London's Raindance Festival is back this year with another strong lineup of Fantastic films. I got the chance to see seven of them.
Arriving at her uncle's flat in an imposing converted power station (a real location in Devonport), now occupied by his cleaner Paula (Katlyn Wong), the will reading discloses that the rest of Emma's family seem to be money grabbing horrors, and that she has inherited the apartment, provided she can stay there for thirty days.
But as Emma works out what she wants to do, she is reminded by Paula of the history of 'Broken Bird', a mythological creature that attacked the island's first avaricious settlers. As people start dying around her, Emma has nightmare visions of the bird and feels that she may be linked to it.
"Stop being greedy" is the last line of Carroll's movie and, despite the horror elements within, this is basically a movie in support of that statement. Broken Beak opens powerfully with a recording of a bird made back in 1987, its song calling for a mate which will never arrive as its species is on the edge of extinction. Sadly nothing to follow equals that powerful opening, and indeed the film is so full of quirks and ecological messages that its whodunit story is rather lost in the other narrative chicanery. You get the feeling watching this that Carroll is pretty mad at the world, and with good reason; the anger just needs reining in a little. On occasion the film fizzes with themes and ideas which work well, but there's just too much going on. One applauds the sentiment, but sadly not (pun intended) the execution.
A version of this review was published on the Bloody Flicks website.
Greg (Malik Zidi) is both a doctor and a father; his son Leo lies comatose in front of him in hospital, the result of an accident in which Greg was parentally negligent. Leo needs an organ transplant to ensure his survival, with little hope of securing the thing through normal channels. So in a move which threatens the career of both Greg and the consultant surgeon, arrangements are made to secure the organ on the black market.
Greg must travel across the Luxembourg border with his wife Marie (Anne Klein), who can barely share the same car as him, to transact the deal. But obtaining the illicit body part from shady organ farmers becomes the least of their problems when the parent of another child turns up seeking both her daughter and revenge.
When Child's third act finally tips over to horror, and the true nature of the illegal setup is made known (although even these elements are integral to the story), we have already been exposed to a series of increasingly grim tableaux, not least being the moral and ethical conundrums faced by the parents, and Greg's profession. Not much happens in the movie, but we feel everything; Greg and Marie's journey into the heart of darkness (literally; this is a dark film in more ways than one), with the car's GPS slowly counting down the kilometres, is impossibly sad, and the journey back, with the organ contained in a refrigerated glowing box, is equally moving.
Child is a superbly rendered, bleak and at times heartbreaking film which accurately summarises parental fear (and loathing); a must see.
Aaron Fisher's Corporate Retreat collects together a group of workers employed by Immaculate Pond Technologies for an away weekend. Most of the usual office roles are included - Finance, HR, Operating Officer and Tech - with annoying Cliff (Elias Kacavas) heading up the group. Thinking they're actually having a romantic break, Cliff's girlfriend Ginger (Odeya Rush) is pretty non plussed when she realises the true purpose of the getaway.
The weekend is facilitated by two humourless souls, Amber (Zión Moreno) and Lola (Sasha Lane), who inform the team that they will be guided through seven stages of enlightenment via a series of team challenges. But the shadowy face behind the whole enterprise is ex company CEO Arthur (Alan Ruck), whose annoyance at being deposed focuses on the people in the room; and it looks like the team games are about to get very nasty,
Corporate Retreat starts lightly, with some 'hip' music announcing the cast in a Tarantino lite style. But it soon settles down to be a nasty, pointless 90 minutes where company members, who are unable to leave the building, have to go through things or be shot by the facilitators. It's the kind of movie where people gouge their own eyes out (with a shared spoon, natch) and experience pain for about three minutes. It's also the kind of movie that casts Rosanna Arquette and then kills her off in the first ten minutes. I kept thinking that this was all done for satirical purposes, but the point of the send up alluded me, unless it's a sideswipe at corporate culture. In which case, big fail. Not good.
Michael, who has a history of both drinking and being sexually inappropriate at work, is looking forward to a detoxing few months spent in nature without the distractions of the internet. Johanna too is hoping to get their life on track, but hasn't reckoned on bratty Nora, for whom summer in the wild means no parties, no guys and, crucially, no Wi-Fi. But an accidental find under the floorboards unearths a dusty old dial up modem. Despite signs forbidding it being plugged in, Nora is unable to be screenless for another night and connects it. Johanna is supportive; as the only breadwinner she needs to work while the family is on extended vacation.
In the film's prologue we've already witnessed the hiding of the modem by a previous cottage occupant, and know that no good can come of switching it on, an activity made more ominous by its connection to a sinister receiver, which acts as a kind of summoning to local spirits. As the family begins to fall apart, the tech begins to take over, manipulated by a sinister presence, culminating in the disappearance of Stig while a drunk Michael snoozes in front of the baby monitor.
Brown's debut feature wouldn't be half as good without the excellent performances of the family members, who completely convince as they try and hold things together. The supernatural elements are less convincing and, at times, plain clunky (do we really need another scary plague doctor character?) but Brown gives us a good sense of place and a real feeling of isolation as the weirdness takes hold.
A version of this review was published on the Bloody Flicks website.
One evening, when Alma is lecturing at the local University, after putting Andrés to bed Juan accesses his laptop and a cam sex site. Alma's specialism is Mexican beliefs, and her talk cites the God of the Dead, to whom devotees provided their own blood and flesh as sacrifice to the deity (it's telling that earlier Alma left a book, with pictorial depictions of the god, open for Juan and Andrés to see, cementing the link between man, boy and god). While Juan is distracted, a sudden and violent storm glitches the tech used by Alma, and wakes Andrés who, venturing into the bathroom, falls into the tub, mistakenly left full after his bath, hits his head and drowns.
Juan's guilt is immediate, paralysing him into inactivity (when Alma returns, he's motionless in a chair cradling their dead son; some days later he remains in the same position, still wearing the bloodstained top and unable to attend Andrés' funeral). Instead he takes a boat out on the sea with, it is assumed, the intention of taking his own life. But his boat becomes snagged in a tangle of seaweed that encloses, within its structure, a mass which contains the body of a young boy; it is Andrés, returned to his father. But changed.
Sacrifios reminded me of the films of Lucile Hadzihalilovic in its blurring of myth and reality, but the casting of Jimenez and Tonalli, both in their own way excellent, creates a sharp focus of love and dependency at once abstract and detailed. This is a stunning film, one which resists easy interpretation, but vibrant in its intensity and beauty.
Shy Albert (Bryan Bellomo) is staying at his late uncle's cabin, a remote retreat with little phone coverage that presents the ideal location to invite Devon (John Brodsky), a guy he met on an app. It's a big risk for Albert, organising a weekend away with a guy he knows nothing about.
