Fruit of Paradise

Fruit of Paradise 1
Fruit of Paradise

Format: DVD

Release date: 13 April 2015

Distributor: Second Run

Director: Věra Chytilová

Writers: Věra Chytilová, Ester Krumbachová

Cast: Jitka Novákova, Karel Novak, Jan Schmid

Original title: Ovoce stromu rajských jíme

Czech Republic 1969

99 mins

Released in 1969, shortly after the Soviet invasion that crushed the Prague Spring, Fruit of Paradise is inevitably more sombre than Daisies, director Věra Chytilová’s most famous film, made in 1966 at the height of the Czech New Wave. Both Daisies and Fruit of Paradise centre on women who refuse to follow the rules. Yet in Daisies, two teenage girls giggle their way through their lives, refusing to take anything seriously, while Fruit of Paradise, with its biblical basis, addresses matters of life and death and is shot through with genuine threat.

The film opens with a lyrical rendition of the story of Adam and Eve. Composer Zdeněk Liška’s haunting, mysterious score combines with a mesmerising sequence of images, the slowly moving figures of Adam and Eve overlaid with close-ups of flowers and leaves. The shifting colours, absence of dialogue and emphasis on bodies in movement evoke early cinema’s hand-tinted shorts, such as Lumière’s Serpentine Dance (1896). The concern with visual innovation and pictorial composition, shared by Chytilová and cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, is obvious, and links the film with Daisies, which Kučera also photographed. But the playful spirit of the earlier film has been supplanted, here, by a more sober and pensive form of experimentation.

After the opening sequence, the film takes an allegorical approach to the Adam and Eve theme. Key elements are still clearly identifiable: a central couple featuring a woman named Eva, an apple tree in a pastoral landscape, and a dangerous figure of temptation, here represented by Robert, a redhead in a maroon suit. Chytilová’s most obvious adjustment to the story is in the nature of the three protagonists, and the dynamics of their relationship. Josef, Eva’s husband, is a philanderer, so she is arguably within her rights to pursue a lover of her own, even if she seems ill-advised in her choice of the satanic Robert.

Eva observes, with delight, how playfully Robert interacts with other women. Having thus subjected him to the female gaze, she continues her investigation of him, making off with the key to his room. There, she finds a rubber stamp of the (appropriately demonic) number 6, which she imprints on her thigh, a scene reminiscent of Jiří Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains (1966), where signalman Hubička stamps the secretary’s bottom. Josef Somr, who played Hubička, actually does the voice-over for Josef in Fruit of Paradise, while the voice of Robert is provided by Jan Klusák, who played the similarly sinister figures of the butterfly collector in Daisies and the bullying host in The Party and the Guests.

This new Second Run DVD release also includes Chytilová’s stylish graduation film, Ceiling, a cinéma vérité-style short about the life of a young model. It also features thorough liner notes by Czech New Wave expert Peter Hames, who provides all sorts of useful and intriguing insights into both films, their background and context.

Alison Frank

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Format: Cinema

Release date: 24 April 2015

Distributor: Curzon Film World

Director: Roy Anderson

Writer: Roy Anderson

Cast: Nisse Vestblom. Holger Andersson, Viktor Gyllenberg, Lotti Törnros

Sweden, Germany, Norway, France 2014

101 mins

Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence initially seems to take its title rather literally: a man stands in the midst of glass display cases in some sort of natural history museum, musing on the taxidermy contained within. But the title is actually inspired by Bruegel the Elder’s painting The Hunters in the Snow, in which pigeons perch above the heads of the men below. The birds are observers, here reflecting on the characters whose lives are laid bare throughout the series of vignettes that comprise the final film in Andersson’s trilogy, which began with Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living.

Our introduction to the pigeon aside, the film begins at the end, with a few scenes concerned with mortality, poking fun at some of the absurdities endured by both the victim and their remaining loved – or unloved – ones. They are some of the mostly blackly humorous vignettes in the film, before it trains its eye again on the living, and the moments that make up day-to-day existence – and, in the big picture, humanity itself. But for Andersson, there is little sentimentality; rather life is surreal yet banal, at times painful and unfulfilling. Mercifully, this bleakness is often relieved by the subtlety of his humour, which permeates the film.

If Pigeon has protagonists, it is the two travelling salesmen who peddle their outdated and unwanted novelty items from a beaten-up suitcase. They are tragic, morose figures, whose paths intersect with those of other unhappy souls, most surreally with that of the young King Charles XII, who is on his way to the Russian front. There is a flamenco teacher in love with her much younger student; an official-looking man with a briefcase, who waits in vain for a meeting that never seems to occur; an elderly, deaf man who sits by himself in a bar, drinking vodka, reliving the past (cue a surprising musical number). Themes are threaded through the vignettes, with snatches of dialogue repeated by different characters in different situations, suggesting a common humanity regardless of circumstance. There are ever more absurd, puzzling and sometimes perplexing and disturbing moments; in a mere 90 minutes, Andersson covers the gamut of human emotions, distilling them into their basest forms.

The vignettes are framed as tableaux, the stationary camera forcing the audience to observe events at a distance, rather than allowing viewers to form any kind of closer connection with the players on the screen. The actors, powder thick on their faces, have a deathly pallor. Everything is washed out, creating a strange world infused with a limited, 70s-like palette. Though Andersson probes the intimate elements of his characters’ lives, he does so at a physical remove that can become frustratingly alienating.

With so many vignettes, it’s perhaps inevitable that there are the occasional mundane moments. Still, Andersson’s distinct way of looking at the world is undeniably unique, wistful, thoughtful and provocative.

Sarah Cronin

Watch the trailer:

Han Gong-ju

Han Gong ju
Han Gong-ju

Format: DVD + Blu-ray

Release date: 13 April 2015

Distributor: Third Window Films

Director: Lee Su-jin

Writer: Lee Su-jin

Cast: Chun Woo-hee, Jeong In-seon, Kim So-young, Lee Yeong-ran, Kim Choeyonjun

South Korea 2013

112 mins

Loosely based upon a shocking real-life case that took place back in 2004, indie drama Han Gong-ju became one of the most talked about Korean films of 2014, screening at around a dozen international film festivals as well as enjoying an unprecedented domestic release on over 200 screens, with admissions in excess of 220,000, making it one of the most widely seen and successful Korean independent productions of all time. Ironically though, this is a film that perhaps works more the less you know about it. So, for those looking for a short, spoiler-free verdict: Han Gong-ju is an absorbing, character-driven film that handles its thorny subject matter with sensitivity and fragmented grace. And although its execution is slow-burning and limited in certain respects, it is definitely worth checking out. Here’s the longer version…

Han Gong-ju follows the titular heroine, Gong-ju (a breakout performance by Chun Woo-hee), a victim of a sexually violent incident on which the film is heavily built upon, and which I shan’t go into in any further detail. She is transferred to a new school and is put up in the home of her former teacher’s mother (Lee Yeong-ran), and even does some shifts at her reluctant host’s convenience store. At school, however, Gong-ju keeps herself as isolated as possible. But after a fellow student, Eun-hee (Jeong In-seon), overhears Gong-ju singing while showering in the swimming pool changing area, she tries to coax the withdrawn girl into joining her a cappella group. But as Gong-ju lowers her defences, her traumatic past begins to catch up with her.

Not only does the past catch up with Gong-ju, it also catches up with the viewer. Writer-director Lee Su-jin chooses not to reveal the specifics of the incident right off the bat, opting to drip-feed information by shrewdly shuffling scenes from the past with scenes from the present. It is only in the film’s final scenes that we get to fully comprehend what has happened to her. It’s an interesting approach that has the potential to be either highly rewarding or highly frustrating for the viewer. On balance it’s the former that triumphs. However, there is a regrettable dash of the latter: although the film’s structure is fascinating to see unfold, with its intertwining timelines and subtle incidences of boundary-blurring hallucinations as the presence of another victim (Kim So-young) impresses herself on Gong-ju’s psyche, it does present certain limitations. For instance, a scene where the parents of some of those who were also involved with the incident start to hound Gong-ju with legal documents raises some interesting questions about the culture of victim shaming (something which sadly seems to be becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s media landscape), and also hints at just how complex the still ongoing case actually is. However, the film’s time shuffling means that these wider elements are left relatively unexplored.

Last seen on Korean television screens in the daft comedy series Vampire Idol (2011-2012), Chun Woo-hee performs admirably in a role that requires her to be almost constantly estranged from those around her. Again, Lee’s choice in story structure means we rarely see more than varying shades of glum, save for one rather radiant moment when Gong-ju picks up an acoustic guitar and loses herself in song. It’s the other performances, particularly those by Lee Yeong-ran and Jeong In-seon as surrogate mother figure and self-appointed best friend respectively, that create an environment within which Chun can excel with such an introverted character. They are supporting actors in every sense.

In a way, Han Gong-ju functions as a quietly sensitive inversion of Kim Ki-duk’s more scandalous Moebius (2013) – another recent Korean film that focuses on the aftermath of a sexual incident. Lee Su-jin’s work is certainly the more palatable and nuanced of the two, carefully underplaying the lurking nastiness of Gong-ju’s ordeal without trivialising it – a scene where the sound from an online video that captured part of the incident can be heard (but not seen) on a laptop is one of the film’s most devastating moments. Making his feature debut (his previous short film, Enemy’s Apple (2007), is available as a special feature on the Third Window Films DVD and Blu-ray release), Lee demonstrates an astonishing sense of craft, complemented by unobtrusive but sensuous camerawork. The film’s style comes across as methodical, yet somehow casual, and exerts a commendable level of authorial control that, while perhaps not fully mastered in this instance, shows a great deal of potential. Han Gong-ju is a welcome reminder of the power of suggestion.

Mark Player

Watch the trailer:

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

The Town that Dreaded Sundown
The Town that Dreaded Sundown

Format: Cinema

Release date: 17 April 2015

DVD release date: 17 August 2015

Distributor: Metrodome

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Writer: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

Cast: Addison Timlin, Veronica Cartwright, Anthony Anderson, Gary Cole, Ed Lauter

USA 2014

86 mins

Charles B. Pierce‘s The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) was an independent exploitation film that purported to tell the story of the true crime case of ‘the Phantom Killer’, who committed a brutal series of murders in the town of Texarkana, on the border between Texas and Arkansas, in 1946. The film is mainly discussed today as a proto-stalk-and-slash movie, one of those films, like Bob Clark‘s Black Christmas (1974), that came within a gnat’s hair of the winning formula of Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), but not quite… In the case of Sundown, Pierce gave us a masked killer and a body count structure, with gruesome deaths by gun, knife, and, notoriously, trombone slide, but couldn’t supply the payback climax or the final girl, for the good reason that the actual phantom killer was never caught, he simply stopped, leaving fear and mystery behind him.

If Pierce‘s film could be said to have been ahead of the pack, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon‘s new version would appear to be tardy to the party, arriving long after every other slasher movie of the 70s has been remade, to varying degrees of worthlessness. This time, it’s Halloween 2008, in Texarkana and Jami (Addison Timlin) feels uncomfortable at a pop up drive-in screening of… The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Her date gallantly drives them off to ‘park’, but they are attacked by a hooded, gun-toting maniac, a copycat phantom who only lets her live to send a message and tell the world that he’s back. Thereafter other murders occur, following the pattern laid down in ’46 (or the movie version thereof), the town grows more and more paranoid and hysterical, the Texas Rangers are called in, and Jami begins her own investigation, alongside local archive nerd Nick (Travis Trope), convinced the murders of ’46 hold the key to the killings around her…

Sundown ’14 is, for most of its running time, considerably more fun than it should be. A fizzy, unhealthy concoction brought to us by the people behind Glee, American Horror Story, Sinister and the Paranormal Activity franchise. It looks handsome, and as with all the grindhouse remakes, clearly has fancier technical resources to hand than its progenitor. It moves at a fair clip, the small town weirdness is well realised, camerawork and editing are lively and inventive, and it always helps to have the likes of Gary Cole and Veronica Cartwright filling out your cast. Moreover the victims are actually sympathetic characters for a change, rather than the parade of obnoxious ‘types’ that normally populate this branch of cinema these days, neatly established in swift tabloid strokes, and including a rather sweet, nervous, first-time gay couple.

It’s made texturally and textually more interesting by the presence of the ’76 film effectively haunting this one. It pops up, looking faded, bleached out, and rather shonky, on screen after screen, and almost subliminal blips of it are inserted into the edit. Further, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s script has all kinds of meta-games to play: we have Pierce’s son as a character, and even see the 70s film crew in one travelling shot. Most amusingly we have Anthony Anderson as ‘Lone Wolf’ the Texas Ranger realising, upon viewing Sundown for the first time, that he has parroted the dialogue of Ben Johnson, who played the character in the original. There is a theme running of how real life gets turned, over time, into stories, the past never lets go, and of how the Phantom Killer becomes the Boogey Man.

[SPOILER ALERT]

All good nasty fun, so it’s a pity that the makers turned for the finale to the Kevin Williamson Scream sequel model of ‘whodunnit’ reveal and final girl payback. For one thing, the ‘whodunnit’ reveal at the climax of a slasher movie always felt surplus to requirements to me, like being tasked with doing a crossword puzzle at the end of a rollercoaster ride. All the running and screaming suddenly gives way to discussions of identity and motivation that seem absurdly Scooby Doo. For another, the climax plonks the remake firmly into a run-of-the-mill stalk-and-slash model when, for a while there, it seemed smarter than that. So, entertaining enough, but a little disheartening. The modern drive-in won’t allow for ambiguity, and it’s not over until somebody gets ‘empowered’. Ah, for the 70s, where violence was always degrading…

Mark Stafford

Watch the trailer:

Lost River

Lost River
Lost River

Format: Cinema

Release date: 10 April 2015

Distributor: Entertainment One

Director: Ryan Gosling

Writer: Ryan Gosling

Cast: Iain De Caestecker, Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn

USA 2014

95 mins

In the largely deserted, rotting metropolis of Lost River, single mother of two Billy (Christina Hendricks) is two months behind on the payments that will stop the house she loves from being destroyed. Desperate, she confronts the new bank manager Dave (Ben Mendelsohn) about her situation, only for him to offer her employment at his nightclub, a strange burlesque/grand guignol establishment. She becomes a performer, but the increasingly forceful Dave keeps pressing for her to work downstairs, where the real money is to be made. Meanwhile her eldest son, Bones (Iain de Caestecker), is also deep in trouble, as his ‘work’ stripping copper from abandoned buildings brings him into conflict with local psycho Bully (Matt Smith*). He is torn between fleeing the city and staying for the sake of his mother, and for his burgeoning romance with neighbour Rat (Saiorse Ronan), who tells him that Lost River has been cursed, and that there is a way to break that curse.

Part modern American austerity drama, part neo-noir crime flick, part ‘hero’s journey’quest, Ryan Gosling’s first effort as writer/director is very likely going to split audiences between those who find it bewitching and those who find it unbearable. It’s going to get a proper kicking in some quarters, but I feel charitable towards it, mainly because the odd grab-bag of the cast (Joan from Mad Men! A Doctor Who! The creepy uncle out of Animal Kingdom! Eva Mendes!) seem to be having a whale of a time. Gosling, like many actor-turned-directors, indulges his cast their whims and fancies, always a risky strategy. But in this case it pays off in a number of odd little moments: Eva Mendes playing with Billy’s younger kid, plastered in fake blood; Matt Smith’s interaction with a baffled (non-pro) old lady on a gas station forecourt; Ben Mendelsohn’s freaky dancing, his OTT karaoke turn on ‘Cool Water’, all feel loose, semi-improvised and playful, in a style that fits with the film’s other ace card: its thrift shop explosion/Detroit ruin porn aesthetic. The buildings are crumbling, and in the process have become theatres. There’s a post–apocalyptic carnival float feel to the visual design, where everything seems to be repurposed and recycled, all shot in Benoit Debi‘s fluid, richly coloured William Egglestone-a-like photography.

It’s certainly beautiful, it just doesn’t feel all that purposeful. This is partly down to a bit of a charisma vacuum at its core: for whatever reason, the lead character Bones just feels a lot less interesting or likeable than everyone around him. He has a function in the story but doesn’t really have much to do but brood, glower and run away for most of the film. There’s also a problem in that Billy’s travails at the saturnine night club don’t really integrate with the Bones fairy tale business. It feels like one of David Lynch’s noir nightmares has gotten entangled somehow with a Beasts of the Southern Wild bit of mythical indie heart-on-sleevery, the two parts dancing, lava lamp style, but never quite mixing. The urgency of the last twenty minutes or so, as both tales darken and climax (and Jimmy Jewel’s score really kicks in**), largely override these quibbles, but for long stretches Lost River feels a bit shapeless and diffuse, a messy patchwork of pretty things, most of them second hand, some of them cherishable. It’s as if first-time screenwriter Ryan Gosling has, against his better instincts, corralled his loose and multifarious ideas into a Robert McKee approved three-act plot-point hitting screenplay, and first-time director Ryan Gosling has taken that screenplay and done spontaneous and interesting things with it.

Worth a gamble. Hell, you might love it.

Mark Stafford

*Smith and Mendelsohn, though never meeting on screen, effectively do battle here as two different flavours of menacing sociopath. Mendelsohn, a previous Gold winner in this field, is ahead on points, but Smith’s sexually threatening moment (‘can I stroke it?’) with Saoirse Ronan’s rat, deserves special mention.

**Seriously though, what is it with brooding, John Carpenter-esque synth scores these days? It’s like the composers for this, Drive, It Follows and a fair few others all had a meeting, or started a Carpenter fan club or something. I am most definitely not complaining, mind. Try playing the soundtrack to It Follows on your headphones after stepping off the nightbus of an evening. That’ll put a spring in your step.

Watch the trailer:

The Decent One

the decent one
The Decent One

Format: Cinema + VOD

Release date: 3 April 2015

Distributor: Curzon Film World

Director: Vanessa Lapa

Writers: Vanessa Lapa, Ori Weisbrod

Original title: Der Anständige

Austria, Israel 2014

96 mins

Heinrich Himmler was not only the most terrifying figure in Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, he was also the most elusive of his henchmen to have gained tremendous power. Despite his inexorable rise from patriotic lad to the Nazi party’s propaganda leader and Hitler’s personal bodyguard, before heading the SS and the police and, from 1943, serving as minister of the interior, his character and personality remained a frustrating enigma. Inevitably it raises the question of how and why it was possible for someone as inconspicuous as he once was to eventually become Hitler’s right-hand man, solely responsible for overseeing the ‘Final Solution’.

Israeli filmmaker Vanessa Lapa’s documentary The Decent One tries to shine new light on Himmler’s murky psychological profile and, to some extent, the telling details that are revealed are haunting and illuminating in equal measure. The film is based on a newly discovered collection of documents, including hundreds of pages of diary entries and private letters between Himmler and his family, mixed with official correspondence. These documents are thought to have been found by US army officers in May 1945 in one of the Himmler family homes in Gmund, in the Bavarian Alps, but failed to get into the hands of the authorities until a few years ago. While most people might think that the number of documentaries on Hitler and his entourage have come close to exhausting the subject, what makes Lapa’s approach different is the disturbing sense of banality in the material. Recited in sometimes emphatic voice-over by actors, illustrated with photographs and archive footage, and accompanied by a heavy, occasionally sensational score mixed with amplified sound effects, the documents presented unravel the picture of a precocious, petty bourgeois who writes corny letters to his wife, and later to his mistress (his long-term secretary Hedwig Potthast), while his relentless bureaucratic bigotry, fierce anti-Semitism and urge to serve help him to quickly move up the party ladder right to the top.

The Decent One is also released on DVD in the UK on 13 April 2015 by Artificial Eye.

Yet as historic events unfold, the consistent, progressively devastating flow of readings, combined with descriptive footage, becomes problematic and precariously unwieldy. Lapa’s presentation is at its best when it exposes Himmler’s inner thoughts and occasionally surprising considerations in the wealth of mundane private correspondence. But while there’s little doubt about the value of the film in terms of revealing new aspects of Himmler’s personality – albeit on a rather superficial level – the lack of impetus that characterises The Decent One almost from the outset, with its insistence on a very concrete formal investigation, offers little more than a reminder of dark times. Ultimately, it gives less insight into the actual psychology of an introverted mass murderer and war criminal and his repression of any sense of guilt than one would have hoped for.

Pamela Jahn

Watch the trailer:

Rigor Mortis

RigorMortis1
Rigor Mortis

Format: Cinema

Release date: 24 April 2015

Distributor: Metrodome

Director: Juno Mak

Writers: Philip Yung, Jill Leung, Juno Mak

Cast: Chin Siu-ho, Anthony Chan, Kara Hui, Lo Hoi-pang, Paw Hee-ching

Hong Kong 2013

101 mins

Juno Mak, who played the lead in, and wrote the story for, tragic thriller Revenge: A Love Story, makes his directorial debut with a superb, sombre homage to 1980s Chinese vampire films, in particular Ricky Lau’s supernatural action comedy Mr. Vampire. Featuring members of Lau’s original cast, Rigor Mortis foregoes the humour of the earlier film for a brooding, melancholy mood and dreamlike atmosphere. Mr. Vampire’s Chin Siu-Ho plays a forlorn former actor who attempts to commit suicide after moving into a bleak, ominous building. His neighbour Yau intervenes and saves him, but Chin and his neighbours will have to face the dark forces at work in his new home.

Rigor Mortis draws on Chinese vampire mythology, which gives the story a fascinating, mysterious (to Western audiences) edge. Taoist vampire hunter Yau and his ally/nemesis, the black magician Gau, use amulets, spells, glutinous rice and red string (creating gorgeous tentacular visuals), and, in Yau’s case, the Taoist wheel and its five elements, to control the supernatural creatures unleashed – including an impressively macabre zombie/vampire. With CGI used to terrific effect, the film features breath-taking fight sequences that alternate flowing balletic grace with sharp bursts of bloody action.

Startling, beautiful and eerie, Rigor Mortis takes place in an otherworldly realm of constantly croaking crows, muted grey colours, strange children and upside down gardens growing on ceilings, all underpinned by a haunting, creepy score. While the elliptical, circular narrative is left open to interpretation, it seems to suggest that what we are watching is the heroic death dreamed by a dying actor, the casting of Chin Siu-Ho giving added poignancy to this idea. A superb, haunting, darkly poetic debut not to be missed.

Virginie Sélavy

This review is part of our LFF 2014 coverage.

Watch the trailer: