It’s that time again for my sojourn to Fantastic Fest, the annual Alamo Drafthouse week long love letter to horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world. This year’s festival runs from Sept 24-October 1, here in Austin at the South Lamar location.

As in year’s past, I begin my coverage with a multi-part/day preview.

 

Fantastic Fest Preview Day Three

 

April and the Extraordinary World

In an alternate reality, Napoleon doesn’t die at the Battle of Waterloo. Instead, while attempting to engineer an indestructible super soldier, he meets his demise in an accidental laboratory explosion. In the wake of this catastrophe, his heirs maintain control of France, and by 1941 it’s Napoleon V who has come to power. Ever since the death of Napoleon I, however, scientists and scholars have mysteriously gone missing, leaving behind a world deprived of their technological innovations. A thick cloud of pollution hangs over Paris, a result of the use of coal and steam power. Operating in secrecy, a young teenage girl named April, together with her sharp-tongued talking cat Darwin (long story), searches for her abducted scientist parents while attempting to continue their research. But the police, led by the boorish but tenacious Detective Pizoni, are also interested in April’s whereabouts. With the shortage of great minds, all non-abducted scientists are forced into labor for the state war machine. If she can stay one step ahead of Pizoni and his goons, April may just hold the key to the world’s salvation. Then again, she might also trigger its destruction.

Beautifully animated, APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD is an adaptation of the work of famed French comic artist Jacques Tardi, creator of Adele Blanc-Sec among other works. Drawing inspiration from everything from Dickens to Jules Verne to Miyazaki, APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD is colorful and funny, but with more than a hint of melancholy and sociopolitical commentary. The greed and gluttony from those in power has trickled down creating an overwhelming cloud of sadness and despair, not unlike the thick pollution that hangs over the city. APRIL’s titular character may wallow in this dark, grimy soot-stained world, but she maintains a bright and shiny hope for the future. (Luke Mullen)

The Brand New Testament

God exists. He lives in Brussels. These two lines set the stage perfectly for Jaco Van Dormael’s latest film. There’s more, of course. God lives in an apartment with no entry or exit and spends most of his time in a giant office where he controls the world through a computer terminal that looks like it still runs Windows 98. He lives with his wife and daughter and is a raging jerk to both of them. His son, whom you may have heard of, made his escape through the washing machine long ago. Finally his daughter, Ea, gets fed up with his shit. With some encouragement from her brother, JC, she decides to leave the nest, find her own apostles and write her own brand new testament. But before she makes her escape, she steals the key to the office and texts the answer to an all-important question to everyone on Earth. Her attempted good deed backfires and God must scramble to fix it before humanity finds it has no need of Him.

THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT is a wildly innovative and incredibly funny film. The premise alone is gold, but the little details sprinkled throughout really make the story shine. The cast is perfect, from Pili Groyne as Ea to the great Catherine Deneuve as one of the new apostles. Finally there’s God himself, played by the amazing Benoit Poelvoorde, who Fantastic Fiends will recognize immediately as the voice of Steven from A TOWN CALLED PANIC. Ms. Deneuve in particular goes for broke, not just playing along but giving it her all, even when the film gives her an unusual new partner. This is bold, brash, blasphemous filmmaking on a grand scale. THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT will delight and challenge you and have you laughing the whole way. (Luke Mullen)

 

Lovemilla

We’ve all seen love stories with zombies. We’ve all seen them with superheros. We’ve all seen them with time travel. Now Finland gives us one with all of the above, plus some aliens and giant pet pandas thrown in for good measure.

Milla is a simple girl living in a very complicated world. Her parents have a drinking problem which regularly turns them into zombies. Her best friend is a superhero named Super-Gitta. Her friends are trying to set her up with a dashing young man who sells trips to the future via his company’s commercial black holes. Then there’s her live-in, diner-owner boyfriend, Aimo, who constantly feels inadequate.

When his gym-going fails to produce results as quickly as he’d like, Aimo takes the easy way out. He splurges on a set of Exo-Arms Mark 106’s, making him more powerful than he could have ever imagined. However, his rash decision causes his relationship with Milla to crumble, and his solution to this problem only makes things worse.

Based on a popular TV teen dramedy in Finland, LOVEMILLA places some of the most mundane of life’s problems in a world full of anything but. Borrowing ideas from science fiction, fantasy and a little bit of horror, its magic lies in its absolute refusal to explain – or even acknowledge – the universe its characters live in. Men wear breastfeeding appliances, people break out into song, aliens beam down from outer space, and life just goes on as normal.

LOVEMILLA is a mashup of all the kinds of movies we know and love at Fantastic Fest. From giant pandas to time travel to completely unexpected musical numbers, it would be safe to say LOVEMILLA has it all. It does this without ever forgoing its sense of heart, so by the end of LOVEMILLA… you will. (Brian Kelley)

 

High-Rise

All hail Ben Wheatley! The four-time Fantastic Fest alum has returned with his most ambitious and scathingly satirical film to date. The cinematic voice behind DOWN TERRACE, KILL LIST, SIGHTSEERS and A FIELD IN ENGLAND shifts his lens to 1970s London, where class tensions are bubbling under the surface.

When a polished, mild-mannered young doctor moves into a promising new lifestyle in a neighborhood high-rise, he gets more than he bargained for. Complete with everything from a swimming pool to a grocery store, the towering structure is a hermetically sealed community of epic proportions, housing inhabitants from all walks of life. When a series of escalating power outages fracture the already tenuous relationship between the working class residents on the lower floors and the aristocratic wealthy that populate the top half of the building, the development’s dream of offering a perfect life is threatened. A child’s birthday party quickly becomes an all-out revolt and unimaginable mayhem ensues, transforming the building intro an orgy of sex and violence that will give new meaning to the term “buyer’s remorse.”

Graduating to a much larger scale than ever before, Wheatley turns J.G. Ballard’s brilliantly bizarre novel into a surrealistic fable. Peppering in touches of Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL and David Cronenberg’s SHIVERS, Wheatley, along with longtime cowriter and co-editor Amy Jump, wisely situates the story in the time period that it was first written, while simultaneously creating a terrifyingly prescient parable that rings true today. Electrifying performances from an all-star cast including Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth Moss, Sienna Miller and the show-stealing Luke Evans, coupled with a series of pitch-perfect directorial flourishes like kaleidoscope imagery and a series of sublime covers of Abba’s “S.O.S.,” create a beautiful and chaotic world where anything could happen at any moment. (Michael Lerman & Peter Kuplowsky)

 

The Boy and The Beast

Ren is a nine-year-old kid hiding out from his distant relatives on the streets of Shibuya. His entry into an alternate world ends in an encounter with a bear warrior named Kumatetsu, who offers Ren the chance to become his apprentice. Although Ren is resistant at first, seeing Kumatetsu battle soon changes his mind, and before long, the two have become the unlikeliest of friends.

Mamoru Hosada returns to the big screen with yet another uncategorizable tale that’ll win over everyone in the audience. THE BOY AND THE BEAST has all the trademarks of a classic Hosada film: a fantasy world which has its roots in reality, populated with richly nuanced, engaging characters whose fates the audience cares deeply about.

At first glance, the film may seem like it’s most focused on battles between the beast warriors (which, indeed, are epic), but it spends equal time in the developing the friendship between master and apprentice as well as Ren’s journey into adulthood. Hosada’s nimble juggling of genres and emotional strands pays off in an incredible climax where all worlds collide and each of the characters find themselves tested.

THE BOY AND THE BEAST is also an amazing visual accomplishment. Both beasts and humans are beautifully realized with incredible detail, especially present when establishing the expression of subtle emotions. Stunning battle scenes combine adrenaline with emotional impact. The details of the beast world are the final winning touch, with Shibuya captured beautifully in both its real and fantasy version.
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This is the sort of film that comes out of nowhere and catches you unaware. It’s a genuine gem that is likely to get people talking all the way through the end of the festival. (Evrim Ersoy)

 

Zoom

Emma is having a rough time. When her co-worker (and occasional “friend with benefits”) Bob finds a sketch she did of herself as a well-endowed super hero, he makes an offhanded comment about that girl being out of his league. This sends Emma into a spiral of self-doubt and body image issues. It certainly doesn’t help that they both work at a factory that makes lifelike sex dolls, a job where Emma literally creates men’s fantasies. Her frustrations with Bob spill over into her hobby, drawing comics. She creates her dream man, a suave, sophisticated, latin lover, and things slip further into fantasy.

Michelle is a stunning Brazilian model. But the vapid nature of both the modeling industry and her condescending boyfriend Dale have her re-examining her priorities. A chance encounter with a book publisher sparks her interest in finishing her novel, which currently exists only as a few hastily scribbled chapters. After a fight with her boyfriend and a positive response from the publisher, Michelle decides to head back to Brazil to focus on finishing her book.

Eddie is a promising young director known for his action films, which are filled with explosions and raw testosterone. His libido and sexual prowess has made him a hit with female studio execs, allowing him to climb the industry ladder. His latest project is an attempt to break away from genre movies and make a deeply passionate art film, but the studio isn’t going for it. When an inexplicable anatomical anomaly occurs, Eddie finds he can’t push his film through the way he once did. As his heartfelt film is taken back by the studio for more action-packed reshoots, he goes back on location to find solutions to all of his problems.

ZOOM is amazingly only the second feature film from Brazilian director Pedro Morelli. Perhaps even more astonishing is that it’s the first screenplay from writer Matt Hansen. Hansen’s complex, layered script is sharp and witty, while Morelli’s direction is assured and confident. Alison Pill, Mariana Ximenes and Gael Garcia Bernal are especially great as the leads and they’re surrounded with a fantastic supporting cast including Tyler Labine, Jason Priestley and Michael Eklund. The film features some beautiful animated segments as well as some hilariously on-the-nose songs. Exploring the nature of existence, purpose, destiny and fate, ZOOM is a surreal look at the way we see ourselves and the way we want others to see us. (Luke Mullen)