Wake Wood (2009)

directed by David Keating
Ireland
90 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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Wake Wood begins with the event that sets off the plot of the entire movie- the death of a small girl by dog-mauling that's in turns both strangely brutal and a little bit cheesy. The main topic of this film is resurrection and hubris, it's one of those stories that deals with what happens when people think they can cheat death to bring back a loved one. The horror of losing a child is presented as immediate and unfading, and I got the feeling that maybe somebody involved in Wake Wood had actually gone through that themselves though I certainly do hope not.

That initial dog attack also hints at a motif that's used heavily throughout the rest of the movie: a total rejection and almost demonization of the animal kingdom in favor of the human world. This motif is something that I could not make heads or tails of the intent behind; even now I have no idea what the message was meant to be but it's not subtle about whatever it is. Relatively early on in the film, after the little girl's death, a man is killed when a cow crushes him to death against a gate that won't open, in yet another scene full of disquieting befoulment of the human body. The role of animals in this film is one of unthinking or vaguely malevolent counterparts to the civilized creatures that are humans, and I don't know if this was done to point out humanity's hubris or if maybe the writer or director holds a severely negative opinion on all animals in real life.

At first I thought that the whole resurrection plot would have something to do with the fairies or other woodland beings, considering where the movie hails from, but we're dealing with a world that's deliberately human. There's rituals conducted, and the laws of nature seem to be bent and maybe even broken, but the dominant and superior beings in this are always, whether alive, dead, or somewhere in between, people. This comes off as straight-up arrogance most of the time- the animals are filthy and violent in all forms, yet even a human in the shape of a disturbing, powerful revenant is better than a seemingly benign dog or cow or sheep.

This movie has such a strong and unique concept that I'm surprised I don't hear it mentioned more often; possibly that could be because the dialogue really is bad in parts and occasionally it gets more hokey than it probably meant to be. There's a scene at the end that's really corny, but it's followed by a few scenes involving even more ill-conceived (haha) resurrections that open up the way for some even more upsetting questions.

The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)

directed by Wojciech Has
Poland
124 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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Our protagonist arrives in the titular sanatorium by way of a dark, dingy train that's basically an extension of the sanatorium itself; it has the same aesthetics and only its atmosphere of sickness and decay is different (presumably because people are, you know, trying to get better in the sanatorium). This plays into a larger running theme of never being sure, as a viewer, where the protagonist's mind ends and the real world begins, or if the more bizarre imagery is even part of the protag's mind at all or if it's some kind of supernatural event in which he's transported through various locations either physically or as a sort of astral projection.

Good luck trying to make heads or tails of anything in this one. It's clear enough that the main character is going to see his dying father in a sanatorium somewhere in pre-WWII Poland, but along the way it seems as if he's admitted to the hospital or possibly abducted by them, or maybe he falls ill and has to be kept there, I don't know. In any case this visit turns into a personal odyssey in which the main character finds himself wandering through a kind of external autobiography of himself filled with soldiers from the past, women he's been involved with, his parents, various peoples of various religions, and other dream-figures.

This character seems largely sure of himself while wandering through his own recursive subconscious, and in fact when he finds himself seemingly conscious and in the present in the actual sanatorium towards the end of the film is the only time he appears confused. This suggests to me a familiarity with his situation- his confidence in navigating the dreamworld made him weirdly charismatic for such a mercurial, free-floating character.

The set decoration and overall aesthetic of this thing is by far its standout quality and is what separates this from something more wishy-washy. This one has a whole world behind it, there's real reasons for why it's so surreal and running motifs throughout its absurdity that keep it feeling like somebody was holding the reins instead of just throwing down whatever ideas came into their mind. The gothicness and bleakness and mystery of The Hourglass Sanatorium is what makes it what it is, not that it's surreal. Had it been a conventional narrative it probably would have still been good because it's just got such a tight grip on that aesthetic.

I don't know why this reminds me a little bit of Jorge Luis Borges. Maybe it's the labyrinthine construction of the main character's subconscious journey. There's a feeling that it's weirder, and I don't know how to describe it but it's something I've seen in Borges too- that the idea being described is written down using mundane words, but the effect it gives and the mental picture it creates in the viewer's head is much stranger than it would appear on the surface.

Demon (2015)

directed by Marcin Wrona
Poland
93 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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This had been one of my most anticipated horror movies of the past few years. Somewhat recently it became a little more widely known after the news broke that its director, Marcin Wrona, was found dead of an apparent suicide in his hotel room shortly after the film's festival debut. Whether or not Demon is actually good doesn't matter at all in that situation, as it's horribly tragic to lose somebody who was just starting out on a career doing what they loved, but it definitely is good.

This is the kind of movie that can throw you for a loop at first because much of it occurs in the daylight in an atmosphere of festivity and joy that doesn't lend itself to horror. But it's also lucky enough to have been scored by none other than Krzysztof Penderecki, whose music could probably make opening the microwave door to get your Hot Pockets suspenseful. The cinematography is really one of the most striking aspects of it, because despite its heavy use of a kind of buttery/champagne-y light yellow, the lighting is delicate and almost reminiscent of a Renaissance painting at times, and there's a distinctive understanding of the way light can work to frame a scene or a character.

There's a turning point beyond which the horror (if we can even call it horror as it is very subtle and more sad than frightening) takes control of the plot, and before that it mostly exists as a general feeling of anxiety- a woman screaming in the distance, the sound of children laughing in another room of an empty house, a persistent stain the main character can't get off his hands- and is actually a good representation of what anxiety is like, because the main character has to deal with his own wedding while at the same time working to shove the growing thoughts that something isn't right to the back of his mind. In fact, the majority of the movie takes place during the wedding, and keeping guests from suspecting that something is terribly wrong is one of the main sources of humor for the film (more drinks for everybody!)

The theme it seems to be playing with is tradition versus innovation, or modern life paving over the past: The resilience of certain things that hold fast through the years while everything else around them moves on. Sometimes the only record of those things persists in one person's memory, but other times it holds on more stubbornly in the form of a dybbuk with unfinished business trying to exert the last of its influence on the world of the living. Now that I think about it, I feel like the daylight aesthetic that I was thinking was so unfitting for the theme may have been intended to enforce a feeling of old traditions still having a place in everyday modern life. One of the characters remarks about how these things aren't possible in a civilized, normal country, but the film itself proves him wrong by showing that spirits always have a place no matter how the culture changes and forgets.

I want to emphasize how well-made this movie is and especially how skilled the main actor is. The possession scenes in the latter half of the movie where he genuinely seems to take on the mannerisms of a completely different person are fantastic. This wouldn't be nearly as potent a movie if it weren't for the strength of those scenes. All in all, this may be less overtly ominous than I had expected, but it's a brilliantly executed, interesting film, and it's upsetting to say the least that we're not going to see any more of this director's ideas.

Sector 7 (2011)

directed by Ji-hoon Kim
South Korea
101 minutes
3 stars out of 5
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Sector 7 sounded vaguely interesting to me on the merit of it supposedly being a deep-ocean horror, which I'm very fond of, but as it turns out it's not quite like how I expected. It's hard to describe the difference between what I was hoping this would be and what it actually was, because technically both my expectations for it and its reality are deep-ocean horror, but it leans way harder on action tropes than horror ones and it has a big-explosions big-weapons vibe that I don't have the patience for.

There's no doubting that this movie that likes its CGI, which wouldn't be too much of a problem if that CGI was actually good, but oh boy, it is not. At its best- the monster scenes were surprisingly not terrible- it isn't that bad; it's still bad but it isn't the worst I've seen. But at its worst, which includes a lot of the backdrop of what was supposed to be the oil rig the film took place on, it's rendered so poorly that it looks like it could be a screenshot of an online RPG from the mid-2000s. You don't see these blocky, polygon-laden shots for long because mostly they go by in the background while characters have a ~*cool motorcycle race*~ scene, but it's laughable when you can notice them.

My opinion on this is probably worse than the general consensus because I have a very low tolerance for action movies, which is what this was, basically. It's Korean film trying to imitate American blockbusters, and it's not like there's anything wrong with that, because of course anybody can emulate any kind of style they want no matter where they're from, but the thing is that I never liked American blockbusters in the first place and I still don't like them when filtered through a South Korean lens. It's corny, cliched, horribly unfunny and honestly some of the acting is questionable. I will however credit a lot of the cringey lines to what seemed to be a rather poor translation of the English subtitles- there is one scene where a joke is entirely flubbed because they didn't explain what was intended to be a joke about one Korean word sounding like another Korean word, instead they just use the English words, which don't sound anything alike.

But this movie isn't totally without value, because the concept behind the monster is interesting. I was initially adding the fact that it was set on a deep-sea oil rig to my list of complaints, considering everything wrong with big oil (although in this context, Korea searching for a way to cut dependence on foreign oil makes it have somewhat of a different meaning) but I don't think this film lacks understanding of the harmful nature of the oil industry. The monster is a result of greed gone bad and the incredibly unethical practice of harvesting small (made-up) ocean-dwelling creatures that happen to conveniently burn for a very high temperature and for a very long time. The people in command of this rig eventually find out the hard way what those tiny, innocent-looking swimmy things can mutate into. It's sort of a "nature's revenge" story if you squint, and a message against factory farming if you squint even harder. Which opens the way for some other interesting scenarios- imagine if somebody made a movie about factory farming accidentally creating a superchicken?

The Lure (2015)

directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Poland
92 minutes
3.5 stars out of 5
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To be totally honest, I don't get the attraction to mermaids- I understand the current mermaid food trend because humans like colorful things, but outside of a cultural or historical standpoint I don't know why people keep going head-over-heels for anything that involves mermaids. Couple this with the fact that The Lure is a musical and you've got a recipe for something I'm gonna have a Bad Opinion™ of.

But surprisingly (to me) I had a very positive impression of this movie. I'm not sure why the secondhand embarrassment I usually have during musicals disappeared for this particular film but I think it had a lot to do with the fact that there's a ridiculous amount of talent in The Lure. Even if I may not personally like musicals, I greatly admired the performances in this film because they're genuinely spectacular, especially from the two main girls. They carry the weight of the entire movie and the way they were able to switch from speaking to singing, even in the weirdest and most unfitting of situations, was impressive.

I did feel, however, that for something so out there and unusual, the actual plot was run-of-the-mill. It's unique for featuring mermaids- who thankfully tend towards the nastier side of the mythology, no Ariels here- but it's also a typical story about two sisters clashing and going separate ways after moving to a big city. Now that I'm writing it down it's hard to convey that this is a cliched situation even though it involves mermaids, but trust me, you've seen this kind of sisterly conflict before. I was actually surprised at how stereotypical it was considering that I've seen this movie get some traction with a feminist audience for not being full of tired tropes, and though it does feature strong women characters (strong, fishy women) with agency and depth, it's... also kind of full of tired tropes.

If you watch this, be prepared for it to be a fantasy movie. I don't know what I was expecting if not fantasy but this is definitely the type of thing you have to turn your brain off a little to enjoy because stuff just happens in this and nobody bats an eye. There's girls who are literally sawed in half by a doctor and they stay alive the whole time. It's strongly implied that mermaids are, if not a commonality, something no one bats an eye at the idea of within the context of The Lure's universe. And it isn't just mermaids, either- it's also implied that there are other strange, inhuman-but-human-looking creatures roaming the big city on "vacation". I love the anything-goes atmosphere of this movie even if I don't feel the same way about mermaids as other people do.

Killer of Sheep (1978)

directed by Charles Burnett
USA
83 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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Glancing at reviews, I see that there's a minority consensus that says in short that Killer of Sheep movie is boring, between 60-80 minutes too long, and that the reviewer couldn't see why it had been made in the first place. Without mincing words, this film doesn't have much action it it at all- I think the most energetic it gets is when a conversation between three people vaguely alludes to plans of killing somebody that never come to fruition or get mentioned again. But the fact that nothing happens in this movie is precisely why it had to have been made: The interest expressed by the film industry at large in directing movies that show the realities of life in a poor black neighborhood- and I mean the real realities, not the stuff that can be taken out of context to form an exciting story that's consumable to white people- is nearly nonexistent, so this movie being out there is an important and necessary action in the process of wresting control of the film industry away from old white French guys who direct the same movie over and over while receiving heaps of praise for it.

This is a tremendously honest movie and its fly-on-the-wall style makes it so watching nothing happen isn't boring. If you've ever been in a restaurant or a dining hall or any other public place where people are going about their own lives, sometimes you can get a glimpse of people conducting business amongst themselves that feels like you're watching somebody's life on a television while it's playing out right in front of you. Killer of Sheep plays with that feeling, but the important thing is that it's a far more honest portrayal of how the majority of America's lower-income families live than you'd get to see in any dining hall. It doesn't sensationalize, it doesn't exoticize, it doesn't romanticize; it just shows you a life and a childhood that maybe you can relate to if you grew up in a low income neighborhood.

It's easy to forget there's actually an adult protagonist in all this because the emphasis on what childhood is like in the film's neighborhood is so strong. There's a feeling that even though the adults might do dangerous and/or complicated things, everybody has a silent agreement that there's no need for their children to be drawn into that world yet.

I have to say that I think this is now one of my favorite movies about America from any era because it shows how the idea of the "American dream" doesn't work out for everybody in reality, partially because the fundamental idea of it is flawed- the idea that the best path, the "noble" path, to making a life for yourself is doing back-breaking, often dangerous work to earn a slim salary that you might be able to barely afford to take care of a family with with is something people have a weird fixation on even today. The baritone singer on the film's soundtrack may sing "all races, all religions, that's America to me", but the melting pot loses its grandeur if we continue to ignore housing and wage inequalities.

L'invitation au voyage (1927)

directed by Germaine Dulac
France
40 minutes
3.5 stars out of 5
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So I've been interested in the work of Germaine Dulac ever since I saw The Seashell and the Clergyman, which remains one of my favorite works of surrealism and especially one of my favorite proto-feminist works (if proto-feminist is an acceptable term [please do not eviscerate me if it is not]).

According to the director's statement, L'invitation au voyage is an adaptation of a poem by Charles Baudelaire and also an experiment in creating a free form of cinema, something like a random-association sequence of images untouched by narrative. I'm not entirely sure how Dulac defined "narrative" but it does seem to have some kind of thread running through it in that there's context to the sequences, it's not just wholly unrelated vignettes or stills like, say, Zorns Lemma or something. But considering that this came out in the 1920s, it's a really interesting precursor to a lot of modern experimental film and also a lot of modern indie film such as mumblecore wherein absolutely nothing happens.

The plot- and again, this isn't really a "plot" so much as a common theme throughout the film's runtime- seems to concern a woman navigating a cafe and its various patrons and deciding what she wants to do and who she wants to do it with, as well as shots of the cafe's other patrons going about their business. Because of this, it's not only a great example of early experimental filmmaking but also a great example of the daily life of the middle to upper class in 1927. The main character, insofar as there is one, definitely speaks to a burgeoning feminist tradition: she's afforded far more agency than most shrinking violets and other delicate feminine personalities in 20s cinema are, and just the showcasing of her as somebody who can choose where she wants to go and can choose who she wants to open herself up to is something that was- and actually still is, though to a lesser extent- rare for any woman character.

It doesn't have the same haunting quality as The Seashell and the Clergyman (which I found a bit disappointing, because I was hoping for that) and it's much more along the lines of the majority of dadaist and other surrealist works of the era. But it's well worth a watch and Germaine Dulac as a director should be more widely praised as a key player in an art movement that would continue to define the look of surrealism on film through to the modern era.