Tag Archives: independent film

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Beware the Faery Folk

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The Hallow

by Hope Madden

Visual showman Corin Hardy has a bit of trickery up his sleeve. His directorial debut The Hallow, for all its superficiality and its recycled horror tropes, offers a tightly wound bit of terror in the ancient Irish wood.

Adam (Joseph Mawle) and Clare (Bojana Novakovic) move, infant Finn in tow, from London to the isolated woods of Ireland so Adam can study a tract of forest the government hopes to sell off to privatization. But the woods don’t take kindly to the encroachment and the interlopers will pay for trespassing.

What’s in the woods and why is it so angry?

“An occupied people forced into hiding by fire and iron,” explains a friendly Irish policemen to the Brit couple helping to sell off Erin’s ancient forests.

Openly influenced by Evil Dead, The Shining, The Thing, and Straw Dogs, among others, the film rarely feels stale for all its rehash. Hardy borrows and spit-shines, but the final amalgamation takes on such a faery tale quality that it generally works. (Except for that Necronomicon-esque book – that’s just a rip off.)

Hardy has a real knack for visual storytelling. His inky forests are both suffocating and isolating with a darkness that seeps into every space in Adam and Clare’s lives. He’s created an atmosphere of malevolence, but the film does not rely on atmosphere alone.

Though all the cliché elements are there – a young couple relocates to an isolated wood to be warned off by angry locals with tales of boogeymen – the curve balls Hardy throws will keep you unnerved and guessing.

A lot of the scares require very little visual effect – one early bit where Adam is knocked into the trunk of his car while something claws and bangs at the door toward his screaming infant is particularly nerve wracking. Still, Hardy’s joy and real gift is in the creature feature half of the film.

The magical folk of the Hallow – “faeries, banshees, and baby stealers” – have a look that is unique, appropriately woodsy, and immensely creepy. And just when you think the film’s reached its peak with this back woods monster mash, Hardy takes a sharp turn with a deeply felt emotional plot twist.

The political allegory doesn’t really pan out; Clare, though well performed, is entirely one-dimensional; the mythology of the sludge, while cool, doesn’t clearly fit with the monsters; and why in the hell do the rest of the natives stay?!

That’s a lot to ponder, but Hardy – magician that he is – will keep you so interested with relentless pacing and horror wonder that you won’t even notice.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

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Just Breathe

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Asthma

by Hope Madden

A bruised, muscular romanticism – a nostalgia for a hipper, more rebellious and gorgeous reality – informs Jake Hoffman’s Asthma.

The beautifully damaged Gus (Benedict Samuel) can’t claim a place in the generic uniformity of the modern world. He longs for the grittier and richer reality he believes came and went before his time. So he steals a Rolls, picks up the girl he admires, and attempts the kind of tragically restless road trip you might find in a Godard film.

All of which would feel precious were it not for erratic but solid performances, and a revelation that unveils Gus as the poseur we knew he was. Surprisingly, Hoffman and Samuel are able to mine that late-film revelation to connect the lead with the ordinary Joe in the audience, and still make his troubles resonate because of the genuine pain in the performance.

For all the film’s showy quirks – Nick Nolte, for instance, is the voice of Gus’s Guardian Angel/Wolfman – Hoffman’s abrupt manner with both camera and soundtrack keep things from feeling frivolous or pretentious.

The slew of peculiar folk Gus meets along his journey nearly chokes any hint of authenticity from Asthma, although the great (and appropriate) Iggy Pop is like a needed and timely punch in the gut to a film just about to topple over with its own quirkiness.

For a hyper-masculine road-type-picture, Asthma boasts a surprisingly nuanced female lead. Yes, Krysten Ritter’s Ruby looks like the typical off-beat beauty, and her character is certainly the right combination of naughty and nice to fit the bill, but Ritter never lets the character off too easy. She makes poor decisions, kicks herself for them, hardens, and moves on – all with a grace that feels of this time and of another.

There’s an addiction theme that threatens to hold the film together, give it purpose and drive, but often feels like the least authentic piece of the movie. Without it, though, Asthma too often comes off as a nostalgic riff on another era’s nostalgic riffs.

Hoffman’s a confident first time filmmaker with a product that is great to look if purposeless – kind of like Gus.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHA7Lt_uQPs

Halloween Countdown

Day 29: The Woman

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The Woman (2011)

OK, Halloween’s almost here. It’s time to get real. And by that we mean real nasty.

There’s something not quite right about Chris Cleese (an unsettlingly cherubic Sean Bridgers), and his family’s uber-wholesomeness is clearly suspect. This becomes evident once Chris hunts down a feral woman (an awesome Pollyanna McIntosh), chains her, and invites the family to help him “civilize” her.

The film rethinks family – well, patriarchy, anyway. Notorious horror novelist and co-scriptor Jack Ketchum may say things you don’t want to hear, but he says them well. And director Lucky McKee – in his most surefooted film to date – has no qualms about showing you things you don’t want to see. Like most of Ketchum’s work, The Woman is lurid and more than a bit disturbing. Indeed, the advanced screener I watched came in a vomit bag.

Aside from an epically awful performance by Carlee Baker as the nosey teacher, the performances are not just good for the genre, but disturbingly solid. McIntosh never veers from being intimidating, terrifying even when she’s chained. Bridgers has a weird way of taking a Will Ferrell character and imbibing him with the darkest hidden nature. Even young Zach Rand, as the sadist-in-training teen Brian, nails the role perfectly.

Nothing happens in this film by accident – not even the innocent seeming baking of cookies – nor does it ever happen solely to titillate. It’s a dark and disturbing adventure that finds something unsavory in our primal nature and even worse in our quest to civilize. Don’t even ask about what it finds in the dog pen.

Listen weekly to MaddWolf’s horror podcast FRIGHT CLUB. Do it!

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This I Could Not Do

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Partisan

by Hope Madden

Ariel Kleiman casts a spell with his feature film debut Partisan, an enigmatic effort concerning a tribe of juvenile assassins and their surrogate – and sometimes biological – father, Gregori.

A captivating Vincent Cassel stars as the mentor, guru, and unyielding leader of the group. The film opens on Cassel, ragged and alone, building from hand and refuse what will become a sprawling, hidden fortress. Here he will house and educate a dozen or more children and their world-wearied mothers.

This is a cult, of sorts, and Gregori’s methods are deceptively paternal, but as his eldest and first protégé approaches adolescence, the limits of Gregori’s control begin to appear.

Kleiman’s measured storytelling offers as many questions as answers, enthralling with this alien yet believable scenario. He creates an atmosphere of near-wholesomeness and dubious nurturing that chills you.

Cassel’s performance is both restrained and bursting. Though the French actor has portrayed scads of villains in his impressive career, none are as thoughtfully drawn as Gregori. Cassel plumbs the character for self-delusion, tenacity, faux tenderness, and icy psychosis all at once. Gregori is exactly the charismatic figure who could command from nothing just such a bizarre family.

His chemistry with the young cast is both frightening and lovely – particularly his fragile onscreen bond with Jeremy Chabriel as prepubescent killer Alexander. Chabriel shoulders much of the film’s emotional heft, and he’s able to communicate the especially complicated coming of age facing this character with the skill of an actor twice his age.

Chabriel’s scenes with his mother and baby brother are layered, as the boy grapples with his own youthful – though not exactly innocent – view of the world, family, patriarchy, and devotion.

The unanswered questions, though often provocative, sometimes make the film feel unfinished. Still, Kleiman is a confident storyteller, and even with some missing pieces, he’s composed a taut, chilling, and unique vision of a particularly fraught journey toward adulthood.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

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Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh, Ich seh)

by Hope Madden

There is something eerily beautiful about Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s rural Austrian horror Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh, Ich seh).

During one languid summer, twin brothers Lukas and Elias await their mother’s return from the hospital. They spend their time bouncing on a trampoline, floating in a pond, or exploring the fields and woods around the house. But when their mom comes home, bandaged from the cosmetic surgery she underwent, the brothers fear more has changed than just her face.

Franz and Fiala owe a great debt to an older American film, but to name it would be to give far too much away, and the less you know about Goodnight Mommy, the better.

Inside this elegantly filmed environment, where sun dappled fields lead to leafy forests, the filmmakers mine a kind of primal childhood fear. There’s a subtle lack of compassion that works the nerves beautifully, because it’s hard to feel too badly for the boys or for their mother. You don’t wish harm on any of them, but at the same time, their flaws make all three a bit terrifying.

The filmmakers’ graceful storytelling leads you down one path before utterly upending everything you think you know. They never spoon feed you information, depending instead on your astute observation – a refreshing approach in this genre.

Performances by young brothers Lukas and Elias Schwarz compel interest, while Susanne Wuest’s cagey turn as the boys’ mother propels the mystery. It’s a hypnotic, bucolic adventure as visually arresting as it is utterly creepy.

The film is going to go where you don’t expect it to go, even if you expect you’ve uncovered its secrets.

 

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What Are Nouns?

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People Places Things

by Hope Madden

I dare you to dislike Jemaine Clement. Just try to – it’s not even possible.

Whether he’s the aspiring pop star of Flight of the Conchords, the sexy vampire of What We Do In the Shadows, or just the voice of the damn horse in those Direct TV ads, he is always memorable, likeable, and hilarious.

In People Places Things, Clement steps out of the shadows and takes on romantic lead responsibilities as newly single graphic novelist Will. Will finds himself lonely and directionless after longtime partner/baby mama Charlie (Stephanie Allynne) leaves him for a monologist named Gary (a very funny Michael Chernus).

Nothing really works out well as Will floats through many failed attempts at living – teaching the graphic novel, mentoring a talented student, dating her mother, spending more time with his (ridiculously adorable) twin daughters, finishing his book, accepting Charlie’s new life and impending marriage.

Filmmaker James Strouse has been writing movies about lost men for a long time, beginning with the under-appreciated Lonesome Jim back in ‘05. People Places Things is his most surefooted script, populated with appealing characters that are nicely realized by Strouse’s strong cast.

Clement can generate chemistry with anyone who walks on screen, which is no doubt part of his charm. This is particularly true with Regina Hall, who shines in a very different kind of comedic role than those she usually takes. The humor is sly and a bit quiet, but wonderful nonetheless.

Allynne succeeds with the most difficult role, delivering a believably neurotic counterpoint to Will, a woman pretending to be sure of herself and her future who is actually exactly as lost as he is.

In a lot of ways, the film serves up a traditionally structured if attractively indie rom-com, but the way the cast – Clement, in particular – underplays the drama and lets the comedy breathe a bit, you don’t feel manipulated. The film is somewhat daringly low-key, relying on a talented cast to unveil the longing and loneliness behind the laughs.

It’s a messy, sweet, funny look at self-discovery and relationships, masquerading as a romantic comedy.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_8K2QyI6p4





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Amy Sings the Blues

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Amy

by Hope Madden

It takes a real gift for storytelling to take a Behind the Music tale – rags to riches to tragedy – and turn it into a riveting, relevant, surprising film. Documentarian Asif Kapadis (Senna) has done just that with the vital and heartbreaking film Amy.

For his picture of Amy Winehouse he collects hundreds of interviews and sifts through countless bits of personal footage to craft more than just a powerful look at a self-destructive talent. The footage is so personal, the interviews so honest, we become voyeurs as a bawdy, vivacious young talent finds her own voice, indulges her dangerous appetites, spirals out of control, and finally succumbs to her demons.

That lens – the voyeur’s eye view – is a pivotal component to the success of Kapadis’s film. While Winehouse’s story is eerily similar to so many others, it may have been the utterly public self-destruction that sets her story apart. We watched it happen, and to a great degree, we participated. Kapadis is asking us to do it again.

Winehouse’s story certainly echoes too many others. Dead at 27, she joins a prestigious if tragic club: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin. Like those musical supernovas, Winehouse struggled with depression, drug abuse, family issues, and a string of bad decisions.

Too few people knew her before she was a Jay Leno punchline, but the doc takes us back to her throaty pre-teen singalongs with buddies, her earliest club dates, to scenes with the same group of friends from grade school onward. We see the raw, shocking potential in this voice, something that echoed both jazz divas of days gone by as well as the most contemporary hip hop, and are reminded of the breathtaking intimacy of her lyrics.

A crafty filmmaker, Kapadis knows what to do with the collection of material. He understands the complexity of the Winehouse story. Though he implicates those whose influence helped determine the chanteuse’s fateful trajectory – a dirt bag junky husband, an emotionally disinterested mother, a manipulative, self-serving father, a short sighted tour manager, and a public thirsty for controversy – he never paints Winehouse as a true victim.

Like many hard living performers of remarkable talent before her, Amy Winehouse was a train wreck. Asif Kapadis respects that. You should, too.

Verdict-3-5-Stars





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A Different Kind of Avenger

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Felt

by Hope Madden

Few among us have even heard of the film Felt, and those who have are misled. Packaged as a feminist superhero movie about rape culture, this film has less in common with rape/revenge fantasies like I Spit on Your Grave and American Mary and more in common with mumblecore.

This is a peculiar, intimate, meandering meditation on a single person’s struggle with trauma. The fact that Amy (co-writer Amy Everson) works through her problems by creating hyper-masculine costumes that she wears in the woods, accompanied only by her anger and her wooden sword, is really what sets Felt apart from other art films.

Director/co-writer Jason Banker’s camera is intimate and awkward, an ideal combination that mirrors Amy’s state of mind. There’s something uneasy in the quick edits, extreme close ups, and wandering visuals that suggests Amy’s perspective.

Recovering from an unspecified but clearly sexual trauma, Amy slowly deserts the socially accepted course of healing – those steps her friends keep urging her to take – instead filling her room with art that’s equally childish and grotesque, most of it phallic.

But it’s the costumes that seem to help Amy regain some measure of personal power, and the film’s strongest scenes are those in which she explores this empowerment. Whether she and her penis suit are scaling trees, or she wears her exaggerated vagina and breast outfit to upend a sexy photo session, the behavior is unpredictable, fascinating, and sometimes weirdly funny.

The scene with the photographer and new friend Roxanne (Roxanne Lauren Knouse) is a scream, and something truly unlike anything else in film. Roxanne immediately embraces what it is Amy is trying to do, which is why she’s disappointed when Amy does what her other friends see as healthy – gets a new boyfriend.

Kenny (Kentucker Audley) represents a gentle, patient soul willing to wait for Amy, but with trust comes vulnerability. There’s a circuitous nature to the sparse narrative. Traditional relationships find an echo later in the film, the second time with Amy in a position of power, but she is ill prepared to handle the shift.

The film boasts very little dialog, and as a curious onscreen presence, Everson is a master. At times, though, the lines delivered feel too obvious for the film itself, and in the end Everson and Banker fall back on behavior too predictable for the fractured fairy tale they’ve crafted. They do leave you unsettled, though. There’s no big hurrah, no sense of accomplishment, just more of the same maddening nightmare.

Verdict-3-5-Stars





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You, Me and Everyone

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

by Hope Madden

Whatever its flaws and familiarities, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl delivers a heartfelt, understated but affecting punch.

The “Me” of the title is Greg (the ageless Thomas Mann), who describes himself as “terminally awkward, with a face like a little groundhog.” Greg treasures the anonymity he’s carved out by being superficially accepted and forgotten by every clique in his school. He and his best friend Earl (RJ Cyler), whom he considers more of a co-worker, hide out at lunch in the history teacher’s office, and make movie parodies (A Sockwork Orange, Pooping Tom) in their spare time.

Then Greg’s mom (Connie Britton) insists that he befriend Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who’s been diagnosed with leukemia.

Yep, it’s a quirky coming-of-age dramedy with cancer overtones. Who’d have thought this would become such a popular concept?

Regardless of the well-worn terrain, the film offers a bright, often unpredictable charm mixed with a wonderfully morbid sense of humor. All performances are solid, especially that of Molly Shannon as the bubbly yet grieving and usually drunk mother.

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon cuts a new career path with this indie dramedy, but he and screenwriter Jesse Andrews (adapting his own novel) miss a pretty important point.

No matter who you are or how many friends you had or how many parties you went to, you probably remember your high school self as socially awkward. Nothing fuels a coming-of-age film quite like this idea, when usually the protagonist (and maybe the writer, and nearly every teen in history) is just burdened by narcissism and self-loathing. It’s a small but important distinction, and one that very few coming-of-age tales get right. Getting that tiny point right is the difference between a work of genius like Napoleon Dynamite and a self-congratulatory confection like The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is considerably better than most films that miss that point, but it still misses it. The perfectly likeable protagonist believes himself to be terminally awkward and what he needs is for the one-dimensional (if truly likeable) characters around him to show him he’s actually pretty great. That is, to placate his narcissism while soothing his self-loathing as they gain nothing themselves.

Most of us remember some coming-of-age film from our own adolescence with needless but genuine nostalgia and affection. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl can be that movie – The Breakfast Club or Grease or Mean Girls for this generation. But, like most teens, it can’t quite get past itself to become great.

Verdict-3-0-Stars





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Everybody’s Got One

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Hungry Hearts

by Hope Madden

New parents can easily panic at the counterintuitive, conflicting, hyperbolic, self-righteous nonsense that purports to be parenting advice. At no time in your life do you feel more of a need to be strong and reliable, and at no time do you see yourself as more of an underprepared moron. It can be terrifying.

Hungry Hearts mines that terror in provocative and insightful ways as it invites us into the crumbling relationship between Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) and Jude (Adam Driver).

Jude and Mina’s tale is told in terms of proximity rather than intimacy. From their remarkable meeting throughout their courtship and marriage, their story is articulated by its confinement, the fragile power struggle almost always shown in corporeal terms: Inside this small space, whose body is controlling whose?

From this perspective, the casting is impeccable, with Driver’s unintimidating lankiness at odds with, and often physically overwhelming, the petite Rohrwacher.

Driver is a master at walking the line between vulnerability and believable insincerity, a skill he puts to impressive use here. Jude seems so harmless, sees himself as harmless, and he certainly doesn’t intend to do anything other than love and respect his family. That’s why he’s so confounded when it all goes south.

It’s a provocative story where Jude’s seemingly small acts of power lead to the need for more concrete acts, although it is Mina’s helplessness in the face of all those small but profound betrayals that created her paranoia in the first place.

Director Severio Costanzo traps you in this insulated world. What looks and feels like an indie drama gives way to the distorted camerawork and intentional score of horror. The tonal shift doesn’t always work, and the third act feels too tidy and conventional for the film itself, but you never lose interest.

What Costanzo has created, and what his small but game cast has almost perfectly animated, is a nuanced, delicate nightmare of helplessness, control and madness with the fate of a 7-month-old in the balance.

Verdict-3-5-Stars