Sitges 2007: the aftermath; Experimental movies (volume 4 of 4)

Finally, the moment has come!!!! After more than six months, and a huge and heavy tidiness, I will finish the Sirges 2007 Film Festival chronicles :P I apologize for this lag of time again, but I'm trying to update my chronicles and experiences to nowadays as so fast as I can... :P

After terror and gore movies, noir and epic ones, and the animation chapter, now it's the turn of the experimental movies: those movies unclassificable because of its strange spirit.

Hence, this final chapter includes, besides the Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Blade Runner in its Final Cut Version, (remasterized and including again the unicorn scene but not some voice-off reflections from Deckard'd mind) and the Rodriguez-Tarantino duet, Grindhouse, (including the fake trailers!!), and the most supriring asiatic movies, i.e. the Takeshi Kitano autodestruction as film director, the new fantasia from Park Chanwook, the first non-animation film of Katsuhiro Otomo, and the surrealism of a western in japanese feudal age by Takashi Miike :D

So, let's go with the most funny chapter of this Sitges 2007!!!


* Chapter 1. The USA experiments... a sci-fi classic reedition and a tribute to classic terror.

Is there anybody that didn't know what movie is Blade Runner?? I can't imagine it, it's possible that somebody hasn't seen the movie, but at least he/she knows about this film. This classic of cyberpunk (Blade Runner started this kind of philosophy in films) made by Ridley Scott, with that legendary soundtrack by the King of Experimental Music, Vangelis, is a masterpiece of sci-fi movies.

With a great bakcground of a decadent society really defeated by its own ambitions and creations, this movie offers a sad future where it's always raining and the sun can't achieve the floor of a cybernetic world (plenty of marketing, indeed XD cocacola, atari... incredible, it's not subliminal, it's literally shown in the movie!!! :P) where the mankind has created a set of servant androids, called replicants, with powerful habilities but without empathy, little detail that is the borderline between the humans and the replicants.

They are useful for Extraterrestral Hard Works in the past but deprecated on Earth in the present of the film because the replicants have exceeded their creators (the humans) capabilities and they wanted to make a rebellion.

'Cause of this, there are special cops, called Blade Runners (Deckard is one of them) must arrest every replicant hidden on Earth Society.

What can I say about this movie not said before? An incredible mixing of classic noir films (police, criminals, a femme fatale...) with philosophical background reflections and science fiction with cyberpunk, with a lot of different versions due to the differences between Scoot and the Production Enterprise (e.g.: the unicorn scene, Deckard being or not being a real replicant...), with incredible music (performed with only a real saxophone and a huge amount of synthesizers by Vangelis itself mixing futuristic ambientation with classical noir music notes and leit-motifs), now remastered with the aim of offering the best quality possible nowadays.

Deffinitively, a classic and immortal movie born in 1982, with Ridley Scoot in state of grace (opposite on the recent years of Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, but reborn with The Matchstick Men).

And in the other side, the incredible tribute to 70's horror movies made by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, Grindhouse.


The bizarre and bloody massacre of Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror provoqued by a lethal virus that transform people into zombies (Does anybody remember Resident Evil saga? XD) and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, the splendid stunt-tribute starring Zoe Bell, the stunt-woman of Uma Thurman on Tarantino's dual masterpiece Kill Bill, already projected on cinemas, but now joined in a single-experience and with the fake trailers not enjoyed outer USA.

And what trailers!!!! Besides the already-seen Machete, trailer directed by Robert Rodriguez, [...]

[...] I was able to see the splendid ideas of three well-known names in this industry: Don't!!, by Edgar Wright (amusing and hilarious tribute to horror clichés XD), [...]



[...] Thanksgiving, the incredible bizarre fake-movie by Eli Roth (director of Hostel saga), [...]



[...] and the Rob Zombie signature on Werewolf Women of the SS, clear tribute to Jess Franco starring Nicholas Cage as Fu-Manchu XD simply amazing XD.




* Chapter 2. Otomo is back! The beautiful surrealism of Korea by Park Channwook.

When I saw that Katsuhiro Otomo filmed a real-person film, I was very impatient for seeing this film, that receives the name of Mushishi. But in my opinion, the final result is a strange movie, with an awesome environment of Nature invaded by a special beings, like Mononoke Hime's kodamas, only able to be seen by a reduced number of persons, called Mushishi (Master of Mushi ---these beings are called Mushi, that means bug---).

The scenography is incredible, the atmosphere is impeccable... but the film is not great, maybe because of the nullity on its story. This film is based on a famous manga also called Mushishi, and it's possible that Otomo wanted to gather too much spirit of this manga: the result is a mix of independent adventures of Ginko, a young boy capable of seeing this strange spirits, the Mushi. It's true that the experience of the movie is powerful in terms of mixing natural and sobrenatural worlds, but the movie itself is empty of meaningness, and when it finishes, you have the feeling of a incoherent sequence of beauty images.

Being Mushishi a film by Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of the japanese cyberpunk masterpiece Akira, this movie called Mushishi is beauty and magical but poor, meaningless and empty of feelings.

In the opposite side, however, there is the last film of Park Chanwook, the genius creator of the Trilogy of Violence (consisting in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), is this brilliant comedy called I'm Cyborg but that's OK, a film about a young girl inside an asylum that believes in being a real cyborg. Proof of that is that she doesn't eat normal food but sucking alcaline batteries (this is seen in a nice scene in the asylum's dining room). This movie also counted with the presence of Park Chanwook in the projection auditorium, and he announced a new film for 2008 and a projection in the next Sitges Festival!! I hope this will be true :D I can't wait for this new film, with more violence, in the sense of his mentioned above Trilogy of Violence!!!

Well, about this cybernetic film, it's composed by two clear parts. The first one, a delirant comedy, offers to the audience the asylum in its own splendor: the most hilarious kinds of madness and dementia enter the scene while the main character of the young cyborg girl walks around this world of insanity, and it's possible to know her past (her grandmother overcoats, also in madness) and her present, and why she is confined in this mental hospital; simply amusing :) The second one, however, is a real drama with a beauty background of a love story between the cyborg and another mad confined boy. In this part is proofed that being mad and being idiot are not the same: the only aim of the boy is to transform her sad life in the asylum onto a beauty world where she is really a cyborg.

And is in this second part where Park Chanwook demonstrates that he is a master of filmmaking... it's really one of the most emotive films I've ever seen without the typical clichés of romanticism. Very recomendable.


* Chapter 3. The two mad minds of Japan: Kitano and Miike and their insanities made film.

I've reserved the most peculiar films forthe last ones. The reason is simple: it's almost impossible to see any movie as geek as the two following ones; one is the last creation of Takeshi Kitano, the King of the Kitano's Castle (humor amarillo in Spanish Television), and the creator of great films like Sonatine, Zatoichi, Kid's Return or the most recent Takeshi's, the initial masterpiece chapter of Kitano's autodestruction films. So, the second chapter of this autodestructive saga is the movie I want to talk about: Glory to the Filmmaker! Kantoku Banzai!

My humble opinion about this movie is simple but also strange: it's an authentic masterpiece hidden in a really bad movie XD If you don't see this movie you maybe cannot understand this sentence, but I will try to do this task easier. This film is something like a fake chronicle of Kitano itself as your role of ruined film director. Through the entire film, you have the sensation of being into different movies inside the film itself, each one of a different style, even a tribute to old japanese styles (the Retirement fake-film is the best gag I've ever seen in Kitano films, even better than the sumo battle in Sonatine or the eyes scene of Zatoichi, and with the detail that Retirement is apparently serious XD).

It's really a comedy, you will laugh very much in some scenes I won't tell about for don't act as a cruent spoiler :P I will only say (and it's not an spoiler itself because this is one of the most famous film snapshots :P) that the plastic puppet of Kitano receiving a medical analysis is incredible XD

I only can say: it's a must-see film, an incredible journey through asian film history and an autodestruction of Takeshi Kitano. Simply incredible, a must-see movie for cinematographic art lovers :O

And for the last, the last film of the Demigod Of Gore and Bizarre Violence... brrrrrrrrrr *drumroll* Takashi Miike, the creator of the famous torture scenes in Audition and Imprint, and the creator of geek (and too miuch strange :S) saga Dead or Alive (not related with the famous videogame :P).

This time, in Sukiyaki Western Django Miike offers us a real spaghetti western like the Bud Spencer & Terence Hill ones, but located in the Feudal Japan Age. And trust me: it's incredible how real seems a western ---with its typical hats and guns and saloons--- in a japanese mountain with japanese traditions.

The argument is poor, but... what's the matter with the story? Look at this promotional poster of the movie : traditional costumes, guns, shotguns, and the terrible western hats on japanese men XD So, who is concerned about the story when you are able to see this strange things? XD

And oh!! I almost forgot this important detail: all the movie is spoken in the worst english you will hear on a film XD Only for this handicap, the movie is really amusing :P But the most important hot shot for this movie is the special appearance in the introduction and in the second half of the movie of the USA most peculiar talent, also mentioned in this review (chapter 1): Quentin Tarantino!!! Yes, Tarantino appears as an actor (and he performs an important character in this film!!!). You can view a cut of Tarantino intro sequence in the following picture :)

This is another bad movie (really it cannot be considered a good movie at all), but it's an awesome experience for asian film fanatics :) Japanese people talking in english (or something that seems english XD), performing good saloon duels, with incredible and nice gags (Miike is the God of Blood, but with Kitano and Johnnie To, they three are experts on adding surrealism in a serious scene :P a clear example is in Sukiyaki Western Django, when the leader of one band is showing the other members his incredible hability on halting a thrust made by a katana... hahahahahahahahahahaha impressive XD). Also, very recomendable as a geek experience and for Miike entusiasts.




And that's all about Sitges 2007!!! Sitges 2007 is finally reviewed in its totallity!! (well, in my totallity, I didn't see all the movies, it's impossible!!) For people that hope a typical blockbuster movie, forget this two last chapters of this fourth volume of Sitges 2007. The pecualirity of this movies is the most attractive factor for wanting to see them. :P

I hope you poor mortals had enjoyed this huge review in 4 volumes, because I've enjoyed very much this writing experience, because of the remembrances of great moments in asian films... I can't wait for Sitges 2008!!!! But it will be on october, with no doubt... hence, I cannot do nothing than be patient... snif...

Bye bye poor mortals!!! See you in the Lair of Flamming Tears; and remember... being a geek is nice, except for those who aren't geek; so, please, however you can become a friendly spectacle be comprehensive in receiving confusion and distancing on passion affairs...