2022 CATCH-UP: PART TWO
The summer days have come and gone, and so have all the tent-pole movies. Which is fine by me as I ponder the best way to fit in more than twenty Zatoichi stories or everything that Anthony Wong has ever shown up in. The allure of modern blockbusters fades as the days get shorter. How can I spare time for yet more Doctor Strange when there are Ringo Lam movies to revisit? However, there are some glimpses of imagination out there in the wilderness, even if they're too weird for mainstream tastes and are likely to mean the artists involved won't be given a budget to work with again. The individual components might not be fresh, but they're assembled with creativity.
First it's time for a Norse period piece. Not one in the vein of a Long Ships or The Vikings type of adventure like everyone's Dad always used to watch mind you. Appropriately from the makers of The Lighthouse this is a kind of dream-like voyage, a counterpoint to the previous nightmare. The Northman is filled with vivid molten fires and sweeping Icelandic vistas, replacing the black and white claustrophobia. In some ways this means that the film has a fairly broad appeal. It's a mythological tale about revenge, familiar to anyone who's read Hamlet or seen The Lion King. Perhaps the closest cinematic revenge story would be Conan The Barbarian. But these elements are played with in a way that means nothing is what it seems.
Beyond the straightforward opening, in which a prince is orphaned so his scheming uncle can take the throne, this is an ethereal and erratic narrative. Vikings bark at each other and writhe around under the influence of mushrooms. It's a sombre experience but it's full of eclectic moments of levity, again calling back to The Lighthouse. Some will be turned off by the mixture of bizarre sequences and gritty violence. But others, like myself, will be refreshed to see a film which doesn't simply paint by the numbers. The revenge story isn't so simplistic, and it toys with the idea of what it means to reach adulthood and become a warrior. There aren't too many twists and turns, but there are enough intriguing moments along the way.
It helps that this is all told in such an eye-catching fashion. The bleak grey action beats are broken up by fantasy sequences in dreams and visions. Björk shows up as a witch, skeletal warriors rise from their tombs, and decapitated heads provide exposition. Which parts are drug fuelled hallucination and which are simply naive day dreams? That's up to the viewer of course. The gruelling reality of ancient people living in a harsh climate is balanced out by all the wild visions on offer. There's spectacle, there's romance and there's action. Willem Dafoe is a convincingly grizzled Viking, Nicole Kidman not so much. And yet despite these broad strokes it won't be for everyone. Just the people looking for something exactly like this.
4/5
Speaking of weird movies that appeal to a certain type of weird audience... Everything Everywhere All At Once is a story of dysfunctional families. It's also about hopping between parallel dimensions. It's also a Michelle Yeoh movie. So while the latter is something I can never get enough of, the other ingredients have been done before. And yes there are a lot of ideas taken from previous ideas, whether they're recent ones like superhero stories or older films like The Matrix. Luckily the execution is pretty new and vibrant. Neo and Trinity certainly never learned new skills like the characters in this story. It's a kind of old is new again type of situation, done with gross out humour and heartfelt character moments.
But when the familiar pieces include James Hong and Ke Huy Quan it's hard to complain. The dimension hopping serves to tell a story instead of just being a lot of hollow computer driven spectacle. The family disputes are weird and complicated instead of just feeling flat and perfunctory. All the Quantum Leap (or Sliders if you prefer) style weirdness is a way to show that life is about possible choices, for better or worse. So as our hero fights against an outrageous and nonsensical doomsday scenario, she's also fighting to keep her family business and her family ties from being lost. Which is a blessing when most blockbusters can't do better than the nonsensical part these days.
The action is fun if never reaching the level of anything made between the peak Michelle Yeoh vehicles Yes Madam and Crouching Tiger. Which is fine because it's not that kind of movie. Some of the best moments are scenes between talking rocks, so when someone says that all A24 productions are the same you can call them out on that bullshit. Where else can you find both a divorce drama and an action scene involving a tiny dog as a weapon? It runs a little long once the emotional conclusions begin to fall into place, and the anarchic tone doesn't always land. But it's something spicy in a sea of bland releases and that's what counts.
4/5
Last, but in some ways least is Phil Tippet's long gestating Mad God. Which is a shame because in comparison to those movies discussed above it was something I greatly anticipated. However, while there's a lot of great stuff to be found in this passion project it doesn't quite hit the mark. Don't get me wrong, this is a weird, twisted and incredibly creative endeavour. I have nothing but praise for someone making a stop-motion movie in this day and age - particularly someone who saw the decline of the art form first hand. In the space of a few years the likes of ED-209 had been resigned to the history books thanks to computer generated effects. But there are elements of this swansong that feel like what they are; a patchwork of scenes worked on over several decades.
For the most part however this is a gruesome tale of the worst elements of war, religion and medical research. Read into it all what you will, it's not a direct narrative. A strange mask wearing figure descends into several circles of hell and comes across the brutality of mechanised warfare and industrialised labour. It's filled with intricate designs and grimy models which give the viewer time to consider the subtext of a largely dialogue free story. There's no shortage of monsters and mutants in as the lone explorer moves from one bizarre arena to the next. It's often bloody an often thought provoking, existing in a baroque dream-scape somewhere between Oddworld and Eraserhead. As things progress there's little in terms of beauty or levity, but that's clearly by design.
However there is a caveat to all of this, as at some stage it becomes clear there were some limitations on the production. Which seems odd to admit given how many years this took to complete. The problems come in the form of real actors in an extended live-action sequence. It really goes on for too long and stands out like a sore thumb, despite the efforts to make it fit the same style. Later Alex Cox, yes the film director and TV presenter, appears as a cult leader and things drag even more. The most grating element involves a strange child that never stops crying in a repetitive sound-bite. It was grim early on but this is just patience testing. Which means that in the end there's a sense time or money ran out, and the brief eighty minute running time could have been shorter. It's incredible that this was finally completed and this is often a gripping experience, but these issues are a let down.
3/5
