Review of Five Dolls for an August Moon

What do these three moves have in common?
1) “The Ten Commandments” (1956)
2) “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001)
3) The giallo for this review, “5 Dolls for the August Moon” (1969)

Answer: They are all adaptations of top 10 all time top selling books. Sadly, there have yet to be any good film versions of “The Book of Common Prayer” or “Quotations from Chairman Mao,” but I hear that Universal has optioned the rights to adapt “Pilgrim’s Progress” with Sylvester Stallone eager to play the lead.

“5 Dolls for the August Moon” is directed by Mario Bava and unofficially based on “And Then There Were None” (1939) by Agatha Cristie. It is also known as “Ten Little Indians” although it was originally published under a different (and offensive) name. I won’t write it here, but if you’re curious, look it up. The international smash hit tells the tale of ten guests invited to an island mansion by a mysterious host who never appears. Trapped in a ritzy mansion, they are knocked off one by one, each in a different manner. Can you solve the crime?


It might not be worth trying, since the solution is fairly elaborate and non-intuitive, but it makes for a good yarn. Over the years there have been nearly ten film adaptations and a highly successful Broadway version. None are particularly good, but at least “5 Dolls for an August Moon” is a giallo. As the title makes plain, the emphasis is on the female half of the ten stranded islanders who are all conspicuously attractive. They also just happened to have packed enormous wardrobes of revealing outfits as well. The similarities to “Blood and Black Lace” (1964) are striking.

The plot has also been changed to give the ten guests more of a purpose. They are meeting on the island to bid for a scientific discovery made by Professor Farrell. He is uninterested in their monetary millions and is determined to make his formula known to the world. The others don’t like this. Eventually people start getting killed roughly along the lines of the source novel. After the first body is found, there is so much distrustful glancing that you know the murder-floodgate has been thrown wide open.

[Images: …and so on.]

Could the murderer be Trudy, the professor’s cold, loveless wife…

or Peggy, the ditzy blonde…

or Isabel, the naïve youngster with a crush on Farrell…

or the sexually provocative Marie (Edwige Fenech before she was a leading lady)…

or Jill Stark, the abused wife of George, the corrupt mansion owner.

There is certainly good reason to suspect any of them, and the five men as well, simply based on their questionable morality. All sorts of crosses, double crosses, shady deals, sexual liaisons and outright crimes begin to mar the beautiful beachside getaway. When things turn really south, the guests realize that their boat has been sabotaged and they are trapped on the island. While they have plenty of victuals, the real danger comes for their shortage of scruples.

The plot tends to be a little dull, since the “secret formula” is used so obviously as a MacGuffin. The characters are all so unlikable that we are asked to revel in their backstabbing schemes and untimely deaths rather than to care or understand them. They take an undeniable glee in their mercenary, amoral behavior. There is a certain undeniable pleasure in watching the characters complete their predestined roles, but if it wasn’t for Bava’s direction the film would be fairly tiresome.

Here are quotes that lend a little insight into the character dynamics:

Nick: “Now what was I saying?”
Marie: “That I’m a dirty whore. That’s why I’m showering, so at least I’ll be a clean whore.”

Nick: “Well, well, if it isn’t Trudy. A beautiful icicle.”

Jill: “Why did you marry such a beast?”

Trudy: “All men are beasts!”

From the get-go, Bava transforms the straight-laced parlor room trappings of the original mystery into a stylish exercise in excess and indulgence. The characters all act with infinite arch-cynicism and permanent smirks. Their clothes are a source of amusement with a life of their own. The indoor set is turned into a celebration of 60’s interior decoration (complete with rotating couches) and the outdoor jungle becomes a single giant libidinous cue for the oversexed characters.

One of my favorite Bava touches is the fact that the survivors callously toss each new corpse into the mansion’s meat locker. For some never-explained uncomfortable reason, they also sever the heads and hang them from meat hooks. Every time Bava cuts to the row of swinging noggins, he plays a piece of peppy circus music (by prolific composer Piero Umiliani) that makes the mood downright comical.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a giallo if the death sequences weren’t given a little extra spice. They include film history’s favorite focus pull (victim-to-gun / gun-to-victim):

…as well as a beautiful scene of contrived artistic overkill, in which the camera follows a torrent of glass spheres pouring down a spiral staircase and into an indoor pool. The dramatic entrance leads us to Jill’s bleeding corpse and the suicide note she wrote on the mirror in PINK LIPSTICK! There is something hilariously flippant in her choice of mediums and yet it feels perfectly fitting. If only she’d dotted the ‘i’ with a little heart or finished with a smiley :)

Fenech, who is clearly not being given the star treatment that one finds later in her career, steals the opening scene with a kitschtastic striptease as the guests relax in the mansion’s main room. While “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and many other films have taught me that this was perfectly acceptable and even natural behavior for casual social engagements in Italy circa 1960, George ups the ante by strapping Fenech to a tree stump (that he keeps in his living room for just this type of occasion), donning a golden mask and “sacrificing” the girl to pagan god. It’s all a harmless joke, but makes for grim foreshadowing when, an hour later in the film, Fenech is found strapped to a tree and stabbed in a macabre parody of her earlier performance.

[Images: (top) Edwige Fenech pretending to be stabbed and (bottom) Edwige Fenech actually having been stabbed.]

Mario Bava claims to have hated the script and considers this one of his worst films, but when watching it I can’t help thinking he had a lot of fun with it. The whole thing benefits from not taking itself very seriously and interspersing moments of total weirdness. The ending is a slew of melodramatic posturing and ironic twists. It comes close to redeeming the plot with its audacious insanity.

While not a great giallo, and not even a first tier entry from Bava’s canon, this film is enjoyable for fans of the genre. Those who like Agatha Cristie and traditional mysteries will probably not be impressed, but they may find it worthwhile to view this exotic specimen just to complete their collection.

Walrus Rating: 6

And now for the art comparison, brought to you by Matisse:

Review(?) of Incident at Loch Ness

“Incident at Loch Ness” (2004) is a strange film for a lot of reasons, even in the notoriously outrageous oeuvre of German filmmaker Werner Herzog. I won’t review the film in the traditional sense, because to some extent the less said the better. However, I will provide a little introduction and review of the DVD features in hopes of pointing potential appreciators to its unusual charms.

In 2004, internet buzz begin to murmur about Herzog’s newest project, an exploration of the Loch Ness monster myth to be filmed on location and titled “The Enigma of Loch Ness” (probably a mild reference to his groundbreaking “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser” (1974)). Documentary director John Bailey decided to follow Herzog around on the shoot for a planned biopic. Herzog’s audacious, trouble-fraught projects had already been filmed several times before, most notably in “The Burden of Dreams” (1982). Bailey called his film “Herzog in Wonderland.”

Neither film is actually made. “Incident at Loch Ness” begins with Bailey’s footage of Herzog throwing a quiet party with several of his friends, famous and not. We meet the producer, Zak Penn, the screenwriter behind the X-men sequels, “PCU,” “Last Action Hero” and “Behind Enemy Lines.” If that doesn’t sound like a promising track record, you’re right. It becomes immediately obvious even at this early stage that Penn plans to commercialize Herzog’s project. We also meet the DP and sound man.

Some knowledge of Herzog’s personal life and professional work is required to appreciate the film, particularly “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” (1972) about a mad waterbound journey into chaos and madness and “Fitzcarraldo” (1982) with its jaw-dropping scene of natives pulling a steamship over a mountain (filmed without special effects).

Once in Scotland, it becomes clear that Penn wants to sensationalize the myth and “entertain” the audience, while Herzog wants to explore the social phenomena and psychology behind the legend. They butt heads immediately. It doesn’t help that Penn tries to outfit the crew with uniforms, hires playboy model Kitana Baker as a “sonar operator” and switches their boat engine for a lower power model to reduce the noise (it breaks on the second day).

[Some SPOILERS: skip the next paragraph for maximum first time viewing effect]

As the shoot mounts into an outright disaster, it becomes increasingly unbelievable. This is fully intentional. Viewers should immerse themselves in the playful confusion, excitement and humor. The beauty of “Incident at Loch Ness” is not in solving it (whether you find it trivial or convincing is only a single facet of its potential), but in experiencing its textured realities and appreciating the hilarious interplay of the crew. Werner Herzog and Zak Penn are both brilliant in the movie, but for very different reasons and with entirely unique, even opposing, styles. David Davidson also deserves a special nod.

[END SPOILERS]

That is basically all I want to say about the movie itself. I would like to spend some time mentioning how much I loved the DVD. The two-sided disc contains some great deleted shots and behind the scenes material. There is plenty to enjoy amongst the selections made overtly available. However, with at least twelve Easter eggs (that I found), in the form of hidden Nessie (Loch Ness monster icons), one can easily eat up an entire evening (as I did).

There are a full three commentary tracks, each with Zak Penn and a variety of other people. My favorite is the unhidden track, in which Zak Penn and Werner Herzog attempt to provide commentary despite hating each other and pending litigation over their grievances. After fighting for fifteen minutes, and explaining essentially nothing, Herzog storms out and Penn cuts. He resumes (apparently recording two weeks after the first session) with a minor crew member who is utterly unhelpful in providing commentary. After the guest criticizes the film several times and mentions that he was never paid, Penn cuts again.

He resumes with the DVD commentary supervisor (who hasn’t seen the movie) as his partner and then later with a film buff literally pulled off the street. Things turn ever more desperate, culminating with Penn inviting his wife to help with the commentary, despite their being in the middle of a divorce. In the pathetic finale, a studio man takes over the special feature and tries to describe the onscreen action without having seen the film and without the volume on. He is confused, and soon quits in exasperation. The commentary track is dead air for the remaining half hour.

And yet, there are still two more commentary tracks waiting to be unlocked!

While not perfect or terribly consistent, few commentary tracks are so interesting or witty. Soderbergh’s “Schizopolis” (1996) comes to mind as perhaps my favorite example. I will say that I rarely bother checking out the special features with any serious excitement, but found myself eating up the playful tone and banal trivia. Then again, Herzog’s films are always worth the time for the commentaries, since he is so articulate and insane.

Walrus Review: 8

PS: I encourage everyone to go see Herzog's latest film, "Rescue Dawn," in theaters now (2007). Shamefully, I have not yet watched it although I attempted to get into two advanced screenings. I will enjoy it this weekend.

Review of Seven Blood Stained Orchids

It was with some reluctance that I approached, “Seven Blood Stained Orchids” (1972) by successful Italian horror auteur Umberto Lenzi. Though Lenzi is one of the most prolific and best known second-tier giallo directors, his career carries the onus of the cannibal film. For all my love of gialli and even zombie flicks, I have come to despise the Italian cannibal subgenre as crossing the line of decency without offering any redeeming reason or collateral (such as style or fun). Lenzi’s “Cannibal Ferox” (1981), an immediate member of Britain’s banned “video nasties” list, was one of the defining films.

So I had assumed, fully consciously or not, that “Seven Blood Stained Orchids” would be on the crude side of the giallo continuum, both in terms of production values and exploitation. The opening scene, depicting the murder of a prostitute in a corn field off the side of a highway, unseated my doubt that Lenzi would be stylistically bankrupt and technically incompetent but tended to confirm my worries about his potential sleaze-factor.

Once the movie really got rolling, however, I discovered that my reluctance was unfounded. Lenzi’s film lands somewhere in the middle of giallo territory, with enough gore and nudity to keep conservatives frowning and horror buffs smiling. The writing and plotting is definitely above average, perhaps since the story comes from the world’s most adapted novelist, British mystery writer Edgar Wallace.

The killer soon moves on to a second victim, this time a cat-loving female artist. Lenzi composes some excellent imagery while upping the surrealism ante of the first murder. The woman pours bowls of milk for her cats and leaves the room. When she returns, she finds the cats are meowing and dying from poison. Distressed, she flees to another room and finds that someone has painted blood flowing from her portraits. When the stabbing finally ends (there was stabbing, of course) we are left with a closing shot of black and red paint pouring onto her wound and mixing with the blood. If I ever have to be done in by a serial killer, I hope he has an equally poetic eye for macabre beauty.

The first two murders are connected by the killer’s calling card: a half-moon medallion. The third victim, Giulia (Uschi Glas), at least gets some development. Her bossy fashion designer husband, Mario (Antonio Sabata), and she have names and lines of dialogue, establishing them as likely protagonists. True to form, Guilia survives her attack by the killer and the two have the curiosity piqued enough by the near-death experience to investigate the case.

To be honest, their efforts must have been quite welcome to the police, who are utterly unable to do any investigation of their own. One would think (based on watching only gialli) that they were on strike from 1971 to 1975. Our leads discover that all the victims are women who, years before, had stayed in the same hotel on the same day. There were seven in all, later briefly represented by orchids laid at the grave of the prime suspect. (Note the use of a minor, misleading, but intriguing-sounding, clue for the title a la “The Case of the Bloody Iris” and “The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail.”) The couple decides to contact each of the remaining former guests and warn them, but like all good stories in this vein, they have a tendency to arrive only five minutes too late… every time.

[Image: The black-clad killer escapes in the rain across the roof of an asylum.]

Though the setup of the story seems fairly formulaic, the plot is actually quite well handled and neatly balanced. My gut prediction about the killer’s motive was that all the women had witnessed some crime that they did not even realize and that the murderer was systematically attempting to cover his tracks. Lenzi/Wallace definitely pulled one over on me with a more original twist that is executed smoothly and convincingly. Best of all, the red herrings are actually handled judiciously and their power to mislead and scare is actually earned through craft and development.

The satisfying story is complimented by Lenzi’s camerawork. Though his visual style is not as marked as Argento, Bava or Martino, it still shows remarkable sophistication and originality. That being said, I am now unsure whether credit for inventing the “through-the-harp” shot belongs to Lenzi or Martino (it appears in “All the Colors of Darkness” from the same year). At least Lenzi’s location choices, art-strewn sets and engagement with 60’s mod culture are all unequivocally his own. The visuals end up carrying the style of the film almost entirely unaided, since the soundtrack consists wholly of mediocre rhythm tracks.

Much like Argento, Lenzi excels most at his murder sequences and “Seven Orchids” has some of the best in my recent memory. The early corn field kill is eerie and effective, with a set that somehow looks part urban, part jungle and part farmland. It is far more claustrophobic than one would imagine and somehow artificial enough to feel surreal while innocuous enough to seem real. The voyeuristic killer-POV approach is not very new, but Lenzi gives it a level of eroticism and compulsion that reminded me of “Peeping Tom” (1960).

#4 on the killer’s hit list is a mental asylum patient with a persecution complex. Cruel though the exploitation of infirmed can be, one has to appreciate the delicious irony of the entire hospital staff ignoring her honest cries for help because she’s a paranoid hypochondriac who is “always” screaming that someone is trying to kill her.

#5 gets knocked off despite a pair of bodyguards. She goes into a confession booth and when it is opened later, her corpse topples out. #6 is played by the Marisa Mell (of “Diabolik” fame) in the duel role of identical twins. The wrong one meets a grisly end at the point of a power drill (an interesting update of the phallic substitutes found elsewhere in the movie which includes knifes, scalpels and truncheons). Lenzi argues somewhat unconvincingly that an important American director stole the idea from him. I do hope he is referring to Abel Ferrara’s “Driller Killer” (1979), yet another “video nasties” alumnus.

The director succeeds not just with the sheer creativity and flair of these scenes, but also in terms of editing and atmosphere. Though the usual black gloves make many an appearance, Lenzi has an interesting preponderance to represent the killer with shots of his black shoes. The way the presence of the villain is felt long before he strikes, creates a psychological torture that is more effective than the actual gore. The murders themselves are not protracted beyond necessity. Though they are less over-the-top than Argento’s work (where murder often spans multiple stages), the sense of deathly foreplay, inevitability and sudden climax are memorable for their obvious sexual implications. The revelation of the killer’s identity only makes this process of sublimation more interesting and explicit.

Although the killer is the most extreme case, the film in general presents a fascinating brand of sexual politics. Patriarchal authority figures throughout the movie tend to be utterly unable to protect the women in their charge. The police seem to leave the footwork to the everyday citizens and Mario does his best to fill their boots, but he is, after all, just a fashion designer. He doesn’t even have the private detective or journalist or insurance claims adjuster skills usually bestowed on a mystery protagonist. When the cops do catch on to the pattern and start protecting the potential victims, they are constantly subverted by the killer. The police, bodyguards, airport security, husbands and religious and medical authorities all fail to save the beautiful women presumably “in their care.”

[Image: Women being boxed in, but not protected.]

Lenzi constantly stages his actors so that the women are bracketed by male “protectors” on-screen, but then kills the woman within minutes to underline their lack of power. Conversely, the female characters are often depicted as unwilling to accept the proffered authority and protection. They frequently assert their independence (almost all of them are unmarried, for instance) and refuse to “stay put” despite knowledge of their danger. While Lenzi might be interpreted as punishing the independence of these women in the classical horror film mold (the murder of the prostitute as tacit comeuppance would appear to be a typical example), I don’t think that the audience is situated in such a traditional position.

[SPOILERS]

When we discover the killer’s motive, we learn that the original event behind the current crimes was a woman abandoning her lover in a time a need. This supports a view that the real theme of the film is the usual horror genre gender critique (that women are too independent, anti-authority and sexually free) now viewed from the flipside (that men are unable or unwilling to cope with gender equality and a generation of women that are not attached to or reliant on them). Though Mario does finally assert his protective abilities in the final scene, the culmination of his successful combat is left off-screen.

In their opening scene, Mario dictates exactly what Giulia is allowed to wear and even says that without his fashion decisions she looks like a hooker (tying her to the murder that took place earlier). As the film continues, his control over her weakens and by the end she is the one pushing for more direct action; setting a trap for the villain. In the last shot, masculine authority is not reasserted through the arrival of the police on the scene nor is Mario shown “claiming his reward” in a dominating sexual way. Rather, the couple walks off side-by-side in a mutual stance. I think the story ends up being more of a lesson aimed at chauvinistic males then a cautionary tale aimed at free-spirited women.

[END SPOILERS]

[Image: Look really closely into the pool and you just might learn the identity of the killer.]

“Seven Blood Stained Orchids” was never screening theatrically in America, but is now available on DVD. I liked it.

Walrus Rating: 7

Review of Renaissance

[Image: Paris 2054]

I felt bad about missing the B/W animated French sci-fi neo-noir “Renaissance” (2006) in theaters last year, but not too bad considering that Miramax unceremoniously vomited the innovative film into a two theater opening weekend and let four weeks go by before chucking the film off the edge of the planet. Thank god for DVDs, because the brutal treatment is utterly undeserved. “Renaissance” ranks as one of my belated picks for best 2006 genre films and stands up well (although under) the year’s other notable science fiction outings (“Children of Men,” “The Fountain” and “The Prestige”) though for very different reasons.

The adjectives that I mentioned in the first sentence above go a long way in describing what makes it so interesting; particularly in how seamlessly and intriguingly multiple genres and modes of presentation are blended. You can derive many of its influences by manipulating these elements like so:

Sci-fi + Neo Noir = “Blade Runner”
Sci-fi + Neo Noir + Animated = “Ghost in the Shell”
Sci-fi + B/W = “Metropolis”
Neo Noir + B/W = “Sin City”
France + Neo Noir = Jean-Pierre Melville
France + Animated = “The Triplets of Belleville”(The last one is a stretch as an influence, but the rhyme was irresistible.)

[Image: Layers upon layers.]

The film has a good plot at its core although it takes about half an hour before the disparate threads start to weave into a whole more interesting than its individual parts. The story follows Karas, a former hoodlum who has grown into a hard-bitten cop of the typical renegade variety. He sports a dark wardrobe, an ice-cool cyberpunk attitude and a pistol, needing little more to navigate the humming metropolis of near-future Paris.

[Image: (lower) Karas lives in a stark roof-top hovel that he populates with the holograms of his suspects. No wonder he has nightmares.]

Recent tradition for action movies has been to start the show with the protagonist wrapping up an unrelated case. It provides a chance to prime the audience’s adrenaline pumps and establish the character’s abilities. “Renaissance” begins with Karas going kill-crazy on a child-hostage situation set inside a warehouse packed with casts of Rodin’s The Thinker. Consider yourself warned: this is action fare for the thinking man and the artist in you.

The presence of the child is just one of director Christian Volckman’s many pieces of carefully dropped foreshadowing. The pros and cons of youth versus old-age and new technology versus old morality, run as themes underneath the main current. The crux of the primary plot lies in Karas’s investigation of a kidnapping case. The missing person is Ilona Tasuiev, a brilliant young scientist working for Avalon, a beauty/health mega-corporation. Karas can’t rule out anyone as a potential suspect, including Ilona’s sister Bislane, a nightclub bartender named Dimitri, her boss Dr. Muller and Avalon’s CEO Mr. Dellanbach.

The film manages to deal with such diverse topics as medical ethics, identity theft, eternal life, professional ambition, multiculturalism, corporate tyranny and post-human cybernetics all in a fast-moving action film with detective work, car chases, and shootouts. The film does a superb job of balancing the academic and active, keeping viewers on their toes whether they are contemplating the implications of the latest twist or following Karas’s Citroen as it speeds along the River Seine.

[Images: A tracking shot follows Karas along a catwalk. The view of the Eiffel Tower is obscured by a giant computer billboard advertising for Avalon. One shouldn’t resist reading into the fact that an eerie ad selling artificial beauty is eclipsing an old-world cultural landmark. After all, what SF mega-corporation is ever benign?]

While the plot has some creative bends and a finale that overcomes the residual clichés, it’s hampered by the poor writing. Except to move the plot along, nothing much gets said that qualifies as inspirational. Volckman and his writers could have learned more from Melville’s near-silent characters, but they seem to borrow more from the videogame cut-scene mold of generic one-liners and functional expositions. Not surprisingly, the studio also plans to make games. On the plus side, the film does benefit from positive influences like Metal Gear Solid and Max Payne.

Despite English voice-acting by a well-cast bunch (Daniel Craig as Karas, Ian Holm as Dr. Jonas Muller and Jonathon Pryce as the villainous Dellenbach) the dialogue occasionally feels like its being delivered in a vacuum. The slightly-overlong pauses and an unevenness of interactions betray that the lines for each character were probably recorded in separate sound booths and amateurishly combined later. The audio is not generally the film’s strongpoint, and I found the music to be a little timid and forgettable.

All such faults are redeemed by the visuals, easily repaying the price of a rental for anyone seriously interested in animation and CG. Volckman (and friends) had the innovative idea to shoot a black and white film without grays, giving the film a visual Manichaeism in complete opposition to its morally ambiguous tale. While one might suppose that it would be difficult to tell what is going on without a gradient, the filmmakers do an excellent job maintaining clarity when needed.

[Image: It wouldn’t be a post-1990 B/W movie without at least one quick color shot for added “emphasis.”]

Depth perception is provided by careful layering of mise-en-scene, low-key single-source lighting that create a distinct silhouette and plenty of movement. When the blacks and whites of separate object overlap it always feels like it was artistically chosen, not an accident. Time and attention has also gone into maintaining sharp-edged consistency to prevent the way patches can jump back-and-forth between black and white when the original gray is right in between (you can see this ugly effect by watching videos on a computer with the contrast set to 100%).

Though Volckman and company push the “no grays” line, it isn’t fully true. Lighter shades are intelligently selected for phenomena that would normally interfere with a purely two-tone scheme: transparent glass, reflections, clouds, haze, lens flare, holographs and so on. It doesn’t sacrifice the visual design, but rather adds to it, creating realistic effects and dynamic layers that round out the stylish settings. The results can be seen in some of the screenshots below.

[Images: (from top to bottom) A riverside road below a glass promenade for pedestrians, a rooftop forest enclosed in a greenhouse and a transparent office suspended above a busy highway network.]

The images above testify to the artistic vision, which creates a crisp futuristic shell that still maintains a moody noir nougat inside. “Renaissance” consciously bucks the oft-used New York and Tokyo landscapes for something with a more elegant, graphic-art feel and a definite French atmosphere. Here are some more exteriors:

On a basic level, the choice between whether to have black or white dominate an image, manipulates the tone and reaction for various shots. The director tends to reserve the dark backdrops for the poorer downtown districts and criminal underworld (where the action takes place mostly at night) while light prevails in the upscale corporate districts, particularly as part of Avalon’s friendly, but sterile, veneer. However, it isn’t usually as easy as white = good, black = bad. In the following set of paired images (trees and faces, respectively), the expected connotation are undermined within the film.

[Images: Romantic tension and a “Heart of Darkness”-style final lie, presented with typical color association reversed.]

[Images: More plays on color, graphic design and audience expectations in the rare examples of nature tucked away within the urban milieu of future-Paris.]

Coupled to the animation technique is some of the best motion capture work I’ve seen. Rarely do the characters move unnaturally, although there is still a tendency to gesture too dramatically. Unfortunately, the convincing movement is often diluted by the stilted dialogue and loose character development

This lack of polish is certain to provoke shouts of “style over substance,” but in truth the film has both depth and scope for those who dive into the chaos and confusion of the early third. It does take commitment and an open mind. Critics hated the film with uncanny fervor (44% Rotten Tomato, 57/100 on Metacritic), but the majority of the wrath preys on the poor writing while dismissing the visuals outright. Few of the nay-sayers show a willingness to actually follow the story or, god forbid, reflect upon it.

If you are a fan of noir, action sci-fi or animation, I highly suggest you see this film. In fact, buy it. That way maybe the studio can afford to do follow-up. The film merits multiple viewing not just to catch the artistic touches and relive the high-octane action sequences, but to notice the clever references and foreshadowing. On that note, I finish with the type of art comparison I usually reserve for gialli.

Walrus Rating: 8.5

Hall of Strangeness Part XVII

Little Otik – (Jan Svankmejer) In this adaptation of a Czech fairy tale Karel plays a frustrated man whose wife is unable to bear the children she so desperately wants. In a dubious attempt to soothe her, he digs up a child-shaped tree stump and presents it to his wife. She so obsessively treats it as alive that her wish comes true… and an insatiably hungry monster is unleashed. Mixes stop-start animation with live action.
Artistry: *** Fun: *** Strangeness: ****

Lost Highway – (David Lynch) Though not well-received during its initial release, Lynch’s elliptical horror-thriller is a worthwhile journey. Fred Madison begins receiving invasive videotapes of himself asleep in his own coldly modernist house. Understandably unsettled he commits a major crime, only to transform into another man during his first night in prison. The police are forced to release him and he continues to live out his second life until further complications lead to a chilling climax.
Artistry: *** Fun: *** Strangeness: ****

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra – (Larry Blamire) With an invisible budget, some bad costumes, a lot of foil and access to Monument Valley, Lost Skeleton has all the authentic criteria to parody classic monster movies. A good scientist is looking for a meteor site not too far from where an evil scientist is trying to revive an evil skeleton. Throw in a couple of aliens and an animal-woman and you have a comic gem. Filled with impossible coincidences and quotable dialogue.
Artistry: * Fun: ***** Strangeness: ***

Lunacy – (Jan Svankmejer) Although hardly a hit with critics or audiences, this may be Jan Svankmajer’s best provocation (it certainly is his most blasphemous). Very loosely adapted from short stories by Edgar Allen Poe and the Marquis de Sade, Lunacy is the sly tale of a naïve man’s encounter with a black mass and an experimental asylum. Svankmajer throws enough heretical, shocking or openly revolting imagery on the screen to make even the tolerant viewer squeamish, but does so without sacrificing his talent or his message. Essentially the film is about the delicate balance of freedom and security in our society and the need to avoid extremes; Svankmajer comes out beforehand, however, to personally assert that the film has no redeeming value. The rest of the plot is paralleled by interspersed vignettes of raw meat crawling around (in stop-motion) and making witty references to the film at large.
Artistry: ***** Fun: *** Strangeness: *****

Man Bites Dog – (Remy Belvaux) In this cynical Belgium satire of mass media, a film crew documents the life of morally bankrupt serial killer. While purportedly staying objective, the crew has trouble remaining neutral and soon steps over an ethical boundary or two. When the documentary runs out of funding, the killer offers to pick up the tab as a sort of vanity project. Agreeing to such a pact gets the crew into far more dire straits than legal trouble. An example of the type of morbid vignettes frequent in this mockumentary is a discussion of how much weight is needed to sink the corpse of a man, woman, child, old person and midget respectively.
Artistry: *** Fun: *** Strangeness: **