MOTELx'12: a close-up on the best moments

Not only but also - will make sure I will be back next year. 

Hope you too.

Suspiria (1977), written by Dario Argento e Dario Nicolodi; directed by Dario Argento. Probably the greatest masterpiece of the Giallo legend and one of the most remarkable horror movies ever made. A unique experience to re-watch it on the big screen.

 

Dario Argento himself, in a masterclass that took place on the last day of the festival, with right to the screening of a few scenes and a sympathetic autograph session in the end. From the inspiration he draws from painting, architecture, opera and music in general, to the embrace his films have always given to technical features (the "reinvention" of the technicolor in Deep Red (1975) or the first Italian 3D movie with Dracula 3D (2012)), to how his films cope with his dreams, how did he learn to make films, and his future projects.

Babycall (2012), written and directed by Pål Sletaune.This is a rare case of appraisal for me. Why, because I hated the ending. I mean, what happened to "write a great third act because that's the only thing the audience will remember"? Happened that such one-sided aphorisms shrivel at the hands of craftsmen like the Norwegian filmmaker. A slow paced, realistic thriller that blends gelid paranoia, silent and undetectable violence with three real-life-like characters that might as well have been extracted from a good family drama. Main plot of delusion and subplots of character exploration are tied seamlessly together, instead of connecting here and there, pretending to puzzle up a major complexity of storytelling. You never get the impression that Anna's relationship with her son is loose from the babycall issue or from her relationship with Helge. It's almost unattainably organic. Details after details (the drawing of the building, the blood, the poster), this is no castle of cards. Noomi Rapace makes you mad along with her because you'll believe anything she says, any look she throws. The resolution casts a whole new light upon the rest of the film and I felt I lost so much of what I had to ground these characters and their actions on. I am still fighting with some logical holes but it is remarkable anyway.

Red State (2012), written and directed by Kevin Smith. Sardonic at times, scary at others, might be an interesting case study on how to carry the audience between two heroes and yet the global situation as a third character, mostly the antagonist, without leaving room for complete identification with anything unless the moral pending issues it lifts. We are with Travis in the setup and the religious lunatics in the first half and we suffer for him and his friends. Then we're with Keenen in the second half and visit both Travis and the progressively dissolved antagonists, but now we're not simply pinched by the one hero's pain but also the other's ethical and political ungrateful decision. The shaky camerawork waves a story between ritualistic torture and paranoic institutional evaluation, two magnifying glasses for the same situation. Still, I would've wanted a more traditional approach to the relationship between Travis and Cheyenne, which provided some of the best conflict of the movie. I don't think you can call it Manichean, because while yes it has a clear target for conviction (extremists even ultra-conservatives and neo-nazis pull away), never trying to hide it ("red" state), the doubts it poses upon the characters are sharp human examination. And yes, the epilogue is a fucking spit on those people's face. Great performances by the whole cast, chiefly Melissa Leo and Michael Parks.

MOTELx'12: day four with "Suspiria", "Midnight Son", "Crawl" and "Emergo"; highlights of day five with Dario Argento Masterclass

After last night's short intervention by one of the Masters of Horror, a full house of fans and admirers of the genre and his work were locked down in red cushioned chairs and assisted to a masterful assembling of colors, lights, sound, music and gore that though grounded on a little sloppy narrative (not pure trash cinema, like Inferno (1980) or Mother of Tears (2007)), produced a psychedelic paralyzing of my senses of lucidity and serenity. Unforgettable experience of devastating fright, where contrarily to the rest of the trilogy magic and witches loom so close and real you might sometimes be alone in the room, sitting on a fluctuating recliner, your perception driven by their powers and your attention guided by their muffled footsteps. Suspiria (1977) is not the last Dario Argento playing in the festival, as today screens Demons (1985), written by himself and directed by Lamberto Bava.

Midnight Son (2012) features interesting notes on the vampire genre and tracks the course of their complete humanization. The atmosphere of uncanniness was never completely lifted and so it takes wrong steps like the healing skin by the end. We followed a character progressively discovering his symptoms which helped the narrative to move forward, but it was constantly stalling due to lack of new and subtler ideas, fresher decisions, and a determined arc. The relationship with Mary needed a little bit more time and better acting and the one with the brothers was simply awful, in a movie where you feel like you're watching the first fifteen minutes over and over again.  

Crawl (2012) reminded me of the title of a fine tv show canceled by HBO last year, Bored to Death. When the host of the session felt the necessity to state that this was a film in which the duration of the scenes was appropriate for the genre of suspense, I smelled something burning. Like so many others, this film could've been told in twelve to fifteen minutes. The scenes were made of everlasting intercuts between a hand and a door knob, a hand and a gun, a footstep and a door. That shatters suspense, romps with it. That's Gerry (2000) with guns, man. It pays homage to Blood Simple (1984) and No Country for Old Man (2008) but it lacks purpose. A pint of what makes the Coen brothers great storytellers is their conveying of profound themelines bellow their drop-dead-and-laugh bloodshedding dumb crime scenes - the morality of stealing and killing; a contemporary nihilistic America; a paranoid modern society; the meaning of life actually. China brothers characters were void, roaming, aimless, despite their grasps for some odd funny moments.

I am not a fan of found footage films, but I loved REC (2008) and kind of liked Chronicle (2011). And I wished Emergo (2012) had been produced before me and the world watched all the other spin-offs, except the first Paranormal Activity, from 2007. It was written by Buried (2010) and Red Lights (2012) director Rodrigo Cortés back in 2009, and I believe it would've known more praise for originality than it did three years later. Much more tell than show, developed an interesting drama-genre relationship between father and daughter but the rest wasn't more than predictable moments. Great aesthetics and camerawork though.

TODAY:

 

Masterclass "Os Clones", a Portuguese team of filmmakers dedicated to serie B trash gore short films. Stupidly funny and trashly out of the box, you can watch their work on Youtube - Papa Wrestling (2009), Blarghaaahrgarg (2010) and Banana Motherfucker (2011).

 

Masterclass Dario Argento, on his career, his films and his methods. The lecture of a legend. Unmissable.

MOTELx: the best of horror movies in Lisbon (12-16 September)

"(...) aims at stimulating the production of Portuguese genre films, displaying the best horror works internationally produced in the last years, contributing to the education of younger audiences and frame recent productions through the scheduling of selected retrospectives. (...) exhibits of recent and classic films, of various styles and genres, promotes the coming of international guests and gives primacy to the only competitive section of the festival, MotelX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Short, impelling dozens of participant to make their horror shorts every year (...)."

After the masterclasses with George Romero, Eric Roth, John Landis and Mick Garris, this year's major highlight is the upcoming of giallo legend director Dario Argento (Sunday 16th Sep., 16h30, free entrance). That's where I dip my first focus of the 6th Edition the festival: Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), Demons (1985) and Mother of Tears (1987), in the section Cult of the Living Masters: Dario Argento. The filmmaker premiered his recentest film, Dracula 3D, in Cannes'12.

You may also want to gather some questions for Jonathan Zarantonello, Julien Maury and Alex Chandon whose newest films will be served in the section Room Service - respectively, The Butterfly Room (2012), Livid (2011) and Inbred (2011). For such breakfast I shall not miss those three plus Emergo (2011), written by Buried (2010) and Red Lights (2012) writer/director Rodrigo Cortés, Excision (2012), The King of Pigs (2011). I think Rec (2008) should've ended right there but I can't say I am not curious to peek on the national premiere of Rec 3: Genesis (2012).

There's also Pal Sletaune, writer/director of Babycall, staring new-Hollywood star Noomi Rapace, and one of my strongest picks, Pascal Laugier, writer/director of the undervalued but outstanding french horror movie Martyrs (2008) and of the upcoming The Tall Man (2012), staring Jessica Biel.

Nobuo Nakagawa gets a special homage section with his Black Cat Mansion (1958), Ghost Story of Yotsua (1958) and The Lady Vampire (1959). There's no deceiving in my words: I had no idea who this gentleman was but I am curious now. Another parallel section, Lost Room, brings us two sole films: The Territory (1981), a Portuguese production directed by Raoul Ruiz, and The State of Things (1982), a Portuguese, German and American production directed by Wim Wenders.

Never forget the good old short films: Aconteceu no Interior (Ricardo Machado), Até Quando (Jorge Cramez), A Bruxa de Arroios (Manuel Pureza), The Headless Nun (Nuno Sá Pessoa), Leito de Maldição (Paulo Teixeira Rebelo), Mutter (Tony Costa and Rafael Antunes), O Princípio do Fim (Joel Rodrigues and André Agostinho), O Reino (Paulo Castilho), Silêncio (Hélio Valentim and Ricardo Ferreira), Tormenta (Francisco Carvalho).

For more, you can check MotelX official website.