myDylarama

Our Picks + Women In Body Horror

Abla Kandalaft, Coco Green, Georgina Allan — 2021-01-19T10:35:57Z

This week, we are joined by Georgina Allan, film editor for the Radical Art Review to talk about women in horror, specifically focusing on Julia Ducournau's Raw and Alice Lowe's Prevenge and their representations of women as complex protagonists and instigators of violence (as opposed to helpless victims or mindless monsters).

We mention Jordan Peele's Us, Marina De Van's In My Skin and Don't Look Back and others.

Picks of the week include Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson's mind warping, beautiful Synchronic and Channel 4 series Adult Material, a three-dimensional, intelligent and nuanced look at the world of porn and the tendrils that reach into all spheres of public and private life.

Finally, we flag the upcoming International Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival 29 Jan - 6 Feb - as official partner, Mydylarama will play host to interviews with all competition filmmakers - and Emerging Filmmakers Night's winter edition on 25 Jan, which includes three workshops (funding applications, screenwriting and festival strategy) that are free to join to our subscribers. See below!

As usual, comments and feedback welcome via Twitter @Mydylarama

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Q&A with Ariane Labed, dir. Olla - ClermontFF 2020

Elise Loiseau — 2020-02-05T16:40:00Z

Olla responded to an advertisement on an Eastern women dating site. She moves in with Pierre, who lives with his old mother. But nothing happens as planned.

First time director but seasoned actress Labed brings us a visually distinctive look at sexuality and modern relationships.

Trailer

More on the film...

Olla's character is particularly interesting. Far from being a victim, she reinvents herself, constantly surprising the viewer. How did you create this character?

I wanted to make a character movie. Trying to create a unique portrait of a woman, who toys with clichés, who acts for her survival, she does what we wouldn't do, she's a hero. Olla builds the thread of narration, she does not let her environment transform her. She creates a daily life that is hers, she changes the rules of the game. I didn't know her name yet but I knew it would be the title of the film. This character was built from a fantasy, that of a woman as a hero; this is perhaps what is still a bit unusual in cinema.

Does your experience in theatre explain the predominant place the body takes within the film?

Yes, theatre and dance, but also my relationship to acting in cinema. My starting point is always the body. From the moment I started writing, I thought of Olla as a full body that tries to remain powerful in the face of obstacles. My film has few dialogues and I hope I got the tension and humor across through the physicality of the characters. The dance scene in Olla should tell us more about her relationship to the world than any monologue (I hope). What interests me is the interaction of the bodies. Bodies amongst themselves, communication or noncommunication, the interaction between bodies and space, harmony or conflict.

Many shots seem to be designed to create discomfort. Was that your intention?

The shots are designed to create that tension I'm talking about between the bodies amongst themselves, and between them and space. So there is a feeling of claustrophobia, but in which we can see bodies submit or blossom. I also wanted to put the spectators in ambiguous situations. I hope that in the same scene one is tempted to both laugh and cry. Maybe it's that discomfort you're talking about.

What are your references?

For Olla, Wanda by Barbara Loden, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman,Import Export by Ulrich Seidl, and less obviously the films by Bresson. There was also Kundera's Laughable Loves and Le noir est une couleur by Grisélidis Réal.

Would you say that the short film format has given you any particular freedom?

The short format, since it is outside the channels of the film industry, is in fact absolutely free. There is no pressure on the “profitability” of the film. So I felt absolutely free to do and experience everything I wanted. My greatest difficulty was to succeed in developing a character in this limited time frame, but I think I learned a lot from this constraint. I must admit, however, that working so long and having only 5 days of filming is quite frustrating. I am infinitely grateful to the people who embarked on this adventure with me despite the production conditions. The beauty of the short film is also that we encounter passionate artists and technicians in this field.

Knife + Heart (Un couteau dans le coeur) by Yann Gonzalez - Fragments 2019

Abla Kandalaft — 2019-06-11T07:07:28Z

You And The Night, celebrated at Cannes's Critics' Week in 2014, cemented Yann Gonzalez's reputation as a truly original director, with his own brand of stylish, colourful and erotic filmmaking. With Knife+Heart, Gonzalez offers up a stylised slasher flick in the vein of Italian gialli, set in the heart of the gay porn industry in the seedier parts of 1970s Paris.

The film opens with a particularly gruesome murder in which a masked killer stabs his victim repeatedly with a dildo-shaped knife. The victim is a young actor, starring in one of producer Anne Parèze (Vanessa Paradis)'s kitschy pornos. Parèze then sets out on a mission to uncover the mystery behind the leather-clad killer, whilst trying to win back the affections of her ex-lover and editor Lois.

Knife+Heart is beautifully crafted, shot on 35-millimeter film, it is saturated with dazzling flashes of colour, which pulsate to the beats of a synth score, which make its dreamlike sequences completely hypnotic. Like his previous work, Gonzalez's latest effort is rich with obvious cinematic references, from William Friedkin's Cruising to Brian de Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, with some sequences perhaps unintentionally reminiscent of scenes from Nicolas Winding Refn or Gaspard Noé's films.

Vanessa Paradis is beautifully understated and commanding as the enigmatic, alcoholic Anne Parèze and there's a pleasingly great turn from Nicholas Maury (Call My Agent's flamboyant Hervé) playing Archibald with the same joyful abandon and dedication as he did the highly strung agent.

At times, the meticulous attention paid to the visuals overshadows the film's storyline and character development. The characters themselves tend to display little emotional depth, which means it's sometimes hard to fully engage with their trials and tribulations. After a bit of a lull in rhythm midway through the film, Knife+Heart ends on a thrilling high note, as the story unfolds and the killer's identity is revealed.

Knife+Heart will be screened as part of the Fragments Festival at Genesis Cinema on 12 June at 9 pm.

Searching Eva by Pia Hellenthal - Fragments 2019

Ania D. Brett, Coco Green — 2019-06-10T18:55:48Z

Searching Eva does not use titular character, Eva Collé, as a metaphor for Generation Z taken for granted intersectionality and ‘always on' social media. Eva's identity laundry list and reluctance to ‘be' a gender, culture or nationality is simply context. Its probe into her life through social media posts and vignettes is simply the setup. The true offering of this documentary is its reflection on perception and presentation. In the age of social media, whose domination isn't limited to just one generation, what does this mean for our fragmented selves and how do we project our resulting fears and anxieties on to others?

Today we ‘connect' with people, often instead of or prior to meeting, and Pia Hellenthal introduces the audience to Eva in a similar fashion. The opening scene begins with her followers responding to the first of several provocative blog posts. We then see her IRL and, within the first five minutes, we are shown a lover, friends, and beind-the-scenes modelling—as if we, too, are followers. Hellenthal uses vignettes to tell the stories behind the posts, and the natural dialogue helps us to feel an intimacy with the subject as we take this voyeuristic tour. However, it is up to us to provide the meaning.

As Eva performs, hangs out with friends, and visits family, we see that she puts serious work into how she's seen. Her hair, mannerisms, and posture rely on the demands of the situation. In one telling scene, the normally uninhibited Eva plays with her younger brother whilst he's sitting on her lap. She's seemingly at peace blending into the background and nurturing her young charge in that moment. The general malaise of her posts are nearly forgotten; and there is almost no trace of the coquettish sex worker posing for pictures.

However, these scenes are not shown to be contradictory representations nor to disrupt our notions about who Eva, a drifting, cosmopolitan, feminist, drug addict, is. Instead this is a way to bring in the audience as a central piece of the story. We are invited to understand her logic of forgetting the past and creating the present to form your own path. Eva rejects cultural identities or telling stories in narrative form, as this creates a past and, in some ways, relives it. Instead, she is in a state of constantly recreating the story. Moment to moment. Blogging is an ideal expression for this kind of self, but for those of us who feel we're part of communities and in relationships, this can feel unnerving and leave us searching for Eva's purpose, to find out what happens next, and trying to understand what made her this way (as many of her commentators do).

Yet, this film provides an alternative to experience a lifestyle that can only be expressed through clips and monologues, and to move beyond social media celebrity caricatures.

Searching Eva will be screening as part of the Fragments Festival at Genesis Cinema on Tuesday 11 June at 9 pm.
Find out more about the film here.