BFI LFF Round Up Part Two
Hors Satan
Difficult to ask for a ticket for this one, because the temptation is to say the first word with a French(ish) pronunciation and the second with an English one, which is awkward. A literal translation ('Outside Satan') doesn't help much. I found myself wishing they'd called it Satan's Whore and left it at that. It might give people the wrong idea, but on the other hand it wouldn't be all that wrong an idea.
Like most films by Bruno Dumont, this largely consists of people wandering the French countryside enigmatically, singly or in pairs. On this occasion, however, Dumont finds the time to include a couple of murders, a possible demonic possession, and (EXTREME SPOILER ALERT) a bona fide resurrection.
I have to say I found it wholly entrancing. Maybe my high point of the festival. Was anyone else convinced? It was hard to tell. There was a Q and A but it was a bit muted, perhaps because Dumont had said in advance that he wouldn't 'explain anything', though he was looking forward to hearing our 'responses' - which made it seem like it was the audience who were being judged rather than the movie. He did reveal that he prefers to work with non-professionals, because they have certain boundaries beyond which they will not go, whereas actors 'will do anything'. (He has obviously seen Human Centipede 2). This is also the philosophy behind The Only Way Is Essex, I believe, but I thought better of bringing that up.
Breathing
In this Austrian offering a young offender gets a job in an undertaker's, and exposure to dead bodies helps him comes to terms with the murder - or manslaughter - that got him banged up in the first place. Contains a very moving sequence of a corpse being washed and dressed. Am I selling it to you? Funny, because I could almost imagine someone other than myself enjoying this one. How can I put it? It's like Harry Potter, but without the magic, but with lots of dead people, who stay dead. And there's a visit to Ikea in it. You'll be anxious to know the release date by now I imagine, but I'm afraid I just can't help you.
The Monk
The only real disappointment of the festival. You would think that a version of one of the most lurid of all the Gothics, starring Vincent Cassell and directed by Dominik (Harry, Here's Here To Help) Moll would be fantastic, wouldn't you? Of course you would.
In fact, it's rather a plodding adaptation, neither hilariously over-the-top nor a genuine full-blooded Gothic. You get the odd spectral nun and a (non-human) centipede amidst the roses, but it all feels a bit half-hearted, and Cassell never really gets a chance to be properly evil. Shame, because I have fond memories of reading the novel at university, and being amused by the depiction of the fallen monk Ambrosio leering at the heroine's resplendent 'Orbs'.
We Need To Talk About Kevin
This was at the festival, but I saw it afterwards in a common cinema with only members of the public in attendance. It goes like this - Tilda Swinton gives birth to an evil child - or has she made him evil with her failure to love him? This is the debate which is meant to 'make us think', I think. But although the film is really effective as a mother's nightmare, it is just a nightmare, and tends to disintegrate in the cold light of reality.
I mean, what is Kevin? Is he a complete psychopath who, from birth, has never felt a genuine emotional attachment to anyone in his life? Surely not, because as everyone knows, complete psychopaths don't (SPOILER ALERT) go on killing sprees in high school - they become the CEO's of major multinational companies.
So is he, then, just a normal boy who has been irreparably traumatised by his mother's failure to bond with him? But Kevin appears to have a perfectly good relationship with his father. I suppose he might be faking it (see above) but if he isn't, shouldn't it ease his Weltschmerz somewhat? Enough, might I suggest, that he wouldn't feel the pressing need to murder all his classmates and the one parent he does get on with, just to spite Mom?
Then again, perhaps there are other possible explanations. Perhaps Kevin is possessed by Satan. Or he's an alien. But the film doesn't really embrace these possibilities. It remains an exquisitely made horror film that doesn't know it's a horror film. It worries that it might be. It wakes up in the night thinking about it. Finally, the horrible moment arrives when it can pretend no longer and then - it gets awarded best film of the festival by the BFI!
Phew! It was all a dream...
Horror fans will have to be content with the inevitable sequels - We Still Need To Talk About Kevin, We Really Really Need To Talk About Kevin, and the straight-to-DVD Let's Stop Talking About Kevin And Just Kill Him (starring Jason Statham).
Difficult to ask for a ticket for this one, because the temptation is to say the first word with a French(ish) pronunciation and the second with an English one, which is awkward. A literal translation ('Outside Satan') doesn't help much. I found myself wishing they'd called it Satan's Whore and left it at that. It might give people the wrong idea, but on the other hand it wouldn't be all that wrong an idea.
Like most films by Bruno Dumont, this largely consists of people wandering the French countryside enigmatically, singly or in pairs. On this occasion, however, Dumont finds the time to include a couple of murders, a possible demonic possession, and (EXTREME SPOILER ALERT) a bona fide resurrection.
I have to say I found it wholly entrancing. Maybe my high point of the festival. Was anyone else convinced? It was hard to tell. There was a Q and A but it was a bit muted, perhaps because Dumont had said in advance that he wouldn't 'explain anything', though he was looking forward to hearing our 'responses' - which made it seem like it was the audience who were being judged rather than the movie. He did reveal that he prefers to work with non-professionals, because they have certain boundaries beyond which they will not go, whereas actors 'will do anything'. (He has obviously seen Human Centipede 2). This is also the philosophy behind The Only Way Is Essex, I believe, but I thought better of bringing that up.
Breathing
In this Austrian offering a young offender gets a job in an undertaker's, and exposure to dead bodies helps him comes to terms with the murder - or manslaughter - that got him banged up in the first place. Contains a very moving sequence of a corpse being washed and dressed. Am I selling it to you? Funny, because I could almost imagine someone other than myself enjoying this one. How can I put it? It's like Harry Potter, but without the magic, but with lots of dead people, who stay dead. And there's a visit to Ikea in it. You'll be anxious to know the release date by now I imagine, but I'm afraid I just can't help you.
The Monk
The only real disappointment of the festival. You would think that a version of one of the most lurid of all the Gothics, starring Vincent Cassell and directed by Dominik (Harry, Here's Here To Help) Moll would be fantastic, wouldn't you? Of course you would.
In fact, it's rather a plodding adaptation, neither hilariously over-the-top nor a genuine full-blooded Gothic. You get the odd spectral nun and a (non-human) centipede amidst the roses, but it all feels a bit half-hearted, and Cassell never really gets a chance to be properly evil. Shame, because I have fond memories of reading the novel at university, and being amused by the depiction of the fallen monk Ambrosio leering at the heroine's resplendent 'Orbs'.
We Need To Talk About Kevin
This was at the festival, but I saw it afterwards in a common cinema with only members of the public in attendance. It goes like this - Tilda Swinton gives birth to an evil child - or has she made him evil with her failure to love him? This is the debate which is meant to 'make us think', I think. But although the film is really effective as a mother's nightmare, it is just a nightmare, and tends to disintegrate in the cold light of reality.
I mean, what is Kevin? Is he a complete psychopath who, from birth, has never felt a genuine emotional attachment to anyone in his life? Surely not, because as everyone knows, complete psychopaths don't (SPOILER ALERT) go on killing sprees in high school - they become the CEO's of major multinational companies.
So is he, then, just a normal boy who has been irreparably traumatised by his mother's failure to bond with him? But Kevin appears to have a perfectly good relationship with his father. I suppose he might be faking it (see above) but if he isn't, shouldn't it ease his Weltschmerz somewhat? Enough, might I suggest, that he wouldn't feel the pressing need to murder all his classmates and the one parent he does get on with, just to spite Mom?
Then again, perhaps there are other possible explanations. Perhaps Kevin is possessed by Satan. Or he's an alien. But the film doesn't really embrace these possibilities. It remains an exquisitely made horror film that doesn't know it's a horror film. It worries that it might be. It wakes up in the night thinking about it. Finally, the horrible moment arrives when it can pretend no longer and then - it gets awarded best film of the festival by the BFI!
Phew! It was all a dream...
Horror fans will have to be content with the inevitable sequels - We Still Need To Talk About Kevin, We Really Really Need To Talk About Kevin, and the straight-to-DVD Let's Stop Talking About Kevin And Just Kill Him (starring Jason Statham).
posted by martin at 12:18 PM
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