TIFF Review: Vinyan

There is a scene in Fabrice Du Welz’s new film where the white folks, stranded in the jungle without guide or means, are viciously ridiculed, teased and denied the simplest of sustenance: a small ball of rice. It is a moment of uncomfortable horror in the so-called global village, a moment of extreme retribution for casual western exploitation of so many southeast Asian countries. Vinyan, the title of the film, is loosely translated as “drifting soul” and it can be applied to the film in several meaningful and stimulating ways. Those few who were enthusiastic about Du Welz’s (criminally underseen) Calvaire will recognize the rice-ball scene as his budding auteur moment. While the films are miles apart in setting, language, and tone, there is no mistaking that they are the product of a master horror filmmaker rising to the top of his game. I said after reviewing AJ Anilla’s Sauna (our review) that if I see a better horror film than that one in 2008 that I’d eat my shirt, who knew that I would be having to set the table less than 24 hours later! Taking the large Tsunami’s as the divine hammer for a sinning population, Vinyan is both poetical and political; those who take it literally are bound to get a little stuck with the film. Taken as a visceral meditation, it is a sublime success.

The film starts off thrumming and pounding on the audiences senses. A close up of unidentifiable static turbulence and titles so large they threaten to swallow the audience, it is not a surprise that the cinematographer was the same fellow who shot Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. The camera eventually comes into focus to reveal the static to be air bubbles frantically trying to get to the surface of the ocean. Jeanne (a radiant Emmanuelle Béart) rises from the drink to greet her equally attractive husband, Paul played by Rufus Sewell. Curiously, she offers him a pair of shoes she found in the marketplace. Not really what he needs or even want, but perhaps they will do. An interesting bit of foreshadowing to one of the films audience straining narrative pathways. Du Welz’s intent seems to be to challenge the audience while simultaneously alienating them. Paul and Jeanne have lost their son 6 months ago in the Tsunami that wiped out a lot of the southeast Asian coastline, and they have lingered in Thailand with the thin hope that he may still be alive somewhere. At a charity even, a woman has a video of the extreme poverty of the villages along a river in central Burma. Jeannne is convinced she has spotted her child in that video. Despite protestations of her skeptical husband, it is not long before Jeanne is wandering through the seedier parts of the red light district looking for a Triad contact to get her into closed off Burma. What follows is a decent into the heart of darkness, into the void where the void most certainly looks back. The allure of violence and sexuality that attracts westerners to Bangkok is woven throughout the proceedings as well in the form of primal sexual hum particularly in a curious inversion of the form of the foreign aid worker encountered by the couple.

I find it curious that the Thai mobster leading their party into the jungle deals with the death of his wife at the hands of the Tsunami radically different, a stoic acceptance, rather than the hubristic denial from the white folks. Du Welz comments on how the cost of different races are still measure differently on the global scale. As the couple go further in the jungle, it is not even clear if they encounter ghosts, or have become ghosts themselves, in an uncharted part of the word were arrogant, desperate folks are not likely to return. In a way Vinyan is the spiritual remake Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s fabulous daylight horror Who Can Kill a Child? with inflections of the aggressive spirit arthouse French cinema of Haneke and the visceral intensity of Aja and Noe. Du Welz blends the best of all these things, while tapping into a dark reflection of the power and force of need in small children that is into something very much his own, universal and also very much of our times.

TIFF Review: Vinyan

One can not help be reminded of Apocalypse Now and Who Can Kill A Child in Fabrice Du Welz’s psychological ghost story Vinyan. The movie opens with an assault to the senses as the credits fill the screen and a blaring siren is played at what must be the maximum volume possible. As the credits fade we see what must surely be a view of someone drowning deep under turbulent water. Welz continues with this assault on the viewers throughout out the entire movie.

Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart are Paul and Jeanne Bellmer. Six months ago they lost there son, Joshua to the typhoon in 2004. Both have remained in Thailand as Jeanne is unable to move on past this tragedy. One night at a Jeanne glimpses what must surely Joshua in a DVD of some of the villages in Burma. Paul and others are unsure but in order to calm Jeanne down Paul agrees to head off on the dangerous trek into Burma. Initially they try to track down a member of the Triad whose name they have heard but they are intercepted by what must surely be a a conman who agrees to take them in but at great cost. Without any other hope they agree on his terms. The longer they travel with this man the more they realize that they are in over their heads.

Fortunately the Bellmers they meet up with the Triad member they know of and while he is still interested in the money he also appears more genuine. This is where the true journey of Paul and Jeanne begins. They are taken to the village and find the child but it is not their Joshua and Paul is ready to give up yet Jeanne refuses. At this point the movie turns and the viewers are left to their own as to whether Vinyan represents a crossing over of the into the spirit world or perhaps a descent into madness or maybe just maybe the movie is to be taken literally and what we get is a view of children who have finally been pushed to the limits of suffering and are now taking the revenge on the adults. Personally, I would go with a bit from column A, B, and C all together as Vinyan is a movie that is not meant to offer any easy answers to its questions.

Vinyan is beautifully filmed truly is an assault on the senses. It will also push many buttons and is sure to drive mainstream audiences away unfortunately. The closing scene alone is enough to cause Vinyan to never be seen in the majority of theatres. It is a shame as Vinyan is a strong psychological thriller with a fair amount to say. If you are someone who is willing to be challenged by a movie and pushed to the limits then Vinyan is one to check out when you get the chance.

TIFF Review: The Sky Crawlers

“Somewhere, in a country similar to ours There are children who do not become adults. They are very similar to us.” goes the tagline of Mamoru Oshii’s latest film. One that carried the promise (during its production cycle) of a more linear form of story telling after the convoluted Ghost in the Shell: Innocence and the strange Tachigui. I am overjoyed to report that while the story is linear, it is anything but straightforward or simple, and not the least bit diluted or dumbed down in regards to his philosophical and social musings - basically the essence of what makes Oshii stand out from his generation of masters of the Japanese animated feature. Using a pastiche of elements of contemporary science fiction (From “Ender’s Game” to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”) mashed up with stirring World War II aerial dogfights and a his unique brand of austere and cold melodrama, The Sky Crawlers certainly will not be for everyone. The film is a feast for the senses, not only in the gargantuan fighter plane battles, which may be safe to say are the best ever committed to celluloid (and yes, that includes Hell’s Angels and the space climaxes of any of the best of the Star Wars pictures). This is true in ever single detail of the film (Production I.G. have outdone themselves!) even the small moments: The cigarette smoke swirls, a Vespa engine hums as it idles, the airplane hangars and living quarters are textured, lived in, and the apple pie and coffee diners are gorgeously rendered down to the most minute detail. And the sound design (courtesy of Skywalker Sound) is among the best work they have ever done.

But wait, much this technical praise could be more or less said of, say, Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s equally well crafted Steam Boy, and that movie was more or less a failure due to overly convoluted and stilted story telling. The narrative may be cool and deliberately paced for a film with designs on a gigantic canvas, but that dovetails beautifully with the story Oshii is trying to tell (call it the antithesis of Hayao Miyazaki’s similar setting, but radically different Porco Rosso). Make no mistake, this is social science fiction, and tonally controlled storytelling at its finest.

The world of The Sky Crawlers is a social and geographical fusion of 1950s America, Japan and Western Europe that favours propeller styled fighter planes along with satellite television, large multinational corporations and genetic science. While it is a time of apparent peace and prosperity, the large corporations conduct ‘real wars’ (mostly over the border ocean zones), televised of course, to placate any unrest or rebellion from the masses. Contrary to Orwell’s “1984″, where London is a perpetual war wreck and society fragmented and controlled, Oshii (and the writer of the original novel, Mori Hiroshi) postulate that for the most part, this ‘perpetual war’ has actually benefited society. Wars and equally importantly, all the social problems of an idyll, purposeless populace, involving real people can be avoided if they are fought in a fully manufactured way which has ‘real consequence’ built into the equation. The fighter pilots that fight for their parent corporations are of a genetically modified race who never age, fittingly called Kildren. Set in state of perpetual adolescence, they live to fight and pilot the fighter planes, and die for the entertainment and attention of the worlds citizens. The fact that this race is immortal otherwise, only ups the ante and the dramatic spectacle of flaming angels falling from the sky from the fantastic machines.

The story revolves around one of the bases of Kildren and the little ecosystem in which they inhabit. Yuichi arrives to a new posting for the Rostock Corporation. The pilots there are kept under tight wraps from their base commander Suito Kusanagi (a fellow Kildren) and the lovingly stern chief mechanic (and ‘adult human’), both of whom immediately have an eye on Yuichi. This sets Yuichi on edge along with the stories of the non-Kildren ace pilot, a Red Baron type named ‘The Teacher’ who fights for the ‘enemy’ Lautern Corporation. The first half of the film focuses on the ecology of the air-base with a few combat laden sorties to get the adrenaline flowing. The drinking and sexual exploits of Yuichi’s roomate pull Yuichi into a few encounters of his own that strike odd chords of familiarity. This leads to Yuichi questioning his bosses mysterious past while the Rostock Corporation plans its biggest offensive to date. The findings of Yuichi in regards to his bosses and himself are the engine of the plot, but really not the films chief concern, and thusly the storytelling is not the least bit concerned with ‘twist endings’ or other high-concept gimmickry so often favoured within the genre. I’m betting the early lovers of what Paul Verhoeven was doing with Starship Troopers are going to latch onto the (admittedly quite different) vibe of The Sky Crawlers.

Like Kazuo Ishiguro’s wonderful novel, “Never Let Me Go”, Oshii does not bury the mystery or secrets of the narrative so deep that a conscientious observer won’t have things figured out within the first quarter of the film. But the joy here is in how things reflect and refract current social trends, and draw commentary and observation into the forefront of the storytelling. The film is postulating some big questions in amongst the lives of pilots, war melodrama and simply stunning action set-pieces. It is a film concerned for the future, while not necessarily nostalgic of the past. There is a character, one that goes unnamed, in the film (in the background really) that sits alone and silent on the front steps of a diner. The Kildren all look at him, but never make any real contact. This old man weeps for the world as it is, a peace bought at a curious price of static non-progress and cyclic stagnation. A moment in the film when another adult human, the lively cook and bartender at the diner, joins the old man in his silent withdrawal. This moment resonates. At 57, Oshii is obviously concerned with the consequences of toys, distractions and general white noise of modern Japanese society, which can leave many young folks in a state of perpetual adolescence. He has constructed a curious epic that is evocative of history, while starkly original in tone and execution. A message movie that is subtle, urgent, and most certainly worthy of your time and consideration.

Vinyan

Director: Fabrice du Welz
Country: France/United Kingdom/Belgium
North American Premiere
Synopsis: Eastern spiritual themes of despair are paired with maternal concerns in du Welz’s second film after his 2004 Midnight Madness debut, Calvaire. Starring Emmanuelle Béart and Rufus Sewell, Vinyan concerns a couple who are torn after the loss of their son Joshua. Glimpsing a boy who resembles Joshua in video footage from a village of orphaned children on the Thai-Burmese border, Jeanne (Béart) becomes consumed by the belief her son was kidnapped by traffickers in the chaos that followed the 2004 tsunami.

IMDB Page

External Reviews

• Cinemafantastique (French)
• Excessif (French)

Unspoken

Director: Fien Troch
Country: Belgium
World Premiere
Synopsis: Five years ago, 14-year-old Lisa disappeared from the lives of her parents Lukas and Grace, with no clear reason, no goodbye. Her parents have managed to get their lives back to some semblance of normality, until Benjamin, a former friend of Lisa’s, pays them a visit and a series of strange occurrences ensue. Gradually, Lisa’s presence begins to seep back into her parents’ lives, whether they like it or not. This film marks the second feature for director Fien Troch, whose previous film, Someone Else’s Happiness, was at TIFF05.

IMDB Page

Uncertainty

Director: Scott McGehee and David Siegel
Country: USA
World Premiere
Synopsis: Starring up and comers Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick, The Lookout), Olivia Thirlby (The Wackness, Juno) and Lynn Collins (The Merchant of Venice), this film offers two stories about the same young couple in love who find out that they are pregnant and are not sure what to do. The man flips a coin and there follows two versions of what happens next - but both stories end up with the same consequences.

IMDB Page

Süt

Director: Semih Kaplanoglu
Country: Turkey/France/Germany
North American Premiere
Synopsis: Young Yusuf is upset when he learns that his mother Fatma is having a secret affair with the town’s railroad stationmaster. He must decide whether to behave in accordance with the traditional male-dominated culture of the town, or to develop a newly open perspective that is more modern.

The Sky Crawlers

Director: Mamoru Oshii
Country: Japan
North American Premiere
Synopsis: Celebrated animated film director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) delves into a world that is eradicated by war, where private contractors enlist fighter pilots known as Kildren to perform in an endless war that people watch on TV. Kildren do not age, living in a state of eternal adolescence until they die in action. Embracing the reality with which they are faced, the Kildren are conscious that each new day could very well be their last.

IMDB Page

External Reviews

• The Japan Times [Mark Schilling]

Service

Director: Brillante Mendoza
Country: Philippines/France
Synopsis: Coming Soon

Liverpool

Director: Lisandro Alonso
Country: Argentina/France/Netherlands/Spain/Germany
Synopsis: Coming Soon