Dir - Dan Gilroy
Overall: MEH
Tonally singular, Dan Gilroy's third feature Velvet Buzzsaw is an odd satire of the contemporary LA art scene that doubles as a schlocky horror movie about supernatural forces reaping vengeance via paintings, and all with an A-list cast. Reuniting Gilroy with Rene Russo and Jake Gyllenhaal from their previous collaboration in Nightcrawler, (a film which specifically examined the competitive perversity of exploitative news organizations), this one takes a sly look at the city from another direction, focusing on a pompous batch of characters that are using each other to get a leg-up in an inherently pretentious field. How exactly this all pertains to the discovered/cursed portfolio of a recently deceased man who led a mysterious background is never direct, and Gilroy's script treats such a thing as more of a MacGuffin than anything. With no one on screen being properly fleshed-out, a few of them abruptly abandoned at times, and the otherworldly elements following no rhyme or reason could all lead some to criticize it as unfocused and vapid. This could be on purpose though in order to critique those who critique art and caress each other's egos enough to profit off of that art, but whether indented or not, all of these ideas are thrown in willy-nilly with each other. The performances are enjoyable though, as is the quirky melding of tongue-in-cheek humor and B-movie camp.
Dir - Juan Diego Escobar Alzate
Overall: GOOD
Best described as The Witch if Terrence Malick made it with a warmer color pallet, Juan Diego Escobar Alzate's full-length debut Luz: The Flower of Evil, (Luz, la flor del mal), tackles the inevitable challenges brought on by devout faith and man's desperate need to justify their sins through divine intervention. In a mountain commune taking place at some point where at least tape recorders have been invented, their broken leader swings for the fences after numerous false prophecies, preaching endless warnings of god and the devil trading faces to test their congregation as he raises his daughters as angels and kidnaps one boy after the other in the hope that they are the messiah come to finally rid his people of their tribulations. A cynical interpretation could be that this is nothing more than just a lunatic brainwashing those around him and/or that the tragedy which befalls them is the inevitable byproduct of fanatical, self-serving dogma adherence, but Alzate presents the material in a continuously gorgeous and poetic manner. Nicolás Caballero's cinematography creates a lush aesthetic even during the most grim sequences, with the beautiful landscape vividly popping off of the screen. Though it never gets too overtly strange, the story maintains a mystical underlining and ends with a long sought-after glimmer of hope where the hardships of the past can be endured once those who choose belief can accept just what such a cruel world has to offer them.
Dir - Joko Anwar
Overall: MEH
For his Rapi Films follow-up to the 2017 Satan's Slaves remake, writer/director Joko Anwar offers up an unsettling though inconsistent bit of folk horror with Impetigore, (Perempuan Tanah Jahanam). In development off and on for eleven years, the production got underway in a remote village in Indonesia's Java providence, giving the movie its backwoods authenticity. The highlight is a unique opening scene that should make any women nervous who works alone in a toll booth at night, and the first act in general teases at some creepy elements to properly set the dire tone. Yet once Tara Basro and Marissa Anita arrive at the remote town where the only children present seem to be the ghost ones, the story begins to stagnate until dropping a mountain of exposition that officially does away with any of the previously established momentum. This is a shame since the folklore elements would otherwise prove more interesting if the the specifics of them were not dumped on the audience in such a manner. The aesthetic is grimy, the violence is plenty nasty, and the performances are solid, (including Christine Hakim who makes her horror debut here after a decades-long career), but the film feels much longer than it is and follows some expert mood-setting with a lackluster finale.
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