The Fog

The bounteous coast rests undisturbed as a sleepy town's one-hundredth anniversary approaches, with celebrations planned and local dignitaries convivially extolling its historic virtues. 

Village life exuberantly proclaims distracting designations with robust levity, the festivities raising ebullient concerns regarding flights of furtive fancy.

Nevertheless, on the exultant eve a local priest embraces spirited whimsy, when a sudden shocking burst reveals a diary hidden within his walls.

The tale told within its pages describes scandal and betrayal, in terms of lucrative auriferous booty disillusionally constrained.

Best laid plans were thrown aside as a leprous colony was cruelly cheated, indeed instead of finding themselves a home their boat was led to crash upon the shore.

But the rocks didn't eternally tear the trusting ship forevermore asunder, its reconstitution phantominiously conveyed from the afterlife back to the ocean.

And on the very same date the town was founded it bitterly returns under cover of fog.

Contemporary inhabitants blissfully unaware.

A local DJ keeping them up to precarious speed.

Kind of nice when fog descends assuming you aren't travelling or working outside, the meteorological difference eccentrically billowing throughout the quizzical byzantine landscape.

Imagine the chaos if the definitive border dividing spiritual realms enigmatically decayed, and aggrieved spirits from far and wide universally re-materialized across the land.

Like the ending of Ghostbusters I suppose but trepidatiously globalized for postmodern import, the eclectic confusion and ahistorical equivalencies generating confounding limitless grievance.

It could be like a labyrinthine colossus of atemporal bewildered feuding, the manifold steps in the gothic epic as mesmerizing as any R.E.M spectacle. 

If there was time to chronicle the disputes the resultant absurdity may manifest calm.

A quiet regenerative cross-cultural splurge.

A lot of reading.

For something so dream-like.

*I've almost seen every John Carpenter movie.

Les Fauves (Wildcats)

Difficult, where to situate this film, if anywhere in particular, or nowhere notwithstanding.

If it's supposed to inspire horror, it's far too tame and light, coming across as more of a creepy drama than anything truly frightening.

It is more of a kids film though, a teenage film, an adolescent film, a film basking in youthful articulation, so perhaps the short scenes that never really lead anywhere were still long enough to develop tension for younger audiences, searching for something more than a campy slasher, looking for melancholic distress.

Les Fauves (Wildcats) does take place in a campground and many of its characters are therefore camping, and it is somewhat campy I suppose, insofar as it's hesitant and awkwardly disposed, and perhaps the distraught psycho has lost its appeal in recent years, and horror directors are searching for more thoughtful borderline visceral illustrations, as they consider the globalized world, and step into the harrowing cascade.

Could be, although if horror is shifting paradigmatically, Les Mauves may not be seminally equipped, but it is chock full o' Summer, and there are without question much much worse things.

For presenting horror without a vicious monster and sincerely attempting to generate chills that are more cerebral, Les Fauves should be commended, even if it falls far short of the haunting Midsommar.

But I'm wondering if it's not supposed to be taken that seriously, as a horror film, or if it's more of a horror-comedy, to be accurate, or definitively precise.

The opening scene is certainly comedic and (forgive me if I'm wrong here) couldn't have possibly been intended to disorient, in fact after viewing it I thought I was in for a romp or at least something just a wee bit delirious.

The pool-filled-with-dead-animals scene functions in a similar way, and is also kind of campy, if not disreputable.

There's a long sad monologue in the end as well that's presented as if it's genuinely fond, but it's so histrionic and overwrought that I thought Vincent Mariette was trying to trick us into taking it seriously, and that if you were indeed irrefutably impacted, you had indeed unwittingly bought it.

Perhaps it's meant to be rationally analyzed, and I plain and simply didn't get it, but it seemed like something was out of place throughout, something that made me think I was immersed in shenanigans.

There are some really cool cave scenes that are kind of creepy and otherworldly, but they unreel so quickly that I never thought there was anything strange taking place, or that anything was in fact out of order.

Seemed more like we were just checking out some cool caves that happened to be located within a not so far fetched plot.

It's cool to see more brainy horror flicks but sometimes they're simply ridiculous.

At least Les Fauves promotes confusion.

With some cool characters.

Kind of sleazy.

Rebelle (War Witch)

Calmly passing through a series of tumultuous events, Kim Nguyen's Rebelle (War Witch) follows  Komona's (Rachel Mwanza) path as she's forced to serve as a child soldier.

Viciously separated from her family, she despondently acquiesces to her chaotic surroundings, inductively developing psychological survival strategies which enable her to tactically trudge through her wartorn environment.

The film placidly displays the bitter helpless wanton affects her predicament necessitates before accentuating their terror by transferring them to a supportive realm wherein their sublimation proves perplexing.

It's not emotive or sentimental, just a raw exemplification of debilitating dissonance which presents a reality the victims of organized violent insurgencies must endure.

Under the guise of their best interests.

How one suddenly returns to a constructive life after suffering under such hardships without occasionally expressing themselves with fits of irrepressible anger is beyond me.

Complete with contextual symbolic sabotage.

Amarcord

As winds of change passionately breathe throughout the Italian countryside, and tectonic ships coast through the night, poetic reflections and familial festivities emancipate a repressed human factor whose vivacious spirit refuses to yield. Energetic youthful explorations generate blossoming warm and friendly observations whose flowering imaginings revitalize local traditions.

There are stories to be told as the seasons change and life challenges a predetermined institutional categorization. Playful scenes rich in vivid detail, capturing mischievous movements and inquisitive motivations, flourish.

Refusing to be tied down by the stereotypical attitudes condescendingly applied to their professions by a disdainful elitist few, hard working people continue to create and theorize within a stifling draconian body politic.

They inhabit a colourful filmscape full of inclusive change, verdant and robust, supporting the marginalized and the downtrodden, beyond the reach of any imperial entanglements, nurturing, caring and looking after one another, freely sharing their nourishing information.

And they dream and evaluate, consider and wonder. Hypothesize, romanticize, familiarize, thunder. Knowing that really nothing else can be done, if one wants to live fully cloaked in the sun.

The vignettes in Federico Fellini's Amarcord synergize a wrinkle in time, refusing to let autocratic realities structure their lives if their lives want nothing to do with autocratic realities.

The Wolfman

Joe Johnston's recasting of the classic Wolfman legend wantonly howls while slashing and thrashing, but its romantic subplot can't effectively counterbalance its vicious nature due to the lacklustre execution of its sentimental content. A father and son known as Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) and Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) are set up in opposition. Sir John is a macho patriarch while his estranged son is an contemplative actor, the two excelling in their chosen roles. When Lawrence discovers that his brother has been savagely murdered, he swears vengeance, and recklessly pursues the unidentified killer, only to wind up bitten by the beast and condemned by both the local gypsies and reverend (Roger Fisk) alike. His brother's betrothed (Emily Blunt as Gwen Conliffe) reminds both Lawrence and Sir John of Solana Talbot (Cristina Contes), wife and mother, which serves to further complicate matters. As Lawrence falls for Gwen, their dialogue becomes increasingly saccharine even though Lawrence is a famous Shakespearean actor and likely used to expressing himself eruditely. Since she reminds him of his mother, it makes sense that his education and experience would be misplaced in her presence as he slips into a childish state consequently. However, this reason doesn't legitimize the dialogue, it merely points out that logical depth can't trump banal posturing unless the irony sustaining their relationship can be artistically cultivated, i.e., banal lines that seem superficial at first but reveal hidden semantic currents upon further reflection. Sir John is maniacal and revels in his son's incarceration, gleefully basking in their familial discomfort. The horror is therefore composed of both carnal and psychological elements, apprehensively destabilizing any attempts at a rapprochement between father and son. But The Wolfman's infantilized romantic inclinations troublingly traumatize its terror, and arguably suggest that such a lack of congruity is where the film's transformative powers reside.