24th VIFF

[Johann]

The District!




An animated film from Hungary that will blow your mind.
The visuals were absolutely eye-popping.
It's jib-jab.com on acid.


Richie & Jules, Sandokan, Moricka, Belus and Csorba are the characters who populate the District, a wacked-out part of Budapest.

The story is based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with main characters Richie and Jules as the star-crossed lovers.
(I must point out that the story is just the "skeleton" of R & J. The movie is bonkers).

It's strictly for adults: this is almost an NC-17.




Hookers with their huge tits hanging out, rapping about the "Ho Game":
Ain't no walk in the park/Fuckin' in the dark
Bring the Gin/ Cum drippin' off my chin
Ain't no good takin' it slow/I ain't no Miss Monroe

The film has gypsies, priests, gyros, guns, bling, Brandy, and a sequence where (in a time machine) the gang kills a slew of wooly mammoths in order to make oil.

That's the underlying message of this film. We are given a 101 on fossil fuels and modern oil consumption.

We are even taken to the oval office of Dumbya, where he pushes a button on his desk that tells his staff which terror color warning will be the one of the day.

Bushie and Blair are shown planning world domination, and it ends with Bush nuking Budapest!


I worshipped it.

Strong message, even stronger visuals which were psychedelic and rapid-fire.

[Johann]

Punk: Attitude



This is a great doc on punk music.

Made by Don Letts, this was dedicated to the late, great Joe Strummer.
This documentary rocked my world.
It shows how the Attitude of punk music is what matters.

Don tells us of Elvis and Jerry Lee, how the term "punk" is applied to anyone who appears to be going against the system, how even the INTERNET is a form of the punk mentality.

But thankfully he focuses on the real shakers and destroyers of the system's influence.

Mr. Letts (former legendary reggae DJ & Clash manager) says the punk movement began with Iggy and the Stooges and The MC5.

We are shown the Doors first album cover, while we hear that Iggy went to see the Doors in 1968 and it changed his life: he wanted to be more crazy than Jim Morrison.
He wanted to "out-do that guy".
John Sinclair the manager of the MC5 was at that same show he admitted that the concert was a profound religious experience.

Seeing raw footage of the MC5 shouting KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS! was adreneline-pumping. These guys were dead in the water though- their records TANKED because of the reputation they got from the live shows. They wax about the old days, on the road, heads full of acid, spreading their angry PUNK attitude everywhere they went.

The MC5 and Iggy were the first punks.
But like it was pointed out in the doc, most bands hated the term "punk"- especially The Ramones. They did not want to be called a "punk rock band". Tommy Ramone speaks in the film as well as David Johanson & Syl Sylvain of the New York Dolls.
The Dolls didn't give a fuck what anybody thought-That's Punk Attitude. The footage of them in their outrageous wardrobes is incredible on the big screen.

All of the major acts are discussed:
The Sex-Pistols (Sid Vicious learned how to play guitar by listening to Ramones albums over and over), The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Television, The Slits, Richard Hell, Malcolm McLaren, Blondie, The Talking Heads, the Bad Brains, The Dead Kennedy's, DNA, Black Flag, Nirvana- all of the possible bands you could lump under the banner of "PUNK" are discussed.


Music history from those who were there and those who know.

Jim Jarmusch speaks at great length and he's right on the money baby:

It seems like 80% of the people today are asleep

[Johann]

When the Tide Comes In


I fell in love with the main character and I fell in love with this excellent movie from France.

Yolande Moreau is Irene, a talented actress who is starring in her one-woman show, a comedy about a fat masked female freak who killed for love and searches for love.

For every performance she brings a male audience member up on stage to be her beloved "chicken".

The crowd laughs like hyenas from the embarrasing situations she puts these poor guys in, holding their hands, telling them to give her money (even if they have to go back to their seat to get the cash from their jacket), pressing their heads to her large chest, her lovely magnificent chicken..

Well one guy keeps coming back to the shows after he's been the guinea pig for her show. They begin a relationship, and it gets pretty weird- I was waiting for him to rape or kill her- the guy is shady and wonky and I had no idea where the story was gonna go and it was a great surprise when we get to the end and you see where Moreau and Gilles Porte were taking us.


L'Amour par excellence.

Yolande Moreau is a respected French actor and her first film (co-directed with Gilles Porte) won the Cesar for Best First Film and Best Actress.

It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling in my guttiwuts

[Johann]

The Bridesmaid



Another masterpiece from Claude Chabrol.


Philip Tardieu gets entangled in a massively bizarre relationship with the bridesmaid of his sisters' wedding.


The bridesmaid is Senta, a disarmingly sexy woman (Laura Smet).
She tells him that he's the man of her dreams- she knew it as soon as she saw him that he "completes" her.

He's a little bewildered, but he goes along with it because he's single and this woman is so damn attractive.
Who wouldn't?

She lives in a big old home, in the basement. Her mother died giving her birth, and her surrogate mother lives upstairs practising her dance moves with her Fabio-partner.

Philip starts staying the night, away from his own mothers house, where he still lives (in his late 30's?). Mom is wondering where he's always going, arriving in the morning with ruffled hair for breakfast. He's keeping this relationship to himself.

Senta soon displays evidence of being a Psycho Chick.

She tells Philip that if he really loved her he would kill someone.
(among other things: write a poem, plant a tree..)

He obviously says no way.

But after he jokingly says one day that he did indeed kill someone for her, she's over the moon.

The next day she comes home and says she killed someone for him too.

Then the movie descends into a bizarre maze of weirdness that Philip can't fathom.


Incredible film from the 74 year old master Chabrol.
The sold-out audience applauded enthusiatically at the end.

[Johann]

Lifelike



A 1 hour Canadian doc on the taxidermy championships that were held in Orillia, Ontario in 2004.

In the 4 main profiles we see 4 men who are extremely dedicated to their craft. They make sure to point out that most people are repulsed by the idea of taxidermy, that something has to DIE before they have any work.

We're shown how a "mount" is made. They usually have a factory-built hard plastic deer "shell" that they can stretch the skins over.
The fake eyes are put in, the hide is sewn, the antlers are always added at the end, and these 4 guys do it not just as a profession-they want ribbons and trophies for being the best taxidermist in the land.

Each man is given approx. 10 mins of profile time, wrapping with the big championship judging taking place in a hotel pavillion.

The reactions to the ribbons awarded range from depression (one guy, a novice who is a bit annoying, gets an honorable mention for a deer head that he was sure would win- he's choked) to elation.

The others are quite happy with their placings (they're old hands at it)-the three of them show off their "I Love Me" rooms filled with plaques and ribbons.

Good little documentary on something I know nothing about.






A Perfect Fake

Ooooo.
How do I describe this.

It was screened with "Lifelike" and it's a disturbing 1 hour look at the "culture" of love/sex dolls in Japan.

We see several GROWN MEN who treat their sex dolls as if they are their wives.

But these aren't just any doll- these are as lifelike as you can get.
Soft fleshy skin, the bodies are molded to be just like an actual womans'.

These guys bathe them, dress them, take them out in the countryside for photos- one of the completely obsessed men makes calendars of his doll, with ART PHOTOS. They actually look pretty good..

They are all on the internet, with websites dedicated to their life partners, and webrings of other Jap freaks who can't find real love or have any social skills to even begin a relationship.

The doc veers into horror-movie territory often.
This shit is creepy.

There is something profoundly disturbing about a guy who has a large collection of dolls who all have their own wardrobes, bedrooms and arsenal of hairbrushes.

One guy says he cannot stop buying the dolls- it's his life.
He proudly announces that he fucks them as soon as he takes them out of the packaging but his true love is the first doll he bought. She has his total commitment, and nobody had better say anything bad to his plastic princess.

The culture of internet porn and virtual porn is shown in graphic detail, with XXX examples of the adult animae cartoons and how these dolls give men the freedom to have a *Fake* woman do whatever he wants whenever he wants, with no talkback, you hear?

A couple got into a big tiff after the screening- the woman liked the doc, thought is was disturbing but funny, while her mate was being a total dick: That was PORN. I didn't come here to see PORN. You should be ashamed for liking it..

I didn't "like" the film- it was informative, but I didn't need to know that there are thousands and thousands of pathetic Jap men who fuck huge pieces of rubber.

This just goes to show that how you see things depends on how you see them.

[Johann]

Heart, Beating in the Dark


This is the sequel (?) to the 1982 indie Japanese cult hit about a couple who murdered their own daughter and went on the run.


It's not so much a sequel as a remake.
No- it's not that either.
It's a whole new film.
No- it's exactly the same.


For this one I just wish they'd stuck to the regular movie-making methods.

The movie begins with the actual director and star of the original, talking about how they're gonna do a remake of "Heart, Beating in the Dark".
For 15 minutes they discuss how and why they want to do another version.

Then the footage from the 1982 film is cut into the "remake" footage as well as the "real" footage of making the new film.

Confused?

So instead of seeing the new film, we're getting the "making of the new film" along with the actual new film, which is exactly the same as the '82 footage but with modern actors.

The audience clapped at the end but I didn't.

This is dark subject matter, with nudity, rape & violence.

Why didn't they just give us the damn remake instead of watering down the dark story with scenes of the old male lead actor wanting to punch the new lead actor guy because he felt the character deserved to be punched? The character
HE played, no less?

Weird, disappointing film. I could follow it no problem, but I just didn't like it.

I went to see this because the program write-up said "
The best Japanese film you'll see this year".

Trust me- that is a load of *%&^%)!

[Johann]

Be With Me


A film from Singapore by Eric Khoo.

I did not like this Sam I Am.


A typewriter crudely snaps out words of love from 60 year-old Theresa Chan, a real-life deaf and blind woman.
She went deaf at age 12 and went blind at age 14.
She was supposed to get married in 1968 but her mate died.

She's been living alone ever since, and the most impressive thing (in the whole movie let me add) is her self-sufficiency: she can cook, she teaches children, she reads braille and has mastered sign language.

There's not much she can't do, and it's incredibly inspiring to see someone with 2 disabilities doing just fine. But she insists on SPEAKING, and that is where I must be blunt: her voice is one of the most unpleasant voices I've heard. She speaks english (!), and it sounds like that guy on the swing at the beginning of Greenaway's Baby of Macon.

It sounds like she's speaking without a tongue!

But there are 3 stories going on here and Theresa's is just one.

The other one is about a shop owner whose wife falls ill and another about a disgusting security guard who gets killed by a chick who was attempting suicide (she jumped from a roof and fell on him).


Again, people clapped.
I was wondering if it was me because I think this film is really bad. It didn't involve me in any way and I couldn't have cared less about what was happening on screen.

[Johann]

13 Lakes


This was made by art professor James Benning.

He went to 13 major lakes in the U.S. and Canada and filmed a 10 minute "frame" of each lake.

On a tripod that seemed to be in the water, he shot each segment with a 16mm Bolex, with the same horizon line-of-sight for each lake.

Peter Greenaway would love this.

There is synchronized sound, but James said (after the screening) that he edited some of the sounds in order to take away stuff like a car going by when he was shooting or some noise that would disrupt his very focused film project.

It tested the patience of everybody- this was 2 hours and 13 minutes with no actors, music or editing.
It's just nature, captured beautifully, by a real artist.

I saw about 20 people (yep, twenty) that just couldn't take the lack of action. This was not what they paid to see.

But they suck hard, and doom on them for leaving.

It's not just a 10 min+ still of some lake. There is a lot going on in these "shots". The waves are action, the birds are action, we even see some hydroplanes and hear gunshots in one.
The Lake Superior one is awesome, because he shot it in mid-December, when the lake was just beginning to really freeze and the waves of ice that bob up and down along with the Edmund-Fitz-type tanker that is going to port for the season.

It's a film that will definitely test your patience. (Big warning there)

James said a real artist is someone who looks and listens and then reports back to the tribe.

The lakes were in Maine, Louisiana (yes, one is the one in New Orleans- Pontchartrain (sp.?) before the hurricane, the Salton Sea, Alaska, etc.

Pure art from a pure artist.

[Johann]

I saw Princess Raccoon again last night and met Mr. Ning Cai and his producer, who were standing right behind me in the passholders line. I instantly recognized him- I opened the program to Season of the Horse and his producer points to Ning and says "he's the director".

I said "Yes, I recognized him"
He says "Did you see the movie?"
I say yes and he says "Did you like?"

I said "It was as good as Kurosawa".
He laughed, thanked me, shook my hand and we went in right after. I told him I'd already seen Suzuki's film and he couldn't believe it. "Good filmmaker, huh?" he says.

It was great.

I've been trying to spot some celebs but so far the only people I've recognized are Larry Kent (a great independent film legend here in B.C.- Cronenberg loves him) and Ray Liotta of course, who was doing an acting seminar. Couldn't get near him though.

Tomorrow Isabella Rossellini arrives with Guy Maddin to deliver her tribute film to her father Roberto and introduce a screening of Rome: Open City.

Good times...

[Johann]

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes


The Bros. Quay are heroes of mine.

This film is pure sublimity. (The word sublime is actually used in the film).

I was amazed that the theatre was almost completely sold out for a 2pm show for a Quay brothers film.

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised- Vancouver has many many cinephiles. By the way, I'm seeing a lot of the same faces at these screenings- if I keep seeing this one Russian lady in the next ten days I'm just gonna start talking to her. She's been at TEN of the screenings I've been to since the fest began and all of the media screenings at the PC prior. (In the same seat everytime).

But anyway: Piano Tuner.

Executive produced by Terry Gilliam, this is (to me) the best Quays film yet. If you're familiar with the methods of these artists you'll know their M.O.: bizarre but beautiful stop-motion gothic animation. They also have done films with live actors, and this is one of those.

I almost don't want to describe anything in it.

It's about a piano tuner of course, and yes, of Earthquakes.
The level of phantasy and surreality is hard for me to get across without you having seen it.

If you were already a Quays fan then this film will satiate your aesthetic cravings. Moons, mist, forests, a macabre doll who chops wood and predicts the future, a gorgeous black-haired woman who is knee-deep in the fantastique with the piano tuner, this is bizarro, kids.

It's a dream. Literally a mental journey through the subconscious of the Bros. Quay.

I have nothing but praise (and jealousy).
These guys are special maestros and seeing Gilliam's name up there doesn't surprise me in the least- he's in the exact same league in terms of artistic talent.

See it at all costs.
(Although DVD might be the only way).

Wide release? I highly doubt it.

[oscar jubis]

Damn J, you sure cranking 'em out today.
Whole thread is giving me a "fuzzy feeling in my guttiwuts". (wish I could write like that).
I saw Punk:Attitude on IFC about 10 days ago and forgot to list it in my journal. It was great to watch because it's the music of my teens and early 20s. The two surviving members of the Dolls, Johansen and Sylvain, are touring again, BTW.
It's great to see that the Van fest goes outside the mainstream and that there's an audience that appreciates that.

[trevor826]

Re :A Perfect Fake

It was screened with "Lifelike" and it's a disturbing 1 hour look at the "culture" of love/sex dolls in Japan.

We see several GROWN MEN who treat their sex dolls as if they are their wives.

But these aren't just any doll- these are as lifelike as you can get.
Soft fleshy skin, the bodies are molded to be just like an actual womans'.

These guys bathe them, dress them, take them out in the countryside for photos- one of the completely obsessed men makes calendars of his doll, with ART PHOTOS. They actually look pretty good..

They are all on the internet, with websites dedicated to their life partners, and webrings of other Jap freaks who can't find real love or have any social skills to even begin a relationship.

The doc veers into horror-movie territory often.
This shit is creepy.

There is something profoundly disturbing about a guy who has a large collection of dolls who all have their own wardrobes, bedrooms and arsenal of hairbrushes.

One guy says he cannot stop buying the dolls- it's his life.
He proudly announces that he fucks them as soon as he takes them out of the packaging but his true love is the first doll he bought. She has his total commitment, and nobody had better say anything bad to his plastic princess.

The culture of internet porn and virtual porn is shown in graphic detail, with XXX examples of the adult animae cartoons and how these dolls give men the freedom to have a *Fake* woman do whatever he wants whenever he wants, with no talkback, you hear?


Sorry to pull you back to this one but last night there was a documentary on with exactly the same subject only this time it was about men on your side of the pond, otherwise it sounds exactly the same.

The worst was this old guy who had his doll on strings, he could raise or lower it to any position he wanted, he did her make up and dressed her up as a schoolgirl. These guys pay $10,000 + for the dolls which are pretty much hand made to order.

Again in the US (who knows, maybe Canada as well!), women using machines! I don’t mean the pocket rocket or little vibrating love eggs, No! I’m talking “machines” with rpm’s you could drill through a wall with! Scary, still I guess if the guys have their lifelike dolls, the girls have to get their buzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz somehow!

Cheers Trev.

[Johann]

Hey this sex-doll thing is MASSIVE.
We don't know what perverted sicknesses are going on around the world.

But this is the world we live in: one where rubber dolls are required.

Relationships are the most difficult thing in the world- on one hand I can say these guys aren't murderers or rapists- they're just in love with their dolls.

But on the other hand I say GET. A. LIFE.

If being a hermit with a sex doll is your world then that's your world. Carry on, wayward son...


Quite a few more reviews on the way.

[Johann]

The Miracle of Candeal



85 year-old Bebo Valdes is flying to Bahia Brazil. Candeal, to be specific. He's a world-known Cuban pianist, and this film is just about damn near an epiphany.


Bebo arrives and is treated like royalty. He meets with the residents and music teachers of this extremely energetic town.

It's very poor, but Brazil is known for rising above poverty through music. And the music that we hear in this film is some of the best you're ears will ever filter.

No Joke: one performance had me eyes mistin' up.

This is the power of music, passed down from generation to generation, and you just might wanna get up and dance in the aisles- in fact 3 women did just that at the screening I went to.

People were clapping after every song- I woman behind me was shouting BRAVO! right after every performance.

A semi-standing-O from the crowd, and I was one.

This is what films are all about. I wish I could describe it more accurately, but all you need to know is that the music played here will start spinnin' your higher chakras, buster.

Magnificent film.
It's got a helluva shot at winning the audience award here at the 24th VIFF. This is what majestic films are all about...


Fernando Trueba (maker of Belle Epoque) is a modern cinema saint.

[Johann]

Dear Wendy



What's your name?
Who's your daddy?
Is he rich like me?
Has he taken the time to show you what you need to live?



Thomas Vinterberg has, and he's delivered a seminal film, written by his Dogme partner-in-crime Lars von Trier.

The narration bugged me a bit, but that might have been because the sound volume was WAY UP.

I forgave it soon enough because the message of this film resonated pretty loudly.

If you've seen Bowling For Columbine and are familiar with Lars' current USA trilogy then you'll know what Vinterberg has done here.

The plot?

A bunch of teens want to be in a gun-gang (and call themselves THE DANDIES) but they will never use the guns. They are symbols only. These are PACIFIST teens, and they want to make the world a better place.

Bill Pullman surprised the hell out of me, turning up in a Dogme film like this. He's a sherriff with a weird American accent.

The hand-cannons they each choose are interesting.
Relics, classics, 9-millies, what-have-you.
The soundtrack is all "THE ZOMBIES" by the way- another reason why it was impossible for me not to love this film.

The "animation" or "simulation" of bullets piercing bones and brains and skulls in slow-motion was an awesome element to add.



There are two scenes specifically that are without question instant classic scenes in cinema history.

And those who haven't seen it yet are very lucky indeed, because you'll get to experience these two *explosive* scenes for the first time.

I wish I could get last night back again- my jaw dropped when one of Pullman's officers "goes down".

Reminded me a wee bit like NBK (except these are 2 polarly different films):

I cock my glock.

And I pop.

Until THEY ALL DROP.