Titane

Titane is a head trip. It's a cross between the 1977 film Demon Seed and David Cronenberg's Crash - I will translate my own film geek nomenclature for you - a woman gets impregnated by a car. Yes, that's correct, a car. Then she goes on a random killing spree and then changes her appearance to evade police and pretends to be a man's long lost son. If that sounds bizarre, it is. For those of you who like to be challenged, who like films that push boundaries, movies which leave you asking, "What was that?" Titane is the movie for 2021 to do the job.  How strange are we talking? Think Under the Skin, Santa Sangre, or Wild at Heart strange.  It is about sexuality, identity, toxic masculinity, violence, mutation - lots of moving parts and stunning visuals. It's violent, grotesque, and it will haunt you long after you have stopped watching. It is one of the most interesting films of 2021. Catch it in theatres or on streaming services. 

Alpha

What's up with the water in France? Two of the most exciting and interesting female directors working today are Julia Ducournau (Titane, Raw) and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance, Revenge). Both hail from France, both working in the tradition of Cronenberg-ian body horror. Ducournau has a new film, Alpha. It has a much more linear storyline than her last outing, Titane (about a woman who is impregnated by a car). Alpha focuses on a thirteen-year-old girl, Alpha (Mélissa Boros) who received a homemade tattoo at a party during a near-future time when a blood-transmissible illness is becoming a global crisis. This illness slowly turns people into marble (like the stone). Yes I know it sounds bizarre, and it is. Alpha lives with her single mother (Golshifteh Farahani) who is a doctor and has great concerns about her daughter's possible infection. Along comes Alpha's uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim) who is sporting a junkie habit and Alpha likes to turn her uncle's hole ridden arm into a connect-the-dots puzzle. The disease seems like an obvious metaphor for the AIDS crisis. The film looks at the alienating behaviors, how we treat the sick, the addicted. It will make you uncomfortable at times - think Kids, Requiem for Dream. For something which seems to be slow-paced, it moves along at a riveting clip - I was never bored. The marble transformation of victims is a unique visual from an equally unique and gifted filmmaker. Grab a bottle of Evian at the theatre or go rent this one from Movies 'N Stuff when available. 

Best Films of 2021

 I didn't bother make a list last year. There wasn't much to write about. These are my favourite films of 2021. I haven't seen everything so it's more than likely I've missed some great films. Everything here, I've written about on my blog. That's the whole point of the blog, stuff I recommend. This would be a tidy summary (in no real order):

1. The Last Duel 

2. Pig

3. Titane

4. No Time to Die

5. The Rescue

6. The Power of the Dog

7. The Card Counter

8. King Richard

9. C'mon C'mon

10. Summer of Soul

11. A Quiet Place II

12. Army of the Dead

13. Boiling Point

14. Spencer

15. Don't Look Up

16. Nowhere Special

17. Mandibules

18. Raging Fire

19. The Green Knight

20. Malignant

21. The Alpinist

22. Old Henry

23. VAL

24. The Feast

25. The Novice

26. I Care a Lot

27. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

28. Red Rocket

29. Coming Home in the Dark

30. Swan Song

Honourable mentions:  Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time, CODA, The Lost Daughter, The French Dispatch, Stillwater, Bestsellers, I'm Your Man

Guilty Pleasures:  Prisoners of the Ghostland, Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City, Zola, Benedetta, Antlers, Old, Night Teeth, Last Night in Soho 

The Year's biggest disappointments/stinkers: The Matrix Resurrections, Dune, The Beatles Get Back, Jungle Cruise, Candyman, The Electric Life of Louis Wain, The Guilty, Finch, Tick, Tick . . . Boom!, Reminiscence, Cry Macho

Crimes of the Future

I have been a David Cronenberg fan for close to 40 years. "Dead Ringers" was the film though that really turned me into a "Rabid" fan. Themes of mutation and transformation run deep throughout Cronenberg's filmography; think of "Dead Ringers," "The Fly," and "M. Butterfly," as examples. The body as identity - for Cronenberg, it's not 'we live in our bodies' but rather 'our bodies live in us.' Or more explicitly, we are organic machines and we can get tune-ups, upgrades; our individual identities coming from, to a large extent, our bodies ("Crash," "eXistenZ") - there is no separation, you are your flesh; and for Cronenberg the flesh is often both deeply sexual and grotesque. Cronenberg has been talking about beauty contests for internal organs since "Dead Ringers." Which is a nice segue to talk about his latest masterpiece, "Crimes of the Future." To me, this movie felt like an accumulation of a body of work, all of Cronenberg's themes and ideas about the body, sexuality, and criminality; and I mean this in the best possible way. What's it all about? Viggo Mortensen (this is his fourth movie with Cronenberg) stars as Saul Tenser, a man who grows internal organs of unknown purpose in his abdomen in a giant walnut like bed/pod. When it's time to have the organ harvested, his partner, Caprice (Léa Seydoux) performs public surgery (while people gawk with martinis and cigarettes) as a piece of performance art - yes it's completely bananas. I found it to be grotesque, perplexing, and wildly entertaining. I don't profess to understand it but was certainly challenged by it. Time flew by. It's must viewing for Cronenberg fans. If you enjoyed "Titane" from my last year's recommended list, then this is your next foray into weird. The future in now. Catch it in cinemas if you can or on streaming services. 

Inland Empire

Recently we lost filmmaker David Lynch. Here in Ottawa, the Mayfair Theatre has once again stepped up and has been putting on a David Lynch retrospective - applause, Mayfair; job well done. I had the good fortune to catch "Inland Empire," one of only two Lynch films I hadn't seen. I like weird, I like surreal. The films of Alejandro Jodorowsky for example, "The Holy Mountain" and "El Topo." And such recent wonders as, "Titane," and "Beau is Afraid." Lynch's other films, "Blue Velvet," "Wild at Heart," "Lost Highway," and "Mulholland Drive" all fall into this dreamscape world. "Inland Empire" might just be Lynch's most ambitious work. It's a movie about a dream, set inside a movie about a dream - maybe? Yes, that makes no sense, and neither does "Inland Empire." It might just be the strangest and most challenging of Lynch's works. Days later I'm still digesting it. Packed with strange situations and repeating themes, it's a mental workout in a gym where everyone suddenly breaks into dancing. Lynch is painting in dreams. As a result, sometimes it feels impenetrable, you're grasping for something to hold onto but the handrail has turned into a homeless person begging for change. This is not for you Marvel film goer. This might not be for those folks who like art films. This is for hardcore Lynch fans and people who like to sit around in coffee shops and pretentiously say, "I watched 'Inland Empire' and it was simply brilliant," (insert person sipping a cappuccino, pinky extended). I jest, although I think there might be some pretentious Criterion film nerd shit going on with anyone who says they love and/or understands this film. It's certainly a film I'm glad I saw and I think it may be Lynch's masterpiece, at least in his own mind, or did I dream that? Go rent it from Movie 'N Stuff here in Ottawa or watch it on the Criterion channel.