Happy Fantasia to those who celebrate. Here are the 5 films we caught worth writing home about.
Lucid
When you use words like “Lynchian” at festivals, typically, your press accreditation ought to be revoked, your badge stripped, and your outlet reassigned to covering the concession stands, until you can review a movie without evoking another director. Lucid is the Lynchian manifestation of an artist in a restless dream state — willed to create but unable to pull back the layers of inspiration to finish an art project. Expanded from a short film (which you can watch below!), Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall open up the story, by keying into this psychoactive elixir which allows their lead (Caitlin Taylor) to overcome all the obstacles in front of her, while drifting into episodes of phantasmagorically dissociative daydreams. Shot on 35mm and Super 8, the aesthetic texture of the film richly resounds against its provocative sound design, and some really grotesque designs deeper into the movie. A sweet Fantasia surprise which finds Milligan, who was just shopping this short at Fantasia a few years ago, back with the full feature to round out her vision. Sometimes the impulse is misguided, and a feature ought to have stayed a short film, but that’s not the case here, the filmmakers have landed on something totally out there, which feels like a fresh commentary on the difficulty of the creative process. If we could just get that elixir we might stop calling films “Lynchian,” too, but for fellow Fire Walk with Me (1992) fans, this may be a neat festival favorite at this year’s Fantasia.
Occupy Cannes
The footage is often a decade old and Occupy Cannes doesn’t try to fill in much context, mostly focusing on Troma’s dicey publicity stunts at Cannes in 2013 and 2017. The brand has a history of this, going back decades, generally only surfacing at the most prestigious show when they’ve made the delightfully least prestigious movie. It does not hold its subjects accountable for bad behavior and public indecency but does think it’s kind of funny. It kind of is, too, but also kind of problematic. The Troma brand. What it does have is a time capsule — ready for 2010s nostalgia? — which suggests that the act of indie filmmaking is in itself a form of rebellion. The documentary, from within the brand and the family, is hagiographic but also knowingly punkish, determined to be off-kilter, but never rising to the level of the material and the people it covers. Troma means so much to us indie horror folks, the documentary’s job is to remind us why, and sometimes, it does.
Sugar Rot
Exploitation gives way to fetishization in Sugar Rot, which director Becca Kozak intends to be a punkish feminist manifesto. The film occupies the male gaze, to prove a point, and employs a brutal sexual assault as the impetus of the lead character’s loss of autonomy, as she is impregnated with a soft serve demon baby that turns her body into ice cream. Once she’s assaulted, Candy loses all autonomy and agency, and is consumed by everyone around her, and by all the social constructs which also turn people into victims. It’s hard to see beyond the presentation, however, which holds the forceful leering perspective, and does not provide Candy with any tools against her aggressors, except for her innate sexuality, which is now a factor of her rapidly disintegrating body. It unfortunately seems to imply that after assault, a woman’s body may only be used for this, and don’t let any male critic such as myself determine any of the discourse about this, but a trigger warning for anyone who feels at all sensitive about these issues, is a necessity, as Sugar Rot doesn’t play its hand lightly. That is, after-all, a very punk outcome, confrontationally absorbing all the hard things that come with bodily exploitation to prove a point, but once that point is proven (if it’s not already clear to the viewer from the jump), we then might ask: what is the movie doing beyond showing us the exploitation — it’s not a vehicle for anything but the message, which feels like it could be accomplished within a short film, if it has nowhere else to go.
Shrimp Fried Rice
A concise bit of Mockumentary filmmaking, Dylan Pun’s Shrimp Fried Rice blends the creature-controlled-humans of Ratatouille (2007) with a send-up of celebrity / televised chef media. Come for a Shrimp giving a foul-mouthed monologue on his role in the kitchen and stay for the shrimp-vs-rat culinary competition. We love to see the puppets become puppeteers, there’s measurable delight in that practice, a jokey short that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Shot like an average over-dramatized cooking show (can we create a classification for Mockureality?), Shrimp Fried Rice moves quickly and gets in and out with its concept, but everyone is having some fun here, and it’s equally fun to partake in what the filmmakers have created.
All You Need is Kill
When Edge of Tomorrow (2014) was released, it was tag-lined: Live. Die. Repeat., which was retroactively made the title of the film. Silly marketing business for the pretty good Tom Cruise time loop picture. But did you know it was originally based on a manga called All You Need is Kill(2004)? Well, a more literal interpretation is coming — and it’s a bunch of fun. From the fine folks at Studio 4°C comes All You Need is Kill: same title and now carries the same philosophical themes about human instrumentality in war, but is also a radical shift in perspective and now carries a bouncier, signature art style all its own. The new perspective follows Rita Vrataski, a young woman assassin with bright red hair who wields a giant battle axe. She’ll keep repeating the same day of her first death to some aliens, and over time, come to find her power as a warrior but also lose her self of self in the pursuit of combat excellence. The anime differs wildly from the light novel manga in style, at play with proportions and bright in color. Studio 4°C are ever-reliable and have created an enticing, fresh take of the original material.
Thanks to friend of The Twin Geeks, Jeff Blumer, for inviting us on, you can hear our podcast version of this review, along with other hot takes from the festival on the latest edition of Classic Movies Live.