ROAR - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Wildlife Nature Adventure Snuff Film 4 Whole Family

REAL LIONS. REAL PEOPLE. REAL MAULING. REAL CRAZY.

Roar (1981)
Dir. Noel Marshall
Starring: Noel Marshall, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith, Kyalo Mativo

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Roar is clearly one of the most insane movies ever made. Oh hell, let's shoot the works and just declare that it is the most insane movie ever made. It stars 150 lions, tigers and other big cats. No animals were harmed during the making of the movie, but 70 people were.

It all began when actress Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie) was in Africa shooting a movie in the mid-60s when she discovered on safari that an entire abandoned mission had been taken over completely by lions.

Ding! Light bulb flashes over Tippi's head! There's a movie in this, she thinks.

Her hubby, producer Noel Marshall agrees. In fact, for a few years, the two of them become wildlife preservation activists and eventually started to rescue lions, tigers and all other manner of big cats and raised them on the grounds of their Beverly Hills mansion. When the menagerie started to get a trifle large, they moved out to Acton, California where they bought up huge tracts of land and set up a wildlife reserve. They kept buying more and more big cats and even elephants - giving them all a safe harbour to live out the rest of their lives peacefully. This is, to my mind, a damn wonderful thing for them to have done, especially given how unscrupulous the wildlife trade has always been (as well as poor animals being exploited in circuses and private zoos).

Maybe not so wonderful is the film they eventually made; not that it's awful - well, actually, it kind of is - but as you're watching the movie, you just keep wondering, "What in the hell am I watching here?" And you know what? That's probably a good thing. So many movies during the past 40-or-so years are such dull, by-the-numbers bore-fests, machine-tooled within an inch of their lives, that anything that forces you to scratch your noggin so hard it starts to bleed has got to have something going for it.

The movie tells the rather insane tale of a guy who runs a huge wild animal preserve. Most of the recipients of his largesse are lions - a ridiculous number of lions (plus tigers, panthers, leopards, cheetahs and the aforementioned elephants). Played by director, co-writer and co-producer Marshall, our hero spends a good deal of screen time wrasslin' his beasts. They are such ornery critters and. BONUS, super cute and loveable. The only problem is, they're lions and tigers for Christ's sake! Marshall's Man Friday and sidekick Mativo, while no Stepin Fetchit, is definitely in Mantan Moreland territory as he goes mega-bug-eyed when the lions and tigers act up - which, during the first half hour of the film is pretty much all the time. (There's even a ludicrous running gag involving Mativo fending off tigers with an umbrella.)

MELANIE GRIFFITH AND LION CAVORT

It turns out that Marshall's family has been away from the compound for some time. Wife Tippi has needed a trial separation from her big-cat-crazy hubby. Now, however, she, their two sons and their mega-hot teenage daughter (Tippi's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith) are due to fly in. Given that the animals are acting up (they even attack and maul some visiting wildlife committee members for the area), Marshall's a tad worried he might be late picking them up at the airport. He and Mativo jump into a boat and go down river. Unfortunately, a couple of tigers jump into the boat and it doesn't take long for it to capsize. This results in a seemingly endless farce involving bicycles and a jeep, all of which break down.

In the meantime, the family has indeed landed and with nobody to greet them, they hope a bus for the wildlife compound. When they arrive, we are treated to one of the most insane, surreal extended sequences ever put on film. The lions and tigers get mighty ornery in Marshall's absence and chase the entire family around the compound, destroying much of the interior of the big house. This feels like it's going to go on forever. Not that it's boring, though. These are real lions and real people.

TIPPI HEDREN IS MAULED BY A CHEETAH,
JAN DE BONT IS MISSING HALF OF HIS SCALP,
A HAPPY-GO-LUCKY WILDERNESS FAMILY REJOICES!!!

Now, seriously, I need to stop for a moment and try to explain how insane this all is? We're basically cross cutting twixt the bumbling Marshall and his bug-eyed Mantan Moreland-wannabe getting into a whole whack o' "fine messes" and a lithe, middle-aged Momma and her brood being chased by lions. At one point, they're even attacked by - I KID YOU NOT - elephants!!! As if these events weren't insane enough, I think it's important to point out that many of the bites, scratches and outright mauling-actions are REAL. The looks of terror on the faces of the actors are not acting, they're real, too.

This is like The Adventures of Wilderness Family as snuff film. During the course of shooting, Marshall got so repeatedly mauled that he almost died from gangrene. Tippi was bitten in the head. The boys were both bitten and Melanie Griffith was so horrifically mauled, that she required major reconstructive surgery.

Cinematographer Jan De Bont (he'd shot many of Paul Verhoeven's Dutch films and directed Speed, Speed 2 and Twister) had pretty much half of his scalp torn right off.

The plot, such as it is, eventually allows the family to get back together in an utterly harrowing climactic sequence. There's also a subplot involving some wildlife committee members who decide they're going to shoot all of Marshall's lions in retaliation for the mauling they received earlier. After shooting a few helpless beasts, the alpha lion attacks them and tears their throats out. Marshall tells Mantan Mativo not to say anything to the wife and kids so as not to ruin their reunification. We're then treated to a ten-or-so-minute-long montage sequence of the happy family and lions with a gentle folk song on the soundtrack.

Roar, from conception to finished product took 11 years. The principal photography alone took 4 years. The budget soared to a reported $17 million, the vast chunk of the money coming from Hedren and Marshall's combined savings, earnings and real estate. (Marshall actually made a small fortune from his royalties on such hit films that he executive-produced like The Exorcist and The Harrad Experiment.) But, really, $17 million??? Look, 17-mill is nothing to sneeze at, even though in today's bucks, it's considered a pittance for most pictures, but by 1981, when Roar was finally completed and released (to zippo boxoffice) this was a HUMUNGOUS amount of money.

Frankly, I don't even know where the film is supposed to take place. There's some odd thank you to the Massai nation at the beginning of the movie and many African actors populate supporting roles. Sometimes it looks like we're in Africa, but most of the time, it looks like we're in Acton, California surrounded by wild beasts from Africa. And guess what? It really doesn't matter. This movie could only be set in the never-never land it appears to take place in.

The film has barely been seen since 1981, but now, thanks to Drafthouse Films, Roar has been restored to its former glory for a theatrical release followed by a huge Blu-Ray/DVD run.

And here's the rub, I can't actually say the picture is awful, nor can I say it's good. I really have no idea what to say other than the fact that it's unlike anything you'll ever see. It's gorgeously shot, some of the suspense and action scenes are definitely hair-raising and most of the acting (when it is acting and not real terror) is pretty good. Tippi Hedren, in particular, makes quite a terrific Perils of Pauline figure as she seems to get into the most ludicrously dangerous animal-dodging gymnastics and little Melanie is just plain mouth-wateringly gorgeous. Director Marshall, however, is a dreadful actor. He's so overwrought you just want to punch him in the face. It won't be necessary, though. He got gangrene for his troubles and egregious ham-boning.

A year after the film flopped, Marshall and Hedren divorced. Wilderness Families only live happily ever after in the movies.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3 Stars (though it's really impossible to rate this at all)

Roar is playing in a variety of special engagements. In Toronto, it can be seen in repertory all through the month of May at the Royal Cinema. You really want to see this on a big screen. The bigger the better.

CHEAP THRILLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Raven Banner's Sinister Cinema presents first-rate sicko thriller!

Cheap Thrills (2013) ***1/2
dir. E. L. Katz Script: David Chirchirillo, Trent Haaga
Starring: Pat Healy, David Koechner, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton,

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You need dough. You need it bad.

If someone were to offer you substantial wads of cold, hard, tax-free cash for your troubles, would you consider any of the following?

- Chop your pinky off, then allow cauterization with an iron?

- Slap a stripper's ass in a club with a no-touching policy?

- Break into a house and take a shit in the living room?

- Kill your friend?

- Eat a pet?

A better question might be, who in the name of Jesus H. Christ would even make such grotesque offers?

The answer is simple - a very generous gentleman (David Koechner, one of the world's greatest living character actors) who merely wishes to give his gorgeous girlfriend (Sara Paxton, the sultry star of The Innkeepers) a birthday celebration she'll never forget. This seems reasonable, mais non? After all, we live in a world sharply divided between the haves and the have-nots. In such a world, anything and everything is possible.

Such is the world of Cheap Thrills, a horrifically funny and terrifying thriller with a great script by David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga, taut direction from E.L. Katz in his feature debut and a cast to die for.

Craig (Pat Healy, intense, funny indie darling co-star of The Inkeepers) seems to have it all - a beautiful wife, a bouncing chubby baby, a nice place to live, a university education, a joe-job at a nearby service station to pay the bills while he tries to kick-start his career as a writer and a kind of geeky charm that makes you think he'd be a cool guy to know. Whilst leaving home for work one fine morning, he finds an eviction notice on the front door. He's in arrears for the amount of 4500 smacks and has 7 days to rectify matters or everyone's going to be booted into the streets. To add insult to injury, he loses his job that day. Times are tough for everyone.

Understandably depressed, he wanders the streets and finds himself in an old neighbourhood where he made a few wrong moves 5-or-so years ago during a not-so-sober phase. He's a recovering alcoholic, you see, and it's probably not the best idea he's ever had to step into a bar he spent far too much time in during those booze-fuelled days. He runs into Vince (Ethan Embry), an old friend he hasn't seen since those seedy days of debauchery. It's a happy reunion, but tinged with a bittersweetness. Craig has moved on with his life, Vince is stuck in the same old rut. Craig admits all is not peaches and cream, while Vince reveals a shade of feeling abandoned by his old pal.

No matter. It's a man's world, and in a man's world, a bud's a bud and you put shit behind you so it's like nothing ever happened. The notion of "so it's like nothing ever happened" becomes an even stronger thematic element as the film proceeds. And proceed it does - our buds meet up with Colin (Koechner), a hip, friendly, funny and boisterous mans man adorned in a cool pork pie hat who asks the guys to be a part of the birthday celebrations for his sultry girlfriend Violet (Paxton).

Soon, he's asking the lads to engage in all manner of naughty and/or downright dangerous shenanigans for wads of dough that he keeps flashing and tossing at them after they've done his bidding. Violet uses her smart phone to capture the tender moments forever (offering politely to email the snaps to the lads if they desire copies). As the intensity of the requests increases, our lads are convinced to hang in for the duration as Colin reminds them that no matter where any of them are in their lives, they will never forget the events of this evening.

The truth of this sinks in, not just for our old pals, but for us too. This is a fantasy worth sticking with and we're almost convinced, as we live vicariously through the lives of our onscreen characters, that we might almost want to experience something like this is real life. Watching people do increasingly nasty stuff for money is fun, but the thought of possibly engaging in such activities ourselves is not only tempting, but makes for an especially thrilling ride.

In many ways, the movie is the ultimate adult fantasy. "Hey, fuck my gorgeous wife in front of me while I jerk off and I'll pay all your back rent." You pretend to go all tut-tut-tut and say this is beyond the pale. Fuck you. I'm going to pull out the Klymkiw Family Motto that goes back to the Old Country when Mongols were raping our ancient Ukrainian grannies' twat-in-skis off: "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." Dearest Reader, seriously, don't get all high and mighty on me here. You'd do it, too. It's a good deal, a shitload of fun and yes, something you'll never, ever forget.

Of course, this is what the clever script of Cheap Thrills is up to. It wants you to face the hard truth about yourself. It does it with morbid, laugh-out-loud humour, total conviction, no annoying tongue-in-cheekness and best of all, no bullshit moralizing. By rendering this all with a straight face, but with the spirit of good, old fashioned American chutzpah instead, say, that of Michael Haneke (or recent Cronenberg) preciousness, ephemeral mindless studio-styled roller coaster rides with no subtext or worse, Canadian indie twee-ness mixed with Toronto Presbyterianism. This team of filmmakers and actors hand us our innards on a silver platter and we scarf the fuckers down with relish and abandon.

This is blistering movie-making at its finest. If I'm gypping the movie out of half a star (yeah - using "gyp" is pejorative, I'm not fucking stupid), it's only because I kind of saw the genuinely shocking (as if the movie wasn't shocking enough) denouement coming from a few miles away. I'll chalk that up to being a sick-fuck and/or just seeing way too many movies, reading too many fucking books and just being a smart-ass son of a bitch.

In the meantime, don't miss this on a big screen (or at least on Blu-Ray) - it's too damn good to simply V.O.D. (Though if you must, it's better than not seeing it at all.)

Raven Banner Entertainment's Sinister Cinema presents CHEAP THRILLS March 27, 2014 at 7:30pm all across Canada. Additional showings in Toronto will be featured at the Yonge-Dundas Cinemas (formerly the AMC) on Mar 27, 28, 29, 30, Apr 1, 3, 2014. Check Toronto listings for confirmed dates and times. The cross-canada showings on March 27 will be at the following venues:

Scotiabank Theatre Chinook - Calgary, AB
Scotiabank Theatre Edmonton - Edmonton, AB
Cineplex Cinemas Saint John - Saint John, NB
Cineplex Cinemas Avalon Mall - St. John's, NL
Cineplex Odeon Victoria Cinemas - Victoria, BC
SilverCity Riverport Cinemas - Richmond, BC
Galaxy Cinemas Nanaimo - Nanaimo, BC
Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas - Vancouver, BC
Colossus Langley Cinemas - Langley, BC
SilverCity Polo Park Cinemas- Winnipeg, MB
SilverCity Sudbury Cinemas- Sudbury, ON
Galaxy Cinemas Regina - Regina, SK
Galaxy Cinemas Saskatoon - Saskatoon, SK
SilverCity Fairview Mall Cinemas - Toronto, ON
Cineplex Odeon Winston Churchill Cinemas - Oakville, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Yonge-Dundas Cinemas - Toronto, ON
Cineplex Odeon Eglinton Town Centre Cinemas - Scarborough, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Queensway and VIP - Etobicoke, ON
Colossus Vaughan Cinemas - Woodbridge, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga - Mississauga, ON
Coliseum Ottawa Cinemas - Ottawa, ON
SilverCity Gloucester Cinemas - Ottawa, ON
Cineplex Cinemas Bayers Lake - Halifax, NS
Cineplex Odeon Forum Cinemas - Montreal, QC
Cineplex Odeon Devonshire Mall Cinemas - Windsor, ON
Galaxy Cinemas Waterloo - Waterloo, ON
SilverCity Hamilton Cinemas - Hamilton, ON
SilverCity London Cinemas - London, ON

CHEAP THRILLS is distributed through Pacific Northwest Pictures, currently playing in select Canadian cities and will be released theatrically in the US via Drafthouse Films.

For further info on Raven Banner and Sinister Cinema, Click HERE.

WAKE IN FRIGHT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Canadian Director Ted Kotcheff's 1971 Classic exploration of machismo on the Australian outback now on the big screen and Blu-Ray. Savage, brutal and horrifying depiction of life in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Wake in Fright – also known as: Outback (1971) Dir. Ted Kotcheff
Starring: Donald Pleasance, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Al Thomas, Jack Thompson, Peter Whittle and Sylvia Kay

****

By Greg Klymkiw

It seems unthinkable in this day and age of film preservation and restoration that a motion picture classic made – not during the silent period of the early 20th century, but in 1971, a Cannes Palme D’Or nominee no less, and often cited (along with Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout from the same year) as the beginning of Australia’s revitalization as a filmmaking force – was one week away from having all of its original negative elements destroyed. After a two-year search all over the world at his own expense, the film’s editor Anthony Buckley finally discovered the elements in the bowels of the CBS vaults in Pittsburgh (no less) in a pile of items marked to be “junked” (industry parlance for “destroyed”) and, I reiterate, ONE WEEK from the date he found them.

Because of his Herculean efforts as well as the frame-by-frame restoration by the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia and Deluxe Labs, Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright (released outside of Australia as Outback) has a new lease on life – to shock and mesmerize audiences all over the world. Screened at Cannes in May of 2009 (only one of two features ever to be screened on two separate occasions at Cannes) and in a special presentation featuring Kotcheff in a personal dialogue on the film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, Wake in Fright stands as one of the most powerful explorations of male savagery in the context of a topography that seems as rugged and barren as the surface of the Moon. In a world of Samuel Fuller and Sam Peckinpah, Kotcheff’s brilliant film holds its own.

I first saw the movie when I was about 13 or 14 years old as Outback during a late night showing on the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) when, during this time, Canadian content guidelines allowed for the broadcast of ANY film that came from Britain’s Commonwealth to meet said guidelines. (Because of this, we saw some really fine movies and TV series during the 60s and 70s.) It was a movie that completely bewildered and obsessed me. Even a full frame standard telecine transfer did not detract from its strangeness, its terrible and terrifying beauty and its depiction of a world so foreign to my own, yet seeming to be imbued with a quality that suggested to me, even then, that what I was seeing was the stuff of life itself. For over thirty years I looked and waited, seemingly in vain, to see it again. To think I almost didn’t have that opportunity because of the aforementioned disappearance and death sentence is now, after seeing it again much older and (hopefully) wiser (on a big screen in a pristine, lovingly restored 35mm print), makes me feel like I have been witness to a miracle.

And what a miracle this movie is! Kotcheff, the Canadian born, raised and trained director (trained via and not unlike Norman Jewison, within the legendary CBC television drama department of the late 50s and early 60s), has made his fair share of good pictures – most notably the Berlin Golden Bear Award winner The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, the droll Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and the first and, by far, the best of the Rambo pictures First Blood – but nothing in his canon comes close to the mind boggling perfection of Wake in Fright.

Stunningly photographed by Brian West, the picture opens on one spot of the desolation that is the outback of Australia and the camera proceeds to do a slow 360 degree turn – shocking us with the reality that the land is the same whichever direction one looks and that it seems to go on forever. Into this environment we’re introduced to the impeccably groomed and fussily attired schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) who is about to leave the two-building rail town for a much-needed vacation to Sydney.

Grant describes his position as being enslaved to the Ministry of Education as they have required all new teachers to post a one-thousand-dollar bond to ensure they serve their entire first term in the most desolate postings imaginable. During a stopover in the bleak mining town of Bundanyabba, Grant meets Jock (played by legendary Aussie actor Chips Rafferty), an amiable policeman who plies him with beer. Soon our hero drunkenly indulges in a frenzied gambling spree and loses all of his money. Stranded, perpetually drunk and eventually and brain-numbingly hung-over, Grant is hosted by a motley crew of locals (several hard drinking macho men and one extremely horny single female) who proceed to take him into the very heart of the Australian darkness.

It appears Australians enjoy getting loaded and going out into the wilderness in the middle of the night to mercilessly slaughter kangaroos for fun.

The kangaroo hunt sequence is utterly sickening. It's impossible to believe it was all captured without using real kangaroos really being shot. Well, believe it. This was the 70s. People made real movies then and the sequence involves real kangaroos, real firearms and real carnage. It's supposed to be sickening an horrifyingly real - and it is. Enjoy!

Grant is practically force-fed steady supplies of beer, seduced by the lonely woman (which is scuttled when he pukes while trying to penetrate her), taken on a mad, drunken and vicious kangaroo hunt and finally locked in a sweaty, smelly and almost violently homoerotic coupling with the mad alcoholic doctor Tydon (a malevolent Donald Pleasance).

Donald Pleasance proves to be not too pleasant.

At first, we are shown a passive observer, but as the film progresses, he regresses to the same savage state as the men he initially holds his nose up to and he decidedly and actively engages in acts so barbaric that he is forced to confront his inner demons and is sickened to the point of contemplating suicide.

Not unlike the world of playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Edward Albee, we find ourselves in the realm of alcohol-fueled depravity and game playing. Like any respectable Walpurgisnacht, booze is sloshed into empty cups with abandon and full cups are drained greedily, but these pagans who celebrate ARE the tortured spirits walking amongst the living and any bonfires they create seemed to be aimed squarely at themselves. Furthermore, the movie presents a “Paradise Lost” situation where depravity is merely presented and much like John Milton’s “hero”, Grant makes a conscious choice to immerse himself in the foul macho shenanigans like a pig in shit.

This is one daring, nasty piece of work and without question, the movie Kotcheff will ultimately be best remembered for. He not only elicits fine performances from a stellar cast, but his mise-en-scene is pretty much perfect.

It’s also no coincidence that he is Canadian and perhaps the perfect director outside of Australia to have tackled this story so rooted in that nation’s pathology. Given that the vast majority of Canada’s population resides within 100 kms along the Canadian and U.S. border, the rest of this vast country north of the 49th parallel is not unlike the world of the Australian outback. (To all non-Canadians: just think of a land populated by SCTV’s hosers Bob and Doug McKenzie – seemingly benign, but below the simpleton surface, a roiling, frustrated, angry, bitter nation of moose-hunting psychopaths.)

As well, it is no surprise that it was Anthony Buckley, the editor of the film, who searched high and low for the lost negative elements, since the cutting in this picture has few equals. For the most part, things are delivered at a steady, unobtrusive pace, but when we’re in the territory of dreams or overtly physical action, the editing veers from measured to positively Eisensteinian. At times, the action borders on the hypnotic, while at other points, it’s as jarring and disturbing as the images and action engaged in by the characters.

This action, as designed by director Kotcheff, is expertly blocked. His shot choices are impeccable and most importantly, he seems perfectly at home in capturing the claustrophobic nature of both barren exteriors and interiors – where the only way to break free is to rage against the dying of the light that has, for the characters who populate this world, become life itself.

This picture rages, alright!

It’s one hell of a ride and we’re all the better for it.

"WAKE IN FRIGHT" is currently playing in Toronto at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX. Please do yourself a favour and see it on a BIG SCREEN. For tickets and further information, please visit the TIFF website HERE.

Then buy the Drafthouse Films Blu-Ray, or if you must, DVD.

BULLHEAD (RUNDSKOP) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Staggering Belgian crime melodrama: Absolute MUST-SEE - Opens Theatrically in UK & available in North America on BLU-RAY & DVD

Bullhead (Rundskop) dir. Michael R. Roskam (2011)

Starring: Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's all about meat.

Then again, why wouldn’t it be?

Michael R. Roskam's unique and harrowing crime melodrama Bullhead is a dark, classic tale of friendship and betrayal against one of the most original backdrops ever utilized in a gangster picture. Hallmarks of the genre – double crosses, filthy brute force, intimidation of the worst kind and Goodfellas-styled hoods are transplanted into the roles of two-fisted laconic farmers, veterinarians and feed suppliers.

In Belgium, no less.

It's film noir crossed with a sprawling, operatic, Visconti-like virtuosity, yet tinged with the earthy stench of cow shit mixed with the sour metallic odour of blood.

Witness:

A super-buff stud works out maniacally in the dark after plunging steroids into his firm, sleek buttocks.

A cow's belly is sliced open without painkiller - whereupon, a pair of huge, powerful hands rip a calf from within and deposit the dazed newborn covered with glistening viscera into a filthy metal tub.

A brick is lifted high in the air - seemingly trying to touch the heavens before it is slammed down repeatedly to smash a pair of testicles to a pulp.

An ecstasy-and-booze-filled ladies man is dragged out of the glare of a lone street lamp and hauled into the shadows of night where he's so viciously beaten that he'll live his life as a vegetable.

Covert dinner meetings between thugs - fuelled by booze and sumptuously-prepared steaks - occur surreptitiously on farms, in barns and within feed warehouses. Deals, deliveries and alliances are discussed as forks and knives dig savagely into slabs of meat on platters garnished with little more than boiled potatoes - soaking up pools of blood and fat that ooze from the steroid-enhanced comestibles.

Bucolic Belgian farmlands at dusk and twilight mask an evil criminal world of organized steroid users and purveyors - peddling livestock pumped to the max with growth-and-fat-enhancing drugs.

This is one great and original gangster picture. From the innocence of childhood to the corruption-tarnished cusp between youth and middle age, writer-director Michael R. Roskam charts the friendship between Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts) and Diederik (Jeroen Perceval). As kids they are groomed for a life in illicit meat manufacturing and their lives are as inextricably linked as they are estranged after an early tragedy results in a dizzying criminal ascension and a downward-spiralling fate.

Roskam's screenplay brilliantly lays out a myriad of crooked relationships, complex and virtually impenetrable "business deals" and friendships that are as intense as they are fraught with guilt mixed with immoral layers. The ins and outs of the "mysteries" become as obtuse as those in The Big Sleep. At times, we think we have a grasp on what's happening, but the layers of plot are ultimately too thick to follow. It almost doesn't matter. What we know for certain is that bad shit is coming down. That's all we really need to know.

Through it all is the staggering performance of Matthias Schoenaerts - brooding, physical and steeped in humanity. His eyes are extraordinary - shifting in one moment from soulful to dead like a shark.

Roskam's mise-en-scene is first rate. His compositions are painterly and the cinematography manages to capture a sense of dreariness so that it's positively exciting - etching night exteriors like masterly impressionist paintings and dramatic picture compositions that are as thrilling as they're simplistically evocative in terms of both spatial geography and the ever-shifting dynamics of the characters.

The pace is out of this world. It's not machine-gun-like in any way, but weirdly evokes the country life - it's slow, but never lugubrious. Roskam hooks us like a Master and leads us where he needs to and wants to - on HIS terms and those that the story demands.

Early in the film, we hear a life manifesto that boils down to one thing - everything is fucked.

And so it is in Bullhead. It's gloriously, deliriously and viciously fucked - an amoral, cynical, nihilistic and narcissistic 70s style of nastiness brought miraculously to life in a contemporary world of cow shit and gangsters.

We even get some redemption, but a steep price is paid for it.

As it should be.

"Bullhead" is opening theatrically in the UK and is available on Blu-Ray and DVD in North American via Drafthouse Films. It played in Canada at Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2012. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER DIRECTLY FROM THE AMAZON LINKS BELOW AND ASSIST IN THE MAINTENANCE OF THIS SITE.

BULLHEAD (RUNDSKOP) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Staggering Belgian crime melodrama an absolute MUST-SEE at Inside Out 2012, Toronto's LGBT Film Festival - Sunday, May 20, 9:30pm @ TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema #1

BullHead (Rundskop) dir. Michael R. Roskam (2011)

Starring: Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's all about meat.

A super-buff stud works out maniacally in the dark after plunging steroids into his firm, sleek buttocks.

A cow's belly is sliced open without painkiller - whereupon, a pair of huge, powerful hands rip a calf from within and deposit the dazed newborn covered with glistening viscera into a filthy metal tub.

A brick is lifted high in the air - seemingly trying to touch the heavens before it is slammed down repeatedly to smash a pair of testicles to a pulp.

An ecstasy-and-booze-filled ladies man is dragged out of the glare of a lone street lamp and hauled into the shadows of night where he's so viciously beaten that he'll live his life as a vegetable.

Covert dinner meetings between thugs - fuelled by booze and sumptuously-prepared steaks - occur surreptitiously on farms, in barns and within feed warehouses. Deals, deliveries and alliances are discussed as forks and knives dig savagely into slabs of meat on platters garnished with little more than boiled potatoes - soaking up pools of blood and fat that ooze from the steroid-enhanced comestibles.

Bucolic Belgian farmlands at dusk and twilight mask an evil criminal world of organized steroid users and purveyors - peddling livestock pumped to the max with growth-and-fat-enhancing drugs.

This is the strange and compelling world of Michael R. Roskam's powerful Best Foreign Language Academy Award Nominee from Beligium - the unique and harrowing crime melodrama Bull Head. It's a dark, classic tale of friendship and betrayal against one of the most original backdrops for any gangster film ever made. This world of double-crosses, filthy brute force and intimidation of the worst kind is like transplanting the gangsters of Goodfellas into the roles of two-fisted laconic farmers, veterinarians and feed suppliers - in Belgium, no less.

It's film noir crossed with a sprawling, operatic, Visconti-like virtuosity, yet tinged with the earthy stench of cow shit mixed with the sour metallic odour of blood.

This is one great and original gangster picture. From the innocence of childhood to the corruption-tarnished cusp between youth and middle age, writer-director Michael R. Roskam charts the friendship between Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts) and Diederik (Jeroen Perceval). As kids they are groomed for a life in illicit meat manufacturing and their lives are as inextricably linked as they are estranged after an early tragedy results in a dizzying criminal ascension and a downward-spiralling fate.

Roskam's screenplay brilliantly lays out a myriad of crooked relationships, complex and virtually impenetrable "business deals" and friendships that are as intense as they are fraught with guilt mixed with immoral layers. The ins and outs of the "mysteries" become as obtuse as those in The Big Sleep. At times, we think we have a grasp on what's happening, but the layers of plot are ultimately too thick to follow. It almost doesn't matter. What we know for certain is that bad shit is coming down. That's all we really need to know.

Through it all is the staggering performance of Matthias Schoenaerts - brooding, physical and steeped in humanity. His eyes are extraordinary - shifting in one moment from soulful to dead like a shark.

Roskam's mise-en-scene is first rate. His compositions are painterly and the cinematography manages to capture a sense of dreariness so that it's positively exciting - etching night exteriors like masterly impressionist paintings and dramatic picture compositions that are as thrilling as they're simplistically evocative in terms of both spatial geography and the ever-shifting dynamics of the characters.

The pace is out of this world. It's not machine-gun-like in any way, but weirdly evokes the country life - it's slow, but never lugubrious. Roskam hooks us like a Master and leads us where he needs to and wants to - on HIS terms and those that the story demands.

Early in the film, we hear a life manifesto that boils down to one thing - everything is fucked.

And so it is in Bull Head. It's gloriously, deliriously and viciously fucked - an amoral, cynical, nihilistic and narcissistic 70s style of nastiness brought miraculously to life in a contemporary world of cow shit and gangsters.

We even get some redemption, but a steep price is paid for it.

As it should be.

"Bullhead" is playing at Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2012. For tickets, visit the festival's website HERE