CFF ’20: Being Natural

What is the most destructive invasive species? Probably the hipster yuppie, especially when it is trying to go “back to nature” and partake of “locally grown” organic food and produce. Takashi, the luckless slacker, will discover this the hard way when an ambitious hipster family moves to his sleepy provincial village in Tadashi Nagayama’s Being Natural, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.

Things start off slow and quirky, but sensitive genre viewers may still pick up on a vibe that is hard to place. Takashi has long served as the caretaker for his dementia-addled uncle, living in his family’s traditional wooden home. Initially, said uncle’s merciful death spells potential eviction for Takashi, but his cousin allows him to stay on and even employs him at his local fishing pond.

Unfortunately, the Kurihara family starts disrupting his peaceful existence as soon as they move to town. The mother, Satomi, intended to open an organic café, but her lease for an old fashioned minka house location fell through. Of course, Takashi’s home would be a perfect replacement.

Being Natural starts off as a quiet slice-of-life comedy, but without warning, it takes a very dark turn. As the resulting injustice mounts, it down-shifts into overt genre horror territory. It is all quite shocking, but somehow everything seems to make sense in the moment. In fact, one could even argue the film is unexpectedly timely, reminding us of current controversies regarding charges of sexual impropriety—and how Joe Biden would deny due process protections for anyone accused on college campuses, while hypocritically demanding the American people to extend those courtesies to himself.

CFF ’20: Skull—The Mask

Forget about getting Medieval. Vengeful Pre-Columbian gods are way more hardcore than that. Tahawatinsupay is one of the hardest-cored, but it is his executioner you really have to worry about. That would be whoever happens to be wearing the skull-like Mask of Anhanga. Unfortunately, it finds its way onto someone’s head in modern-day São Paulo, resulting in a trail of fresh corpses. A disgraced police detective is out of her depth working the uncanny case in Kapel Furman & Armando Fonseca’s Skull: The Mask, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.

The film starts way back in 1944, when a sinister military expedition tried to harvest the power of the Mask of Anhanga. It ended badly for them. The mask next resurfaces in our time, when the Brazilian branch of a sinister Chinese conglomerate unearths it in an Amazonian construction site. It turns out Tack Waelder, the CEO was hoping to find it. In fact, he already abducted three Bolivian immigrant kids to sacrifice in his planned ceremony. That is the case Det. Beatriz Obdias is currently working, but making no progress on.

Unfortunately, the young gothy lover of Waelder’s deputy cannot resist performing her own ritual with the mask. This is obviously an extraordinarily stupid decision that ends just as badly for her. It also launches the mask into the world and onto the streets of São Paulo, where it does what it does best—kill people. Obdias and her partner have no idea what they are tracking, but Manco Ramirez does. He has sworn to protect the world from the mask, but as a classic loner-type, he is not good at making friends and influencing people.

Basically, Skull is about as micro as a budget can get. However, its admirable energy level, intriguing use of Pre-Columbian lore, and gleefully gory practical effects make it a highly watchable overachiever. It is important to emphasis the latter, because Furman & Fonseca have blood splattering and body parts flying everywhere. Yet, despite the supernatural elements, Skull often functions like a slasher movie and a procedural.

CFF ’20: Fulci for Fake

He was the second “Godfather of Gore.” Herschell Gordon Lewis was the first filmmaker to be dubbed with the title, but Lucio Fulci was a genuine film-stylist many consider a true auteur. He made films in nearly every genre, including White Fang, starring Franco Nero, but his reputation firmly rests on his giallo horror films of the 1960s and 1970s. Fulci, the filmmaker and the father, is profiled in Simone Scafidi’s slightly hybrid-ish documentary, Fulci for Fake, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.

Scafidi (a.k.a. “Saigon”) sets up the film with a fictionalized conceit. Supposedly, actor Nicola Nocella will be playing Fulci in a biopic, but to better understand the man he is to portray, he must learn from those who knew him best. Therefore, he is the one ostensibly conducting all the on-camera interviews. Frankly, it is a questionable device, since the film still largely functions as a traditional, career-surveying documentary. Of course, that also means Fulci fans will indeed learn quite a bit about the master.

As one would hope, we do indeed get a fair supply of behind-the-scenes dishing as well as critical analysis of Fulci’s major giallos. Fans will be interested to hear from Fulci’s frequent cinematographer Sergio Salvati and composer Fabio Frizzi, as well as his protégé, Michele Soavi (who directed Cemetery Man and The Sect). However, the real surprising emotional centerpiece of the film are the reminiscences of Fulci’s daughter, Camilla Fulci, whose unfortunate accident profoundly affected her father. She is also well-qualified to discuss his work, having served as a 1^st assistant director or script supervisor on many of his films.

CFF ’20: The Wanting Mare

There is a long tradition of horse fantasies, but the world of Anmaere is nothing like Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar novels. It is more of a dystopia, particularly the city of Whithren, whose closest Earthly cousin could be Valletta (sadly for Malta). The city combines elements of the Medieval and post-industrial periods, but it is the surrounding coastland and moors that are important, because that is where the wild horses are wrangled. Those beasts are worth a great deal of money, but the opportunity they represent is even more valuable in director-screenwriter Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s The Wanting Mare, executive-produced by Shane Carruth, which screens (virtually) as part of the (online) 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival.

Anmaere is our world, but not. Moira is of Anmaere, but it is not her world either. She grew up as an orphan, without anyone to explain the inherited nightmares passed on down to her from her biological mother and her grandmother before her. Since she has always felt a stranger in her own land, she is determined to somehow secure passage on the annual steamer ship transporting Whithren’s yearly horse exports to the more temperate and economically developed city of Levithen.

When Moira stumbles across Lawrence, a wounded young thug, she believes she may have found someone who can secure her passage to the West. However, instead of a ticket, he delivers into her hands a foundling, who will play a significant role in the second years-later half of the film.

Wanting Mare spans decades, but it is not exactly a plot-heavy film. Admittedly, Bateman struggles somewhat in his maiden feature outing as a story-teller, but he has a remarkable talent as a world-builder. Whithren of Anmaere is one of the few movie dystopias that actually feels like a real place you could walk around and explore. Bateman and his effects and design team pull off plenty of tricks to make locations around Baltimore, East Orange, and Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia look like an otherworldly realm of urban blight and ancient back alleys, while cinematographer David A. Ross makes it all shimmer ominously and evocatively.