Short Film: Live Life (Israel, 2007)

Live Life from 1man production on Vimeo.

One of my favorite songs is an easy listening classic entitled Enjoy Yourself, which was written by Carl Sigman and Herb Magidson and first made popular by the great Guy Lombardo. Back in the days when I was till spinning discs (under the moniker DJ Otto Normalverbraucher, a “name” that would roughly translate into “John Doe" or “Joe Blow” and that has since appropriated by an electro DJ) — I played songs, not a music — I’d sometimes end my set with it. The lyrics are great (if slightly sexist) and relevant, though perhaps not to die-hard scenesters still hanging around a club at 4 in the morning. It is not the song playing in the background of this pleasant little film entitled Live Life, but the ditty sung here very much echoes the same sentiments — as does film.
Live Life is the second short film to be featured here on A Wasted Life after Smile that comes from Israel, and like the earlier film, it too is a product of a former student of the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem: Jonathan Pasternak. There is relatively little information about him on the web, but according to a pdf of the exground filmfest of Weisbaden, he was born in 1982 in Kfar Sabba, Israel, graduated from Bezalel in 2007, and puts his bacon on the table (NOT!) as a graphic designer, animator and director. The spoken-word song that underscores Live Life, entitled You’ll Have Time, was written by Ben Folds and is “sung” by William Shatner; it comes from Capt. Kirk’s second album Has Been from 2004.
Live Life is about a monk coming to terms with death as people drop around him during the Black Death, and is loosely inspired by an allegedly "true" story: that of a half-blind monk supposedly put in charge of exhuming and stacking the bones at the world famous and wonderfully bizarre Sedlec Ossuary at the beginning of the 16th century. (Much of the truly bizarre creations found there, however, including the coat-of-arms, the chandelier and skull garlands were actually created in 1870 by the woodcarver František Rint.) The roughly 6-minute short serves to remind us that life may be short, so we should take advantage of it; and if death does indeed surround you, fear it not but be inspired.
By the way, the Ossuary, filled and decorated with over 40,000 human bones, is an easy and worthwhile day trip from Prague by train, if you happen to be going there anytime soon. As an added visual attraction, and to give you an idea about what you would find there, here is the 1970 film Ossuary by the great Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer.

The Ossuary by Jan Svankmajer from Kyra on Vimeo.

The Reflecting Skin (Great Britain, 1990)

The Reflecting Skin is one of those films that, although it made huge (but critically divided) waves when it came out, has since fallen into total but thoroughly unjustifiable obscurity. An independent film, it’s been unavailable for years (but for a VHS version that can occasionally be found in thrift shops but is hardly worth watching since its bad cropping rapes the film's wonderful framing and beautiful visuals), but it has since been released in Germany on a Region 2 Blu-Ray—which is better than nothing if you happen to have a region-free Blu-Ray machine or live in Germany.
On screen and in full glory, The Reflecting Skin is probably one of the most beautiful and most seriously disturbing films of the latter quarter of the last century, a film that seriously defies expectations and description, a film that must be seen to be truly appreciated—or, possibly, truly rejected. Like the intentionally obscure, genre-bending films of latter-day David Lynch—Lost Highway (1997 / trailer) or Mulholland Dr. (2001 / trailer)—The Reflecting Skin is a film that separates the men from the boys, the blondes from the brunettes, the cats from the dogs: you either love it or hate it, but you definitely won't be indifferent. (In all truth, however, if you’re a reader of this blog, you'll probably find it cowabunga.)
To say that The Reflecting Skin has a traditional plot would be an overstatement; it is more so a film that simply starts and eventually ends, the events in-between achieving a narrative coalescence primarily because they are shown through the eyes of a single character, the eight-year-old Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper), growing up in a repressive and fundamentalist rural Idaho community of the 1950s. The son of an abusive mother (Sheila Moore) and broken father (Duncan Fraser of Needful Things [1993 / trailer]), Seth becomes convinced that the neighboring albino widow Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan, Alice's mother in the Tim Burton enjoyable trifle Alice in Wonderland [2010, trailer]) is a vampire. Seth's few friends drop one by one, falling prey to four homicidal delinquents in a black car, but his father, stained by a past misdeed (a homosexual pass) is blamed; his solution to the problem is self-incineration—in front of the eyes of his son, wife and an accusing policeman. Soon thereafter, the eldest son Cameron (no less than Arragon himself, a young Viggo Mortensen, fresh from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 [1990 / trailer]) returns home from the military, where he got to watch the atom bomb being tested and play with "snowballs" made from the atomic ash. A romance blossoms between Cameron and the only viable women in the area, Dolphin, and Seth sees Cameron's unexplainable loss of weight and hair as sure sign that the vampire is feeding on him. His warnings to Cameron, however, fall upon deaf ears. Conferring with his only remaining friend—a mummified dead baby that he found in a barn and thinks is an angel—Seth realizes that it is up to him to save his brother....

Cameron Dove: Why don't you go play with your friends?
Seth Dove: They're all dead.

The debut film of Philip Ridley, a British artist who works in a variety of media (author, painter, filmmaker, playwright) who that very same year also supplied the script to Peter Medek’s artsy “true crime” gangster drama The Krays (1990 / trailer), much of the visual beauty of The Reflecting Skin is definitely due to the films cinematographer Dick Pope (Vera Drake [2004 / trailer] and The Illusionist [2006 / trailer]). Though filmed in Alberta, Canada, the wide-open spaces, vast grasslands and endless skies pass well for its supposed setting of 1950s sun-burnt rural Idaho. The bright sun and beauty of the setting are a strong contrast to the events of the film, which are universally bleak and appalling and offer absolutely no hope of a tolerable future, much less any sort of happiness.
Imagine if Grant Wood had been a psychopathic, death-obsessed filmmaker instead of the gifted Regionalist painter he was; he probably would have made films like The Reflecting Skin. Search this film and give it a go—you’ll either be blown away by it or thoroughly regret having bothered to watch it, but in no way will you be apathetic by the time the final credits roll.

Vampire Hunter D: Boodlust (Japan, 2000)

The internet is bitchin', ain't it? Absolutely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Thanks to the world wide web, you can grab a film from the bargain bin somewhere that you know absolutely nothing about and then, after being totally blown away by what you have seen, you can get the full background story with but a few tips on the keyboard.
The flick being spoken of here is Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, pulled from a pile of second hand DVD flotsam because it appeared to be an animated horror film, a genre of which there is hardly a surfeit. Finally finding its way into the DVD player one rainy Berlin day (of which there are sooooo many), the anime that flickered across the TV screen is nothing less than total wowsville. Totally ridiculous, but totally wowsville—and it sent me straight to the web to find out the what, where, when, why, who and how.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is a sequel to the 1985 anime Vampire Hunter D (trailer). The two films, in turn, are based on a Japanese franchise comprising of some 21 novels (some of which consist of 4 volumes each) augmented by a short-story collection, manga adaptations, audio releases and the aforementioned two anime flicks. If mostly unknown to the western world (outside of a limited cult circle), the character is indeed extremely popular in the land whence it comes. And if the quality of the franchise can be inferred by this film, then it must be pretty awesome.
Going by the film Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust at least, the series is a sci-fi western steampunk horror fantasy. In approximately 12,090 AD, long after a nuclear war in which the vampires came out on top, the world is a place where science and magic reside side by side and in which people drive fortified trucks (or one-wheel motorcycles) but fight with swords or ninja stars (or magic or guns). The world, co-inhabited by humans, vampires and an endless number of diverse magical creatures and demons, is one in which the biggest problem faced when it comes to something like crossing the sand dunes of a broad dessert, for example, is not a lack of water or the merciless sun, but the gargantuan carnivorous sand mantas gliding through the expanse of dunes in endless schools. Within this world, the "Nobles" (vampires) of yesterday are now on decline due to their own decadence, the continual persistence of humanity, and the appearance of vampire hunters, mercenaries for hire that eliminate supernatural threats.
Vampire Hunter D is one such mercenary, though he seems driven by personal reasons as much as he is by gold: He is a "dhampir", a half-breed son of a human mother and fanged father, looking a handsome 20-something at his tender 5,000 years of age, but as a child of both races he is accepted by neither. Pale skinned and lithe, he has long flowing black hair and is partial to wearing a broad-brimmed and black clothing that is reminiscent of the puritans (and Solomon Kane [2009 / trailer] in particular); his favored mode of transport is bionic black horses and his only true constant companion is his left hand. No, not in the way you might think: The palm of his hand is symbiont, a verbally adroit face of unimaginable magical powers that assists Dunpeal (as D is occasionally called) in his activities as much as it does offer snide and witty banter.
Yep, sounds pretty ridiculous all things considered, and it is, but luckily all the ludicrousness adds up to an engrossing and visually exciting whole. Whatever flaws the narrative itself might have, it never bores and often amazes, and the animation itself is often breathtaking. That director Yoshiaki Kawajiri is considered one of the best anime directors around is not surprising, for his detailed style is amazingly fluid and detailed—from the opening scene of crucifixes melting and water freezing as a demon coach rushes by to the grand final in the majestic castle of the über-vamp Carmilla, the film never stops being a visual amazement.
The plot of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust revolves around D being hired by a rich family to locate their beautiful and beloved daughter Charlotte, who has been kidnapped by the powerful vampire Meier Link. His competition is a quintet of other hunters, and their paths continue to cross throughout the film as they battle a wild array of shape-shifting demons and other powerful monsters. D’s competition ends up being startlingly incompetent considering the power and effectiveness they display in the first two clashes, and by the end of the film the legitimacy of their task becomes highly questionable for what started out as the pursuit of a kidnapped young girl turns out to be the hunting down of a fleeing couple deeply in love. But then, the lines of what or who is good and evil are often less than clear in the movie...
Needless to say, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is not the type of film to be shown in a double feature with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 / trailer) or Toy Story (1995 / trailer) or any other Walt Disney, Pixel or kiddy animation film. It is very much an adult film—or at least adolescent—and was even saddled with an R-rating during its extremely short cinematic release. So pop this one in after you’ve given the kiddies their nightly sleeping pill and enjoy it for what it is: a beautiful, action-packed, violent, and engrossing ocular treat—a film truly worth watching.

Lonely Hearts (USA, 2006)

Some film are beautifully made and well acted but nonetheless cause the viewer to think, "Why did I bother?" Lonely Hearts, the feature-film debut of documentary filmmaker and scriptwriter Todd Robinson, is such a film. The film has seven recognizable actors (the four with possible drawing power being on the poster) doing their thespian best, decked out in perfect period costumes and circulating within perfect period sets, bathed in perfect lighting and framed wonderfully in well-shot scenes that are excellently edited, but nonetheless the whole project leaves the viewer about as satisfied as a lonesome nympho with a battery-operated dildo without batteries. How could the film go so wrong?
The plot itself is an interesting one: it tells the tale of a murderous couple feeding off of lonely spinsters, based on the true-life exploits of the infamous "Lonely Hearts Killers" Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who are believed to have killed some twenty lonesome ladies before going to the chair on March 8th, 1951. The infamous pair have inspired at least two other film versions of their exploits, both of which are much better than Lonely Hearts—despite probably having a smaller budget combined and absolutely no star power.
Both the Mexican version from 1996, Arturo Ripstein's Profundo carmesí, and The Honeymoon Killers (1969 / trailer), the low-budget masterpiece directed by the opera composer Leonard Kastle (his only film to date), stick closer to the true story and the killers themselves, and are much better films for doing so. Todd Robinson not only makes a variety of unneeded dramaturgical changes in the actions of the killers (as in: invents events that never happened), but he moves the focus of the film away from the Fernandez and Beck and onto the detectives on the case, Det. Charles Hilderbrandt (James Gandolfini of Perdita Durango [1997 / trailer]) and, in particular, Det. Elmer Robinson (John Travolta of Moment by Moment [1978 / abridged version of the film]).
That Robinson did so is perhaps understandable since the real Det. Robinson was Todd Robinson’s grandfather, but the problem is that the whole story involving Det. Robinson never seems to be much more than a well-acted, well-shot period soap opera, and is much better suited for some late night television mini-series than a feature film. That the filmmakers decided to change Martha Beck from a fat and unattractive psychotic woman (see the photo of the real Martha Beck and Fernandez at the left) to a psychotic hot tamale is typically Hollywood, but at least Salma Hayek (as the hot tamale) does manage to sometimes come across as “damaged goods” (as she is described at one point in the voiceover by Det. Hilderbrandt)—and really, she and her cleavage are also some of the most captivating aspects of the film. Much to everyone’s regret, she never has a nude scene, but in all truth, though such a scene is sorely missed it is doubtful that it would've made the film any better. On the other hand, what would’ve possible made the film better would’ve been to retain the bizarre aspect of the attraction between a diminutive Latin lothario and an immense glandular disorder by casting someone like, say, Rosie O'Donnell or Kirstie Alley.
Speaking of bizarre, was the true story not already both bizarre, tragic and sordid enough not to need the (fabricated) sudden conversion of Raymond Fernandez (well-played by a bald Jared Leto of Urban Legend [1998 / trailer] and Lord of War [2005 / trailer]) into a gun-happy cop killer and murderer of defenseless old men? The only thing bizarre about those two additions to the story is that they were even added, as unnecessary as they are. And how did the cop killing suddenly lead the two detectives to Minnesota? It's another unnecessary plot device that does little but incite a big "Huh?" from the viewer—rather unlike the relatively mundane turn of events that happened in real life: the two killers simply hung around too long after murdering lonely Delphine Downing and her child and were caught when a suspicious neighbor called the cops.
Lonely Hearts is a beautiful but dissatisfying film, a good example of how a few wrong decisions can cause even the best ingredients to make crap. Want a good film about the same story? No, let me correct myself: Want an excellent film about the same story? Go rent a copy of Leonard Kastle’s low budget and extremely disturbing take on the tale, The Honeymoon Killers. For whatever flaws Kastle’s film might have (and it has some), it is nonetheless an artistic success in every sense of the word—totally unlike Todd Robinson's Lonely Hearts.