Fantasia International Film Festival
27th Edition
Week 2
By “Doc” Hunter Bush, staff writer and podcast czar
And with that, the curtain has closed on another Fantasia International Film Fest and I’m …pleasantly exhausted. I managed to see over 50 films and shorts during the film’s three week tenure. Some left me scratching my head, some left me dabbing my eyes, and some left me out of my seat applauding. Below I’m going to round up some especially noteworthy titles from the festival in a little bit more detail than in my previous dispatches from the festival front lines.
But before I do, I want to thank everyone involved at Fantasia and all the related companies that fielded my emails and organized everything for not just myself but everyone else covering the festival both in-person and remotely. It’s a lot of work, a lot of organization, and it can’t be easy, but every year Fantasia makes it look painless.
Here are my choices for stand out titles from the 27th Fantasia International Film Festival:
Hundreds of Beavers
Directed by Mike Cheslik
Written by Mike Cheslik, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
Starring Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves, Wes Tank
Running time 1 hour, 48 minutes
I have to start with my personal favorite of the year, Mike Cheslik‘s Hundreds of Beavers. Very few movies leave me smiling for the entire runtime but this absolutely did. A man having to resort to wilderness survival techniques when his applejack distillery gets destroyed, who then eventually falls in love with the furrier at the local trading post and wages an all-out war on the local wildlife to win her hand? Even the description sounds ludicrous, and while it is, it works because of the filmmakers’ dedication to that cartoonish logic.
Though it is live action, this touches on everything that made the Looney Tunes cartoons great: the single-mindedness with which the woodsman accomplishes whatever his task of the moment is should seem familiar to anyone who watched Bugs Bunny and co. try to blow each other up/eat each other/etc., throughout their youth. But rather than just repeating the time-honored goofs you’d be familiar with, co-writers Mike Cheslik (also the director) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (also the star) build upon them. The famous ‘So Hungry That The Other Guy Looks Like a Turkey Leg’ bit is elaborated upon not just by changing up the foods being hallucinated, but by hilariously mis-pairing them: fish turn into ice cream, geese turn into a flying-v of soft pretzels, a nest full of eggs turns into a pepperoni pizza.
There’s also tons of cartoonish violence (both narrowly avoided and not), sometimes with surprising brutality which is still funny in the greater context, like when the woodsman skins a beaver to make clothes for the winter: the animals are played by humans in mascot/furry costumes, so not only is the violence subverted, but the punchline of a man wearing a coonskin cap with an enormous smiling mascot face on it undercuts the shock of violence that had itself just undercut the repercussion-less cartoon violence that came before. It’s very smart, nuanced humor that doesn’t draw attention to itself; it’s only concerned with being funny.
The stand-out sequence is the penultimate big action scene, the showdown between the woodsman and the titular hundreds of beavers that he needs to slay to win the approval of his crush’s father. After sneaking into the beavers’ evil headquarters dam, a chase ensues on the complicated and spatially nonsensical series of log flume-like chutes that are used to transport the trees that the beavers have chewed down. The entire sequence is about 15 minutes long, is presented in stark black and white (as is the rest of the film) and is the definitive funniest live action cartooning (cartoonery?) that I’ve ever seen. The stakes are established, raised, subverted, reset, and on and on, over and over and it never gets tiresome. It was honestly mesmerizing and, as is about 90% of the film, totally dialogue-free.
I cannot recommend Hundreds of Beavers enough. I wish I could rewatch it again right now. The same crew’s previous film Lake Michigan Monster was released by Arrow Video two years ago or so and I sincerely hope Hundreds of Beavers gets the same treatment so I can watch it whenever I want.
River
Directed by Junta Yamaguchi
Written by Makoto Ueda
Starring Riko Fujitani, Manami Hanjô, Gôta Ishida
Running time 1 hour, 26 minutes
I mentioned in my previous capsule review that I underestimated River. Sure the set-up, a mountain spa gets trapped in a two-minute time loop and only those in the immediate area are affected, sounded cute and interesting but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as thoroughly as I did. There was no big turning point for me, it happened gradually (but swiftly) and before I knew it, I was smiling ear-to-ear at this very small-scale drama.
The smallness is what really wins one over, I think. There are no super dynamic moments or characters, they’re all very relatable. Aside from the various spa employees (owners, attendants, cooks) there are a handful of guests: a pair of old friends who have to clear the air between them over lunch, a writer working on a tight deadline, and his handler from the publishing company who’s along to make sure he meets it. When the loop becomes apparent, the writer can actually relax a little without the crushing weight of time ticking forward. It doesn’t hurt that his handler is stuck getting out of the bath all the way on the far side of the spa and ends up ridiculously running around in a towel, making everyone uncomfortable. The two old pals meanwhile have all the time in the world to really address all the issues between them, air all of their grievances, address their guilt, and ultimately bury the hatchet.
The closest to a big action set piece that surfaces in River is when attendant Mikoto (Riko Fujitani) and line cook Taku (Yûki Torigoe) run away from the spa (as far as the two-minute loop will allow) and hide out watching Roman Holiday in two-minute increments, as a date. Not that this is without drama or tension; the rest of the folks in the loop are looking for them because they believe they won’t be able to resolve the loop until everyone is present, so Mikoto and Taku have to keep finding new places to hunker down together. It feels like a game of tag rather than anything life-or-death.
It’s all just so adorable and twee. In my capsule review I mentioned that there’s a Wes Anderson quality to everything, in case my use of “twee” didn’t appropriately convey exactly what I meant. There’s something about the dialogue; the people in the loop don’t have time to talk around anything, so whenever they cross paths they just say whatever is most important in that moment. It reminds me of the direct and deadpan delivery of a lot of Anderson’s characters. There’s also an attention to detail, like the writer punching through the paper door panels because he’s “always wanted to do that”, that makes the world feel realistic even though it’s obviously heightened.
There is an explanation for the loop that’s pretty wild but feels of a piece with the film that has come before it. There’s a storybook quality to everything leading up to the finale that makes all of it feel like play, like fun, which allows for the denouement to be a bit silly and whimsical. It just wouldn’t work half as well if the movie took itself more seriously. Thank goodness there are filmmakers (like director Junta Yamaguchi and writer Makoto Ueda for instance) who make movies that are allowed to just be quirky and sweet, and places like Fantasia Fest for me to find them through.
#Manhole
Directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
Written by Michitaka Okada
Starring Yûto Nakajima, Nao, Kento Nagayama
Running time 1 hour, 39 minutes
I love all kinds of movies, but like anyone, I go through phases. And currently, for the last few years at least, I am all for this kind of contained thriller: a person (maybe two) gets themself/selves in an unusual but not impossible situation and has to survive long enough to get out of it. In the past I mentioned movies like Crawl (2019) where some folks are trapped in a flooding house with alligators, Fall (2022) where thrill-seekers get stuck at the top of a very tall tower, and (breaking the sequence by both not rhyming and not being quite as good a film) The Pool (2018) where a guy gets stuck in an empty pool with also an alligator. There’s also Quicksand (2023) (newly added to Shudder) where two folks get stuck in guess what, but I haven’t had the opportunity to check that out yet. These are the feature length equivalent of a television “bottle episode” where most if not all of the story takes place in one location to restrict the budget.
#Manhole fits nicely in there amongst those other bottle thrillers in that, after a night of drinking to celebrate his engagement, Shunsuke (Yûto Nakajima) falls down an open guess what and can’t get out under his own power. #Manhole (and I’m encouraging you to always say the hashtag in your head) immediately makes things interesting with fun choices and additions to both story and setting. There’s the mysterious white foam slowly trickling in from a run-off pipe, a leaky and shoddily-repaired gas main, and the possibility that Shunsuke was drugged. Then there’s how Shunsuke goes about trying to escape: he creates a fake online persona, a “Pecker” account (which is no worse a Twitter rebrand than “X”) called Manhole Girl - because “people are more likely to help a girl” - to try to figure out exactly where he is (because remember, he was at least drunk, possibly drugged).
Don’t get me wrong, he tries the more sensible things - calling friends, calling the local police - but the film does a good job of ruling them out as possibilities. It also keep heaping complications on him: given the weather he can see up through the #manhole, he may not be in the part of the city he first thought he was, and on top of that the only person in his contacts that answered the phone was his ex-girlfriend, with whom he has a messy past.
But the small ways in which #Manhole defies expectations have got NOTHING on the big ways it defies them. The third act of this film goes off the rails in huge, extremely pulpy style and while I will not spoil even one iota of it, I can assure you that you’re not prepared for the w-i-l-d-ness of these turns. Perhaps most impressive of all, despite initially feeling like things are coming out of left field, in the end it all totally works together. Grab your popcorn for this one, and buckle up.
Killing Romance
Directed by Wonsuk Lee
Written by Park Jeong-ye
Starring Lee Hanee, Lee Sun-kyun, Myoung Gong
Running time 1 hour 46 minutes
I can’t think of a movie that’s quite like Killing Romance. A slapstick-minded story of a one-time film icon’s failing marriage to a controlling egotistical entrepreneur, the film has a backbone of pure fandom and a murder plot at the center. It also has some of the strangest, silliest details that only exist to perfectly maintain the zany tone of the world. John Na (Lee Sun-kyun), the aforementioned entrepreneur, has a selection of fake mustaches for instance. Why? I guess because he can afford it? Makes sense. Seems like something he’d do.
But there’s so much more depth to Killing Romance than first seems apparent. After marrying John Na, it took Yeo-rae (Lee Hanee) a few years but eventually she realized that, as the narrator puts it, “He was a fucking monster”. And the narrator’s right. John Na is manipulative, offering to fund a movie project Yeo-rae is interested in starring in - to restart her career - but ONLY if the filmmakers promise NOT to hire her, telling them that she’s unwell, has depression and hallucinations, and is above all a bad actress! He’s also physically abusive, standing Yeo-rae in a corner and pelting her with tangerines! In hindsight, when he first swept her off her feet, she was feeling especially low because her most recent movie was a flop - the situation may be unusual, but that’s classic predatory behavior.
Serendipitously John Na’s compound is across the street from Beom-woo (Myoung Gong)’s house. He’s a Yeo-rae fanclub member from back in her pop idol days, and he’ll do anything to help her get out of this situation. Anything, even murder… Well, almost. Turns out he gets cold feet when it comes to actually killing John Na, but he’s still willing to help Yeo-rae do it. Many goofy plans are concocted, like weaponizing his toxic masculinity in a scheme to get him to stay in the hottest sauna in the country until his brain cooks, or weaponizing his peanut allergy by getting him to eat entirely too much bean stew laced with the deadly legumes.
Don’t let these events, which I’ll grant you sound grim without context, lead you to believe this is in any way a dark film. It isn’t. It’s a very fun, silly, and colorful world. It’s just that John Na is arguably the worst person in that fun, silly, and colorful world. He’s even made an ostrich nemesis (who can speak AND fly) who is firmly of the belief that John Na deserves everything that’s coming to him. Seek out Killing Romance when you’re able and I think you’ll agree.
Mad Fate
Directed by Soi Cheang
Written by Melvin Li, Nai-Hoi Yau
Starring Ka-Tung Lam, Lok Man Yeung, Ting Yip Ng
Running time 1 hour 48 minutes
Mad Fate takes the conceit of the Final Destination films - can regular humans, once wised up to the grand design, outmaneuver Death? - and ups the stakes to outmaneuvering Fate itself. After a botched attempt by a fortune telling master (Ka-Tung Lam) to bluff a prostitute’s oncoming bad luck, he finds himself crossing paths with an actual killer (Charm Man Chan), a young man with violent tendencies (Lok Man Yeung) and the grizzled detective who’s after both of them (Ting Yip Ng). For personal reasons, the master decides to use all of his occult and astrological knowledge to help the violent young man defy his seemingly inevitable murderous inclinations.
It’s an uphill battle too. The two of them don’t get along and despite it obviously being in his favor to avoid backsliding into violence, the young man just can’t seem to help himself and no amount of feng shui elements, no matter how deliberately placed, seem likely to help. The master is carrying some emotional baggage from his past, and is afraid of his own fate (he believes he is destined to lose his sanity) so he’s determined to make this experiment work because if he can help someone avoid their fate, he may be able to avoid his own.
It is a surprisingly fun watch though, in spite of the heaviness and subject matter, at times approaching buddy comedy energy between the two leads, but with those slightly over-the-top stakes (the fate of their souls) always looming. Their clashing personalities make for inherently dynamic scenes even if, as I mentioned, the thrust of the scene is essentially redecorating. There’s a manic sort of back comedy running through a lot of the film too, whether it’s the master putting the young man’s hair in curlers (long, straight hair is not good for his spiritual alignment) or the young man attempting to murder any stray cat that looks at him wrong, and even if it doesn’t all entirely work for me, I admire the bold swings at this tone.
Mad Fate was the last feature I was able to catch for Fantasia Fest this year, and it exemplifies - as much as any one film can - what makes this festival so wonderful. Even before the film landscape became as dire an environment as it has recently, a film like Mad Fate would be unlikely to see wide release. It’s too dark, the subject matter is handled in a sometimes indelicate manner, and I can’t imagine a trailer that appropriately represents the film, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be seen, and it doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable.
Obviously, my writing a few dozen sentences praising a complicated film isn’t going to break it into the mainstream but my hope is, as always, that someone reading this will put that film on their mental watchlist (or maybe they have a digital one on a site like Letterboxd), and should they ever encounter it in the wild so to speak, the title will ring a bell and they’ll decide to watch it. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be a film that really speaks to them. Maybe they love it enough to dive into the other work of the cast and crew, or maybe they hate it and it will encourage them to make something of their own.
Film is an art (yes, even whatever movie you just thought of as a counter argument to that statement) and art is always in conversation with itself, with other art, and with the people availing themselves of it. It should provoke emotional response and those emotions need not always be complex, there’s nothing wrong with simple, uncomplicated joy especially these days (which are inarguably some very rough days for many, many folks). But it should also inspire, whether what comes from that inspiration is a good conversation or another work of art.
That’s why I love covering film festivals. The major movies coming from the huge studios don’t need your attention as much as literally any other film. This isn’t my commentary on overall quality, just general awareness. There used to be more of a playing field for smaller films, but many of the theaters which catered to that market have either gone under or adopted a new programming strategy to avoid that fate (and good for them, I hope that they succeed). It’s just harder for smaller films to find their audience.
The majority of the films I was able to screen at Fantasia Fest were not on my radar and likely wouldn’t have been. A lot of them were completely unknown commodities, meaning I was unfamiliar with anyone in the cast or crew. But, thanks largely to this year’s Fantasia (as well as the quality of the films themselves) I now have dozens of new names on my mental ‘I Like Their Work’ list. I hope my coverage helped you add some new names to your lists as well. And if there’s a film festival you’re interested in checking out online, or one in your town, I hope you’ll do so.
Until next time, Long Live the Movies!
