Black Gate

I had two movies on my schedule for Wednesday, July 25. The first was The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion, a Korean action movie with super-hero elements. The second was a German-language Swiss movie called Blue My Mind, about a teenager moving to a new school and finding herself undergoing a strange metamorphosis. Both films were about young women, and both leads had elements of the inhuman to them. But these things were expressed in very different ways.

The Witch is written and directed by Park Hoon-jung. It begins with mysterious assassins killing gifted children, and one child escaping under cover of night. Ten years later, Ja-yoon (Kim Da-mi) lives in a small town with her adopted parents, hiding her telekinetic powers. But then she wins a nationally-televised talent competition, and the mysterious forces that threatened her when young find her again. Agents of various sorts draw closer to her and her family. Can her powers save her, and them?

This is a fast, intelligent, well-shot film with elements of thriller and super-hero story. It explodes into violence at the end after a build-up of increasing tension, and we neither miss the action earlier nor feel it unearned when it comes. Over two hours long (with a listed running time of 126 minutes), it passes by like a shot. The craftsmanship’s excellent and the pacing’s near-perfect, both in terms of the selection of scenes and also in the rhythm of the editing. Emotional moments come up and are allowed to breathe, but give way to more action-driven sequences in a way that feels natural.

Kim’s acting has to be mentioned here, as her Ja-yoon drives the film and keeps things interesting. She’s quick, funny, and interesting; when we find out what the actual story is behind her and her powers we get a new dimension of understanding to what we’ve already seen, but the point is that Kim’s able to give everyday scenes with Ja-yoon’s family and her best friend (Go Min-si) real interest. Park helps that by keeping a constant sense of tension, establishing mysterious villains and adroitly cutting to them to keep the audience on edge.

I will admit at this point that I’m talking around the story of the film, and that is because there’s a fair-play twist fairly late in the story that’s executed quite well and recontextualises much of what we thought we saw. It’s perfectly logical and, when it’s sprung on us, instantly makes perfect sense. I’d say it’s a good twist because it’s not simply a plot twist — character and theme are definitely involved, and all these aspects of the story benefit. I can say no more, except to observe that The Witch has a well-written and sharply-conceived script; and this twist feels of a piece.

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After a comment I made on John O’Neill’s Facebook post regarding John Searle’s July 25 Black Gate article Conjure Puberty: The Sword and the Sorcerer (from 1982), Mister O’Neill asked me to do an article on some of the other films of that decade. Naturally, I said I would be happy to. I decided to write about only a handful of the films I’ve seen: my impressions and opinions are based solely on what I remember about them, having decided not to watch said films again.

In the 1980s I was in my 30s and naturally of a different “mindset” back then. If I ever do watch any of these films again, that could possibly inspire another article about what I think of certain films now that I’m in my mid-60s. My only source of research is Wikipedia, just to refresh my aging memory as to plot, year a film was released, cast, director, etc. Some of these films I’m sure are held in high regard by many people, and I’ll be probably be shooting a few “sacred cows” here. But remember: this is all based on thoughts, memories and impressions from three decades ago.

All that being said, let’s get started. Shall we?

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Late in the evening of Tuesday, July 24, I made my way to the J.A. De Sève Theatre for my one film of the day: Violence Voyager, an 83-minute animated feature by Japanese writer-director Ujicha. We follow an American schoolboy in Japan, Bobby (Aoi Yuki), as he and his friend explore some hills near his home. They find a strange, nearly-abandoned amusement park, but upon entering find themselves caught up in a terrible scheme. They and other children are captured, mutilated, mutated, and (in many cases) killed. Can Bobby free himself and others, and destroy the horrible place called Violence Voyager?

The first and overwhelming impression of the movie is of a dissonant strangeness. There’s a tone like a children’s story that seems destined to give way to something darker, and indeed it does, but then that darkness itself is hardly taken seriously. There’s a weird unconcern with traditional narrative effects at the same time that the structure’s remarkably tight. It’s not like much else I’ve seen, for better and worse.

Consider the animation style. It’s an unusual form called gekimation, which involves moving flat images. Lips don’t move, faces don’t shift. Shapes are moved about, and cuts give a further illusion of movement. This works better than one might think, especially once a few minutes have passed and the viewer’s assimilated the approach. Occasionally actual fluids or the like are used as visual elements as well, but mainly one watches painted pieces of paper slide over backgrounds. The art style’s intriguingly organic, with every brushstroke visible. I personally thought it was interesting without being attractive, but I can see how it could appeal more strongly to others.

As a story, there’s a sort of tension between horror and satire. It is genuinely transgressive, with all sorts of horror inflicted on children. There are genuinely surprising images here, as for example a rack of dead nude children (and the explicit nudity in some sequences is occasionally more surprising than the violence). And yet it feels muted, almost, by the thoroughgoing irony of the film. It avoids outright death-metal grotesquerie in place of its own kind of strangeness, and somehow never feels as confrontational as it seems to aim for. The early air of an optimistic children’s cartoon is never wholly abandoned, and rather than heighten the air of monstrosity, I find it functions as an alienation effect — it swathes the movie in a distancing irony, lessening the immediacy of everything we see.

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It’s unfortunate that Alpha was delayed for a year, given little promotion, and released among more attention-grabbing late summer fare, because it is a literally awesome film — as in the jaw drops in awe at the beauty of it.

The story is a basic one: the young hunter out to prove his leadership who goes through an ordeal trying to get back home with the help of a dog companion. The basic beats of the tale won’t surprise most viewers. But Albert Hughes (the first time he’s directed without his brother Allen) shoots it with intense passion, as if he’s striving for 2001: A Space Odyssey levels of vast transcendentalism — while also appreciating the action/adventure qualities of One Million Years B.C.

It’s rough, strange, dream-like, and both one of the best dog movies and prehistory movies ever made.

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