BFF ’20: The Journey of Murder

It is amazing how the CCP regime was able to prosecute its “One Child” policy with brutal effectiveness, but they claim to be powerless to stop dubious traditional practices, such a so-called “ghost marriages.” These questionable ceremonies happen post-mortem, supposedly to allow the unmarried bride and groom a better chance to find wedded bliss in their next lives. Troublingly, ghost marriages usually start with only one corpse, but always end up with two (not so coincidentally, the implications of the CCP’s radically different enforcement standards both have terrible implications for girls). Sha Tao, a developmentally disabled young woman from provincial Zhejiang, has been recruited for a ghost marriage, causing tremendous guilt for the indebted gambler responsible for her safe delivery in Wang Jun’s The Journey of Murder, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival.

Ma Saike gambled away the money for his terminally ill mother’s treatment and continued piling up debt. Much to his relief, his loan-shark offers a way to clear his I.O.U.’s and take care of his familial responsibilities. All he has to do is escort Sha Tao, pretending to be her physically disabled fiancé (the way his limp comes and goes really is distracting). However, she is such a handful, his task turns out to be much more difficult than he anticipated. Nevertheless, their long journey (and his periodic renegotiations) gives him time to figure out and regret her intended fate.

For the most part, Journey is an austere film in the tradition of socially-conscious independent Chinese cinema that suddenly veers into Tarantino territory in the last ten minutes. It is a wild shift of gears that almost no filmmaker would have the guts to try, so give Wang credit for gumption. He also manages to pull it off.

On the other hand, the portrayal of Sha Tao will trouble some people. Frankly, the tone of the film is not very different from that of Rain Man, but that probably will not be much reassurance to critics and commentators who specialize in outrage.

Be that as it may, the discipline of Yu Feifei’s performance is impressive. Neither she or Wang ever indulgence in cheap cuteness or sentimentality. They never share a contrived moment, yet she still expresses such innocence, we can understand his burgeoning guilt.

BFF ’20: Kingdom of Archers

There has long been tension between Bhutan and China, due to territorial disputes and the oppression of Buddhists in neighboring occupied Tibet. The two nations still do not maintain formal diplomatic ties, so it would behoove Americans to foster greater understanding and relations with the Himalayan nation. Archery could be one way of doing so. It has long been the national sport of Bhutan, but the adoption of modern equipment and international rules has been a relatively recent development. Robert Hixon Hanson examines the Bhutanese passion for the sport in the documentary Kingdom of Archers, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival.

For years, Bhutan was nearly as isolated as Shangri-La in Lost Horizon. However, in recent years, the King has approved a wide-ranging modernization program, while trying to maintain Bhutan’s traditional culture and values. Hanson uses a similar framework to explore the current state of Bhutanese archery, but without belaboring the point.

These days, most archers prefer to use western “composite” bows rather than traditional wooden ones. Tournaments also increasingly adhere to international rules, so Bhutanese archers will not be at a disadvantage when competing in international qualifying competitions. In the past, Bhutan has received Olympic invitations in archery, based on the sport’s national significance, but the Bhutanese national team hopes to qualify for upcoming games (if they ever happen again), through merit-based performance.

BFF ’20: Macabre

They are still in the state of Rio, but villagers residing on the other side of those iconic mountains live in a whole different world from the cosmopolitan city of Rio de Janeiro. Yet, many of their hardscrabble problems are maybe not so different from that of Rio’s famous (and feared) favelas. Regardless, it is always bad news when the BOPE (the cops from the Elite Squad movies) show up. In this case, villagers hope they will finally capture the notorious “Necrophil Brothers” who are terrorizing the countryside, but the assignment will get complicated and horribly personal for Sgt. Teo in Marcos Prado’s Macabre, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival.

Teo needs to redeem himself, because he is responsible for the death of an innocent civilian during a favela operation. His captain promises to sweep the incident under the rug, if he captures Inacio and Matias, who murdered a dozen women and subsequently desecrated their bodies. Teo should have an advantage because he was raised in this mountainous community, but he left on bad terms with his family (and nearly everyone else).

As Teo launches his investigation, it becomes immediately apparent one of the brothers is just as guilty and sadistic as he has been made out to be. The culpability of the other is a little murkier, but locals do not want to waste time with such fine distinctions. Unfortunately, their next crimes will strike closer to home for Teo, re-igniting long-simmering tensions and resentments.

Macabre is a gritty serial killer thriller in the James Patterson tradition that also incorporates the social commentary of the Elite Squad films and their brethren. Both the favela incident and the hunt for the Necrophil Brothers are based on real life BOPE cases, but in real life, the former event happened much later and involved different officers. However, screenwriters Lucas Paraizo and Rita Gloria Curvo fuse them together quite seamlessly. Of course, that means they really put the screws to woeful Sgt. Teo as a result.

BFF ’20: Snaeland

Small Icelandic towns are a good place to keep secrets, because people do not talk much there. At least, they are pretty taciturn in this coastal village, as well as the one in the recently released A White, White Day. Disgraced German reporter has come to cover a long-rumored bacchanal, but that story is fake news. However, he might have a line on an explosive tabloid story (that would ironically rehabilitate his reputation) in Lise Raven’s Snaeland, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival.

After indelicately asking multiple residents, Haas accepts the town really doesn’t hold an annual midnight sun festival of drunken debauchery for his readers to gawk at. He stumbles across something more potentially scandalous. A notorious French au pair, who was convicted of murdering her Wall Street employer-lover’s baby, is alive and well, living in town, after apparently faking her suicide. She is now known as Melanie Clement, a bee-keeper married to the local cab-driver.

Rather conveniently, Oskar Hrafnsson thinks his wife’s bee-keeping would make a good story, so Haas opportunistically plays along. Of course, Clement is suspicious of him, but she still tries to humor her husband. There is definitely a test of wits going on, but descriptions of Snaeland as a thriller or noir are overblown. Even “psychological drama” overstates matters. It is really a dark morality play and a scathing critique of media voyeurism.

In fact, Raven and co-screenwriter Deborah Goodwin sort of over-play that hand by equating with Haas with the village peeping tom, whom he catches red-handed, so to speak. The distastefulness of his behavior rather distracts from and undermines the analogy. Still, you certainly cannot accuse them of pulling their punches, which is also true of Clement’s infanticide crime (although she is said to have claimed it was an accident).

BFF ’20: Snatchers

If soulless alien body-snatchers invaded ultra-hip Williamsburg, how could you tell? The brain-controlled drones would probably be less conformist than they are now. Todecky is the exception. He fondly remembers the Brooklyn nabe when it was edgy and gritty, but he will still fight to save the trendy enclave from extraterrestrial parasites in John Kingman’s Snatchers, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival.

Todecky is a Fed, but not for the FBI. He currently serves as an investigator for the FDA, but his heart and wardrobe are old school Bureau, all the way. Obviously, he does not fit in with the scenesters, including Brie, a supposedly aspiring documentarian, who once interviewed him for an aborted GMO doc. Now she claims to be working “undercover” as janitorial staff at a start-up, as part of a project about immigrants that will never happen. She had no contact with Todecky since ghosting him, but the two will be thrown together when mutant alien corn infects the local food truck circuit.

The corn in question came from fields cultivated by Mennonite farmers like Jeb. He could tell there was something wrong about those ears, harvested after a meteorite crashed nearby, so he returned to big sinful city to track them down. Todecky doesn’t want to hear his alien talk, but they still join forces, along with Brie and the two proprietors of a food truck that exclusively caters to fellow food truck employees.

Snatchers is a very funny send-up of Brooklyn hipster pretensions and body-snatcher genre conventions. Screenwriter Guy Patton must know the scene well to land so many direct hits, but he still has enough emotional distance to show no mercy. This is about as close as a freshly produced film is likely to come to politically incorrect spirit of vintage Mel Brooks. There is also a little bit of gross-out humor, but eye-popping practical effects were clearly not a priority.