The reason for thinking that PIG might have a chance is that all of Director Adam Mason’s previous films have been shown here, and we even sat pretty close to him and screenwriter Simon Boyes in a cafe at the festival one year without realising it.
I’ve not seen either Blood River or Luster but we did quite enjoy ‘The Devil’s Chair’ when we saw it at Sitges, and after reading this interview it looks an interesting enough concept for us to give it a whirl.
Sitges have come out swinging for the fences with the announcement that this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes, Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives, will play at Sitges as part of The Official Section.
That’s another Spanish premier chalked up for the festival and a statement of intent from the organisers. Vintage year anyone?
We’ll be absolutely honest, we have no insight whatsoever into what’s actually going to be showing at the festival this year but who cares – it’s getting closer and time to get excited! Over the coming weeks we’ll be posting details of more films we think could be there
The first film we think might have a chance is the Korean film ‘I Saw The Devil’:
Ok…take the stars of Oldboy and A Bittersweet Life (two of our all-time favourites) and add in the director of The Good, The Bad, the Weird and I think the only way we’d be more excited about a film is if they gave you free beers on the way in.
It looks to have all of the moodyness of The Chaser and A Bittersweet Life and with Lee Byung-Hun playing a vengeful husband and Choi Min-Sik playing the killer of his wife, if it is on at Sitges it’s already guaranteed to be one of our must sees.
There’s usually a healthy supply of Korean films at the festival and there’s a couple more on the horizon we’ll be letting you have details of over the coming days, and if they all make it they could make this year’s fest the year of the moody Korean drama.
Fingers and everything are definitely crossed!
So, like a family of small woodland animals we appear blinking into the spring daylight, still dazed from our six month hibernation.
And we’ve actually got some news for you……..the dates for this year’s Sitges Festival Internacional De Cinema De Catalunya have been announced. It’s a little later than usual,7th to 17th October, and the first issue that has immediately come up is that, as this clashes with Hispanic Day on October 12th, hotel rooms appear to be more expensive and very much in demand so get ’em booked up early.
As usual we’ll be bringing you news and previews of as many of the films that are being shown as is humanly possible and once the festival begins we’ll be blogging (eventually!) and tweeting all of our exploits and thoughts on the films we’re seeing.
Keep an eye out for more news as it comes.
Well we just about kept you up to date with our festival daily Blog (it was technically delivered daily, it just happened to be 4 or 5 days late) and those of you who made it to Sitges will have no doubt formed your own thoughts and opinions on the success or otherwise of this years event.
For the record, here’s how we think things turned out with OUR 2009 FESTIVAL REVIEW
It’s a long wait until the 43rd edition of Sitges so, in the meantime, we’ll revert to posting our general thoughts on all things cinematic, musical, artistic or pretty much anything we damn well please. Pop in from time to time or follow us via Twitter or RSS . We’re never the most prolific of posters but when we do, we’d like to think that it’s from the heart.
Just thought I’d chip in with my thoughts on my favourite films of the festival. I’ve got to be honest, for me it was one of the weaker years in terms that nothing really rocked my world, but there was still plenty to get excited about.
So, in order of number one being the best, here you go…
1. Paranormal Activity
2. Panique Au Village
3. Enter The Void
4. Moon
5. Heartless
Special mentions should also go to Mr Nobody, Splice and Dogtooth, the wooden spoon definitely goes to Park Chan Wook’s ‘Thirst’ which in hindsight probably wasn’t the worst film we saw, but definitely most disappointing.
I also suspect that Moon would have been top of the pile if I hadn’t seen it beforehand.
It’s a weird one. Normally, at this stage in the festival I’m barely able to function as a human being. Through a combination of four films a day, copious amounts of red wine and chorizo sausage and a night’s sleep that even Margaret Thatcher would wince at, I’m normally not able to make it through a whole film and there’s every chance I might nod off while standing in the queue.
But this year, something’s definitely different. It’s been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, it is not fear that grips me, only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. But enough of that, we both managed to make breakfast and aimlessly ambled around Sitges before we took in our first film of the day…
COLD SOULS – AUDITORI – 14:45HRS
First looks at this made it look like a remake of Being John Malkovich starring Paul Giamatti. Thankfully, that was a far too simplistic view on what this actually was. A clever story about removal and swapping of a person’s soul, it could have got bogged down in trying to be very deep and meaningful but actually kept it light and extremely enjoyable with stand-out performances as usual from Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn.
With barely enough time for a cold one, we were back in the press queue for the second film of the day:
ACCIDENT – AUDITORI – 17:00HRS
As the producer was Johnnie To, hopes weren’t high for this one (see yesterday’s blog post) but were were fairly pleasantly surprised. Colin was a bit keener on it than me but this tale of a team of elaborate contract killers who make all of their hits look like accidents was pretty good, although my own personal thoughts were that it tailed off a bit in the final third.
So, in ‘pleasantly surprised’ mode we legged it past the massive queues that were already forming for our third and final film of the day…
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY – AUDITORI – 18:45HRS
As we took our seats in what had now been coined “Corridorstyle Row” (at least by us) there was a fair bit of nervous excitement in the air due to a trailer that looked terrifying in a [REC] / Blair Witch kind of way, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. I don’t think I’ve ever been as uncomfortable in a cinema as I was watching this film, and that includes the castration sequence in Hard Candy. A well acted, written and shot film, they have a really clever way of cranking up the atmosphere in the ‘non-scary’ parts so that by the time the scares actually arrive, your trousers are already full.
So, with a final festival bonus of free ice-cream on the way out (thanks to both Ben and Jerry) we headed off in the night to say goodbye to all of our friends and local haunts and talk rubbish into the wee small hours.
It’s been emotional Sitges. In the words of Richard Ashcroft “See you in the next one, have a good time”.
Boom! Like a bullet from a gun we´re up and out early to the Auditori. Breakfast is a luxury for one of us, particularly when there are supermarkets on the way that sell crisps and chocolate, so it´s with full stomachs and open minds that we check out Gaspar Noe’s controversial and highly anticipated mind-blower….
ENTER THE VOID – AUDITORI – 10:15HRS
This was a total visual extravaganza and whilst we were already anticipating a well shot and visually impressive film, the reports and feedback we’d seen on the web were that it was an over-long, pretentious film with a highly disjointed story. In our opinion, the stuff we’d seen before couldn’t be more wrong. A full review will eventually be HERE, but essentially it’s the story of a brother and sister who end up running with the wrong crowd and Noe’s film draws you into the story with an incredibly clever use of flashback and first-person camera views. It’s definitely not for everyone as the graphic sexual scenes, overhead camera shots, flashing high colour images and a 2 1/2 -3 hour running time will definitely divide audience. As far as we’re concerned, it totally rocked our world.
…..So, with minds totally blown and the feeling that we were just coming down from an acid trip we sought solace in familiar things – beer and a sobresada and cheese baguette. With just enough time to throw these down us and split a brownie (oo-er!) we got back in the press queue and headed in for the film that we were probably looking forward to the most…..
PANIQUE AU VILLAGE – AUDITORI – 15:15HRS
In the words of Tom Cruise (sort of) you had us at the trailer. You can check the trailer out at our preview page here, it’s essentially a stop-motion animation of a horse, a cowboy and an indian and the scrapes they manage to get into. Although the joke does wear a little bit thin over the course of 75 minutes, it’s still definitely worth a watch, and when else are you going to see a toy donkey laying out a funky drum beat?
……With a couple of hours to kill until our next film, we headed back into town and indulged in some beachside tapas and traditional Spanish wine in a bodega. Unfortunately the tapas and beers meant that time completely got away from us and with seconds to spare we made it to the Retiro to watch Johnnie To´s latest effort VENGEANCE. We´ve got to be upfront and admit that we´ve given his films plenty of opportunity to impress us in the past, and he always seems to flatter to deceive, so with this in mind, we weren´t expecting much.
VENGEANCE – EL RETIRO – 20:30HRS
And he so nearly pulled it off…The first hour of this film had some great setups, was brilliantly shot, excellent performances and a really good story but it definitely was a game of two halves and revisiting familiar ground of slow-motion gunfights on wastelands of floating paper debris meant that we ranted our way out of the cinema and straight into the queue for our next film – Duncan Jones´s MOON.
…..Unfortunately, it was late, we´d had a few beers and Rick Skywalker´s spanish was spoken far too quickly so we have no idea why the screening was delayed for 30 minutes just so we could see the DVD ´Making Of´ for CORALINE. Anyway, after some vociferous booing from the Spanish crowd, MOON began and they weren´t dissappointed.
MOON – EL RETIRO – 22:45HRS
Harking back to such ´70s classics as ´Silent Running´and ´Space1999´, Jones´s impressive debut wins through due to an outstanding performance from our man, Sam Rockwell.
…..We ended the evening on a high, and retired to The Corner Bar to discuss cloning, Japanese LSD trips and talking Belgian Horses that play piano.
Following on from a large and late night, getting up this morning was always going to be a stretch, and it certainly proved so for one of us. After skipping breakfast completely, Shaun managed to do his own version of the Sitges Zombie walk for most of the day.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL – PRADO – 11:00HRS
In hindsight, I don´t know what we were even thinking when we decided to check this one out. A few years ago we´d had the misfortune of seeing West´s TRIGGER MAN in the exact same cinema and it was such an absolute howler that we ended up walking out after about half an hour. This (incredibly!) slow-burning homage to ´80s devil worshipping movies was so far wide of the mark that it even bored people who were just passing the cinema. Amazingly enough we didn´t walk out but I suspect that was purely down to laziness.
………Following a half hearted attempt to do some writing (Colin) and catch up on some much needed sleep (Shaun) we were a short walk to El Retiro to catch weird French apocalypse flick LES DERNIERS JOURS DU MONDE.
LES DERNIERS JOURS DU MONDE – EL RETIRO – 14:00HRS
It´s hard to put into words my feeling on this film. It wasn´t bad, but then again I certainly wouldn´t say it was a good film. Fairly self-indulgent and a lot of the time non-sensical, I never really recovered from seeing (the lead villain from “Quantum Of Solace”) Matthieu Amalric´s cock in the first few seconds. The male member seem to be making a frequent (sometimes too frequent) appearance in the films at Sitges this year, it´s put us right off the hot dogs.
………….With only a short time before our next film, we hightailed it up to the Auditori to watch the Philip Ridley / Jim Sturgess film HEARTLESS. Just as we arrived at the theatre, we ran into CS hall-of-famer Sam Rockwell, previous best actor and star of Duncan Jones´s MOON. Following a brief handshake and a confession of our undying love we headed into…
HEARTLESS – AUDITORI – 17:15HRS
This one definitely got a thumbs up from us. A strange and dark tale of a disfigured loner who enters into a Faustian pact with the devil in exchange for the thing that will make him happiest, but ultimately everything is not as straightforward as it seems. An excellent performance from Jim Sturgess is almost overshadowed by brief cameos from Joseph Mawle as The Devil and the always excellent Eddie Marsan as ¨The Weapons Man¨.
……Still buzzing from meeting Sam Rockwell we hit the town for drinks and dinner (Sobresada Pizza, a Corridorstyle favourite) before the final film of the evening, Vincenzo Natali´s SPLICE.
SPLICE – EL RETIRO – 22:45HRS
We hadn´t been able to find a great deal on the web about this so we went into it fairly open minded although both having reservations about the acting of Adrien Brody. It turned out that we needn´t have worried. Brody kept his performance fairly low key and good performances from the remaining cast, an interesting story of cloning spiralling out of control and a great looking film meant that we both really enjoyed this and couldn´t really pick it apart in any way.
…….With this in mind we retired to bed early(ish) in anticipation of tomorrow´s early morning head scrambler – Gaspar Noe´s ENTER THE VOID.
We’re going to run out of alternative ways to write this but…….we awoke bleary eyed from another late night. This time we had the excuse that a welcome party was necessary for Shaun’s back-up team of his Sister Em and her girlfriend Laura (now officially enrolled as CS squad numbers 3 and 4). It was weary troops that made their way to the first film of the day
THE FORBIDDEN DOOR – PRADO – 11:00HRS
Any film that made our list based purely on the fact that the poster had a man wearing a pig mask and wielding an axe shouldn’t come with high expectations. Our primary aim was to stay awake.
Our protagonist, Gambir, should have been content with life. A commercially successful sculptor, a beautiful wife, and all the trappings of success. However, each of his masterpieces held a dark secret within, a secret he was finding harder and harder to live with. Already strung out, Gambir discovers a locked hidden door in his basement which his wife forbids him to open and it’s this final straw that starts him down a path towards his final masterpiece – His last supper.
A story concept which held some interest was ultimately too drawn out and poorly executed as the plot would advance, stop, be diverted, forgotten, and ultimately rendered meaningless as it transpired that the filmmaker’s main aim was to include his own blood soaked masterpiece which, in itself, was enjoyable enough but not sufficient to hang the remainder of the film on.
…..Time to navigate the dangerous hours between films over the lunchtime period. El Cable provided the venue with the light entertainment that is BATMAN FOREVER thrown in for free. The soon forgotten Val Kilmer turn behind the mask. Where did it all go wrong Val? Fed and watered we were ready to tackle another dose of sci-fi
CARGO – EL RETIRO – 16:00HRS
The film’s Swiss director, Ivan Engler, gave a brief introduction prior to the screening and spoke of the difficulty of making a film in Switzerland, and the near impossibility of making a sci-fi film in Switzerland. This one took 8 years to complete and with only a small budget of €1.2 million required a big team effort from all involved.
The craft and effort was certainly evident in the finished article. Excellent CGI established the enormity and desolation of the space these future worlds moved in and excellent production design and characterization gave the world at a personal level total believability. A Matrix-esque story was married with an Alien-esque environment to great effect. Each character’s personal motivations manipulated the story as well as the other characters and ensured that the plot was revealed with great timing and effect.
……..We later saw the director of CARGO cut a lonely figure at a restaurant table and we wanted to join him, put an arm around him, and let him know that his small film from little old Switzerland had made a big impact on our festival – but we didn’t. He’ll instead have to read our praise here as we’d got refueling to do before our next film. El Cable was again the pit-stop of choice (Memento gracing the bar’s flat screen this time) before our highly anticipated date with Charles Bronson.
BRONSON – PRADO – 21:15HRS
As we mentioned in our preview, Tom Hardy had got our attention in last year’s ROCKNROLLA so a film hung largely on his performance was something to look forward to. He didn’t disappoint.
Hardy had some brave decisions to make if he was to embrace the director’s portrayal of England’s most notorious (and violent) criminal. Refn gave a brief introduction before the screening and he mentioned that the film had taken on a new identity during its creation. One can assume that this was due in part to the evolution of the subject matter as it was mined from Michael Peterson, the real-life character at the centre of the film, but no doubt also due to Hardy’s total conviction to the role. Physically altering his appearance, an essential part of the character’s menace, and taking Bronson’s psychotic persona to extreme levels (stripping yourself naked, covering yourself in vaseline, and wrestling with several prison guards doesn’t make you a shoe-in for an Oscar)
We feel that mention of the film lacking any real story was misplaced because, as mentioned by Refn, this was essentially an autobiographical account of events and, as such, unfurled as randomly as any account of our own lives might (though perhaps not as violently). Peterson always knew he had a “calling”, he just didn’t know what for. By having himself immortalised on screen, perhaps his calling was merely his existence. What he was, rather than why or how he came to be.
It was good to see that the film translated well into Catalan/Spanish as the predominantly local audience rolled with every punch. So much so that Carlos, one of our Catalan friends who saw the film with us, proudly stood up as the end credits rolled, flexed his biceps and said “I’m Charlie boy”.
…….The night was seen out with a liberal discussion over a few cold ones on the merits of the UK correction system, full-frontal nudity, and prolific use of the “C” word. Magic!
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