RUMOURS

Canadians have always fascinated me because they have an immense sense of national pride all while taking comfort in being the unofficial “second place” and/or “little brother” to America. Years ago I interviewed Guy Maddin on here and he made a point to associate Canadians with second place:

PINNLAND EMPIRE: Who, in your opinion, is the best active filmmaker working right now?

Guy Maddin: Without a doubt, Sokurov. Then Malick, for those of us, like all Canadians, interested in second place finishers.

Much of the promotion & interviews for Rumours are shrouded in this interesting lighthearted Canadian self-depreciation

if you're making movies in the shadow of America you're pretty self-conscious. You’re the little country next to the big behemoth. Many of my favorite movies are American – Evan Johnson, Reverseshot.com

America has this mythic scale that Canada doesn't quite have – Galen Johnson, Reverseshot.com

As Canadians we are not used to confrontation – Guy Maddin, hammertonail.com

Even when Canadians claim to dislike America or play up the rivalry, their personality is still based on being the underdog as if they have to prove something (it's similar to the almost one-sided sports rivalry between Boston & New York city).

Now...part of me feels like because Canadians are so openly insecure about their relationship to America that it’s an inside “bit” that all Canadians are in on for their own self-amusement and genuinely do feel like they're better than Americans.

Rumours is incredibly Canadian. It’s polite, strangely wholesome and filled with national pride (just underneath all of that are the weird darkly comical perversions that make Guy Maddin films so unique). I love the film as it stands but it would be an interesting “Five Obstructions"-like experiment to see the same film play out under the direction of a director from each of the seven countries represented in the movie just to see how different it would be.

The story pulls from obvious current events, old zombie films & B-movies and the lesser acknowledged work of fellow Canadian filmmaker John Paizs (Rumours would make for the perfect double feature with Paizs’ Top Of The Food Chain in that that they both get a lot of their aesthetic from old B-level zombie movies).

The Brain From Planet Arous / Rumours

While this film is certainly shrouded in current events & social commentary through a Canadian lens (the character that represents Canada in the film is the most interesting & heroic of the bunch), Rumours is ultimately a comedy about the difficulty of working together & completing a group task. For those that don’t know, this isn't just a Guy Maddin film. He’s the most recognizable name of all the directors, but Rumours was directed by Maddin, Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson (things don’t even feel like a Guy Maddin film until midway in). Directing a movie solo is difficult enough but three directors all working at the same time is a lot. The task of directing Rumours and the basic plot of the film go hand in hand. In front of the camera is the story of seven world leaders trying to come to a consensus on a global crisis in the midst of an apocalyptic attack. Behind the camera are three filmmakers trying to make one cohesive piece of art. The outcome is one of my favorite films of the year and one of the best features Maddin has been associated with with in quite some time. 

Rumours is getting more of a push than the average Guy Maddin/Guy Maddin-related film so it’s bound to get a wider audience than something like My Winnipeg or Brand Upon The Brain (Cate Blanchett might be the biggest movie star Maddin has worked with in his almost 40 years of filmmaking so her presence also helps it's popularity). This might not be the best entry-level Guy Maddin film but for folks like me that are familiar with his body of work, this is something new.

THE SHROUDS

I enjoyed this movie for the most part but I also know it’s very weak by Cronenberg standards. That’s a very contradictory thing to say but hear me out.  Is The Shrouds better than Maps To the Stars? Yeah. Should it be mentioned in the same breath as something like Dead Ringers? Absolutely not. I know this movie is pretty flawed, kind of uneven and takes forever to end. The performances & chemistry between the actors leaves a lot to be desired at times as well (I guess Viggo Mortensen was busy?). The basic premise, about a unique cutting edge way to grieve & obsess over deceased loved ones is certainly interesting but it’s hardly the most intriguing thing about the movie. It’s only been a day since I’ve watched this so my opinions are super fresh and could change over time but right now I feel like this is nothing more than a very interesting idea executed by someone that’s bored. The emphasis on things like A.I. & voyeurism felt 15 years too late (is David Cronenberg turning in to our slightly out of touch uncle posting out of date memes on Facebook??). The most common early criticism of The Shrouds is that it’s Cronenberg simply going through the motions and just “playing the hits”. I’ll be the first to admit that the director does borrow heavily from his previous films. At times The Shrouds plays out like Dead Ringers & eXistenZ with some new seasoning (even the sex scenes are right out of Crash). But after decades of countless filmmakers stealing & heavily borrowing from Cronenberg on the most surface level - I think he’s allowed to reference himself. At least he understands his work and his own style. I can’t say that about most filmmakers that namedrop the body horror icon as an influence (Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution is really the only semi-recent film worthy of a Cronenberg comparison).

Outside of the similarities to his other films, the movie is incredibly meta. Not only does Vincent Cassel play a former industrial filmmaker, but his character kind of looks like Cronenberg. There’s even a line in The Shrouds where someone says to Cassel/“Cronenberg”: you’ve made a career out of bodies. David Cronenberg is a complex & layered guy that shouldn’t be defined by one thing, but anyone familiar with him knows that “body horror” is his most common descriptor. It’s the safest thing to say about him and his work. This is clearly a personal film for him. Part of the story involves a mysterious entity stealing the main character’s data. Could part of The Shrouds be David Cronenberg throwing a shot at folks stealing his ideas for the last 50 years? 

Vincent Cassel as David Cronenberg

There’s two movies playing in theaters right now (Cuckoo & The Substance) that everyone is calling Cronenberg-esque when in reality they just come off as movies made by people that think David Cronenberg’s only claim to fame is gore. Look - I get it. I understand why things that are gross & visceral are compared to his work but most of the time they’re more Brian Yuzna/Stuart Gordon knock-offs than they are David Cronenberg knock-offs (It should be noted that he is a fan of recent stuff like Titane & The Substance which probably wouldn't exist without his work)…

Videodrome/ The Substance

The Fly / The Substance

Scanners / The Substance

Society / The Substance

From Beyond / The Substance

Personally, my favorite thing about this movie is the humor. The dry, awkward perfectly timed humor is The Shroud’s saving grace. David Cronenberg is no stranger to comedic moments even in his most dramatic films. But his latest felt like a full-on dark comedy.

And I don’t know how intentional this was (and I could be completely off in my assessment) but Cronenberg captured a lot of great modern architecture in the background without presenting it as something bad or evil. At this point I don’t think it can be denied that modern architecture gets a bad rap in film. Whenever anything is presented as bad or evil or cold, directors always make it a point to show a modern building under shitty lighting at unflattering angles. All modern architecture isn’t bad but you wouldn’t know that watching most modern movies. I don’t know about you all but I’d love to live in Vincent Cassel’s home in the film over some dusty Brooklyn brownstone. But that’s just me (an architecture graduate with 20 years of design experience).  

This sounds shitty but if you go in to The Shrouds with low expectations you’ll probably end up enjoying it. Just don’t expect vintage Cronenberg.

THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD

I think it’s safe to say that The Saddest Music In The World is what got Guy Maddin his biggest spotlight at the time. At least that’s how it seemed to me. Not only was this heavily pushed on home video and in constant rotation on the IFC channel, but it was his first film to feature more well-known actors (it should be noted this was the start of Guy Maddin & Isabella Rossellini’s ongoing 20+ year partnership). Frank Gorshin & Shelly Duvall do appear in his 1997 feature; Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs but, due to how different that film was compared to the rest of his work at the time, it sort of became the forgotten Guy Maddin movie within his filmography…

You could walk in to any Blockbuster or Hollywood video and rent one of his movies. This wasn’t always the easiest thing to do. His films had been released on DVD prior to this but distributors like Kino and Zeitgeist weren’t always the easiest to come by as they mostly specialized in “art house” films which weren’t in high demand at your average video store chain. Now…mom & pop video stores may have carried Maddin’s earlier films but those types of stores were few and far between by the early/mid aughts (speaking from personal experience - I lived in southeast Virginia between 1999-2004 and couldn’t find any of his films to rent until moving to the tri-state area in late 2004).

At the end of the day, it is my opinion that video store chains like Blockbuster were ultimately a negative (click here to read why), but being able to discover the work of Guy Maddin was one of the positives.

As accessible as Saddest Music was, it still features all the standard ingredients that go in to a typical Guy Maddin film: Cucking, Kink-shaming, leg obsession, Canadian pride expressed mostly through hockey and tons of visual homages to older films. His style was not compromised in the least bit.

This is the third Maddin film we’ve looked at this year so far so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his films are full of references & homages and Saddest Music is no exception…

Fellini

I had been life-alteringly ardent about a number of Fellini films - Guy Maddin, uofitlaian

Juliet Of Spirits /
The Saddest Music In The World

Dziga Vertov 

I loved THREE SONGS ABOUT LENIN and MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA - Guy Maddin, UAlberta 

Man With A Movie Camera /
The Saddest Music In The World

Man With A Movie Camera / The Saddest Music In The World

Man With A Movie Camera /
The Saddest Music In The World

Buñuel

I feel kind of Buñuelian - Guy Maddin, Offscreen.net

The Exterminating Angel / The Saddest Music In The World

Tristana /
The Saddest Music In The World

Von Sternberg

People might be saying I was inspired by those geniuses. Particularly Von Sternberg, who I was watching rabidly, just before and soon after I first picked up a camera - Guy Maddin, Screen Slate 

Docs Of New York / The Saddest Music In The World

Busby Berkeley 

I wanted to be Busby Berkeley, for crying out loud! I wanted to have chorus girls stomping their heels in my casting office - Guy Maddin, theQuietus.com

Whoopee / The Saddest Music In The World

(In addition to Maddin’s obsession with legs - the musical numbers in Saddest Music also pull from Busby Berkeley)

David Lynch

It goes back to when I first saw Eraserhead and started looking up every interview possible with David Lynch - Guy Maddin, criterion

The Amputee / The Saddest Music In The World

Homages aside - the story of Saddest Music In The World is quite unique. Maddin weaves the story of a music competition with a love entanglement/cuck-ish relationship between a father, his two sons, a beer baroness and a flighty songstress. …And it’s a musical! There’s a lot going on here (all under 2 hours), but this might be Maddin’s most “fun” film to date.

On a previous entry I noted that Cowards Bend The Knee might be the best entry point for Maddin beginners but I’m starting to think Saddest Music is the safest bet. This isn’t his “best film” (although it will always have a special place in my heart because this was my entry-point in to Maddin’s work), but it’s certainly his easiest feature to digest and work your way backwards in to his filmography. You can see the seeds of Saddest Music and his love Bunuel all over his earlier work…

The Criminal Life Of Archibaldo de la Cruz / Archangel

Tristana / Archangel

A FEW (MORE) WORDS ON IN A VIOLENT NATURE

The older I get the more I like to talk about and dissect interesting films that I feel are a mixed bag of qualities that I love, dislike and am indifferent towards. Unfortunately the term “interesting” is commonly associated with something negative. Nowadays when someone says something is “interesting” it feels like an insult. It’s the kind of term someone uses when they have nothing of substance to describe something that's remotely different. It didn’t used to be like that. Interesting used to be a positive descriptor. We need to remove the negativity surrounding it. Chris Nash’s In A Violent Nature fits my description of interesting to a tee. On a surface level – the film is a somewhat deconstructed slasher story told from the killer’s perspective. There’s no conventional score or soundtrack, there’s stretches of the movie that have no dialogue, and the movie pulls from a lot of non-horror movies for inspiration. There are just as many if not more movie references & homages than a Tarantino film. The difference here is that Nash pulls from very specific sources that hold a special place in my heart (Terrence Malick, Alan Clarke, Gus Van Sant, etc). Ironically, part of my issue with this movie is it feels like it was made just for me. The first time I watched it I kept thinking to myself; “who else was this made for besides me??” I say that as a negative because a lot of films & directors I appreciate aren’t often associated with each other. There isn’t much of a Venn diagram that combines low budget Slashers, contemplative-era Terrence Malick and the realistic documentary-style of Alan Clarke.

I looked at a lot of the key movie references in a previous post from earlier this year (CLIK HERE TO READ) but the one thing I didn’t really get in to is that the references are a bit layered. 

Yes – Nash was influenced by Gus Van Sant’s 2002-2007 run, but those Van Sant films were influenced by Bela Tarr.

Well, I came to the idea just inspired a lot by Gus Van Sant's trilogy, of GERRY, ELEPHANT, and LAST DAYS. I just love those films - Chris Nash, dreadcentral

Scott Macaulay, who works at Forensic Films, was over at my house and told me that Sátántangó was playing at BAM that weekend. It was exactly what I needed to see at that exact moment in my life. It also summed up some things that I’d been thinking about for a long time and been influenced by but never put to use – Gus Van Sant, slant magazine

Satantango / Elephant / In A Violent Nature

Nash mentions Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible as another influence but Noe was influenced by the 1983 film; Angst (another film Nash shouts out). Specifically the overhead shots...

They showed me Gerald Kargl's 'Angst' - Ry Barrett, Indiewire

For me, I was thinking of Irréversible too, just the way the viewer is an onlooker for the whole thing - Ry Barrett, Indiewire

Angst / Irreversible / In A Violent Nature

The same layered influence goes back to Van Sant. This time by way of Alan Clarke...

Also Alan Clarke’s tv film ELEPHANT. That definitely had an influence on Van Sant as well - Chris Nash, Movieweb.com

Elephant / Elephant / In A Violent Nature

The movie references are actually my favorite aspect of In A Violent Nature. I love a good “movie mixtape”.


Earlier I used the term “deconstructed” but that doesn’t mean Chris Nash is trying to reinvent the genre or play in to the that “elevated horror” label. Quite the opposite. The problem is - no matter how many times Nash spoke out against the idea of “reinventing the genre”, critics still continue to use that tagline in their reviews. In A Violent Nature certainly has its fans and I think the movie’s run has been positive overall, but I think certain specific critics are doing the film a disservice by constantly saying the movie is “subverting the genre” or “reinventing the genre”. I think it’s setting up some audiences to be disappointed. In A Violent Nature doesn’t fit in with those NEON/A24-aesthtic horror films. And while it definitely leans in to the classics like Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie is also very slow and meditative at times. When you take away the gore elements, In A Violent Nature fits in more with the films of James Benning.

Personally, I think the film falls short when it comes to the supporting characters. I found their performances flat & distracting. Considering the movie is told from the killer’s perspective, it would’ve made more sense if the supporting characters/victims had no direct/clear dialogue at all. Almost like background noise. There was also no need to give any backstory on the killer. It would have also been nice if the movie leaned even more in to the “slow cinema” that it tried to emulate. Imagine a three hour long movie with even less kills and more nature. But I understand that would alienate even more potential viewers. Most folks don’t want to sit through a three hour slow slasher film with almost no direct dialogue. And that’s not the movie Chris Nash wanted to make. Going back to what I said earlier – I think because this movie was so coincidentally catered to my specific taste, I feel I have the right to say what could have made it better even though that’s a very selfish & insane claim to make. 

At the end of the day – this is just one man’s opinion. What do I know? The movie has made a profit and I’m rooting for Chris Nash to succeed at the end of the day. Even though I haven’t given this movie a glowing review, I’ve still dedicated two separate posts and a podcast appearance on it. Anyone with any common sense or nuance can tell that I have respect for Nash and his film. No matter what criticisms I have – I look forward to what he does next.

IN A VIOLENT NATURE *UPDATED*

Elephant / Elephant / In A Violent Nature

However you may feel about Chris Nash’s In A Violent Nature, there’s no denying that the film draws from some cool unexpected sources. This is hardly the first slow burn horror movie director to pull from “unexpected”/outside lanes of cinema, but I can’t think of too many that mention the likes of Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant & Alan Clarke as references.

Now… Nash does not deny his more obvious sources like Friday The 13th and Fincher’s Zodiac..

I would say FRIDAY THE 13th is intrinsic to the existence of this film because it built the framework. We’re not reinventing the wheel, but we are looking at the wheel from a different side - Chris Nash, Dreadcentral.com

Friday The 13th Part VI / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th Part II / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th Part II / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th Part VI / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th Part 5 / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th Part 4 / In A Violent Nature

Friday The 13th Part VII / In A Violent Nature

The Raft segment in Creepshow 2 had an indelible affect on me - Chris Nash, Flickering Myth

Creepshow 2 / In A Violent Nature

I can watch Zodiac anytime as soon as it's on. It just puts me in a mood. It puts me in a vibe. It's that same kind of calculated feel that I like where I'm just thinking, 'Oh, this is a plan' - Chris Nash, Indiewire

Zodiac / In A Violent Nature

And without needing any pull quotes, you can imagine this is the type of film to pay homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. TCM has the kind of impact where it can influence someone who isn’t even familiar with Tobe Hooper’s work.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre / In A Violent Nature

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre / In A Violent Nature

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre / In A Violent Nature

But what drew me to this films were the homages to the likes of non-horror/thriller directors like Van Sant, Clarke, and Malick…

Gerry / Elephant / Last Days / In A Violent Nature

Well, I came to the idea just inspired a lot by Gus Van Sant's trilogy, of GERRY, ELEPHANT, and LAST DAYS. I just love those films - Chris Nash, dreadcentral

Last Days / In A Violent Nature

Elephant / In A Violent Nature

Gerry / In A Violent Nature

Because Gus Van Sant's Gerry/Elephant/Last Days trilogy was inspired by Bela Tarr, Nash was sort of indirectly influenced by Tarr as well...

Satantango / In A Violent Nature

Werckmeister Harmonies/ In A Violent Nature

So just, especially the Van Sant films, focusing so much on the nature or the environment of where the characters are and how they're interacting and where they’re walking through - Chris Nah, Nofilmschool.com

The Sea Of Trees / In A Violent Nature

I thought this would be a pretty cool approach to just follow the slasher around and just treat it like one of those Van Sant films - Chris Nash, Nofilmschool.com

Paranoid Park / In A Violent Nature

The other directors we looked at were, yes, Malick - Chris Nash, thirdcoastreview.com

The Tree Of Life / In A Violent Nature

The Tree Of Life / In A Violent Nature

The Tree Of Life / In A Violent Nature

The Tree Of Life / In A Violent Nature

Badlands / In A Violent Nature

Badlands / In A Violent Nature

The Tree Of Life / In A Violent Nature

They showed me Gerald Kargl's 'Angst' and Alan Clarke's Elephant, just to give me an idea of what the feel was going to be - Ry Barrett, Indiewire

Angst / In A Violent Nature

Angst / In A Violent Nature

Angst / In A Violent Nature

Angst / In A Violent Nature

Elephant / In A Violent Nature

Angst went on to influence Gaspar Noe’s work so it’s not off-base that Nash would also find inspiration from other films from the school of Angst…

For me, I was thinking of Irréversible too, just the way the viewer is an onlooker for the whole thing - Ry Barrett, Indiewire

Irreversible / In A Violent Nature

Irreversible / In A Violent Nature

I haven't found any hard evidence of Nash being influenced by the likes of James Benning or the Dardennes but his film definitely invokes their work on a surface level as well...

13 Lakes / In A Violent Nature

Rosetta / In A Violent Nature