The Girl Who Stole Time (CHI) (mubi)
The first far-eastern film of the festival is from China. Though I enjoy films from the far east enormously, there are some pronounced differences in the way that a story is told in Chinese culture, compared to say, Japanese. Since most of my experience of such output is from the latter, Chinese films can have elements that are a little jarring, culturally or otherwise. This film is such an example.
The Girl Who Stole Time is, as the name would suggest, a time travel caper; Qian Xiao, a young girl gets mixed up in a search for the 'time dial', a macguffin that grants the wearer the ability to stop time. Gaining the upper hand against Seventeen, a young gang member tasked with retrieving it, she can keep him at bay simply by stopping time and getting out of the way. On agreement that she will give it back after a day, Seventeen plays along to help her have an unforgettable day in the city she's just rocked up on.
Though the core of the film sort of made sense, there were several instances where things were introduced, and then just abandoned. For example, when Qiax Xiao stops time and moves something, the physicality of pushing an object 'stuck in time' means that when time is set in motion once more, a massive force is suddenly applied all at once to the object, which is then either significantly damaged, or goes flying across the room - delete as the plot requires. But after the first altercation - a pretty cool double chase scene - this is pretty much forgotten about entirely.
The third act attempts to tie a lot of loose ends and explain some of the stranger goings on earlier, but its too saggy and gets bogged down in its own complexity, and trying desperately to suddenly change the dynamic between the leads from a germinating romance, to a full-on time-spanning romance. It feels like we lost about 10 minutes of exposition somewhere.
It was good; although not the animation marvel we were led to believe it was. Some goofy animation slip ups here and there, and while the character models were quite well detailed, they looked to inhabit a world of cookie-cutter low-detail buildings. It could have been worse, but there was a lot to improve on here. 6/10
Redux Redux (US) (wiki)
From a refreshingly simple concept came a very enjoyable film with a sci-fi twist. In a universe where humanity has discovered multiverse travel, albeit manifesting in a black market trade, Irene travels between multiverse s in a seeming neverending search for one where her daughter wasn't kidnapped and brutally murdered. So far, she hasn't found one, and while she is there, murders, again and again, the bastard that did it, again and again.
In one universe, she encounters Mia, another kidnap victim who by chance hadn't yet been murdered. Mia is a vagrant child, her parents dead and now batted between adoption centres, she was picked up on the run. Distrusting and lashing out, she is initially a liability for an amateur assassin, but as Mia learns of the wider situation, it becomes clear they could both be each others saviour.
A tense and brooding film, shot on a shoestring budget, but able to hit well above its weight, Redux Redux was a satisfying watch and a nice take on the multiverse concept. 8/10
In Symbiosis (UK) (site)
The title of this documentary from new filmmakers Helena Berndl and Francesco Maria Gallo has been 8 years in the making, initially the germ of an idea when someone asked Helena about Aspartame, the sugar substitute used in foods. As she looked further, Helena had more questions than answers about why such a substance ended up in our foods.
Food programs and films tend to be dizzying. No sooner so we try and cut one thing from our diet (red meat, palm oil, ultra processed foods...) than another view comes along vilifying some other staple of our diets. And In Symbiosis does this yet more, throwing its wide net around the practice of intensive farming, the way it does more harm than good, and the way it appears to be failing, due to a number of reasons, including the monocultures removing the diversity from the soil and environment, and removing the grounds ability to store nutrients and moisture, something that more organic farming methods are not suffering from.
In Symbiosis covers a lot of ground, and I mean, a lot. It will take at least 2 viewings to get a good digestion of the subjects at hand here, and its deep dive into the subject, plus touching on various adjacent ones, may work against it when it comes to bringing the film to a wider, less detail tolerant audience. But there is no doubt that this is one of the more urgent films to experience on the documentary circuit. 8/10
Hellcat (US) (review)
A girl wakes up in a moving trailer home, pulled through the night along bumpy, unfamiliar roads. A bandage on her arm points to a mysterious injury, and it seems to be spreading something around her body. The man at the wheel tells her via jerry rigged speaker to be calm; they will be at the hospital soon, he knows just who can treat her. So far, so typical creepy kidnap movie.
But hellcat has surprises in store and not everything is as it seems. Shot almost entirely in the claustrophobic, dirty interior of the trailer, the situation becomes darker and more obfuscated, as the horrors within its grimy walls are slowly discovered.
Hellcat is a grimy, uncomfortable thriller with great lead performances and a toe-curling third act, marred only slightly with an ending which lost credibility with me just a touch. However it wasn't enough to stop it being a strong recommendation, even if horror thrillers aren't your thing. 7.5/10
We Bury the Dead (AU) (wiki)
My third Day of the Dead screening for the day sees Daisy Ridley - not the first person you think of for this sort of thing - star in a variant on the Zombie apocalypse genre. Eva wed her beau Mitch just before he went to a conference in Tasmania, which by unfortunate coincidence fell victim to a fatal accident where a US military base just offshore let loose an experimental weapon, annihilating the residents of the eastern half of the island with an electromagnetic pulse, killing everything that breathed.
Trying in desperation to get to her husband she volunteers as part of the body identification and cleanup routine, but quite quickly it becomes clear that not everyone is dead, or at least, some have reanimated themselves. Breaking clear of the controlled zone border, she hitches a ride with Clay, a wayward fellow volunteer with few scruples who relishes the chance to give the bike he just liberated a test drive.
We Bury the Dead is gristly, nasty horror, if only for the zombies themselves who are largely in the shadows and dormant, but their tendency to grind their teeth until they crack give me serious ick, and if you come to a horror film to feel ick, then this is the one for you.
It did everything it should have done; creeped you out, kept you on edge and fearful of the next fright, but also with a grounding of humanity, the film careful not to stray away from the fact that days earlier, these were people, and families. I'm no fan of horror films generally, but this was cerebral enough to keep me both fearful and entertained, and I'm glad I put it on the list. 7.5/10
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