MOVIES IN LA PLAZA: THE BEST AND THE WORST OF THE FANTASIA FESTIVAL

Commentary by Sergio Martínez

The 27th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival took place between July 20 and August 9. Originally focused on horror productions from Asia, the festival has diversified its genres and the origin of the films exhibited. Its first vocation, however, has not been completely abandoned: horror, science fiction and fantasy continue to be its main source of inspiration, with a solid and always interesting selection of animated films.

Traditionally, the selection of films in Fantasia is quite eclectic: there are some films of great quality, especially those originating in Japan or South Korea, while the American selection fluctuates between works by young directors who display the best of their talent in low-budget productions, while others fall into the category of what used to be known as "B-movies", that is, films without many pretensions that completed the double programs in the matinees.

THE BEST

This is the list in this reviewer's opinion.

Kurayukaba: the best at Fantasia

1. Kurayukaba (Director: Shigeyoshi Tsukahara, Japan). An animated film that combines fantastic elements with an interesting vision of the city and its hidden and obscure places. This is the story of private detective Sotaro and his companion Saki who take a job despite the risks it will have. Remarkable animation work with exuberant scenes makes this film the best of the festival.

2. Sand Land (Dir. Toshihisa Yokoshima, Japan). Also, an animated film that combines adventure and action. In a world where humans have ruined the environment, water has become a scarce and precious resource. Humans and demons must join forces to regain access to the vital element.

Sand Land is also a very
 good animation film

3. The Primevals (Dir. David Allen, USA).  An interesting and original approach to the legend of the Yeti, or "abominable snowman", leads a group of researchers into the Himalayas, where they will find more than what they were looking for.

4. The Fantastic Golem Affair (Dir. Juan González, Fernando Martínez, Spain). It can be considered somewhere between a fantasy full of absurd twists and a tribute to the tradition of silent films. An unusual accident that ends with the death of his friend David, in truth a golem, who falls from a building and breaks into a thousand pieces, leads Juan to start an investigation on his own. This will lead him to discover the dealings of a dark firm that manufactures the "golems".

Spain's The Fantastic Golem Affair:

5.  Phantom (Dir. Lee Hae-young, South Korea). This is a film of political intrigue but also of interaction between various characters placed under strong physical and psychological pressure. Set in 1930, when Japan administered Korea as a colony, the occupying authorities tried to dismantle a Korean resistance group led by the one known only as 'Phantom'. After an assassination attempt on a high-ranking official, Japanese authorities arrest five people they suspect may be the wanted 'Phantom'. Although there is a certain excess of action scenes at the end, the part about the relationships between the suspects makes this one of the good films seen at the festival.

Aporia: the risks of messing with time

6.  Aporia (Dir. Jared Moshé, USA) A new incursion into the ethical aspects that can bring an aspiration such as altering certain elements of time. Sophie (Judy Greer) finds her life devastated by the unexpected death of her husband in a car accident. This has also complicated her relationship with her teenage daughter (Faithe Herman). When her husband's friend and colleague (Payman Maadi), a brilliant physicist, tells her that he is working on a machine that can alter the course of events in the dimension of time and could "bring back" her husband's life, her first reaction is scepticism, but eventually, she accepts. However, no one considered other consequences of the bold move.

IN THE MIDDLE GROUND

Without being completely satisfactory, watching them was not a waste of time either; we can place these two very dissimilar films in theme, genre, and origin in this category.

1. The Concierge (Dir. Yoshimi Itazu, Japan). This is an animated film based on a manga by Tsuchika Nishimura, which is very popular in Japan. Akino is a young woman just starting her job as a concierge in a department store whose customers are all kinds of animals whose every demand must be met, no matter how absurd it may seem.

2. New Life (Dir. John Rosman, USA) Elements of horror and suspense are present in this film where in its first scene, we see young Jessica Murdock (Hayley Erin) desperately running away. In parallel, Elsa Gray (Sonya Walger) is contacted to locate and stop, by all means, the young woman. Only as the film progresses do we learn why Jessica is so eagerly sought by those who have paid Elsa to find her. Elsa, in turn, is confronted with her own condition in the form of an incurable disease that, in the short term, will prevent her from continuing to do her job.

THE WORST

1. Divinity (Dir. Eddie Alcazar, USA).  With Steven Soderbergh as executive producer, this film is a mix of sci-fi, dystopian fantasy and critique of corporate greed. Shot in black and white, with an atmosphere reminiscent of expressionist cinema for its contrasts of light and shadow, Divinity ultimately fails to convince either for its story or for the unconvincing performances of its actors. Two supposed extraterrestrial brothers (one, with Latin features, the other, Iranian) come to the headquarters of a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who has produced and markets a substance that assures eternal youth and everlasting life. There is also a group of damsels in white suits whose role is never clear. That's why, except for them, in the end, everyone, both the pharmaceutical entrepre
neur and the violent aliens, are the "bad guys in the movie".

Raging Grace: pretentious and not clear 
in its focus

2. Raging Grace (Dir. Paris Zarcilla, U.K.) Pretentious as story and premise. At times confusing and contradictory, this film presents the story of Joy, an undocumented Filipina (Max Eigenmann), who comes to work as a maid in a house where a man dying of cancer lives and is cared for by his cold-hearted niece. Joy must hide her daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla), but the latter, being a mischievous girl who likes to wander into the nooks and crannies of the mansion, discovers certain secrets that quite implausibly connect with her. An attempt to combine a premise of anti-colonial denunciation with a horror story was poorly achieved.