Feed (Australia, 2005)

A guy kidnaps fat women and makes them eat huge amounts of junk food. Not only that: he is showing it live on the internet, and people can actually bet to see how long these women will last before they die. Not only that: he gets sexually aroused when he feeds these women and he is leading a normal life with his wife. Is this sick enough for you? I am fed up of watching sick movies. But this one, I must admit, is actually very well made. The story flows quite fast enough to keep you awake, the editing and score are great, as well as the surprising ending. We follow an Australian police officer who travels to the US in search of this wacko. What he finds out is disturbing enough to make him sick now and then. He nevertheless goes to the very end and is willing to risk even his own life in order to help these kidnapped women. The ending will show that even our Australian hero is a little wacko himself.

Caché (Versteckt, Frankreich, 2005)

Eine Familie wird überwacht, und zwar jeden Tag. Der Täter bleibt unbekannt, aber er sorgt dafür, dass die Familie jeden Tag eine Cassette bekommt. Auf diesen Cassetten kann man das Haus dieser Familie von draussen sehen, genauso wie die Aufnahme einer Überwachungskamera. Später bekommt die Familie auch Ansichtskarten, auf denen man ein Kind mit einem blutigen Mund sehen kann. Statt dies der Polizei zu melden, entschliesst sich die Familie zum Schweigen. Die Konsequenzen wird die ganze Familia tragen.

Die Geschichte ähnelt dem Film "Lost Highway" vom Regisseur David Lynch. Die mysteriösen Cassetten treten vor der Tür des Hauses auf. Aber diese französische Version ist langweilig. Daniel Auteuil spielt die Rolle des Vaters. Er versucht vergeblich den Täter zu finden. Juliette Binoche ist die Frau, die sich ständig um ihren Sonn Sorgen macht, weil sie glaubt, er könnte jederzeit entführt werden.

Dr. Sorenstams Fall

Das ist der Titel meiner neuen Geschichte. Es ist ein Drehbuch, das ich schon seit langem schreiben wollte. Endlich mache ich es, und ich bin fast fertig. Es basiert auf einem Film von Raoul Ruiz, dem Schweizer Regisseur. Mir gefällt nicht so sehr, Geschichten von anderen Autoren zu kopieren, aber diesen Film fand ich hervorragend, als ich ihn zum ersten Ml in Mexiko gesehen habe. Der Film ist eine Mischung von Realität und surrealistischen Szenen, beziehungsweise Dialogen, die sich manchmal widersprechen.

Regisseur Ruiz hat seinerseits seinen Film auf einer wahren Geschichte basiert, die Anfang des XX. Jahrhunderts stattgefunden hat. Es geht um die Psychoanalytikerin Hermione Helmut, die in Wien die Schule von Freud absolvierte. Sie erforschte die Persönlichkeit und Eigenschaften im frühen Leben von Kindern.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
The Descent (UK, 2005)

This was the first movie that played in this year’s Fantasia Film Festival. And what a good choice to scare audiences and welcome them to another year of scares! Six women go to the Appalachian Mountains to do some cave exploring. One of the women misleads them intentionally by taking them to an unexplored cave that no one had explored before, or so she thinks. After several small accidents once inside this enormous cave, strange bat-like creatures start to attack our poor explorers. One by one they are savagely eaten alive. Yes, you heard well. And the gore content in this film is more than enough to keep your stomach at the edge. The end is unpredictable, so you do not know who will survive until the last scene. The best trapped-in-a-cave movie I have seen so far.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Robert Morgan's short films

The UK animator and creator Robert Morgan has been working since 1997. His short films are not known outside England due to lack of financial support. Unfortunately, short films suffer in general the same problem: very little distribution because they are economically not very profitable. So Robert Morgan's work remains practically unknown. But if you see his short The Separation (see photo) you'd be surprise of what he can do with silicon and clay dolls. He says his major influence is David Lynch, and you can tell by the background music and lighting in his movies. In The Separation, two twins are separated but feel lonely, they get pasted back together by a strange machine, but something goes wrong during the process, and the end result is grotesque. In The Cat with Hands, a small black cat takes parts of people's bodies and slowly turns into a normal person. He cathes birds with his hands and eats them alive. These are just some examples of Morgan's extraordinary talent.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Reincarnation (Rinne / Japan, 2005)

This is your typical Japanese scary movie. The difference being that they are far more original than the American remakes. It tells the story of a film crew who is re-enacting the murders that took place in a creepy hotel. When the crew goes to the actual hotel to do some exploratory research, one of the actresses begins to be haunted by a strange little girl and her doll (the creepiest and scariest doll I have seen since Chucky!). The little girl and her whole family where killed in this hotel.

Director Takashi Shimizu is an expert in scaring its audience. Simple things like a distant noise, a small ball bouncing on the floor can scare the hell out of you if you leave it to Shimizu to create the appropriate atmosphere. Just like his previous film Ju-on, every murder scene develops slowly and ends with a gruesome killing. A very entertaining and above all, scary film worth watching.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Pusher 3 (aka : I am the Angel of Death) (Denmark, 2005)

This third part has nothing to do with the other two, so you can watch it without worrying about not understanding. A middle-aged man, Milo, is involved in drug trafficking in Copenhague. It’s his 25-year-old daughter’s birthday and the movie takes place just in this fatal day. He gets involved in a strange drug deal where he gets screwed. While trying to solve the problem, he consumes ecstasy, speed and other drugs which provoke him to react violently. He also attends a drug recovery group, but just for 15 minutes because he is busy cooking for his daughter’s party. He is trying to get out of drugs and at the same time he is buying and selling the product. When one of his friends offers him coke, everything goes downhill for Milo. How he gets rid of the bodies of the two persons he kills is quite disturbing. You will get trapped in Milo’s world of drugs and violence without even noticing. A remarkable film from director Nicolas Winding Renf.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Lunacy (Sileni, Czech Republic, 2005)

Director Jan Svankmajer brings us a story about a young man, Jean Berlot, who on the way to his mother’s funeral, meets a very strange character who resembles the Marquis de Sade. The Marquis invites him to his house and Jean soon finds out the Marquis’ bizarre traditions and blasphemous ceremonies. Following Svankmajer’s tradition, there is a combination of live action and stop motion. Jean finds out that the so-called Marquis is actually a patient of a madhouse who had escaped. When Jean rescues the real doctors, who were kept locked in the basement by the patients, his own descent into madness begins when he has to confront his own fears. In between takes we see stop-motion scenes of cuts of beef (yes, you read well, cuts of beef!) running around, hiding behind clothes, moving things of their own will; we seem to be looking at the mind of a real madman. This is an original film by one of the industry’s best stop-motion directors I have seen.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
The Kovak Box (El Laberinto de Kovak, Spain, 2006)

Director Daniel Monzon, who brought us the extraordinary film The Machinist, comes back with another thriller about a bizarre experiment done on human beings.

A sci-fi writer, David, is invited to give a conference in the island of Mallorca. His wife goes with him, and on the first night, she receives a mysterious call that makes her jump out of the window killing herself. At the same time, another guest at the hotel receives a call and jumps out the window too. What seems to be a suicide turns out to be something much worse, as David starts receiving clues as to what is really happening. Apparently, a Hungarian researcher, Robert Kovak, had been experimenting conditional behaviour on humans. David soon finds himself entangled in Mr. Kovak’s plan to write a book about his life. He wants of course David to write it, and thanks to his experiment, he is able to control people’s mind if they do not comply to his requests.

The plot will keep you at the edge of your seat until the end. We, as spectators, discover new facts in every scene, and just like the writer David, we are trying to understand and connect the dots. A few graphic killings complete this excellent movie.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Blood Tea and Red String (USA, 2005)

This is a sci-fi animation tale for adults. It is about a group of mice who play cards and drink blood tea at the same time. That’s it? No, of course not. On the other hand, a group of squirrel-like animals called the Oak Dwellers, start a journey in order to recover a doll for which they all fell in love. This doll now belongs to the mice. During this journey, they get to taste the yellow fruit, which produces hallucinations. At one point, a strange butterfly comes out of the doll’s stomach and before this happens, the squirrel-like creatures hang the doll on a tree and make it look like Jesus Christ. Is this twisted enough for you? This is an interesting little animation that resembles the work of the Czech director Jan Svankmajer.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Storm (Sweden, 2005)

Eric Ericson lives by himself in an appartment in downtown Stockholm. Suddenly, the city is menaced by a huge storm. In the meantime, Eric crosses road with a red-haired woman who is being chased by some very mysterious looking individuals. She is carrying a small silver box that she cannot open by herself. Things get more strange when the woman knocks on his door the same night, and the mysterious guys start chasing Eric too. Soon enough, he is involved in this chase without anyone explaining why. When the flashbacks to his childhood start, and when Eric discovers a copy of an old comic book he used to read when he was a kid, what appears as just a murderous chase becomes a personal quest and rediscovering of Eric's childhood misbehaviours. A very unique film that defies categorizing, this is another example of new Scandinavian cinema. A lot of action scenes and good editing, along with cool background music and a few scares (deadly ghosts appear now and then) will keep you alert throughout the whole movie.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006

White of the Eye (USA, UK, 1987)

According to movie experts, this is director's Donald Cammell best movie. He is rarely known in the industry because he has had a rather cursed career. However, his films are visual masterpieces not to be missed. This movie has not been released for cinema; being shown only at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal. The film was kept in the shelves of the British Council of Censorship (or whatever the name is). For strange reasons and distribution complications, the movie was never released.

This is the story of Paul White, an audio and video equipment repairman. He has a strange hobby though: he kills rich and lonely women. When he commits his murders, he arranges the crime scene as a work of art, using the furniture (and body parts!) available to rearrange it all and create a new grotesque visual work of art, according to him. When his wife finds out and the local police start looking for him, all hell breaks loose. Paul White tries to stab his wife to death and shoot at his own little daughter.

The whole movie is very visual with a lot of opera and classical music playing in the background. The music sets the tone for several crime scenes and the ending is very well made. It reminds me somewhat of The Shining, but this movie might be a little bit more original.

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2006

Art of the Devil 2 (Thailand, 2005)

This sequel has nothing to do with the original apparently. In up-town Thailand, a group of students decide to take revenge on a gym teacher who abused one of the students. They sollicit the help of a Cambodian witch doctor. He warns them, however, that whatever they do, karma will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Whatever bad you do, it will come back to you one way or another. In this case, everyone has a curse on everyone, and the fun begins when they are invited to their teachers house to spend some time with her. This teacher (see photo), who seems at first to be the nice and gentle, ends up killing the students in such a gruesome way that censors will have a hard time figuring out what scenes to cut. Lizzards come out of someone's back, one students gets burned alive with a fire torch provided by our dear teacher, hooks come out of the skin of another person, and terrifying ghosts appear at every corner to one of the students. This is clearly not for the faint of heart or stomach.

Viridiana (Spain, 1961)

Director Luis Buñuel was considered a surrealist. I like to think of his movies, especially his last movies shot in France, not so much as surrealism but as absurd, like Ionesco's theatre of the absurd. It is a combination of mockery, comedy and surrealist scenarios that are sometimes hard to follow. In any case, his controversial topics awarded him the Palme d'or in Cannes with this movie.

In Viridiana, Mexican actress Silvia Pinal plays the role of Viridiana, a nun that goes to visit his uncle. He falls in love with her, tries to seduce her and finally commits suicide. Afterwards, Viridiana tries to create a shelter home for the poor people in her uncle's town. Unfortunately, the poor soon destroy the house of her uncle, prepare a feast for themselves and end up drunk and trying to rape Viridiana. It sounds pretty harsh, and considering this was shot in 1961, just imagine the reaction of the Catholic Church. This movie was banned in Spain for many years. It still remains controversial and original.

Match Point (USA, 2005)

Christian, a tennis instructor, gets a job in an exclusive London country club. He becomes very good friends with a student of his, whose sister he finally marries. Christian soon finds himself living with the rich and bourgeois of London. He has a beautiful apartment, beautiful cars, everything he strived for. Things start to go wrong when he has an affair with his friend’s fiancé, played by Scarlet Johannson. When Scarlet gets pregnant with Christian’s baby, he will have to make the most difficult decision of his life: either leave the life of the rich and famous or get rid of Scarlet and his soon to be born baby.

Director Woody Allen brings us once again another atypical love story. His latest films have a certain feeling to them. They are at the same time mysterious and intriguing. This one will keep you guessing until the end. Of course there are many dialogue scenes, but the way he writes his dialogues is really remarkable. He definitely has his very own style of filmmaking. Not that I am a fan of Woody Allen, but his last couple of films (Melinda and Melinda, for example) cover topics that are of particular interest to me.

Nekromantik 2 (Germany, 1991)

This is the story of a woman who digs up a corpse from the local cemetery, takes it home and makes love to it. Yes, you read it right! I will not go into the details of this, but I must say the film is quite graphic. Not only does she make love, she then proceeds to clean the corpse, dresses him up and finally cuts him into pieces in her bathtub. There is very little dialogue and a lot of romantic music with violin and cords, as if to make us believe that the woman is really in love with the dead guy. And that is not all: this woman, whose name we never get to know, is also dating a guy (alive) who starts to question her new girlfriend’s postmortuary habits, like showing him her photo album full of coffins from her relatives. When one day he discovers a part of the dead guy in the fridge, she has no other option but to kill him, and of course have sex afterwards.

Needless to say, this is one of the most graphic movies I have seen. It is a low-budget film, but it is so realistic it makes your stomach weak. This one is just for hardcore gore fans.

Genealogies of a Crime (Généalogies d'un Crime, France 1997)

Director Raoul Ruiz likes to confuse viewers, at least make them thing throughout his films. The story is based on the real life and works of psychoanalyst Hermione Helmut van Hug, who worked with children. She went so far as to determine that her nephew would be a killer someday, and at the end his nephew actually killed her for reasons that will remain unknown. Ruiz takes this interesting premise and creates the story of Solange, played by Catherine Deneuve. She is known for losing all her cases, but she decides to take one case that resembles Helmut van Hug's. There is a Parapsychologist Group involved who tries to convince Solange that the killer is someone else. The whole movie shifts from real-life to dreams, without really telling the audience what is real and what is not. There is also a hint of what I call "absurd cinema" like the great movies of Luis Buñuel that he made in France.

The Fiancée of Dracula (France, 2002)

"A Van Helsing-like professor and his protegé are tracking Dracula's descendants through the world of "parallels", creatures who are human in form but live quite distinct psychic lives. A circus dwarf who is in love with one of these creatures leads them to a mansion filled with oddly behaving nuns, The Order of the White Virgins. The nuns are detaining a beautiful woman who is the betrothed of the still-extant Dracula. When she escapes, everyone follows her to Dracula's seaside castle, on the way dealing with a baby-eating ogress and a wolf-woman (Brigitte Lahaie in a cameo), witches and madwomen. The bizarre wedding ritual commences." Source: amazon.com

The movie sounds interesting, it actually looks a little cheesy and fake. The actors try to do their best at acting, but sometimes it' just not enough. That makes the story not very credible. The background music is really creepy and the otudoor sets and landscpaes are correctly chosen. Director Jean Rollin likes to combine horror and comedy in his films, and the end result is an erotic and richly visual film that is worth watching.

The Sun (Sontse, Russia, 2005)

Director Alexander Sokurov shows us the last days of the Japanese empire under the Emperor’s reign after the defeat suffered during World War II. Just as in his earlier film Moloch, in this movie we see how the Emperor spends his days alone in his residence, surrounded by his servants. One day, the American army comes to the residence and arrests the Emperor. He is taken away for interrogation. All along he is treated really nicely, like a member of a royal family. For the Japanese, this defeat meant a great loss of confidence in their Emperor. He was regarded as a superior being by the people. This movie shows in an extraordinary way how his servants reacted and spoke to the Emperor during this time of crisis. With very few actors, Sokurov is able to achieve what many directors strive for: a real interest in the main characters.

L'Aventure c'est l'Aventure (France, 1973)

This comedy is one of the most famous movies from France. It is a classical, according to many, and it includes a very good group of French actors who unfortunately passed away. It is the story of a group of individuals who want to create a new political movement based on stability within confusion. What that means basically is that they end up kidnapping famous people and getting ransoms for their liberation. At one moment they kidnap Che Guevara and even the Pope. The idea is quite original, but I did not find the movie very funny. There aren't a lot of laughs as in other French comedy films. There is nice theme song if that helps.