view from the cheap seats

And so to the final cinematic binge of the fest, a film in the afternoon, another early evening and then the grand finale, the horror allnighter: Night of the Dead VI.

Executive Koala (Japan, 2005) 3*

Every single Japanese film I saw at this years’ fest was utterly mental and had this had been my first introduction to Japanese cinema I would have been left with the distinct impression that the land of the rising sun was also one spilling over with dangerous nutters.

Executive Koala is a parody of ridiculously shit TV movies that comes so close to actually being a shit TV movie the only way for the director to maintain ironic distance is to have a few of the characters played as human sized animals.

Our lead, a high flying executive whose girlfriend is mysteriously murdered, also happens to be a koala, while his boss, obviously, is a particularly evil looking white rabbit, (it’s the pink eyes I think.)

The plots twists get crazier and crazier and the visual spectacle of a six foot koala doing anything, from answering a mobile phone to a slo-mo kung fu battle, just doesn’t seem to fade.

The Beach Party At The Threshold Of Hell (USA, 2006) 5*

A fantastic post apocalyptic romp, ‘Beach Party” is set almost a century into the future in the fledgling New America, wherein pockets of survivors are beginning to leave their bunkers and rebuild their world.

Tex Kennedy, descendant of JFK, leads the weirdest cast you could want to come across in his mission to find and crown the rightful heir to the throne of their new country.

The plot twists in ugly and unexpected ways, entirely in keeping with every other aspect of this piece, with each new, interested faction more freakish than the last.

Refreshingly original Beach Party doesn’t take itself in away way seriously and is subsequently released to be as insanely creative as it can be.

Entertaining throughout, the only limiting factor is that Beach Party is set to be the first of a trilogy, (funding allowing, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.)

The whole thing is predominantly scene setting and introduction and left me wanting a whole lot more from this newly discovered, super cool, burnt out universe.

Beach Party was made on a small budget and yet the production quality doesn’t suggest this at all. In fact the only real give away that this wasn’t a big studio project is the fearless freedom with which the film dives into its own crazy realm.

Kick ass, can’t wait for more.

Unrest (USA, 2006) 3*

The sixth LIFF horror allnighter kicked off with what was later described by one of the humorous hosts of the evening as the pilot for Scrubs.

Set in a cheesy US hospital, Unrest follows a group of cheesy US med students through a cheesy story about the mysterious Jane Doe they’re dissecting.

Predictable and funny in the wrong way, Unrest showed the beauty of horror films, ie. even when they’re bad they’re good.

To be fair there were some good jumps, some nice creepy vibes and a good idea for a horror film. Unfortunately these isolated successes were not tied together into a quality film.

Entertaining but not particularly memorable, Unrest was a good warm up for the long night ahead.

Broken (UK, 2006) 5*

Now this is a horror film.

I was a little concerned about Broken, mainly because it had received quite a build up over the course of the fest.

It had been shown as part of the Horror Weekend a week earlier, (and had provided me with a chance to go home and grab some sleep at the time,) and we were told during the introduction that someone had actually fainted at that screening.

Luckily, kind of, Broken lived up to its hype and was genuinely disturbing.

Nutter in forest kidnaps women then puts them through a whole heap of shit, everything from cleaning and gardening to fighting for their lives until finally, when he asks yet again, “do you wish to continue?” they choose to die.

Of course we follow the women whose story runs a little differently.

Awaking from her everyday life to find herself in a coffin, our heroine must dig herself out of her shallow grave before starting her new life of perpetual pain and fear.

A surprisingly early scene sees her undergo one of the most gruesome tasks this films, bad haircut nutjob has to dish out:

Again she awakens, this time to discover that she is bound to a tree trunk by her throat and balanced atop a small block of wood.

Teetering back and forth if she slips she will hang, becoming a mirror for the bloated corpse tied in exactly the same way beside her.

Seeing the corpse she realises, to her absolute horror, that her only chance to survive is to slide her fingers into the deep wound she finds in her abdomen and remove the razor blade left therein from among her guts.

She can then use the razor blade to work through the hefty rope.

Perhaps the difference with our heroine is that the rough sleeping loon has also taken her six year old daughter, though we don’t discover her fate until the final scene.

Quite relentlessly dark, Broken manages to be both savage and horrifying while maintaining a genuine philosophical enquiry into just how much a person can take.

As the film progresses the rolls of captor and captives are subtly skewed and even possible the darkest ending to any film ever carries with it a powerful message, ie. the relentless human ability to endure.

Expiry Date (UK, 2006) 2*

There are lots of very positive things to be said about independent, low budget films but the fact is that, as with any kind of film I guess, sometimes they’re just shit.

Not a bad concept. A cursed necklace, just oozing desire for material wealth, changes forms down the centuries so as to better carry out its lethal purpose, coins etc until finally being reincarnated as an evil credit card.

A schoolboy, your standard bullied loser type, comes across the card and is, inevitably, drawn to try and make his and his friends’ desires come true, obviously with ultimately lethal consequences.

Wild Zero (Japan, 2000) 5*

Shown the 2001 allnighter Wild Zero became a LIFF favourite and received an enthusiastic welcome back to the fest.

A now classic Japanese zombie movie with lashings of cheesy humour and rock and roll, you know the deal, random English phrases like: “Number 1!” accompanied by a thumbs up.

Great fun and, to say it’s now over half a decade old, still stands tall above contemporary competition.

So that was another fantastic Leeds International Film Festival, I’m looking forward to next year all ready.

Geek that I am I’ve totted up all the stars I gave out and can’t say I’m surprised to say that my average rating, out of five, for this year’s films was a very impressive four.

My favourite horror film, and this was very close, was Gruesome.

My favourite non horror film would have to be Jam.

And my favourite, if that’s the appropriate word, doc was The Empire In Africa.

I can’t recommend the LIFF highly enough. There were literally hundreds of films I didn’t see this year, indeed hundreds more than it would be possible to see, and that’s because there’s just such an array of films to see.

Whoever you are and whatever you’re into there’s something for you at the LIFF so next November get your arse down to the cinema!

Wednesday 08/11/06

Analife (Japan, 2005) 3*

This was the one film of the festival that I actually took time off work to see. Apparently the story of three people saturated by modern consumer culture I was well up for this, all very Adbusters or so I thought.

The brochure did mention that the three ultimately cross paths in the protologist’s office but I hadn’t give that much thought. Right from the off however, I realised that this wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting.

First person we meet is a guy. Woozy, ambient visuals matched well with his flat, monotonous narration. He describes how numb he feels, how removed and isolated he feels the world around him.

He tells us about a childhood song to which he can’t remember all the words. A little girl in a forest encounters a bear. She flees in fright, dropping something in her haste to escape.

The bear calls after her but she runs and runs, terrified until she is utterly lost in the forest. He can’t remember how the story ends and so instead begins to describe the one that lets him feel alive.

Rape.

He takes us on a intricately detailed journey from victim selection through to getting away with it. As he does so he somehow manages to maintain the image of a boring, ordinary guy who happens to rape, rather than stereotype demon rapist.

Finally, having thoroughly explored this extreme behaviour to which it is implied he is driven, he describes, in the same deadpan fashion, how he is gang raped by three guys.

Eventually, unable to bare the pain anymore, he is forced to seek medical help and visits the protologist’s office.

New story, new character.

This female photographer is equally detached and numb though over the course of her story we also learn that she has suffered a great emotional trauma.

As she hides behind her camera we get another excellent representation of the numb feeling of isolation within the gaudy bustling colour of consumer capitalism.

One day she comes across a murder, as you do. A local serial killer wanders about, jamming his knife in behind people’s ears before watching them bleed to death.

She watches him do his thing, then watches as he walks towards her. He has sex with her, she doesn’t really mind, it just happens.

It becomes a regular thing. He kills, they shag, she photographs the corpse. Again it’s only in the absolute extremes that she can find sense of life or reality.

Finally he decides to strangle someone instead of stabbing them. Then, in another change to the scheduled programme, he kneels behind her as they have sex.

Suddenly the ‘dead’ guy pops back up and stabs a rusty old pipe right through his would be killer and right into her unfortunately exposed arse.

Eventually, unable to bare the pain anymore, she is forced to seek medical help and visits the protologist’s office.

Last story, last character.

Another lonely guy, lost and confused. No communication, no connections, just his one, all consuming hobby.

Other people’s rubbish.

By sifting through people’s refuse, using everything, reading everything, he sees the most intimate details of their lives and this is the only intimacy he has.

By comparison with the first two this guy’s ‘thing’ seems almost normal and yet it really, really isn’t.

He finally has to face this when a home enema kit he tries out goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Eventually, unable to bare the pain anymore, he is forced to seek medical help and visits the protologist’s office.

So here’re our three, all alone, victims of the society they inhabit, drowned in information, senses deadened by relentless messages.

Finally confronted by two mysterious men, they find themselves lost in the forest for real and forced to sing the song that haunts them all but that none can fully remember.

But then, under pain of death, they do remember.

The little girl turns and faces the bear, who returns the tiny, delicate earring she dropped.

And so they are released to the world, refreshed and awake once more.

Classic Japanese mentalism, disturbing and inspiring in equal measure.

I especially liked both the portrayal of that desensitized, detached feeling and the message that even though society may be to blame, it’s up to the victim to pull themselves out of it.

Jam (UK, 2006) 5*

When the director of this film, Angelo Abela, introduced his film he described it not as a low budget film but as a no budget film.

No-one involved got paid and the filming itself was done for almost nothing. Despite, or perhaps even because of this, Jam was one of my favourite films of the festival.

Amid a horrendous traffic jam we explore the stories of the occupants of a dozen or so of the stationary vehicles including a van full of guys on a stag night, a funeral procession and a very randy couple.

With no grand special effects this whole piece relied entirely on the writing and the acting. Luckily both were excellent and the result was a mostly hilarious and occasionally moving cinema experience.

Leaving the screening it occurred to me that this was not only a great film but a perfect example of great British cinema. Very clever, very funny and sporadically filthy, I felt it summed up what we’re all about really.

The various stories overlap and echo through one another and somehow, via just snatches of conversation, we gain a genuine insight into the wider lives of all the characters we meet.

A fantastic film that, unfortunately, is unlikely to receive a very wide release. Should you get the opportunity I can’t recommend seeing this enough.

Friday 10/11/06

The Empire In Africa (USA, 2006) 5*

Holy shit.

This year’s film festival allowed me to prove beyond doubt how utterly spurious the idea of ‘desensitisation’ is.

Having watched an entire weekend of violent and disturbing horror films, (plus many years of the same,) my ability to react appropriately to real life suffering should have been well and truly eroded.

“The Empire In Africa” however, an extremely graphic documentary about Sierra Leone, was quite literally traumatic viewing.

The senseless knots of Sierra Leone’s recent political history were made accessible through a solid narrative, interviews and stock news footage. Unfortunately this newfound understanding carried with it a sense of despair.

This was all background however, to the documentary footage that shoved the grim reality of all those facts. For the few days after seeing this film I found some of these images burned into my retina.

Life is dirt cheap in this labyrinth of political conflict. Casual execution on the streets, piles of bits of bodies and common place amputations of hands and feet among young and old alike.

I have never before in my life felt the urge to actually walk out of a film mid screening but, seeing a real guy’s real head actually fall apart as he’s shot to death in the street, my body wanted to look away, wanted to walk out.

But looking away and walking out is exactly what has allowed things like these to happen in the first place.

Not for the faint hearted but a worthwhile trial, this doc brought home to me that before we can set about righting the wrongs of the world we first have to look at them and that in itself can be a huge task.