THE SUBLET - Review By Greg Klymkiw - BLOOD IN THE SNOW (BITS) FILM FESTIVAL 2016

The Sublet (2015)
Dir. John Ainslie
Scr. Alyson Richards, John Ainslie

Starring: Tianna Nori, Mark Matechuk, Krista Madison,
Rachel Sellan, Liv Collins, Mary-Elizabeth Willcott

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There are many creepy things about The Sublet. One of the creepiest is the sublet itself and everything it represents. When a young couple (Tianna Nori, Mark Matechuk) and newborn baby move into a mysterious walk-up flat, they should in all likelihood, have figured out that something wasn't quite right.

Sometimes in life and almost always in the movies, such ciphering proves elusive.

Besides, the price and location are right and the place itself is so spacious and comfortable that eccentricities like communicating with a landlord by note might be weird, but what's a bit of eccentricity when everything else seems so perfect?




But that's not all. The place is graced with furniture and tchockes from the previous longtime tenant. Most of it seems just fine, but some of it clearly belongs to someone (or, God forbid, something) that's completely and utterly bunyip.

Queerly, it turns out the flat's address is not even registered as an address with any of the local cable, phone and internet companies. Yeah, that is weird, but it could also be seen as a blessing in disguise.

One of the ickier elements in the flat is the one locked door and no key to go with it. Our couple assume the room is storing private property. Curiosity will, however, eventually rear its ugly head. And curiosity, as we all know, is what killed the cat.

All of this aside, what might really worry me, is the disturbingly ghoulish homeless woman who always stands outside, looking up and drilling holes of both fury and despair into the flat's windows. One might always be wondering, fearing if the lady's acquaintance will be made. If so, will it be benign? Or something unimaginably horrifying?

The aforementioned comprise some of the more familiar, though delightfully oddball genre elements of the screenplay by Alison Richards and director Ainslie, but where they really come into play is in the areas the picture excels in. This is, in many ways a story of deep loneliness and how it manifests itself into sheer, unrelenting horror.

Our stay-at-home Mom grapples with her feelings of postpartum worthlessness and body image as her self-absorbed, pretentious actor husband provides plenty of reasons for wifey to be jealous, suspicious and downright angry. In retaliation she grasps out for any reality beyond the mundane, even if said reality is either a manifestation of mental illness or something altogether paranormal, or perhaps even both.

As a director, Ainslie is clearly playing in the Roman Polanski sandbox of horrific delights, bringing an atmospheric, measured pace, thick with dread and dappled with unexpected bursts of thick liquid crimson during moments of sickening violence which may or may not be real.

His mise-en-scene brings to mind Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant with dollops of Don't Look Now for good measure. None of this, however, is derivative, nor is it displayed in geek fanboy homage. It's designed to deliver jolts that are rooted specifically in the dramatic elements of the screenplay and if anything, to provide a springboard for what Ainslie learned from the Masters to offer-up chills and thrills that are all his own.

There are a few trifling problems with the film. One of the supporting performances is so godawful that you can't believe the performer wasn't fired after uttering one clunky line reading after another. Luckily there is a little pot of gold at the end of this otherwise wretched rainbow that no matter how mind-numbingly incompetent the performance is, you're distracted by the exotic sex-drenched look of the thespian in question.

There is one story element involving the discovery of a secret diary and the readings from it are annoyingly on-point, exemplifying audience hand-holding of the most egregious kind. Worse yet are elements in the tail end of the picture which you'll occasionally realize are distinct possibilities for how it'll all tie up, but you hope and pray the picture won't go there. When it does, the heart sinks.

It is possible, however, that most audiences these days are so stupid they won't see it coming, but even so, it's never a good idea to shoehorn such obvious elements into what is mostly a very unique experience. It gives short shrift even to the dribbling idiots of the Great Unwashed.

I've seen enough movies in my life to sense in cases like this where filmmakers have been forced to compromise their vision by one or more of the following: boneheaded producers, boneheaded financiers, boneheaded distributors and/or broadcasters, boneheaded government funding mavens and all the other boneheaded holders-of-purse-strings types.

All I dare add to this most learned assumption of mine is that the lack of artistic acumen amongst the aforementioned head honchos does indeed place them on the same level as The Great Unwashed.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***1/2 3-and-a-Half Stars

The Sublet is the Closing Night Gala at the 2016 Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS)

THE MAN IN THE ORANGE JACKET - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Latvia Yields Sickness @FantAsia 2014 in Montreal

Proletarian banality in Latvia.

The Man in the Orange Jacket (2014)
Dir. Aik Karapetian
Starring: Maxim Lazarev, Aris Rozentals, Anta Aizupe

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This might be one of the most vile movies I've seen in quite awhile. I suspect most audiences will find it either reprehensible or boring (or both), but ultimately, I think it signals the arrival of an especially gifted filmmaker. Aik Karapetian is Armenian and the movie is a co-production between Latvia and Estonia. Given that this is a brutal, nasty-humoured psychological horror film, its peculiar ethnographical pedigree seems to almost guarantee that we're going to see something that's as shocking as it's off the well-worn path.

While it shares similarities to Roman Polanksi's The Tenant and Repulsion. it just as easily conjures up comparison points to John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, David Fincher's Se7en and Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (with generous dollops of Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke). Finally though, The Man in the Orange Jacket is all its own movie - a truly sickening and starkly original piece of work. After seeing it, nobody will accuse it of being in the domain of been-there-done-that.

When a whole whack of dock workers are laid-off, one of them decides he's had enough of his lot in life as a labourer within the "new" capitalism of Eastern Europe. He wants a taste of what the 1% have and nothing's going to stop him from getting it. He targets the scumbag corporate CEO (Aris Rozentals) who's responsible for his predicament of unemployment, shows up at the richie-rich's sprawling, isolated country mansion, murders the CEO and his gorgeous young wife (Anta Azupe), tosses their bodies into the basement and proceeds to live a life of leisure in the upscale, though oddly antiseptic abode. There's a bit of perverse fun to be had watching our boy lounging about in expensive clothing, eating gourmet meals, drinking fine wine, sitting in different comfy chairs and "admiring" the works of art on the walls, but it's clear that what he desires is not attainable since he's essentially a proletarian numbskull - albeit of the psychopathic variety. Curiously, what little we find out about the CEO suggests that in his own way, he's as hollow a shell as our working class hero. As for our rich man wanna-be, Karapetian makes no attempt to add any more shading that what little we see.

Thankfully the movie doesn't provide us any excuses or reasons for the psycho's behaviour, beyond the banal desire to have what can never truly be his. Some, I suspect, might dump on this as a major flaw, but any attempts to fill in the blanks would simply have been disingenuous. This is, ultimately, the story of one big fat nothing and as such, it's a damn effective one. Replete with astonishing visual flourishes and a creepy-crawly methodical pace of the most unbearably compelling kind, The Man in the Orange Jacket is as sterling a sophomore effort as we're likely to experience this year.

At a certain point, early on, it's quite obvious that we're not going to get even a smidgen of empathy in this character. As his isolated indulgence progresses, he becomes increasingly bored and we're then privy to a series of harrowing incidents which suggest the house itself is haunted or that he's even more off his rocker than we suspected. When he summons two gorgeous twin escorts to "his" home, he's such an empty vessel that the most "creative" sexual shenanigans he can muster is to piss into the swimming pool and force the hookers to stay in the water.

We should all be so lucky.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

The Man in the Orange Jacket enjoyed its International Premiere at the 2014 edition of the FantAsia International Film Festival in Montreal and has been selected to unspool at the prestigious Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toby Jones overshadows Berberian Pretensions

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
dir. Peter Strickland **1/2
Starring: Toby Jones
Review By Greg Klymkiw

Sound has been with movies almost from the beginning. Long before Al Jolson uttered the immortal words "You ain't heard nothin' yet" in 1927's The Jazz Singer, filmmakers experimented with having original scores composed for their films and even designing live foley and sound effects - all of which were achieved by full orchestras for some of the bigger releases in more established picture palaces. Once the "talkies" came, though, a whole new art and craft began to develop - not just synch sound recordists on set, but all the magicians in the sound studios who created effects, mixed and tweaked the sound and edited the sound.

In this day and age, sound has become, for better or worse (and depending on the film), the primary instigation for how, why, where and when to actually make picture cuts in genre pictures. Sadly, far too many contemporary directors that have absolutely no eye for creating decent action or suspense sequences, rely solely on sound to make up for their lack of talent. Or rather, they think they know precisely what they're doing and have their butts saved by editors as well as the low standards of audiences all afflicted with ADD.

One dreadful (and idiotically overrated) director after another (Christopher Nolan and JJ Abrams to name two especially egregious members of this ever-expanding club of dimwits), piece together a wide variety of badly composed, poorly conceived and mostly close shots, throw them into the post-production blender where picture editors must save the miserable footage by using sound as the driving force behind their cuts rather than propelling the image forward to hit dramatic beats. The moron directors think it's all about pace and creating suspense from cacophony when in actual fact, this style of shooting and cutting exhausts an audience to a point where watching the film has less to do with being able to follow a story as it is to be whacked repeatedly in the face.

We're bludgeoned and pummelled senselessly by sound and a whole whack of great artists and craftspeople in this field are turned into volume (of the amount AND level of audio variety) generators.

While, there are a number of great movies about movies, the only one that brilliantly and perfectly captures the art of sound men is still Brian DePalma's seminal thriller Blow Out which starred John Travolta as a movie sound recordist who tries to solve a mystery using the location sound he's recorded. (The Conversation counts as a great "sound" picture, but its focus is surveillance rather than the movies.)

Berberian Sound Studio could have been the best movie about sound in movies since DePalma's mournful thriller, but finally, it achieves that for about 30 of its 92 minutes until it starts spinning its wheels and diving into bargain basement Lynch-like surrealism and sledge hammer (albeit somewhat disingenuous) commentary on the effects of screen violence.

But, first, let's concentrate on the good.

Set during the heyday of Italian horror/suspense thrillers of the 70s, the picture tells the tale of Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a pathologically introspective sound man (which, ultimately, all great sound guys must be). He's as twee and British as Queen Elizabeth (but not quite as inbred) and he's taken a job presiding over the aural arts being applied in post-production to the latest blood-spattered giallo epic by Santini (Antonio Mancino), the reigning maestro of spaghetti horror.

At first, the film is a loving homage to the magnificent giallo genre and a great fish out of water tale. As Gilderoy works his sound magic on this ultra-violent and decidedly misogynistic gore-fest, things slowly and creepily build (not unlike the best Polanski) to a point where dream, reality and nightmare collide and eventually cross a line where we're experiencing a potential mental breakdown.

Alas, once the picture crosses over into this territory, tedium starts to set in. It's too bad. Toby Jones delivers a crackling good performance, whilst the production design and cinematography go above and beyond the call of duty in creating an atmosphere that seems like it was ripped out of the single greatest movie decade in the history of movies. But, as sure as Dario Argento is Italian, Gilderoy's mind starts to crack under the weight of the long hours, a xenophobic attitude (on both sides of the equation) and image after image of the most brutal violence against women.

What's a bit disappointing is that this is our expectation almost from the beginning and our hope, because the first half hour IS so cool and atmospheric (and a movie geek's wet dream), is that it will not veer into familiar territory. As such, the movie feels like a short film idea stretched out interminably over 90 minutes.

It was fun, however, being in a sound studio that bore all the familiar traces of what it was like to work with real film, mag stock and optical. No digital allowed, thanks! Weirdly, though, the most disappointing aspect next to the by-the-numbers surrealism is the fact that the movie SOUNDS like most movies today.

Oh, how I wish it all sounded like a great centre-speaker mono mix with that gentle hiss that can only emanate from optical and analog sound. If Berberian Sound Studio truly had the courage of its convictions - it should have adhered to every element of the period.

A good script might have worked wonders, also.

"Berberian Sound Studio" originally played during the Toronto International Film Festival's 2012 edition of the Vanguard series. It is currently in theatrical release via FilmsWeLike. In Toronto, it is playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ROSALIND LEIGH - DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw - Atmospheric Canadian Supernatural Thriller is now on DVD. Presented by Raven Banner, Rue Morgue and released in an extras packed DVD via Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012) ***
Dir. Rodrigo Gudiño
Starring: Aaron Poole, Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Richings

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Review of Extra Features
(original review of film below):
THE COMMENTARY TRACK:

Now available on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada, Rue Morgue Magazine founder and publisher Rodrigo Gudiño's feature length debut as a director comes as an extras-packed DVD for fans of the film. First and foremost is the superb commentary track with director Gudiño which focuses on practical aspects of the production as well as thematic issues with respect to the tale he chose to tell (and the manner in which he chose to tell it). Part of the success is due to the expert moderation/interview technique of Stuart Andrews who nails every question on would hope to get answers to as one watches through the feature (well most questions were covered, but knob that I am, there were a few I wanted to ask). For me, the most interesting aspect of the commentary is just how much emphasis Gudiño places on thematic elements. This is a fine goal for any filmmaker and one I especially appreciated listening to. That said, I made a point of seeing the film three time prior to wending my way through the film with the commentary on and prior to listening to the track, I made a special point to examine my major speed bumps in the middle section and I feel I need to stick with my original reaction when I first saw/reviewed the film for its Sinister Cinema theatrical launch across Canada. When I listened to the track, I was able to pinpoint a common mistake first time feature filmmakers make wherein they put more emphasis on thematic layering rather than narrative and in so doing, tend to muddy the works. That said, the film still works in its first and final third extremely well and Gudiño's responses to Andrews are always intelligent and deeply considered. My ONLY disappointment here is that nobody thought of including (or if they did, exigencies of time, money and/or availability prevented it) a commentary track (perhaps also moderated by Andrews with lead actor Aaron Poole who delivers a brave performance and who might have added a very unique perspective on the film.

THE OTHER EXTRAS:

Other extras include the de rigueur "making of" documentary which is well enough done, but ALWAYS my least favourite element of any DVD extra. I find they zap too much out of the magic of both the film and movie making process. Included on the DVD is Gudiño's short film (co-directed with Vincent Marcone) which is certainly a very interesting cinematic experiment, and as such, is mercifully short. All of the usual publicity materials are included, but one of my favourite extras is an interview profile with Turkish-born Canadian composer Mercan Dede which presents a compelling portrait of this highly creative musical artist and, though NOT the intent, still offers enough incentive for someone to be possessed with a sudden need to get as many of his CDs as possible. I enjoyed the transfer a bit better this time round and suspect my original fears about the darkness and contrast not being high enough. Still, it's probably a matter of taste, but I balanced my monitor to add 3 points below the zero mark on the brightness control and upped the contrast to about the 2/3 point. This afforded me a viewing that was far more atmospheric and did indeed address my concern with the look of the house itself and to add a bit more depth and richness to the superb cinematography. The price point on this DVD is indeed worth considering the purchase if you're a genre fan and look forward to watching a very unconventional approach to haunted house movies. In its own way, it's far more interesting, original and intelligent than the overrated James Wan feature "The Conjuring".

AND NOW, THE REVIEW OF THE FILM ITSELF..... 

A voice from the dead - at times determined, at others tremulous - cascades through the large, dark and cluttered house as if it were a living, breathing, moving thing. It is as much a will and testament as it is a warning - infused with portent - rendered for the benefit of one who's been gone for too long, but has now appeared to both claim and dispense with a lifetime of worldly goods.

You, Sir, will spend the night.

Alone.

This is perhaps not the wisest move when, in life, you broke away from your mother for the longest time and have returned, after her death, to profit from an antique-filled treasure trove. You're riddled with memories of a difficult childhood past, a strained relationship, a fundamentalist - nay, downright fanatical upbringing. As much as you want to rid yourself of all the things that bring back flashes of a pain long-repressed, your mere presence in this, your recently deceased mother's house, infuses you with second thoughts, upon second thoughts.

You will slowly seek truth, but if the truth finds you first, it could kill you.

And, dear sir, there appears to be a creature you don't want to mess with.

Suffice it to say that Rue Morgue Magazine's founder/publisher Rodrigo Gudiño has crafted an unexpectedly restrained genre picture for his feature length debut as a director. Restraint in horror can be a very good thing and The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh is nothing if not restrained. Fans used to a preponderance of gore, lightning bolt pacing and an emphasis upon cheap shock tactics will be less than enthralled, but if patient, many of the film's rewards will creep up on them and bite them most indelicately on the ass.

That said and in spite of the picture's considerable virtues, it would only be fair to point out that the film is saddled with a few elements that don't quite gel. In terms of narrative and pace, the film takes a profound dip in its middle portion. We're treated to a slow, measured and riveting first act and a final act that delivers very nicely in the drawer-filling department. Part of the problem stems, I think, in Gudiño's screenplay. Not adequately tying the central character Leon (Aaron Poole) to his late Mother's mania (or at least rooting it more firmly within the mise-en-scene) is something the film has a hard time shaking. This is one of the causes for the movie to sag in its second act.

Another problem is the house itself. An exterior shot reveals a standard and seemingly (or at least relatively) modern suburban home. Once inside, the decor of the structure itself shrieks modern or at least, modern reno. As well, many of the set decorations and props feel out of place - either in and of themselves or within the context of the interior's physical structure and look. Given the character of Rosalind Leigh herself, the "antique pieces" are not (at least for this fella') reflective enough of who we think she is. When Leon steps into that house, we expect, but do not experience the kind of bygone atmosphere necessary for us to check our thought process at the door because the stately and (often) effective pace give us too much time to notice when touches like these are amiss. Where this hurts the film most is that it loses a lot of the "creepy" factor in the middle act that both the pace and narrative are begging for.

A major speed bump that keeps the movie from attaining stratospheric heights might seem unfair to level at Gudiño, since the picture is what it is at this point, but here goes. Maybe it's just me (I don't think so, though), but even genre-bending efforts like this gain a whole lot more mileage when you have the presence of a female lead. A young, hot, preferably nightie-and/or-undie-adorned babe is what I'm talkin' about here. Think Catherine Deneuve in Polanski's Repulsion, the final half hour of Ridley Scott's Alien and a goodly portion of one of my all-time low budget faves, Richard Stanley's Hardware.

Just do the math:

Hot babe + monster/ghost/robot/weird-shit = Unbeatable Combination.

Not that Gudiño's lead Aaron Poole doesn't acquit himself nicely - it's a finely textured performance, but changing the character to a woman and having a babe in the role would have worked wonders. Even when Polanski re-imagined Repulsion as The Tenant and cast himself in the perverse twist on Deneuve's loner in the apartment role, he made damn sure to find numerous opportunities to slide the ravishing Isabel Adjani into the picture (in addition to putting himself in drag).

More math: Polanski in Drag + Hot French babe = DynOmite!!!

Not meaning to be a Philistine here, but I do think something changes when you have a woman in peril - not in a stereotypical, misogynist sense - but to actually address a myriad of issues within the framework of cinematic storytelling that ultimately allow for more compelling viewing. Then again, I always recall the hilarious story of a genuinely famous Canadian producer who once cautioned a young filmmaker about to embark upon his first feature with a litany of Old Country advice. It culminated with: "Goddamn son of bitch, you want to show man too much! Is not to my taste. Is to be truthful, very distasteful to have too much man. But I tell you something for sure, everybody like to see the woman. The man, he like to see the woman. And the woman, she like to see the woman too."

Sage words from a wise member of the Eastern European diaspora.

Aside from my aforementioned niggles, this is a worthwhile effort that signals a directorial talent we'll want to hear more from. In fact, Gudiño's displayed enough filmmaking savvy and chutzpah here to make you grateful you got in on his ground floor, so to speak. On the level of fashioning an ideal low budget movie, the screenplay cleverly approaches a few supporting roles that not only work perfectly within the context of the narrative, but allowed the filmmaking team to affordably cast and get a super performance from Vanessa Redgrave (not to mention fine work from the inimitable Julian Richings and Steven Eric McIntyre among others).

My dissatisfaction with the look of the house and its interiors notwithstanding, I was delighted with cinematographer Samy Inayeh's work. His compositions are first-rate, his moves infused with grace and his lighting is both delectably and suitably moody. Frankly, I think there's a lot of latitude in his footage to go back into the colour timing suite and darken the picture substantially to deal with the less than stellar interior design. Inayeh has done his bit to make the house's interiors look like Miss Haversham's home in David Lean's Great Expectations or the mysterious house the old crone in Val Lewton's Curse of the Cat People lives in, but he's only able to go so far and I'm really convinced one could safely heighten contrast whilst maintaining detail in a John Alton noir style. (By the way, every filmmaker, D.O.P. and production designer needs to read Alton's great book "Painting with Light".)

"The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh" can be purchased from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada).

AMERICAN MARY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012)

The Soska Twins present the Canadian Premiere of their creepy, stunningly directed and viciously dark-humoured psychological thriller AMERICAN MARY at Toronto After Dark (TADFF 2012).

American Mary **** (2012)
dir. Soska Twins: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
Starring: Katharine Isabelle, Tristan Risk, Antonio Cupo, David Lovgren

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The scalpel enters a full, fleshy breast and delicately, almost sensually circles the areola's entirety whilst blood oozes out, the surgeon's fingers gently tracing her handiwork.

Both nipples are eventually removed.

The next procedure involves surgically removing all physical receptors of pubic ecstasy and stitching shut the vagina of the aforementioned nipple-bereft body, save, of course, for the smallest allowable opening for the expulsion of urine.

The surgeon is spent, stunned, but satisfied - secure in the knowledge that her first stab (so to speak) at body modification is a success. The client eventually expresses sheer joy over her all-new sexually adhedonic state; how perfectly she's been able to fulfil her own personal essence of womanhood via the excision of those physical extremities which alternately offer enticement and pleasure. Whatever you say, babe. In the words of Marlo Thomas: "Free to be you and me."

Can movies possibly get any better than this?

Well yes, they most certainly can and do, but it doesn't change the fact that American Mary is a dazzlingly audacious sophomore effort from the Vancouver-based twisted twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska (who made a promising debut with their micro-budgeted 2009 effort Dead Hooker in a Trunk).

With this new picture, the sisters are on (at least for some, if not many) shaky moral ground (and/or crack), but happily, they maintain the courage of their convictions and do not tread lightly upon it. There are no half-measures here to even attempt making the picture palatable to the gatekeepers of political correctness (those purported knot-headed pseudo-lefty Great Pretenders who reside just to the right of Mussolini, Stevie Harper or Mitt Romney - take your pick). I'd even vigorously argue that non-fascist PC-types will, in fact, find the picture more than palatable. The rest of us will get it, groove on it and celebrate its excellence.

This movie is some mighty nasty stuff - replete with elements of slashing satire that hack away and eventually tear open "normally" accepted versions of right and wrong whilst grasping the exposed nerve endings of morality, holding them taught and playing the jangling buggers like violin strings. The picture will provoke, anger, disgust and scandalize a multitude of audiences, though chances are good that the most offended will be those "smugly fuckling" (phrase courtesy of the late, great CanLit genius Scott Symons) aforementioned poseurs who claim to be outside the mainstream, but have their noses deeper up the rectal canals of fascists than the bloody Tea Party.

Strange as this might seem, the picture comes from a place deep in the heart, so deep that the twins don't bother ripping the pulsating muscle out, but rather, invoke the spirit that lies dormant within to deliver a surprising level of humanity to the proceedings. As far as the picture's carnage takes us we're allowed, in more than one instance to even be moved by the plight of some of the characters.

The screenplay, written by the Soska twins, is - on its surface only - a rape-revenge fantasy, but it goes so much further than that. It's a vital examination of subcultures representing people disenfranchised from the aforementioned accepted standards of human existence. In a world increasingly aspiring to the living death of homogeneity (this includes those who purport to be untouched by homogeneity), the characters will never fit any mould that represents "normalcy", no matter how hard they try.

Within the world of the film, those who refuse to conform (not because it's "cool" to do so, but because they simply cannot conform) seek avenues that will fulfil their basic needs as human beings, no matter how strange or repellent a majority finds them.

The tale told involves Mary (Katharine Isabelle), a med student struggling under the crushing weight of ever-mounting debt and the constant psychological abuse from her mentor Dr. Grant (David Lovgren), the chief professor of surgery - a field of practice she longs to serve in. In desperation, Mary scours the "adult services" want ads and is drawn to one with keen interest. Under the cloak of night she arrives at a nondescript warehouse in an industrial park that emits the thumping bass of dance music, a neon sign promising sensual delights and a burly doorman who immediately allows her entrance - as he clearly does to any babe seeking admittance.

Mary meets with the charmingly sleazy proprietor Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo) who scoffs a bit when she hands him her resume. The only pre-requisites to work in his club are a good overall "package" (which he discovers after telling her to strip to her undies and show-off her gorgeous body), an ability to deliver a fine massage (as she ably proves with her nimble surgeon's fingers) and a willingness to suck him off with skill and abandon (which, she sadly never gets to do). The job interview is interrupted with news that all is not well in another part of the club. Knowing Mary is a med student specializing in surgery, Billy asks her to join him.

In a dank, dungeon-like room within the club's bowels, Mary's eyes widen at a gruesome sight - nothing to phase a surgeon, but the context would be, at least initially, pretty bizarre to anyone - even her. Whatever goes on in this room, has gone seriously awry and as luck would have it, Mary is just what the, shall we say, doctor, has ordered.

For a wad of pure, hard, cold cash - the likes of which she's never held in her hands, Mary agrees to perform some illicit surgical magic which will not only make a wrong right, but provide a much needed service beyond simple lifesaving. The subject, twitching and bleeding on the filthy table, will most definitely require saving, but the painful manner in which he will be saved will provide him with added ecstasy.

Soon Mary is in demand amongst the body modification subculture who troll about the same underbelly as those who work and patronize the club (in addition to the genuine underground activities involving extreme masochistic indulgence - no healthy, mutually consenting BDSM here - this is a place where people go to be maimed, hurt and tortured).

The other subculture portrayed is that of the surgeons themselves. The Soskas create a creepy old boys club where the power of slicing into live human beings has engendered a world of ritual abuse. In the worlds of body modification and masochistic gymnatics, the subjects are ASKING for it. Not so within the perverse world of the surgeons. They use psychological abuse to break down their victims, then administer kindness and fellowship to lure them, then once their quarry is in their clutches, they use deception of the most cowardly, heinous variety to fulfil their desire to inflict sexual domination.

The body modifiers and masochists are pussycats compared to the surgeons who are portrayed as little more than pure exploiters. Their air of respectability as healers and academia is the weapon they use to commit violence and perpetrate subjugation.

Someone's gonna pay. Bigtime.

So, I'm sure you've already gathered that American Mary is not (Thank Christ!) Forrest Gump. We're bathing in the cinematic blood spilled into the tub that is this movie by the insanely imaginative Soska Twins - clearly the spawn of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Elizabeth Bathory with, perhaps, some errant seed from Alfred Hitchcock or William Friedkin.

One of the extraordinary things about American Mary is that it dives headlong into a number of subcultures, which, even if they've been completely and utterly pulled out of the Soska Sisters' respective Autoroutes de Hershey, they feel like genuinely real worlds. The locations, production design, art direction, set dressing and costume design for the various interior and exterior settings look lived in and completely appropriate to the scenes in which they appear.

Even the curse of most lower-budgeted Canadian films - that notorious lack-of-dollars underpopulation - is not especially egregious as some Canuck pictures since many of the settings demand it, while others are appropriately framed (most of the time) to mask it. As well, the Soska Sisters generally have a good eye for composing shots that provide maximum dramatic impact and the lighting and cutting is always appropriate to the dramatic action rather than calling attention to itself.

The performances are generally first rate and the background performers always look 100% right for the scenes. The fine acting, coupled with a script packed with dialogue that's always in keeping with both character and milieu rather than going out of its way to be overtly clever, also contributes to the overall sense that we're wandering through very real, albeit completely, utterly insane worlds. This is also not to say the film is bereft of stylish visual touches, but they're again used for dramatic effect rather than the annoying curse so many younger filmmakers suffer when they abandon narrative (or even dream) logic to say, "Look Ma, I can use a dolly." And believe me, when a shot and/or cut NEEDS to knock the wind out of us, it happens with considerable aplomb.

What sells the film is the world the Soska Sisters create. It's seldom obvious and more often than not we believe it - or at least want to. In many ways, the film is similar to the great early work of Walter Hill (pretty much anything from The Warriors to Streets of Fire) wherein he created worlds that probably could ONLY exist on film, but within the context of the respective pictures, seldom felt less than "real". (That said, Hill was ALWAYS showy, but he knew how to make it intrinsic to the dramatic action.) This makes a lot of sense, since it always feels like the Soska Twins are making movies wherein those worlds that exist realistically on-screen, but furthermore evoke a feeling that the film has been wrought in a much different (and probably better) age than ours.

Dead Hooker in a Trunk and especially American Mary, seem to exist on a parallel plane to those halcyon days of 70s/80s edginess reflected in the Amos Poe New York "No Wave" - not to mention other counter culture types who straddled the underground and the mainstream - filmmakers like Scorsese, Rafelson, Waters, Jarmusch, et al who exploded well beyond the Jim Hoberman-coined "No Wave". Their work even approaches a bit of the 80s cult sensibilities of Repo Man, Liquid Sky or even such generational crossover titles as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet) and the deranged work of more contemporary directors like Eli Roth, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino - all of whom "steal", to varying degrees, from earlier periods of film history, but use the work of previous Masters as a springboard to make the pictures all their own. (By the way, I'm not necessarily suggesting American Mary is culled from any of the aforementioned but rather, that the Soska Twins are clearly working in the same sort of exciting territory. It's especially dazzling when it's within a burgeoning stage of their development as film artists.)

A number of the cast members are truly first-rate. Katharine Isabelle as Dr. Mary has come long and far from her groundbreaking performance in the classic John Fawcett-Karen Walton werewolf picture Ginger Snaps. Here she delivers a courageous performance on a par with her turn as the cursed teen werewolf back in 2000. It's 12 years later and Isabelle has blossomed into a tremendously engaging screen personality. The camera might actually love her even more now that she's gained considerable physical maturity (and the Soska Twins have definitely used their four great eyes to work with their cinematographer Brian Pearson's additional two eyes to add to her stunning, real-woman looks). Isabelle's 12 years of toil in mainly television has given her a myriad of roles and experience, but in American Mary, her brave, deadpan (and often very funny) delivery blended with moments where the character is clearly repressing anything resembling emotion is the kind of thesping that demands more roles as terrific as this one. Please, get this woman out of Television Hell and put her on the big screen where she belongs.

Antonio Cupo as the sort-of male love interest is both sleazy and endearing (a pretty amazing double whammy). David Lovgren is suitably creepy and reptilian. Paula Lindberg as the nipple-extracted bombshell who also gets her vagina sewn shut and Tristan Risk as the body modified dancer who promotes Mary's talents far and wide, both transcend the expert makeup effects to bring their respective characters' spirits beyond the almost freakish intensity of their body modifications. And finally, no review of American Mary would be complete without a special nod to Nelson Wong who wins the alltime accolade for the scariest, creepiest, sickest, funniest rendering of a surgeon you hope NEVER to meet - even in your dreams.

American Mary is a true original. I recently had the pleasure to personally express to William Friedkin that his new film Killer Joe - in spite of how violent, scary, horrific, darkly funny, nasty and just plain vile it was - sent me out of the theatre in a state of sheer, unadulterated bouyancy. This pleased the Master, greatly. Somewhere out there in Canuckville's Lotus Land, I hope the Soska Twins realize just how utterly bouyant there own crazed, brilliant film is. And someday, I expect them to deliver one kick-ass devil-may-care Friedkin-like rollercoaster ride through hell after another.

I'm sure they'll do it.

"American Mary" had its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012) and will be released in Canada via Anchor Bay. For further info, feel free to visit the TADFF website HERE.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO - TIFF 2012 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Great set design, appropriately garish (and stunning for it) cinematography and a great performance from Toby Jones come close to saving this pretentiously dull movie that, as made, feels like it might have been a better short.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
TIFF 2012 Vanguard Series
dir.
Peter Strickland **1/2
Starring: Toby Jones, Antonio Mancino
Review
By Greg
Klymkiw


Sound has been with movies almost from the beginning. Long before Al Jolson uttered the immortal words "You ain't heard nothin' yet" in 1927's The Jazz Singer, filmmakers experimented with having original scores composed for their films and even designing live foley and sound effects - all of which were achieved by full orchestras for some of the bigger releases in more established picture palaces. Once the "talkies" came, though, a whole new art and craft began to develop - not just synch sound recordists on set, but all the magicians in the sound studios who created effects, mixed and tweaked the sound and edited the sound.

In this day and age, sound has become, for better or worse (and depending on the film), the primary instigation for how, why, where and when to actually make picture cuts in genre pictures. Sadly, far too many contemporary directors that have absolutely no eye for creating decent action or suspense sequences, rely solely on sound to make up for their lack of talent. Or rather, they think they know precisely what they're doing and have their butts saved by editors as well as the low standards of audiences all afflicted with ADD.

One dreadful (and idiotically overrated) director after another (Christopher Nolan and JJ Abrams to name two especially egregious members of this ever-expanding club of dimwits), piece together a wide variety of badly composed, poorly conceived and mostly close shots, throw them into the post-production blender where picture editors must save the miserable footage by using sound as the driving force behind their cuts rather than propelling the image forward to hit dramatic beats. The moron directors think it's all about pace and creating suspense from cacophony when in actual fact, this style of shooting and cutting exhausts an audience to a point where watching the film has less to do with being able to follow a story as it is to be whacked repeatedly in the face.

We're bludgeoned and pummelled senselessly by sound and a whole whack of great artists and craftspeople in this field are turned into volume (of the amount AND level of audio variety) generators.

While, there are a number of great movies about movies, the only one that brilliantly and perfectly captures the art of sound men is still Brian DePalma's seminal thriller Blow Out which starred John Travolta as a movie sound recordist who tries to solve a mystery using the location sound he's recorded. (The Conversation counts as a great "sound" picture, but its focus is surveillance rather than the movies.)

Berberian Sound Studio could have been the best movie about sound in movies since DePalma's mournful thriller, but finally, it achieves that for about 30 of its 92 minutes until it starts spinning its wheels and diving into bargain basement Lynchian surrealism and sledge hammer (albeit somewhat disingenuous) commentary on the effects of screen violence.

But, first, let's concentrate on the good.

Set during the heyday of Italian horror/suspense thrillers of the 70s, the picture tells the tale of Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a pathologically introspective sound man (which, ultimately, all great sound guys must be). He's as twee and British as Queen Elizabeth (but not quite as inbred) and he's taken a job presiding over the aural arts being applied in post-production to the latest blood-spattered giallo epic by Santini (Antonio Mancino), the reigning maestro of spaghetti horror.

At first, the film is a loving homage to the magnificent giallo genre and a great fish out of water tale. As Gilderoy works his sound magic on this ultra-violent and decidedly misogynistic gore-fest, things slowly and creepily build (not unlike the best Polanski) to a point where dream, reality and nightmare collide and eventually cross a line where we're experiencing a potential mental breakdown.

Alas, once the picture crosses over into this territory, tedium starts to set in. It's too bad. Toby Jones delivers a crackling good performance, whilst the production design and cinematography go above and beyond the call of duty in creating an atmosphere that seems like it was ripped out of the single greatest movie decade in the history of movies. But, as sure as Dario Argento is Italian, Gilderoy's mind starts to crack under the weight of the long hours, a xenophobic attitude (on both sides of the equation) and image after image of the most brutal violence against women.

What's a bit disappointing is that this is our expectation almost from the beginning and our hope, because the first half hour IS so cool and atmospheric (and a movie geek's wet dream), is that it will not veer into familiar territory. As such, the movie feels like a short film idea stretched out interminably over 90 minutes.

It was fun, however, being in a sound studio that bore all the familiar traces of what it was like to work with real film, mag stock and optical. No digital allowed, thanks! Weirdly, though, the most disappointing aspect next to the by-the-numbers surrealism is the fact that the movie SOUNDS like most movies today.

Oh, how I wish it all sounded like a great centre-speaker mono mix with that gentle hiss that can only emanate from optical and analog sound. If Berberian Sound Studio truly had the courage of its convictions - it should have adhered to every element of the period.

A good script might have worked wonders, also.

"Berberian Sound Studio" is playing in the Toronto International Film Festival's 2012 edition of the Vanguard series on Monday September 10 The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 6:00 PM and Tuesday September 11 Cineplex Yonge & Dundas 3 2:45 PM. For ticket information, please visit the TIFF website HERE.

REPULSION and THE TENANT, Roman Polanski and the Art of Humiliation - Part Two of "You Only Have Yourself To Blame" - The Claustrophobia Films of Roman Polanski - By Greg Klymkiw

Anticipating the release of "Carnage", Roman Polanski's nasty, insanely hilarious four-hander, The Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Bell Lightbox presents an astonishing mini-retrospective of the work of everyone's favourite genius child rapist that focuses upon his continued obsession with paranoia within the context of closed spaces. Films include: "Repulsion" (Wednesday December 21 09:00 PM), "The Tenant" (Thursday December 22 09:00 PM), "Rosemary's Baby" (Friday December 23 09:00 PM) and "The Ghost Writer" (Sunday December 25 04:00 PM).

REPULSION (1965) ***1/2 THE TENANT (1976) ****
Roman Polanski and the Art of Humiliation
Part Two of "You Only Have Yourself To Blame"
The Claustrophobia Films of Roman Polanski
By Greg Klymkiw

"You only have yourself to blame."

So says the corpulent concierge (Shelley Winters) to Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski), the title character of The Tenant. His apartment has just been broken into. He is understandably distraught. He feels violated, sullied and, for the umpteenth time in his relatively new digs, he's been insulted, humiliated and finger-wagged. And now this, the final straw - a break-in - and the only solace offered to him is:

"You only have yourself to blame."

This whiny kvetch emanating from the ciggie-twixt-the-lips, hair-in-curlers and perpetually shuffling Bubbie from the depths of Hell is merely one of a seemingly infinite number of indignities on display that are, frankly, impossible NOT to laugh at. To stifle one's guffaws while watching The Tenant is pure and utter folly. Every humiliation thrown like a tureen of cold pig slop in the faces of the disenfranchised and/or downtrodden, is a veritable laugh riot. The accumulation of hilarity amidst the darkness is, finally, what contributes to those moments of horror that creep through the movie like some T.S. Eliot Prufrock-like "pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas"

Such is the genius of Roman Polanski.

The Tenant is pure, unadulterated nasty fun that keeps you alternately laughing and cringing in terror. Telling the tale of a young Parisian of Polish descent who thinks he's happened upon a perfect apartment, we follow his tale of insanity and obsession as he begins to assume his landlords and neighbours are conspiring against him to become the former tenant of his digs, a sad young woman by the name of Simone Choule who took a dive from the balcony. Strange people stand motionless in the washroom window across the courtyard. He finds a tooth buried deep in the wall behind a heavy bureau. He visits the dying woman in the hospital and armed with a bag of oranges meets cute with the ravishing Isabelle Adjani who accompanies him to a Bruce Lee martial arts movie where the two of them make out. Soon, it doesn't take long before he begins to engage in avid cross-dressing, sitting in his window and watching the neighbours humiliate another tenant they find disfavour with.

Ah, such is life in Paris. Especially if you're Roman Polanski.

Ultimately, I've always believed that many of our truly great filmmakers are those who obsessively latch onto their favourite depravities (or at least the very worst behaviour amongst the species of man) and fetishize them - the lens of the camera a mere extension of the director's eye, revealing with frankness, their own deep-seeded sickness. This is a good thing. Truth is grand entertainment, especially when mediated through a great artist who lavishes a most meticulous attention to that which most "normal" people find utterly repugnant.

Besides, when an artist fully commits to such obsessions, it's funnier than Senior Citizen Day in Paul Bartel's Death Race 2000, where the cross-country road-racers are allowed to mow down the most vulnerable of our society with their souped-up cars and thus score extra points for every hit.

A key reference point for such cinema - and in particular, that of Roman Polanski - are the lines uttered by Nell (a legless old woman living in a trash can) in Samuel Beckett's magnificent play "Endgame":

"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness."

Truer words were never spoken. They're especially apt in relation to Polanski's trilogy of claustrophobia, paranoia and humiliation within apartment dwellings - Repulsion, the sexy, creepy exploration of a woman's descent into madness, The Tenant, the aforementioned demented horror film rife with black comedy and, of course, the queen bee of all devil worship thrillers Rosemary's Baby (a film I'll be reviewing in full at Daily Film Dose).

Repulsion is the female flipside to The Tenant, but its brand of creepy feels more Henry James (a la Turn of the Screw) as opposed to the definite Dostoyevskian qualities of the latter. Following Carole, a meek, but stunningly gorgeous beauty parlour employee who rooms with her gregarious sex-starved sister (Yvonne Furneaux), the movie presents a series of scenes where Carole is objectified by several men and then, forced to spend time alone in the apartment when her sister and her married boyfriend (Ian Hendry) take off for a few days of illicit sin. Once alone, things progressively get creepier and scarier as Carole is plagued with horrific visions of hands and arms reaching out to her through the walls and several men make visits with violation on their minds. Luckily, her sister's beau has left his shaving kit behind.

One common thread stringing through Polanski's overall mise-en-scène is his sense of pace (creepy and deliberate), the manner in which his actors glide through scenes (almost in real time), how Polanski's camera eye lavishes attention upon strange little details which are revealed to be both the POV of The character AND filmmaker and certainly in the case of Repulsion, the fetishization of his central character Carole (Catherine Deneuve).

Both Repulsion and The Tenant are given miraculous boosts thanks to the men Polanski chose to cinematographically render his vision. The former features exquisite fine grain black and white photography courtesy of the magnificent Gilbert (Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night, Frenzy, The Omen) Taylor while the latter is lensed by Ingmar Bergman's chief visual collaborator, the great Sven Nykvist. Polanski also didn't skimp on composers to render astounding scores for both - the former featuring Chico Hamilton's percussive jazz stylings, the latter imbued with Phillipe Sarde's rich, baroque orchestral drones.

And both films, especially Repulsion, are imbued with wildly imaginative and more than apt soundscapes.

Repulsion is aurally driven with the quiet - a score of silence punctuated by occasional natural (and some, not-so natural) noises. One especially salient example of this in Repulsion is when we cut to a slightly skewed God's eye closeup of a decaying uncooked skinned rabbit, then we see the stringy eyes that have grown out of some neglected potatoes. As the camera moves away, Polanski cuts to a closeup side-view of said potatoes until the camera glides up and we see Carole studying them intensely. Several perspectives for the price of one. We see Polanski's fetishization of the potatoes, Carole's fixation upon them and, in turn Polanski's fixation upon Carole/Deneuve.

And, of course, accompanying the aforementioned is the endless ticking of a clock wherein time moves forward, but without a seeming end-point and certainly, no light at the end of a deep tunnel of madness and despair.

In the same sequence above, Polanski then follows Carole's every move as some odd noises draw her to a spot of solace, which, in turn is broken by a sharp unexpected action, more silence and finally, the jangling sound of the door bell ringing. Polanski follows her as she apprehensively approaches the door - the camera hovering at about shoulder level, but tilted slightly downwards. This approach, blending perspectives of the artist and his creation is what makes the whole affair potent indeed. It's also perversely funny, undeniably sexy, grotesquely creepy and scary, to boot!

The whole notion of laying blame upon the victim - especially when mental illness is involved - is a thematic concern that Polanski has, to varying degrees, explored in virtually all of his films. Certainly in Repulsion, Carole is a victim. We're never completely sure if she's suffered sexual assault or not, but Polanski trains his camera upon her like a constant ogling eye and we are afforded shot after shot, scene after scene of men training their sights upon her - drilling holes into her beauty with their eyes. Some of this might be imagined, some of it real, but we get the overwhelming sense that she is, at the very least, a victim of constant OBJECTIFICATION. This, frankly, is as real an assault upon her as those physical violations she (possibly) imagines and/or (possibly) experiences.

Trelkovsky in The Tenant is told outright that he only has himself to blame (which, admittedly, might even be hallucinatory), just as there are strong implications throughout Repulsion that Carole is seen by virtually every character as being responsible for her own shyness, loneliness and lack of trust (in most everybody, but especially men). Like Trelkovsky, when Carole is alone - truly and physically alone - the horror, whether imagined or actual is REAL. When Carole is visited by an intruder from the shadows of her apartment, the sexual assault that occurs is real to her. Polanski presents this horrific scene by omitting the sounds of her screams, but we feel them and are repulsed just the same.

One might, of course argue that Polanski is as responsible for objectifying victims, especially women. Catherine Deneuve as Carole is ravished by his lens. It prods and pokes at her, exploring her beauty and vulnerability to a point of abject obsession. In fact, there's a strong sense that Polanski might well be objectifying the notion of virginity and that only true purity can come from madness and repulsion towards ALL sexual activity. Outside the apartment (and this IS truly hilarious) we constantly see and hear white-frocked nuns playing basketball - their giggles and shouts of joy punctuated by an almost constantly ringing bell.

Ah, virginal Carole, if only she'd join them - perhaps it's the cloister of Jesus that will provide solace and protect her virginity.

Or maybe, she just needs to butcher a few nasty fellows.

Not unlike Trelkovsky in The Tenant who needs to prove to the world that he IS a victim, by donning a dead woman's clothes, tossing himself out the window, then dragging his battered body back up the stairs, smearing blood everywhere before taking a second plunge from the balcony.

And finally, as funny, nasty, scary, sexy and horrific as both films are, it is finally the notion of blaming a victim that is most terrifying of all. I daresay, it is work that is also very strangely moving and imbued with a humanity that many do not wish to give Polanski credit for having.

Polanski has experienced horrors, perpetrated horrors and on film, both horrors are laid bare.

He's a creep, but he IS an artist.

And a great one at that.

Besides, those who are WITHOUT sin, might wish to consider casting the first stone. They'd be hypocrites, of course, and they'd be all the more so for denying the humanity in his work and that more than likely, looking deep into a Polanski film, is frankly, like looking into a mirror.

I urge anyone who has not seen either "Repulsion" or "The Tenant" to make their first experience of both on a big screen. Thanks to TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto movie-goers will have an opportunity to see both on film. "The Tenant" is sadly only available on a barebones DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment. "Repulsion", on the other hand, is available on an exquisite Criterion Collection Blu-ray. Both will more than suffice for repeat screenings, and in a pinch, they'll do for first helpings. But no matter where you live, endeavour to see them on film, before succumbing to a virginal screenings on a home entertainment format.

Part One of my coverage of the Polanski retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox can be found HERE.