heart attack and subsequently dies after a hotel room rendesvous, Alexandra’s ideal life becomes enveloped by fear as several parties attempt to track her down. Subject to manipulation from people both familiar and unfamiliar to her, Alexandra’s troubles force her to travel back and forth from the harsh city and the comfortable setting of her father’s home in a constant struggle to evade danger.

While the sense of fear and loneliness in this feature is palpable, it doesn’t quite hit with the bite that it intends to. I can’t help comparing it to Francesca, the Romanian film I viewed at the festival last week, which creates an ambience of helplessness and fear of relentless pursuers through its film form; the wide, static long takes allowing the emotions and drama to unfold before our very eyes. Slovenian Girl doesn’t utilise style in the same way, coming across as a quite conventional execution that while effective and visually competent, fails to stand out as well as it should. However, some of the concerns presented in the film are universal in spite of the concept, and speak wider truths about the world as a whole, although one can’t help but feel that even with such a striking portrayal of a youth in peril, the whole escapade feels distinctly average.

The festival awards have already been handed out by the jury, with the Golden Owl being the most coveted prize. The last film of the night, Puccini and the Girl (Paolo Benvenuti, Italy, 2009), did not take the gold, but it did receive a special mention equating it to second place. After viewing the film, I can attest that it certainly deserves this mention. If the jury are (hopefully) rewarding these features on the basis that they use film language to construct something of originality and worth, then maybe Puccini and the Girl deserves simply more than a mention. It tells the tale of Giacomo Puccini’s relationship with his maid and his composition of his opera, ‘La Fanciulla del West‘, all expressed through a sophisticated visual language that displays masterful, virtuoso technique.

As a testament to its visual exuberance, no words are spoken outright through the entirety of this film, with written letters being the exception, read out inside the minds of the characters. It all feels comfortably like a callback to silent cinema, and the void of silence is filled with a delicate piano track that plays over most of the film, lending it a classical touch and complimenting its themes and the many contemplative images of nature that pervade each scene. Puccini and the Girl is a prime example of the language of film being correctly utilised to tell a story.

The Golden Owl itself went to La Pivellina, which I praised a few entries back. A fantastic choice, I’d say, and even though there are films equally as strong, if not better, some of them have already achieved a level of recognition that La Pivellina deserves itself. Samson and Delilah and Dogtooth, for example, both won awards at Cannes and have aroused great awareness already. Bright Star and A Serious Man are already high-profile, critically acclaimed gems of filmmaking. Having yet to see the rest of the festival’s lineup, and obviously missing out on a great deal of films due to the schedule being so vast and plentiful, I can’t ultimately say that La Pivellina was the hands-down best offering of the past two weeks, but the decision to award it the top prize over the more obvious choices is a commendable decision on the jury’s part.

Less pleasing is the audience response to some of these films. Whilst it is certainly encouraging that Dogtooth has enamoured enough people to warrant extra screenings for those intrigued by its premise and widespread praise across the festival, less reassuring is the overwhelming response to saccharine slush Departures, which I notably condemned for its manipulative stylings. 142 of the response forms awarded Departures five stars, apparently the greatest response to a film in the festival’s 23-year history. Judging from all the crying women surrounding me in its screening, I’m not surprised, although I am disappointed. At a festival where the world’s finest examples of new, up-and-coming as well as veteran filmmakers are given exposure to showcase their grasp of the filmic language, it’s a shame to see a film take precedence that essentially – I’m gonna say it – cheats its way to an audience response. Departures doesn’t give credit to its audience, forcing them into a passive viewing whereby the response is more a forced reaction to being beaten over the head with as much over-sentimental rubbish as can be mustered. If crying your eyes out at music is the key to winning a coveted film prize, then I should have nominated Sufjan Stevens’ “For the Widows in Paradise” to take the Golden Owl.

Still, Departures isn’t even the worst film of the festival. That honour (so far) goes to Millenium: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That film made me lose my faith in humanity, a crime which cannot be forgiven so easily.

Apologies for the lack of updates. My lateness seems to have jumped from the real world into cyberspace. Ideally, I would have liked to have had this post up two nights ago. Things happen.

Saturday saw a film I’d been anticipating for quite some time, and one that arrived with a great deal of hype due to its popularity through the festival circuit this year. Love Exposure (Sion Sono, Japan, 2009), the four-hour-Japansese-indie-cult-sensation has been making waves with its hilarious depiction of teenage love, religious oppression and panty-snapping perversity. You heard that last one right.

Teenage Yu has a priest father who derives some level of enjoyment from scolding his son over the sins he has committed. Eager to give his father something to get angry about, Yu goes out of his way to achieve the greatest sins humanly possible. Before long, he and his friends have joined an exclusive club that teaches the art of taking upskirt photos. This scenario makes for a handful of scenes in which Yu and co take to the streets and begin flinging their cameras here, there and everywhere in search for the perfect, most perverse panty shot. It isn’t long before Yu’s exploits lead him to Yoko, a man-hating young girl who becomes his ‘love at first sight’, setting off a chain of events that become increasingly more bizarre as we work through the four hour duration.

The hot talking point with this film is whether the length is indeed justified. During an intermission placed halfway through, I decided that the first part didn’t seem long at all, and while very little was actually achieved for the main story in these first two hours – which mainly consisted of exposition – the film did a capable job of introducing and setting up the main motivations behind each character, taking us through an adolescent journey that hits all the key points: relationships with parents, primal lust, seeing that person for very the first time, etc.

Things took a turn for the OTT in the final two hours – although not necessarily in a bad way – as the mysterious, omnipotent Zero Church makes its presence felt and turns Yu’s world upside down. What happens at this point isn’t detrimental to the themes of the film, but unlike the first two hours, these events don’t comfortably fit the prescribed length. We’re entering endgame, with the threat bigger than ever, and so the pace of the film gets inreasingly faster. More and more is thrown at the wall, expecting to stick. It was at the turn of the third hour that I really started to feel the length. The first half of the film had taken a long time to tell not an awful lot, and yet somehow the second half felt like it was taking little time to tell an too much, thanks to the frenetic pace and ever-changing circumstances. If it was 3 hours instead of 4, Love Exposure may have had stood a chance at being a little more cohesive. As it stands, its length isn’t justified to the same extent as some of those other lengthy masterworks (Satantango, Andrei Rublev) that take you in and make you forget time itself temporarily.

Love Exposure is however deliriously inventive, and contains many delights and truths that could tempt you into taking the plunge, maybe more than once. Despite the length, the many themes have an air of reality about them, channeled through an absurd world that cotinually places demands on our suspension of disbelief, whilst at the same time placing emphasis on recognizable thoughts and feelings. The popularity is deserved, and the future looks promising as far as a sustained cult following is concerned; leave your reservations about runtime at the door and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

From epics to quickies: the 60-minute Stingray Sam (Cory McAbee, USA, 2009) is a miniature space western chronicling the escapades of the title character and his accomplice Quasar Kid as they traverse the galaxy with the aim to rescue a small girl held captive on a strange planet. Unashamedly daft, this feature is separated into six 10-minute chunks and keeps its audience occupied with musical numbers, cartoons and colourful history lessons fleshing out the expansive universe which McAbee has created for such a short feature. There’s even some underlying concern underneath the narrative; although the setting is physically removed from our planet, the anxieties of the Western world are still expressed with the archetypcal cowboy protagonists fighting their way through privatised prison systems and genetic research facilities.

The 60 minutes spent with this film were undeniably silly, but what was equally entertaining was the 30-minute talk with director Cory McAbee following the screening. He explained the motivation behind separating the feature into six parts (each with their own title and credit sequences), that people are now tending to watch their films online and in the case of YouTube sometimes in several parts. Discussing his work on the film, but primarily focussing on the changing business models regarding cinema, McAbee explained that this film was not only showing at festivals, but is also immediately available to purchase on DVD and most importantly the official website, in a number of digital formats, including iPod resolution. This is one filmmaker that’s clearly thinking about the future, contemplating the number of ways people can access his work in a way that is most convenient to them. Judging from the audience response to his presence and the film itself, there’s an undeniable cult following and widespread appreciation for the man’s work, and one can only hope he gets the funding he needs to continue work on his dream project, Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest. It’s all in the name of silly fun, after all.

Just when I thought I was out of Romania, they pull me back in. Carmen Meets Borat (Mercedes Stalenhoef, UK, 2009) takes us to the Romanian village of Glod (which translates in English to ‘Mud’ – unlucky), where we witness what I’m sure many would be interested to see: the reactions of the villagers to their depiction in Borat as rapists and prostitutes. Angered and upset, the villagers turn on the documentary filmmakers capturing events, refusing to trust anybody else holding a camera in their village. Luckily for them, a few lawyers show up and promise to help them exact revenge on Sacha Baron Cohen.

This documentary style is fused with a narrative strand that details the daily life of Carmen, a 17-year old Romanian girl. Carmen is concerned about the pressure to marry, and the her father’s insistence that she wed a young man named Cristi. Events unfold in a touching way, and when each person is shown to be overcome by their emotions, we realize we are finally being treated to a real glimpse of the human beings that were paraded around so wrongly in Borat. The film also exists as an insight into Romanian culture – as was its original aim before the filmmakers of Borat rolled into town – and we hear some interesting things of note, such as one man’s admittance that life was substantially better under Ceausecu’s regime, something Tales of the Golden Age would not have you believe.

When select Romanian villagers are flown to London (after initially being promised a flight to LA to disrupt Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Oscar party’) and are sent into the headquarters of 20th Century Fox armed with their legal documents and little knowledge of the English language or where they are, one feels that the lawyers ferrying them about are as much untrustworthy and useless as the suits from Fox who originally brought shame to the village. Unearthing the truth behind the lies of Cohen’s film, Carmen Meets Borat is a poignant examination of the true culture and the warm human beings that inhabit this underprivileged village in Romania, their hopes and dreams, whilst at the same time managing to exist as a damning indictment of plastic Hollywood. My faith in humanity: still missing.

I have a tendency to cut things a little too fine. I look at the clock, figure there’s another 5 minutes to spare and carry on with whatever menial task I’m occuping myself with. Inevitably, cutting it fine leads to getting in late. For all the screenings I’ve attended at this festival, I’ve shown up to about half of them a few minutes into the film. This couldn’t, and shouldn’t have happened today (but it did), as missing a few minutes of these particular screenings would have meant almost missing them in their entirety. Yes, today belonged to the shorts, specifically the cream of the Romanian crop, in two screenings entitled Romanian Retrospective: Medium Length Films and Roman Retrospective: The First Generation of New Romanian Cinema. Both instalments featured the first steps and latest short efforts from the leading directors of the Romanian New Wave.

No two shorts were exactly the same, although you could detect the aesthetic of some of the current films in a few of them. One noticeable difference from any contemporary Romanian feature I’ve seen was the use of a few surrealist elements, for example in Liviu’s Dream (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2004), whose title is fairly self-explanatory. The one short that stood out the most was Marilena from P7 (Cristian Nemescu, Romania, 2006), a fairly lengthy tale told from the perspective of Romanian children, eager to take a leap into manhood through relentless pursuit of the town’s prostitutes. This short was notable for its visual flair and delicate balance between the humour of childish fantasy and the harsh reality.

Thus ends my festival foray into the latest output from the current Romanian movement. I can safely say that amongst the shorts and three feature-lengths I’ve seen, there’s plenty on offer through several different approaches; here is a cohesive film movement with recognizable traits, whilst at the same time no films overlap negatively and infringe on each other’s aesthetic. It’ll be interesting to see where the movement goes from here, what the established directors produce next, and if the next generation can significantly build on its momentum.

It’s been ten years since the release of cult sensation The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, USA, 1999), and its tenth anniversary was celebrated at the festival on Friday the 13th of November (spooky!), bolstered by the presence of the film’s producer, Robin Cowie, who stayed for a Q&A session after the film. He revealed some interesting tidbits that, along with the sheer amount of names and companies present in the end credits, make this feature seem like much more than a simple trip to the woods with a few cameras. Pre-production, we learnt, took an eternity, with auditions taking place almost up to a year. Despite its bare bones feel, a ton of work went into the planning of this movie, in the same way that a ton of post-production went into making Colin a watchable zombie romp.

As for the film itself, it’s debatable as to whether it still stands up to this day. While it may have set off a trend for first-person camcorder movies, the concept has grown bigger and louder in recent years, with titles such as Cloverfield and [REC] upping the production budget significantly and in turn, the impression on audiences. Watching this relic in retrospect, the whole thing comes off rather flat; I’ve never understood the hype myself, being merely 11 years old when the film came out, but what you see for the majority of the film is essentially three young adults being overly melodramatic, gasping and huffing and puffing. If you can buy into that, then this film has you in its claws. To be honest, nothing really hits home anymore, especially the underwhelming climax. Best seen as a nostalgic relic, an example of great internet marketing, and a testament to huge revenue from a tiny budget, The Blair Witch Project is becoming smaller and smaller as time wears on, in spite of its devoted following.

I enjoy a good horror movie as much as the next person, although some of the tired conventions often leave me yawning in my seat. Take Macabre (Kimo Stamboel & Timo Tjahjanto, Indonesia, 2009), for instance. Group of young friends drive through the night. Group encounters helpless woman in the road. Group pick up woman. Woman invites group back to house. Group meets strange mother. Mother insists group stay for dinner. Group hesitates. Group obliges. Chaos ensues.

Dubbed the ‘goriest film of the festival’ in its introduction, Macabre finds itself delivering on this promise for the last 45 mins, with each frame almost literally swimming in blood. If someone isn’t covered in it, chances are they’re trying their best not to slip up on it. Chainsaws, rifles, swords… every weapon you wouldn’t expect to find in a household is used to its fullest extent, with the bloodiest results possible. This relentless bloodletting is mildly enjoyable when it finally hits, but up to that point nothing in this film entirely convinces.

No atmosphere of fear or dread is sufficiently created to justify what happens next, so when the violence does finally hit it comes as more of a wake up call than anything. With the first half of the film proving to be an interminably dull experience, it’s up to the latter half to turn up the volume and really deliver on the goods. Indeed, volume is everything in this film, and the sheer volume of blood is one that audience members will be telling their friends about immediately following the screening. Whether they’ll remember the film in a few month’s time is another thing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch Human Centipede once more.

Today began with yet another strong Romanian film – and by now I am fully aware that I must be starting to sound like a broken record – in the widely acclaimed portmanteau Tales from the Golden Age (Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru, 2009), a light, comical look at many of the myths relating to the old communist regime under the dictatorship of Ceausescu, the title being an ironic reference to the apparent ‘Golden Age’ in which he ruled.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, I am informed, had a ‘Tales from the Golden Age’ sub-title, because it originated from this particular portmanteau project before director Cristian Mungiu took it away and developed it into a full feature. What resulted was a harsh view of life under the oppressive regime, and while his masterpiece serves as a great companion piece to these five shorts, the tone is noticeably different.

Tales from the Golden Age observes this period of time with a wry, deadpan sense of humour, a peek into the lives of individuals and groups affected by the regime. While life under Ceausescu certainly can’t have been plain sailing, sometimes the best way to revisit and try to grasp some understanding of the past is to look back in a comical, ironic fashion, and this is what is achieved so efficiently in these shorts.

Troubles with pigs, gas leaks, merry-go-rounds and doctored photographs are all given a gentle jabbing, and yet the unavoidable seriousness surrounding the way of life under the regime is still felt in every frame, buried beneath the dry humour. With this cohesive collection of retrospectives, the bright young voices of Romanian cinema make another definitive, finely crafted statement regarding the storied past of their nation.

The writeup for El Arbol (Carlos Serrano Azcona, Spain, 2009) in the festival brochure describes the film as ‘produced by Carlos Reygadas’ (Yay!), ‘influenced by the Dardenne brothers’ (Yay!!) and ‘brilliant’ (Yay!!!); quite the ringing endorsement!

Santiago is a lost soul, roaming the streets of Madrid looking for some purpose in life. The Dardenne influence is immediately apparent, as the camera remains behind Santiago’s shoulder for most of his wanderings, as we follow him in his attempts to navigate through the concrete jungle. There’s some heavy-handed symbolism here with allusions to the freedom of nature, including one awkward moment involving some tree-hugging, and the imagery is noticeably ugly, but then again, when you want the city to appear as quite the opposite of alluring, that’s surely the best option. One standout flaw lies in the acting – there are some truly awful turns here, especially that of a small boy near the end who looks at the camera, shrugging, probably at the film itself. Azcona explained that this boy was a friend – as were all the actors – and he found him ‘undirectable’. This is all well and good, but his place in the story doesn’t appear to be necessary, so omitting him altogether would have been the best option, surely saving the end of the film from certain ruin.

Still, Santiago is most importantly the authentic character, and we learnt from Azcona that this was Bosco Sodi’s first acting role; the Mexico-born actor normally paints for a living. Not bad for a first timer. His aimless wandering through the city, aided by the floating, stalking camera, was oddly transfixing for me. This theme of urban alienation has been effectively explored by other directors – notably Tsai Ming-Liang, one of the great modern auteurs, with his trademark long takes and static framing – and yet the flustering, shaking camera technique utilised here, quite different to Tsai’s aesthetic, does well to reflect the hustle and bustle of the city rush hour.

When Azcona came to give us a Q&A session immediately following the screening, he explained that the idea for the film came from his past experience in London, feeling lost and isolated in such a huge, sprawling city. Being a country boy myself, and being used to the vast expanse of green grass in the north of England, I could identify with where he was coming from. For all my love of Leeds, it does tend to weigh heavy on me at times and I feel the need to escape to the country and just relax in the back garden. I couldn’t think of anything to ask the director at this point, aside from whether he would cite Tsai as an influence, but as I listened to him explain his ideas I began to appreciate more what I had just seen. For all its flaws and missteps that prevent it from being anything major, El Arbol is a deeply personal film, and with that in mind, if Aczona can dispense with the Dardenne influence and begin crafting his own personal aesthetic, he may just produce a ‘great’ film in the near future. Hell, with Reygadas on his side, he’s got a bright future.

With all these tales of modern alienation and oppressive regimes, the traditional fairytale of Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat, France, 2009) provided a nice change of scenery, taking the audience back to the days of castles and corsets. The framing device sees two young girls read from the book, narrating events as they occur. Inside the fairytale, we follow Marie-Catherine as she begins to fall for the much feared Bluebeard, or indeed his vast kingdom of wealth. Bluebeard comes across as a fairly sensitive figure despite his hulking physique and the ever-present rumour that he kills every woman he weds. Truth be told, I had never even read or heard of the plot to Bluebeard before this screening, so this entire story came to me totally fresh. Maybe I enjoyed it so much because I saw it as a new story and not necessarily an interpretation, who knows.

Appearing deceptively innocent, the tale is for all intents and purposes quintessential Breillat, with a subtle sexual awakening taking place once Marie-Catherine moves in with Bluebeard, her new husband. Demanding her own room to maintain her virginity, she sneaks down the hallway at night to catch sight of her lover undressing in bed. There’s tension, alright. When the time comes for Bluebeard to hand over those dreaded keys, the framing device takes an unusual turn and Breillat’s vision starts to take flight before its sudden, brief climax. One of the finest contemporary French filmmakers delivers another solid piece of work, a cautious view of married life, opposing the conventional viewpoint of marriage that most Disney-esque fairytales would have you believe is one of idyllic partnership.

Time for something heavy. Encirclement (Richard Brouillette, Canada, 2008) is a near 3-hour documentary critiquing the dominant ideology of neoliberalism, featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, the amusingly named Oncle Bernard and others. It’s not so much a documentary as it is a filmic essay, being comprised of 98% black-and-white footage of these talking heads, interspersed with text to break up the chapters and sum up the key points.

The film essentially argues that neoliberalism is a thinly veiled form of neocolonialism, and the arguments given from each contributor are presented in a well-spoken, persuasive manner, so as to highlight the dangers of a world where profit takes precedence over basic human need. 3 hours spent with this film leaves one reeling at what little hope there is left for this world when the banking elite is bleeding the weaker economies dry, and most of those unaware are too politically apathetic to even question the system, even indoctrinated enough to defend it.

Watching a 3 hour film comprised mostly of subtitles and white text on a black screen effectively equates the entire experience to reading a book – eliminating the need for a camera other than to see Chomsky’s saggy neck – yet I can’t help but feel that even at its length, this is a succinct, well-structured argument on a burning issue that will reach more people in film form than it would do existing as a crusty book sitting in between two other crusty books on a library shelf. Either way, the faith I lost in humanity during the Millenium screening has not returned. If you see it, make sure to let me know.

One thing we’ve learnt from cinema over the years is that if something seemingly beneficial is about to go ahead, if somebody is due a moment of happiness or a new beginning, some ray or glimmer of hope, chances are if it’s established within the first 5 minutes, it’s probably not going to see fruition. If it does, it sure as hell won’t be an easy ride. Francesca (Bobby Paunescu, Romania, 2009) is the latest Romanian offering from the festival lineup; it’s also the name of the lead character, a beautiful kindergarten teacher with plans to emigrate to Italy and start over. However, her boyfriend has got into business with some unsavoury criminal types, owing a large sum of money and pleading week after week for them to hold off the debt just a little longer. Things begin to take a turn for the worse, and Francesca soon finds that the failings of her lover are standing in the way of her ambitions.

Bobby Paunescu began his career as a producer, with this being his debut directorial effort, but you can tell he’s learnt a few tricks from his contemporaries. Most scenes are comprised of just one shot, as the goings-on are given space to unfold freely and unedited, which effectively becomes a testament to the ability of the actors and also the director’s aim to mount drama and suspense without the need for quick cuts and theatrics.

The film’s aesthetic enables Francesca and her boyfriend to come across as actual people, and their looming threats seem all too real as well, so when the moments of sadness occur and remain uninterrupted in one single shot, we feel as if we are helplessly watching, from a safe distance, the continuing hard luck of these characters. Highly reminiscent of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, although not as accomplished, Francesca is yet another victory for the Romanian New Wave.

The Australian Outback is closely examined in Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, Australia, 2009), a rich, textured love story, unconventional in its presentation, an unflinching portrayal of an Aboriginal settlement. The title characters inhabit this landsape with their families, experiencing endless days of boredom, monotony and repetition that is reflected in the rhythm of the film. Samson is unable to speak, so he and Delilah communicate in other, physical ways, and as the film goes on, these methods of connection signify an understated affection between the two.

Thornton creates a futile environment for Samson and Delilah to live through, but when they finally escape the confines of their settlement and reach the city, they find their ordeal is far from over. The hostility they are met with is ever-present but never overemphasised, and so each instance speaks for itself.

With very few lines of dialogue spoken, the images are left to tell the story, and Thornton effectively evokes a feeling of unselfish love surviving amidst a hostile environment through poetic visuals and standout performances from two young actors. Almost hypnotic in its repetition of places and actions, this depiction of self-proclaimed ‘True Love’ is highly resonant storytelling.

Millenium: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden, 2009) had an even bigger queue than A Serious Man did the night before, which came as a total shock to me. Having not even read the synopsis, simply believing the title to sound ‘cool’, I was informed that the film was based on a popular book, so understandably people were eager to see how it had been adapted for the screen. That would explain the 152-minute running time.

The film initially concerns itself with two unrelated stories. The first follows reporter Mikael Blomkvist, asked to solve the disappearance and possible murder of a girl that occured 40 years ago, the case remaining unsolved ever since despite the best efforts of many to crack it open. Never mind, once our Mikael gets on board he manages to find the first solid lead in 39 years. Good job, Mikael!

The second plot revolves around Lisbeth – the girl with the tattoo from the title – a stereotypical ‘bad girl’ who is asked to collect information on Mikael through use of her expert hacking skills. At one point she asks for her legal guardian to buy her a PC capable enough to support her work. Agreeing to hand over the cash sum, the creepy bugger asks for something in return and does what any scary old man does in this type of film, proceeding to rape her. Following this, he gives her less money than she asked for; feeling short-changed, she strips him naked, slaps on the handcuffs and shoves a giant dildo up his backside. The scene immediately following this shows her happily playing at her new PC. The whole ordeal is given sugarcoated context much later in the film, but at the time this 10 minutes of sequential rape seemed highly irrelevant to the overall arc and for that, oddly amusing.

When Mikael and Lisbeth eventually find themselves on the same trail, the investigation starts to heat up, and before long the Biblical references come into play. Oh, I get it now. This is a Swedish version of The Da Vinci Code. And here I was hoping it was going to be a Japanese revenge flick! True enough, we’re granted little involvement and given no reason to wish to play along with the mystery. We’re simply forced to watch these two run around explaining their findings for the next 2 hours. Bobby Paunescu could teach this lot a thing or two about suspense.

I feel as though I should mention ITV’s Midsomer Murders at this point. Stay with me here. Midsomer Murders is, to me at least, enjoyable viewing because in every instalment it endeavours to create a sinister atmopshere within whichever village its set in, and everyone who inhabits that village or is implicated in the crime is always painted as mysterious-even-if-innocent, and so we yearn to find out more about not just the killer but the community at large. A good murder mystery will make you want to learn more about the dysfunctional relationships of all those involved in the tangled web. Millenium fails to engage its audience simply because the procedural is drawn out, dull and ultimately, most importantly, full of boring characters.

Alfred Hitchcock put it best when he explained the reason for never returning to a whodunnit after the only one he ever made, Murder! He stated that the key problem with the whodunnit is that it spends the majority of its time working around the machinations of the crime that it fails to create an emotional engagement with the audience. With this 152-minute cure for insomnia, he may have been proven right. Still, despite its shoddiness, the film received a hearty round of applause over the end credits, and I thought to myself, “if this was in English, starring Clive Owen and Liv Tyler, none of you would even consider seeing it.” (No offense, Clive Owen and Liv Tyler.) Then I thought, “well, hang on, aren’t these the same people that queued up for the Coen Bros. only yesterday?” Then I lost all hope in humanity.

I saw three great films today. Count ‘em. Three. Great. Films. The highlights of the festival so far I had previously claimed to be Low Lights, The Misfortunates, Wolfy, Human Centipede, Bright Star and FILM IST a girl and a gun… now we can add a couple more to that list, possibly above all of them… possibly.

In fact, most of today’s offerings were so strong that it pains me to have to begin by squeezing out a write-up for the first of the four films I saw on the seventh day of the festival, arguably the weakest of the bunch and one which I didn’t partcularly care for at all; nevertheless, a few things must be said.

Guidance (Johan Jonason, Sweden, 2009) most likely flounders because of the aforementioned strong competition it shares on this day; or maybe because it was so early in the day and I hadn’t fully woken up yet. Maybe it’s not my fault. The film is admirable enough, even if it is a little thin with its ambition. Guidance tells the story of Roy, an overweight layabout who can’t get out of bed in the morning, through lack of motivation and a very sore back. Determined to rectify this almost paralytic state, he finds himself agreeing to a getaway in the wilderness with a strange guide named Carl, all in a concerted effort to vastly improve his fitness and mentality.

Carl isn’t quite what he seems – didn’t see that one coming – and when we’re eventually let into some of his unsual, private talks in the dead of night, it becomes all to clear why he’s been acting the way he has, and where this story is going. Still, the camera keeps a close frame on its actors in these times of mental frustration, probing their anguish and capably bringing out the humanity of the moment. These are real issues, no doubt, but when the film reaches its conclusion at a mere 82 minutes, and we’re left with Roy’s smug face suggesting there’s more to consider – well duh, Roy – you can’t help but feel as if the film is being awfully smug; at the very least, it’s dreadfully slight and not quite as profound or lasting as it believes itself to be.

Yes, predictability is an ugly thing. Some signals can inform you of a film’s ending way before it arrives, leading you to a premature conclusion and possible oversight as to whatever strengths the film may possess. These were my thoughts in the opening minutes of La Pivellina (Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel, Austria, 2009), in which the mother of a travelling circus troupe stumbles across a lost, perhaps abandoned child in the middle of a playground. As she takes her home, comforts her and begins the bonding process, I felt a horrible sense of deja vu. How many films have we seen with this plot?

Looks are indeed deceiving, for ambiguity and nuance are among the achievements of this film, a moving family portrait that does well in proving my initial assessment to be dead wrong. Can you blame me? We’re so used to seeing this sort of story filtered through a saccharine lens that we become all too eager to throw away any values  it may leave us with. And yet, as this little girl settled in to her new family, as they began to share precious memories together, I became totally convinced. It felt as if the film was a collection of home movies strung together, so truthful did each moment feel. It’s hard to believe these people were actually actors and not a real family.

The young girl – who must be about 3 or 4 years old – never puts a foot wrong, so what occurs on screen seems as real as anything, and all the emotions ring true. After Wolfy left such a devastating impression on me the previous night, I was comforted to find that in La Pivellina I had found a film that served as a genuine display of human love and affection, allowing me to feel emotion instead of simply telling me to. The final scene is as inspired as the rest, right up to the final image, a shot which speaks for itself, refusing to place an end to a story that is much like life itself; ongoing, without a digestible three-act structure.

A different kind of emotion was expressed by the audience of Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece, 2009), ostensibly one of pure laughter derived from the bizarre events occuring onscreen. However, what was working underneath the surface of this film – and indeed, what was felt beneath the laughter of we, the audience – was a disturbing portrayal of a household in which the children have been allowed to grow up physically, but not mentally; as such, the laughter is uneasy, in disbelief and in prepatation for what danger could ensue. The father is the only one allowed out of the house, obviously to earn a living, whilst the rest of the family stay inside and demonstrate to us the eerie effects of their overprotected upbringing. Apparently, a pussy is a type of light. A zombie is a small yellow flower. The small animal in the garden is the enemy and must be destroyed at all costs.

The laughs were consistent throughout the film, although as time wore on the sinister implications of this disturbed environment became apparent. The world – or house – presented to us appears to be a microcosm of our society in which a paternal authority is making the decisions for us in regards to censorship. Refusing to tell us the truth. Refusing to let us grow up, even if we are of age. Dogtooth won the Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in May, generating a buzz that has stayed with it in the lead up to its screening at this very festival; a well deserved buzz indeed. Provocative, unsettling filmmaking of the highest order, it’s going to look mighty cute sitting next to Dogville on my DVD shelf; thank God I don’t own Dogtown and the Z-Boys.

A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, USA, 2009) had a queue snaking around the back of the picture house. A poster informing any wishful thinkers that tickets had indeed sold out. A flurry of cinemagoers desperately trying to find a good seat and having to eventually resort to sitting at the back. “Is someone sitting there?” “Yes.” Sucks to be me. The Coen Brothers are back, it would seem, and everyone – even you- is more than happy to see what they have to offer.

It’s 1967, in the suburbs of Minnesota, and Professor Larry Gopnik isn’t exactly having the time of his life. His wife’s leaving him, his son is misbehaving and he’s under constant pressure from all comers: his employer and his students causing him an unhealthly level of anxiety. Being a Jewish man, he wants answers from God as to why this is happening, what it all means and how he can change the circumstances. In a sense, this is a fable loosely based on the biblical tale of Job, who had everything taken away from him in a spiritual test that would determine the strength of his faith in God. Larry is a weaker man than Job; he visits several rabbis with several different perspectives in an attempt to gain some understanding into the nature of his misfortune, but none of them manage to give him any solace. The journey of his mischievous son runs in close paralel, as the boy is about to finally become a man and must soon face up to adult responsibility.

I heard prior to the screening that A Serious Man had an interesting ending, much like that of No Country For Old Men two years ago. It’s interesting because it provokes discussion as to how one will interpret it, and our own interpretation will entirely depend on how we’ve been following the narrative up to this point. A spiritual man will have a different view on events than, say, a man without faith. It should be noted that the Coens are not religious – or so they say – and with this knowledge in mind I choose to look at A Serious Man’s ending as a bleak nihilistic statement, similar to the finish of No Country For Old Men, which incidentally can and has been opened up to supernatural readings in addition to its concerns pertaining to fatalism.

Despite their bleak outlook, the Coens still know to have fun, with the sharp, satirical script proving to be one of their funniest to date. The brothers sure know how to write, they definitely know how to direct, and through encouraging discussion over common, pressing issues through their deliberately ambiguous symbolism, they are opening up a deeper film language to the mainstream movie audience. For that they should be commended once more.

After the mad rush of the past few days, it came with welcome relief to find that I only had two films on the itinerary for the sixth day of the festival, both within a minute’s walk of my house. The first of the two offerings was an agreeable treat; The Two in Tracksuits (Yoshihiro Nakamura, Japan, 2009) was made in the same country as the film that preceeded it on the schedule, the horrendous Departures, but thankfully it is a far cry;  both the drama and comedy onscreen is understated, mellow and quietly affecting.

A father and his son head out to their holiday cabin in the mountains to escape the complexities of life and the painful heatwave of the city. Once there, they don their trademark tracksuits, eat way too many tomatoes and – a common problem for all of us – try in vain to achieve phone signal, all the while contemplating their relationships. The strength of the film lies in the basic human interaction, which between each player feels natural enough. All significant moments are delivered with subtle, yet potent staying power, and the camera calmly lingers unobtrusively in extended wide shots, capturing the goings on inside and outside the holiday cabin. The film’s pace is as slow and relaxing as a vacation in the mountains ought to be, with the subtle quirkiness never irking or grating, simply because it never gets too loud for its own good. After surviving Departures, I was relieved to find that this particular offering actually succeeded in painting a modest picture of familial relationships and communication that had a character all of its own; simply put, it didn’t feel as though it had borrowed from the Hollywood rulebook.

Following that passable, pleasant experience came its harrowing antithesis; the stark, bleak darkness of Wolfy (Vasili Sigarev, Russia, 2009) was overwhelming and tough to watch in places. Here is a tale of child abuse and neglect, shown from the perspective of the child, that pulls you into a dark place and has you bear witness to everything. Given an insight  into the child’s tormented psychological state, we see her talk to the dead, kill a hedgehog and commit other confusing acts as a result of the way she is treated; these instances are presented through impeccable imagery that conveys her vulnerability and insignifcance under the care of her whore mother.

When taken into the house and forced to spend time with this callous woman, we find the lighting becomes the star of the show, as the surroundings evoke an environment of morbidity and repugnance, with rooms bathed in a shadow that plays on the psyche on each of the characters. Mirrors are used effectively to distort a sense of place inside the rooms of the house. As we endure with the young girl the malevolent existence spent with her mother, the tension continues to build quietly under the surface, and when the difficult catharsis finally arrives, it comes as almost  a relief, and yet, at the same time regrettably unfortunate. With a highly capable child performance at its core, coupled with striking cinematography that competently expresses the pains of an inescapable quagmire, Wolfy proves to be an emotionally draining yet visually exquisite tragedy.

Today saw the first, but certainly not the last Romanian screening of the festival. As some of you may be aware, Romania is producing consistently superb cinema right now, and that streak seems set to continue with a number of the titles set to screen at the festival this year. One noticeable trend I’ve identified about the films from the Romanian New Wave is the common depiction of a prolonged, difficult situation, stretched out in most cases over the course of the entire film. These seemingly eternal occurences are used to mount increasing tension (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), awkwardness (12:08 East of Bucharest), humour (California Dreamin’), or sometimes all of the above (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu).

The Happiest Girl in the World (Radu Jude, Romania, 2009) takes one irritation and stretches it to its fullest extent, taking us from laughs to exhuastion to exasperation in the space of just 90 minutes. We spend the film’s entirety observing said ‘happy’ girl, Delia, as she tries her hardest to act in an advert for a brand of fizzy drink; she’s required to get in a car, take a swig and speed away, all the while smiling to the camera. What sounds simple enough eventually grows into a few dozen takes, and in between we’re given a glimpse into corporate meddling and familial struggle.

We never look at this girl through the lens of the film crew’s demanding camera. Their intentions do not belong to us. Instead we observe from afar, in wide shots that look past all of the artifice and pick up on the reality of the situation, the real emotions behind the ‘happiest, luckiest girl in the world’. While this wouldn’t rank near the top of my favourite films that have emerged from the Romanian New Wave, it’s nevertheless a strong offering that will continue to uphold the reputation of the country’s current output. The remaining Romanian features of the festival can’t come soon enough.

Walking at a brisk pace from one venue to the next, I barely made it in time to catch the opening credits of Bunny and the Bull (Paul King, UK, 2009), a film from the creators of The Mighty Boosh. The story consists of two friends, who look like dead cert surrogates for Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt (the latter was actually sat a few seats along from me at last night’s Cold Souls screening), both deciding to embark on a wacky backpacking adventure through Europe.

The whole procedure seems very Boosh-lite, even down to most of the character interactions. Each set is inventively imagined, twisting and turning and changing before our very eyes as the characters traverse their various locations. The journey serves as Boosh with actual, if poorly constructed, character development,  as our key protagonist, Stephen, drags us along for the most uninteresting, uninspired romantic subplot in recent memory that never quite gives us reason enough to care. Such a predictable course drags the narrative down, and with the remaining plot outline consisting of weak, quirky, occasionally humorous episodic mishaps akin to a road trip comedy such as Harold and Kumar, there’s just not a lot on offer besides the welcome cameos from Barratt, Fielding and the always-hilarious Richard Ayoade aka Dean Lerner aka Thornton Reed, who could well have stolen the show with the best line of the entire film. Assuming the role of a guide in a Shoe Museum, he asks, “What is a shoe? It’s a hot topic that’s for sure, and the debate will certainly rage on.”

I had my intial reservations about Departures (Yojiro Takita, Japan, 2008), winner of the 2009 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. I assumed that for a film to take the prize in that category it surely has the potential of doing something horribly wrong. Sure enough, the film began with possibly the worst penis joke ever, effectively setting the standard of quality – note, not the tone – for the rest of the film’s humour. Daigo Kobayashi plays cello for a living, until one day he is told that the orchestra he is a part of has now been dissolved. Daigo must now find a new way to earn some cash, so he turns to the directory where he conveniently stumbles across an vacancy ad for ‘Departures’. Don’t make the same mistake as Paul Giamatti, Daigo! Believing it to be a travel agency, he eagerly signs up. Oh, how hilarious! Isn’t he in for the shock of his life! As it turns out, ‘Departures’ is in fact an encoffinment agency, where new recruits are required to ‘dress up’ corpses, making them look nice and sexy for their open-coffin funerals. Cue another half hour of terrible, terrible humour.

I think I see how this won an Oscar.

The style and execution of Departures is ordinary, almost non-existent. There’s little-to-no camera movement; instead we see the same standard static framing and an overabundance of reaction shots that say little for the filmmaker’s creativity behind the camera. There’s no trace of a unique visual style; indeed, the importance of visuals are subsided in favour of weary dialogue and a hideous, overbearing string score that attempts to push the emotional buttons of the audience as hard as it possibly can.

Now I see how this won an Oscar.

As we come to the end of the film, most plot points that had previously dangled now find themselves comfortably reconciled, as would be expected from such a stale, predictable product. The final scene of the film takes things to the next level, possibly even higher, with the music reaching an unwarranted level of manipulation, as if the film is bludgeoning the audience into submission, literally begging for us to cry our eyes out. The woman sitting to the left of me was too weak, essentially imploding, drowning in a sea of her own tears. It just goes to show how weak one film can be – how little it has to offer – when it takes one unnecessary element such as the score and turns it up to 11, just to elicit a strong reaction, however forced that reaction may be. Sentimental dreck.

Now I see how this won an Oscar.

For me, the words ‘night drive’ bring to mind two things. Perks of Being a Wallflower is one, a book in which the main character cruises around LA at night with his friends, listening to The Smiths and ‘feeling alive’. The second is my own personal experience, hours of aimlessly riding around the country lanes of Cumbria in a Fiat Cinquecento, listening to Weezer, trying to find the elusive ‘Cocklakes’ and generally breaking down in the most inconvenient of places.

Night drive. These two words are the premise of Low Lights (Ignas Miskinis, Lithuania, 2009), a meditative insight into neglect, shortsightedness and illusion. Tadas is approached by a friend and invited to spend a night cruising around the city, an opportunity to which he obliges. He’s not considering his wife Laura, who returns home every day expecting a greeting, or mere acknowledgement of her existence, of which she receives neither. Tired of the perpetual neglect, Laura too heads out into the night, dressing up, transforming herself into a femme fatale figure, and begins to indulge in car theft. When the moment arrives for Laura to eventually cross paths with her husband and his friend, the pretense is prolonged, and the couple drag out the falsity of the illusion for as long as possible, neither helping the situation.

At one point in the film, Laura takes the bemused pair to an airport and simply watches as people move around the terminal. After a while, she suggests they leave. Neither of the two males are aware of the image presented in front of them, and the husband especially is unaware of its connotations. Much of this film is not spoken in words, but presented in a series of stares from one character to the next, suggesting more than could ever be said.

The majority of the film is shot at night, overlaid with gentle jazz and electronica; easy, repetitive sounds that flow suitably with the sight of the cars floating through the nighttime cityscape, emitting an vibe that is almost oneiric, as if the characters are inhabiting a dream, or an illusion that won’t end until one of them is able to see sense. Whilst the audience would understandably not welcome daybreak, as it would surely signify the end of this journey, perhaps it is for the good of the characters, to enable them to see more clearly in the light of day.

And now for something completely different: The Misfortunates (Felix van Groeningen, Belgium, 2009) utilises a framing device in which a writer recalls his past as a young boy in Belgium, growing up around his alcoholic father and his equally alcoholic friends. As would be expected, much of the humour revolves around the mishaps of these consistently drunken louts, with the more sombre moments coming courtesy of the neglected child.

Drunk people are the worst thing in the world when you’re sober. Even more infuriating are the types that aren’t alcoholic, yet still know nothing outside of getting wasted and treating women like objects. Partaking in a human centipede project is preferable to spending time with these people. And yet, in this affecting comedy these imbeciles prove to be fine company. The humour doesn’t fall flat at any point, because no one joke is lingered on for too long, and the constantly spinning camera and quick edits do an adequate job of navigating the cramped interiors and helping us to feel involved in the merry proceedings. The drunks themselves are as vulgar as is humanly possible, but in identification with the protagonist we are compelled to view them as a sort of family unit; as such, throughout the trials and tribulations that they’re forced to endure we’re able to see their more vulnerable, human side. Culminating with a message that I can wholeheartedly agree and certainly identify with, The Misfortunates struck a personal chord with me, and for that self-centred reason it’s a strong recommendation.

More amusement was to be had in the form of Being John Malkovich.. uh, sorry, I mean, Cold Souls (Sophie Barthes, USA, 2009), starring Paul Giamiatti, in which Paul Giamatti himself is assured that placing his soul in cold storage will free him from any acting difficulties and stress resulting from said difficulties. As ever with, well, film, this does not prove to be the case and Paul quickly decides to get the bottom of things before it’s too late.

The reason I confused this title with an earlier, superior film by Spike Jonze is simply because Cold Souls, for all its strengths, is fundamentally a Kaufman-lite production. Much of the subject matter pertaining to the idea of the soul and identity feels lifted straight out of a Kaufman script; even Paul Giamatti making an appearance as himself smells a little fishy when you consider John Malkovich was doing the same gig ten years ago.

That’s not to say Cold Souls is a failure. It handles its themes in a light manner, not demonstrating a great deal of insight, instead provoking its viewers into an emotional response centring around the satisfaction of the soul. This is a far cry from Kaufman’s enigmatic approach which utilises Cartesian philosophy and is clearly much more layered and complex. These are two very different films with similar aims, yet where I feel Cold Souls excels is in its humour. We’re not just laughing at the predicament of Paul Giamatti’s character, but Paul Giamatti himself. It’s inherently amusing, and the concept is stretched to its fullest potential, helped along by the man’s priceless facial expressions and exasperated reactions to the plot developments. Above all, the film serves as a testament to the acting chops of Giamatti, and his ability to poke fun at himself whilst at the same time wearing a constant face of anger and exhaustion.

Tonight’s midnight screening was the comically titled Doctor ‘S’ Battles the Sex-Crazed Reefer Zombies: The Movie (Bryan Ortiz, USA, 2009). It wasn’t just a movie; not since Grindhouse was released (in the blink of an eye) in 2007 have British audiences been treated to mock advertisements and intermissions. The film itself describes its own plot in the titles, and its aesthetic is made up of inventive black-and-white footage that opts for deliberately dire, trashy fun over the melancholic stylings of yesterday’s Colin.

Some of the exchanges play out like bad videogame cutscenes, a constant source of hilarity. Indeed, the laughs really come from continuity errors and effective joke repetition than anything really involving zombies. Doctor S is the star of his own show, evoking laughter with his detached demeanour and macho buffoonery. Maybe it’s because this was the fourth film I’d seen in a long day, having hardly eaten anything to appease my growling stomach and therefore running out of energy to muster a chuckle, but for all its attempts at belly laughs, DSBtSCRF:TM audiences would probably benefit more from a few pints of alcohol and a spliff (not that I condone drug usage); after all, marijuana does play a heavy part in this film and it’s obvious the filmmakers knew their intended target audience. If you enjoy B-movies, fun trash or Garth Margenghi’s Darkplace, then this one’s right up your street. Either way, I’m not sure I’d watch it again in a hurry, under the influence or not.