Goodnight Mommy

Ich Seh, Ich Seh | 2014 | Austria | Directed by Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala

Logline: A mother has returned home from hospital, and her two young sons become determined to uncover the truth of her operation and her real identity.

In the thematic tradition of the great Euro-horrors of the 70s and 80s, but shot with the clean, minimalist compositional style of Urich Seidl (who is producer), this domestic nightmare of identity and (dis)trust is the delightfully dark creation of Seidl’s partner, Franz, and her documentary collaborator Fiala. Delving into a fantasy world that merges and blurs the realities of adult and child, an escalating paranoia and moral slide pushes the narrative toward a deeply disturbing dénouement.

Elias (Elias Schwarz) and his twin brother Lukas (Lukas Schwarz) enjoy the expansive rural property of their parents with a gorgeous lake and surrounding forest. They seemingly inhabit a nine-year-old’s very normal realm of playful exploration and pretend. But the reality is, their world is far from normal. The parents have divorced, and the mother (Susanne Wuest) has recently arrived home from the hospital, her face swathed in bandages. Just what has happened exactly is unsure, and will remain that way.

The boys become increasingly distrustful of their mother’s post-op behavior. She is far stricter, aloof, and very demanding of her own recuperation. The young boys determine that mummy dear will need to prove her identity to them. Reassurance is paramount. Problem is, mummy is very reluctant to delve into the recent past. As such, the boys take the pressing issue into their own mischievous and malevolent hands.

There’ll be tears before bedtime.

What an extraordinarily original screenplay, and directed with a consummate style. Wuest’s central performance of the mother is superb, and the two real-life twins effortlessly capture that innate pre-pubescent awkwardness and curiosity combined. There is only a clutch of other speaking parts; the entire movie is essentially played out between the mother and her boys. It’s a psychologically claustrophobic movie, which tightens its screw until the final scenes, and then releases, the embers of ruin scattering on the night breeze.

The movie has a twist, but what is so clever, is that even if you discover the twist early on, there’s still another that refuses to be exposed. Knowing the first conceit doesn’t upset the narrative or make the story any less powerful or creepy. Goodnight Mommy is a perfectly disquieting nightmare, playing on that age-old childhood terror of your parents being imposters, whilst delivering a steadily horrifying portrayal of a truly damaged psyche, and the gruesome consequences of harbouring secrets from the disturbed.

I See, I See is the English translation of the original German-language title, which suggests a sly play on a children’s lullaby, however the international Americanised title is altogether more chilling and resonant, and fits the movie like a latex glove.

Goodnight Mommy is released on Blu-ray Disc as part of their Accent Collection by Accent Film Entertainment, 20th April, 2016.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon

US | 2015 | Directed by Douglas Tirola

Logline: The history of the controversial and influential American satirical company and its flagship magazine.

Taking its bastard cue from a snobbish academic publication, The Harvard Lampoon, a couple of socio-political cowboys created a rag that wiped the dirty ass of America and smeared it under its nose like a dirty Sanchez. The National Lampoon loved to shock and offend, that was its primary agenda, but its spine was very much its funny bone, and nothing was published unless it made its editors laugh.

Henry Beard and Doug Kenney were the mad men behind the Lampoon grin. Beard was a studious workaholic, Kenney was a creative genius. They were chalk and cheese, but together they were magic. They garnered a sensational team of talent, especially writers and illustrators, including P.J. O’Rourke and Michael O’Donoghue, and young Mike Reiss and Al Jean (who would go on to produce The Simpsons).

Outrageous wit, transgressive satire, filthy, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic jokes filled the pages of the magazine, along with all manner of political degradation. This is what National Lampoon prided itself on, and it existed during a period when there was nothing else quite like it. This was the late 60s and the 70s. In the 80s the magazine began to experience trouble, and more so in the 90s. By the new millennium the Internet had pretty much ruined the party for everyone.

When The Lampoon decided to incorporate a live show it recruited numerous performers from Second Avenue, chiefly John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Gilda Radner. Later, Saturday Night Live pilfered the lot of them, much to the magazine editors chagrin. Later the magazine was seduced by cinema, and the first of several Lampoon movies emerged becoming instant cult favourites: Animal House, Caddyshack, and, of course, National Lampoon’s Vacation.

This is one hell of a fascinating documentary. If only the walls of the chaotic animal house that was the Lampoon’s offices could talk. Never mind, we’ve got this doco and numerous survivors to tell their tales and spill the fruity beans!

Tirola’s snappy pace and the cartoon style elements that punctuate the narrative add much colour and flavour to the documentary. The archival footage is hilarious, and the portfolio of mischievous artwork that graced the Lampoon covers.

Drunk, frequently. Stoned, oh, definitely. Brilliant, that goes without saying. Dead, well, some of the key players are, but the Lampoon legacy lives on. For anyone remotely interested in American satirical comedy, this is essential viewing. Oh, and Rest In Peace Doug Kenney, who “slipped while looking for a place to jump.”

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is screenings as part of the 62nd Sydney Film Festival, Fri 5 June, 8:45pm & Mon 8 June, 2:15pm – Event Cinemas 9

Ex Machina

UK | 2015 | Directed by Alex Garland

Logline: A computer programmer is selected to participate in testing the human qualities of a prototype android with Artificial Intelligence.

Alex Garland is a clever fellow. I don’t like all of what he’s done in the past, but I admire his storytelling skills. I loved his novel The Beach, and I really like the first halves of 28 Days Later and Sunshine (both original screenplays). I’ve not seen his adaptation of Never Let Me Go, but I thoroughly enjoyed his screenplay for Dredd, and, now, I adore Ex Machina. Yup, I’ll even go one step further, I have a crush on a robot in a movie. There, I said it. 

Ex Machina is Garland’s directorial debut and it is a stunning piece of work, all mood and ambience, suggestion and restraint. It drips with a seductive science fiction premise, full of literary references, drenched in atmosphere, the vibe is lush and elegant, hard, smooth, and yet beautifully fragile. Garland will be hard-pressed to come up with a sophomore effort better than this sleek, beautiful machine.

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a young computer programmer working at the world’s largest Internet search engine company, Bluebook. He wins an in-house competition and is flown to a secluded property in the (Norwegian) mountains, where his boss, the genius CEO, Nathan (Oscar Isasac), lives as a recluse, apart from his immaculate housemaid Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno). 

Caleb is to take part in a special testing and evaluation process, chiefly the Turing test, in order to ascertain whether Nathan’s prototype A.I., in the form of a fembot called Ava (Alicia Vikander), can pass muster as a human, in terms of its/her emotional and intellectual abilities. Caleb and Ava form and immediate bond, whilst Nathan observes their interaction through surveillance cameras.

The title alone is a brilliant play. The Greek phrase “deus ex machina” (god from the machine) refers to a plot device where a difficult problem is miraculously solved by the contrived intervention of some other event or by a character. By removing the “god”, the title implies that the A.I. progresses toward singularity, or transcends its machine trappings, and in Ex Machina, Nathan is playing God and Ava is his muse.

The three central performances, especially those of mischievous Isaac and sensual Vikander, are superb. The production design by Mark Digby, and the striking use of special effects (chiefly the work on Ava and Kyoko) is exceptional. The ambient music, credited to Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, is excellent (reminding of the work of Carbon Based Lifeforms), as is the Rob Hardy’s pristine cinematography.

I found it hard to fault this movie. The ethereal, dreamy atmosphere, combined with its sombre, even ominous tone is similar to Spike Jonze’s wonderful Her, a perfect companion piece. Ex Machina is definitely one of my very favourite movies of the year. 

Mad Max: Fury Road

2015 | US | Directed by George Miller

Logline: After escaping the clutches of a fascist leader, a desert survivalist teams up with a rogue and her cargo, and together they attempt to outrun their brutal pursuers.

After the red dust has settled, the pounding drums and shredding guitar have quieted, the turbine engines have wound down, and the machine gun magazines have been exhausted, we can finally marvel, ponder and chew on George Miller’s post-apocalyptic opera. It’s been a long time coming, a long trek across the desert, and now it’s time to wrestle with Miller’s magnus opus.

We’d been praying that he was out there, somewhere, in the Wasteland, the Road Warrior, “Mad” Max Rockatansky, the ex-highway patrolman, whose life was torn to shreds when a ruthless gang ran down his wife and baby daughter as they tried despretely to escape. Those were in the early days of the collapse. But it’s been many years now. Max’s patrol car bears little resemblance to the Interceptor that he once used as a lawman. Now, in the stark, unforgiving desert beyond the ruined cities, Max’s souped-up vehicle is his only anchor, his battered refuge, his metal shell.

A two-headed lizard for breakfast, scouting the horizon, and boom, the War Boys are upon him, chasing him down a storm, trussing and gagging him as blood fodder for grotesque Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Bearne, Toecutter in the original Mad Max) and his fascist kingdom. But Max squirms free, and in the ensuing chaos winds up in an unlikely tryst with Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a hard-as-nails woman with a chip on her shoulder, and the scars to prove it.

Furiosa has the King’s wives as willing captives, all of them young and flawless creatures, swathed in muslin, savouring the emancipation, all with very silly names; The Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), Toast the Knowing, (Zoë Kravitz [Lenny and Lisa Bonet's daughter]), Capable (Riley Keogh [Elvis Presley's grandchild), The Dag (Abbey Lee), and Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton). Later another model-turned-actor, Megan Gale, makes an appearance, as Valkryie, in even less threads. 

Mad Max: Fury Road is a chase movie, plain and simple; for two hours Immortan Joe and his circus pirates pursue Max and Furiosa, mayhem and destruction spilling out over the sand and rock in outrageous fashion. It’s an utterly exhilarating experience, for this is a unique piece of cinema, a $100m action extravaganza painted in bold and vivid strokes that looks plucked straight from the lurid pages of that glorious science-fantasy magazine Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal). It appears the work of French comic book artist Moebius and the concepts of maverick Chilean visionary Alejandro Jodorowsky has certainly influenced the production designers. Miller actually worked closely with a UK comic book artist, Brendan McCarthy, on the movie’s storyboards, before the screenplay was even complete, such was the visual importance of the movie in terms of its raw cinematic power.

Indeed Fury Road works best on the most immediate audio-visual level. The sound design and Junkie XL’s percussive, bullhorn score punctuates the mise-en-scene with stylised aggression, while Miller's fellow veteran, and another legend, John Seale’s cinematography is absolutely stunning (If Seale doesn't win the Oscar next year, there'll be blood). 

So is Fury Road a sequel or a re-boot? It's apparently set in 2060. Perhaps it takes place between The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome? Ultimately it's not that important. Miller places Max's tragic family origin as a haunting, reoccurring flashback, and for the trainspotters there's one iconic occular image lifted from the original movie and placed in a nightmare blink-and-you-miss-it moment. Fury Road exists as new blood on old sand. 

The sub-plot involving Furiosa’s agenda to return to her childhood Green Place isn’t that compelling, and the movie gets weighed down in a mud of bonding issues and identity crises about 2/3rds of the way across the barren landscape. Most importantly it's the narrative minimalism of the first Mad Max movie, and the spectrum of choreographed violence saturating The Road Warrior sequel that Fury Road demands most (and mostly delivers on). But if Miller had pulled the reigns in on the running time Fury Road would’ve packed an even greater punch.

The rich atmosphere and  extraordinary stunt work aside, Charlize Theron owns the picture. Just an oil-streaked sidelong glance from the cab of the War Rig into the rear-view mirror is enough of an iconic moment to last a decade. Bring on Mad Max: Furiosa! Hardy’s Max is very much a middle man, and it feels like Hardy is in a kind limbo, as he looks unintentionally bewildered most of the time. Admittedly it’s a real shame Mel Gibson wasn’t able to reprise his most famous role, and despite Hardy’s solid thespian laurels his delivery has none of the subtle angst or menace of Gibson’s, but at least Hardy concedes that Fury Road isn’t his movie.

There’s no doubt Fury Road will roar into the future as an instant cult classic, but I’m not about to slap the “masterpiece” decal on its bonnet. Definitely a thundering, cracking piece of cinema, and it's a very pretty piece to boot, I just wish now that Miller had been even more game, and shot the movie with no dialogue whatsoever (silencing some of those lesser performers). Hell, now THAT would be an expressionist, purist cinema-as-art statement like no other.

NB: The movie wasn’t shot in 3D, but post-converted, however I’m looking forward to a second viewing at IMAX in 3D so I can soak in the movie as pure cinema rollercoaster and not be concerned with following the story. 

Bad Turn Worse

2013 | US | Directed by Simon & Zeke Hawkins

Logline: A teen, his girlfriend, and buddy find themselves in a world of trouble after one of them steals from his boss and the other two become accessories. 

You can say the Hawkins brothers’ debut feature is a poor man’s Blood Simple, but that would be doing it a disservice. Sure, this Texan neo-noir doesn’t play anything down we haven’t seen before, and it doesn’t play with the power of cinema narrative in the same magical way as Joel and Ethan Coen did with their debut feature, but what Simon and Zeke do is cement themselves as efficient and compelling storytellers, and, most importantly, more than capable of producing a film that captures the atmospheric essence of the genre.

B.J. (Logan Huffman), a brazen opportunist with an arrogant head to boot, steals twenty grand from his boss, Giff (Mark Pellegrino), whom he takes for an idiot. Unfortunately, B.J.’s buddy Bobby (Jeremy Allen White) spills the beans when Giff reveals his true colours as a sadistic thug. Next thing you know B.J., Bobby, and B.J.’s gal Sue (Mackenzie Davis), who shared in the reckless spending of Giff’s cash, have fallen foul of Giff’s master plan to get his moolah back.

Before you can say, “Finger lickin’, cotton’ pickin’, beer swillin’” Bobby’s getting his end in, B.J.’s eavesdroppin’, and Giff has the three teens caught up in the spokes of some dirty big time thievin’ from Giff’s boss Big Red (William Devane). But everyone has an ulterior agenda, including Sheriff Shep (Jon Gries), who spells out a sly warning to young Bobby.

Penned by some dude by the name of Dutch Southern, yup, the movie’s original title (during its festival circuit) was We Gotta Get Outta This Place. Not the most inspired title, but essentially that is what B.J., Bobby, and Sue want, and what drives them. Sue and Bobby plan to go to university, whilst B.J. just wants to get the hell out of dodge. He doesn’t appreciate Sue’s literary passion, all those books with their fancy plots. Even Bobby finds Sue academic reach higher than he’s able to climb, but he’ll try and get a leg over if he can.

In one of the opening scenes Sue is in a café with Bobby discussing Jim Thompson, the legendary noir author. It’s a casual reference, which comes full circle at movie’s end. Later, in Sue’s bedroom, B.J. tries to seduce Sue, but ends up antagonising her, even threatening her in a passive aggressive way. If there’s a notable flaw with Bad Turn Worse, other than the second half not quite delivering on the danger and allure of the first half, it’s that the characters are almost too rich for the sauce they’re stewin’ in. And William Devane simply isn’t given enough screen time as the bathrobe-blazin’ big boss!

But hey, the lead performances, especially Huffman, Davis, and Pellegrino, are worth their weight in gold. Bad Turn Worse satisfies like a smoke after sex. Just don’t call it this noir a Cuban.  

Bad Turn Worse is released on Blu-ray & DVD by Accent Film Entertainment on May 20th. 

It Follows

US | 2014 | Directed by David Robert Mitchell

Logline: After having sex a teenager is stalked by a relentless, malevolent presence, and she seeks the solace and support of her friends whom try to aid her in stopping it. 

The retro vibe is so hip right now. And I love it. I love the old school feel, but I don’t necessarily like that everyone else loves it, but that’s just the cynic in me fighting for cool detachment. My favourite nightmare movies of the past few years have all channeled a particular retro atmosphere. Some filmmakers have deliberately had their movies take place in a period setting (The House of the Devil), while others have immersed the narrative with an 80s-influenced electronic score (Starry Eyes) or 70s-style languid pace (Honeymoon).

It Follows breaks numerous rules and unfolds in some kind of alternate reality that mirrors the real world, albeit with cracks spreading across its surface. The sensational score is definitely of the old school horror pulse, but while the characters’ fashion (clothes/hairstyles) echoes the 80s and 90s, the technology and production design is here, there, and everywhere (nowhere). Contemporary and classic cars pepper the streets, a prologue character uses a mobile phone, but they never feature again. Another character reads a book from a tiny clam-design electronic book invented entirely for the movie.

The movie is set in the desolate suburban streets of Detroit, with abandoned abodes and derelict apartment buildings littering the landscape. It is this haunted dome of existence that hangs over the movie providing a most distinct tone and mood. Along with Starry Eyes, it is one of the most atmospheric and curious horror movies of recent years. It straddles an uneasy relationship with the audience, pulling them in to the plight of its lead Jay (Maika Monroe), but never allowing the viewer to completely empathise with her. There is an aloofness that permeates the movie, a stain that lingers long after the last ambiguous image fades.

It is this ambiguity that gives It Follows much of its edge. There is frustration too, lots of it. But this is a movie about trust and betrayal, about sex and death, about the spectre of disease; a plight we understand as STDs, an epidemic we know as AIDS. The monster of It Follows, the creeping unknown, the evil that stalks, is manifest as naked hideous flesh, both strangers and loved ones. It is a nightmare most immediate.

Jay and her friends have no idea what is terrorising them, but the modern audience does. It infuses It Follows with a deep-rooted allegory, but at the same time Mitchell’s mise-en-scene weaves out of any pigeonhole clasp, out of any academic treatise. Of the cast Maika Monroe and Lili Sepe deliver the stand-out performances. But the real star of the movie is the darkly throbbing, oneiric soundtrack from Rich Vreeland (credited as Disasterpeace).

Continuity is a hot mess, and while I didn't find the movie frightening, I did find it undeniably creepy, especially in the first half when Jay is coming to grips with her terrible predicament. It possesses some genuinely grotesque imagery, and the resonant nightmare vibe overrides most of my quibbles. Jay's neighbourhood reminds horror fans of fictional Haddonfield, but this is Detroit, the crumbling infected and terminally afflicted. Any horror movie set here is home and hosed. It Follows owns the nightmarish loneliness of Detroit. 

Island Of Lost Souls

US | 1932 | Directed by Erie C. Kenton

Logline: After being rescued at sea, then unceremoniously dumped on an island, a man is welcomed by the isle’s deranged resident, a scientist experimenting on the genetic mutations of human with animal.

H.G. Wells novel has been made, notably, three times: as a trashy vehicle for Burt Lancaster in 1977 as The Island of Dr. Moreau, in the notorious hot mess that was Richard Stanley’s ill-fated attempt in 1996 under the same title, and, most impressively, in this pre-Hays Code tenebrous nightmare under the original book's title. A rarity, until Criterion Collection issued a superb edition a few years back, this adaptation by Waldemar Young and Phlip Wylie might not stick closely to Wells’ book, but it captures much of the essence, and it is easily the most unnerving of the three.

Dr. Moreau (played with wicked delight by Charles Laughton) is the obsessed surgeon, having established himself as some kind of deity. He lives in a large villa which he shares with his man servant Montgomery (Arthur Hohl) and his most prized possession, the panther woman, Lota (Kathleen Burke). Lota is, in fact, the only female on the entire island. The rest of the inhabitants are Moreau’s tribe of half-human mutants, abominations in the eyes of anyone other than the lunatic doctor. But soon enough his lunatic creations will take over the asylum, known to them as the House of Pain.

It’s a lean film, running at around 70 minutes, and told with great narrative efficiency. The stunning monochrome cinematography from Karl Struss plays with elements of expressionism, casting peculiar and striking shadows across the actors’ bodies and faces. The excellent production design and art direction capture a palpable sense of claustrophobia, whilst the jungle plants creep and probe from every corner.

But it is the special effects makeup that is the real star here; Wally Westmore, with Charles Gemora, created some truly astounding stuff. Unfortunately much of it hides in the shadows or is only glimpsed at, as the camera rarely lingers - but on one or two occasions a beastly visage lurches. In the Criterion Collection a bonus gallery of original make-up stills showcases just how exceptional was the work. Bela Legosi plays one of the tribe, the Sayer of the Law. You can recognise him from his eyes.

In the current climate, with science progressing in leaps and bounds, the basic concept of Moreau’s; the grafting of animal anatomy onto humans, and the genetic slicing of homo sapiens with any number of animal species is becoming less and less phantastic, and more and more like a waking nightmare! The dark carnal desires, however, remain unchanged. How would H.G. Wells relate to the shapes of things that have come?!

In a recent interview Richard Stanley stated that he is moving forward with another attempt at bringing H. G. Wells’ science-fiction-horror tale to the big screen, but this time completely on his own terms. He reckons it will be “X” rated, a very dark fantasy movie for adults. If he maintains the moral grey area and the dense shadows of this seminal horror flick, and keeps the practical effects to the fore, it will be a strong contender for best version yet.  

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead

Australia | 2014 | Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner

Logline: A family man is thrust into a desperate quest to find his sister, kidnapped by a mad scientist, and battles a landscape littered with zombie mayhem.

Like a blistered sore oozing pus in the scorching sun, the blazing star that is Wyrmwood infects the screen with a virulent and ferocious chomp, tearing off strips and barking like a rabid, fetid dog. The most entertaining zombie flick since Zack Snyder’s re-boot of the Romero cult classic eleven years ago, and, let’s face it, there aren’t too many worth singling out from the horde of the last decade. Aussie brothers, Kiah and Tristan, have fashioned a kick-arse vehicle to showcase their talents. Their love of genre filmmaking, and their guerrilla tenacity has paid off handsomely.

Barry (Jay Gallagher) finds his family life thrown into chaos and wrenched from him in tragedy as the dawn of a zombie apocalypse spills its poisonous rays. With his wife Annie (Catherine Terracini) and daughter Meganne (Meganne West) they don gas masks and make their escape. But the infection gets its dirty clutches on Meganne, and subsequently Annie. Barry is forced to end their misery, and feed his own.

Later, amidst the blood and scrub, Barry meets Benny (Leon Burchill), and the two quickly form a mutual respect, born from desperation. They hold up in a barn with a couple more survivors and discover a crucial angle to their predicament: zombie blood and breath is flammable. Since gasoline no longer works they use the rank stench from a zombie’s mouth to power their 4WD. And off they go to find Barry’s sister Brooke (Bianca Bradey), who, unbeknownst to them, is trussed up and gagged in a makeshift lab, the pet project of one very deranged scientist.

Wyrmwood’s key selling point and adopted tagline - “Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead” - is apt, but the keener horrorphiles will champion the movie’s big nod to Peter Jackson’s seminal flicks, Bad Taste and Braindead. From the remarkable DIY ingenuity (the filmmakers took four years to shoot the feature, just as Jackson did with Bad Taste) to the striking cinematography (the vivid, processed palette very reminiscent of Braindead), Wyrmwood moves at a cracking pace, and the strong look and visceral edge commands much of the movie’s appeal.

While the score throbs with a vengeance, the special effects - a combo of CGI and practical (a wrist snapping is a highlight) – prove most excellently handled, it is the cast that shine on; the three charismatic leads, all with impressive acting chops often overlooked in a low-budget, action-orientated piece. There’s a scene-stealing performance from Luke McKenzie as The Captain, however, it must be noted, Bianca Bradey’s eyes deserve their own separate billing, such is their intensity and the way the camera fetishises them! Jay Gallagher is an Ash/Mad Max combo, whilst Leon Burchill’s Aboriginal comic relief provides the movie with some of its most memorable, and funniest moments, especially the hilarious beer bottle scene (the whole sequence of which reminded me of the superb Kiwi short Zombie Movie).

Unlimited gun mags aside, and injecting their own furious take on the zombie sub-genre with a suitably ludicrous science fiction plot device Wyrmwood straddles the instant cult classic mantle with confidence, the kind of party flick that demands to be consumed with as much beer, pizza, and blunts, as you can scoff. Hell, I’m keen as mustard to get back out on that gore-streaked two-lane blacktop with Barry and Brooke!

Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)

USA/Canada | 2014 | Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Logline: A once successful movie superhero seeks serious consideration with a Broadway play, but is harassed and ridiculed in the days leading up to the play’s opening.

Brilliant, inspired, refreshing, witty. They’re just labels. So fucking what? It’s just my opinion, maybe backed up by a few comparisons. That’s what I do. I’m a critic. I share my two cents worth on a movie, and maybe you’ll see it, maybe you won’t. In the case of this blackly comic stab in fame’s dark heart, this delightfully vindictive shadow cast across the stage of recognition and success, the labels I throw at it are genuine and heartfelt. I do hope you see The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, or Birdman, as it's more commonly known. This is easily one of the highlights of my year’s ciné calendar, and could very well take out top prize. The bar has been raised high. But not Icarus high.

Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) has seen better days. He’s pushing sixty and he’s taken on an ambitious project: directing and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymand Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. His previous acting incarnation was a superhero, Birdman, which was huge on the big screen, four movies worth. But that was twenty years ago. Now Riggan has more flab than feathers. His cocky superhero alter ego is pecking his mind from deep within his psyche. He’s got a replacement actor, Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who is threatening to sink the production. His ex-wife, Sylvia (Amy Ryan), is loitering with intent, his lover, Laura (Andrea Riseborough), drops a bombshell, and his grumpy rehab daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), is none-to-happy in the production assistant’s role. All he needs now is a theatre critic with her pen up her ass. Cue: Tabitha (Lindsay Duncan), on the end barstool, she’ll do nicely, thank you.

Along with fellow Mexican co-writers Nicolas Giacobone and Armando Bo, and American Alaxander Dinelaris, Iñárritu has fashioned an extraordinarily rich and vibrant portrait and study. It is a look at the fragility of the self, and a plucking of the machinations behind the fear of failure, and the hunger for respect. It is a satire of celebrity and the cult of personality. Birdman is a tale of spiritual evolution, a rollercoaster ride through the narrow, and well-worn corridors of theatre production and artistic endeavour. It is painted in a magic realism that gives its tinsel a particularly memorable sheen.

At the risk of sounding like a confounded cliché, this is the role Michael Keaton was born to play. But Keaton doesn’t chew the scenery, nor does he hog the limelight. This is almost an ensemble piece, with Keaton’s troubled super-anti-hero, quietly nudging everyone out of the way. Top props go to Emma Stone’s wily chip-on-her-dad’s-shoulder, probably her best performance to date. Ed Norton’s nicotine-slapped arrogance is a dark delight, and in contrast Naomi Watts, as anxious, fellow thespian, Lesley, provides the light relief. Zach Galifianakis’s camp Jake is the icing on the cake.

The superb performances aside, my hat is thrown off to Iñárritu and his loyal cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubeski, who’ve really achieved something astounding. The camerawork (made to look like one very, very long take) is amazing. The structure of the narrative – both visually and symbolically – is a cinematic joy to behold.

My first review of the year, and it’s an instant cult classic, bristling with quotes, searing with truths, floating on fantasy, finally set free by the rapture that is one’s soul torn asunder by love and acceptance. It’s an acquired taste, like eggs on toast with vegemite, and it doesn’t really matter how you interpret the ending, but that you feel it. Birdman is the triumphant gratification of human frailty.

Exit stage left.

The Piano

Australia/New Zealand/France | 1993 | Directed by Jane Campion

Logline: In the mid-19th Century a mute pianist and her young daughter arrive in New Zealand for an arranged marriage, however she becomes romantically involved with another man.

When the Piano was first released it was unlike any other New Zealand movie seen before, period piece or contemporary. Such a lush and darkly enchanting tale of commitment and betrayal, of loneliness and yearning, of passion and resignation, Jane Campion’s extraordinarily beautiful dramatic romance was as narratively lyrical as it was musically evocative. Twenty-one years down the track and most of it has aged like a fine fortified wine.

Ada (Holly Hunter) and her precocious nine-year-old daughter Flora (Anna Paquin), along with Ada’s prized pianoforte have traveled from the rugged country of Scotland to the rugged west coast of New Zealand. It is the 1850s. A Kiwi frontiersman, Alisdair (Sam Neill) is to be her husband, but Ada isn’t so sure. Neither is Alisdair. But Baines (Harvey Keitel), a forester and retired sailor, finds himself drawn to the tiny mute woman with the large expressive eyes.

In a land riddled with strange cultural crossovers Ada finds herself retreating into her own world. Her beloved piano is initially abandoned on the desolate beach, but soon enough it is taken under Baines’ wing, after he convinces Alisdair to barter it, and then he uses to his romantic advantage. Ada is seduced into a tutor’s arrangement with Baines, much to Alisdair’s chagrin, and much to young Flora’s frustration. Soon, the musical clouds will darken.

The original working titles for the movie were Pleasure and The Black Keys, but the final decision is perfect. This is not as much Ada’s story, as it is the song of Love itself; it’s hardship, its perseverance, its cruelty, its ingenuity, its depths, and its emancipation. Michael Nyman’s rich and emotive score transcends the boundaries of Ada’s gilded cage. The music that Ada plays is also Nyman’s, and while not historically accurate, it is part of the poetic license Campion employs to conjure her dreamy realm.

The depiction of the Maori people is the movie’s weak element, shallow, and on occasion condescending. While they are not crucial to the storytelling, their culture plays a large part in the narrative atmosphere. The Maori characters are all in small supporting roles or as featured extras (look for a young Cliff Curtis!) used more as comic relief than anything else.

Holly Hunter delivers a career performance, not only helping to create her character’s own sign language that she and Flora use to communicate, but performing all her solo piano work. Her presence on screen is something to behold. Those dark eyes are hypnotic! Sam Neill and Harvey Keitel give suitably solid work, but Anna Paquin’s delightful rascal is a scene-stealer (she won the Supporting Actress Oscar). I like how hers and Ada’s characters are often reversed; Flora being the one who advises her mother, and Ada throwing a tantrum like a spoiled child.

But the other true star of The Piano is Stuart Dryburgh’s sublime cinematography, the wild landscape saturated in blues and greens, like the deep ocean. Combined with Campion’s immaculate eye for composition (and Kiwi lens legend Alun Bollinger as camera operator) the result is a kind of rustic Kiwi-Gothic, a sensual masterpiece. Yes, yes, I know it’s often considered an Australian movie, but that’s just semantics.

The Piano re-mastered on Blu-ray is released by Icon Home Entertainment.

Julia

US | 2014 | Directed by Matthew A. Brown

Logline: A traumatised woman seeks therapy from an unusual source and finds herself embroiled in her own dark quest for vengeance.  

Already with a bunch of festival awards under her sweat-stained leather belt, the smell of stolen sex in her nostrils, the throbbing pulse of deep techno emanating from some primal core as her almond eyes like weathered visors widen, the pupils large and oily like the abyss that swallowed her, her lips cracked and moist with the taste of coppery revenge ... This is Julia, the savage beast that once was a woman in the shadows, now a powerful neo-noirish, nightmarish creature of the night that demands to be experienced, large and loud and lasciviously.

“It does not matter that the question here is one of Beauty and not of Evil. We shall see that they come to the same thing. Both beauty and evil are pure appearance posing as absolute being.” Julia (Ashley C. Williams) is a damaged soul, working by day in a plastic surgery clinic, she has the scars of self-abuse on her arm, and following a horror night of gang rape, now the lost gaze of someone in their own private hell. She drowns her pain each day in tumblers of vodka at a local bar and overhears several women discussing a form of extreme alternative therapy.

Sadie (Tahyna Tozzi) approaches her and Julia is introduced to the mysterious Dr. Sgundud (Jack Noseworthy). Through the madness of the doctor's method Julia learns to tackle her pain head on. No tears will save these hyenas. But in order to conquer her crippling condition and reclaim the power her attackers stole from her there are strict rules.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

With several shorts under his belt writer/director Matthew A. Brown tackles his debut feature with style to burn. This is arguably one of the most impressive I’ve seen in a long time, exuding a dark sensuality, Julia is a ferociously brooding piece of Euro-Asia styled cinema. Operating within its own nefarious underworld, the dark corners of a New York seldom seen, it’s a kind of tenebrous adult fable. With nods to numerous cult Asian directors, Takashi Miike, Chan-wook Park, Kim Jee-woon come to mind, and a specific mention of early 70s anti-hero “Lady Snowblood”, Matthew A. Brown layers his tale with the audio-visual richness of David Lynch and David Fincher, and the same attention to detail and precision.

The score by Frank Hall is stunning; a furious electronic creation that threatens to consume the whole movie, but instead amazes with its steady hypnotic seduction. Equally impressive is Hall’s Icelandic counterpart lensman Bergsteinn Bjorgulfsson whose intense colour palette and floating camerawork combined with Hall’s soundtrack make for a mesmerising experience.

But the superb central performance from Ashley C. Williams is the spine of the movie. Having played a supporting role in The Human Centipede, she now commands the screen as the titular anti-heroine. Whereas Tozzi’s sly assassin has an immediate statuesque, feline presence, Williams’ Julia is inexorably sculpted into this slinky predator; both women are like big beautiful Burmese cats with the razor sharp claws to match. 

Julia, like Starry Eyes, is part of a fantastic new wave of slick and stylish independent cinema from America that refuses to be grounded in obvious American horror tropes, but at the same time, relishes the fabric of its cult classic surrounds. From the glamour trappings of Starry Eyes' Tinseltown to the gleam of Julia's Brooklyn scalpel, this is the retro-future of the American horror-thriller and it glistens brightly in the dark light of the preying moon. 

Julia screened at Melbourne’s Monster Fest and Sydney’s A Night Of Horror International Film Festival.

Inner Demon

Australia | 2014 | Directed by Ursula Dabrowsky

Logline: After a serial killer couple abducts a teenage girl and her young sister the older girl escapes, but finds she is fighting for survival at every turn.

Innocence runs the gauntlet of evil in Ursula Dabrowsky’s stunning second feature, and the second in her projected “Demon” trilogy (the first being 2009’s Family Demons). The first movie dealt with a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, now it is the threat on a pair of siblings, the deadly menace bearing down on plucky sixteen-year-old Sam (Sarah Jeavons) and her kid sister Maddy (Scarlett Hocking).

Home alone one night, the two sisters are the victims of a house invasion and kidnapping. Sarah recovers consciousness in the dark confines of a car boot. She uses her wily wits to escape the clutches of Karl (Andreas Sobik) and Denise (Kerry Ann Read, from Family Demons). Denise is in hot pursuit, and the two pitch headlong into the surrounding remote scrubland. Sarah manages to elude her abductors, but discovers a mortal wound in her abdomen. Temporary shelter presents itself in the form of a residential cabin.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

With a lean, mean stylistic Ursula Dabrowsky has fashioned a unique and powerful horror-thriller that writhes like a cut snake, and squirms like a Tasmanian Devil. A young girl might be held captive, but Inner Demon takes no prisoners. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the nightmare, the terror twists in another direction. A spectre looms, as Sarah’s grasp on mortality slips through her bloodied fingers.

There is a Euro-horror atmosphere to this Australian setting. Yes, the accents (with the exception of Karl’s Bavarian brogue) are Aussie, and the place names are too, but there is a distinct “international” air that permeates the movie. It’s as if the movie could be happening to foreigners in Spain or France even. There is no native fauna, and the only cast members are the two sisters, the two serial killers, Wayne (Todd Telford), a luckless friend of theirs, and a couple of faceless paramedics at movie’s end. It’s as if the whole movie is strangely insulated, trapped within its own nightmare fabric, a curious sense of claustrophobia that taunts and probes.

Superbly shot and edited, and featuring a fantastic score from Michael Taylor, who also worked on the sound, Inner Demon prowls and growls with a growing intensity, the crimson iris widening like a supernatural whirlpool. When violence rears its ugly head, it does with a sudden, visceral ferocity. Dabrowsky knows a thing or two about the cinematic impact of a well-heeled nightmare.

Sarah Jeavons is a revelation, having never acted before; she delivers a tour-de-force of emotional and physical fragility and resilience, burning up the screen with a spunky charisma, she gives the Final Girl embodiment a fresh strut. Andreas Sobik’s gruff hulk provides ample backwoods ogre presence.

Inner Demon is part of the new wave of Australian horror, confident and assured, knowing, but not pretentious, harnessing the basic, but necessary elements to tell a ripping tale of terror that reverberates long after the final demonic glower. Yes, kudos to Dabrowsky for not pulling a soft punch for the ending.

Inner Demon had its World Premiere at A Night Of Horror International Film Festival, Friday, November 21st.

Starry Eyes

US | 2014 | Directed by Kevin Kolsch & Dennis Widmyer

Logline: A hopeful young starlet is made privy to the sinister agenda of a Hollywood production house and is drawn into a deadly agreement in exchange for fame and fortune.

Sarah (Alexandra Essoe) has stars in her eyes. Stuck in a demeaning waitressing job (at Hot Taties, no less), she humours her wannabe, so-called friends she hangs with, but she knows in her heart of hearts this is all a waste of time, she needs to be fast-tracked to the fame she desires so hard. Past auditions have left her pulling her hair out, literally, but the casting call she undertakes for Astereas Pictures is unlike any other. She must bare all, emotionally and physically, if she is to land the plum role for their horror movie The Silver Scream.

Sarah gets a call back, and she is delighted. Meanwhile her friend Danny (Noah Segan) is looking to make a low-budget indie flick and he wants Sarah to play the lead, but Sarah has bigger fish to fry. So she jumps from the frying pan into the fire, but not out of choice, more like default. The Casting Director (Maria Olsen) likes what she sees and Sarah finds herself in the company of the creepy Producer (Louis Dezseran), a sleaze elite.

Before Sarah can say, “I’m ready for my close-up!” she finds the casting couch isn’t quite as soft as she anticipated. Like the age-old tale of Faust, there’ll be hell to pay.

Starry Eyes is the second feature for co-directors Kolsch and Widmyer, who also penned the screenplay. It exudes a 70s and 80s vibe, and a deliciously twisted one at that. The occult element and the central character’s naïveté from Ti West’s The House of the Devil, the oh so blackly comic tone of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, the body-horror of recent indie fave Contracted, even the nightmarish craving for perfection from Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan , all converge in this tinsel realm of black magic realism.

My hat goes off to Alex Essoe, who delivers probably the best performance I’ve seen all year. Watch out for this young lady, she’s going places! But kudos must go to the directors for top-notch casting all-round. The always-good Amanda Fuller plays Sarah’s concerned housemate Tracy, and Fabianne Therese is strong as Danny’s lover Erin, a thorn in Sarah’s side. Poor Ashley (Natalie Castillo), one of the background buddies, who comes to a most gruesome demise - horror kill of the year, most definitely!

Starry Eyes is one of those great horror movies that spends much of its time building character and vibe, edging its story arc along, tugging the tension threads, tightening the thriller element, and then in its third act the true nightmare spills forth, the fetid walls come tumbling down, and the inferno flares as the damaged soul has been bought and is now being consumed. Starry Eyes is one elegantly resonant, darkly glittering horror act, and one of my favourite movies of the year.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey Of Richard Stanley's Island Of Dr. Moreau

US | 2014 | Directed by David Gregory

Logline: A documentary on how a clash of vision, personalities, and weather ruined one man’s dream movie.

Everyone loves a good disaster, especially one out of Hollywood. Not necessarily a bad movie in itself, although in this case that part is very, very apt, but a disaster in the making of the movie, the process as nightmare. Four of the best documentaries that looked at troubled productions have been Jodorowsky’s Dune, Despite the Gods, and Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. Dune was a potentially amazing movie that was never completed, Despite the Gods covered the making of Jennifer Lynch’s Hisss, which turned a snake goddess into a gobbling turkey, and Hearts of Darkness was Eleanor Coppola’s diary of the making of Apocalypse Now, a movie plagued by disaster, but a resulting masterpiece.

Richard Stanley’s endeavour to adapt H. G. Wells’ classic science fiction-horror tale of man playing god falls into the same territory as Jennifer Lynch’s doomed vision. Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau could have, would have, and should have been a modern horror classic. Stanley had almost all the rights elements; certainly a subversive screenplay, co-penned with Michael Herr (the ‘Nam book Dispatches and all the narration for Apocalypse Now) and Walon Green (The Wild Bunch), plus Stan Winston Studio onboard for all the creature designs and effects, and a fantastic sub-tropical location on the Queensland jungle coastline.

But Stanley also had Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer in lead roles, Brando as the lunatic doctor and Kilmer as … Kilmer. Brando was still rubbing his enormous ego with utter contempt for the industry, and had been doing so ever since Apocalypse Now. Kilmer was entrenched in a bitter divorce and indulging his own egomania as he was at the (questionable) height of his career. These two megalomaniacs would conspire (but not together as they loathed each other) to bring the production to its hairy knees.

Poor Richard Stanley. An eccentric, mild-mannered maverick, he had already endured a distribution hell with his metaphysical horror-thriller Dust Devil. Now he was plunged into a sweaty, hideous fresh hell that no Panama hat or linen suit would protect him from. Hollywood eats its young, and in their eyes Stanley was as green as they come. Despite his best intentions, the huge production swiftly got out of control, and within a week of principal photography he was fired and replaced with tough old schooler John Frankenheimer. To Stanley’s credit, the production was a beast that no one was ever going to be able to tame, not even Frankenheimer.

This compelling documentary is packed full of fascinating incident and blackly hilarious anecdote, much of which is related by Stanley himself, now a semi-recluse on a witchy mountain retreat. Numerous members of the Australian crew offer tales of madness and excess, and these are tempered with the more academic recollections of Bob Shaye, the head of New Line Cinema, and Robert R. Pressman, the producer whom originally gave the thumbs up to Stanley’s proposed adaptation. But where is David Thewlis, who replaced Vic Morrow?

Some of the best memories and opinions on the production come from fabulous co-star Fairuza Balk, who loved working with Stanley on those precious few days, and like many who knew him, were confident he would have delivered a great movie had those elements not conspired against him. Balk manages to laugh off the fact that she’s part of one of the worst movies of the past twenty years. If only …

Lost Soul screens as part of Melbourne’s Monster Fest, Wednesday, November 26th, 9:30pm, Yah Yah’s, Collingwood AND Sydney’s Fantastic Planet Film Festival, Saturday, November 29th, 7pm, Dendy Cinemas Newtown.

Honeymoon

US | 2014 | Directed by Leigh Janiak

Logline: A newlywed couple have their lakeside country honeymoon disrupted by the wife’s increasingly strange behaviour.

I love a great debut feature from a filmmaker who has done virtually nothing else in terms of directing. Leigh Janiak’s background has been as a producer’s assistant, but she’s obviously got the directing chops. She elicits solid performances from her small cast, and she knows a thing or two about atmosphere, the paramount element in a horror movie. Honeymoon is every romantic’s worst nightmare.

Paul (Harry Treadaway) and Bea (Rose Leslie) have travelled to a remote country cottage to celebrate their honeymoon. They are young and very in love. It’s the perfect no frills rustic indulgence; fishing on the lake, lazy continental breakfasts, and plenty of lovin’. What could go wrong? Oh, only like the most sinister of things.

Firstly there’s the strange encounter with the local proprietor of the nearby country restaurant, the intense Will (Ben Huber), and his timid wife Annie (Hanna Brown). It’s quickly revealed Will and Bea knew each other when they were much younger, but that’s not what bothers Paul so much as the weird tension between the husband and wife. It will come back to haunt Paul. Oh yes, indeedy.

The shit hits the fan after Paul discovers Bea sleepwalking in the dead of night out in the woods surrounding the cottage. She is nude and disorientated, her nightie nowhere to be seen. In the days that follow Bea begins to act oddly, and her physical appearance deteriorates. The mozzie bites on her inner thighs that are most certainly not from any insect Paul is familiar with. Bea isn’t interested in making love, and is lethargic and forgetful.

Whilst much of the movie’s action takes place at night, and most of it involves just Bea and Paul (Will and Annie are the only other characters in the whole movie), the tension is slowly ratcheted up as Paul’s paranoia escalates. Just who is Bea really? She looks like his wife, smells the same, tastes the same. But she’s different. Yup, it’s that kind of palpable nightmare.

The final quarter of the movie is when it all goes to pieces, Paul’s dream world falls apart completely as Bea’s new world beckons and takes full control. The suspense becomes nail-biting. The scene in the bedroom when Paul makes a horrific discovery - the body-horror element handled superbly - is one of the more insidious scenes in recent horror movie memory.

Honeymoon – and curiously, the title drips with dread on its own, whereas if it had been The Honeymoon, a comic tone would’ve loitered – is an excellent retro-vibed tale of dark cosmic intervention. A Lovecraftian shroud falls across the sacrament of love. Poor Paul, poor Bea.

Honeymoon screens as part of Melbourne’s Monster Fest, Saturday, November 22nd, 5pm, Cinema Nova, Carlton AND as part of Sydney’s A Night Of Horror International Film Festival, Saturday, November 29th, 5pm, Dendy Cinemas Newtown.

Interstellar

US/UK | 2014 | Directed by Christopher Nolan

Logline: In a near future ravaged by drought and dirt storms, a group of space explorers travel through a wormhole to another galaxy to try and find a suitable new home for humankind.

Originally a project Steven Spielberg was to direct, and Interstellar exudes much of the Hollywood titan’s exemplary feelgood vibe, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it won’t do the movie any favours in the long run, just as Gravity won’t weigh nearly as heavily ten or so years down the track. Christopher Nolan was hired by Spielberg to pen the screenplay, and when Spielberg opted to fry other fish, Nolan had the option to direct, and he brought his brother Jonathon in to co-script.

Based loosely on the theories of quantum physicist Kip Thorne, it deals with the travel undertaken by several astronauts through a rip in the space-time continuum, and the ultimate consequences, successful and perilous, involved in this kind of cosmic journey. Matthew McConaughy is Cooper, the former spaceman turned corn farmer who is brought back into the NASA fold.

Humanity is facing extinction, so it is imperative that another planet be found that is within reach, and that can support human life. A wormhole near Saturn has suddenly opened up, allowing travel to a distant galaxy where several new worlds exist. On the closest planet one hour on its surface is equal to seven years on Earth. Cooper’s 14-year-old daughter is inconsolable when she learns of her father’s decision to make the epic journey. He promises he will return.

Like Ridley Scott’s attention to detail, Nolan is excellent at immersing his audience completely in his world. The production design and special effects are stunning, especially considering that Nolan prefers to use, as much as possible, models and in-camera effects. Even when using green screen he has projections installed so the actors can work against a visually accurate background. A notable point-of-view are the spacecraft-cam shots, in particular the jettisoning of the sections during the first part of the journey.

This is a space journey, but the narrative backbone is the relationship between Cooper and his daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy), and it is this that provides the movie it’s undeniably moving ending. As cynical as I might be at some of the Nolans’ screenwriting, in particular sections of dialogue, the silly robot (um, Demon Seed, anyone?), the awkward shift in tone – once again the movie turns into a James Bond adventure complete with ridiculous fight sequence (an uncredited Matt Damon suddenly appears!). And as for the trapped behind the bookshelves sequence, the less said the better.

There is one brief moment – which occurs twice in the movie, from two separate perspectives – that encapsulated the whole cosmic causality wormhole/blackhole phenomenon beautifully, and involves Amelia (Anne Hathaway)’s hand. For me, it was the highlight of the entire movie, a tiny speck of spacedust in the storm of humanity’s survival.

McConaughey is solid, but Jessica Chastain brings much gravitas to the picture. However the most notable element of the whole movie is Hans Zimmer’s amazing score, probably the best he’s ever done.

Interstellar isn’t the next piece of brilliance all the Nolan fans were anticipating. He cites 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Blade Runner, as inspiration. Robert Zemeckis's Contact was the movie that came to mind most often. I find Nolan suffers from illusions of grandeur; his movies becoming increasingly pompous, but it’s still an entertaining, exhilarating, heart-tugging ride.

Might be time to revisit Memento, his time-space masterpiece.

Sympathy For Lady Vengeance

Chinjeolhan Geumjassi | 2005 | South Korea | Directed by Chan-wook Park

Logline: After a woman is released from prison for a crime she didn’t commit she sets about reuniting with her daughter and orchestrating an elaborate revenge on the man who was responsible for the terrible crime and many more. 

It’s original title, Chinjeolhan Geumjassi, translates as Kindhearted Ms. Guem-Ja, and like the first movie in Park’s “Vengeance Trilogy”, it is a far superior title than the American/international version, especially since it conjures a bitter sense of irony, which is in keeping with the movie’s sombre, yet bewitchingly poetic tone. This is a tale of revenge as different from Oldboy as it is from Mr. Vengeance, it is still a dish served oh so chilled, as it will always – and best be, but there is also a strange, melancholic beauty that permeates the movie’s atmosphere.

Not as explicitly violent as its predecessors, yet just as dark and, in some ways, even more disturbing, as it deals with child abuse and the cold-blooded killing of children. Park is not shy or perturbed about dealing with such heinous material, yet he provides his protagonist with a wealth of ethical complications and moral dilemmas. This is a complex movie in terms of its thematic elements, but at the core is a tale of systematic retribution; justice in the hands of an elegant damaged soul.

After thirteen years in prison for kidnapping and murdering a young boy Geum-ja Lee (Yeong-ae Lee) is released and makes attempts to get her life on track. She finds a job in a bakery; orders the manufacturing of a special weapon; reunites with her daughter (who was adopted by an Australian family!); and, most importantly, plots her revenge against the real killer of the boy (who makes occasional ghostly visitations on her), the English teacher Mr. Baek (Min-sik Choi, star from Oldboy).

Geum-ja seeks redemption; she seeks to become “white” again. She orchestrates the union of the parents of the many children who had perished at the vile, cruel hands of the serial killer, and arranges for them to sate their shared desire for primal justice: and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. As shocking as it is satisfying, this climax is delivered and executed not as one would expect.

Once again Park presents his deadly subversive tale with the eye of an artist; the visual narrative is stunning, the baroque classical soundtrack fits hand in glove, the performances, especially that of Yeong-as Lee is nothing short of brilliant. To add a dangerous level of tenebrous humour infused with touches of surrealism is only something Park could get away with (as he does in the first and second movies of the trilogy).

This is a movie of contrasts and juxtapositions. Park’s original intention was for the cinematographic palette to slowly change during the course of the movie; the colour slowly draining away eventually leaving the imagery in just black and white. Unfortunately the budget didn’t allow for such a complicated colour grade in post, however, for the domestic release a “Fade To Black Version” was completed, which is included on the Korean DVD release.

Forget Kill Bill (parts one and two), the “Vengeance Trilogy” is the essential viewing for Asian cinema lovers, leftfield crime fiends, and enthusiasts of the sub-genre of revenge flicks.

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance

Boksuneun Naui Geot | 2002 | South Korea | Directed by Chan-wook Park

Logline: A businessman seeks revenge for the botched kidnapping of his daughter by a disgruntled former employee and his girlfriend.

Park is best known for his masterful revenge thriller Oldboy (2003), which is the middle movie in what is now referred to as his “vengeance trilogy”. The first movie’s original title, Boksuneun Naui Geot, translates roughly as "Vengeance is Mine", but it was re-titled Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance for its American/international release. Apparently Park prefers the Western title, but I think his original Eastern title is much more appropriate, especially once you’ve viewed the movie, and taken into account the complexity of its multiple takes on the act of revenge. Like Oldboy, this is a powerhouse thriller pulsing with a visceral intensity and packed with stunning imagery.

Needing money for a vital kidney transplant that will save his sister’s life, Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin), a deaf mute, and his girlfriend Cha Yeong-mi (Doona Bae) kidnap a wealthy divorced businessman’s only daughter in order to extort a ransom. When Ryu’s sister (Ji-Eun Lim) discovers that the young girl they’re “babysitting” has actually been kidnapped she acts in extreme protest, much to Ryu’s despair. Then the situation goes from tragic to double-whammy tragic, and the businessman, Park Dong-Jin (Kang-ho Song) seeks retribution.

This is vengeance as rite of passage riding shotgun with Murphy’s Law. Ryu tries to donate his own kidney to his sister, but his blood type is not compatible with hers. When Ryu is fired from Ilshin Electronics, he meets a black market dealer of human organs, but the criminals propose that he give them his kidney plus ten million to obtain a kidney suitable for his sister. Ryu accepts the trade, but he does not have money to pay for the surgery. His lover, Yeong-mi, who fancies herself as an anarchist revolutionary, is the one who convinces him to kidnap Yossun, the daughter of his former employer, the businessman Park, who owns the electronic company.

There’s also a retarded young man (Seung-beom Ryu) who turns up at the river where Ryu buries his sister. The physically disabled man complicates matters when he interferes. But later he provides Park with key information, via a necklace, the who and where, responsible for the death of his daughter. There is also Yeong-mi’s terrorist friends, the young circle jerks, living in the tiny apartment next door to Ryu and Yeong. They play their cards late in the game.

Chan-wook Park is a consummate visual storyteller, his mise-en-scene and composition is brilliant, as is his use of sound. He amply displays all the ingredients for compelling, provocative cinema. Morality is treated as both hero and villain, and extreme violence is par for the course; everyone is victim, everyone is perpetrator. Park elicits dynamic performances from his core cast, and as far as his finale is concerned, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Housebound

NZ | 2014 | Directed by Gerard Johnstone

Logline: A young troublemaker is given home detention, forced to spend time with her estranged mother, and discovers very strange goings-on within the walls of the house. 

It’s one thing to embark on a labour-of-love, low-budget debut feature, it’s quite another to spend four years working on it, finally have it completed, and it's watched by fellow Kiwi Peter Jackson, who raves about it. Talk about career sorted! Gerard Johnstone is a genuine talent with an impressively well-earned notch on his new belt.

In the movie’s prologue meth-head Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly) and her partner-in-crime attempt to rob an isolated ATM in the dead of night. It goes pear-shaped quickly. She ends up with an electronic ankle bracelet and is confined to her mother Miriam (Rimi Ti Waita)’s property for an eight-month sentence. She’s not happy. But mum is. Until Kylie falls back into her old abusive, obnoxious behaviour, but Miriam’s wallflower partner Graeme (Ross Harper) is about as much use as a spare prick at a wedding, and counselor Dennis (Cameron Rhodes) only seems to antagonise her.

Superstitious Miriam believes the old house is haunted. Certainly the creaks, groans, and bumps in the middle of the night would suggest so. Kylie is not convinced. After discovering foul play has stained the home, she’s determined to prove there’s no ghost, only an evil neighbour. Initially, her probation officer-cum-paranormal enthusiast, Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), thinks otherwise.

Housebound sports a great script, bursting with hilarious characters spouting cracking dialogue. The casting is bang on; O’Reilly, who will be familiar to Neighbours fans, oozes screen charisma, and she nails the surly bitch attitude with aplomb (keep on eye on her, she’ll be real big soon enough), while veteran actors Ti Waita and Rhodes deliver superb support, at times stealing the scene. Waru’s buffoon is another comic delight.

The Kiwi comedy is a distinct sense of humour, and Housebound wriggles and writhes in it like a pig in mud. But most importantly, for the most part, it balances the tone between the comedy and the horror just right. Yes, the movie is a bit long, but the murder mystery reveal and most of the horror shenanigans all occurs in the last twenty minutes, the pacing has been spot on for the rest of the flick.

Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead set the comedy-horror bar very high ten years ago. Few movies have come anywhere close. But there are a couple of antipodean contenders currently in the ring.

My Name Is Jonah

US | 2014 | Directed by Phil Healy & JB Sapienza

Logline: A portrait of a self-proclaimed real-life warrior and adventurer known only as Jonah, and how this cult of personality came and continues to be.

“In a time that lies just beyond yesterday, a boy given to dreaming, did become a man … forged in battle that raged within a tropical hell …”

One of the best true character documentaries of recent years, this is the kind of truth-is-stranger-than-fiction cases where the subject matter continues to defy all expectation and confounds the viewer with the enigma of their tenacity. If this aging All-American warrior’s fuel were an elixir and ambrosia, it would be rum and cranberry juice and two homemade cheeseburgers.

“And lo’ the man returned to the land he had inhabited in his youth, armed now with both the dreams of the boy and warrior’s guile of the man he had become …”

John Washnis has small man syndrome, it’s plain to see. But rather than it being projected as malice or spite or in any way vindictive, this bottled inadequacy is channeled into the spirit of the warrior on the edge of time. John became Jonah, his surname disappearing from public use eons ago. In its place he thrusts a broadsword, brandishes a crossbow, or whips around a nunchucker. He seizes role-playing adventure while others only daydream about it. He is Jonah … hear him roar like a fucking bear!

“Soon he found that reality not to his liking, so he created a new one for himself and those that chose to walk his path …”

Not only is Jonah a Myspace veteran and a Xmas-card legend (yes, for thirty years – 1976 to 2006 - he organised elaborate costume shoots for Christmas cards he designed and distributed to friends and followers across the world), but he is also one of the meanest harmonica players ever to hit the small town pub circuit. He even cut a record, Have Harp Will Travel, and continues to make notable guest appearances in rockin’ joints like The Stumblin’ Inn. 

Just as was revealed in the exceptional documentary Crumb, Jonah has family and friends that are, well, almost as curious as the man himself. One of Jonah’s best friends, apart from his Best Friend, the late canine Tonru, is Skip “The Trip” Evon, who began video recording Jonah’s exploits for archival purposes on a Hi-8 many moons back. There’s Gary Bader, Jonah’s childhood pal and longtime still photographer for the Xmas shoots. Gary has originals of the first ten issues of X-Men. There’s Mr. Chips, who was Jonah’s crazy chemical colleague.  There’s the Inhuman, Ferg, another childhood buddy of Jonah’s who liked to dress-up and play silly buggers. There's even a Russian bride.

And then there’s Jonah’s brother Jimmy, the ex-jock. Jimmy has a chip on his shoulder. A big one, it seems, as he has a quite a few shards he’s keen to throw Jonah’s way. Did Jonah really serve in the Special Forces in ‘Nam, or did he just hang out and drop acid in Germany? Hell, Jimmy’s convinced Jonah’s the Devil’s spawn! Quite the proclamation. Even Jonah’s sisters aren’t quite sure of the whole story.  

Not too dissimilar to the tragi-comedy that is Anvil: The Story of Anvil, this is an honest portrait, steeped in an endearing sadness, warts and all story, which demands to be lifted high on one’s shoulders and cheered on. My Name is Jonah brazenly steps onto its own comic-book pedestal and chants a cult mantra …

“You people are weeeeaak!!”

And we kneel and respond, “Only as weak as you are strong, Jonah!”

My Name Is Jonah screens as part of the 8th Sydney Underground Film Festival, Friday 5th, 10:30pm and Sunday 7th, 1pm, at Factory Theatre, Marrickville.