Fantastic Fest 2023 Diaries: Day Six
With another night of 7+ hours of sleep, I wake up feeling well-rested and somewhat normal. I get some coffee going, feed and walk the dog, eat a lil breakie, and start working on the Day 5 diary as the caffeine enters the system.
At 10, I log on to get my Day 7 tickets. I tried to finagle a seat at the last secret screening — yesterday’s secret screening was Luc Besson’s Dogman — but it was all sold out, again. So it goes. I manage to get tickets to We Are Zombies and Wake Up, which were both directed by the filmmaking team known as RKSS (Roadkill Superstars), so I’ll just have a back-to-back double feature of their flicks.
With tomorrow’s tickets out of the way, I publish the Day 5 diary, take the dog out for a longer walk, and record some podcast intros & outros for the Toxic Avenger, Where The Devil Roams, and Strange Darling Q&As.
By the time that’s all done and the audio files are moved over to my computer, it’s time to take the dog out for another walk (I’ve been guilty about not giving her as much exercise as usual), and then I get a light workout in (because I’m also feeling guilty about how much sitting around I’ve been doing). I hop through the shower, eat a lil lunch, and start editing and cleaning up the Toxic Avenger Q&A.
Before I know it, it’s time to head downtown to the Drafthouse to meet Neil Ferron for an interview about Fishmonger. I scoop up my badge and throw all my audio shit into my backpack and make my way toward the festival.
When I get there, I run into Neil outside the theater, who’s talking with a festival goer, a real character, about a college in Missouri where students work for the university in exchange for their education, so they don’t have to worry about the burden of student loan debt, which fuck yeah, that’s great. He talks about how students — himself included — worked the college airport (which included flying the planes apparently), and then proceeds to tell us a crazy story about how a big commercial plane was forced to land in their small airport. Kind of amazing, kind of scary. This is Fantastic Fest, folks, and these are the kinds of beautiful run-ins you encounter.
Neil and I head into the Highball, and he buys us both a non-alcoholic beer. It’s nice to meet a feel abstainer, and we talk a bit about our rough road with drinking. He tells me the younger generation out in L.A. has embraced a more sober lifestyle because it’s hip and trendy, which is funny to both of us having come to this path through more treacherous and less trendy means.
I head into the press room in the back of the lounge, and get a karoake room for our interview. Neil and I make our way upstairs, chatting about this and that as we go.
Once I’m set up, we do the interview, and it’s great. Super fun time; it’ll be posted at some point in the not-too-distant future. After we wrap, and I pack up all my equipment, we head through the lounge to the festival banner for a lil picture action, then move the chat outside.
I tell Neil about the novella, I’m working on, and he’s interested in the concept, even offers to read through it once I’ve got a draft. If you couldn’t tell by these point, he’s a very sweet, thoughtful, and kind man, with a genuine interest and enthusiasm in other people (if it’s not, it’ll shine through the interview). I hate to cut our conversation short, but I have to run into the day’s first screening, so we part ways and head into the theater.
The first film of Day 6 is Gareth Edwards’ latest film, The Creator, which I was lightly curious about but my gut was telling me it’d probably be middling. My initial instincts were not wrong. It’s a visually stunning, mostly emotionally hollow pastiche of Blade Runner, Aliens, Star Wars (specifically Rogue One), Midnight Special, Thin Red Line, and pretty much all of Neill Blomkamp’s early career. It’s a big budget blockbuster with mainstream appeal, a familiar feel, and a clean look, but it just doesn’t equal the sum of its parts. The world-building and cinematography is a stand-out. The latter, in particular, is a game-changer (the production spent roughly $80 million on a project which typically would have cost a studio around $300 million).
The film’s script is pretty weak, and I’m not really sure what it was trying to say. Is it about the cost/sacrifice of war? Is it a movie about machines with a heart?! Beats the heck outta me. The whole thing kinda feels like pro-AI propaganda though. I’m still very mixed on John David Washington. He has the look, moves, and charisma of an action star, but lacks a crucial element: personality. The Creator was decent genre cinema, and even though its budget was more modest than most other films of its type, it still seemed like a lot of work and money for little payoff.
After the film, I had short break until the next screening. I went outside and stood around, made some Letterboxd entries, and sent an email out for another potential interview with David Velduque for his short Transición, which might take place tomorrow morning. I didn’t have to putter about long before they called for all-badges seating for my theater, so I headed back inside. The next — and last official screening of the night — was for Bertrand Mandico’s latest chimeric reverie, Conann, which is loosely (very loosely) based on Conann The Barbarian.
If you’ve never watched a Mandico film, it’s like opening up a film canister and inhaling a dank cinematic dream. His work is oneiric and ethereal and experimental and transgressive and transportive. He’s a true visionary of unique and unforgettable experiences, a maker of films in which words do not really do them justice; they just must be witnessed and felt and experienced — preferably on a big screen. He continues to cement his place as a builder of mesmerizingly inventive worlds, and genre-bending, gender-bending visions.
Conann is a rich and barbaric work of art, full of breathtaking brutality, playful poetry, vibrant visuals, stunning style, tremendous theatricality, and astounding artifice. HIs lush atmospherics, lavish sets, and tactile dreamscapes are a sight to behold. The cinematography glitters and shimmers and strobes; it’s in beautiful B&W with moments of color that splash like spilled blood. It’s an immensely odd vibe movie, a frequency that must be tuned into and submitted to, but the ride is incredible. It’s a film that sticks and slithers in your guts and contains notes of Kenneth Anger, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Escape From New York, Peter Greenaway, and Jodorowsky. You will need time to digest it, but it’s a cinematic meal that sticks with you. Mandico remains a filmmaking playing in a league all his own, and he has outdone himself here; it’s his best film and one of the festival’s best pieces of programming.
After being floored by Conann, I head back home and take the dog out for another stroll. Resolved to keep the festival going, I put on the Kikaku Theater group’s River in the online screening room. This is another cute and heartfelt sci-fi comedy from the team that made Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes, which I caught at the 2021 festival and quite enjoyed. I was eager to check out their sophomore feature.
The film follows in the footsteps of their debut and revisits the two-minute time-loop premise, but this go around they put a novel twist on the concept. Director Junta Yamaguchi and writer Makoto Ueda apply their trippy time shenanigans to bigger sets, a slightly larger ensemble, and push their craft into new extremes. River is a little less mind-melting than Beyond, but it's just as complex and inventive. Its format is obviously repetitious, but it creates more room for variation and exploration, allowing the conversation and characters space to roam in new directions in ways that they couldn’t in Beyond, which amps up the fun. The characters grow tired, frustrated, and bored by the situational comedy of their Groundhog Day time loop, but the viewer won't. It's a really fun and humorous ride that improves upon what they started in Beyond. The source of its time slip isn't exactly a cop out, but it's not as interesting as the more personal anomaly we were initially led to believe, and slips a bit too far into silliness, but its charms are enough to win the day and still the waters.
After that, it was time to go to bed. I’d get the luxury of another full night of sleep, and I’d have time to knock out a bunch more festival items in the morning and afternoon.
Fiending for more Fantastic Fest?! Check out the links below:
Fantastic Fest reviews
Fantastic Fest podcasts
Fantastic Fest articles
Fantastic Fest lists
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!