CO/MA (2004)

 

Director: Mike Figgis (with Steve Hudson, Johnny O'Reilly, Hanna Slak and Jovan Arsenic)

Screenplay: Jovan Arsenic, Mike Figgis, Steve Hudson, Fabian Joest Passamonte, Johnny O'Reilly and Hanna Slak

Cast: Aleksandra Balmazovic as Susi, Aljosa Kovacic as Mickey Dortville, Thekla Reuten as Isabella, Fabian Joest Passamonte as Prof.Kurt, Jesper Christensen as Weissman, Lana Baric as Edwina, Isabella Parkinson as Joanna, Feo Aladag as Ellen, Vladimir Bouchier as Shukov, Doris Schretzmayer as Dorothy

An Abstract Candidate

 

CO/MA is the kind of film which skitters between genres. For starters, it may be credulous, frankly questionable, to call this a "horror" film as I had intended to. For most, there is only the scene of one of the actress in this communal filming project being haunted by a ghost girl, and that is not enough to qualify for the genre. I would argue there are plenty of moments which do fit the tone even if this would be the most disappointing film to watch on Halloween. The rest of CO/MA is just as difficult to pin down, as for a work most would call a "documentary", even that is questionable. What we have instead is a curious tonally shifting chimera that is CO/MA, something truly peculiar and worthy of making excuses of, as tentative for a "horror" review or at any context, for me to get away with covering this during any season.

This belongs to an era I slowly crept into my cineaste hobby, which is growing up in the 2000s as a teenager and, by the time of 2008 when I became a young adult and had fully started to develop into this. This era, from when they were first released in the late nineties but especially the 2000s, is an entire "DVD era" of cinema which will hopefully get its own cult assessment. Despite the calls of its demise, in the streaming era and the existence of better formats for high definition images, DVDs are still being released, but I am creating a term for one specific era. One, even if they got very limited cinema runs, had many titles released on the format along straight-to-video titles which are forgotten and/or represent some of the era's greatest obsessions in terms of pop culture in general. In the case of CO/MA, I can completely understand this being viewed as pretentious if anyone has ever remembered this production exists. I did because, even before I was able to catch up with films like this, I was subscribing to a DVD review magazine. The review was pretty damning from memory, but this still lingered in my mind for decades before I could finally watch it and get rid of it from my mind palace To Get To List. Made in mind to reality television's popularity at the time, the vibes of horror are strong enough to also nod to as its genre, but there is also the comedy segments, the attempts to blur reality and fiction, the soap opera pastiche set in a hospital the commune in the centre which the central project of the production we follow, and other bits and pieces. In the end, CO/MA is neither and all of these.

It is also a Mike Figgis production, which adds a stranger air to all this, an English filmmaker who made films like Internal Affairs (1990) with Richard Gere, and Leaving Las Vegas (1995) where Nicolas Cage won the best acting Oscar. By 2000 however, he slowly started to move entirely away from larger budget films and increasingly experimental productions, both working with more digital filmmaking and also bold experiments like Timecode (2000) and Hotel (2001). Those two mark a turning point, effectively running with the four screen concept Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey developed in Chelsea Girls (1966), having four separate screens showing different films at the same time, with Timecode telling the same film from four different cameras, Hotel entirely different stories running at the same time. With the exception of Cold Creek Manor (2003), Figgis ditched "conventional" filmmaking, openly embracing his interest in digital camera filmmaking and experimentation, and the comment I made earlier about the "DVD era" of cinema has Figgis' name in the unwritten encyclopaedia on the subject. Films like Love Live Long (2008), where he took advantage of filming at a Gumball Rally racing competition to make an improvised erotic drama, are productions most people have no idea of the existence of, lost to time unless an old DVD is found second hand or on streaming. CO/MA is among these, needing this comically long prologue to set off the review because it is the only way to properly explain where CO/MA came to be. It is a project told to us to start in November 2004 at a film studio in Slovakia, where Mike Figgis and a group of actors have started a filmmaking master class with him leading, one where everyone is to collaborate on this project we the viewer are watching.

Already it is confusing things when, in the first conversations we see recorded, Figgis raises concerns that he will be marked as the director legally on the film credits, but that is subject in the collaborative production as a truth. He says it might "be crap", and one of the collaborators considers if they might say it is not legal to screen this master class if they ever decide to once they have spent finishing the production. Making explicit reference to The Blair Witch Project (1999), and with reality television in its mind, you can time stamp this to the early 2000s. These extensive conversations are continuous through the film, where people in this collaborative effort are already staying outside in disagreement to the project's trajectory before they have even considered what to make, and it is all playing to the idea of whether this is all real or not. Figgis states onscreen that he wants to blur the lines between what is real and when an actor might be lying, but as the tone and genres start to blur in general, what even the significant point of CO/MA is becomes of debate. You can make the justifiable argument this was not a successful project. For me, fascinated by these out-pourings of human creativity and their emotions, faked or real, it was a compelling piece even if "indulgent" is apt too.

Considering the likes of Timecode, this was inevitable. That and, with the black and white scenes, including those of actors talking the screen to the viewers, Big Brother's influence alongside the reality television shows that came at this time are seen imprinted on this film, what was on the tip of everyone's tongue whether they wanted to admit it or not. A year before this, New Line Cinema took a risk on The Real Cancun (2003), a theatrical reality film which was shot at spring break in Cancún, Mexico. It was a box office bomb, and not a film I remember with fondness beyond just curiosity of its existence, but again "DVD-core", if I am to plague the world with a term to describe this era of filmmaking, is a compelling set of films for a variety of reasons. Their use of digital film cameras, with their aged aesthetics, and their attempts to redefine what a "film" meant are worth prodding, with CO/MA clearly looking for a possible outcome that was not the titillation of The Real Cancun, but a more intellectually based experiment.

It definitely breaks reality from the get-go, not really a documentary, and the first nods to horror are found when we have one of the actresses in a toilet cubicle feeling at ill ease of an unknown presence, beginning the hints of the building being haunted or at least the disconnect to the location even if this plot thread is one of many which feel unfinished. They all decide, in the main drive, as a collective to make a soap opera, in mind to strip anything interesting away on purpose. Alongside the strangeness of this, when one of the actresses complains later about the hollowness of her "soap opera performance" and that they apparently agreed to this project in the first place, the tangled web we get suggests otherwise, like a no-horror version of Lars von Trier's The Kingdom franchise if more absurd and less about the horror of that franchise. There are a couple of scenes in a film-within-a-film, with an actual audience, bored by the likes of cooking shows such as Jamie Oliver's, switching over to "The Clinic", with absurd touches coming in with its plot whiplashes, and over-dramatic music. It is one of the better aspects to CO/MA that most of what we get of this pastiche is just the introductions to each new episode, skipping ahead of entire plot cycles with drastic character shifts. Abrupt amnesia, lovers cheating on doctor to take his job and let the cleaner, studying to be one too, become the head of the hospital, secret half-sisters, fake twins for ones supposed to be dead and unknown leukaemia, all of which is deliberately silly. Add to this that there are two bystanders, a male older alcoholic and a British actress who is playing a pathological liar, watching on as the Greek chorus, and The Clinic as a project could have been something from this era of cinema that might have been a proper film you might find released from this era. This is less strange to consider when Lars von Trier once shot an office set comedy, with the digital camera instructed with artificial intelligence to shot however it wanted, called The Boss of It All (2006).

It feels hypocritical as a result, admittedly, to have a critique of soap operas yet playing one out whose strange presentation is actually interesting, but when the actors are flummoxed why they are doing a "bad soap opera", it is clearly another plot strand that is at play, with Mike Figgis playing his role at times as an odd puppet master. He is never cruel or manipulative, choosing soap operas as it is a genre and the most popular one globally in his words, but it is clearer he is trolling the cast. One of the biggest critiques I can make is that, for how long they had to produce the film, which feels like a short production of pure improvisation, it feels like a more fleshed out series of arches were lost in this and we could have gotten a much more complex yet precise work if it had been longer. It is aiming for something more complex but can merely add hints to these plot strands, such as when we get to one of the actresses being honest that she was comfortable filming Figgis' "porno". Truthfully, when the film uses the term "porn" the use is in mind to the fully improvised production with little script and minimal production crew instead, but there is a nod to the potential issues of lack of professional morals to get the right stories, such as a tale from a crew member who says, to cut costs on a failing soap opera, the script created a plague to bump off actors only for that to get high ratings. Nothing is explicit in CO/MA in terms of sexual content, but it is nodded to, with this actress' character in a relationship with a former patient of hers in The Clinic among other implications of the relationships between characters in the hospital setting. The sole explicit scene is a retake of a phone call between this actress and her former patient where, with only hints, she starts heavily breathing her invitation to the woman to go to a cafe whilst rubbing the mobile phone against herself, which with the ominous music used in the scene feels like they were suddenly trying to be like David Lynch.

Those music cues, and the more overt moments where the cast feel at ill-ease in the studio, are enough to justify the fleck of horror as a genre on this film before we get an actual ghost girl with her multicolour basketball in the costume department scaring one of the actresses. This is a movie with really not clear genre but shades of them in a spectrum. In truth, it is a film which does not really clear trajectory to itself, somewhat befitting the narrative it has where there is growing unrest from the group with Figgis as this goes. Some aspects of its trajectory are missing to fully emphasis the point - that there is a sense of discontent and a sense Figgis is antagonising some of them which should have had more scenes of, especially if CO/MA is playing with the idea of what is "real" and "reel". Even if that could be something difficult to capture in b-roll practically or morally, this especially becomes the case when the film starts talking about a conspiracy about who is who eventually, with paranoia growing, which could have added a greater weight to the production if more time was spend on this.

The sense the film drifts off is when it cuts into other tangents in the last half. The horror tangents feel like they are baked into the tone, set up from the start, but eventually we are looking into the production shooting a take on The Exorcist (1973) having managed to get Max von Sydow for one day, or the Jackass crew of the cult MTV series and Johnny Knoxville are brought up as about to appear in The Clinic. Obviously, these are joke moments, with none of these people about to appear, and instead it is all with a sense that as the production for real went on, the commune started to horse about and became less concerned about a serious meaning to the work. This is felt when we get another of the memorable pieces, a three plus minute comedy sketch where a man conjures up a woman in an abandoned film set, wanting to seduce her but with their collected ability to imagine anything they wish leading to legitimately fun comedic beats in a few perfect minutes. Is it enough to justify the whole film though? I think it is telling, when the ending epilogue text comes up, there is a reference (clearly for some humour) that some Slovakia filmmakers walked out the first ever screening, with the pervading sense that CO/MA was never meant to win over a large crowd, but Mike Figgis with these collaborators experimenting for the sake of it. He would become obscurer as a result of these projects, barring one music documentary or occasional TV episode in a whole, entirely focused in these lower budget productions where he would eventually become the editor and the cinematographer.  In this case, it feels less like a tragedy but more that he willing choose this direction, and to be brutally honest, barring my love for Nicolas Cage and some of the older films with enticing premises, these more obscure titles like CO/MA feel far more compelling to consider from him for their complete lack of compromise regardless if they are successful or not.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Metatextual/Stream-of-Consciousness

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Careful (1992)

Director: Guy Maddin

Screenplay: Guy Maddin and George Toles

Cast: Kyle McCulloch as Grigorss, Gosia Dobrowolska as Zenaida, Sarah Neville as Klara, Brent Neale as Johann, Paul Cox as Count Knotkers, Victor Cowie as Herr Trotta, Michael O'Sullivan as The Swan Feeder (Dead Husband of Zenaida), Vince Rimmer as Franz

An Abstract Candidate

 

Guy Maddin with Careful makes a film about a mountain community, a very bleakly humoured take on this setting and context, the Germanic society of Tolzbad a community forced to stay in silence to avoid setting off avalanches. It is a precarious place where it is truly a godsend there are rare valleys nearby whose acoustics silence noises, but one where the problem is significant to the point that flocks of geese are so dangerous they need to be shot out of the sky in the perimeters. The film was also a project whose co-writer George Toles explicitly wanted to tackle incest in Careful¹; the setting allows for a really psychologically twisted work of pent up emotions, contrasted by the lush aesthetic and playfully strange whimsy of this timeless world of the non-existent past. The setting, everyone trapped in this isolated high altitude, has lead to these figures having unlocked memories and desires pent up, including for their own parents or ties to them too tight to the point, suffocating, they will duel their widow mother's suitor to the death.

The tale surrounds the sons of the late Swan Feeder (Michael O'Sullivan), a man who will return as a ghost but stuck with his eyes still blinded, losing one as a babe when his mother pressed him too tightly against a brooch with the pin sticking out, the second warning to any viewer of why you do not stand too close to a cuckoo clock when it hits the hour mark. He will have to watch on, and try to warn anyone he can communicate with, at the two act structure of his lineage's perils, the first following Johann the eldest son (Brent Neale), who wishes to marry Klara (Sarah Neville), but has incestuous dreams about his widowed mother Zenaida (Gosia Dobrowolska). Johann begins the first of the two acts as he succumbs to "mountain illness, meant to be the curse to climb the mountains, which is warned as very dangerous and having claimed many, but is blatant symbolism of the isolation of this extremely closed and emotionally rigid community which wrought neurosis and suppressed desires, especially in a world where the danger of raised voices causing avalanches is a constant. Johann's introductory story shows how edgy Careful has remained, spying on his mother bathing upside down in the chimney, and his downfall where he concocts a sleeping draught before he cracks in guilt violently, in the moment he was to commit a true transgression, leading to the younger third son Grigorss (Kyle McCulloch) to take over the film.

Whilst played with a sick sense of humour, Careful is entirely about the pull of family, one of the most prominent themes of Guy Maddin's filmography, among the many aspects juxtaposing his really eccentric humour against really uncomfortable themes. A lot in his career have had to do with sexuality of all forms and many taboos, which causes his characters over the years to be thrown in melodramatic maelstroms. Grigorss falls for Klara, and inherits Johann's role as the new butler at Count Knotkers' castle, the head of Tolzbad played by Paul Cox, only to learn the truth of Knotkers and his mother's love for each other which was still burning even when she married the Swan Feeder, explaining as well why the oldest brother Franz (Vince Rimmer), who cannot talk and was forced to live in the attic, was stuck ostracised. The connection to family is a theme Guy Maddin has death with even interpreting his own life, or even in a positive way with actress Isabella Rossellini and her legendary filmmaking father Roberto in My Dad Is 100 Years Old (2005); in Careful, be it Count Knotkers having his own deceased mother preserved in a sanitised bedroom, or that Klara has a fixation on her own father, jealous of the closer relationship between him and her sister Glenda as the favourite. Her story even leads to the one scene which may be far more problematic, if unintentionally nowadays, in her going as far as deceive Grigorss with a possible false accusation to kill her father, even if there is a whimsical touch involving using the avalanches to do the job. The irony is that barring the tragic passing of his father at a young age, the short The Dead Father (1985) which began the director's career influenced by this, Maddin's upbringing is sweet and eccentric, even recreating his childhood which showed examples of this in a fantastical form for My Winnipeg (2007), so it might surprise he has twisted tales on family like in Careful.

He definitely likes to probe at neurosis, sexual anxiety and the perverse, which will dabble into anything from the band Sparks providing a musical number in The Forbidden Room (2015) about a man mentally crippled by his interesting in the female posterior, to the purely glorious and fun, making a short Sissy Boy Slap Party (1994) entirely about men wearing very little clothing spanking each other. Guy Maddin's work is not overtly messaged, but the themes are there filtered through obsolete cinematic tropes, least in that his work was seen as throwbacks at this stage or when The Heart of the World (2000), a short inspired by Soviet montage editing, brought more influence in editing and production techniques forward in his work. The fantastical and lyrical is contrasted by the incredibly dark or the purely ridiculous, eccentric behaviour portrayed by characters in these films as much part of their mental tapestries. There is even a whole aspect here in Careful of Johann and Grigorss studying in a butler school, which I cannot help but think of in context to Jakob von Gunten, a 1909 novel written by Swiss novelist Robert Walser which is a very unconventional work, and one we had to wait for animators Stephen and Timothy Quay, in their first theatrical film and with actors, to get an official theatrical adaptation in 1995 with Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life. The connection, even if accidental, is perfect for two works dealing with the unconscious wells of desire.

You could not write a review of a Guy Maddin film without talking of the aesthetic, with the additional fact that with Careful, he was starting to move away from playing tribute to silent cinema aesthetics to others, the look here of old photography hand painted in colour after development, contrasted to the tinted scenes in one colour evoking how silent films used this technique with the colours used depending on the context. Maddin's films are very artificial, even when using old film and TV footage to retell Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo as The Green Fog (2017), Careful having a rustic artificiality with ornate homemade set design, feeling of the 18th century in fact but with details like phonographs existing which effect the sense of time and setting being clearly placed. There is even a deliberate crackle in the soundtrack like an old vinyl which emphasis the sense of this entire being a relic, ironic knowing that the themes I have mentioned of Guy Maddin's, whilst over-the-top, are very real in subject, the hyper exaggerated filmic nature of Careful as if influenced by the plots. The safeguard this artificially created world of Tolzbad becomes allows for Maddin to deal with themes in a way to soften their blow, when he does include some incredibly dark content as talked of in this narrative.

This would be followed by a road bump in his career, with Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997) becoming a maligned work, marking Careful and that film as the last of the first era of his career where the editing and production design were not as explicitly part of the texture of his work as later, more staged dramas in their tone in his first act as a director. I view Twilight... as an underrated film, but one which lead to a period of short films, but nothing in terms of theatrical length work until Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002). The Heart of the World was a jump start to his career, but also emphasised that, to tell these tales about neurosis, their tactile natures as films included using silent film techniques like intertitles more explicitly, using the editing more, and into the 2010s, Maddin embraced another turn into explicit digital post-production. Careful however marks a point, more overt than his previous films, Archangel (1990) and his first film Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988), where one of his most distinct features, melodramas about the traps psychologically and sexually which ensnare usually male leads, became really prominent, and alongside being a great film in its own right in a strong filmography, Careful becomes as important for this reason too for the context.

Abstract Spectrum: Dreamlike/Eccentric/Melodramatic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

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1) Interviewed for Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight (1997), a Maddin retrospective documentary from this first era of the Canadian filmmaker's career.

Under Capricorn (1949)

 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay: Hume Cronyn and James Bridie

Based on the stage play by John Colton and Margaret Linden, adapted from Helen Simpson’s novel Under Capricorn

Cast: Ingrid Bergman as Lady Henrietta Flusky; Joseph Cotten as Samson "Sam" Flusky; Michael Wilding as Hon. Charles Adare; Margaret Leighton as Milly; Cecil Parker as Sir Richard; Denis O'Dea as Mr. Corrigan; Jack Watling as Winter

Canon Fodder

 

Under Capricorn presents a bad moment for the career of Alfred Hitchcock, where after beginning his American part of his filmmaker career, working under producer David O. Selznick from 1940’s Rebecca to The Paradine Case (1947), he stepped out with Sidney Bernstein to start his own film making company Transatlantic Pictures. Under Capricorn was the film he was focused on making, with Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, yet irony holds that the film quickly made beforehand, the experiment in long takes Rope (1948), became the film of the two more easy to fit in the image of its director, with its own idiosyncratic and compelling traits to dissect technically and in its content. Under Capricorn, as a melodrama adapted from a novel, had the unfortunate existence that, as an expensive colour production, Bergman became a pariah to the United States, a big source of potential revenue for the production’s release, as by when the film was released, her controversial adulterous affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini had transpired causing scandal. Under Capricorn was taken by one of its investors, Bankers Trust Company, when a box office failure to coup the lost finances, not seen until the sixties when made available to see again, and the studio Transatlantic Pictures was to be no more into the fifties. Thankfully, Hitchcock’s fifties period onwards would produce some of his most iconic films, even contenders for some of the best ever made for people, but Under Capricorn itself is a curious film to think about. Simply to watch and actually digest this lesser known production is a lot to chew on, and this is factoring in the number of voices championing the film over the decades when you dig into its history.

Set in 19^th century colonial era Australia, this follows an British ex-patriot Hon. Charles Adare (Michael Wilding) wishing to make his fortune there, only to come to Sydney and come under the wing of Joseph Cotten’s Samson "Sam" Flusky. He is for many a suspicious figure, and as the story continues, his pariah status despite his own fortune is learnt of by Charles. A place where convicts are said to be able to step back into respectability, this proves hypocritical as Sam was such a case, still shunned due to the circumstances around his case, murder, as a former tender of the horse stables where he met his wife, Lady Henrietta Flusky (Bergman), who loved each despite their class differences only for tragedy to strike. A luscious film, yet set in a place where shrunken heads are traded secretly in the streets, the film is stepped in melancholia despite its lush colour aesthetic shot by legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Bergman’s lead is ill, explicitly an alcoholic whose addiction is caused by the anguish of the time having had to wait for Sams release from prison in the colony, neither helped by it being very clear the head maid Milly (Margaret Leighton), in love with Sam, has been gas lighting and feeding her mistress’ drinking for control of the house.

It is an odd folly for Hitchcock as much as I can see this be a legitimate grower in its riches, where in contrast to later films which were maligned, digging the virtues out of this one means tackling a film which is out of step from the director’s many trademarks. As much as Torn Curtain (1966) for an example was viewed as a lesser production, his Cold War spy thriller, that at least has stand out set pieces, and his cynical whit written everywhere in its tone, whilst this was one of a few tangents away from the thrillers and suspense dramas Hitchcock rebuilt and innovated in whilst providing more to them. Rope, made quickly before this film, was an experiment that fed into this one’s production, with that tale being told entirely in ten minute long takes, but that was still a taut thriller based on a stage play based on the moral corruption of the heart, the perfect murder. This in contrast is a depressed melodrama, compelling but one that with hindsight would have not been a success for his own studio, even if Bergman’s affair was not a factor, unless the mood of the audience was in his favour, moments in danger of pure dourness, even next to the melancholia soaking in Rebecca which this can be compared to. 

The biggest issue with Under Capricorn, truthfully, is that there are times this feels like it could be directed by anyone else but Hitchcock, and that is factoring in how much is clearly his craft, but with pockets where the film lacks some finesse to match when this triumphs in other moments.  That is an issue, as even Rebecca, notoriously a jostling competition between Hitchcock and his producer O. Selznick for influencing its content, feels fully a piece to the director’s career, whilst here it does feel its length with some padding. Thankfully you see a lot to Capricorn which clearly comes to this, a mature drama about accepting the demons of the past and jealously, even with humour, as fittingly for a known food connoisseur, Hitchcock has an extended joke about breakfast preparation with deadpan expressions at some horrifically cooked eggs. The qualities of the acting help what does feel its length without feeling methodical, and one of the biggest aspects of its production which can be missed, its long extended takes, does lead to moments where the viewer fully engaged with the emotion of the drama. Bergman’s introduction into the film, or her eight minute confession of her traumas, are some of the best moments, which are helped by Hitchcock deciding to force the film to extend takes for longer than usually done, forcing you into the space with these scenes. There are moments where this style clearly did not work, where honestly the film feels morose in its pacing, or where the drama is undercut by scenes of dialogue which have not got the snap of his work before and after, where the film as a technical level, and the tone of the film, needed to be rethought.

His sense of black humour may have also helped as someone, despite rarely writing his scripts, visibly influencing them, as it would have actually helped make the strongest emotional parts more meaningful. Considering how this nudges to some very adult content even in terms of cinema in the decades after, the film is trying at a deft hand at a really serious subject needing to not always lean on these extended long takes and slow pace – Henrietta’s confessions, alongside his alcoholism, seemingly evoke even prostitution or at least a life of squalor part of her life in the slums of Sydney whilst waiting for Sam’s release, either subjects still taboos a century on for some, are where the themes of the film really do become some of the darkest of Hitchcock’s career among many times he entered into this territory, in spite of not explicitly showing a lot. It would have not been inappropriate if the film had embraced its more macabre edges more, or used its languid technical style as a weapon by occasionally stepping into some editing once or twice, especially as where the film feels its weakest is in its lighter moments, too fluffy or insubstantial next to the best comedy in his films, sticking out in contrast to the richness of the emotional angst and pained love, including class bias, for Sam to Henrietta. Tellingly it is the character of Charles where most of this comes from, though he is an important part of the love triangle within the film itself, so there is a sense that the optimistic and lighter moments of the story, and effectively him as a character allowing the viewer into this world of Sam and Henrietta, needed to be rewritten even if in one or two touches as with these few drab moments.

This juxtaposition of where the film succeeds and does feel like it could have been better paced is found in how more vibrant the last quarter is, where its gothic and melodramatic storytelling becomes more prominent, with the machinations of Milly and playing to more lurid suspense in the attempts to psychologically ruin Henrietta come to the fore, including the shrunken heads referenced earlier in this review make their return. It is done without it seeming inappropriate for the rich characterization, and where this film fully succeeds including with the character depth, by writing and acting, of the tale of Sam and Henrietta. It is not a surprise how the film has managed to win more and more respect over the decades - Peter Bogdanovich was a huge admirer of the film¹ – and honestly, this is the kind of production that could easily grow in respect from me, especially if it was readily available in the best restorations to allow its aesthetics to be emphasized, the contrast of rich late forties colour cinema against its bleak heart one of its more enticing favors. I am still going to say, even when the film may become flawless the more times seen, where I find its sluggish moments of pacing dissipate to full admiration, that this was a film that was going to be doomed back in the day as a box office film or be a risk to have even committed to. Some of this is simply Hitchcock’s name had already been cemented to thrillers, but a lot of this feeling comes simply from what this film is, a production even when it offers a happy ending that finds itself intentionally wallowing in its melancholia.

The shadow the film had thankfully subsided. Ingrid Bergman was welcomed back into American cinema with films like The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), and whilst Transatlantic Pictures was the real casualty of this film’s failure, some of Hitchcock’s most legacy defining films in terms of pop culture and cinema, even really difficult ones which force one to challenge him as a human being within his own work, came after this to the end of his career. Under Capricorn is a production lost and in need of more assistance in being brought into attention, especially as what you can get is a slightly hazy DVD only release from a lost vanished distributor in the United Kingdom, in spite of the fact this was Hitchcock’s return to his homeland as a British production. It is not a film to immediately return to, next to the murder’s row of iconic and underrated films in Alfred Hitchcock’s career, but it fascinates and rewards as a serious, somber minded drama with ambitious in dealing with its themes.

 

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1) My favourite Hitchcock: Under Capricorn, written by Joe Walsh for The Guardian, published 14th August 2012.

School Days (2007)

 

Director: Keitaro Motonaga

Screenplay: Makoto Uezu

Based on the adult visual novel videogame by 0verflow

(Voice) Cast: Daisuke Hirakawa as Makoto Ito; Shiho Kawaragi as Sekai Saionji; Tae Okajima as Kotonoha Katsura; Chiaki Takahashi as Nanami Kanroji; Haruka Nagami as Otome Kato; Keiko Imoto as Setsuna Kiyoura; Megu Ashiro as Kokoro Katsura; Ryouko Tanaka as Hikari Kuroda; Yoshiaki Matsumoto as Taisuke Sawanaga

Ephemeral Waves

 

[FULL SPOILERS throughout; whilst a warning will be added to where significant plot reveals are shown, this is an immediate warning as this review has to talk about the full details of the plot in general, which may ruin a great deal of the experience for others.]

 

On the surface, School Days presents the stereotype of an anime, for anime fans and for outsiders to the media; in high school, Makoto Ito is encouraged by his female friend Sekai Saionji to start dating Kotonoha Katsura, a timid girl in another class. Sekai however has feelings for him herself, and at first, even as a fan of this notorious 2007 series, it shows the hallmarks of a stereotypical high school melodrama, including the hijinks of the early dates between Kotonoha and Makoto which are played fully as comedy, such as the decision of what film one should take a girl to or his ill advised decision to get guidance from a men's romantic advise magazine. The show also cannot be disguised from its origins, that this was based on an erotic game, something which may raise the eyebrows considerably especially in mind to the setting, as that means the original work was pornographic with explicit sex scenes (barring Japanese censorship laws). A multimedia franchise, this does follow a lot of the clichés of the seemingly charismatic but bland male lead, who manages to have a lot of girls suddenly develop romantic feelings for him, and the trope of the group of girls he could be with, as this is based on a visual novel, a video game genre narrative driven and based on choosing choices that determine the story ending you get. Add things from the cheesecake moments of slight eroticism to the token male friend whose desperateness for the opposite sex is played fully for comedy, and there are plenty of shows which likely exist which have these aspects and are forgotten. Thing is, there is a clear signal, in the first episode when the show's title appears and broken glass is heard, that something is amiss even if it could be missed. Makoto is not going to be your usual male anime protagonist, especially as three episodes into a light comedy about his awkward romance with Kotonoha, he too eager for her in wanting to be physical as a couple, he starts getting bored with courting her.

School Days was notorious for a good reason, though the appearance for this anime series can be deceptive. The visual novel, published in 2005, like others in this genre is an interactive novel that offers the aforementioned multiple narrative paths and endings, and like a choose-your-own-adventure story from the West, you can have good and bad endings. This presents an issue with adapting these to anime in how to tell them, let alone with manga, with only a few playing to their origins. Higurashi When They Cry, a 2002 visual novel by Ryukishi07, founder of the dōjin (fan made) circle 07th Expansion, plays to a Groundhog Day repeating cycle eventually explicit to its horror mystery story, which is something few of these titles have the ability to work with. Others either adapt the tale in one way, and others are more creative, such as how Amagami SS (2010), the first series specifically, is your stereotypical (if likable) high school romance which just envisions what happens if the male lead was dating a different female peer in a different time line, a few episode chapters devoted to each of these possibilities. School Days, after its initial light and cheery tone in the first three episodes, changes into a dark chimera eventually of interest, especially as when considering the source, which could have incredibly nasty endings, the production team of studio TNK decided to make this the really bad ending in anime form. I should have probably not been surprised as, when I first saw this series, I learnt the director was Keitaro Motonaga, who helmed Malice@Doll (2000), a work that I hold in high regard, though with the caveat that it is an odd creation as an early computer animated body horror sci-fi work which is truly peculiar. Obviously, that enough cannot explain in the influences behind the show, be it the production design recreating the visual novel characters, the source material itself, or screenwriter and series compositor Makoto Uezu, but it was apt that a man behind that particular piece of surreal nightmare fuel was here. Within a career that varies from porn (House of 100 Tongues (2003) for example) up to helming the 2010s Digimon Adventure tri. films, Motonaga's presence here with a show which gain a notoriety entirely because of unfortunate scheduling on Japanese television feels like a perverse cherry to how this production turned out.

The premise itself could have easily descended in something bad on just the synopsis though, just a de-eroticised melodrama if you never heard of the game. School Days, with its conventional (stereotypical) TV look of bright colours and conventional characters designs are matched by a stereotypically bland male protagonist and the close-ups of female characters' figures, far more lurid and questionable in terms of a problematic male gaze, and because these characters are still in school. Kotonoha, the girl he is initially pushed into dating by his tomboy female friend Sekai, is depicted as a voluptuous big eyed girl who is quiet and shy around men, all whilst Sekai herself spends her time arguing with him through exchanged notes in class, the tomboy who, as the cliché goes, has a crush on him too. So far, it is a stereotype of anime plotting that also is part of the "harem" sub-genre. Harem, originally a term from ancient Muslim culture of a separate part of a household for wives, concubines, and female servants, as well as eventually turning into a completely sexual term for a group of women with one male lover, is its own anime/manga sub-genre which usually denotes one male surrounded by multiple female suitors; there is the "reverse harem", one woman and multiple male suitors, and LGBT variations, but harem stories that are the most famous (and divisive) include the Love Hina franchise where it is one male, and many potential female suitors. The potential gender issues around this, which are right to rise with concern, are dashed in this particular anime as this is a melodrama where things get bleaker and sour.

[MAJOR Spoiler Warnings here]

And by sour, as in our male protagonist, eventually turning out to be a chronic womanizer with an ease in cheating on multiple girls, is murdered by one character, whilst another is disembowel. The diagram for the beginning to the ending, from the initial romance with light comedy at the beginning to where his head is severed and kept as a possession for a heartbroken suitor, is as jarring a tonal shift without a lot of context to how this happened, yet the show manages to make this work for all its faults.

[MAJOR Spoilers End]

Watching School Days again, the story for all its clichés does have virtues in how it makes the experience over twelve episodes, eventually like going through the meat grinder for a prolonged season, more tragic in how the circumstances come. An inspired decision to make a show the worst type of ending from the source material, on purpose or with unintentionally greater weight, turned this property into an anti-harem story and an even more tragic one due to how the characters act in circumstances. In a school shown to be full of cruel and sexually confused students, the mistakes at the worst time are dramatically more loaded as a result. Makoto is a true stereotype of the ineffective and bland male lead in a lot of these shows who eventually, in others, became a cliché anime were burdened with, as this trope was clearly seen to allow emotional investment to an audience. Here, he is horny and awkward like a teenager would be, too trigger happy with girls if dating to rush in to kiss as he had never been with someone before, and eventually, when he finds himself crossing the line with having physical relationships, coldness instead comes after instead of growth and maturity. He becomes instead of a calculated person who takes physically from girls, as he womanises and sleeps with multiple people, and hates the responsibilities that go with this. Sekai is tragically the friend who always loved him, made the mistake to confess her love to him when already dating Kotonoha, who she introduced him to, and is stuck with the anchor of this love even when he wishes to be with her, especially when he starts cheating on her too. Kotonoha is the tragic figure who placed all her emotional investment in Makoto, and will eventually suffer a nervous breakdown, and other characters find themselves stuck in this increasing awful web, such as Setsuna, Sekai's own diminutive female friend who wishes Sekai's happiness to be with Makoto but also has a crush on him. Even Makoto's horn dog but wholesome male friend Taisuke eventually does something in a later episode which is horrifying, least in terms of when someone is at the moment of an emotional breakdown he inadvertently takes advantage of without likely realising what he ever did.

The worst thing, and why for how ridiculous and way too cruel the story can be School Days actually succeeds, is that it is not morally black and white, but with everyone including Makoto himself being confused hormone driven teenagers. Extremer tales have been told of romantic tragedy and death, and it was a curious experience first watching the show on the streaming service Crunchyroll and looking at their comments section at how people were not comfortable with the story progression, whether it was good writing or not, having to watch a show where the male lead is clearly not a good person. It was a curious tale in itself of viewers wanting to kill Makoto, slap everyone else and vile anguish whilst those in the know, who already saw the series, teased the horrifying climax of it all. I myself was aware of the ending, that Makoto would eventually be shown as a womanizer, and that the comeuppance was a nasty one, but not only did I not know the full extent of said ending, but my knowledge did not ruin the show but arguably improved it. This also sooths over the first three episodes, knowing where the story went bringing a sense of tragic finality to the proceedings; it added to the idea that a character like Makoto is not explicitly evil, even when near the end of the series he has a foursome with three female classmates when he is already sleeping around and betraying multiple girlfriends, but something worse in his banality. Far more disturbing, even if exaggerated, is that he is just an apathetic and dumb young man who thinks with his smaller head, and has little wisdom of emotions, more honest as a moral ground for the series to take as a result even if it is more agonising for a viewer to experience. Considering this cliché of the blandly likable hero is a common one in anime, it feels subversive, even if School Days came from a franchise which placated to the clichés too, that probably felt more uncomfortable for some viewers when usually these leads are meant to be sympathetic.

And whilst their all stereotypes, that helps because of this attitude; Sekai, complicating things as she still helps him to date Kotonoha, has a strange relationship including practice foreplay sessions which are just as problematic as they should be to a viewer, naturally leading to complications. Setsuna, Sekai's friend, has a crush on Makoto too, as does Otome, another female peer, all whilst the other girls in the school can be vindictive and backstabbing, all feeling less like sexist depictions but like many teenagers misguided behaviour. It is an attempt at least at complexity in spite of itself, even a character like Kotonoha in that her hesitance in a physical relationship, pushing Makoto away, is due to having been teased for her figure at a young age alongside the fact that she is an innocence, her ideal of romance taken from stories of being swept up by a man riding on horseback and being romanced, the fictionalised take of love stories. Taking up knitting and devoted to her younger sister, the character is meant for a viewer's perspective to have been a meek figure, the shy girl you cheer when she does muster a bravery to be bolder in her romance, only for Makoto to be an oblivious cheater who dithers, making her a really tragic figure. Add to this that her female peers in her class bully her, a mean streak made worse when they will even film other female students secretly in a "break room" at the school festival to humiliate them publically, and Kotonoha's turn in the end to madness, glazed look looking at her phone on the street, is the real tragedy of it all. Even if it is taken to an extreme, in the video game and this anime, her fate is the real gut punch returning to the series as with the first viewing.

The effect of this tragedy, the ending itself, gained School Days its notoriety as, tragically, it had the poor timing for the final episode to be about to be aired just when a real life murder took place. On September 18th 2007, a sixteen year old murdered her father, a 45-year-old police sergeant in the traffic division at Minami Police Station in Kyoto Prefecture, with an axe¹. Another series, part of the aforementioned Higurashi: When They Cry franchise², was also affected by this in terms of its screening on television, where the episode of School Days was delayed and even altered for multiples channels before finally being broadcast¹, but how TV Kanagawa dealt with School Days transferred from a legitimate tragedy, in terms of any murder ever taking place and the gristly nature of this particular one, to an accidental internet meme. Instead of the episode, they showed half an hour of scenery, including a lake with a Norwegian ferry on it, showed with Air on a G String playing over the images. "Nice Boat", as the meme came to be, was from a 4chan user commenting on the replacement material, and it became popular in Japan^3&3b. The meme even found its way into the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, a straight-to-net spin-off of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, when the Kadokawa Pictures's YouTube channel uploaded a short montage of sailboats instead of the previously scheduled premiere of that ONA⁴.

Even without this real life censorship, its infamy does not detract the results; built up to over painful eleven episodes of miscommunication, cheating and broken emotions, the ending no matter how over-the-top it ends up, actually ending up on a sailboat in some perverse irony in the final shot, does have a weight to it from the tragic circumstances that lead to it. In fact, the idea that it is both an antidote to the problematic show trope of the harem anime as well as another example proves an advantage. The look of the show helps with this, the stereotypical character designs with big eyes emphasising the darker moments in vast contrast, and the leering fan service thankfully giving way to frankness about sex even in the dialogue. The series does, to lighten the tone and offer levity, have humour, reaching its crescendo as a last gasp of happiness before the ending at the school festival, where the mascots of the classes jostle for crowds; once it goes, so does the series manage to get even darker than before when the gloves come off completely.

The sense that the show does come from questionable production really comes when you see the bonus episode, for DVD release, School Days: Magical Heart Kokoro-chan (2008), a magical girl parody with the characters in this world. Seemingly banal, but the "fan service" of leering of the female cast naked is more apparent, legitimately uncomfortable as Kokoro is Kotonoha's little sister, which is evident that, truthfully, School Days came as much out of the clichés, even the problematic ones, which sell well to an audience of sexy school girls. Studio TNK for a lot of its existence makes shows about sexy young female characters to gaze at, such as the High School DxD franchise, so their bread and butter was in this aspect which creeps in with School Days but really makes itself more apparent with this bonus episode. The bonus episode even if some of the jokes land, like the magical maid cafe members stuck with a giant vacuum cleaner as their secret weapon, is not good in the slightest, but thankfully it is a one off curiosity, alongside a bonus Valentine's Day episode, School Days: Valentine Days (2008), which also qualifies as the hot springs episode (i.e. the episode at the hot springs resort in anime, designed to show the female cast naked and bathing even if the episode never shows anything explicit). The original series by itself, due to how it tells its story, is too powerful in its aura and what it actually succeeds in for a Magical Heart Kokoro-chan to make it seem as distasteful.

In fact, the entire aesthetic is perfect - "School Days" a perfect title that sounds innocuous, but develops a weight when it is the last episode title. The light pop songs used suit, and even the fact the end credits are centred on a mobile phone is absolutely appropriate, the latter an object which plays such an important part in the drama as a catalyst for drama (such as blocking someone off one or secretly conversing to others with). The result, aware of how it bruised and batted me around through the twelve episodes, was unique, like a necessary poison and incredible idiosyncratic in lieu of what was purposeful or accidental creative.

 

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1) Last School Days Episode Preempted by Real-Life Crime, written by Egan Loo and published for Anime News Network on 19th September 2007

2) Higurashi Kai Preempted "Due to Various Circumstances" (Update 2), written by Egan Loo and published for Anime News Network on 20th September 2007.

3) School Days "Nice Boat" Meme Has Been Sailing on for 12 Years, written by Kara Dennison and published for Crunchyroll on September 18th 2019.

3b) Nice Boat, taken from the Know Your Memes webpage on the meme written on April 15th 2009.

4) That's it, I give up: First episode of Haruhi-chan not finished, viewers get half-decent boat instead. written for Japanator on 13th February 2009.

Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf (1975)

 

Director: Leonardo Favio

Screenplay: Leonardo Favio and Jorge Zuhair Jury

Based on a radio programme by Juan Carlos Chiappe

Cast: Juan José Camero as Nazareno Cruz; Marina Magali as Griselda; Alfredo Alcón as The Powerful/Mandinga; Lautaro Murúa as Julián; Nora Cullen as The Lechiguana; Elcira Olivera Garcés as Damiana; Saul Jarlip as The Old Man Pancho; Juanita Lara as Fidelia; Yolanda Mayorani as The Powerful's Godmother; Marcelo Marcote as The Child

Ephemeral Waves

 

Based on folklore, Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf tells the story of the seventh son, the last surviving son, of a widowed mother who is said to be cursed by the Devil into becoming a werewolf. He managed, with the witch who warned his mother during her pregnancy as his loving godmother, to lead a happy life into his adulthood, to the point he is a popular man in the village despite the constant jokes about full moons. His love for the maiden Griselda (Marina Magali) however brings the Devil, or Mandinga (Alfredo Alcón) to him, warning him that, now with love in his life, Nazareno (Juan José Camero) will turn at the next full moon, even attempting to bribe Nazareno with wealth beyond his means to attempt to sacrifice Griselda's love. Based on the Guarani legend of the Lobizón, where the notion of the seventh son becoming a dog-like creature comes from if different here, Nazareno Cruz... is also, in Argentina, one of its most acclaimed and successful films. Alongside Argentina's official entry for the Foreign Language Oscar at the 48th Academy Awards, but this is held as a high mark from Argentinean cinema within the country,

It is also, however, a film extremely difficult to see outside of nefarious means, which is incredibly annoying. Nazareno Cruz... is not pulpy enough for a traditional genre label, closer to drama even with its fantastical story and a soundtrack by Juan José García Caffi that evokes Italian genre cinema's own, but it is startling and idiosyncratic in beautiful ways. Its director, Leonardo Favio, is a director I was lucky enough to see a few films of through with help, but his work is generally difficult to see. This disappoints as, even going by memories, his was a very diverse series of films as a filmography, many which were just as distinct as this. Also managing to be a well regarded singer-songwriter¹, as much as an acclaimed director in his homeland, Favio could go from a traditional historical film like Juan Moreira (1973), based on the titular folk hero and outlaw, to the very strange and utterly idiosyncratic El Dependiente (1969), to Chronicle of a Boy Alone (1965), a realistic tale of a titular young boy and troublemaker in an entirely different aesthetic style. The only reason his career was shorten at one point at all, just after Nazarene Cross itself, was Argentina's civil-military dictatorship of 1976–1983, where he understandably became an exile and fled the country¹.

A film of its era of the seventies, it however contrasts the obvious aesthetic touches of this time in cinema with its attempt, like many from this period, of retelling a fairy tale in a grounded reality even when it is fantastic, within a rural setting possessing a tone which stands out for such a simplistic tale. One which is a tragedy which will unfold, idiosyncrasies stand out, notably a trip to Hell as represented by caves. It does avoid wearing out its premise, folktales better off as very short length works due to their concise natures unless a filmmaker can elaborate on it carefully, which is to its advantage. The film does not attempt to depict a wolf-like humanoid, but sticks to an actual wolf, something of note as, among all the idiosyncratic side characters who steal scenes, among them include an old female witch (and apparent mother-figure of Satan himself) who is a shape shifter. The tone is enough with the film to shows a clear grasp on a folklore that is lost in a lot of Northern American cinema, unless it can escape internally or set itself in a minority community or the countryside, this film set in a part of some older period but timeless in appearance.

The personality itself, when seen from a script co-written by Favio, really does add so much to an already haunting tale. The witches, seen throughout including a young girl, future heir and student of the arts as a mere child, fascinate as dominant female figures, onlookers to this story where, in terms of any villains, Griselda's father is the closest even near the Devil himself, in his ill-advised decision to keep Nazarene from her despite their love for each other, which will lead to further tragedy in the end. The simpleton, for a lack of the politically correct term, waving in the fields gets his own idiosyncratic moment where, abruptly, suddenly he has a monologue in his ramblings about war being good, clearly going off memories of a past in conflict among soldiers, which raises so much in terms of background for him and this simple tale, a tale outside this one's scope, which feels meaningful. Even Satan himself, in his crisp black hat and erudite voice, gets to be more than the tempter. It says a lot of the film's attitude when, warning Nazareno of the curse of the full moon as is found in many films, he and Satan end up laughing together until it hurts, even if doomed to transpire as the Devil still warns. That is even before, adding an abrupt bow of real emotion to the film, Satan will eventually show humanity, bored and despairing of his lot, even wising for Nazareno, in the fate before him, to ask God Himself to talk to his fallen angel in an act of reconciliation.

Even in terms of having a fairytale magic, and some surrealism such as fishermen in the caves of Hell among other background details, within this much grounded aesthetic tone the presentation really stands out and adds to the haunting nature of Leonardo Favio's film. This, if you look into it, is legitimately to Argentina like another box office smash like Titanic (1997) was to the rest of the world in what high regard it was as a popular film as much as for their cultural cinema, which does emphasise a deeply troubling amnesia to how much individual countries, and their cinema, do not get attention and need to be taken into consideration. For obvious reasons, not doing so means you cannot see films like this, something which looks and acts very different from a film decades later in tone, even in terms of its contrast in grounded nature with a cinematic style almost the equivalent of Romanticism in context. It does come from an era, especially with the Eastern European and Czechoslovakian fantasy films from this decade or earlier, where attempting to depict these worlds in practical methods lead to tones like this Argentinean film's, with its own tonal choices in its use of close ups, of its lush score including an emphasis on vocal chants which does evoke the Italian films, and its melodrama story in its centre. A romantic scene even gets strangely more erotic in what is not seen through Nazareno and Griselda, with a female friend by them talking about how she will look after their child as she overlooks the pair, kissing in an exaggerated tone on a river with water splashing over them which implies much more happened in the scene than shown.

My knowledge of the late Leonardo Favio, who passed in 2012, only with the films I was lucky enough to see had enough effect for me to keep him close to the heart with great interest, likeminded figures like me able to get these films briefly available online and leaving their impressions on me and for those across the world too. His style could alter per just memories, pure ghosts, of those viewing experiences of the films mentioned, but they stick out, and with this one, you see someone here with this kind of honesty and reverence for traditions, one that does not extend well to a mainstream mindset that has to be assessable for everyone, and has the current and the future in its mind only, but is instead something which has to be digested with contemplation, which can also be gregarious and even profane. Satan here can be human, and there is even humour of the old men related to the witch godmother who thinks he is dying but for her, (in mind to the translation I had), is being a "fucking bum" and just lazy for many years watching on. It is a folktale that is told well in less than ninety minutes or so, and is better for it, and again this has to be a review which is designed to bring more attention to a film which should have been wider reaching beyond its homeland, long before I was writing this, but I am glad to bang a drum for.

 

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1) Obituary for Leonardo Favio, written for The Telegraph and published on November 18th 2012.

Darkness of the Sea, Shadow of the Moon (1989)

Director: Tetsu Dezaki

Screenplay: Koichi Mizuide and Sōji Yoshikawa

Voice Cast: Mayumi Shō as Lumi Kobayakawa; Rei Sakuma as Luka Kobayakawa; Toshihiko Seki as Katsuyuki Tohma; Ryusei Nakao as Mr. Kobayakawa; Seiko Nakano as Mrs. Kobayakawa; Tesshō Genda as Doctor Kaibara

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) / An 1000 Anime Crossover

"I had never heard of Darkness of the Sea... until searching for horror anime, but this three part OVA is tantalising when you begin it. It is a shoujo story, a story of young women which combines romance against horror and over-the-top melodrama, all directed by Tetsu Dezaki, Osamu Dezaki's brother who can be credited for helming They Were Eleven (1986), a great sci-fi story from a legendary female manga author Moto Hagio, but also Mad Bull 34 (1990-2), the infamous and at times difficult to watch Kazuo Koike tale about New York City cops with all the ridiculous clichés and distortions you could imagine. Darkness of the Sea... starts off over the top in its own way when twin sisters Rumi and Ruki, already in a romantic triangle over Touma, the popular boy at school, go on an all-girl's trip to the coast with their school. Tragically, during a storm, they find a secret grave mass in the caves, and with everyone baring the sisters being killed by a strange air to the underground environment..."

This was a fascinating discovery - a horror work for a female audience which however does not shy away from being lurid and has an additional melodramatic edge to its premise, of one twin sister now wishing to kill the other with her unnatural abilities, which is compelling. Tragically obscure to even see, and with fair warning, tragically without a proper ending, I would hope, if unlikely, a version of Darkness of the Sea, Shadow of the Moon can be preserved. Also, if I could snap my fingers and make a work being readapted, Darkness of the Sea... is a perfect candidate for a modern anime re-adaptation with a full ending, even if an original one, and allowing the virtues this straight-to-video production still had shine further.

For the full review, follow the blog link HERE.

Dark Shadows (1991)

 

Creator: Dan Curtis

Directors: Dan Curtis, Rob Bowman, Paul Lynch, Armand Mastroianni, Mark Sobel and Matthew Hall

Screenplay: Dan Curtis, Steve Feke, Jon Boorstin, Linda Campanelli, Matthew Hall, M.M. Shelly Moore, William Gray, Hall Powell, Bill Taub, Sam Hall, Art Wallace and Bill Tomb      

Cast: Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins; Barbara Blackburn as Carolyn Stoddard; Jim Fyfe as Willie Loomis; Joanna Going as  Victoria Winters; Joseph Gordon-Levitt as David Collins; Veronica Lauren as Sarah Collins; Ely Pouget as  Maggie Evans; Barbara Steele as  Dr. Julia Hoffman; Roy Thinnes as Roger Collins; Jean Simmons as  Elizabeth Collins Stoddard; Julianna McCarthy as  Mrs. Johnson; Michael T. Weiss as Joe Haskell; Michael Cavanaugh as  Sheriff George Patterson; Stefan Gierasch as Joshua Collins; Lysette Anthony as Angelíque

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows)

 

It's only a car. It's not going to hurt you.

In 1966, a daily soap opera began for the ABC television network called Dark Shadows, lasting until 1971. Created by Dan Curtis, known for directing Trilogy of Terror (1975) and producing The Night Stalker (1972), a TV film which began the cult Kolchak the Night Stalker franchise, for a first season alone, Dark Shadows was a gothic melodrama. With the show suffering in the ratings, Curtis brought in an explicitly supernatural aspect, introducing Barnabas Collins, a vampire¹. Barnabas Collins became the iconic figure for the series, representing it when Tim Burton re-imagined the franchise as the 2012 film, a more broadly toned theatrical take.

Beforehand however, Dan Curtis was convinced to reboot the franchise as a prime time television series for NBC, a horror melodrama set in Maine and involving the Collins family, a family of a long lineage since the 18th century, but unfortunately cursed from that time onwards. Set up in a feature length pilot, a young government named Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) comes to the Collins' home to be the teacher to David, a baby Joseph Gordon-Levitt, long before his adult career, who is morbid, scaring people with dead rats in welcome boxes or threatening to leave Terry the big spider on beds, and talking to dead ghost girls. Far more a concern however is how Willie (Jim Fyfe), an alcoholic son of the cook, tried to uncover family jewels in the family crypt, making the dumb mistake of opening a casket inside that is chained up, bringing Barnabas Collins (Ben Cross) to the 20th century.

Inevitable theories on vampires, or men who believe they are vampires, have to be considered by the police when a woman is attacked and drained of her blood, followed by more. Barnabas Collins is introduced initially as a villain, ironic when the franchise turned him into its figurehead, becoming a more morally complicated figure and a tragic one as this one season work continued, cursed into becoming immortal in his back story, his beliefs and actions as corrupted by this as they are still at times undefendable. Willie, his first bite victim, turns from a belligerent drunk to one of the most sympathetic characters of the show as Barnabas' inherent manservant, Jim Fyfe providing a really good performance as a put upon and constantly stressed Igor figure throughout.   

This is a traditional vampire story with the tropes fully there - sun harming vampires etc. - but this, without irony or post-modernist awareness, avoids prolonging the narrative with casts not accepting something is amiss. Not long into the pilot, the inexplicable circumstances of the murders make it difficult to not think of anything unnatural. By Episode 2, the police have giant silver crosses with them as things escalate, though how they will explain helping something stake even the undead is an issue the show never gets into. This helps the show so much as, a traditional vampire narrative over twelve existing episodes, it helps the show avoids the one cliché of scepticism about vampires that would have been frustrating to watch. That not everyone knows Barnabas is a vampire is far more interesting because of the emotional shock of discovering this is true, and how he reacts to this.

This attitude is as much because Dark Shadows is gothic melodrama, and the real tragedy of Season 1, the only season of this version of the franchise, is that whilst of a full narrative being told, it is entirely a prologue, setting up the back story and the moral conflicts of what should have gone further than this into another series. The earliest episodes deal with complicating Barnabas Collins, someone who is still a vampire who kills or turns people into the undead, but was a mortal man. Falling for Victoria, she is identical to Josette Du Prés, the woman he loved in his own era, and by episode six, when a séance accidentally switches her with a woman from the past in time travel, she and we the viewers will end up in 1790. Dark Shadows becoming a gothic period drama as a result of this, also fully introducing Angelique (Lysette Anthony) at that point, the antagonist whose love Barnabas is so toxic that, if she cannot have him, she will curse him and kill everything he loved instead.

Even before then, you have a possible vampire cure as a plot point, one which does not go any further, but is fascinating as a tangent to see as if the idea of the vampire being able to be physically cured can happen. It also puts Doctor Julia Hoffman front and centre of the cast, brought in by a vampire expert in episode one and becoming a key character throughout, as played by Barbara Steele. Someone with a cult reputation in horror, famous for Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960), seeing Steele in a TV drama is an inspired casting choice, especially as she is good in the show. Touches like this, alongside the inherent pleasure of just a soap opera but within a horror structure, make this 1991 revival appealing, which was meant to try to take a hundred plus episode daily soap opera and distil it down into a more cohesive production.

Dark Shadows the TV revival is well made, feeling its budget even as a TV series, in the first episode at least, as a special production, which would have had to watch its budget if it managed a season two. The show finds with its time travel jump to 1790, and the cast playing two sets of characters in two different time periods, a huge advantage for itself as a melodrama which can fully embraced that term. Costume and period detail enrich it, even the cast pulling out French accents like Barbara Steele that, whether good or not, adding to the mood. The plot escalates completely at this second half, alongside the horror itself. Family tragedies begin to transpire, bullets are magical inserted into pistols mid-duels, and the dead are resurrected in a really macabre sequence. There is even a witch finder general figure, with insanely fluffy eyebrows, placing Victoria into danger as even the clothes she came along with, with their zippers and satanic machine wash labels, get the more dogmatic members of the Collins' household a fluster about evil witchcraft being involved. There is even the strange moment, never mentioned again, that Victoria introduces Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz (1939), centuries before being composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg, to 18th century Maine.

That this is merely the back story to a narrative, of how tragedy brought us Barnabas Collins, is a disappointment if not forgetting what is here in the 1991 Dark Shadows revival is good. Sadly, it did not do well in the ratings, and a lot of television is cancelled and never succeeds, even those which got cult success afterwards. Dark Shadows had the Tim Burton remake, based on nostalgia for the original soap opera, and it still exists in some form. In a perfect world, just to see where this revival had gone, even if dropping the ball, I would have wished we got at least a second series from the joy I had with this.

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1) DARK SHADOWS Remembered: 6 Surprising Facts About TV’s Classic Supernatural Soap Opera, by Ed Gross and published for Soaps In Depth on October 24th 2019.