A Film a Week - The Fin

 previously published on Cineuropa

When it comes to imagining the horrors of the future, our imagination often proves to be limitless. However, the real terror does not stem from the inventions we have fabricated, but rather from their connection to the situations and occurrences we observe in the real world and in our immediate environment. That also goes for Syeyoung Park’s newest dystopian horror feature, The Fin, which has premiered in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present competition.

After environmental collapse, the Korean peninsula is unified as one state that sports all the hi-tech advancements of the South along with all the propaganda apparatus of the North, but the devastation has created a new division. While most folks live almost normally, albeit under some restrictions (for instance, being dirty is seen as an act of patriotism, since it saves water), the mutated Omega people are being held in captivity beyond the boundary of the Great Korean Wall and are being used as slave labour to clean up pollution. The state propaganda marks them out as enemies, and invites others to join the civil service that combats and catches the runaway Omegas.

One of them (Goh-woo) goes missing from one of the colonies. It turns out that he is on a mission to find Mia (Yeon Ye-ji), also an Omega, but who lives in hiding and works at an eerie fishing shop that actually sells the nostalgia of the “Old World ways” to its customers. At the same time, Su-jin (Kim Pur-eum), a new agent in the Korean Freedom Youth Civil Service, sets out on a mission to capture the Omegas in hiding, including Mia, but as she gets more involved with her work, she starts questioning the official propaganda.

It’s not hard to spot details from our own world in this bleak vision of the future, from national and class divisions to the toxicity of propaganda and the obsession with our own safety, ever in jeopardy because of others. But connecting The Fin to specific things like the division of Korea, the refugee crisis, the exploitation of foreign migrant workers and both of Donald Trump’s terms in office would be superficial. That’s because Park creates a universe of his own, and does so from scratch and in depth, presenting it carefully and with a great sense of restraint while developing the characters and the plot in his script.

However, the greatest thing about The Fin is its execution, which is partly the product of budgetary limitations and partly the filmmaker’s usual modus operandi, as we saw in his previous feature The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (2022). There are some cinema-vérité ingredients, as Park, his cast and his crew sometimes filmed in uncontrollable conditions. Although the colours of the sky, the land and the water are quite unnatural, as per the script requirements, in Park’s own cinematography, the imagery seems almost palpable owing to the visuals resembling those of 16 mm works, complete with the inherent graininess. While the years-long editing process steered by Park, Han Ji-yoon and Clémentine Decremps also demanded some re-shoots, it was always less about the plotting, and more about the atmosphere and vibe. In that regard, one should commend the actors for their dedicated work, especially in the micro-acting department once Park opts for close-ups, as well as main composer Haam Seok-young, whose piano-driven score induces the right amount of melancholy. In this way, The Fin becomes a stellar example of an elevated genre piece that could prove to be a genuine discovery on this year’s festival circuit.

A Film a Week - Daydreamers / Nguoi Mat Troi

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

The vampire trope in movies is almost as old as the art of cinema itself. They are invented as something foreign, exotic, usually quite elite that does not belong to the “ordinary world”. There are, however, numerous variations regarding their lore, so we, for instance, got an action hero who was born as vampire and grew to look like Wesley Snipes in his prime or a glittery day-walking, self-loathing highschool kid seeking for some sort of redemption in a soap opera masked as a saga. The point is that the vampires are tough to pin down (pun intended!) because one can vary the rules and the cosmology so much. Vietnamese filmmaker Timothy Linh Bui tried to do so in “Daydreamers” and, after a promising start, failed.

The start is actually an animated sequence set against a voice-over narration which explains how we got such a chic European phenomenon in Vietnam. The answer is, of course, colonialism and debauchery that ensued. The people rebelled soon afterwards (see another parallel with the Vietnamese 20^th century history) and chased the vampires into the illegal. The remaining ones either blended with humans or went to live in the wild, but they had to obey the law that forbade them to taste human blood hoping that the diet of animal blood and humane approach would grant them redemption.

Unfortunately, that cheeky anti-colonial angle stays locked in the first sequence of the film, as the filmmaker and his co-writer Doan Si Nguyen decided to tell a “contemporary” story about what happens when the law gets broken. The story revolves around two brothers, Marco (Thuan Nguyen) and Nhat (Tran Ngoc Vang), a young mortal woman, Ha (Trinh Thao) taken to the vampire underground, and the struggle for power between the “humanist” and “anarchist” fractions within the vampire clique ruled by the benevolent “queen” Trieu (Chi Pu).

Basically, what we get is a one season of a vampire-laced soap opera squeezed in a two-hour movie that feels both rushed and lagging. The trouble is not that Timothy Linh Bui does not understand the concept of vampires and their symbolism, because he apparently does, but the fact that he takes his story way too seriously, but without employing the right means to tell it compellingly.

His directing style is either completely plain in more ordinary, clearly dialogue-driven scenes, or hyper-stylized in the action ones, but the style he goes for is simply derived from video-clips or computer games. Everything is overdone, from the lighting, the abundant use of cheap visual effects (the supervisor Nguyen Anh Viet is signed pretty high up on the ending credits, which is significant) all the way to the omnipresence of music, alternating between the otherwise decent neoclassical score by Jérôme Leroy and MiSS NiNE’s electronic loops. The same goes for acting, which is constantly in the over-expressive register, often over the limit of theatrics, which is not the fault of the actors themselves, as they are instructed to go all in all the time. Maybe some of the saving grace could be found in the attempts of the DoP Phu Nam to capture an occasional eye candy of a shot or the editors Dat Tran and Pham Quoc Dung to calm the things down by delaying their chops, but there is only so much they can do.

Eventually, “Daydreamers” is a trash movie, which might be legitimate if it would be a conscious decision by its director to make it exactly that way. Unfortunately, this is not a case here, as the whole trash seems quite involuntary, as a by-product of a combination of high ambition and sloppy execution.

A Film a Week - Summer Teeth / Šalša

 previously published on Cineuropa

It is easy to label any seemingly unserious piece of cinematic work as “trash”, but sometimes, there is a method to the madness. Dražen Žarković’s Summer Teeth, fresh from its premiere at the Pula Film Festival, might not be the only Croatian film of its kind (some might remember Predrag Ličina’s 2019 zombie-infested political satire The Last Serb in Croatia, for instance), but it is carefully thought out and meticulously executed in every respect, so it could prove to be a cinematic hit in the wider region of the former Yugoslavia. Its universal humour, anti-nationalistic message, and the fact that the film is a co-production between Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina might seem like good arguments to support this claim further.

Close to losing his poorly paid job and the flat he is renting, Zagreb-based student Vatroslav (Montenegrin actor Momčilo Otašević) accepts an offer from his co-worker and buddy Filip (Roko Sikavica, glimpsed in The Uncle) to replace him and help his grandmother Mariljka (Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov, seen in Safe Place) with the summer chore of harvesting tomatoes on the remote Dalmatian island of Little Head. Once on the island, Vatroslav is met with its inhabitants’ general quirkiness, which sometimes turns into open hostility. It seems that the only person willing to help him is local dentist Irena (Ivana Gulin, so far mostly active on television), while the others, including granny and the couple of Serbian tourists who are staying in her property, Mića (Ljubiša Savanović) and his heavily pregnant wife Jelena (Milica Janevski), might seem too eccentric to be helpful in any way. Furthermore, there is clear resentment between the youthful, party-loving island minority and the intolerant majority…

The isle and its abandoned military base from Yugoslav times harbour more secrets that will soon be revealed, once it emerges that the brandy that the granny uses as fertiliser is not just an alcoholic beverage, and the tomatoes laced with it cause a zombie epidemic among the inhabitants. After a tomato-fuelled fiesta, Vatroslav and his new buddies have to run from an angry mob of zombie-vampires with pointy teeth, led by two incompetent cops played by Slavko Sobin and Damir Markovina.

Working from a playful but solid genre script written by Ivan Turković Krnjak and Maja Todorović, Žarković – whose most recent filmmaking credits include two movies for children and youth, The Mysterious Boy and My Grandpa Is an Alien (co-directed with Marina Andrée Škop) – does a superb job of directing a smooth blend of an action-horror and a comedy-parody-satire by mixing both types of ingredients deftly to tell a story in a dynamic and easy-to-follow manner. His command of the technical crew is stellar, since the cinematography by Saša Petković is always appropriately kinetic and picture postcard-pretty in terms of the colours, and the editing by Saša Karakaš Šikanić keeps the movie in a high gear most of the time. With the help of the award-winning visual effects by Krsto Jaram, Summer Teeth is a pure joy to watch.

The same could be said of Žarković’s work with the actors, whereby he allows their interplay with one another pretty freely, channelling the palpable dynamic between the characters. Momčilo Otašević is a natural-born leading man with the capability to achieve a smooth transformation between confusion and assertiveness, which helps him with the transition between genre keys, and the chemistry he shares with Ivana Gulin is undeniable, while Ljubiša Savanović’s, Milica Janevski’s and Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov’s characters have the most comedic “juice”.

A Film a Week - Dastur

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

A few years back, the Kazakh cinema was somewhat of a “flavour of the year” at the international film festival circuit. Most of the festival-goers would single out the name of Adilkhan Yerzhanov and his 2020 titles “The Yellow Cat” and “Ulbolsyn”, further highlighting it with the fact that the filmmaker maintained the tempo of two films per year that played at major festivals. However, Yerzhanov is not the only auteur and the festival circuit is not the only option for the films from Kazakhstan to start their exposure.

The sophomore feature directed by Kuanysh Beisekov, “Dastur”, which we were lucky to catch at Grossmann’s Fantastic Wine and Film Festival in Ljutomer, Slovenia, started it public life with the domestic distribution at the very end of the last year. There it achieved an unimaginable success: its box office numbers surpassed those of the Hollywood heavy-hitters like the newest “Aquaman” and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari”. After that, it hit the other markets in Central Asia and Russia, and bookings at the international festivals ensued, where “Dastur” was usually marketed as piece of exotic curiosity.

Dastur starts like a satirical thriller-comedy, with a premise somewhat related to the one of Yerzhanov’s “Ulbolsyn”. It is set in a small town, basically a village where everybody knows everybody. Bolat is the privileged son of the land owner and the town’s most influential man Nursultan, and the son has the habit of using his father’s influence to get out of the trouble he caused. However, this time he outdid himself: he raped the high school graduate Diana (newcomer Nuray Beksultanova) just after her graduation ceremony.

Since her family already reported the act to the police, Nursultan cannot help Bolat in the conventional way by either threatening or buying off those whom his son wronged. The only way out for both of the families is a hastily planned wedding, with a deal brokered by the mayor in which Bolat’s family has to give a hefty dowry to Diana’s. Of course, she is far from happy to marry her rapist, but the patriarchal tradition (and “dastur” means “tradition” in Kazakh) would otherwise put the burden of shame on her, and not him. Shortly after the wedding, the tragic events start to happen in the village, mostly to the families of the newlyweds. Does Diana who fell ill shortly after the wedding has something to do with them?

One of the reasons “Dastur” fared so well at the domestic box office was the fact that the audience realized its satirical potential, aimed at the country’s flagrant problems like the corruption and the abuse of power. The references, such as the names of the people and the places, in the script written by Kazybek Orazbek and one of the actors Aldiyar Zhaparkhanov (playing Bolat here and repeating the collaboration with the filmmaker after his 2021 debut) are not at all subtle, but they hit their targets. Of course, it works one way for the domestic audiences and the other for the international ones, but it is not that hard to catch the screenwriters’ drift.

“Dastur” actually works pretty well in its opening half, happening before the wedding, and focused on satire of the “unsanitary” and unfair practices of the Kazakh society. In it, the viewer can clearly see certain echoes of Ulbolsyn, both topic- and style-wise, since Beisekov manages to nail the right amount of chaos in his storytelling to make the point he wants to. The cinematographer Azamat Dulatov, who also handles the editing together with Almaz Oljabay manages to capture it in appropriately contrasting tones of bleakness of the inhabitants’ perspectives and the kitschy shininess of the rituals to be performed. The acting of the combined team of non-professionals and trained actors like Adalbek Shalbayev (playing Nursultan here) also suits the purpose.

However, the turn to the genres of fantasy and horror in the second half reveals both the fact that there is a certain lack of “know-how” regarding the genre filmmaking in Kazakhstan, and that the genre itself is a very thin veil to cover Beisekov’s intentions in his vision. “Dastur” simply never gets and holds a grip as a horror, which is a shame, but as a social metaphor, it is pretty strong.

A Film a Week - The Funeral / Cenaze

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Although Turkish cinema scene is more associated with mainstream art house efforts, its more genre-oriented pole is also quite strong and recognized globally. One of the newer examples of it, a multi-genre crossover “The Funeral” written and directed by Orcun Behram is touring the festivals since its world premiere at the last year’s edition of Sitges. Most recently, it was showcased at the official competition of Grossmann Fantastic Wine and Film Festival in Ljutomer, Slovenia, where it scooped the main Viscious Cat award.

Behram opens his film with a sequence mostly located in a hearse van touring the back roads of Turkey to a small village graveyard where a funeral takes place in the rain. Its purpose is to establish the character of our protagonist, the driver named Cemal (Ahmet Rifat Sungar, best known for his roles in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Three Monkeys” and “The Wild Pear Tree”) as a loner and a man of few words who possibly holds a secret. Soon enough, Cemal is approached by his colleague with a hush-hush offer he cannot really refuse. His job is to make a certain corpse disappear for a period of time, until the situation settles, so it could be buried properly, and the reward for his effort would be a hefty, but not unbelievably large sum of money.

Initially, Cemal is wary that the offer might be a set-up, but he reluctantly agrees. The corpse he should carry around for a month or so belongs to Zeynep (Cansu Türedi who built her career on Turkish television), supposedly a victim of honour killing done by her influential family. Cemal drives the van away, checks into a no-questions-asked roadside motel and engages in his routines of chain-smoking and solo-drinking, until he hears some not-quite-dead noises coming from the back of his van. Well, Zeynep is a bit undead and quite hungry, and, since Cemal develops certain feelings for her, he starts caring and providing for her, urging them to be constantly on the move, while the police starts the search for a serial killer. However, there is no safe place in the world for the two of them, not even Cemal’s native home, and the day of meeting with Zeynep’s family is approaching…

“The Funeral” is a genre salad of sorts, blending the ideas of the road movie, “necromantic” comedy, love-on-the-run, horror and revenge thriller and doing so in a pace that often tests the audiences’ patience during the (almost) two hours of runtime until the make-it-or-break-it moment for the ending. To do so, Behram has to exercise the full control over the material in order to converge the interesting ideas he has towards a point. There is a constant threat that the multitude of ideas would take the film over, but the filmmaker barely manages to hold a grip over them.

The first of the film’s strong points is the acting. It is not a surprise that Ahmet Rifat Sungar is reliable in a role of a cryptic loner, since those roles suit him well. On the other hand, Cansu Türedi is a proper revelation of the film, since the actress nails the role with limited means of expression, given that her character does not speak. The supporting actors also create a rich tapestry contributing to the second of “The Funeral’s” strong points – its atmosphere. The realistic bleakness of it is conjured in the drained colours in the work of the art director Tuncay Özcan and the cinematographer Engin Özkaya who also lensed the filmmaker’s previous film “Antenna” (2019). However, Burk Alatas’ editing could have been a bit firmer.

But the reason the film mostly succeeds in making a point is the point itself. Behram packs a punch against the inherent conservativism, patriarchy and misoginy still present in the Turkish society, but is smart enough to hold it until the right moment. However, marketing “The Funeral” as a purely genre experience does not do the film any favours, since it serves better as an example of a hybrid of a genre- and an art house movie.

A Film a Week - Asche

 previously published on Cineuropa

Even before Elena Wolff’s sophomore feature, Asche, starts, the audience is warned that the film features certain things that might trigger them, such as drug and alcohol abuse – and, oddly enough, the city of Linz. Why the capital of Upper Austria should serve as a trigger for anyone remains a mystery, but this aspect also highlights the young filmmaker’s primary intention to provoke the audience however she sees fit. The film, however, did not premiere on home turf, but rather some 200 km away, at the Diagonale in Graz.

Asche is set in the circle of aspiring and up-and-coming artists from the budding Linz scene, and centres on three women who are part of an artistic collective whose performance we see early on, while we meet their partners at the afterparty following it. Lulu (the filmmaker herself) hooks up with Simeon (Thomas Schubert, of Afire fame), a self-confident photographer who proclaims himself to be an authentic genius and the alpha male of the scene. Their relationship is turbulent and based on shaky foundations, since he insists that it should be open while also acting like he owns her, but the question is how long his “muse” will be willing to put up with it. On the other hand, Anna (Selina Graf, collaborating with Wolff once again, after her 2022 debut, Para: Dies) tries to break away from the toxic romanticism of her boyfriend Felix (Simon Kluth), using a move to Berlin as an excuse, while she might also be interested in some much darker stuff that she can find in Linz. Finally, the seemingly idyllic relationship between Élise (Naomi Bah) and Emilia (Celine Meral) falls apart due to their conflicting ideas of closeness. And there is also Jakob (Nils Svenja Thomas), a non-artist, a potential stalker and maybe even an incel with whom Lulu starts conversing in the park…

Asche is a film drenched in excess, and all that foul language, cocaine and alcohol abuse, as well as the use of largely gratuitous nudity, are clearly aimed at provoking a strong reaction from the audience. In the dialogue department, the filmmaker tries to shine a spotlight on the toxicity of interpersonal relationships, even in artistic circles, that is enabled by the predominant patriarchal model, but she does so in a clumsy way that seems more like rambling than firmly pointing a finger at the problem. Even the third-act turn into the territory of revenge horror seems like a vague, underdeveloped idea and yet another attempt at shocking the audience.

Wolff tries to forge a new and unique visual language, but it often ends up somewhere between music-video aesthetics and an attempt at alternative arthouse cinema. First-time DoP Nora Einwaller sometimes opts for plainly odd angles that deform the actors’ features for no apparent reason (although her work still managed to persuade the festival jury to give her an award), while the editing by Alba Diaz is too choppy for a story that unfolds in two different timelines, presented simultaneously. In the acting department, Asche is also uneven, since the helmer casts herself in the main role so that she can expose herself, in every sense of the word. Apart from her, only Thomas Schubert and Naomi Bah play their characters with a bit of swagger, while the rest of the thesps end up being a tad bland in comparison. In the end, Asche can be seen as a striking movie, a bit like a punch to the eye, but it could benefit from more coherence.

A Film a Week - Play Dead! / Fait le mort!

 previously published on Cineuropa

Many things define our inner and outer life, and illness is definitely one of them. When it is chronic and possibly life-threatening, like diabetes, it severely affects our way of life, our habits, our decisions and our mindset. Parisian-based Canadian filmmaker Matthew Lancit has been suffering from diabetes since childhood, and one would think that he has already adapted to the condition. However, his third feature-length documentary, Play Dead!, which premiered in the Camera Lucida sidebar of DOK Leipzig, contradicts that notion.

On the surface, the movie seems like the filmmaker’s personal diary of his fear of dying from diabetes, which, after all, would not be so strange, since Lancit demonstrated his fascination with morbid subject matter in his feature-length debut, Funeral Season (2010), as well as his affinity for keeping a personal diary, of sorts, with his second effort, Flâneurs: Street Ramblers (2016). However, Play Dead!, in its complete absence of anything didactic regarding the approach, is a very different kind of animal.

Lancit opens it conventionally by giving us the reason for filming it in the first place: the death of his father and his role in taking care of him during his last days. The cause of his father’s passing is never disclosed, but in Matthew’s life, there is another ghost that haunts him: his uncle Harvey, with whom he shares the diagnosis and who died a terrible death when our filmmaker-protagonist was young. We shall not see the man physically in the film, but we will learn a lot about him and will feel his presence in Matthew’s life, as a cautionary tale, a ghost and a source of inspiration for the morbid games that Matthew plays.

However, he is not alone in this. He is married to Blandine, who plays along, but with less enthusiasm, and the couple has two daughters, the eldest of whom starts to show an aversion to her father’s morbid sense of humour and elaborate ways of laying bare his obsession with death. They play zombies and vampires, and Matthew explains his interpretation of one of the greatest Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur, as a rehearsal for death. Is his obsession so strong that he cannot let it go (the illness is definitely real, as Blandine remembers his characteristic odour), or is Matthew playing all these games and taking them to extremes (which are too good to spoil) so as to shock his entourage?

Although Play Dead! started out as a personal documentary of a filmed-diary kind, it develops into something very different, as Lancit, serving as the filmmaker, cinematographer, sound recordist and co-editor, introduces some experimental moments before turning the whole thing into a horror story, of sorts. He uses the location of his own Paris flat and the notion of confinement to smartly reference works by different auteurs, from Chantal Akerman to Roman Polanski (especially the “apartment” trilogy), while also introducing body-horror notions from the master of the sub-genre, David Cronenberg.

A lot of effort has also been put into the special effects and make-up (kudos to David Scherer, Anne Van Nyen and Florence Thonet, who handled this), the original score (Etiene Nicolas masterfully utilises riffs on electric guitar and an electronic drone to ramp up the tension) and the puppeteering work by Natacha Belova, while principal editor Ariane Mellet keeps up the pace and the clarity for the pleasant 80 minutes of running time. In the end, Play Dead! might seem like a free-flowing, cheeky, shocking and slightly odd horror documentary, but this does not prevent it from also seeming personal and sincere.

A Film a Week - Observing / Opazovanje

 previously published on Cineuropa

A couple of years ago, a live stream of the beating of a sole man by a group of people in the centre of Ljubljana went viral. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people saw it live and failed to react appropriately – for example, by calling the police. That real-life event served merely as the starting point for Janez Burger’s newest film, Observing, which has just world-premiered at the Festival of Slovenian Film, before heading to its international premiere in the Critics’ Picks section of Tallinn Black Nights.

Burger, who also co-wrote the script with late Serbian screenwriter Srđan Koljević, opens the film with a title sequence set against the audio of the vicious fight, before showing us our protagonist Lara (a newcomer to the feature-length format, Diana Kolenc), a young paramedic in a crew together with the experienced Joco (Vladimir Vlaškalić) and wise-cracking driver Rok (Benjamin Krnetić). Their break is cut short by a call for them to go and intervene. The subject is a man called Kristijan (Vito Weis), who has been viciously beaten and whom they take to hospital, where the medics put him into an induced coma.

As Lara gets more and more involved in the case, strange things begin to happen to her and the people around her. At first, she gets a message from the comatose man, which she passes on to his father, and this gets her in trouble with him. Then she starts getting updated versions of the beating video featuring observers who will soon end up dead themselves, after which she alerts the police, and then inspector Borut (Jure Henigman) gets involved. On top of that, the bin men are striking, the rubbish is piling up in bags around the bins, and rats start “visiting” both her car and her flat. But the real test for Lara begins when she sees her pregnant sister Ema (Nataša Keser) in one of the videos. Is she losing her mind, or is the world around her falling apart?

As is the case with most of Burger’s fiction films, here he also studies society, and its lack of empathy and humaneness. The question he wants to ask here is whether the act of observing a crime without doing anything (especially in a digitalised world) is in itself a crime, and what should be a just sentence for it. The choice of a seemingly innocent, professional and ethical character as the focal one is also a smart move, and so is the infusion of suspense in the narrative by showing more of the video upon each repetition, until finally revealing it in its entirety. The same goes for the directorial decisions to film in a narrow, 4:3 aspect ratio, which is further narrowed by the internal framing of the small, cramped spaces that our protagonist spends her time in, amplifying the sense of anxiety and fear both in her and in the audience. The novelty here is Burger’s toying with the ideas of genre cinema, lacing social drama with psychological thriller, suspense and horror.

Burger’s work with the actors is great, as expected. He basically launched the screen career of Maruša Majer in his previous films, and he is on the way to doing the same here with the brave and highly expressive Diana Kolenc. The technical components are also on a lofty level, with Marko Brdar’s persuasive cinematography, Miloš Kalusek’s resolute editing, and Julij Zornik’s and Igor Popovski’s sound design being among the standout elements. Observing is a strong piece of cinema that comments on the harshness of reality in a refined language, asking some important questions in the process.

A Film a Week - She Came at Night / Prišla v noci

 previously published on Cineuropa

There must be a reason why there are so many mother-in-law (or father-in-law) jokes in every language and culture. Family life is hard, and people who share genes, not to mention those who are related only by marriage, do not necessarily have compatible personalities. Jan Vejnar and Tomáš Pavlíček’s She Came at Night, which has just premiered in the Special Screenings section of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, takes a relatively ordinary family situation and slowly turns it into an extreme one.

Jirka (Jiří Rendl, glimpsed in a number of recent Czech films like Droneman, Charlatan and Zátopek) and Aneta (Annette Nesvadbová, most active on television) are an ordinary, young, urban couple. She is exhausted at her hospital job as an ergotherapist, while he is a freelance translator, currently busy translating a book of Soviet-era Latvian jokes. They have their minor niggles, but their real problems will occur when the titular “she” comes one night.

“She” is Jirka’s mother, Valerie (Simona Peková, in full-on diva mode), who apparently has no place to stay after her latest partner left her, and she asks her son – who knows full well her history of mess-ups and, perfectly reasonably, has a foreboding sense that chaos will ensue – if she can stay for just one night. One night turns into several days, and then weeks, while Valerie invades the couple’s privacy and meddles in their life and their choices further and further. As a consequence of her presence in their day-to-day life and their flat, the rifts between Jirka and Aneta slowly get deeper and wider. But the culmination, and the point where the movie veers from sitcom into horror-like territory, comes when Valerie brings along her newest boyfriend (and he brings his friends), and they take over the apartment completely.

Pavliíček already has some experience with the feature-length format and comedy as a genre (as demonstrated by his previous films Totally Talking and Bear With Us, which both premiered at Karlovy Vary), while Vejnar has made a name for himself with genre-infused shorts enveloped in an unsettling atmosphere. In theory, She Came at Night would seem like the perfect way to marry their previously established poetics, and the blend they make together is smooth and seamless. Along with several smart moves, like the already handheld camerawork by Šimon Dvořáček getting more fidgety and editor Jakub Vansa’s cuts getting more rapid, with frequent “visits” to the close-ups on Valerie’s face whenever she starts one of her monologues, the key thing the filmmakers get right is making the transition between the genres and their respective atmospheres slow and gradual, as the tension between the three characters builds up.

The helmers also get the casting choices spot-on and work with their chosen actors sure-handedly, leaving them enough freedom for interplay. With his permanently “long” face, Jiří Rendl is convincing as the non-alpha male in the couple, while Anette Nesvadbová is compelling as an overworked and fed-up woman on the verge of simply not being able to take it any more. However, it is Simona Peková who steals the limelight here, making her character a notable addition to the mother-from-hell type and contributing significantly to the fact that She Came at Night is not just an easy watch, but also an accomplished cinematic effort.

A Film a Week - Smother / Heimsuchung

 previously published on Cineuropa

Since the mid-2010s, there has been a noticeable trend in Austrian cinema. So-called “elevated genre films” that merge genre (usually horror) topics and plot points with an artistic approach are becoming more and more present in the context of national cinema. This year’s edition of the Diagonale included three films that could be classified as such in the feature competition programme. While Peter Hengl’s Family Dinner and Johannes Grenzfurthner’s Razzennest (both from 2022) have already had some festival exposure, Achmed Abdel-Salam’s feature debut, Smother (originally titled Heimsuchung), started its festival run with a premiere at the Austrian national film festival.

Michaela (Cornelia Ivancan, glimpsed in Simon Curtis’s Woman in Gold) is a recovering alcoholic who, after causing a car accident, has lost the trust of her partner Alex (Lukas Turtur) and their daughter Hanna (newcomer Lola Herbst). When Michaela’s estranged father dies, she inherits his house (and her childhood home) on the edge of a forest somewhere in the countryside. The project of cleaning and tidying it up for sale should serve as a chance for Michaela and Hanna to patch up their relationship, but a series of strange little incidents, Hanna’s sleepwalking, Michaela’s visions and nightmares, as well as gossip in the village, slowly reveal the unresolved family history that our protagonist had with her mother (Franziska Rieck), who committed suicide after trying to harm her own daughter. Can Michaela stay sober and, more importantly, is the evil that runs through her family hereditary?

Abdel-Salam started his career as an actor in adverts and shorts, after which he studied dramaturgy and scriptwriting, finally turning to filmmaking. In his debut feature, he shows a considerable knowledge of a number of aspects of the filmmaking process. Smother is carefully written and directed, with the helmer showing a clear knack for genre. Abdel-Salam demonstrates exceptional skill in his treatment of genre-movie tropes, from the crumbling, possibly haunted house, through the problematic relationships within the family spanning at least three generations, to the placement and execution of jump scares and an infusion of Japanese turn-of-the-millennium horror style, with several beautiful nods to The Ring trilogy.

Seen in almost every scene, Cornelia Ivancan is entirely convincing as the troubled and potentially deranged Michaela, channelling the inner turmoil that is about to burst out of her, but the chemistry she shares with child actress Lola Herbst, who plays her slightly spoiled daughter, is the most compelling part of her performance. The actors in bit roles as characters who more or less provide some context to Michaela’s pain are also pretty much spot on under Abdel-Salam’s guidance.

On the technical level, some aspects fare better than others. Daniel Helmer’s eerie score with percussive elements ramps up the tension in this slow-burner, while the measured editing by Matthias Writze establishes and keeps up the pace. On the other hand, Alexander Dirninger’s camerawork, in highly natural colours, seems a bit bland for most of the film, but this pattern tends to get broken in some of the scenes set in the realms of dreams, nightmares and memories, which makes sense, but is also a tad too obvious. All things considered, though, Smother is a sure-handed debut and a meaningful contribution to Austrian genre cinema.

A Film a Week - Svaha: The Sixth Finger / Sabaha

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

"Svaha: The Sixth Finger" was never intended to be an award-grabbing festival darling, and its distribution trajectory, having a domestic release before becoming a minor hit world-wide on the internet market, clearly shows that. Neither the film, labelled as a supernatural thriller, nor its director, Jang Jae-hyun, known for his writing and directing work on similar projects like "The Priests" (both writing and directing credits) and the remake of the Venezuelan minor horror sensation "The House at the End of Time", renamed "House of the Disappeared" for Korean version (written by Jang and directed by Lim Dae-wung), fit the festival kind of profile. But envisioned and crafted properly, "Svaha: The Sixth Finger" is more than a decent past-time, far better than Dan Brown novels' screen adaptations (the DNA of the script and the characters has some similarities with them), but still not quite as brilliant as Na Hong-jin's "The Wailing".

The original title "Svaha" ("Sabaha" in the transcription from Korean) has its roots in Buddhism and Hinduism, as it is a word that is used at the end of mantra. From Sanskrit, it is translatable as "Well said", while in Tibetan, the meaning is closer to "So be it", which sounds eerily Abrahamic. The expression travelled together with Buddhism, from India to Tibet, China, Japan and Korea. On the other hand, "The Sixth Finger" (pun intended) part, added for the international video markets, is a plot point that will not be discussed any further in order to keep the spoilers at bare minimum in this pretty much plot-driven story.

The film opens with a narration by Geun-hwa (Lee Jae-in), a simple country girl, who explains that she was born with a demonic twin sister, that she lost her parents early on and that she was raised by her grandparents. As a character, she will find her way to the centre of the plot around the midpoint of the film, but as a narrator, she will be absent until the very end, making a full circle, which is a bit schticky, but efficient.

The story itself revolves around the murders that lead to the pseudo-Buddhist religious cult called The Deer Mount and its mysterious founder and leader Ye-seok (Jeong Dong-hwan). While they are being officially investigated by the police and its chief Hwang (Jung Jin-young), they also draw the attention of Pastor Park (Lee Jung-jae), a man specialized in investigating and exposing the cults and pseudo-religious groups, who becomes our protagonist. With the help of the two of his employees, driver Joseph and deaconess-secretary Sim (Hwang Jung-min) and the valuable information provided by his Buddhist monk friend Hae-an (Jin Seong-kyu, glimpsed in "The Extreme Job"), he is on his way to solve the mystery that exceeds the borders of the material world.

In the exposition stage of the plot, "Svaha: The Sixth Finger" is an intriguing and high-revving piece of movie fun, with a couple of set-piece scenes that provide a nerve-wrecking tension and are directed with elegance and efficiency by Jang. Also, the setting of the urban and rural areas with different religious backgrounds around the Christmas time fills the film with a pretty unique atmosphere. The technical component of the film is usually spot-on, and Jang does his best to shift the tone either by fine-tuning, or by shifting gears regarding the tempo.

However, when all the threads converge into one, Svaha becomes pretty much straight-forward piece where every character does what it is supposed for them to do. Jang's attempts to change the rhythm with the flashback moments seem a bit clunky and the flashbacks themselves are quite unnecessary, since they tend to over-explain the clues and the twists planted just several scenes earlier. In the end, some 15 minutes of slightly over two hours of runtime could easily be trimmed off.

The thing that elevates "Svaha" above the line of average is the film's carefully picked cast. The actors are making an effort to breathe the life into the characters that are either stock, broadly sketched or a bit underdeveloped. Pastor Park even has some franchise potential as a character, while Lee has the star power to carry it. Park Jung-min's efficiency, complete with a dash of humanity, in his role here definitely paved the road for him for bigger things, like this year's Berlinale title "Time to Hunt". Jin Seong-kyu is quite compelling as the protagonist's consultant with a dash of nerdiness, while Lee Jae-In hits the right tones as Geum-hwa. Little known David Lee also puts himself on the map of talent with his role of Joseph that exceeds the frame of a basic sidekick.

Masterfully acted and for the most of the time efficiently directed, easy to follow "Svaha: The Sixth Finger" simply works as a good enough fun, regardless of occasional errors and clichés that could be traced back to the script. Make no mistake, this is not a masterpiece on any level, but it is still an example of a good genre film that works ideally on home platforms.

A Film a Week - Repossession

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Goh Ming Siu is a seasoned TV writer and director with dozens of credits to his name in his own country of Singapore. "Repossession", a film whose ambiguity in the title is its finest asset, is his feature debut. The film premiered at Cinequest Film Festival and we were able to catch it at Five Flavours Film Festival.

When we meet our protagonist, the middle-aged executive Jim (Gerald Chew, glimpsed in Boo Jungfeng's "Apprentice"), one might argue that his life is about to fall into a downward spiral. After decades of career, he is being fired from work. Or, more precisely, asked to leave because it would look better in his resume. Jim, however, is used to a bourgeois life style (hence his apartment and car) and is too much of an ego-maniac to come clean to his wife Linda (Amy Cheng of "Crazy Rich Asians" fame), his daughter and his friends, so he schemes every way he can to keep the facade: he puts a risky, but profitable investment portfolio, he moonlights as an Uber (or some such) driver, but his quest for a proper work that would fulfil him gets more and more futile.

For sure, Jim wrestles with his ego, but other things, possibly from out of this material world come to the play. While the creditors are about to repossess the material goods attached to his name, something spiritual goes on to do so with his loved ones. Are those just hallucinations or memories from the past in which Jim has picked up some bad karma or is he, his life and his family really under the threat?

The premise itself is interesting enough with the echoes of Stephen King novellas and a socially aware edge to it. The title also is brilliant in his ambiguity between the literal, material meaning and the metaphorical, fantastic one. The trouble is that Goh struggles to realize the complete potential for a feature film, even though "Repossession" would make a killer short if all the unnecessary repetitions ended up on the cutting room floor or the computer's recycle bin.

It is partly due to the screenplay he co-wrote with the actor Scott C. Hillyard (also known as Scott Chong) that is riddled with so much repetitions and does not get the film into action that is promised until much too late. The other trouble is Goh's directing style that never exceeds the basic television level and remains bland all the way. Budget is certainly an issue, but the formula is even a bigger one: it is pretty certain that Goh does not know when and how to position a special effects-laced action scene every now and then just to pick up the pace and reward the viewer for the patience and it is questionable if he is able to set and direct one.

This way, "Repossession" is much more of a tease than a full-blown horror movie or at least a chilling, atmospheric one. Neither it works as a socially aware drama where the genre influence is just an added layer of metaphor because it drawn too roughly and basically.

The acting is also sub-par, but it is hardly the actors' fault. Sure, both Gerald Chew and Amy Cheng are more active on television than in cinema, but they have demonstrated before that, with a proper text and leadership, they could do better. The trouble here is the lack of debt of Goh's vision, so everything that comes out of the actors' mouth sounds fake and way too rigid. On the other hand, well-controlled mostly hand-held camerawork by Woon Seong Chow and the editing by Gregory Tay, especially later on when it relies on jump cuts in horror-ish scenes, make "Repossession" at least a watchable viewing experience. An underwhelming one, but at least not terrible.

A Film a Week - The Long Walk / Bor Mi Vanh Chark

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

The US-born Laotian filmmaker Mattie Do is back on the festival circuit with her third feature "The Long Walk". This arthouse-genre hybrid premiered at Venice Days sidebar of 76th Venice International Film Festival before its North American premiere at Toronto and, having in mind Do's reputation for "Chantaly" (2012) and "Dearest Sister" (2016), it will travel beyond that both regarding the "regular" film festivals (especially those "late night" sections) and more specific genre-oriented ones.

As her previous movies, it is a ghost story of sorts that follows some genre conventions while also examining the (contemporary) Laotian society. The plot is realized through two timelines separated by 50 years. It opens in the near future with an old man (Yannawoutthi Chanthalungs) living in the rural area of scavenging motorcycle parts for money. There is something sinister about his lonely existence, especially with a notion that there is a serial killer lurking in the area and him being one of the last persons who saw the latest victim alive. The plot twists when the dead woman's daughter (Vilouna Phetmany) and the police come to him asking for help: apparently, he can speak to the ghosts. One of them, a young woman (the first-timer Noutnapha Soydara), actually follows him...

The other timeline is set in the recent past, with a boy (Por Silatsa) finding a dead young woman (Soydara, again) in the swamp. It might be his first contact with death, but it will not be the only one: his mother (Chanthamone Inoudome) is ill with no chance of recovery, while his father is largely absent, angry or drunk and the small vegetable garden around the house needs tending to. How are those two timelines connected, it is for us to see in the two hours of the running time.

The script by Do's regular screenwriter Christopher Larsen is meticulously constructed and it moves in circles of mystery offering the viewer a fair share of red herrings in the shape of recurring details (the same ghost, the same house and some of the mise-en-scene solutions are in both storylines) that still have to find the place in the story. They eventually do, but the feeling is a bit confusing for the first half of the film so patience is strongly advised.

The understated science fiction bits and pieces (payments are handled through microchips tattooed on the forearm of each person, supersonic aircrafts are flying over the area and the motorbikes are designed in the futuristic fashion even though they function is basically the same) here to highlight the class conflict in nominally socialist Laotian society, but they are not used to their maximum extent. And combined with similarly frivolously used time travelling and ghost aspects aim to add something to the spiritual dimension, but actually accumulate the confusion. With an additional circle in the end and a couple of plot twists, the feeling is that Mattie Do tried to be too clever for her own good, no matter how good of a storyteller she is, as she demonstrated in her previous works. But the film is still intriguing and thought-provoking.

One of Do's fortes is her work with the actors, especially with one of her "Dearest Sister" veterans Yannawoutthi Chanthalungs whose characters is the most complex of the bunch and also harbours the most of the films mystery. His acting is compellingly understated and his face shows the stoicism necessary to endure the hardships of life. Vilouna Phetmany and Noutnapha Soydara are similarly gentle and vulnerable in quite different roles and Por Silatsa's restrained acting works well with the film.

Visually interesting, shot in saturated contrast colours (green and yellow for the exteriors, dark brown and grey under the dim light for the interior), well acted and narratively unorthodox, "The Long Walk" is a film worth the time spent on watching it. The film also profits from the time taken for contemplating about it. It might not be the peak of Do's career so far, but it is certainly something new and fresh.

A Film a Week - Ghost of the Golden Groves

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Recently we had "Tumbbad", a formally conventional, yet mesmerizing, demons-infested tale of greed, reviewed here by yours truly. Another brilliant, yet differently dressed, debut comes also from India - "Ghost of the Golden Groves", penned and helmed by a Bengali duo Aniket Dutta and Roshni Sen, hidden under the pseudonym Harun al-Rashid (after an Arabian Nights character who is always masked). These two titles are not even remotely same kind of cinematic works, but now it is possible to argue that horror scene in India is gaining momentum quickly.

"Ghost of the Golden Groves" comes from Bengal and relies a bit on its tradition regarding the art house cinema dating from the 60's and Indian New Wave, but it is not the only clue needed for the interpretation of this diptych of strange ghost stories set deep in the backwoods and in the time when civilization started to visit those virgin lands. Some of the clues are spelled out, literally, early on: we can hear names Seijun Suzuki, Kaneto Shindo and Teshigahara, which are all the names of Japanese New Wave auteurs and if we were not listening carefully, Dutta and Sen will treat us with a couple of references to their work. Also, some other influences can be read: David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, acid western, experimental cinema as well as early and fairly basic science fiction B-movies, all of that shot predominantly in crisp black and white, or, better said, shades of grey.

The title is a bit misleading, there is not just one ghost, but more of them in those two stories that are connected only through the sheer strangeness of events and the clash of modernity and ancient, almost animalistic superstition as a lifestyle. The first, shorter part of the film titled "The Polymorph" and based on Dutta's own short story, follows the survey officer from Kolkata named Promotho (and played by Joyraj Bhattacharjee, glimpsed in Ronny Sen's astonishing "Cat Sticks") who came to the titular forest to map the roads that would run through the area in the future. He is met with hostility from the locals and tricked by a demon who took the shape of a local performer, so he ends up lost in space and time.

The second story, titled "Maya" and based on a short story by Bibhutibhusan Banyopadhyay, follows a poor, unemployed cook (Soumyajit Majumdar) who becomes a caretaker of a secluded, old villa owned by an eccentric old rich man (Jayanta Banerjee), despite the warnings about what happened to the previous men on his job. He does not seem to care even when a gas-masked woman, obviously from the future, starts visiting him in his dreams, followed by a group of similarly dressed people referred to simply as the others...

It would be easy, lazy and plain to write off "Ghost of the Golden Groves" for its awkwardness, because here it actually serves the purpose to tell an archetypical story about the clash between the new and the old, the civilization and wilderness. And Dutta and Sen do their best to tell it in a quite unique way, laced with humorous moments and striking visuals, effectively creating a memorable universe and using the storytelling means to the maximum effect.

Two things stand out here. One is the use of colour, first just suggested in the film's text when Promotho notices the green light in the forest only to be told by the carriage driver that people there see everything in black and white, then shown literally in cook's dreams and finally in the epilogue sequence where he recounts his story from a stage to the alien audience. That kind of use is far from the usual, it might even seem counter-intuitive a bit, but it makes sense and looks good paired with the rest of the black and white material shot by Basab Mullick that captures the attractiveness of the deep forest and primitive villages, complete with the "decay porn" of the crumbling villa.

The second one is sound design that is being used as a storytelling tool in a fresh way. Paired with an eclectic choice of music (done by Dutta), that includes rock, folk, jazz, blues, as well as electronic and modern pop, it creates a lasting impression, making "Ghost of the Golden Groves" one of the most pleasant surprises and arresting first-time filmmaking efforts in the terms of the strength and clarity of auteur vision.

A Film a Week - Tumbbad

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Having in mind both India's rich mythological heritage and the state of development of the country's cinema, it is quite strange that the top-quality horror-fantasy works rarely come from the world's second most populous country. However the trend can shift quickly since "Tumbbad" is one of the best and most efficient horror films seen in years. The critical response is good, the world premiere as the opening film of the last year's edition of Venice Critics Week opened the possibilities for a long festival tour (Fantastic Fest, CPH Pix, Busan, Thessaloniki etc.) and the film was already released theatrically in India.

The opening quote by Mahatma Gandhi citing that the world is enough for people's needs, but not for their greed sets the topic rarely and usually superficially explored in genre cinema. It is followed by an obscure piece of mythology about Hastar, the firstborn son of the Goddess Earth, who was offered a choice between all the gold and all the food in the world. He opted for gold, but when he tried also to acquire the food, his siblings united against him. He was saved by his mother, but erased from canonical books, sentenced to spend the eternity locked in her womb (aka the Earth's core) and not to be worshipped by people. That is the point where the mythology stops and the film fantasy ensues in the form of the triptych set in the titular village in the first half of the last century dealing with the myth, human greed and the (post-)colonial context.

First we meet the widow (Jyoti Malshe) who serves as a maid in a broken-down mansion ruled by an ailing local lord. As it usually goes, the mansion has its secrets and those in case here revolve around the family treasure which has a curse attached to it. At home she has to take care of her two pre-teen sons and also for the boss' hibernating grandmother who has to be fed in her sleep because she could wake up as a demon of sorts. However, the widow's elder son Vinayak (played by Dhundiraj Prabhakar Yogalekar at this stage) shows the signs of greed and obsession with the family treasure, which could lead him in trouble.

Fifteen years later, Vinayak (Sohum Shah) is a newly-married young man living in the city of Pune who has not left his obsession behind and who takes regular trips to the mansion he inherited, always coming back with ancient gold coins, which draws the attention of his shady business partner Raghav (Deepak Damle) and the British colonial authorities. Another fourteen years on, the life of greed, opium and parties takes its toll on Vinayak and the recently established free Indian government is about to take over his mansion and Vinayak is training his young son to continue his work. The teenage boy, however, has a bold, dangerous idea to maximize the profit that could easily backfire.

"Tumbbad" is all-around brave and risky film that could easily end up as a typical Bollywood mishmash of fantasy and melodrama, riddled with B-movie clichés and poor visual effects, but it is not the case here. It is a full-blown horror, masterfully designed, chillingly atmospheric (over the course of the film, the pouring rain does not cease even for a moment), but also quite brutal when needed without resorting to simple solutions like jump scares.

Oddly, for a film directed by the team of three (Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi and Adesh Prasad who, together with the TV writer Mitesh Shah, also adapted the works of Narayan Dharap into the script), "Tumbbad" is highly coherent. The storytelling economy is perfect in the sense that the viewers get the necessary information at precisely measured doses at just the right moment, which makes the whole plot hypnotically involving. Also, for a triptych, there is not even a shade of omnibus feeling. And the colonial sub-text is obvious, but left in the background without a pretence to take over the whole film.

The acting is solid throughout, but Sohum Shah, who previously worked with Gandhi on "The Ship of Theseus", carries most of the weight as Vinayak, a greedy man of humble origins who desperately tries to buy his social status. He drops the ball occasionally, especially in the final third, employing the typical Bollywood overacting techniques instead. The rest of the ensemble playing the supporting characters is also decent, but their roles are usually based on their intriguing appearances and not on their acting abilities.

On the technical level, "Tumbbad" is nearly perfect, especially given the gap between modest budget and huge period-piece ambition of the filmmakers. The original score written by the video-game composer Jesper Kyd serves the film well, as is the rhythmic editing by Sanyukta Kaza. And speaking about the cinematography handled by Pankaj Kumar must be done in superlatives since "Tumbbad" is one of the best-looking genre films we have seen in years.

For all its merits, "Tumbbad" has to be seen as soon as possible. It is definitely a milestone regarding Indian genre cinema and a future classic world-wide.

A Film a Week - The Last Serb in Croatia / Posljednji Srbin u Hrvatskoj

previously published on Cineuropa

The year has started promisingly for audience-friendly Croatian cinema. After a decent theatrical run for Vinko Brešan's satirical political drama What a Country!, the next in line is a zombie comedy penned and helmed by first-timer Predrag Ličina, entitled The Last Serb in Croatia. The film opened nationally in Croatia on 28 February, one day ahead of its festival premiere in Serbia, at the Belgrade International Film Festival FEST. Chances are it will be at least a minor hit in both countries, as well as in the wider region of the former Yugoslavia.

It is the near future, seven years after the total bankruptcy of Croatia. The population has fallen to 2.5 million, while class differences have become more pronounced. A minority of well-to-do citizens can enjoy the perks of the high life, while the majority of the people have to rummage around in the garbage and beg on the streets just to survive. Nevertheless, they all get to "enjoy" a series of domestic blockbuster superhero films entitled Task: Impossible, revolving around the adventures of national(istic) heroine Hrvojka Horvat (Serbian actress Hristina Popović) and her superior, called The Leader, as well as live radio reports by DJ Carrot (the voice of Rene Bitorajac).

When we meet our unlikely hero, Mićo (Krešimir Mikić), it seems he is on top of this dog-eat-dog world, as he’s filthy-rich and suitably cocky. Soon enough, after the outbreak of an epidemic, he is bitten by his zombified date, so he ends up in a hospital where he meets his idol, Hrvojka – or actually, jaded actress Franka Anić, who plays the role of Hrvojka – a neo-Nazi skinhead thug called Maks (Dado Ćosić) and a mysterious businesswoman called Vesna (rising star Tihana Lazović). They all decide to go to the countryside near the Bosnian border, where they believe they have a better chance of survival. 

However, strangely, Mićo has not started turning yet, even though he was bitten hours ago. The answer to the mystery will come to light soon enough, when the gang reaches a village inhabited by a Serbian-minority family. It turns out that Serbs, Mićo included, are somehow immune to the virus. Our heroes still cannot get out of the country, which is surrounded by a wire fence, but they manage to reach a refugee camp operated by a Slovenian doctor called Jana (Judita Franković). In the meantime, an intervention team located in Sweden, consisting of a trigger-happy American general (a cameo by Sergej Trifunović), an anti-globalist activist (Croatian pop star Severina) and a scientist, is tasked with finding a cure...

Aside from the part about looking for a solution and the popular anti-globalist "water is the greatest treasure of all" discourse, the plot is fairly standard for movies of this ilk and is not Ličina's primary focus. It is merely a framework for a series of clever and provocative observations on national stereotypes and the nationalistic sentiments of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. Ličina tries to achieve this with rapid-fire verbal and visual jokes that do not always hit the mark, even among a well-informed audience, because they sometimes demand some specific knowledge of a certain sub-culture, which is to be expected from a director with a background in music videos. The film starts promisingly, but the pace drops towards the end, though not dramatically. The star-studded cast helps a lot, as do the simple make-up and the visual effects by Miroslav Lakobrija, but the visual identity of the film is caught between its virtually no-budget means and its ambitious goals, as it clearly aspires to be more like contemporary genre cinema from Western Europe and the USA.

A Film a Week - The Forest of Lost Souls / A Floresta das Almas Perdidas

What if the suicide were just the beginning of the problems? The young and aspiring Portuguese genre auteur José Pedro Lopes poses the same question with his lean and artsy feature-length debut The Forest of Lost Souls. Judging by the result, he is someone we can count on in the future of genre filmmaking.

After the title card quoting Neitzche, the action is about to start with a middle-aged man named Ricardo (Jorge Mota), who is parking his car at the edge of the wooded area, supposedly popular with the people planning to take their own lives. He follows the signs that lead him to the part of the forest designated for suicides, all completely fictional but all too familiar with the Aokigahara woods at the foothill of Mt. Fuji in Japan portrayed in Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees.

As soon as he finds his spot, Ricardo realizes that he has company consisting of a “manic pixie goth girl” in her late teens or early 20s named Carolina (Daniela Love), who first mocks his chosen method (a knife), and then his general unpreparedness for the act, like forgetting to bring his own pen and paper for suicide note, which she readily lends him. The sarcastic banter between the two of them continues and it seems like that they are determined to save each other’s life, but still firm about the decision to take their own.

At least it is the case with Ricardo who cannot handle his life any more. One of his daughters, Irene (Lila Lopes, seen only in flashbacks) committed suicide herself a year ago and he feels threatened by the constant nagging of his wife (Lígia Roque) and the cynical attitude of his other daughter Filipa (Mafalada Banquart) to whom Carolina reminds him of, regarding both her age and the treatment she gives him. Also, it turns out to be that Carolina lacks the courage to take the final step and that she is more of a morbidly curious tourist in the forest, and more of the theoretitian than a suicide practitioner.

Or is she? After a sharp turn somewhere around midpoint, the film takes the course away from the casually dark comedic tone Lopes established early on, which is transforming more to the direction of something really sinister in the vein of home invasion thrillers, stalking chillers and slasher horrors. Smartly enough, he holds the cards regarding the motivational explanation up until the end, amplifying the cynicism he plays with right from the start.

He also avoids bloodbath and cheap shocks, though the stalking parts are a bit too much tongue in cheek, staying true to his darkly poetic realism realized through Francisco Lobo’s stark black and white cinematography, Ana Almeida’s meditative editing and Emanuel Grácio’s sometimes prevalent music score, transforming the budgetary limitations into an artistic statement. He gets a lot of help from his actors, especially Love who plays her clichéd part with a bit of dark hipster irony of her own. The brisk runtime of 71 minutes is also more than helpful to make The Forest of Lost Souls an easy watch as well as a stylish and assured, albeit at moments nonsensical debut.