Next to last day of the fest! A week in but I’m still going strong. Unfortunately we weren’t off to a strong start today… But we ended strong!
Death Has No Master – A woman (Asia Argento) returns to her childhood cacao plantation in Venezuela to sell it but must contend with squatters and PTSD. You wouldn’t think that’s enough plot to sustain a movie and you would be right. Billed as “slow burn,” it teases flashbacks that never go anywhere, and deliberately or accidentally refuses to let you make an emotional connection with anyone or anything. It wants to talk should colonialism and whatnot but doesn’t seem to have any real point. By the time the violence starts, it’s not just ambiguous who deserves it but also why we should care. 1/5
Corpus – A movie that dares to ask the question “can the power of cocaine enable a twink to overcome witchcraft?” Stay tuned for the answer. A New York photographer slash drug dealer, his model ex-boyfriend, and their younger version of Jason Manzoukas bro go out to a mansion in the middle of nowhere to party with a photographer who looks like Charlize Theron, her elderly Asian girlfriend, and a feral model girl. Hijinks and eventually stabbings ensue. Way too slow and no discernible point. 2/5
5 More Minutes – There’s a 5 minute “Groundhog Day” style time loop in this Spanish film but it is happening to everyone everywhere – but things or people damaged stay damaged. A couple whose marriage is on the rocks heads out to a tech-disconnected Airbnb in the country when it hits. You don’t heal and people freak out and mistrust each other so the stakes and consequences get higher each time. Enjoyable and funny but as the start and end are completely unexplained it seemed a little hollow. 3/5
Each movie today has beem getting a little better, but I was not prepared for the next…
A Prayer For The Dying – Based on the Stewart O’Nan book of the same name, this is a Western, set in Friendship, Wisconsin in 1870. It stars British folk singer Johnny Flynn as the Jacob, a combination sheriff, pastor, and undertaker, and John C. Reilly as the town doctor. A diphtheria outbreak and wildfires threaten the town as Jacob has to make increasingly hard decisions about how to keep the townsfolk safe in a world that provides no way out sometimes. It’s a heavy psychological drama about the burden of responsibility and is in a class above the other films I saw here. It’s sometimes dislocating, sometimes impressionist or surreal, sometimes painfully realistic. I haven’t read the novel but I get the sense it’s one part Cormac McCarthy and one part Daniel Kraus’ “Angel Down.” Why is a Western with A list stars at Fantastic Fest? Apparently no one in Hollywood was willing to take a high concept risk and let director Dara Van Dusen make it in the U.S. so she went to Finland to get a producer and shot it in Slovakia. Instead we get the trash we deserve I guess. 5/5
I discovered with a start that I already have the novel on my Kindle so I plan on reading it and apparently it is visually inspired by a book called Wisconsin Death Trip which in turn has a documentary which I also intend to dig into.
There was still a midnight showing to go but I was so affected by this film I needed to go home and lie down, so that’s what I did instead.
