Fantasia ’23: Mother Land

Life was always hard in Siberian. That is why the Soviets exiled dissidents there. However, the nomadic Yates people are used to it. In fact, there is beauty in the way they live in balance with nature. Lt. Vladimir intends to disrupt that balance, for the sake of his socialist ideology. A young girl in search of a mystical animal could be collateral damage in Park Jae-beom’s stop-motion animated feature, Mother Land, which had its North American premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.

The Yates survive on the meat and blood of reindeer, but they also have great affection for the animal, some of which they keep as pets. It is a hard life, but their family ties are strong, so when Krisha’s mother falls ill, she will do anything to save her. The Shaman’s treatment is ineffective, but she advises Krisha to seek out Red Bear, the great guardian of the forest, who is reputed toi have healing powers—should he chose to use them.

Krisha sets off on her own, but her bratty brother stows-away on her reindeer sled. They are not alone. Lt. Vladimir has recruited Bazak, a disillusioned Yates hunter, to track and kill the legendary Red Bear, thereby providing secular socialism’s superiority over superstition and nature.

Reportedly, Mother Land is the first Korean stop-motion feature since the late 1970s, which is somewhat surprising, given the international success of Korean animators employing different techniques. Regardless, Park’s film is a wonderfully rich world, realized with keen sensitivity. It definitely captures a culture facing existential challenges, mostly from the “modern” Soviet world (the ironic title is a sly play on the Soviet “Motherland” and the ailing land of Krisha’s ailing mother).

Fantasia ’23: A Disturbance in the Force

It gave fans our first look at Boba Fett in action and we loved it. The rest of the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special became a joke that George Lucas tried to bury. Nevertheless, its legend lives on. Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak do not exactly rehabilitate the holiday special, but they help fans appreciate the times and circumstances that gave rise to it in the documentary A Disturbance in the Force, which had its international premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Ever since it aired (for one-time only) in 1978, the holiday special has become an easy Simpsons-style punch-line: “like The Star Wars Holiday Special, ‘nuff said!” It is easy to see why. There is “comedy relief” from Harvey Korman (in drag), Bea Arthur, and Art Carney. Plus, Diahann Carroll did a Donna Summer-esque disco sex ode. Yet, everyone admits the original cartoon, “The Faithful Wookie,” rendered in a style deliberately reminiscent of Moebius, was pretty cool, especially because it included the very first in-world appearance of Boba Fett. In fact, it is the only part of the special available on Disney+. According to Jon Favreu, it even influenced The Mandalorian.

As a young fan, I definitely remembered that cartoon and the design of Chewie’s Wookie family home. The rest just went in one ear and out the other. Having seen the Donnie & Marie Star Wars episode (which Donnie Osmond discusses at length in the doc) and the Star Wars Muppet Show episode, I must have intuitively understood this is just how late 1970s network TV treated a blockbuster sf franchise, which is largely the point of Disturbance.

Coon and Kozak talk to a lot people involved in the making of the special, including Steve Binder, who also directed the Elvis Comeback Special. Since this was the pre-VCR era, Lucas and the studio worried fans might forget the first film, which is why the original cast started appearing on variety shows, before filming the special. Apparently, there was a bit a power struggle between the Lucas camp and the network camp, but as the troubled production dragged on, more and more Lucas people were replaced by network veterans.

Fantasia ’23: Devils

Evidently, Travolta had it easy in Face/Off. His mind-body swap was with Nic Cage, who was crazy, but not nearly as sinister as this Korean serial killer. Det. Choi Jae-hwan had been pursuing Cha Jin-hyuk, until he wakes up inside the psycho’s body. It is obviously inconvenient, but there are also potential advantages when it comes to catching Cha’s accomplices in Kim Jae-hoon’s Devils, which had its North American premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International FilmFestival.

Cha is the leader of a band of dark-web snuff film sickos, so yes, he is really bad. They have long eluded Choi, even killing brother-in-law, a fellow cop, during the prologue. Choi wants him bad, so he pursues him at all costs when they receive an anonymous tip. However, both Choi and Cha disappear into the forest, leaving the cop’s protégé-partner Det. Kim Min-sung completely baffled.

A month later, they mysteriously re-appear. The man who looks like Choi claims to have no memory of the last few weeks, whereas the man who looks like Cha wakes up in the hospital, knowing he is in fact Choi. He also realizes his family is in serious danger from his nemesis.

It all sounds like Face/Off, but its not. Devils turns out to be much more sinister and devious, but the big secret holds up incredibly well, at least by high-concept thriller standards. Arguably, Devils turns out to be more believable than that John Woo film it so readily brings to mind.

Fantasia ’23: Restore Point

In the future, you still must pay your taxes. Death is a different matter—depending on the circumstances. A quasi-government agency can resurrect anyone who dies an untimely death, as long as they digitally backed themselves up within the last forty-eight hours. Legally, they cannot use a file more than two days old. There are practical scientific reasons for that, but they will be violated anyway in Robert Hloz’s Restore Point, which had its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Nobody dies, if they take reasonable precautions. However, there are those who feel taking so much risk out of life devalues the experience of living, somewhat like in Tony Aloupis’s better-than-you-might-think I am Mortal. Police detective Em Trochinowska has a bone to pick with them, particularly the terrorist group River of Life. They killed her husband, after holding him past the forty-eight-hour mark.

Apparently, they also just murdered the scientific director of Restore Point, David Kurlstat, and his wife, after sabotaging their back-ups. However, Trochinowska unexpectedly gets the benefit of Kurlstat’s technical expertise when she discovers Restore Point illegally revived the scientist with a six-month-old bootleg. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a mind-body disconnect, which makes the new imperfect copy twitchy and nauseous.

It has been a while since there was a new Czech science fiction film, even though the Czechoslovakian film industry released many moody sf classics in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Ikarie XB-1. In some ways, the dystopian Restore Point very much feels like a throwback to that era. Hloz’s future urbanscape is particularly impressive, taking design-inspiration from the real-life postmodern structures of Shanghai and Dubai.

Fantasia ’23: Stay Online

During times of war, a good internet connection can pass on valuable intelligence and document war crimes for the world to see. Katya had something like the latter in mind when she volunteered her tech savviness to the cause of Ukraine’s defense, but she becomes determined to reunite the former owner of her used laptop with his young son in Yelna Strelnikova’s Stay Online which world-premiered at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Apparently, there is still some life in the “Screenlife” concept of films like Timur Bekmambetov’s Profile and Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching. The minimal set requirements helped facilitate the film’s production—billed as the first feature initiated and completed since Putin invaded. Putin also supplied the realistic war conditions seen throughout the film.

Katya is struggling to find a suitable way to respond to the war raging around her. Her brother Vitya is an armed volunteer with the defense forces, while her American friend Ryan does humanitarian work in the field. They each want Katya join their respective efforts, but she would rather share demoralizing information on KIA Russian soldiers with their uninformed loved ones back in Russian.

She also does some IT kind of work for Vitya’s unit, installing GPS tracking software on donated laptops. Much to her surprise, she gets a Telegram message from Sava, the young son of the laptop she is now working on. With the help of Vitya and Ryan, she tries to track down his missing parents.

Viewers need to steel themselves, because Strelnikova’s depiction of war is tragically realistic. Bad things happen to good people, early and often. Arguably, Stay Online is the most believable Screenlife movie yet, because a happy ending is never guaranteed. It is also the most immersive Screenlife film, embedding viewers into the war-zone, through FaceTime footage and the like, which is how we have grown accustomed to witnessing combat.

According to IMDb, Stay Online is Liza Zaitseva’s only screen credit to date, but she is devastatingly convincing as Katya. It might have been partly a case of involuntary method acting, given the war literally erupting around her. Yet, she also expresses Katya’s grief and pain with visceral power. Viewers who do not share her feelings must be dead inside.

Fantasia ’23: Shin Kamen Rider

When it comes to rebooting established franchises, the Japanese film industry is much smarter than Hollywood. Just look at the “Shins,” or the “Shin Japan Heroes Universe” movies: Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman. They are all true to the spirit of the originals, but the effects have been modernized—and pretty much only the effects (although Shin Godzilla also savaged the supposed professionalism of government bureaucrats). Fans of the long-running motorcycle tokusatsu TV series might be surprised by the return to manga level of violence, but they will feel right at home with the rest of Hideaki Anno’s Shin Kamen Rider (or Shin Masked Rider), which screened at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Poor innocent biker Takeshi Hongo was kidnapped by SHOCKER (a KAOS or THRUSH-like organization), who turned him into a grasshopper hybrid super-being. Ominously, they intend to use the augmented hybrids (“Augs”) like him to destroy humanity, because that will make Augs like them happy. In the long-run, they also think it is in our own best interest, since we are such a miserable species. Ruriko Midorikawa and her scientist father broke from SHOCKER, taking Hongo with them, so he can fight to save humanity. It is a family affair, since SHOCKER will be led by Ichiro Midorikawa, a butterfly-Aug, once he wakens from his cocoon.

Much to the mild mannered Hongo’s surprise, he can hardly control his killer instincts when he is suited up and using his Prana-fueled powers (prana being the rough equivalent of Chi in the Shin universe). In contrast, Ruriko Midorikawa is much more calculating and cold-blooded, but her powers are mostly those of the mental kind. She always prepares. Unfortunately, their only allies are the Anti-SHOCKER government agency, who are not particularly trust-worthy.

With all its stunt-driving, Shin Kamen Rider is sort of like a cross between Ultraman and Fast & Furious. While it is not as strong as the previous Shin films, it at least manages to tell an entirely self-contained story in a smidge over two hours, which is more than Fast X can say for itself.

In terms of effects, the Shin-inized Kamen Rider represents a major upgrade from the early 1970s cult classic. Sosuke Ikematsu and Minami Hamabe are also very strong as the brooding Hongo and the detached and analytical Midorikawa. Mirai Moriyama is pretty creepy as Ichiro Midorikawa, but the most memorable villain is Spider-Aug, the first that Hongo fights.

Fantasia ’23: Curtain Raiser

Grab a warm cup of Nongshim noodles and start meowing for no reason. Seriously, there is no logical reason people make cat noises before Fantasia screenings start, but by now, it is a tradition. They also have a tradition of screening some of the most distinctive genre, cult, animated, and Asian films around. There will be plenty of films to look forward to when the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival opens this Thursday evening.

Usually, Fantasia films are fun, which would seem to preclude anything depicting Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, but the backdrop of war makes a tense but fitting setting for Yeva Strelnikova’s Stay Online. The first Ukrainian feature produced since the invasion commenced, it uses the “Screenlife” techniques of Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching and Timur Bekmembetov’s Profile.

Considering how compromised the Russian and Chinese film industries have been by their respective regimes, I no longer review any films their censors approve for release. However, Victor Ginzburg’s Empire V holds the (happy?) distinction of being banned by the Russian Ministry of Culture for its thinly veiled satire of Putin’s oligarchs.

According to the description, Robert Hloz’s Restore Point is the first Czech science fiction in forty years, which is saying something. Fantasia is also programming a mini-four film retrospective of Juraj Herz’s dark cult classics (but not Cremator, maybe because it is too obvious).

South Korea has produced some of the best thrillers of the last fifteen years, especially historical thrillers, so Lee Hae-young’s Phantom looks like a solid bet.

Sadly, Nicolas Cage was supposed to be a special guest of the festival for Sympathy for the Devil. Sadly, the actor’s strike ruined that for festival patrons, but they are still screening his film.

Plus, there is even a one-minute experimental Art Blakey short, “Visions of Blakey,” as well as many more films ripe for discovery at this year’s eagerly awaited, live and in-person Fantasia International Film Festival.