"Do you ever die in your own dream?": Shunji Iwai's Vampire

Often when a director comes from abroad to North America to make a film, the result is lackluster, panned by critics who previously screamed with praise, or misses out on wide release because distributors fear anything that smells remotely of monetary loss.  It's the age old battle of art versus product and Shunji Iwai's newest film is an English language piece that falls into the sad latter of the three.

Vampire opens with two people, a man and woman, meeting up in an undisclosed location with the express intention of committing suicide together.  They drive through the rainy Canadian weather talking about their reasons and their disconnects with life trying to have a good final day before ending it all.  It becomes apparent, however, that one of them has an ulterior motive.  The woman doesn't want to feel any pain so the man suggests blood draining.  He offers to assist in her death first before doing himself in.  Obviously we wouldn't have a film if they both die, so it's safe to assume that he's not going to kill himself.  Rather, he lives up to the title of the story.  Simon (the protagonist of the story) drains Jellyfish (her online name) of her blood via needs and bottles, and when the process is complete he gorges himself upon one of the bottles.

So is Vampire a horror movie?  No.  At least, not in the typical archetype of horror.  Is it then a story about a serial killer?  Perhaps, but the film is more than even that.  Any good film is multifaceted.  Rather than shoving meaning or ideology in your face, a truly good film with allow you to follow it on a journey and give you an idea to ponder.  It will inspire thought.  Everything else is just surface value.  I could pontificate on the ideas of spiritual isolation and addiction that are present in the subtext of this story, but I would also be giving too much of it away in the process and since I want you all to go out and find this movie by whatever means necessary and WATCH it, I think I'll take a break from that.

What I do want to talk about is how this film is a rare example of a director being capable of maintaining his artistic sensibilities while filming outside of his country.  It's debatable whether or not any Hollywood studio would fund a film like Vampire (the film was produced and shot in Canada) given Iwai's body of work.  Iwai is not a throw it in your face kind of film maker.  Rather, he is an artist, a poet, and a painter with a camera for a brush.  His body of work includes Love Letter, PiCNiC, Swallowtail Butterfly, All About Lily Chou Chou, and Hana and Alice to name a few.  These films are known for their intense emotional honesty, creative camera and editing work, and experimental poetic story structures.  They do not play on our more visceral senses, but speak more to our hearts and minds.

By all rights, Simon should be looked at as a villain, and yet by the end of the film, you love him.  Iwai takes us on a journey side by side with Simon in which we see that his fragile state of being is something he is out of empathy rather than a sadistic desire to feed on the blood of others.  It dares to ask a difficult question about human connection.  Is it possible, as Iwai stated at Sundance, for a victim and perpetrator to see each other in the light of moral understanding and acceptance? Food for thought.

Throw in superb lighting and honest performances and you've got one hell of a film.  Another striking thing about the film is that none of the characters remotely resemble each other.  They're all uniquely played by the actors.  Look for a strangely obsessive performance by Rachel Leigh Cook and an understated brilliance from Amanda Plummer, the two bigger names on the film, but there is something so arresting about Kevin Zegers' performance of Simon that I just couldn't part from him.

This film is a hard one to find.  It is in English but currently there are no official channels to purchase the DVD in America or Canada.  The only way to currently purchase it is through the Pony Canyon Shopping Club, which is linked on the film's website.  While Navigating the Japanese site may be a semi-daunting task, it is a worthy one.  This film, is easily one of the better films I've seen in the last couple of months.  Not for those who just want mindless fun and entertainment.  Vampire is an intriguing and captivating story that begs the question, are we all just waiting to die?

Science Fiction Slashers and Hippy Psychotropics

Is it possible to start out as a freaky in your head acid trip, amp up into science fiction land, and then shift further into the slasher genre without becoming so completely convoluted that you lose your audience within five minutes?  Apparently it is, or at least, that's what I marveled at.  Director Panos Cosmatos' first feature film, Beyond The Black Rainbow seems to achieve this miracle.

The film starts with a kind of psychedelic infomercial about the Arboria Institute, a futuristic psychiatric care facility which fuses modern technology, psychology, and pharmacology with a sprinkle of New Age Hippy TLC.  Of course, this is not what really goes on in Arboria.  For that matter, I'm not really sure EXACTLY what happens in Arboria, but I can say that the relationship between patient Elena and Dr. Barry Nyle (the focus of the story) is anything but healing.

Nyle is crafting Elena into something.  What that something is, is not fully explained, but plenty is left up to the imagination.  All Elena craves is to see her father, the ailing Dr. Arboria, but Nyle keeps her from him, tormenting her in order to harness a unique power from her.

Visually, the film is incredible.  A plethora of beautifully contrasting color tones and blending cuts create a very unsettling feeling; natural, given the context of the story.  It is very clear that the Dr. is not all he appears to be and that the patient is more than she appears to be, and the visuals continually heighten this feeling.  Swirling cuts fade and cross-fade, blending with freeze frames and heady imagery to put us into the characters rather than merely observe them.

Somewhere along the way, the genre bends as Elena attempts to flee from her white room of constant torment and we journey with her from a mad fluorescent prison into the lush real world of plants and fresh air.

Everyone I've talked to who has seen this film has had something unique that struck them about it, whether they enjoyed the film or not.  Suffice to say, it's a multiple viewing type of film, and you will probably still NEVER quite understand exactly where it came from.  What I can tell you is this:  Panos Cosmatos was never allowed to watch horror movies as a young child.  Instead, he would look at the VHS cases and imagine what the films were about, which were dark and twisted.  When he finally DID start watching these films his mind was completely blown.

The film just completed a week long run at Cinefamily in Los Angeles.  If you can find it anywhere, do not hesitate to check it out.