Film Review: Dark Fortune (2016)

Copyright: Corinth Films

There�s a strong and hard-to-pinpoint sense of terror that runs deep in Dark Fortune. At moments, this hard-hitting family drama could be even confused for a toned-down horror film, all thanks to that existential fright that reverberates through not just the plot, but the characters themselves. In the film, the feeling of being scared of something is almost visceral for the viewer. The same emotion does not come from monsters, but something much worse - buried memories that have so much hidden power over the lives of those who suffer from them.

The film, directed by Stefan Haupt, is set in Switzerland where a psychologist Eliane gets an emergency call. Her hospital just received Yves, a young boy who is the only survivor of a car crash that took the lives of four other people - his parents and siblings. Now, he is alone, left with only his aunt and grandmother, who are actively feuding about his future.

They also bring conflicting reports about the family and the relationship between the parents, while the hospital gradually puts more and more pressure on Elaine to figure out what to recommend for the boy. Affected by Yves, she decided to take him to her home for an observation period, knowing that her own family life with a separated husband and two daughters is anything but ideal. Together, they start to seek what is never found outside, but only inside - the answers that could allow each one of them to overcome the noose of their private history.

Tragedy is sawn high and wide in Dark Fortune and Haupt manages to deal with it very well, staying clear of sappiness or banality. The emotional pain and distress of Yves is rarely clear or obvious. Instead, it resonates through Elaine, who is masterfully played by Eleni Haupt, the sensitive but troubled child psychologist. Her plight is the main story of the film and the complex web of relationships she harbors with other characters. In the serene and peaceful streets, apartments and public buildings of Zurich, the anguish could not seem to be any further away.

Yet, the eyes and terrified expressions of Elaine make this family drama more than real. Here, the previously mentioned vascular element comes to play - without the need to underline it verbally all of the time, the film shows Elaine having her insights. Often, the things she figures out or only suspects are plainly seen in her face, which is sometimes locked in a state of tension, while in other reveals an endlessly patient and loving parent who can save Yves if she only knew how.

However, the true terror comes from the other alternative - that the boy, through a set of dark (mis) fortunes is beyond help. Instead, what the audience through Elaine fears is the fact that he could stay like this and grow up only to be a shell or a shadow of something that once was a person, but was smothered but a single tragedy. In this sense, in spite of the slow pacing and long shots that the Dark Fortune generally uses, the film works with a unique sense of dynamic storytelling. It is condensed in the idea that the time is running out for Yves and Elaine�s opportunity is constantly shrinking.

Engaging and biting deep, Dark Fortune is a strong family drama that comes even with a tangible level of mystery that somehow, manages to fall into place. It is an example of storytelling that asks for no shiny parts and which does not capture the imagination of the viewers with any cinematographic tricks. Instead, it showcases only a well-told tragic tale that carries a thin possible silver lining - wanting or not, the viewer will be left, along with Elaine, to wholeheartedly look and root for the same small thread of hope.

Learn more about Dark Fortune here. The film will be released on December 12th, 2018 in US & Canada on Amazon Prime, retail DVD (Amazon), IndieFlix and Vimeo on Demand.

Film Review: Dede (2017)

Copyright: Corinth Films

There is a deep-rooted and ancient strength locked in the sight of mountains. These distant and seemingly eternal elements of our world seem to have seen it all - they have been a silent witness to humanity in all of its struggles, glory, and despair. Through all of it, the mountains and their frozen peaks remained unmoved by the stories of mankind. They simply witnessed them. In the Dede movie as well, the entire tragic story plays out framed by the mountain peaks of Georgia. Located in the heart of Eurasia, this country and its isolated province of Svaneti is the setting in which a simple yet heartbreaking story of the movie takes place. It starts with an event that is never mentioned or shown in the film - the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the onset of the Georgian Civil War. In Svaneti, two fighters arrive in a small village, looking for the women that promised to David, one of the pair. His comrade, Gegi, follows him, but knows that a difficult time is ahead - the girl in question, Dina, does not want to become a part of the marriage arranged by her grandfather.

Instead, she loves Gegi, but both feel that the world around them, just like the mountains, cares little about their feelings. After all, that is how things have always been in the patriarchal community that seemingly changed very little over the centuries. Yet, even in the isolated snowy valley, the love individuals feel towards one another is the harbinger of change.

Directed by Mariam Khatchvani, the movie clearly showcases the young filmmaker's vast experience both about her homeland and her storytelling craft. In many moments, Dede feels like a documentary. From the rituals following death, the start of the New Year or a village justice tribunal, the movie appears as something deeply rooted in the land on which it was shot. The same goes for the actors and the pacing at which the film develops. In Svaneti, time passes on a different scale - there are no clocks in any of the shots and the seasons of the year tell more about that than any mechanical device.

However, in spite of its minimalistic environment of bare hills and barely furnished village homes, Khatchvani shows the rich and intricate inner workings of her characters. All of them face a clash of loyalty and their true feelings. Loyalties are many in Svaneti - to one�s family, tradition, comrades at arms and even St. George, the protector saint of the country. That is why their efforts to love run deep, but so do vengeance and the inability to forgive even their closest family members.

It would be easy to label Dede as a never-ending fight of a single woman for her freedom - there is no doubt that the plot includes this element. But, the film is much more than that. It is an exploration of a world locked away, far beyond the rest of the civilization, hidden among the clouds and snowy mountaintops. It is a tale of beauty and suffering, about a people whose way of life is slipping through their hands and how this maybe should happen for many to become liberated from the realities that are not of their own choosing.

Mariam Khatchvani provides a look inside of that world with an eye for beauty and a gentle narrative style that makes the entire film feel completely organic, something that is one with the place where it was made. Dede too, like the mountains, is a witness to its character and it plays its role perfectly.

Learn more about Dede here. The film will be released on December 12th, 2018 in US & Canada on Amazon Prime, retail DVD (Amazon), IndieFlix and Vimeo on Demand.

Two Paragraph Review: Sorry to Bother You (2018)

You can�t deny that this movie is different and it does not take too long for it to drive this point home. In the alternative world of ultra-capitalism, Cash, the main character, played by ever-more relevant and popular Lakeith Stanfield, just tries to get by. However, this soon brings him to a company working on the process that would eventually change entire humanity and not for the better. With this plot, Sorry to Bother You moves between a grotesque social drama and a weird dark comedy.

The cast and the acting continue to be uneven throughout the film, making it hard to gauge who is what type of person and what do they actually want. I�m not sure if this is intentional or a strange by-product of so many things being odd, but for me, it made the film something that failed to engage. The grotesque nature of the world reverberates with the characters, including Cash, so why empathize with anyone - maybe all that is strange to me as a viewer is normal to the inhabitants of the alternate world - it�s all make-believe inside of a bigger make-believe. The critique of the real-life greed as a driver is plain and called for, but the space in which it was delivered simply did not manage to impress me on any level.

Short Film Review: Them! (2018)

The great thing about the indie short movies is the fact that they are able to explore spaces that most feature-length films, especially those made in the studio system seemly cannot do. Them! is a short sci-fi comedy that definitely goes to weird places and does the same pretty fast. Here's how the film describes itself:

Them! is a sci-fi movie. A lady hears her dog yelp and it wakes her up. When she goes downstairs to see what is the matter, she is horrified to see the dog being eaten by a Roomba and they have multiplied.

The film, directed by DeNoise Studios and starring Susie Butler, cannot be easily described beyond the word �strange� at first viewing. The plot is condensed and so is the runtime of the film, which is short even for a short feature. However, aside from its overall strangeness, there are multiple threads to the piece. 

Once you get past the oddness of the acting delivery and the plot, you can see snippets of homages - from the horror and sci-fi films of the Hollywood Golden Age to the over reacting and almost parodic absurdity of the fear of technology (the dog scene is priceless in its campness). In many ways, the film works as a short and modern rendering of an Ed Wood picture and this is something we can�t see often.

Finally, there is a big sense of freedom in the film - this short movie came out just as its creators intended it to be and that�s commendable every time. After watching Them! and just how unburdened the film is, you can see why the modern cinematography would gain a lot by once more daring to be weird and goofy.

Watch the entire Them! short film right there:

5729 Them! v5 - HIGH RES 4K from Susie Butler on Vimeo.

Two Paragraph Review: Hold the Dark (2018)

The worlds of Jeremy Saulnier are dark and deadly, but ultimately, like any vampire�s castle, too alluring to miss out on. Even as the protagonist enters into the creaking halls of that place of horror, we know they�re as good as dead (or most of them, at least). In Blue Ruin, a lost man embarks on a doomed quest. In Green Room, a punk-rock band goes to a gig they should have turned down. In Hold the Dark, an expert on wolf behavior sets off to an isolated village in Alaska to find the remains of a boy taken by the same creatures.

There is nothing to find in the film, like in the previous ones, expect pitch black desperation, cruelty and an unmissable sense of nothingness. Yet, the ride itself is still what allows us to usher them on, into the twilight. Here too, the experience of the movie and the twist and turns its plot embarks upon so elegantly and completely unexpectedly, make it a worthwhile experience. It is reassuring to see that the creative universe of Saulnier is completely inoculated from the spellbound power of bigger and bigger budgets. Hold the Dark has a lot to offer even though what that thing exactly is remains lost to me.

Web Series Showcase: Fruit Bat (2018)

The famous though goes: an author has a writer's block and she/he ends it by writing something about - vampires. No one can deny that the world did not have its share of vampire fiction in almost any and every imaginable form. From crunchy kid snacks to video games, count Dracula and other like him have marked the pop culture landscape ever since Bram Stoker got us hooked on these creatures of the night.

However, few would deny that there has been somewhat of a saturation in the bloodsucking market. When this happens, the airwaves are ripe for one of the most important genres - parody. This is exactly the thing that Alex J. Murphy and Javahead Productions decided to do with his work. Here is the description of an upcoming web series of short films called Fruit Bat:

The horror comedy is an award-winning web series about a vampire with an unusual appetite. David J. Marzano stars as Eugene, a vegetarian vampire and outspoken advocate for �human-vampire relations�. His carnivorous brother Lenny, played by Peter Coleman, constantly tries to keep Eugene�s taboo diet under wraps, often causing some �bat blood� between the two. It doesn�t take long before tempers rise, guts spill, and craziness ensues.

The premise seems simple and fresh, doing a route similar to indie films like Summer of Blood. The first episode of this series was shot back in 2014, but now, the directors decided to dig it up (pun intended) and make it into a new and prolonged work. As the trailer shows, there is plenty to be hopeful about, especially because of what looks like a great script which is well-acted by everyone shown in this short teaser.

Both factors are a pleasant (and sorely lacking) appearance in any indie cinematic work, but they are especially interesting when they appear together. Finally, in spite of the vampire topic, the work seems anything but dull or unoriginal, which is already a big success for its creators.

The web series should appear online later in October 2018, but until then, check out more about Fruit Bat web series on its official Facebook page and of course, don�t forget to check out its trailer.

Short Film Review: Happened in the Present (2018)

The internet proved that entertaining and extremely low-budget movies, featuring a medium-length runtime can be made today. Just a decade or two earlier, films of this type, lasting between 20 and 40 minutes were considered an impossible venture outside of student exercises. Movies like The Defector are a perfect example that this is no longer true. Now, a new film called Happened in the Present show that this formula can be applied to a YouTube work of art and end up as something regular viewers can easily enjoy.

This film is the work of Mark Sarko, a director and hip-hop artist based in Germany that has clearly been around the entertainment industry. The plot presents a process of unorthodox investigation that begins with a body turning up in the bathtub of an apartment. From these, a duo of oddly mixed individuals starts their search for the truth behind this event, mostly using music and weird analytical capabilities.

The film is based on a multitude of characters that continuously communicate with each other, but also a music-infused tempo that is fast and snappy. This makes the film into a one-two combo of funny and quirky dialogues, followed by musical segments and editing/VFX that are sometimes a bit over the top, yet still works for the movie�s overall tone and feel.

This makes Happened in the Present a really engaging low-budget movie. Of course, it is not perfect on a few fronts - the acting is uneven and the locations look like they had been chosen mainly because they were available to the production crew.

However, in spite of its flaws, the film feels more than genuine, clearly fueled by the passion for filmmaking. This is why I have no doubt that Mark Sarko only at the beginning of his creative journey in the domain of cinema. Watch the full Happened in the Present movie right here!