MIFF 2013 - Day 8
A day for fantasy and things you wish were fantasy.
BLANCANIEVES
Snow White meets bullfighting in this black and white silent film. Much like The Artist, it uses an old medium to great effect, and the 4:3 cinematography proves you don't need anamorphic lenses to create spectacular vistas. It's a visually impressive and cheekily perverse reinterpretation of Snow White, but don't expect any happy endings. This is a grim tale.
CALL GIRL
Speaking of grim, you're gonna want to take a shower after this one. Imagine your country's leaders, both the government and opposition, are using the services of a madame who supplies them with underage girls. How do you prosecute such a thing when almost everyone implicated is powerful enough to make the scandal go away? This horrific film from Sweden states that it's based in fact, with names and timelines changed for dramatic effect. I'd imagine it's also to avoid legal issues, if half of what they suggest here is true. The most chilling thing I found wasn't just the traffiking in underage girls though, there's an underlying suggestion that some of Sweden's more liberal laws around sex were driven by perverts in power. It's a remarkable and claustrophobic thriller, grimy and depressing and thoroughly brilliant.
A TOUCH OF SIN
And another depressing film ripped from the headlines, this time from the Weibo social network in China. Four stories, all based in actual events, tell the sorry tale of modern China. In one story, a villager gives up on protesting the corruption around him and just takes his shotgun and kills everyone involved. In another, a receptionist at a massage parlour murders a client when he demands she sleep with him for money. It's just grim stuff, often with a violent catharsis to get the anger out of your system. I didn't know it was based on actual news stories going in, but it's just another thing to make you question the state of the world. And also how much your smartphone really costs.
WTF SHORTS
And after all that depressing stuff, finally some weirdness to lighten the day. I had so much fun with these short films. Pandas is a trippy take on Panda evolution, running from the time of the dinosaurs to the distant future. Unicorn Blood is the story of two teddy bears hunting unicorns to a heavy metal soundtrack. A Story for the Modlins posits the life story of an actor in the background of a scene in Rosemary's Baby, which is even stranger than the film. I have no idea if it's all made up or partly based in truth, or whatever, but Google says Elmer Modlin was a real actor who died in Spain, so maybe... And Flytopia is an adaptation of a Will Self short story, which should be enough to explain it. Weird fun stuff.
BLANCANIEVES
Snow White meets bullfighting in this black and white silent film. Much like The Artist, it uses an old medium to great effect, and the 4:3 cinematography proves you don't need anamorphic lenses to create spectacular vistas. It's a visually impressive and cheekily perverse reinterpretation of Snow White, but don't expect any happy endings. This is a grim tale.
CALL GIRL
Speaking of grim, you're gonna want to take a shower after this one. Imagine your country's leaders, both the government and opposition, are using the services of a madame who supplies them with underage girls. How do you prosecute such a thing when almost everyone implicated is powerful enough to make the scandal go away? This horrific film from Sweden states that it's based in fact, with names and timelines changed for dramatic effect. I'd imagine it's also to avoid legal issues, if half of what they suggest here is true. The most chilling thing I found wasn't just the traffiking in underage girls though, there's an underlying suggestion that some of Sweden's more liberal laws around sex were driven by perverts in power. It's a remarkable and claustrophobic thriller, grimy and depressing and thoroughly brilliant.
A TOUCH OF SIN
And another depressing film ripped from the headlines, this time from the Weibo social network in China. Four stories, all based in actual events, tell the sorry tale of modern China. In one story, a villager gives up on protesting the corruption around him and just takes his shotgun and kills everyone involved. In another, a receptionist at a massage parlour murders a client when he demands she sleep with him for money. It's just grim stuff, often with a violent catharsis to get the anger out of your system. I didn't know it was based on actual news stories going in, but it's just another thing to make you question the state of the world. And also how much your smartphone really costs.
WTF SHORTS
And after all that depressing stuff, finally some weirdness to lighten the day. I had so much fun with these short films. Pandas is a trippy take on Panda evolution, running from the time of the dinosaurs to the distant future. Unicorn Blood is the story of two teddy bears hunting unicorns to a heavy metal soundtrack. A Story for the Modlins posits the life story of an actor in the background of a scene in Rosemary's Baby, which is even stranger than the film. I have no idea if it's all made up or partly based in truth, or whatever, but Google says Elmer Modlin was a real actor who died in Spain, so maybe... And Flytopia is an adaptation of a Will Self short story, which should be enough to explain it. Weird fun stuff.
posted by Andrew Lee at 12:38 AM
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