We’re past the halfway point and exhaustion is setting in, the exhaustion of too much awesomeness. I saw another batch of movies today, some really good stuff and some that just weren’t for me personally but I see why they fit in Fantastic Fest. Here they are in alphabetical order.
Mood Indigo
Michel Gondry’s latest movie must be the most Michel Gondry movie I’ve ever seen Michel Gondry make. Whimsical fantasy leads to more whimsical fantasy with all his classic techniques and some new ones. There’s stop motion, yarn creatures and now some enhanced CGI. Of course when Michel Gondry uses CGI, it’s not to create anything simulating reality, it’s all Gondry-esque.
I’m such a fan of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness, Mood Indigo should be the best movie ever. Now I’m struggling to figure out why I think it’s only great. Maybe I just need to see it again, or maybe it’s that this awesomeness is still hung on a traditional romantic narrative. Chloe (Audrey Tatou) and Colin (Romain Duris) fall in love, boy meets girls, etc., etc. That’s just me intellectualizing though. It didn’t bother me while I watched it, and the love story is always willing to give way to fantasy. I did want to see more of the other couple, Alise (Aissa Maiga) and Chick (Gad Elmaleh) but that only means he created such wonderful supporting characters I wanted more.
I could just list all the wonderful things Gondry created and it wouldn’t spoil them, because there’s no substitute for seeing the creations. Conveyor belts of typewriters, handmade beating hearts in chest cavities, and living, crawling doorbells are only some of the new creations in Mood Indigo. Instead of GPS they use a GP Mouse, so you figure that one out. Gondry himself gets the film’s biggest laugh in an extended cameo.
R100
R100 is 50 Shades of The Game. A guy hires a dominatrix company (called simply “Bondage”) who will surprise him when he’s not expecting a session. Each dominatrix has a unique specialty, ridiculous specialties like vocal impersonations and saliva production. When they start showing up in his real life, he can’t break the contract.
I think it’s clear I’m just not on the wavelength of many Japanese movies. I didn’t like the one where the kid was trying to suck his own dick and that won Best Screenplay for Fantastic Fest comedy. I wasn’t impressed with the J-Horror movement either, so it’s just a matter of taste.
I also find the whole dominatrix motif unappealing. I know it’s a lifestyle, but I wouldn’t pay a woman to abuse me. I would pay a woman to be nice to me. I can get women to be mean to me for free. Also I find that costume unflattering. So, R100 is hardly shocking enough to claim no one under 100 should see it. It’s just more weird sexual fetishes. It does some meta stuff I like but I can honestly say it’s not for me.
The Sacrament
When Vice journalists Sam (AJ Bowen) and Jake (Joe Swanberg) follow Patrick (Kentucker Audley) to the isolated commune of Eden Parish to find his sister (Amy Seimetz), they begin an exposé on what they believe is a cult. The horror comes from the manipulation and suggestion, the lack of choice it seems some people have, or that some people are even willing to give up.
Sam is a great protagonist for this kind of story because as a journalist, he asks all the right questions. This only empowers Father (Gene Jones) to be more manipulative and frightening. Sam even beats himself up for not doing a good enough interview which, let me tell you, haunts all journalists, even me when I’m only talking to actors and filmmakers. I’m saying Sam is relatable and humble.
Director Ti West lets the drama play out, sometimes even setting the camera down in a static take that unfolds before our eyes. As the cameraman, Jake is skeptical enough of Eden Parish but practical enough to put survival over the Vice segment he’s filming. Man, Amy Seimetz has a way into these vulnerable, impressionable recovering characters. It is a suspenseful, thrilling movie that builds to a crescendo, but I don’t want to spoil that part.
The Unknown Known
It’s monumental that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sat down with a documentary filmmaker as probing as Errol Morris. By the end of the film, Morris does get Rummy to admit he misspoke in a memo that was the basis for the entire Iraq war, so there’s that, but it doesn’t change anything. Rumsfeld’s not going back and it doesn’t change the whole apparatus that supported that war.
The internal details of recent history are interesting, and when the doc goes back further into Rumsfeld’s career, it becomes more of a straight biography that wasn’t as pressing to me. It’s still intimate stories of presidential administrations for the history buffs. Morris uses his unique brand of interview to get Rumsfeld to open up and even tear up.
It still seems Rumsfeld treated the major decisions of the Bush administration cavalierly and dismissively. He was playing around but we took him literally since we, you know, actually cared about the consequences of going to war with another country. I guess at least now there’s a permanent record of it. That is, just in case “The Daily Show” archives ever get wiped out.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
