Black Gate

Sunday, July 23, I was down at Fantasia’s De Sève Theatre before noon to see a screening of the 1958 film The H-Man (Bijo To Ekatai-Ningen). I intended to follow that up with another vintage movie, the Shaw Brothers–produced 1983 film Bastard Swordsman (Tian can bian). Finally, I’d wrap up the day with a contemporary movie, the manga adaptation Gintama, which promised a mix of action and comedy. I liked the variety the films seemed to represent, and I was especially curious about The H-Man, which had been directed by Ishiro Honda, director of Godzilla.

It was preceded by a talk about Honda’s life given by Ed Godziszewski, who had co-written (with Steve Ryfle) Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa. The book comes out on October 3, with a foreword by Honda fan Martin Scorsese. It was clear that Godziszewski knew his stuff, though he had so much material he ran out of time before the film had to start. Nevertheless, what he had to say was fascinating. Without wanting to replicate Honda’s Wikipedia entry (which is relatively sparse, anyway), I want to mention some of the more interesting points Godziszewski raised.

Godziszewski began by recalling how his book came about, with the assistance of Honda’s family, and how he and Ryfle were able to see Honda’s entire body of work, including films never seen outside of Japan and rarely inside. Honda had done a lot of realist movies, especially in the 50s, that had been lost to the public for a long time and were only now beginning to show up again. Godziszewski talked about the experience of seeing 25 films he’d known nothing about, and how they demonstrated that Honda was a versatile, wide-ranging filmmaker.

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On September 7, for various reasons, I decided to treat myself to two movies on Netflix I’ve wanted to see for ages but had never found the time to watch. The first was Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void. It’s about a drug addict who gets shot and has an extended dream/out-of-body experience. There are tons of digital effects, shots spliced together, weird angles, cameras gliding through walls, tricky lighting, all kinds of stuff.

And it’s … all less involving than it should be. Because it’s an out-of-body experience shown from a first-person perspective, we don’t really get to see much of the actors’ faces, only the tops of their heads. The story’s non-linear, but a lot of scenes aren’t needed. Dialogue’s improvised, and feels it. Overall, I thought it was an example of talent without genius or taste; good ideas, some breathtaking moments, and largely uninvolving.

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In 2016, the Fantasia International Film Festival created a showcase of short films by women directors: Born of Woman. It was a very real success, a collection of intriguing and often powerful films, and it travelled as a collection to several other festivals. 2017 saw a new iteration of the showcase, boasting nine shorts from seven countries. Born of Woman 2017 played Saturday, July 22, and I was eager to see what was in store this year. Afterward I planned to go on to see a feature film, a Korean thriller called A Day (Haru) built around the Groundhog Day–like device of a man repeatedly living the same day. First, though, would be Born of Woman.

The program began with “A Little After Midnight,” (“Un peu après minuit,” also translated “Just After Midnight”) a 22-minute piece co-written and co-directed by France’s Anne Marie Puga and Jean-Raymond Garcia. It deals with a blind teacher (India Hair), witchcraft, and the interpretation of the world. If Hair’s teacher begins the film reliant on men’s sexualised tellings — a scholar who gives a fevered reading of one of Niklaus Mannuel Deutsch’s paintings of witches; later another man (Rémi Taffanel) who, at her request, tells her a pornographic story — then by the end of the story that’s changed as she finds a new source of power. There’s a subtext here, I think, deriving from Freud and his essay “The Uncanny,” in which he suggests the loss of the eyes is a symbolic castration. So in this movie there’s much to do with what is seen and what is hidden and the power that comes from seeing things — from identifying things and defining them. Visual art has resonance here, as do costumes that both hide and reveal. The film’s shot very nicely, with a dark, brooding feel that works well with the plot. The story’s not over-hurried, but the atmosphere’s the point, I think. If you can get into the feel of the thing, it’ll work; if not, perhaps not.

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On Saturday, June 22, I reached Fantasia’s Hall Theatre before noon to see a screening of the anime Napping Princess (Hirune Hime: Shiranai Watashi no Monogatari), a story about dreams, technology, and the 2020 Olympics. After that, I had a short film showcase to see, then another feature. But before either of those, I planned to pass by the Fantasia Samsung VR 360D Experience, which, as the name implies, gives people the chance to experience VR by watching one of a selection of short films. I’d tried out the technology last year with a number of short fiction films; this time out there was something a little different, a half-hour documentary called Welcome to Wacken, about the legendary annual German metal festival. I wanted to see how the technology would handle the documentary form, especially since I had all the respect in the world for the filmmakers — it was directed by Sam Dunn, whose previous work included the seminal metal documentaries Headbanger’s Journey and Global Metal.

First, though, was Napping Princess (which, according to Wikipedia, is also known as Ancien and the Magic Tablet). Written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, it begins in a dieselpunk otherworld called Heartland, where a daring princess named Ancien (voice of Mitsuki Takahara) seeks to regain her magic tablet with the help of an animated toy bear called Joy (Rie Kugimiya). A monster called the Colossus threatens Heartland, and Ancien’s father, whose palace is an enormous car factory like something out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, has ordered her confined to a tower. But she escapes, meets a rebellious motorcycle-riding mechanic named Peach (Yôsuke Eguchi), and joins with him to counter the mysterious plot of the king’s sinister adviser (Arata Furuta) and the giant Colossus that emerges from the sea.

Until Ancien wakes up. In the world we view as real, a Japanese schoolgirl named Kokone is dreaming Ancien’s adventures. It’s 2020, and the Olympics are about to take place in Tokyo; Kokone and her father, Momotaro, a mechanic in the southern town of Okayama, wonder whether the autonomous cars Japan’s promised as a major part of the opening ceremonies will be ready on time (note that Okayama’s the setting for the original legend of Momotaro). But then Momotaro’s arrested and accused of corporate espionage against Shijima Motors, the company building the autonomous vehicles. Kokone has to escape Shijima’s representative, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the evil adviser of the king of Heartland, and work out the secrets contained in her father’s old tablet computer. What secret in his background has emerged? And how does it connect to the story of Heartland?

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Tuesday, July 18, I set off for Fantasia with another full day before me. I planned to watch three films for which I had three different expectations. First was Animals (Tiere), a German film promising surrealism and artfulness. Then the Chinese big-budget special-effects blockbuster Wu Kong. Finally, and perhaps most intriguingly, House of the Disappeared (Si-gan-wi-ui-jip), a Korean horror movie based on a Venezuelan movie called The House at the End of Time (La casa del fin de los tiempos) which I’d seen three years ago during my first year covering Fantasia; I couldn’t help but wonder how that film would translate across cultures.

First was Animals. Directed by Greg Zglinski from a script by Jörg Kalt that was rewritten by Zglinski, it begins by introducing us to Nick (Philipp Hochmair) and Anna (Birgit Minichmayr), a couple whose marriage is under severe strain. Nick’s a chef who may be conducting an affair with an upstairs neighbour. Anna’s a writer trying to start a new novel but facing a creative block. They plan to go off to an isolated cottage in Switzerland, where Nick will try the local cuisine and Anna will focus on her book; in the meanwhile their apartment will be watched by Mischa (Mona Petri, who plays several roles). Strange things happen during the getaway, particularly following an accident on the road when Nick hits a sheep. The movie cuts between the couple and Mischa, as impossible events unfold, challenging time, space, cause, and effect.

The movie’s well-crafted. It has a polished look, with textured lighting and what ought to be a strong sense of atmosphere. And yet I wasn’t convinced. We get a host of strange things happening, from mysterious locked rooms to talking animals to a woman throwing herself out a window and vanishing. And yet none of them cohere. When we get some sense toward the end of the movie why we’re seeing all these strange things, the explanation feels slack. Not only is there no rational logic to what we watch, there’s no emotional logic either.

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