Fantastic Fest 2011 – Underwater Love/Extraterrestrial/Bullhead
There are extra chairs in my mother’s vagina!
Today was the “slot filler” day. Keep your minds out of the gutter and follow me. I didn’t get into hardly any of the movies that I wanted to see. (Only Extraterrestrial was on my initial list.) Instead, I ended up seeing one great film and one fun film instead. Then, to top it all off, I watched a movie I’ve seen 10 times.
UNDERWATER LOVE (2011)
Directed by: Shinji Imaoka
Written by: Shinji Imaoka/Fumio Moriya
In 2007, Imaoka brought us Uncle’s Paradise. This year, he brings us Underwater Love. When he’s done with the “U”s, what will he do?
Asuka (Sawa Masaki) is a young lady who seems to have everything. She’s dating and about to marry her boss, her job is decent and she bursts into song and dance occasionally.
It all starts to fall to pieces, though, when Aoki (Yoshiro Umezawa) comes back into her life. He’s changed a bit since they were kids, though. First off, he drowned. Second, he’s been reincarnated (of sorts) as a kappa. (Some kind of turtle? Dunno, really.) He’s a turtle with a sex drive.
So Aoki comes back and Asuka has to hid him from her fiancee. She even has sex with her fiancee while Aoki is in the bathtub, keeping moist.
Really, the plot doesn’t matter. This is yet another surreal pink film from one of Japan’s best pink filmmakers. Here’s the really crazy thing, though: it was shot by Christopher Doyle. You know him as the Oscar nominated cinematographer of Hero, In The Mood For Love, Chungking Express and many other Hong Kong classics. Here, he’s slummin’ it and I think he knows it. There were a few shots (the more artsy ones) where I thought, “OH! There’s Doyle!” For the most part, though, I wasn’t blown away by his skills.
Definitely one of the more fun of this genre, but still not for everyone. It is, afterall, softcore porn with a surreal touch.
Directed by: Raul Navarro
Written by: Raul Navarro
This short fit the theme of Extraterrestrial perfectly. It’s about a guy who can jump back in time to fix things that he’s just done wrong. He, of course, uses it to have mind-blowing sex. He meets his match when he runs into another time traveller…but she can jump either way and she’s always one step ahead of him.
Pretty great stuff with an ending that was kind of unexpected for this kind of comic short.
Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo
Written by: Nacho Vigalondo
Again, 2007 rears its head. That was the year that Vigalondo brought us Timecrimes, a movie that I didn’t see for a few years after it played the Festival. When I did finally see it, though, I realized that I had missed something pretty great. And to think: I just barely squeezed into this one.
Nacho introduced this movie as a romantic comedy. Well, strangely, he’s pretty much dead on.
Julia and Julio (Michelle Jenner and Julian Villagran) wake up not knowing who the other one is. They’ve apparently had sex, but they just can’t quite remember. Quite a crazy night.
The day gets crazier when he’s trying to not leave and they realize that there’s a giant spaceship hovering over Madrid. Where did it come from? What’s it doing? And where did everyone else go?
Things get even more complicated when the nosy next door neighbor (Carlos Areces) shows up. Even worse, Julia’s boyfriend (Raul Cimas) comes over.
The next hour is filled with lies and double lies all trying to cover up the fact that Julia and Julio may or may not have slept together and that they may or may not have real feelings for each other. All of this with the backdrop of a possible alien invasion. (By the way, I could count the number of effects shots. This is a LOW budget movie, but it just barely shows.)
So, yes. This is, in fact, a romantic comedy. But it’s SO much better than that. It’s actually funny, first of all. All four actors are great and they handle the comedy perfectly and there are always surprises around every corner.
Even if you’re allergic to romantic comedies, this is a great movie. Think of it this way: it’s a rom com directed by someone who knows how to make a sci-fi movie. That’s gotta mean something, right?
Nacho is a pretty funny guy, too. I will never think of his mother’s vagina the same again.
Directed by: Michael R. Roskam
Written by: Michael R. Roskam
Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a gangster with a difference. He’s a giant of a man who has been taking steroids forever. But he’s fairly sweet natured for such a mass of muscle. Sure, he has his bouts of violence. No good gangster movie could be without those. But he’s generally a nice guy.
The fact that he had his balls beat off when he was a little boy probably has something to do with this. (Childhood trauma is definitely a theme with this Festival.)
The really strange thing about the gangsters in this movie is that they’re not running drugs or robbing anybody. They’re basically butchers. They raise and slaughter cattle. The “gangster” aspect comes from the drugs that they give the cattle. Actually, the main thing that I took away from the crime element of the film was “Oh. So, animal steroids are illegal in Belgium. Neat! Why can’t we do that here?!”
The crime is really a small part of the backdrop of this story, though. It’s really all about Jacky and his relationships with his friends and family and how they’re affected by his affliction. Luckily, that is far and away interesting enough to make this a great film. I know I haven’t seen very many movies yet, but it’s already in the top spot.
With a movie like this, the lead actor is the life or death of the film and Matthias is amazing in every frame. He’s quiet, foreboding, threatening and yet makes you want to tell him that everything’s going to be alright. When he finds the girl that he’s been dreaming about since childhood, you can feel the pain and insecurity that he’s going through with every conversation that he has with her. This is a great performance that needs to be seen.
Bullhead didn’t really appeal to me before I saw it. It basically filled a slot. As many of those kinds of movies end up doing, it blew me away.
After all these flicks, I went to see this:
You don’t REALLY need me to review it again. Just read my review here.
It was actually preceded by a short called The Finalist that I can’t find any info on anywhere. I think it was kind of a surprise screening. The director also directed some horror movie from the early 80s that I had never heard of.
The short was pretty damn funny. It was about four actors who were on their fifth call-back for a lead role in an action movie that could make their careers. Of course, only one would get the role. They decide to go hang out at one of their houses and have a surprisingly natural conversation. One guy, though, is a dick who thinks that acting is easy and that the rest of them are tools.
Blood ensues.
Fun stuff. Wish I could remember the director’s name. Armand Somethingorother.
