Black Gate

Tuesday, August 4, was my last day at the Fantasia Festival. It was the official closing day of Fantasia; they’d added a few screenings on Wednesday, but nothing that looked compelling to me. I have some more films to write about after this, thanks to the festival’s screening room. But since I’ll be writing here about the last three movies I saw in a theatre at the 2015 Fantasia Festival, in this post I want to make a point of acknowledging the crowds.

All three movies I saw that Tuesday played in the big Hall Theatre, to packed houses. All of them were more-or-less designed to be big crowd-pleasers, though in different ways. In two cases, they succeeded admirably, even spectacularly. And the third case failed utterly. Given the kinds of movies these were, the audience reactions are worth noting; especially in the case of these audiences. Fantasia crowds are the best I’ve ever found, wildly enthusiastic when a good movie pays off, but critical and even mocking when a bad one implodes. So I’m happy to use their responses in discussing these three movies.

The first film I saw that Tuesday was a late addition to the Fantasia line-up. Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends was the third film in a series, a live-action adaptation of a popular manga that had already been adapted into several anime. Assassination was a Korean movie set during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s, a mix of intrigue and action. Then came the festival’s official closing movie, the first film in the live-action adaptation of Attack on Titan.

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Fantasia was beginning to wind down. After seeing five movies on Sunday, August 2, I only saw four on Monday the 3rd: an Ethiopian post-apocalypse quest called Crumbs; a Spanish crime movie called Marshland; an American suspense movie called The Invitation; and a French science fiction comedy called Cosmodrama. I’d heard good things about each of these movies, and I had cautiously high hopes. Which were mostly fulfilled.

Crumbs was preceded by a Canadian short film called “Fish Out of Water.” Written and directed by Kirsten Carthew, it’s a post-apocalyptic horror story shot near Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. A fisherwoman tries to catch a fish in an iced-over lake, but is herself caught by a lure she didn’t expect. It’s a solid story, at ten minutes perhaps a little long for something so simple, but then agan you can argue it consciously aims for a slow pace. Certainly the natural photography is stunning.

Crumbs was written and directed by Miguel Llansó, a Spaniard based in Ethiopia. It follows Birdy (Daniel Tadesse), a malformed man — in an interesting interview, Llansó describes him as having “an irregular body and a fascinating look” — who lives in an abandoned bowling alley with a woman named Candy (Selam Tesfaye). A spaceship hangs in the sky, and may be coming to life, powering the bowling alley with electricity. Birdy embarks on a quest to find out the truth, about the ship and about his own past. He’s inspired by the image of Superman, but may be taking that inspiration too far. As he makes his way across a desolate but beautiful land, Candy has some strange encounters of her own in the bowling alley. Meanwhile a peculiar antiquities dealer intersects with the story in odd moments.

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