Film Notes 2022 part 2: Borderline genre & mash-ups
Or rather, films that used genre flavouring for other concerns.
There were two pandemic horrors of note. Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas’ ‘Ego’ took a thoroughly locked-up approach. 19-year-old Paloma is suck in Madrid lockdown and still getting over her breakdown. However, she seems a typical brattish young woman until she seems to be victim of identity theft by a doppelgänger.
Unless we don’t get the point, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is a constant motif, but it’s soon apparent that beneath Paloma’s bullish exterior, there is a troubled soul. María Pedraza’s remarkable performance only gets more involving and devastating as Paloma feels that her identity, her reality is being threatened. By herself. And no one will believe her. A supernatural peril or a portrait of increasing mental instability, the film carefully maintains ambiguity – ‘Repulsion’ is an obvious comparison, but there are moments when it verges on ‘Insidious’ style scares – and it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that, as Paloma gets into more of a state, you suddenly realise that you are likely just as unnerved for no good reason – which is exactly her plight and distress.
Not only a horror incorporating the digital world but also a bona fide lockdown drama using the horror genre to empathise with the mental health crisis running alongside as a direct result of the pandemic years. Some may begrudge that there is no big showdown, but the film ends with something more insidious and heart-breaking. And the final symbolism implies this is just one of many.
And then there was Andy Mitton’s ‘The Harbinger’, an exceptional downer and unnerver. Horror being the perfect genre for expressing the personal and global anxiety and terror of the pandemic. ‘The Harbinger’ starts with standard ghost/demon spooking, but as it goes on its use of dreams and despondence gets increasingly sophisticated so that it becomes apparent that the film is after deeper existential horror.
Rooted in crucially warm and believable performances, the failing reality and psychological threats are layered on to capture the dread and fear of the early pandemic years, especially the psychological toll. It proves itself something truly haunting and captures that sense of being at a loss and losing all the time which defined that period.
Then there was Arsalan Amiri’s ‘Zalava’, which I saw as part of the virtual Glasgow Film Festival programme. If I was watching this at FrightFest or Grimmfest, I would have been more sure of where this was going. However, this Iranian drama dresses up in a horror clothing to speak of the dangers of superstitious and blind belief, and one can extrapolate to religious faith, in a way that feels bold in is lack of ambiguity. It's not shy about it's targets
1978: Massound is a gendarmerie sergeant sent to a village in Kurdistan to investigate complaints of being under siege by demonic possessions. But Massoud does not believe in such things, which puts him at odds with the townsfolk, especially when an exorcist gets involved. Soon, the general hysteria infuses every shadow, breeze, creak and empty pickle jar with supernatural potential, not tot mention the cute black cat cameo. The pickle jar is the central macguffin. And the audience will play into that too because, as this a film, anything is possible. The atmosphere is thick with portent and the location is fascinating, and we will not get so deep into the characters, although we don’t necessarily need to. The abstract nature of a person is part of the point.
Ryan Lattanzio calls it “slight”, perhaps with expectations of a more conventional horror. It felt to me more akin to the work of Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (see 'Big Bad Wolves'). When a film is the dangers of mob delusion, about the battle between the irrational and rational, I wouldn’t call it slight. Being about man’s hysteria and inclination for lynching, it’s more of a genuine horror than just the spookily inclined drama than I perhaps initially assumed.
Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Bones and All’ was a genre-blender that allowed you to lean on whichever side you preferred: horror, road movie, young adult angst, romance, adventure, indie downbeat ramblings, etc. Of course, publicly it tried to underplay the first, but all its cannibal moments were genuinely gruelling and genre satisfying.
Jean Luc Herbulot ‘Saloum’ was equally a genre mash-up, this time of lowlife crime, disenfranchised cult communities and then demons. African mercenaries extract a drug lord from Guinea-Bissau and hide out in Saloum, impersonating good guys – a storyline that takes up a majority of film, featuring flashbacks, a clean and bright veneer and gruff, macho striking performances. They’re compatriots and blood brothers, but there’s still distrust and suspicion. Then revelations ensue and increasingly the film shows itself to be a heady mash-up of genres that nevertheless doesn’t lose any hold on its forward-momentum, careening right through.
Bright and quite unique in tone, with picturesque vistas, flashbacks, tough guy plotting, mercilessness and gunplay, folklore and regional history effortlessly segueing into demons that look like gatherings of swarms. Another example of cultural specifics and genre blending giving traditional horror new angles.
Although ostensibly a biopic based on Marilyn Monroe – although the makers would shrug at this – Andrew Dominic’s ‘Blonde’ was troubling. Monroe through a disturbed/disturbed lens that often felt like a Lynchian Hollywood nightmare. Much to commend, not least its black-and-white aesthetic, but also to doubts it intensions as it leered a little hard into exploitation.
Mariama Diallo’s ‘Master’ did not quite gel for me. It hits many of the right beats in build-up but doesn't quite resolve it's mash-up and conflation of underlying racism and the supernatural. And all the subplots end in defeatism without any real insight other than "it's everywhere", or "it's America" to what feels like little purpose or catharsis.
More successful with its verge-of-horror drama was Nikyatu Jusu’s ‘Nanny’, in which a nanny’s guilt at being an absentee parent seemingly allows the presence of something supernatural to exert its influence. Just a little. Or maybe she’s just losing it under the strain, ever so slightly. Leaning psychological rather than supernatural, Anna Diop’s performance is captivating in its pride in the face of exploitation and taking on the domestic troubles of her privileged Manhattan employers. Rina Yang’s cinematography is appropriately décor magazine crisp, and the sound design maintains the consistent unease. As a horror-inflected film about work-life, it’s chock full of themes such as privilege, exploitation, maintaining pride and that guilt, etc. Impressively proving again that there is nowhere the genre cannot go to use its tools to shine on the everyday horrors of existence, whether existential or not.
Then there were genre odd couple dramas with genre contexts, like ‘Something in the Dirt’ and ‘Next Exit’.
‘Something in the Dirt’ was another wonderfully heady offering from the Moorhead & Benson duo. What starts seemingly as a couple of guys find incredible phenomena in their LA apartment, which thy then intend to document/exploit, unfolds into full-scale conspiracy theorising and increasing sadness. Filmed by the duo and producer during lockdown, again it’s the stacking up of ideas that engross (morse code in fruit!), but their evocation of male relationships are always excellent. As an vocation of thinking you have something wold-shattering that you can't quite reach so head into conspiracies and delusion, it stands as a striking analogy. From the first flush of friendship to the moment where the more you know of someone, the more you can hit your target when you criticise, they excel at providing deep characterisation so that even their arguing during mid-phenomena doesn’t strain credibility.
Mali Elfman’s ‘Next Exit’ presented a world where the existence of ghosts has some scientific proof, a mismatched couple head across the country with the intention of giving up their lives to further study.
Despite the supernatural/sci-fi backdrop (and a fine creepy opening), this is mostly a road trip of two central brilliant performances of an odd couple going through existential crisis. If it perhaps becomes a romcom for horror fans, the characters and performances convince hard, with a lot of humour and pathos on the way.
Even a more minor film like Jacob Gentry’s ‘Night Sky’ offered another well-acted odd couple. It reminded me of the likeable VHS sci-fi thrillers of the Eighties. Like ‘Next Exit’, another slow-burn road movie with good central performances this one is like 'Starman' crossed with 'No Country for Old Men'; although Alan Jones namechecks road movies from the '70s. With the thriller element in play, the narrative keeps moving until the canyon and bright lights finale, and up until then its proven decent if not quite profound entertainment. Includes a decidedly nasty, pontificating hitman and Brea Grant effortlessly doing "innocent".
If magic surrealism/oddness was what you were after rather than genre mash-ups, then there was Quentin Duprieux’s ‘Incredible But True’. Accessible Duprieux comes in a satire of magic realism that doesn’t feel the need to go further than a limited time portal in your house and an iDick to illustrate human absurdity. In this case, how people will go to extraordinary lengths and delusions to keep up gender constructs of youth and desirability. Light, easy and surreal, this is not quite the divisive film I anticipated as it's fun with a little cruelty to spice things up.
More oddness: Nikias Chryssos’ ‘A Pure Place’ pretty soon reveals itself as a cult narrative, but there’s a lot of offbeat edges that leave it a slippery beast, such as Jodorowsky, a nod to magic realism, a hint of ‘The City of Lost Children’. On a Grecian island, a delusional man has created his own narcissistic religion and class system with homeless orphans working below and white-wearing upper class above. They earn money by making soap, which fits Furst’s fascistic obsession with cleanliness. Furst’s mixture of unforgiving fascist classism mixed with Hygenia as its God makes for a credible belief system (and no telling how ugly it would all be if race was a factor), topped with Romanesque pomp and theatre.
Beautiful imagery, courtesy of the Greek island and heightened set design, and layered with themes of exploitation, delusion, class, abuse, etc.; but it leans towards fairy-tale rather than horror in its tone. Indeed, there’s a permanent doubt of just how much this is set in the real world, being somewhere between Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s ‘Evolution’ and Ariel Kleiman’s ‘Partisan’; and even the poverty magic realism of ‘Tigers are not Afraid’. The acting highlights are Sam Louwyck’s performance as Furst, his natural dancer’s tendencies giving the character an innate elegance and charm, and young Claude Henrick’s feisty turn as Paul.
Intriguing, entertaining, sunny, slightly ethereal and slightly disturbing, the tone is one where lacunas barely matter. Certainly, in discussion, Chryssos talks of its grounding in real cases of cults, but the tone is not one that relies on veracity. A curio which maintains its oddness to the very end, where escape is a strip joint.
Mark Jenkins’ ‘Bait’ was a sensation in its DIY formation. His follow-up ‘Enys Men’ is similarly constructed with a clockwork Bolex camera and an even more audacious post-production sound design comprised of often sharp diegetic sound and blaring drone. (If there is any evidence is needed more that lazy jump-scares are simply results of volume, see if you jump and innocuous Cornish landscapes because the music here blasts out.) The feel is of a 70s folk horror with bold colours, some print flares and speckling, and this is intrinsic to the success of its feel. What seems to be the tale of a volunteer on an unpopulated Cornish island taking the temperature of some flowers and dropping a stone down a mine shaft gradually evolves into something inscrutable, fascinating and disquieting. Past and present seems to increasingly overlap and, for me, her world became a lost continent of ghosts. If it hits your buttons, it’s a superior horror-inflected ambient mood piece. Mike Muncer (Evolution of Horror) calls it ‘Penda’s Fen’ meets ‘the Lighthouse”, and that’s a fair description.
But it was Andrew Legge’s ‘LOLA’ that really wowed me. Hugely impressive and inventive alternative history filmed with a Bolex camera and vivid imagination, blended with reimaged historical footage. A highlight is the music by Neil Hannon, reinventing popular songs for this alternative reality. It's all thoroughly convincing. The scope the film is able to achieve is wide, with the skill to hand to make it work while formally playing with the medium. Quietly stunning, provocative and a highlight.
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