Film: You crazy zombie!

I've just realised I'm less than twenty four hours from seeing Christopher Guest and the crew in action, now with added Ricky Gervais.

Sweet.

Yesterday, there was Ten Canoes, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Fido, and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. That is to say, Australian Indigenous, angry Irish, Canadian zombies, doomed American teenagers.

Ten Canoes

I'd missed this one back home, and it had been recommended to me enough to make it seem worth more than just DVD.

Director Rolf de Heer has managed to film a really authentic feeling tale of Australian Aboriginals, before their (pretty devastating, for them) contact with the Western world. The tale opens with a man, played by David Gulpilil, narrating in English a tale of his ancestors as they make canoes to hunt geese. In turn, one of these men tells a tale to his brother of a long time ago, a tale of love, and revenge. All dialogue in the film is spoken in a native tongue.

This is a pretty remarkable achievement. The film is in black and white for the first story, and colour for the flashback. The colour is good, but the black and white feels really old, intentionally, and this works to great effect. The acting, largely by unprofessionals, is good, and the whole thing is pretty funny.

So, while it was well done, I wasn't blown away. Once again, I think it was me, but the narration felt overused, and I wasn't completely drawn into the story. Not to an extent that I wouldn't watch it again, and the narration was done with purpose; it almost felt like being told the story around a campfire. So while not something I could call a fault, really, just something I'm not used to. It's well made, though, and more than that, it was good that it was made. Hopefully it'll lead to films made in a similar vein.

6/10

I had to skip the Q&A I cross the city for The Wind that Shakes the Barley. It's won the Palm d'Or, if I have my capitalisations correct there, and gets a good write-up, but it's a period drama, which is a genre (like historical epics) that I often can't get into. So, how did it fare?

The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Ken Loach loves the social commentary. Not that I've seen a Ken Loach film, other than twenty minutes of Sweet Sixteen when it was on TV, but, you know. I've heard things.

The film tells the story of two Irish brothers in Ireland's post WW1 war against England for independence. Cillian Murphy's Damien is to be a doctor in England until he decides to stay in Ireland to join with his brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney) in fighting the English army. We then follow their ups and downs (downs, mostly) through the next few years of Ireland's history.

All the acting is pretty top notch. Cillian Murphy continues to go from strength to strength. The history explores a story ripe for telling, as well. The best thing about the film is how currently significant it is; it's about people fighting off an invading power; the leading power of the world. There are some great small moments, like when an imprisoned Damien talks to a British soldier, who isn't an army, just someone following orders. Really interesting things are explored. The final few moments of the film, too, are heartbreaking.

And yet I sat largely bored. A lot of this was my unfamiliarity with the material, but I just couldn't connect emotionally with it very much, as tragic as the whole thing is.

If there was a larger focus on the relationship of the brothers, the emotional core of the film, I would have connected more, but this would have taken the focus off the social issues being explored. It also didn't help that we're physically kept at middle distance the whole time; Loach seems to have decided to avoid close-ups, making it a somewhat chilly experience at times. But it's a skillful production exploring pertinent issues, and that's worth a lot.

6/10

We were then to see Deliver Us from Evil, but I chose that before realising there was a Canadian zombie comedy starring Carrie-Ann Moss (who I love for her Memento work rather than that big trilogy thing she was a part of) and... and... Billy Connelly... as a zombie.

I had to see Fido.

Fido

Fido has a really interesting premise. We're in an alternative past, a version of the Pleasantville-style fifties, where zombie uprising (Romero style, of course) had occurred in the twenties. The world has adapted. The zombies still rise- if someone dies, they become one, but a collar has been created that tames them, takes away their craving for flesh. This has created a new purpose for them: slaves.

Our story concerns Timmy (K'Sun Ray), an unpopular ten year old boy. His parents Helen and Bill, played by Carrie-Ann Moss and Dylan Baker (really, really, really, really creepy in Happiness) are the only people on their street to not own a zombie. This becomes embarrassing for Helen when the head of security for ZomCom- the government-like corporation that created the collars, as well as many other items for better living in a world of zombies- moves in across the street. So she caves in, and buys a zombie, who Timmy befriends and names Fido- Billy Connelly, silent here except for moans. The problem is, the collars don't always work as well as they should.

The premise here is pretty great. Fifties suburbia is always ripe for parody, and here we get current satire thrown in as well- ZomCom always reminds citizens that they need them for safety; anything bad within the neighbourhood is quickly covered up so no one finds out that ZomCom if fallible. The satire is mostly spot on, too, although the script seemed a little uncertain on whether the collars that kept the zombies in slavery were a good or a bad thing.

It is a horror comedy, though. The film is funny, although it’s far from being Shaun of the Dead. There are a few pacing issues, although the insanity of the premise always keeps things at least amusing. The horror is never scary, nor is it intended to be. It does keep the humour nicely dark, though- throwing zombies into Pleasantville always would be, though. The darkest element is possibly Tammy, the zombie a neighbour uses as a sex slave. And even that, somehow, in Fido’s own twisted way, turns out to be sweet. Somehow. And while the film doesn’t build to absolute carnage, as fun as that would have been, that may have made things too similar to Braindead. Moss plays the kooky fifties mother capably, Connelly is very good despite his silence, and Baker does uptight and repressed really well.

It’s not the funniest horror-comedy, although the characters have enough heart to make up for this. It won’t set the world on fire, going down in horror history. In a word, it’s cute. Yes, I just called a zombie movie cute.

7/10

The Q&A revealed that this one won’t be out until early-to-mid next year, but it seems its going to get some decent marketing.

The final film of the night was All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. This is too long already, though, so like I did last night, in a fit of geekery, I’m going to give that its own post.