MIFF 2015 - Day 14
A day of weird films, 50/50 on the quality though...
Khalil Gibran's The Prophet
Oh man, this was bad. A really irritating framing narrative about a mute child, her mother and an imprisoned poet/revolutionary doesn't help. The basic setup is that Mustafa (voiced by Liam Neeson) is being released from seven years detention and being sent back to his homeland. As he is escorted through the streets he runs into people who require wisdom, and so sections of The Prophet are recited, with animation provided by different people. Some, like Bill Plympton's, are effective and interesting. Others, like Nina Paley's, are a bit too silly to work. And saying that bums me out, because Sita Sings the Blues is one of my favourite films. But overall, the film generated more laughter than reflection. It didn't help that I found a lot of Gibran's text a bit facile as well. It needed a better structure and framing story to give depth to the quoted sections. As it is, it's just a series of empty quotations occasionally made beautiful by the talents of particular animators.
Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld
Miike is at it again. This is a seriously insane piece of WTFery that manages to deliver crazy amounts of entertainment. The basic plot is that the yakuza boss is a vampire, and when he's killed in a double-cross, he bites his lieutenant and turns him into a yakuza vampire too. But then the lieutenant starts biting civilians, who become yakuza. Soon there's nobody for the regular yakuza to bully around, just lots of people acting like cinematic cliches of yakuza. This presents them with a bit of an existential crisis. And then some dude in a frog suit turns up and starts beating on everyone. It has a weird kind of internal logic, but mostly it's just an excuse to do lots of silly things and entertain the audience. Lots of laughing and clapping. Much like Why Don't You Play In Hell? from last year, I can't see this being as much fun without a crowd cheering along, but it was a perfect MIFF party film. Demented fun.
Khalil Gibran's The Prophet
Oh man, this was bad. A really irritating framing narrative about a mute child, her mother and an imprisoned poet/revolutionary doesn't help. The basic setup is that Mustafa (voiced by Liam Neeson) is being released from seven years detention and being sent back to his homeland. As he is escorted through the streets he runs into people who require wisdom, and so sections of The Prophet are recited, with animation provided by different people. Some, like Bill Plympton's, are effective and interesting. Others, like Nina Paley's, are a bit too silly to work. And saying that bums me out, because Sita Sings the Blues is one of my favourite films. But overall, the film generated more laughter than reflection. It didn't help that I found a lot of Gibran's text a bit facile as well. It needed a better structure and framing story to give depth to the quoted sections. As it is, it's just a series of empty quotations occasionally made beautiful by the talents of particular animators.
Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld
Miike is at it again. This is a seriously insane piece of WTFery that manages to deliver crazy amounts of entertainment. The basic plot is that the yakuza boss is a vampire, and when he's killed in a double-cross, he bites his lieutenant and turns him into a yakuza vampire too. But then the lieutenant starts biting civilians, who become yakuza. Soon there's nobody for the regular yakuza to bully around, just lots of people acting like cinematic cliches of yakuza. This presents them with a bit of an existential crisis. And then some dude in a frog suit turns up and starts beating on everyone. It has a weird kind of internal logic, but mostly it's just an excuse to do lots of silly things and entertain the audience. Lots of laughing and clapping. Much like Why Don't You Play In Hell? from last year, I can't see this being as much fun without a crowd cheering along, but it was a perfect MIFF party film. Demented fun.
posted by Andrew Lee at 11:46 PM
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