Imaginaerum (2012)

  
Cheap thrill, but still well worth your time if you're hankering for this type of fix.
I kept thinking how incredibly contrived and heavy handed this film is. Its sentimentality reaches biblical proportions and I felt like I was being force fed. Despite this running through my head as I was watching, I still got a wee bit choked up at the last quarter, and I loathe to admit that such a blatantly manipulative piece of filmmaking got the better of me. I am a man, god damn it.

This is just one of those movies. You know the type. Pan's Labyrinth, MirrorMask, Tideland, The Fall and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. A little kid lost in a big, mean and fantastical world yada yada a celebration of a child's imagination et cetera, topped with a generous helping of personal growth and a large side of lesson learned for dessert. Sure if you reduce them down to this level you're left with a bit of a sickly sweet and artificial flavour, and yet it doesn't matter one iota because all of them bring something unique and genuine to the equation. We all have our weaknesses, and this type of film is mine. While Imaginaerum has nothing on the greats I just mentioned and it suffers a little bit from a case of the cheapus productionitis, it will definitely take you a fair way there.

Most of this movie is driven by CG effects, and some of it is kinda hit and miss; budgetary constraints are evident, however generally the art direction and excellent photography elevate it somewhat. Oh, and it is also kind of a musical. A band called Nightwish was the catalyst for getting this made, while I'm not too familiar with them it sure made the proceedings more interesting.

So you just read or watched or whatevered a really good story. You enjoyed this story. You got invested in the story and came to care about it. By all means, you extracted value from having experienced it. And then the story ends with something along the lines of '...and it was all a dream.'
A lot of people get a little bit militant in their hate for this, and if you're one of those people you're wrong. Still, you'd better avoid this one. For everyone else, this is a decent little middle of the shelf distraction.

Kairo (2013) (Game)

  
An exploration / puzzle thinger that is well worth the price if you're even remotely connected to the world of gaming.

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) - 1929 Short

  
It kinda blows my mind that this was made over 80 years ago. To this day it remains an incredible representation of a dreamscape, or a trip gone badscape. The bugs, man. The bugs. COMING OUT OF HOLES IN YOUR BODY. Shiver me timbers.

Upstream Color (2013)

  
Upstream Color is quite good, and infuriating. It's the next film by Shane Carruth, the creator of Primer. If you want to enjoy this, try to forget that.

Hmm. Carruth is pretty good at this movie making stuff, yeah? Upstream Color from a technical standpoint is put together wonderfully. It looks and sounds fantastic. It flows beautifully. But then, none of us would have expected anything less. If Primer is the cold, logical and methodical maze of paradoxical narrative, then Upstream Color is its fuzzy emotional counterpart. I mean it's not a feel-good family summer hit by any stretch, but it is less cerebral and more... Hearty.

So how about that whole crazy bug transfer blue psycho whatever thing? If nothing else, points have to be given for originality. The film has the how covered pretty well, but the thing that to me is very painfully missing is the why. I mean if money and voyeurism are what makes you hard, surely there are better ways to go about getting off?

But that really is my only complaint. Well, and a slightly draggey oney middle act. But one could easily make the argument that the why is not important, and that the film is about the experiential side of things, about being and feeling in the moment. If one was so inclined. I'm not sure I'm so open to that, but whatever my personal thoughts might be about Upstream, getting in and letting it take me for a ride was enjoyable enough, and memorable.

Dialogue is used sparingly, but the film has a lot to say. I got the impression that Carruth was having a wonderful time speaking through film, rather than through dialogue, and that really was a pleasure to take in. The sound has several layers of importance. The passage of time is handled exceptionally well, that is, if you haven't fallen in too deep into the film's decidedly hypnotic rhythm to notice.

Hmm. But why. No matter how much I try to put that aside, and no matter how much I enjoyed the film, I keep going back to the why, which is glaringly absent. I really wanted to love this movie, but I find it hard to write anything other than WHY, GOD DAMN IT?

Hats off to Upstream. Really. It managed to come up with the only thing more frustrating than a copout open to interpretation ending to a film that was only made to be open to interpretation because it's writer couldn't fucking come up with a decent ending. Upstream transcends that by crafting a truly wonderful film, full of inspiration and purpose, even touching greatness numerous times, and then instead of the usual overcomplicated bullshit that they didn't know how to tie up, we are just left with: why. Fuck. I've been waiting for this fucker's next film since Primer came out, and I get this.

Why did the sampler and the thief do all that crap? What was their motivation, their goal? Upstream is a wonderful movie in every way except it didn't give me any of that and I can't handle it. And again, one could say that the film is not about the why, it's about the process, it's about two people with wrecked lives finding eachother and unfurling their respective mysteries and then getting glorious revenge and all that good shit, but one can just shut up and sit down because one is an idiot. I need the why, and I need that a hell of a lot more than the how. Sorry.

Paprika (2006)

  
Personally I don't think this is very good, but due to popular demand fanboys bitching, here it is. I'm a man of the people, for the people, by the people, if nothing else. Might I be so bold as to point you in the direction of a clearly superior and unfortunately much lesser known piece of work, Mind Game? It's over that way.

Stalker (1979)

  
Keep your expectations in check, make sure you're settled in for a long and slow ride, and you'll have a totally spiffy time.

Tarkovsky this, Tarkovsky that, Stalker Stalker Stalker Stalker. You know, the damn well near universal acclaim and legendary cult status that this little film has built up around itself is really doing it more of a disservice by this point. I was expectantly waiting for the moment when my mind will be blown to chunks by the ultimate stage 10 mindfuckery hidden level special boss climax.

Only it never really happened, and it left a bit of a sour aftertaste in my brain. Then I realized that this was entirely my fault, and then suddenly the movie become significantly better.

So, if there's anything you take away from this, it is to keep your expectations in check. Also make sure you're in the mood for an almost 3 hour long and really rather ponderously paced arthouse 'scifi', put into 's because it's really not the sort of scifi you think of when you say scifi, but a slightly different breed. Even more scifier, I dare say, just don't expect lasers and flying saucers and that.

And with that out of the way, now I can a little more comfortably add my bit to the mountain of damn well near universal acclaim for this movie, because it really is rather good.

Firstly I have to mention DAT PHOTOGRAPHY, DAAAAAAMN. This is a slow moving film, and cuts are used sparingly. It was obviously shot very, very painstakingly. I kinda wish more movies did this. The composition was absolutely part of the storytelling, and not just a means to an end, or there for its own sake. It was in perfect harmony with the haunting score, and it created some wonderful moments.

And the second thing I wanted to mention... Well, I'm not even sure if I should mention it at all. I don't know if I just imagined it. I don't know if I saw these things because I was looking for a mindfuck, or because it really is there. Which, I suppose, could make it all the better, if you were to look at it that way. Certainly, if it was made any more obvious it would have utterly ruined everything. But having said that; I'm pretty convinced that a couple of times the film became self aware, and that it decidedly looked back at me through the fourth wall. At times it felt like the characters knew they were characters, and were addressing me. And I'm not at all talking about the monologue at the end.
Let me just say at this point that I fucking despise that. I hate it when a film or a book or whatever tries to be clever like that. It's like, it doesn't have to take responsibility for itself. If it's shitty, or if you didn't like it, well, it wasn't serious anyway, it wasn't really trying. It's a copout and I hate it.

The really cool thing here is that I'm just not sure if that is in fact what was happening or not. This is a very, very fine line to tread, and Stalker treads it beautifully. And the last thought I shall leave you with this evening which I thought was the absolutely coolest cherry on top of the coolest ever cake (highlight to read, I wouldn't wanna spoil anything.) -
The Stalker himself was an alien, taking humans into the room to learn more about us as a society. This is the reason his daughter had superpowers, and this is the reason why he got so freaked out when it was about to be destroyed. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOAOAOAOAOAOAAAOAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO I'm not sure if you'll think this idea is as awesome as I do, but it thoroughly tickled my fancy.

And while you're at it, check out Tarkovsky's other masterpiece Solaris, which is one of my all time faves. And while you're at that, check out the 2002 remake which is surprisingly decent.

Black Moon (1975)

  
Uhmmmmm....... Yeah. I don't know.
I spent about 30 minutes reading about this film after having seen it, and I'm no closer to any answers than I was at the start. Apparently, 70s feminism and Alice In Wonderland, and stuff, I guess. If you feel like sinking your brain into a cinematic curiosity without any recognisable plot or discernible meaning by all means go for it. I spent most of the runtime bored and half-thinking about other, more engaging stuff like whether I should try that new brand of toothpaste the next time I'm at the supermarket. Occasionally I am in the mood for something like this, but it came at the wrong time and really rubbed me the wrong way.

There's an old babylady breastfeeding and talking with a rat, a horribly unmagical unicorn, a war between men and women, some weird, touch based telepathy, the original keyboard cat, a lot of farm animals and enough underage nudity to make any pedophile sweat. And as far as I'm concerned, the film contained zero sense. It did some fairly interesting stuff with sound, but beyond that it wasn't even made all that well and the cinematography was completely pedestrian.

With films of this ilk, you know, destructured, personal, where you're not even convinced that the filmmaker himself knew what the fuck is going on in it, there's still an ephemeral connective tissue there, a thread you can pick up and follow. A common theme, recurring elements, some barely-there cohesive glue; that is definitely not the case here, and Black Moon is one of the very few films where I wasn't able to identify anything of the sort. This is undoubtedly why I didn't like it much, and as I said already, I just wasn't in the right mindset for this type of fare either.
I'm just not sure what it was trying to say, or what it was talking about. And if there is nothing to say or talk about that's fine too, but then the rest of the film better have something else to offer - again, not the case here.

I'm not sure exactly how much this affected my experience with it, but I did see a pretty shitty transfer. Apparently there's a 2011 Criterion Collection edition and if their other releases are anything to go by, that's definitely the one to try to get your hands on.

Although, that ending... Well, it'll likely stick in my head for a while, I'll give it that much. Icky icky.

???

Asylum Seekers (2009)

  
I almost gave up on this and stopped watching at the 20 minute mark (and to put the gravity of that statement into perspective for you, out of the gazitrillion movies I watch this actually happens only purple times), but it's really awesome that I didn't because this film kinda evolves, and by the end of it you're all like whoa, Neo styles.

Even though the humour misses more often than it hits, it comes with so much vigour and so much charm that it really doesn't matter. This one out Terry Gilliams Terry Gilliam, and it does it on a measly 1.5mil budget. It's a damn shame the people behind it couldn't pull together some fatter stacks because seeing this one realized without those limitations would have turned out to be a special treat indeed.

So basically a bunch of crazy people come into an asylum, and it's like, the best asylum there ever was. But there's only one spot available, and so they must compete for admittance. Whatever you're thinking of right now, the movie is nothing like that.

And like, allegorical metaphors and shit! I really really wanna share my theories so you can appreciate how clever I am, unfortunately my jurnalistic integrity prohibits me from spoiling it. Suffice to say the film does a wonderful job of building up to a perfect catharsis. After sitting through so many up to interpretation open ended bananalities that this beloved genre of ours seems so ubiquitously fond of, it was a nice surprise to see this one get tied off so beautifully. Mmmm, delicious payoff cake. I tire of filmmakers expecting me to do their writing for them.

Another reason I ended up falling in love with Asylum Seekers is that it is completely unapologetically batshit far out there crazy. Like, so far out there that if you were to go out to meet it and look back, we'd be just a tiny dot. And it does all that without shame, without the need to justify itself or to cushion the blow, which is something I always really appreciate in a film. Crank. I think I'd like to rewatch Crank. Anyway.

The cool thing about these mental patients (besides the fact that they're performed wonderfully) is that they're so easy to identify with. The cyber lolita who is so infatuated with technology that she wants electricity to run through her veins was a particular favourite, not only because of the immediately obvious correlations between her and myself but also because I couldn't help but start thinking about transhumanism and I got so engrossed that I chainsmoked three cigarettes after having seen this film.
I liked her so much that I didn't even care when she made a quip about Quake III needing watercooling, and usually I am such a stickler for that kind of thing in my media. Oh, do go on, tell me how you're going to track that IP. Ugh. I do hope they write that shit intentionally. What was I saying? Oh yeah, likable characters. That's good.

And I don't even think think that film was at all about transhumanism, or maybe it was, what the fuck do I know.

Antichamber (2013) (Game)

  
A non-Euclidean, Escherish first person puzzler with a strong tendency to blow minds, preconceptions, short tempers and rules that have been (strangely) more or less completely unchallenged since the dawn of video gaming. This is Portal on cocaine, steroids and DMT.
Unmissable.

Wrong (2012)

  
This is Quentin Dupieux's follow up to Rubber. It is a bit good.

Not unlike Rubber, Wrong revels in subverting expectations and plays with tropes just as much as it does with its audience. Whether you can sit through that type of malarkey and enjoy yourself is pretty subjective which is why I'm hesitant to wholeheartedly recommend it, and unfortunately it also shares a lot of the pitfalls that I encountered with Rubber; there are a lot of moments of pure inspiration, it's just that these are sandwiched between sequences of relative mediocrity. I say relative, which is important, as Wrong is anything but - what I'm trying to get at is that Wrong has a lot of highs, and indeed they are quite brilliant, which draw a hell of a lot of attention to the plateaus.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess. One thing that this one has that Rubber didn't is a real human element to it. It's about some dude looking for his missing dog, and there are a lot of small touches in there that make you genuinely care about him. The film moves along at a brisk pace which I really appreciated - with works like these, especially where the writer/director also undertakes a lot of other roles it's easy for a film to screech to a halt in order to satisfy somebody's egotistic need for self indulgence. I'm feeling a rant coming on (I've seen a little too much pompous arthouse shit recently) so I'll try to digress. And no, the irony is not lost on me.

So anyway, this dude, looking for his dog, and you care. And it's funny! Partly from the skillful use of deadpan, partly from some exceptionally entertaining performances (Master Chang who is outrageous and subtle all at once, the gardener's ridiculous accent, the dude's neighbour's quiet desperation are just some of the highlights) and the pure, unashamed lack of common sense or logic bring Dupieux's strange scenarios to life with surprising comic force and a tangible dramatic undercurrent.

If the above sounds like something you might not hate, then by all means give this one a chance. I know that a lot of people will almost be immediately turned off by one element of this film or another, or they may not appreciate being made fun of or scoffed at so they will scoff at the film in return, but that'd be a real shame because rolling with the punches is part of the charm here, indeed, one of the attractions.

Things happen. Characters come in, do some stuff, and then go. The soundtrack drones on with foreboding or nonchalance and the alarm clock goes from 7:59 to 7:60. Why? No reason.
(・。・)

Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010)

  
Heavy, slow, dense and abstract; this is the type of movie that to me embodies the mindfuck genre. Effortlessly channels icons like Kubrick and Lynch while steadily maintaining its own identity. Golly goodness, this is a little gem.

Despite what that trailer may make you think, Beyond The Black Rainbow is, for the most part, a hypnotic and slow moving film. It's one hell of a throwback to that particular style of the sci-fi of yore, with a healthy bit of horror thrown in.

In a very rough nutshell, the story revolves around a mad scientist's attempt to control the mental powers of his unwilling subject. There are also a lot of drugs involved.

Well shit, that really was a rough nutshell, wasn't it? I mean there's quite a bit more going on than that, but to be honest I'm not entirely clear on too much else. Yay! Indeed, this is the sort of mindfuck that I'm not treated to very often anymore.

Ironically, one of the reasons why this one has such strong appeal, is because it is quite unique and idiosyncratic. Obviously, this film wasn't made with an audience in mind. Even in such a strong niche as mindfuck cinema, you often get watered down productions that want to also be accessible and marketable. I'm thinking of Revolver or the director's cut of Donnie Darko(which I have only recently seen and immediately wished that I hadn't), for example. The ones that try to have their cakes and eat them too, to use an expression that I hate and still don't really understand.
This is not the case here. This film is the result of a singular man's vision, or perhaps a small handful of others at the most may have also been privy to it. But this one man, he doesn't give a shit. He just wants to make the film he wants to make, all else be damned. He is an auteur. An artiste. And my inappropriate cynicism aside, he's quite brilliant.

From a technical standpoint, the thing I undoubtedly enjoyed the most was the way the set design, cinematography and editing (and holy moly, dat soundtrack) very often come together to create a sequence that really is more than the sum of its parts. I'm struggling a little to explain this, but you get a lot of movies that look great and are edited without missing a beat, and yet remain completely pedestrian, to be forgotten even before the film is over. And then something like this comes along, where the simplest sequence, such as an elevator door opening or someone walking is made into a full blown spectacle that'll stay with you for a while to come. Beyond The Black Rainbow is full of moments like these. Even when the film is at its most batshit crazy and you're thinking 'what the hell were they thinking', you can't help but appreciate the effort that went into making it look the way it does.
The set design and soundtrack in particular are absolutely amazing but often they'll work in combination with all the other tricks up a filmmaker's sleeve to even greater effect.

Alrighty then. So now that we've safely established all that, it's time for me stop kissing the film's ass, because there is one thing in particular that really rubbed me the wrong way. Spoilers ahead.
As I've said already, the villain was wonderful. Barry (what a ridiculous name for a mad scientist, btw.) was sufficiently creepy and hate-able from the get go, but then we get a glimpse into his journal, and we learn about his past, and then his transformation happens, and by that point he really does become a quintessential movie bad guy. It's a pleasure to see him start at such a low point, and then he just keeps lowering that bar. And then, at the point of the film's climax, at that perfect moment of coming face to face with his prey, he trips, falls over, and dies by hitting his head on a fucking rock. God damn it. Screw you for that, Black Rainbow.

But yeah, beyond that, it's damn near the perfect example of a mindfuck movie and you should definitely see it.