The biggest persistent problem with Mimesis is the fact that it continually reminds the viewer that they could just be watching Night of the Living Dead again. There’s nothing really much interesting or unique going on here, and when the mystery behind what is really going on is revealed, it’s almost embarrassingly anticlimactic. There are some nice practical effects in the film, and the production values are solid. The trouble with Mimesis isn’t that it fails where other independent horror films typically trip themselves up (bad effects, acting, etc.), it’s that it just isn’t anywhere nearly as good as the film to which it spends its entire running time paying tribute.
Mirrors (2008)
Originally published on Film Monthly 18 August 2008
Ever since Alexandre Aja gained international attention and was credited as kick-starting the current wave of French horror with High Tension, he has been a somewhat frustrating figure. High Tension lived up to its name for the most part, but a severely miscalculated plot twist sharply divided audiences and critics alike–had he played the story straight (no pun intended), Aja would have had a certifiable classic to his credit. As it stands, the film is, at best, flawed and, at worst, utterly incomprehensible. However, the film showed that he had a flair for the horror genre, and he was signed on to do the remake of Wes Craven’s “crazy hillbilly” classic, The Hills Have Eyes. Aja’s take on the film once again divided horror fans, although mostly, this time, it was inevitable. Remakes are a touchy subject among horror fans.
So it’s somewhat frustrating that, once again, Aja has taken on a remake. Mirrors is a remake of a Korean film called Into the Mirror. While Aja and co-writer Levasseur maintain the film is a big departure from the original, some of the hallmarks of the well-worn “J-horror” movement in Asian horror films are major parts of the film’s plot. There are the Scary Kids, the Horrible Secret from the Past, and loads of jump scares–which is a damned shame, because once again Aja proves (if nothing else) that he’s more than capable of making something great if he has the right material.
The film opens with a bloody sequence setting up the disappearance of a security guard that creates a job opening for Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland). Carson is a former police officer, who left the force after accidentally shooting an undercover officer and now lives with his sister, Angie (Amy Smart), as a recovering alcoholic. He takes the job as a night watchman in the Mayflower, a large, burned-out, abandoned department store. Everything in the store is ash, but mysteriously, the store’s mirrors are completely untouched. Strange things begin happening, and Ben finds little help or comfort from his estranged wife, Amy (Paula Patton), who wants to support him but finds his increasingly bizarre behavior unsettling.
A large part of the film takes place in the Mayflower, which is simply one of the creepiest settings for a horror film in recent memory. The charred mannequins, thick ash on the floor and decaying luxuries make it scary enough on its own. The most effectively unsettling mirror scenes all take place in the Mayflower, where the film has its most sure footing–Aja sends the camera creeping along floors, gliding over railings, and generally reveling in the store’s inherently haunted atmosphere.
Unfortunately, when the action moves out of the Mayflower, the film often falls apart. Sutherland is fine as the obsessive ex-cop trying to uncover the Horrible Secret from the Past before it claims his family, and the story offers up a few interesting surprises near the end (including a fantastic ending). Otherwise, though, the film is plagued by two major problems: a seriously annoying reliance on jump scares, and the fact that many of the characters do things that are obviously foolish and to put themselves in danger. The latter almost manages to undo all the good that the film does during its sequences in the Mayflower.
Again, it’s clear that Aja is capable of making a damned great horror film. Mirrors is at least half of a great movie–if Aja could apply his compelling style to more solid material, I have no doubt he could turn out a classic. Once again, though, this isn’t it. However, I feel like I must salute Fox for putting some effort behind the promotion and release of Mirrors, an unapologetically gruesome movie in a market that has lately been highly skittish about R-rated horror films.
Mischief Night (2014)
Originally published on Film Monthly 21 May 2014
Scream was released nearly 20 years ago, but for better or worse it continues to have an influence on horror film in general and slashers in particular to this day. Mostly “worse,” unfortunately, as screenwriters try to out-clever Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven’s original meta-slasher in hopes of replicating even a fraction of that film’s popularity. Occasionally, this works out when a writer is more interested in continuing the commentary and satire of Scream in an interesting way. More often, though, some tiny echo of that film’s influence will find its way to a slasher movie that tries to do something a little different. Something different is often preferable to the same old same old, and can even be exciting when done correctly. Conversely, it can be exceptionally frustrating when done poorly. Mischief Night is a prime example of the latter.
Kaylie (Brooke Anne Smith) is filling in on babysitting duty for her best friend Daphne (Nikki Limo) the night before Halloween somewhere in a posh suburb conveniently located somewhere with very poor cell phone reception. Kaylie passes her time scaring off local teenagers who try to vandalize the house where she’s working, swearing at the baby in her care, and listening to the neighborhood weirdo (Malcolm McDowell) warn her not to open the door because of all the strange activities that happen in the neighborhood on “Mischief Night.” After an awkward interaction with her crush Graham (Matt Angel), Kaylie realizes that a masked figure is stalking the house. She behaves in typical “horror movie teen” fashion in response to this, stripping down to her underwear for a quick dip in the backyard pool, and after calling Daphne for help, Kaylie finds herself face-to-mask with the knife-wielding assailant (Marc Valera) who has chosen her for his victim.
As it happens, that’s how she likes it. Kaylie turns the tables on The Man (as the credits call him) by being even crazier than he is; also, he apparently can’t murder her because she’s a virgin. The two sit down to talk and discover they’re more alike than either of them could have guessed, and before long they’re bonding over their mutual feelings of being outsiders and disconnected from the world. They both have scars metaphorical and literal, and maybe they could be good for each other. The main problem standing in their way is the growing pile of bodies outside the house. Will Kaylie and The Man run away together, or will she have to explain those corpses to the family for whom she’s babysitting? When are those people coming home, anyway?
There are moments in Mischief Night when the film hits a tone that is entirely its own, and likely what writer/director Travis Baker was aiming for with the film as a whole. Sadly, those moments are fleeting. The concept of the “Final Girl” and the killer from a slasher film discovering that they are kindred spirits is interesting, but the characterizations here are so off-putting that the audience has nowhere to even start empathizing with them. Kaylie is painted as a spoiled, hateful teenager from her first lines, swearing at the baby in her charge and stealing pills out of the family’s medicine cabinet. Later in the film, when she opens up a bit about feeling like an unattractive outsider, it’s impossible to buy, because Kaylie is played by a beautiful young actress who has also appeared on an MTV sitcom. The combination of her unsympathetic behavior and miscasting makes Kaylie impossible for the audience to engage with. The Man is less verbose, but no less alienating. His big scene depends on his delivery of a lengthy monologue that reveals him to be completely insane, but his actions don’t bear it out. Beyond these two leads, the main action of the film hinges on the fact that Kaylie’s friends Daphne and Graham are playing a cruel, elaborate prank on her that is more like something out of a Lars von Trier movie than a teen-centric film of any kind.
It’s difficult to fault a film that is so clearly interested in doing something diff
erent than the legions of low-budget slashers that continue to clog the independent horror scene, but Mischief Night is too full of miscalculations and too reliant on the kind of coincidence and characterization on which it presumably wants to comment to qualify as a satire. Despite the film’s constantly zigzagging tone, the finale is as completely predictable as it is nonsensical. With some more sympathetic characterization, this could have been something both different and commendable. As it stands, unfortunately, it’s just the former.
Mister Lonely (2007)
Originally published on Film Monthly 2 June 2008
Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely is a beautiful, heartbreaking mess. The fact that there is much to admire about the film is tempered by a feeling of missed opportunities and questionable creative decisions. It’s a film that is at the same time completely unique and regrettably predictable. In short, Mister Lonely is a film that is admirable on many levels but ultimately feels hamstrung by lazy irony exactly where the film needed more of the originality on display everywhere else.
The film follows two stories that are seemingly unrelated. In the main storyline, a Spanish Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) living in Paris meets an American Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton), who talks him into moving to a commune in the Scottish highlands populated entirely by celebrity impersonators. They all live together in a castle and are working on building a playhouse in which they will perform “the greatest show on Earth,” featuring performances by Madonna, James Dean, Little Red Riding Hood, Abe Lincoln, Buckwheat from The Little Rascals, etc. Complications arise when Marilyn’s abusive husband Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant) becomes jealous of her friendship with (and increasing attraction to) Michael.
In the film’s other story, a group of nuns in South America perform air drops of food for remote villages and become famous when one of the nuns accidentally falls out of their small passenger plane and lands unharmed. She returns to the other sisters and implores them to do the same, because she believe God wants them “to do tricks.” The sisters take to the skies and follow suit until word makes its way all the way to the Vatican, where the Pope requests an audience with them and their Priest, Father Umbrillo (Werner Herzog).
The film is a departure from Korine’s previous two feature films in many ways. The most immediately obvious difference is the film’s look, which is colorful and often startlingly beautiful, taking advantage of the wide screen in a way he never has before (thanks in no small part to Marcel Zyskind’s excellent cinematography). Another important departure is the fact that more of the cast this time around are familiar faces, and not just because they’re impersonating hugely famous personalities. Diego Luna and Samantha Morton both turn in fragile but powerful performances, and Werner Herzog is entertainingly bizarre, as usual. The multiple storylines and vastly different locations are also considerably more ambitious than Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy as well.
All these admirable qualities make it even more disappointing that Korine (and his brother/co-writer Avi Korine) steer the stories toward endings that feel less like their natural conclusions and more like easy, ironic punch lines. The concept of the film’s stories and their execution are so unique and enjoyable that it feels like a cheat when their conclusions are so predictably downbeat. This isn’t to say that downbeat endings aren’t valid, but when the rest of the film shows off such imagination and a willingness to show us strange new things, a typical indie-film “Life sucks, bro” finale seems inappropriate.
Despite its disappointments, however, there is no doubt that Mister Lonely is a unique, often very powerful film. Any film that inspires as much impassioned discussion as this one is truly worth watching. We can only hope that Korine doesn’t make us wait another eight years for his next film, or that if he does it delivers on the promise of greatness that Mister Lonely implies but doesn’t quite reach.
Moebius (2013)
Originally published on Film Monthly 22 August 2014
Kim Ki-Duk is one of the most well known South Korean directors in the world, thanks largely to his willingness to embrace controversy by depicting extremes of human behavior. Some of his past films have drawn attention for being difficult to watch for various reasons (including brutal depictions of violence and uncomfortable sexual themes), earning him a reputation as something of a provocateur. His latest film, Moebius, now seeing a U.S. theatrical run, is unlikely to change that perception of his work. In this film, Kim takes the more unsettling themes of his previous film, 2012′s Pieta, and amplifies them through a similarly claustrophobic approach by examining a family bent on self-destruction. This time, however, there is an intriguing twist in his approach: there is not a single line of spoken dialogue in the entire film.
The following events occur in the first ten minutes of the film: We meet the family. Father, Mother and Son. Father is caught by both Mother and Son in a rendezvous with his Mistress. When he returns home, Mother attempts to castrate him, but Father manages to fend her off. Unsatisfied, she instead castrates her Son. Father and Son run to the hospital while Mother drifts into the night. After this shocking opening sequence, the course of the family is set. Son is bullied by his fellow students and becomes obsessed with the Mistress, who likewise seems attracted to him. Father starts researching ways that his Son might have a normal life again, but before long the Son has fallen in with a bad crowd.
Choosing to present this story completely without dialogue makes Moebius feel eerily universal, although it also leads to some (intentional?) uncomfortable humor when Father is using Google to look up things like “orgasm without penis.” The cast must be commended for committing to such difficult material and telling the story completely through actions and expressions. Like Pieta, Moebius has a narrow focus, but here it widens to show how violence against others can ripple out and indirectly touch people who are otherwise unrelated. When the Son is befriended by young thugs, he unwittingly leads them to the Mistress, and from there a bizarre relationship develops. All of this can be traced back to the initial acts of revenge, and the paths are clear.
Despite its occasional moments of black humor, there is no mistaking Moebius for anything like a “good time.” Kim Ki-Duk specializes in films that linger in the mind long after they’re over, leaving the viewer plenty to think about. This would be worth a recommendation alone, but the choice to present the story completely without dialogue makes Moebius feel like something completely unique. It’s exciting that Kim Ki-Duk is making films like this nearly 20 years into his career as a director. There’s certainly nothing else out there on the big screen like this right now.
Mood Indigo (2013)
Originally published on Film Monthly 14 November 2014
Depending on who you ask, Michel Gondry has already made at least one “masterpiece” with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. While that is an excellent film, and particularly notable for its perfect marriage of content and filmmaker, a large part of that film’s success also lies with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Gondry’s career has veered all over the place since that film, with work for television, documentaries, and even a bizarre flirtation with big-studio Hollywood filmmaking with The Green Hornet. However, not since 2006′s The Science of Sleep has Gondry made a fiction feature so completely informed by his obsessions as his latest film, Mood Indigo. In many ways, this feels like the film that Gondry has been working toward his entire career.
Colin (Romain Duris) is a rich young man who spends his time going to parties and inventing wildly impractical machines like the Pianocktail (a piano that mixes a cocktail based on whatever music is played on it). He lives in a bright apartment with a mouse (Sacha Bourdo) whose life seems to be as carefree as Colin’s, and Colin’s lawyer/chef Nicolas (Omar Sy) is at his side constantly both to offer advice and cook extravagant feasts for every meal. One evening Colin is invited to a party by his friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh), and there he meets Chloé (Audrey Tautou). They fall instantly in love, but on their honeymoon Chloé co
ntracts a rare and frequently fatal disease that causes a flower to grow in her lungs. The only treatment for this illness is to constantly surround her with fresh flowers, and as Colin’s fortune shrinks and his apartment fills with flowers, the outlook just gets worse.
Based on the novel Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian, Mood Indigo provides Gondry another near-perfect match of story for his seemingly boundless imagination. The Paris in which the film takes place is recognizable, but it’s a dream place, packed with strange places and things from Gondry’s imagination. There are a number of impressive special effects throughout the film, ranging from simple hand-made puppets to elaborate CG. Any ten minutes of this film is packed with more invention and imagination than countless other features released this year. Gondry, aided by his game cast and with what seems to be a huge budget, uses Mood Indigo to create a fully-realized world that bears his unmistakable fingerprints. Anyone who thought The Science of Sleep was too whimsical is hereby advised to give Mood Indigo a wide berth.
Unfortunately, when the film reaches its finale, Gondry seems unwilling to give the darker emotional territory of the story the same treatment. Once the film hits its final 10-15 minutes, it feels as if Gondry has hit a wall and the color is literally drained from the film. The unpleasant parts of the story are mostly given only a cursory treatment, giving the finale a strangely rushed and unfinished feeling. However, this may be at least partially due to the fact that the film was recut for its U.S. theatrical release from its original length of 135 minutes down to 90 minutes. The excellent Drafthouse Films 2-disc Blu-ray set includes both cuts of the film for comparison, although Gondry supervised the editing of the shorter version and has given it his approval. Despite the U.S. theatrical cut’s difficult finale, this is still one of the most unique films of the year, and Drafthouse’s home video release would have been essential viewing even without both cuts of the film.
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 47
