Slow start to my Fantastic Fest as I only saw two films today (well three if you count the one I stopped after 10 minutes). Tomorrow should be a lot busier.
Alongside the coverage here, I am also writing reviews about several of the movies for The Horn. The Japanese feature Greatful Dead, which enjoyed it’s world premiere at the Festival, fell in that category.
Greatful Dead (Gureitofuru deddo), the newest film from Japanese director Eiji Uchida (Last Days of the World), paints a darkly comic portrait of a disturbed young woman. The unsettling, but flawed, picture follows a descent into madness.
Nami (Kumi Takiuchi) grew up in a fractured household. Her mother (who cares more for poor foreign children than her own) abandons Nami and her older sister; her father spirals into depression and starts dating a beautiful younger woman; Nami’s older sister runs off with her boyfriend so she can have a “normal” life; and then her father commits suicide. All before she turns eighteen.
When she turns twenty, Nami inherits a sizable fortune, which enables her to engage fully in her secret life as voyeur. She prefers watching elderly men, who live alone with minimal contact with others. Nami calls these people “solitarians.”
Read the rest of my review at The Horn.
I similarly reviewed my second film of the day The Dirties for The Horn.
First time filmmaker Matthew Johnson’s entertaining DIY film The Dirties explores the dark realities of the victims of school yard bullying.
As a school project, best friends Matt (Johnson) and Owen (Owen Williams) create The Dirties, a cathartic revenge tale about getting back at the bullies who routinely torment the duo. Except Matt starts to take it far too seriously and begins to plot an actual retribution.
Matt experiences life almost entirely through the movies he’s seen and the camera lens for the films he makes or imagines. He often speaks in different movie character’s voices and adopts their demeanor while quote their lines All performed poorly.
Read the rest of my review at The Horn.