Raindance 2012: Loveless Zoritsa Review

As curses go, the hex foisted upon young Serbian women Zoritsa would, at first glance, appear to be relatively minor. From a long line of moustached women, Zoritsa is the first to be born without even the merest hint of growth. But Zoritsa’s fortuitous hairlessness comes at a heavy cost; her prospective suitors have a habit of dropping dead.

Returning to her village after an absence of some 20 years in an attempt to break the curse on the much revered Day of the Dead; Zoritsa attracts the attention of sceptic policeman Mane, as well as pitchfork-wielding locals with a score to settle.

It’s no easy task to blend horror with moments of comedy. For every Shaun of the Dead there’s a Severance, for every Evil Dead there’s an Army of Darkness. Thankfully, Radoslav Pavkovic and Christina Hadjicharalambous’s movie is one of the more enjoyable offerings from this particular mix of genres.

Loveless Zoritsa plays out like a strange, modern-day fairy tale, with a charming visual style that owes a debt to the Universal horror films of the 30’s and 40’s. Zoritsa’s secluded Balkan village appears to be just that; a strangely antiquated little township that’s been spirited in from a time gone by.

There are no prizes for guessing how the relationship between Zoritsa and Mane will resolve itself, and perhaps the moments of comedy never quite elevate themselves above just strangely charming; but for a film which is as strangely charming as this, with its baying, incompetent villagers, its botched satanic rituals and its bizarre coven of wailing, moustachioed women; it’s not a particularly big problem.

Chris Banks (@Chris_in _2D) 

★★★1/2☆

Rating:15
UK Release Date: 1st October 2012 (Raindance film festival)
Directed By: Hristina Hatziharalabous,Radoslav Pavkovic
Cast: Branislav Trifunovic, Ljuma Penov, Mirjana Karanovic

Masters Of Cinema Has Trouble In Paradise This November

ROUBLE IN PARADISE will be released on DVD in the UK as part of the Masters of Cinema Series

Eureka Entertainment have announced that they will be releasing TROUBLE IN PARADISE, for the first time ever on home video in the UK, released in a DVD edition on 12 November 2012.  Widely regarded as one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made, this Hollywood classic, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, legendary filmmaker behind Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be stars Hollywood icons Herbert Marshall (Foreign Correspondent, The Fly), Miriam Hopkins (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Heiress), Edward Everett Horton (Lost Horizon, Arsenic and Old Lace), and Charlie Ruggles (Bringing Up Baby, Ruggles of Red Gap).

"It's perfection" – Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies

"The most sophisticated comedy ever produced in Hollywood … The performances, visuals and screenplay are all exquisite. ✭✭✭✭✭" – Empire Magazine

"It's a masterpiece, as well as being wonderfully good fun. ✭✭✭✭✭" – Radio Times

“If ever a film slipped down a treat, this one does.” – Time Out

Jean Renoir once said of Ernst Lubitsch (Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be): "He invented the modern Hollywood." And none of the director's films has had greater influence or impact than Trouble in Paradise. With his first comedy of the sound era, Lubitsch created one of cinema's supreme visions of shimmering romance and worldly sophistication.

When career thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets glamorous pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), their love soon takes on a professional dimension as they initiate a plot to rob beautiful perfume magnate Mariette Colet (Kay Francis). But as Gaston gets ever closer to his intended prey, his romantic confusion, as well as the threat that his past will catch up with him, throws their plan into jeopardy.

A breathtakingly nimble and elegant examination of the perils of mixing "business" with pleasure, this gloriously adult and witty comedy features a peerless screenplay by Samson Raphaelson, effervescent performances by its stars (including Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton), and exquisite direction by the legendary Lubitsch. Rarely equalled, never topped, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the UK home viewing première of Trouble in Paradise. Released on DVD in the UK on 12 November 2012.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New high-definition transfer in the film's original aspect ratio

• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired

• Illustrated booklet featuring the words of Lubitsch, rare archival imagery, and more

• Further details to be announced nearer the release date!

Buy/Pre-order Trouble In Paradise: DVD [1932]

Win Jean Claude Van Damme's 6 Bullets On DVD

It might have been August when we last saw Mussels From Brussels in a rare cinema release with The Expendables 2 but now it's back to business for JVCD with his latest direct to DVD action goodness. Today in UK&Ireland 6 Bullets is released and thanks to our friends at Studiocanal we have 3 copies to give away to you!

Reformed mercenary SAMSON GAUL (Jean-Claude Van Damme) has made rescuing stolen children his speciality – until his latest daring rescue attempt goes terribly wrong and results in too many casualties. Wracked with paralyzing guilt, Gaul gives up his vigilanteways.

However when PEGGY FAYDEN, daughter of down-on-his-luck professional fighter ANDREW FAYDEN (Joe Flanigan), is abducted right before his big comeback fight, Andrew and his wife MONICA (Anna-Louise Plowman) must convince Gaul to come out of retirement.

But Gaul’s fast-and-loose style might be more of a liability than the Faydens realize. After tracking down and threatening the local mob boss, Gaul gets a solid lead on Peggy’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, the next day the police discover the remains of a young blond girl wearing Peggy’s bracelet. When the DNA match comes back positive, the Faydens blame Gaul and his no-holds-barred tactics. After watching his bestwork turn deadly for a second time, Gaul retires again, this time to the bottle.

With Peggy’s corpse trapped in his mind, Gaul recalls how the dead girl he saw was wearing the bracelet on herleft arm; Peggy always wore her on her right. Realizing the ruse, Gaul rushes to tell the Faydens. Disbelieving at first, the Faydens quickly side with Gaul after he forces a confession and a name out of the medical examiner. The name is STELU, the Minister of Defense, and his plan is to use Peggy to sweeten a deal he has with a Sudanese General. Unless Gaul and the Faydens can stop him.

Loaded with Gaul’s artillery, they infiltrate the military complex where Peggy’s been hidden. They manage to dispatch the guards easily and rescue a captured blonde. But it turns out to have been a trap. Surrounded and outgunned, Gaul, Monica, and Andrew must decide: trade the decoy for Peggy or end Stelu’s brutality for good.

To win Six Bullets on DVD please answer the following question:

Q. JVCD starred In a Ernie Barbarash film already this year also starring Scott Adkins, name that film?

Send your answer, name, address, postcode only plus answer to 50x3-50= winatcinehouseuk@gmail.com
Deadline is 21stOctober 2012(2359hrs) Must be 15 or older to enter


Terms and conditions

• This prize is non transferable.
• No cash alternatives apply.
• UK & Irish entries only
  The Peoples Movies, Cinehouse and Studiocanal have the right to alter, delay or cancel this competition without any notice
• The competition is not opened to employees, family, friends of The Peoples Movies, Cinehouse,studiocanal employees
• This competition is promoted on behalf of studiocanal
  
• If this prize becomes unavailable we have the right to offer an alternative prize instead.
• The Prize is to win the 6 bullets  DVD, 3 winners
• To enter this competition you must send in your answer, name, address only, Deadline October 21ST, 2012 (2359hrs)
• Will only accept entries sent to the correct email (winatcinehouseuk@gmail.com), any other entry via any other email will be void.
• automated entries are not allowed and will be disqualified, which could result you been banned
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• By sending your entry for this competition you are confirming you have read and agreed to these Terms & Conditions.

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Raindance 2012 : Familiar Ground Review

Stephane Lafleur’s meandering, minimalist slice of Canadian life, Familiar Grounds, revels in the mundane, while simultaneously peppering its story with splashes of the remarkable.

Brother and Sister, Benoit and Maryse are living lives of utter monotony (and I do mean monotony) through a bleak Quebec winter. Living with his elderly father, Benoit despairs that everything he touches “turns to shit”. His budding romance with a single mother is scuppered by her son, his relationship with his father fractured, his inability to competently work the family Skid-doo a constant bone of contention. Following an accident at her work, Maryse begins to evaluate her life of domesticity, married to a tedious cycling enthusiast. The snow-blown boredom for these two is broken by the arrival of a used-car dealer claiming to be from the future. His words of warning to Benoit point to an impending disaster for his sister, should she go ahead with a planned roadtrip.

Lafleur’s story of disaffected siblings moves at an absolute snail’s pace, allowing the director to revel in the crushing bleakness of the unforgiving Canadian winter. The daily routine is broken only by the odd moment of sudden randomness, categorised as a serious of “accidents”. The rare moments of drama, as and when they do appear, throw into stark contrast the dullness of the daily grind. Family dinners become ruined monuments to the dead, trips to the garage grim portents of looming tragedy.

The end result is a movie which, with its excruciating study of the unremarkable, has a sort of dead-eyed charm. Glimpses of affection can be gleaned through the cold exteriors of the characters, the positively ice-age backdrop may seem half a world away, but the people are recognisably human.

The only trouble with all this is, a film which takes so much effort to revel in so much overwhelming tedium, can get a little, well tedious.

Chris Banks (@Chris_in_2D)

★★★☆☆

Rating: NA
Directed By: Stéphane Lafleur
Cast: Francis La Haye, Fanny Mallette, Michel Daigle, Sylvain Marcel

Sinister Review

★★★★☆

Of all the horror films to make it to the big screen this autumn, Sinister, starring Ethan Hawke and directed by Scott Dickinson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), has probably had the most attention. Take one look at any respectable horror web site and the stills, TV spots, trailers etc are proudly flaunted as if with some secret knowledge that this will be something to remember. Though the film isn’t exactly a deal-breaker, it’s definitely one of the more skilfully executed horrors we’ve seen thus far 2012.

The story follows Ellison (a top-form Ethan Hawke), a true crime writer who, for his new project, moves him and his family to a new home. Soon after arriving, Ellison finds a box of old films that show the brutal murders of numerous families by an unknown assailant. As he gets closer and closer to unravelling the mystery of the tapes his family are pulled with him into grave danger.

Sounds like a fairly standard horror tale, but it’s not. The thing that puts this film above most is its finely tuned understanding of its subject; the use of old celluloid pulls out a hundred references to voyeuristic horror, Peeping Tom and Psycho jump to mind, and then there’s the family under duress aspect which brings in just about any “haunted house” film you’ve seen. But under all this is the relentless beating heart of a genuine horror story. Take any sequence where Ellison watches the films and you’ll find some of the tautest in ages. From the second we lay eyes on the conspicuous black box of home movies, with their unassuming yet ominous titles, there’s a feeling of dread lording over all. All of a sudden, we want the family to get away from the house, but at the same time we really want to see those movies. Even after the first we want to know what the rest of those canisters hold. That’s where the voyeuristic guilt comes into play and we, the audience, are all of a sudden participants to something ghastly. Unfortunately it’s the film’s own ingenuity that really highlights how lazy it can be, particularly its jump-scares which leap-frog the suspense and capture a significantly cheaper thrill.

Derrickson’s tight direction and frantic style keep the film on track also lending a chaotic feel to some of the more brutal moments. Ellison’s slow-slipping sanity comes with the rapid cutting-in of super 8, an effect that in other hands might have been wasted but here gives a Shining-esque sense of schizophrenia. The speed of the film is important to its narrative: just as the characters very quickly become confused and assailed, the narrative flickers through “haunted house” past “serial killer”, and eventually spirals into a web of macabre beyond the isolated affairs of Ellison’s new home.

The film’s primary issue is one not unusual in modern horror: it shows too much. A lack of reserve in relation to some of the more terrifying concepts allows those concepts to become almost laughable through over-exposure. A scene which sees Ellison wake in the night to wander his creaky old house suddenly becomes an abstract ballet with ghostly children. Mr Boogie, a genuinely unsettling omnipresence, eventually becomes too familiar which is a shame considering he’s the reason you spend half the film wincing in terror and trying to burrow into your seat.

Special note has to be reserved for Christopher Young’s soundtrack, which doesn’t bother to come up with a specific melody; instead it focuses on blurring the lines between film and reality, which in turn leaks Ellison’s world into ours. The insect flickering of the finished celluloid film pops up throughout the film amidst abstract chanting and a host of other deeply unsettling sounds to illustrate Ellison’s mind state and keep us wondering whether he’s bothered to wake up (or fall asleep) once the films have stopped rolling. It truly is a masterful score to be put up there with Young’s work on Hellraiser.

Sinister may not be a film to induct into the canon, but it’s certainly a well-executed piece of nerve-shredding that will haunt you for some time, and it definitely has the potential to seriously disturb your kids. Don’t see it alone.

Scott Clark

Rating: 15
Release Date: 5th October 2012 (UK)
Directed by: Scott Derrickson  
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance , James Ransone , Clare Foley, Vincent D'Onofrio

Raindance 2012: Sunset Strip:The Movie Review

★★ 1/2☆☆

With Sunset Strip, one suspects that director Hans Fjellestad hopes he has drafted the definitive autobiography of that most insalubrious of American landmarks, Hollywood Boulevard. The reality is that this 93 minute love letter to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll feels more like an extended anecdote than anything else.

Fjellestad has wrung his contacts book to its very limits to populate his movie with anyone and everyone with even the tiniest connection to the world famous mile-and-a-half stretch of tarmac. Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Paris Hilton, Dan Aykroyd (plugging his own vodka), and Kenneth Anger, amongst others, all pop up to wax lyrical about the world famous street, and let us know just what it is that makes the place so special.

The interviews are woven together in such a way as to concentrate either on a particular period in Los Angeles history, or a single bar, hotel or street corner to give us a sense of time and of space; to inject a sense of character into the lifeless brickwork. Not surprisingly, the interviews tend to concentrate on the seedier aspects of life on the strip; the drugs, the drink, the illicit trysts; at the expense of imparting any real practical or historical information.

What’s driven home here is that everyone involved has been profoundly affected in some way by Hollywood Boulevard, by its history, its character, and its “je ne sais quoi”. Mickey Rourke explains: “Your dreams can start out there, and your dreams will end there…”

All those little stories of celebrities having such a jolly good time: Kelly Osbourne’s lost virginity, Billy Corgan’s realisation that “he’d arrived”, or Tommy Lee’s public fellatio, make for entertaining, if irrelevant viewing. For all Fjellestad’s attempts to paint The Strip’s cultural history, there’s a distinct lack of actual history; a refusal to look beyond the scandal to view the filthy heart of Hollywood Boulevard and actually see what’s going on, or why.

It’s the prevailing sense of sense-congratulation amongst so many of those interviewed that leaves you feeling as if the secret to Sunset Strip is little more than a self perpetuating myth. Famous people flock there because famous people flock there. Either that or it just has a… I don’t know what.

Chris Banks (@Chris_in_2D)

Rating: 15
Screening Dates: Thursday 27 September ,Monday 1 October (20:45)
Directed by: Hans Fjellestad
Cast: Cisco Adler, Lou Adler, Ahmed Ahmed, Dan Aykroyd,

Raindance 2012:Vinyl Review

★★★☆☆

Washed-up punk-rocker Johnny Jones (Phil Daniels) begs a record company head-honcho to re-sign his band Weapons of Happiness after decades on the scrap-heap, only to be refused on the grounds that listening to anyone over the age of 30 sing is like “watching your parents having sex”. Faced with rejection, and staring at an anonymous middle-age spent in various caravan parks, Johnny hatches a plan to re-launch his music career. Assemble a group of TV-friendly kids as a front for his band; the kids can mime and wave, while Johnny and his pals roll back the years and kick out the jams backstage.

Johnny and his bandmates’ auditions for likely teenyboppers unearth the talents of troubled youngster Drainpipe (Jamie Blackley), a kid with a reckless streak, a passion at odds with the plastic, wipe-clean façade of the pop group he should be a poster boy for, and showmanship similar to that of Johnny himself. The band is launched, and their first single becomes an unlikely success.

Sara Sugarman’s warm-hearted tale of men behaving badly, and musically maladroit youths is based on the real-life story of Welsh band The Alarm who pulled of a similar hoax of their own in 2004. Vinyl extolls the virtues of six strings, pub gigs and cramped tour buses, over the auto-tuned, pre-packaged pop of X-Factor and the like. But while it invokes the spirit of the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle, Vinyl lacks the element of unpredictability so integral to the punk music it worships. It feels safer, less anarchic even than School Of Rock, a film with which it shares a certain DNA.

That’s not to say it lacks heart or humour. Daniels makes a decent fist of injecting sympathy into the selfish, pig-headed, oldest swinger in town, Johnny Jones. As the bad-boy of the Welsh seaside, Blackley radiates the impulsiveness and sex-appeal so obvious in the best and most dangerous of rock stars. Weapons of Happiness guitarist turned nursing home impresario, Perry Benson reminds us just what a fine comic actor he is also.

It probably won’t have you dusting off the leathers, but it will make you chuckle as it gives Simon Cowell a gentle kick up the backside.

Chris Banks (@Chris_in_2D)

Rating: 15
Screening Dates: Thursday 27 September ,Monday 1 October (15:00), 1st March 2013 (UK)
Directed by: Sara Sugarman Cast: Keith Allen, Phil Daniels , Jamie Blackley 

Frightfest Announce The Line Up Of There Annual Halloween All Nighter

The FrightFest Halloween All-nighter returns to the Vue in London’s Leicester Square on Saturday October 27 for another helping of choice shock around the clock horror. And this year horror fans around the country can join in the fearful fun as, on Saturday November 3, the event travels to the Picturehouse Cambridge, the Empires in Sunderland and Newcastle and The Watershed Bristol. 

London line-up:

6.30pm    EXCISION  (UK Premiere)

 

Alienated and mentally unhinged teen Pauline struggles with the pressures of high school, pleasing her demanding mother and loosing her virginity. With a grotesque curiosity for the darker side of life, Pauline retreats into her fantasy world of becoming a great surgeon. Be prepared for a central performance by Annalynne McCord that will move, challenge and ultimately creep you out.

81 mins   Director: Richard Bates   USA  2012   Cast: Annalynne McCord – Pauline,

Traci Lords – Phyllis, Roger Bart – Bob, John Waters – William, Marlee Matlin – Amber, Malcolm McDowell – Mr. Cooper

9.00pm    SURPRISE FILM (UK Premiere)

11.45pm  THE TALL MAN  (UK Premiere)

 

Director Pascal Laugier’s follow-up to his classic MARTYRS is another sensational thriller of astonishing depth. In the depressed Canadian town of Cold Rock, children are disappearing, Witnesses say they have seen a Tall Man at the scenes of the crimes, When this ‘tall man’ kidnaps the son of Julia Denning (Jessica Biel), the town nurse, Julia finds herself at the centre of an unravelling legend.

99 mins   Director: Pascal Laugier   USA 2012  Cast: Jessica Biel – Julia Denning, Jodelle Ferland – Jenny, Stephen McHattie – Lt. Dodd, Eve Harlow – Christine, Jakob Davies – David

2.15am   BAIT 3D  (UK Premiere)

 

From CUT director Kimble Rendall comes a new dimension in deep sea terror as shoppers at an Australian underground Oceania supermarket are under attack by a crazed bandit. Suddenly, the unimaginable happens.  A monster freak tsunami swallows up the town Now trapped, with rushing waves threatening to entomb them in a watery grave, the survivors discover they are not alone…

90 mins  Director: Kimble Rendall   Australia 2012  Cast: Xavier Samuel – Josh, Julian McMahon – Doyle, Phoebe Tomkin – Jaimie, Sharni Vinson – Tina, Cariba Heine – Heather

 

4.00am   ZOMBIE FLESHEATERS  - Retrospective Spotlight

To celebrate the launch of the restored version by Arrow Films (the DVD features a commentary by FrightFest’s Alan Jones), the Italian godfather of gore Lucio Fulci’s classic as you’ve never seen it before. It’s all here: the underwater shark vs. zombie face off, the splinter-in-the-eye sequence, the cannibalistic disembowelling  and completely superfluous nudity. What more could anyone want?

89 mins   Director Lucio Fulci  Italy 1979   Cast: Richard Johnson – Dr. David Menard, Ian McCulloch – Peter West, Tisa Farrow – Anne Bowles, Al Cliver – Brian Hull, Olga Karlatos – Paola Menard

 

5.45am  THE HELPERS  (UK Premiere)

 

Seven friends on a road trip to Las Vegas break down in the desert. They find help at a nearby Motel and it seems like they’ve lucked out with a group of good Samaritans. Yet when they wake in their rooms the next day, they are bound up, tied down and posed in several different weird scenarios. Each ending only one way – painful, gruesome death. Who is responsible for such fiendishly clever bloody terror?

82 mins   Director: Christopher B. Stokes   USA 2012   Cast: Kristen Quintrall – Claire, Christopher Jones – Ryan, JoJo Wright – Phil, Black Thomas – Jordan, Rachel Sterling – Anna

Tickets for the London event cost £50 and go on sale on Monday Ist October. To book call 08712 240 240 or go online  http://www.myvue.com/latest-movies/info/film/frightfest-all-nighter  Tickets can also be bought at the cinema

For details of regional screenings please visit www.frightfest.co.uk

Note that the regional venues will not be playing all of the titles screening at the London event so please check local listings

Raindance 2012:Orania Review

★★☆☆☆

    For those used to documentaries coming with narrators, music and handy voice-overs to point you in the way of a feeling, it might take some adjustment to get used to watching Orania. This German documentary focussing on the titled area of South Africa is something of a flashback to the slower pace of old television documentaries, a study of a topic where shots are held, there is no voiceover or friendly voiced interviewer probing the locals and no running monologue theorising what we’ve just seen on screen. The area in question lies in the Northern Cape of South Africa, a vast area surrounded by, well, nothing really. A community in the centre of this region  are isolated and cut-off from the rest of their nation, not imposed on them but rather by their own choice in an attempt to maintain the core values they hold dear. This is Orania and Orania is strictly whites-only South Africa. Decades after the ending of Apartheid, this small rural spot has been chosen to house numbers of Afrikaans, oppose to joining in the multiculturalism of the world outside in favour of building a nesting place for similarly minded Boers around the country. It’s a community headed by a group of elders, keen to install their values in the next generation of Afrikaans, an idea that was born by what they see as necessary to preserve their culture.

    It’s a culture that holds work and religion as the key pillars of their community, something that’s drilled into you upon arrival where the street signs are a flashback to 50’s style American small-town billboards, reading like a town manifesto ‘Self working, self reliant’, ‘winners never get discouraged, discouragers never win’ and ‘our ideal binds us together’. Ah yes, the ideal. What exactly is the ideal of Oranians? Racism is keenly discarded as part of it by all on camera, although there are clear signs that if it isn’t at least overt or violent it is definitely discrimatory and impassive. A local swimming pool owner jumps at the chance to prove his chumminess with his black delivery man but the stilted exchange and acknowledgment by both that he must not go within 25m of the towns borders only go to heighten the underlying prejudices. There’s also the intimidating billboard that reads “I speak and think in Afrikaans”. It’s more guarded within the older, establishing members of the community believing their country’s rainbow nation as a “recipe for disaster” a notion dating back centuries. They see their role as keepers of their European ancestors’ way of life, one threatened by the black locals who, centuries ago, were initially the employees of these ancestors. This refusal to accept any kind of multiculturalism is an intriguing line to follow, one frustratingly ignored or brushed over at times by director Tobias Lindner who perhaps sees that as a different sort of documentary which is feasible enough - Louis Theroux has already lived amongst a similar Boer community for television and you sense Lindner wants to bring us a more rounded view of life within the walls (metaphorical, they haven’t bricked themselves in. Yet).

    We arrive in Orania with new a family including Mum, teenage son and minibus driver Dad. The father comes with aspirations of a fruitful business ferrying the locals around and out of town “transport is the bond between Orainia and the new South Africa.”, until he realises the locals’ pesky lack of interest in the new South Africa gets in the way. He also takes to the airwaves to reel in new clients where he is warned to address the issue of ‘foreigners’ on the bus – his Afrikaans speaking only admission is still deemed too liberal for some. The radio station itself is seen as the voice of Orania, becoming a mainstay in the film coming across a  perfectly pitched parody of a hospital radio station from the fifties and often delivering the funniest moments: two old ladies read a ‘recipe of the day’ about Quince and there’s a no-panic approach when the internet goes down (again) meaning the already-on-air weather report is unknown, “Oh well, let’s speculate” continues the presenter as he proceeds to look out the window and report what it looks like.

    This dated looking life continues in the distinctly 80’s school video looking introductory video that the teenage son has to watch, one that explains what is expected of him – a lot of work on farms – and ending with the sign off “Orania is not for sissies”. His friendship with his charismatic housemate – a former Johannesburg resident with a few records to his name - is the easiest to enjoy in the film and his subsequent ban from Orania serves to ruin it for us as well as him. You can sense that Lindner was just as upset knowing his best character was no longer in town but has his fingers in enough other story pies to go back to.

Unfortunately none can quite hold our attention as easily and heightens the sense of a lack of focus in the film. Orania the place is a potentially fascinating area of interest sadly Orania the film seldom peeks this interest.

Matthew Walsh

Rating:12
Release Date: Friday 28 September (18:30- World Première) Tuesday 2 October (12:45)
Directed by: Tobias Lindner
Cast: n/a

Raindance 2012: Percival's Big Night Out Review

★★★☆☆

Claustrophobics beware; Percival’s Big Night may not be the film for you. An exercise in lo-fi film making, William C. Sullivan’s feature is shot in one take on one camera in one room of a small New York apartment. The plot is similarly taught; Sal, a weed dealer (or self-coined ‘herbal entrepreneur’) and his aspiring actor housemate Percival wait for Chloe, the formers client and the latter’s hopeful love interest, to come over and pick up drugs thus giving Percival the opportunity to have his big night with her.

    There is little room for much other than dialogue in such a tight set-up and that is what we get. The first 20 minutes are the two housemates, introducing the key characteristics of each one within seconds of their introduction. Sal is a weed dealer – you know by now what this entails and is predictably a mix between Seth Rogan style stoner and artsy style stoner, while Percival bar tends waiting for his acting break. He is also the romantic of the pair believing a 5 minute conversation he had with Chloe to be enough to convince him she’s the one. The conversation between the two housemates is that almost familiar style of talking where there’s an element of forced improvisation with each involved trying to get the last, droll humourous put down in before topics change. Insults are traded in the form of what some would call ‘banter’ before steaks are raised, truths are told and fights ensue. All this in 15 minutes leaves you wondering how a pair of stoners can pick up such energy for all of it but their bromantic bickering can only hold our attention for so long and thankfully the arrival of Chloe and friend Riku flesh out what was starting to look like an internet comedy.

    The four soon share an impromptu double date centred around a bong and a lot of ease-dropping. There’s more than a sniff of mumblecore about the talky roots of PBN but it doesn’t quite match the oft-mimicked genre’s subtlety. Conversations grow from the minute to the life-changing in a matter of seconds as each character is treated to their own part of the mid-20’s ‘I’m lost’ realisation at the first hint of provocation. The self-analysis on show by Chloe and Percival in particular reach levels that make the ‘real time’ effect somewhat hard to believe. Characters go from being introduced to trading their darkest secrets and most vulnerable emotions without the presence of any form of catalyst.

    Perhaps this is a bit harsh for what is an incredibly effective and cost-efficient production. Sullivan manages to keep our attention for the duration of the film with the largely improvised script holding a tight enough structure to ensure nothing feels flabby or overworked. However, the US indie scene is quickly becoming a repetitive and predictable one, one where a film like this only adds to the countless others within or closely nestled outside the Duplass mumblecore world and while there’s an admirable quality to the self-imposed limits of Percival’s Big Night there’s little that adds anything new to the scene.

Matthew Walsh

Rating:15
Screening Dates: Sunday 30 September (18:30) Wednesday 3 October(16:00)
Directed By: William Sullivan
Cast: Tommy Nelms, Jarret F. Kerr , Sarah Wharton