Hyde Park Picture House’s Creatures of the Night: Fantastic Planet Review

 Creatures was back in full flow last weekend, with the start-up of a loyalty card bringing the sci-fi great and good out of their time machines to watch this week’s Cannes Prize winning animation.

The audience was transported to the savage planet of Ygam. A world where forty to one hundred foot (estimates vary) blue humanoid giants with crustacean ears lord it over a race of humans ‘Om’s’ – It’s a French joke. The Om’s use their human cunning to break free of their oppressors, eventually founding a civilisation on an artificial planetoid called the Fantastic Planet.

This film waves the brave flag of European animation. There’s not much of it, at least compared to the States (Disney) and Japan (Anime). Fantastic Planet puts up a good fight. I have never seen animation quite like this; it’s as if Philip K. Dick and Hieronymus Bosch had a talented baby together and this is the outcome. This is an important film for animation buffs. Instead of the traditional animation technique of drawing on acetate, the creators of this French-Czech film sketched on cut-out and hinged paper. This lends laborious rigour to the film, conveying a sense of epic struggle and Bible like fable. Animation of this length is a real labour of creative love, and every few seconds there is something – a shadow or an object – which is different, interesting, and the product of an interesting artist.

Adapted by Rene Laloux from Stefan Wul’s Ome En Serie  - a sci-fi novel written during the quiet times at his dentist surgery – Fantastic Planet offers the best of sci-fi animation; it even stood up to a re-watch in the cold light of Sunday morning. Part of the films charm comes from its inventiveness. The landscape, and the creatures that inhabit it, really are fantastic. The backdrop is spikey, phallic and hostile. Shades of red are laid out under an ominous grey sky. Monsters abound, ranging from strange little silk weavers, to armless T-rex’s used for gladiatorial combat. The animation is less frantic than Disney or Anime, and is special for it. The picture slides over panoramic stillness of human emotion, the overarching theme of this film.

The film opens with a bare breasted (don’t worry, it’s tasteful) female Om running for her life. She is clutching a baby – turns out he’s the protagonist – and appears terrified. The cause of her distress becomes apparent when a huge hand crashes down and flicks her. A few flicks later and she dies. A kind hearted Draag –that’s the 40/100 foot blue giants – takes pity on the baby and raises him as a pet, calling him Terre. (it’s another French joke) She controls Terre by means of a space-age collar which drags him back to her whenever she chooses. The Draag gets so attached to Terre that she starts taking him to her lessons; information he later uses to get one up on her race.

As the plot unfolds Terre escapes, shedding his collar with the help of a beautiful savage Om – again bare breasted. Terre quickly becomes an important figure in the Big Tree Tribe, who has settled in a little used park. The tribe is sworn enemies with the Hollow Log Bandits, a tribe of rival Oms who inhabit another section of the park. The tribes are united, however, against the Dragg threat, which comes in the form of a deOminisation. The Om’s are gassed by cannon like robots in a genocide which is as evocative as it is matter of fact.  

Despite this, we are not led to see the Om’s as total victims. Moments before the deOminisation the Om’s kill a hippogriff like creature which strays too close to their tree. The killing is reminiscent of cave paintings which depict a buffalo hunt. As the chief Dragg says ‘We were wrong to consider Oms as simple harmless animals. I fear we have committed an error fraught with the most grievous consequences.’

Turns out they have, and the Oms fight long and hard enough to set up their own civilisation on a planet in space ‘where they now exist in vast cities.’ The call this planet Terre, as homage to their leader. This gives the mythology of the film a circular sense. Perhaps we are sitting here blissfully unaware of the next Draag invasion.

This epic action is set against a haunting techno score by pianist Alain Goraguer. The music, unfortunately, may remind you of Pizza Express style background tinkles. It would, however, be the most cinematic pizza of your life.  The music makes the film surreal as opposed to just plain weird.

 This is a film that will stay with the Creatures… audience a long time. I, for one, will be practicing my armless T-Rex fighting and watching the skies for signs of the Draggs. All we can do is remain vigilant. 

Creatures of the Night: Altered States Review

A walk through certain sections of Leeds city centre on Saturday night, I’m sure you’ll agree, is scary enough. The punters, lovely in the week no doubt, turn feral. As a student myself, I usually enjoy aping with the best of them. However, attempting to bust out of being a creature of habit, I turned away from town last Saturday. Instead of partaking in animal antics I went to watch Altered States instead.

Altered States is part of the Hyde Park Picture House’s Creatures of the Night festival, which sees late night movie screenings of cult classics, forgotten masterpieces, oddball documentaries and the best worst films ever made. 

Last weekend’s film was a science fiction horror directed by Ken Russell, which sees Harvard scientist Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) submitting himself to psychological tests and drug use in an attempt to define man’s true role in the universe. As a result of his endeavours he is devolved into a missing link figure, and runs amok, Saturday night Leeds style, through the streets of Boston.  His wife Emily (Blair Brown) stages a physical intervention and by the end of the film Eddie starts to value those things that make him human.

Undeniably, this film has character. The special effects have a hallucinogenic quality as you’d expect from a 80s sci-fi. Guest appearances from inquisitive rhinos and miffed elephants were greeted with laughter in the auditorium, and the film met with applause when the lights came on.  

The film is made more charming by the lack of care Russell takes with those things that just don’t matter. Bizarre plot twists are met as matter of fact, making the film wonderfully facetious.  Dialogue from the herd of scientists is often jargon based, - ‘I want to get a look at those E.E.G trexics’ - and even overlapping, meaning that it takes a back seat. 

In many ways the protagonist, Eddie, personifies the qualities of the film. The narrative opens with him floating in a tank, garbed in what can only be compared to an astronauts get up, ordering fellow scientist and minion Arthur Rosenburg (Bob Balaban) to get him out. Rosenburg is one of the most likable characters in the film, a constant stooge; he is always there to sweep up the pieces after Eddie’s Mr. Hyde like rampages.

 

Russell’s representation of Eddie’s psychedelic trips has to be seen to be believed. Safe to say the montage-cocktail of geometric shapes, Jesus, fiery fluids, goat man sex and lady lizards still has the ability to raise an eyebrow, even in these liberated times 30 years on from the movie’s release.

Eddie with Ram's head as Jesus.

The mad foray into Eddie’s subconscious is countered by the sketchy details of the external Eddie. Major life events, marriage, kids, divorce, are leapfrogged in a single camera shot. The tongue in cheek nature of the difference between his mind and reality sometimes makes for dull viewing; this is certainly a film of highs and lows.

One of these lows is the representation of Emily, Eddie’s wife. The audience meets her as she chomps suggestively on a carrot. In addition to this as she is ‘sweating out her dissertation’ on anthropology. Unfortunately it is the carrot chomping Emily that takes priority. She has ‘gut feelings’ contrasting to the terrifying rationality of the male scientists, and this does enforce a gender stereotype.

This has not impacted upon the films cult status, which would make an exciting movie itself, the production process was fraught with difficulty, including a transfer from Columbia to Warner’s as the budget his $15 million. The script is based on Paddy Chayefsky’s novel. Chayefksy disliked the story so much that he disowned it, and the film is now credited to his pseudonym, Sidney Aaron.

Eddie in psychedelia. (He hasn't just forgotten his keys,) 

Another reason the film has achieved cult status was the fleeting appearance of Drew Barrymore in her debut role as Eddie’s daughter.

This is a film that deserves its cult status, a film that never quite made it; coming runner up at the Oscars to Lucas’s The Empire Strikes Back in the sound category. The film is suitable material for Creatures of the Night. At times tacky, at times brilliant, this is one of the best worst films ever made.

Next week sees the Pink Flamingos coming to the Picture House, a journey into drug dealing, journalist chasing, furniture licking and of course, pink flamingos.  

You can watch the first section of the film (from youtube) here. 

Review: The Woman in Black: Good film, but she’d do better to keep to the Shadows.

 I have a confession to make. I like Daniel Radcliff. I like how he likes cricket. I think he came across very well in Extras. Lastly I think he has an interesting face. The Woman in Black marks a step in the right direction It is the first step in a process towards throwing off that cloak he donned for Harry Potter.

James Watkins' The Woman in Black sees Mr Kipps (Daniel Radcliff) up against the supernatural again. Only this time he does not have a wand.

Watkins retelling of the 1980s novel is not faithful, but still a ripping good 90 minutes. The film has all the ingredients of a classic horror. Eel house is isolated a seemingly abandoned coastal mansion set adrift upon a grave strewn tidal island. Populating this setting are unfriendly locals, mysterious deaths and a terrifying, violent ghost. Think Bram Stoker’s Dracula meet Henry James’ Turn of the Screw.

Kipps is sent on law business to find the will of Alice Drablow. The estate, and the village it borders is haunted by The Woman in Black, played, funnily enough, by Liz White. Kipps, with the help of local land owner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds) attempts to lay her spirit to rest – she is reeking vengeance on a world that denied her the right to care for her child – and essentially fail.

If there is a fault with the film it is that the Woman in Black appears to much. Indeed, by the end of the film, which sees her looming over the auditorium, I found myself wishing she’d go and bother someone else. Special effects were layered over White, causing her to look like the Scottish Widow on crack. Something which might have happened if Brown hadn’t bailed them out.

The film strides the line between modernity vs supernatural nicely. Evident when Sam and Kipps pull the drowned carriage from the squelchy mud towards the end of the film with the help of Sam’s car ‘the first one in the county. We also saw modernity tooting its horn when the pair rev through the stalwart villages. Although one local (Victor McGuire) looks like he would win if the car drove into him.

 This film is a cheap thriller but none the worst for it. Well worth spending an evening with. You’ll be annoyed with for feeling tense because you really know you shouldn’t. Compared to the likes of Paranormal Activity this film is a walk in the park. Saying that, I was glad to not walk past any women in black on my way home.

The Woman in Black is in cinemas now. 

Sam Reeves

Chapter 2: Mollie Remembers Whilst Teal Misses

The ground runs away from Mollie as they both descend. Always down. Her torch throws demons, terrifying monsters and lurking ape men around the walls. All imaginary. Mollie takes comfort from her string, which she spools out behind her as she walks. Indeed she is starting to almost enjoy herself. She has a processing mind. More than most people.  A mind that, right now, remembers and recounts all that she knows of the sewers.

Built 600 years ago by the original inhabitants of Agapanthus, the sewers, as they were still called, had been designed to carry the city’s waste away. After the recycling boom of the late 2030s most waste had been transported to the agricultural sectors. There had been a plan to turn the sewers into a city wide museum, and some parts had been expanded, great halls, antichambers, even grand stair cases, plunging towards the earth’s core. The project, always ambitious, had gone into bankruptcy and the plan had been abandoned. The head of Lilium and Lilium, the architect firm behind the endeavour, ended her days walking from function to function, begging for money to complete her project. Eventually she grew so disillusioned, so legend has it, that she walked into the sewers and never returned. There was little remorse over her death. She had been a very unpleasant woman.

Since then the sewers had been used for all sorts. Entire families used to hide in the depths during the Blitz years. Despite the destruction meters above, the tunnels would have been full of light then. Defiant laughter as well as the tears. The ghosts of the jaunty fiddle players, employed by the mayor of Agapanthus to keep peoples spirits up, were meant to haunt these places. Mollie smiles at the thought of the ghosts. A lot of superstitious fuss by people who refuse to question their own beliefs.   

When the war was reported finished, and troops, battered, tired, but safe were homeward bound the parties continued in the subterranean tunnels.  Great parties, huge grand parties, lit by electric lanterns. Mollie had a photo of the dancers, an antique piece, smiles never fading through the centuries. The photo, Mollie thought, encompassed it all, ball-gowns, Cha Chas, gin in teapots. However this golden age was short lived. As every generation grew up and went about their business visits to the city sewers declined.  

Then the revolution of 23^rd century. A new dawn had meant that people wanted a new way of living. The sewers had become the fortress of the revolution. A base for the guerrilla army to launch attacks upon those living on the surface. They would strike at night. The city’s other inhabitants, either supporters of the ruling party, or those just too dumb and scared to follow the guerrillas would wake every morning to walls of graffiti and burnt governmental buildings. The carnage was always surrounded by dead or dying security guards and revolutionaries. Every few days there would be news of more assassinations. Promising civil servants with bullets in their backs, pompous officials would go to sleep one evening and never awake. The autopsies always concluded that the result of death was the same. Poison.

That had been a dark time for the city. A violent time. Eventually the ruling classes had responded in kind. The mayor at the time, a Lord Scabiosa, had given the order one Thursday afternoon. By Friday morning there were work teams throughout the city, and by evening all manholes, tunnels, cracks, and service points had been concreted over. That had been the end of the revolution. Months later, teams went into the mines, looking for any survivors. What they found down there had been, by their account, horrific. The revolutionaries, always a violent bunch, had taken to eating each other. Corpses were exhibited, complete with bite and scratch marks. As there were no surviving revolutionaries the team’s account could not be verified. However the evidence was there. Since then there had been no more revolutions.

After the massacre the sewers had been abandoned. Indeed, by most members of the city they had been forgotten. The concrete designed to kill the revolutionaries had crumbled. There had been movements over the years to replenish and rejuvenate the subterranean vaults, but with Agapanthus itself crumbling the successive line of mayors decided to concentrate upon the world that saw light. Now the sewers played host to the occasional tramp looking for a dry place to sleep. Even that was infrequent.

And so Mollie remembers. As she walks she journeys through a thousand untold stories. These stories linger in the air, so pregnant with loss and memory that they become almost tactile. Little does Mollie know, but her story, unravelling like her ball of string, is set to be the greatest, and the most memorable of them all.

Like Mollie, Teal has an inquisitive mind. Often he spends his Sundays at the City Library, reading theology, literature, periodicals. But now he is on a mission. He thinks about what lies in front. Not behind. Like Mollie Teal wades through stories. He comes to a chamber. Walls and ceiling stretching away into the gloom. The roof is so high, or rather the floor so low, that the light from his torch cannot pierce against any solid object. Rather it hangs in the darkness, suspended.

Pausing to consult his map Teal is struck by how inaccurate it is. Instead of walking through the middle of the chamber he skirts around the edge, his chalk grating against the rough granite wall. He comes to a hole, a wide hole that used to hold a door. There is nowhere for Teal to chalk. Holding his breath, he scuttles across the entrance, regaining the far wall with a sigh of relief.

For the first time the scale of his undertaking hits him. The darkness stretches on for miles. Miles of empty rooms, halls and chambers, so criss-crossed with tunnels, passageways and gaping holes that it is incomprehensible. The eyes that watch Teal are suspended high above on the roof of the cavernous hall. For a second an arm, huge and tangled in thick, wet hair enters the torch’s pool of light. But Teal, with his eyes firmly located on where he is going, misses it. 

Sam Reeves

Mr Teal and Mollie's city

Chapter 1: And The Match Is Set

After several months of painstaking research Mr Teal was sure of two things. Firstly, the city’s sewage system stretched on for two hundred miles, and secondarily,  there was something down there that shouldn’t be.  Teal’s research had taken him to the furthest extremities of the city’s boundaries, and had involved some pretty unsavoury characters. Accusations about the city’s subterranean inhabitant had been wild and inconclusive, more often than not consisting of drunken glances in the night. But, as Teal had reflected, only that morning, as he sat in congregation, there is no smoke without fire, and no lie without perpetrator.

For Teal was on a corrective mission, of that he was sure. As he descended the Christmas Steps he was filled with a purpose he had never before experienced. A thin film of sweaty expectation clung to his back, cooling him from the midday sun. Teal was aware of his every move; his own aliveness clung to him, shaped him. Yes, Teal felt terribly alive. If all the calculations are correct, he thought, I will create history today. Or rather correct history. Correct, because, if what was down there was what the source said it was, it needed correcting, both for God and for the city.

Teal had found nothing but unreliable witness accounts until the fifth month of his search, when a rather large bank transaction, larger than Teal could really afford, had yielded a promising result. A photograph blurred and stained, and taken from a great height had shown what Teal had expected all along. The impression of a great ape, dog like, crouching low to the ground was unmistakable. Of course, it could just be an escaped primate; there were several zoos in the city. But an unreported escapee living in a sewer? That, Teal had concluded, was unlikely. No Teal had a rather different theory as to the ape’s existence, he believed that the ape had been placed there by God, as a means of testing Teal, and Teal would not leave God wanting. For as the photograph suggested, this was no ordinary ape.  Despite its dog like snout and low sense of gravity the ape was, Teal didn’t like to think about it, horribly human.

Iron railings flashed past, liquid and shimmering and still Mr Teal descends. He knew what he is looking for. The 52^nd manhole cover on Christmas Steps, 49 went by, 50 was completely rusted shut, as was 51 and then. There it was. Inconspicuous in its alcove, but not hidden. Not hidden from the likes of Teal. He looked about him; all was quiet upon the Christmas Steps.

The manhole cover was heavy but manageable. Grunting Teal hoisted it off. It was not a controlled movement, and the clang cut through the afternoon, down the street, and through the rafters of the eyeless houses and shops which leaned over the Christmas Steps. Casting a furtive glance about him, Teal lowered his bulk into the manhole. A ladder. Down down. A rung at a time. He descends, until the heat of the day has been left behind, and all that is left is a cool, sombre darkness.

The feel a city gives changes from street to street. Six miles away from Christmas Steps, at the southernmost extreme of the city, Mollie Corydalis was looking at a reprint of the same photograph that had made Mr Teal so certain. Mollie Corydalis studied biology at the University.  For over three months now she had been gathering data and reading witness accounts about the notion of the missing link. Humans, she believed, were descendants of primates. Yet still the city church insisted on creationism being taught in the three hundred schools it ran. This angered Mollie. Well, she thought, here is an opportunity to prove myself right.

She sipped her coffee, and perused a map of the subterranean city. Mollie had planned an access point. A tunnel, not far from where she now sat, would provide her with her entrance to the sewers. Once in there, she reasoned, the man-ape would be easy to find. Mollie had guessed the creature’s habits, when it fed, when it slept. No doubt the expedition would take one, perhaps two days at the most. She looked from one end of the street to the other. All was quiet. Hoisting her rucksack on to her back she left the café, and walked towards the tunnel. The heat of the midday sun prickled her skin. She hears birds singing, traffic, a lawnmower, as she steps into the gloom and shadow of the tunnel. Sounds that are quickly replaced by that of her own breathing, the splash of her feet in puddles, and the echoes of it all that bounce from the walls. An ape, she thought, proof, proof at last.

A pair of eyes, unbeknown to Mollie, tracks her slow progress through the subterranean tunnels. Six miles away beneath Christmas Steps, another pair of eyes watch Mr Teal as he rummages in his bag for his torch. Both sets of eyes are dark, the pupils dilate to cover the entire iris, leaving a thin, almost invisible, band of grey. Teal has a piece of chalk, scraping his progress as he journeys through the sewers. Mollies has string, which, in two days, a desperate Mr Teal will cut. But not yet. Presently Teal, is governed by certainty. He has a location, not far from here, where he believes the beast feeds. A place where he can spring upon it unawares. Six miles away Mollie has her mind upon a different place, where she is sure the animal sleeps. But the inhabitants of the city sewers, who are neither man nor ape, live in neither place. They feel anxious, cornered by these two wanderers, who journey ever closer to each other, to the deepest part of the sewer and to discoveries which at present, neither of them can quite comprehend.

Sam Reeves

The House of Silk - Review

Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk was released earlier this year, offering a new novel to add to the Sherlock Holmes brand. The novel tracks Doctor Watson's attempt to chronicle the detective, and the two embark on a two-fold mystery which is, of course, resolved in the final few pages.

This is certainly a book for Holmes' boffins. There are references to other tales, such as The Red Headed League which shows Horowitz's love for Conan Doyle, who is never far from the narrative. We are also provided an insight into Watson's mind as he struggles to protect and transcribe his friend, which adds a new dimension to the legend.

Horowitz aims to provide a anthropological reading of Victorian London, focusing on the hardships faced by the vulnerable in that time. He conjures the spirit of the city well, and we are left in no doubt that the smog, smoke and fog will curl around the reader to make a gripping detective novel. 

If one fault could be found with the novel it is that the red herrings are too red. They are warning lights flashing in the darkness of London. Nowhere is this more apparent than when the two march, seemingly blindly into the Dr Silken's House of Wonders. Holmes would never be so blunt.

All in all this is a good read, and a welcome addition to the Holmes' legend.

Purchase House of Silk here