Tag: black comedy

The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor)

Posted on by Paul Risker

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

There’s a pleasure to be had in dark or absurdist comedies – the subversion of the written and unwritten rules of etiquette and decency. Spanish director Caye Casas and his co-writer Cristina Borobia’s The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor), offers audiences a delightful helping of black Spanish humour. It feels decidedly f***ed up, in the best possible way.

The film opens with the screams of a woman in labour. From there we jump forward to a furniture shop, where first time parents, Jesus (David Pareja) and Maria (Estefanía de los Santos), are caught in the crosshairs of a sales assistant. In one moment, he says, “I guarantee that this table, due to its design and standard, will change your life for the better. It will fill your home with happiness.”

Maria runs him in circles, leading him through a series of instances where he contradicts himself. Jesus is besotted with the item because purchasing it against Maria’s wishes will empower him. It’s a decision that will have consequences beyond his worst nightmares, when the couple host Jesus’ brother Carlos (Josep Riera) and his eighteen-year-old girlfriend Cristina (Claudia Riera), who they disapprove of, for dinner that evening.

The filmmaker delays the inevitable revelation of what happened when Jesus was home alone. They carefully build towards their dramatic finale, by toying with interpersonal relationship dynamics, channeling traditional domestic tensions. They also use a dark and uncomfortable sub-plot, with a neighbour, to complicate an already emotionally explosive situation. The film is constructed around the concept of avoidance. It harks back to Alfred Hitchcock’s idea that the audience’s pleasure is in the threat of the bomb exploding. The filmmakers here understand that the thrill of their story is the anticipation, and wisely tease us until they’re unable to any longer.

A carefully orchestrated dance, the back and forth dialogue perfectly plays on what the audience implicitly knows, flirting with an almost sardonic wit that will alienate some audiences.

The filmmaker and the co-writer Casas and Borobia blur the line between black humour, absurdist comedy, and dramatic suspense. I found myself questioning whether I should perceive moments as comedy or the latter – the comedy and tragedy are interchangeable.

The film has a chameleon nature, shifting between the two depending on the point-of-view of the audience. That said, it’s effectiveness lies in the audience being receptive to the humour, as there are certain beats that are intended for a humorous pay-off. But one cannot ignore the pathos of the tragedy that unfolds, and the pleasure of the film is derived from genre tones complementing one another. Nor the interest in critiquing interpersonal dynamics, that drives the thematic interest in cause and effect.

Jesus and Maria’s marriage juxtaposes derisive and affectionate humour, that’s complicated by the feelings towards Carlos and Cristina. Maria derisively refers to him as a paedo, but at dinner, they appear amicable. It creates social tension and a suspicion of how the characters really feel about one another. While the table is viewed as the antagonist, leaning into shades of horror, the provocation is contentious power dynamics and interpersonal relationships. The Coffee Table is a critique of familial relationships snd how we orchestrate our own misfortune and destruction.

As the audience tries to anticipate how events will unfold, the filmmakers find ways to play on the anticipations in a dark and twisted way, especially in the final act. Even as we’re laughing, we appreciate how f***ed up it all is, but it’s so wickedly funny we can only hope for absolution later.

The Coffee Table has just premiered in the Rebels With a Cause Competition of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

The Good Person

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Hot shot film producer Sharon (Moran Rosenblatt) flies home from abroad only to discover that her husband won’t let her past the gate entryphone to their home on arrival. Furious, she borrows (or, technically, steals) his parked car so she can go about her business. On arrival at her empty office, her long-standing assistant Alma (Lia Barnett) informs her that the bailiffs have taken everything.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so she takes a meeting with another producer who under normal circumstancea she wouldn’t touch with a barge pole but who is snowed under with projects and wants her to take one of them off his hands. Thus, she becomes the producer of a comeback movie by a notorious womaniser who gave it all up to become an ultra-conservative rabbi, Uzi Silver (Rami Heuberger), a star who hasn’t worked for several years, i. The money is already in place from the Film Fund, so the project should be a piece of cake. It all looks too good to be true. And, as so often in life, when something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Her fears abut the rabbi are confirmed when she learns that he won’t allow any women on the set apart from herself, nor will he negotiate with her (female) line producer in the room. And there’s no script – well, adapted from 1 Samuel 18-31 (this refers to the Hebrew Bible, which is apparently chaptered and versed slightly differently from the Christian one), the script is the story of King Saul visiting the Witch at Endor prior to his military defeat and his falling on his own sword. All she has to do is get someone to write a script and he’ll rubber stamp it. He himself is to play King Saul while his wife, the star who played alongside him on the last film before they got out of the movie business, is to play the Witch of Endor. To write the script, Sharon enlists the help of her old friend Shai (Uri Gottleib).

To reveal what happens next would be to spoil the film, except to say that this is one of those films where if anything can possibly go wrong for the central character, then it does. Somewhat curiously, it was billed in the festival blurb as a screwball comedy, however, I personally wouldn’t apply that label to it and fear anyone seeing this with that expectation would be severely disappointed. Thinking about it in retrospect, there IS comedy here, but it’s black comedy of the wry observation variety which may make you smile after the event but won’t make you laugh at the time.

The film is shot in stylish black and white apart from occasional sequences in preview theatres watching parts of the movie (only the odd clip here or there makes it into the film that we, the audience, are watching) which are in colour. This is scarely a new trick (see, for instance, Belfast, Kenneth Branagh, 2021) but it’s a tried and tested one that does the job. Elsewhere, the piece is nicely paced: director Anner and his editor keep it moving along nicely and you’ll agonise alongside Sharon as she undergoes one terrible experience after another.

Set in present day Jerusalem, it presents the movie business as essentially areligious in a wider culture which is clearly steeped in one of the major world religions, i.e. Judaism. The movie business is almost portrayed as a religion with its own set of irrefutable tenets (no-one puts it in these terms, but, for example, thou shalt offer opportunities for employment equally to members of both sexes) which are challenged, for good or ill, by those of conservative Orthodox Judaism (men should not touch or even associate with women, for they are unclean – my paraphrase) with the members of the Film Fund just as shocked as Sharon with Uzi’s “no women other than you on the set” demand to the point where they momentarily consider cancelling the funding.

You could argue, though, that non-association with women is exactly what Sharon’s husband does to her at the start of the piece. You could also argue that the only way she gets her films made is because she has a rich husband who bankrolls her (until, at the start of this, he no longer does) which makes it quite a smart sideswipe at the idea of the film producer who has got there by dint of hard work and talent alone. No-one suggests Sharon isn’t talented (although she’s fallen on producer’s hard times and the Uzi Silver / King Saul project is clearly her selling out, making something in which she doesn’t really believe in order to get some easy money), but equally it seems that without her husband, she is (financially) nothing, itself an ultra-conservative idea.

There would apear to be many more layers to this film on reflection, which might reveal themselves on further viewing; on first watch, however, it comes across simply as a great ride.

The Good Person plays in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Piggy (Cerdita)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

This film is foul and exceptionally mean-spirited. It’s also hilarious and monstrously enjoyable. Telling the story of an obese teenager bullied by her peers who finds the most perverse way possible to finally turn the tables, it’s a deliriously fun Spanish effort boasting a fearless lead performance, a strong sense of place and a keen willingness to push the limits of sheer awfulness.

Sara (Laura Galán) is doubly unfortunate. Not only is she extremely overweight, but she also works in a butcher shop. This earns her the brutal moniker of Piggy by the other girls in the small Spanish town, who take pictures of her and post them on Instagram with cruel hashtags. (It brought back memories, considering my own surname). She eventually tells her mother about her plight, who meanly suggests she should go on a diet. When Sarah heads to the local pool alone, three of her contemporaries capture her head in a net before stealing her clothes. After that, you can’t really blame her for not saying anything to the police when those same girls get kidnapped by a deranged serial killer.

We’re never given a definitive reason why Sara doesn’t report these kidnappings to the police. Is she scared? Is she attracted to the serial killer? Or does she think that these horrible girls actually deserve it? All interpretations are in play, with Sara making bad emotional, hormone-filled decisions every step of the film, causing endless and unpredictable chaos; confusing everyone from worried mothers to clueless cop to teenage heartthrobs.

It’s shot in Academy Ratio, a suitable choice as it allows Sara’s gait to fill the frame and for the film to have an ironic, whimsical approach to the material, utilising pastel colours at first before getting darker alongside the subject matter. Complemented by moody string music, Stranger Things-like lens flares and a solid evocation of a small town where everyone knows each other’s business, and this is the perfect teen horror movie to watch at a midnight drive-in. The destination might be obvious, but it’s the way it gets there that provides pure thriller pleasures.

It is also the kind of film that would inspire endless discourse on Twitter if it was made in the USA or UK. It’s the classic question of laughing with the protagonist or laughing at her. Nonetheless, Piggy is not so much concerned with getting representation right then just allowing Sara’s fatness drive the story at every turn — including a ridiculous but also finely rendered subversion of the final girl trope. It helps that Galán is completely game here, turning in a brave performance that combines sexual curiosity and teenage despair with absolute ease. She’s flawed, stupid, funny and complex; not a fat girl who was made just for think pieces, but one seemingly doing everything possible just to exist in the first place. For one thing, her story carries an important moral: be careful who you bully. They might actually be a lot stronger than you think.

Piggy played as part of the Full Moon sidebar at Transylvania International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. In cinemas Friday, January 6th.

Ready or Not

Posted on by victorfraga

Each film festival will feature the proverbial “big-hitters”, which come with the question mark of whether they will sink or swim in the waters of the audience’s response. Surviving or not is a fitting analogy for a film centred around a game of hide and seek with deadly intentions. Ready or Not does not disappoint, and in the context of its own survival as a piece of filmmaking, it also goes so far as to protect the interests of studio horror in a line-up surrounded by independent genre films.

Grace (Samara Weaving) is not only marrying fiancé Alex (Mark O’ Brien), but is becoming a part of the rich and eccentric Le Domus family, owners of a grand old games company. Fittingly, the family have a traditional ritual when someone new marries into the family – they play a game chosen by chance. Unfortunately for Grace, the card she picks is hide and seek, and soon whether ready or not, the bride learns that the rules of this game are far from harmless.

Ready or Not belongs to a rich heritage of storytelling, of an individual in a life and death struggle, films that include Hard Target (Joh Woo, 1993), Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000) and You’re Next (Adam Wingard, 2012), as well as Beyond the Reach (Jean-Baptiste Léonetti, 2015), based on Robb White’s 1972 novel Deathwatch of man hunting man after the one witnesses the other commit murder in the Mojave Desert.

Comparisons can also be drawn to the Western genre that centres around a violent and adversarial confrontation – the hero or villain exerting his will by mastering the other one’s propensity for violence. Not dissimilar to the Western hero, Grace conforms to a traditional concept of the hero who tempers her own propensity, while those around her embrace theirs with narcissistic indifference. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s film features shades of the Western, while the base plot of whether Grace survive a violent situation is in keeping with the spectacle of violence in action and horror genre cinema.

Weaving is perfectly cast, who in her wedding dress and make-up looks in one respect dainty and fragile, yet her attitude and words show a less lady-like edge to her personality. With expressive eyes, Weaving conveys her emotions without a reliance on words, and in a story driven by action and not conversation, this is to her character’s benefit. What makes her character so compelling is not juxtaposing her vulnerability and strength, but more the childlike moments at play before understanding her peril. Grace’s look and journey offer up comparisons to the culling of innocence in the fairy tale, accentuated by the bride in white as a symbol of innocence. This forges a visceral meeting between innocence and maturity, while her in-laws resemble adolescents, who with an air of farcical superstitious fear that lies behind the game of hide and seek, lust not after sex, but bloodshed.

Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett show an appreciation for the value of humour. Whether the focus is on hunters or prey, there is a comedic heartbeat to the film. Humour can make a film both memorable and re-watchable, and the directors intertwine the spectacle of violence with frequent beats of humour. On a meta level, the humour becomes a communicative language that breaks the fourth wall because the film does not either try to, or ask us to suspend our belief entirely.

By now, the language of a film such as Ready or Not has bled into the characters. There is a conscious awareness transmitted by the filmmakers and the cast, or rather here we can sense a playful warmth of the familiar beats struck to the humorous interrogation of the rules of its own world, that leans towards self-consciousness and flirts with becoming a spoof. This is at the very heart of the pleasurable experience that is Ready or Not, where the humour becomes the proverbial wink from storytellers and characters, acknowledged by our smiles and laughter.

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett know the film they want to create. The two directors make no apologies for leaning towards the spectacle of superficial pleasure. Character back stories such as Alex’s self-exile from his family, his brother Daniel’s (Adam Brody) cynical feelings towards his dynastic family, and his sister-in-law Charity’s (Elyse Levesque) determination that she will not return to her impoverished past, all offer something of value. The ideas of the family as a source of one’s identity, what people are able to live with knowing about themselves and our drive for self-preservation are all introduced, while Grace’s desire to become a part of a family speaks of our inclination to belong.

These may only be passing thoughts that are never developed on a thematic level, and yet we nonetheless perceive these doorways to themes even if they remain sealed. These passing thoughts amidst a plot-driven reverie of violence and comedy speaks to films such as this being repressive acts – repressing the natural inclination of story and characters to not only be superficial. Ready or Not stimulates its audience on an experiential level, and while knowing how to play with a humorous self-awareness that effectively flirts with spoofing, even if a repressive act, it does not diminish the pleasure it evokes and its success as a commercial genre filmmaking.

Arrow Video FrightFest hosted the UK premiere of Ready or Not. The film will be released theatrically by Twentieth Century Fox on Wednesday, September 25th. On VoD in April!

Celebrate your inner s**t, with Twin Town!!!

Posted on by victorfraga

Two decades have passed, and Kevin Allen’s Twin Town remains a refined piece of trash and self-deprecation. The movie is probably as close as you will get to John Waters on this side of the pond. Not very often you will see across such copious amounts of sheer bad taste, violence and profanities within just 90 minutes, all with a very British flavour, namely Welsh.

And just like the local food, Twin Town tastes like shit. And willfully so. This crime film is entirely set in Swansea, and it celebrates the… the unsightliness and mediocrity of local life. The story centres around the misadventures of Lewis “twins” (who in reality are just brothers), who lead a glamorous existence with their parents and sister in a static caravan home. The female works in a very dubious massage parlour, while the two boys spend most of their time prancing around, taking drugs and stealing cars. Until they decide to escalate their wrongdoing to include more scatological and visceral deeds.

Some of the best moments in the movies include a very strange twist on Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), as the head of an animal much less formidable than a horse is placed on someone’s bed, plus a very dirty karaoke performance that’s vaguely reminiscent of the prom scene in Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976). Overall, Twin Town is a very shit tribute to gangster and crime films. And incredibly fun to watch!

The proud community

This weekend the cast of Twin Town reunited in front of more than 3,000 nostalgic Welsh cinema lovers at Singleton Park in Swansea. The director Kevin Allen and many of the surviving members participated in a question and answer session before the film was played on a large screen. It rained massively, adding the final touch of shit to this dirtylicious film experience!

This is not how most town would choose to embrace and to commemorate their identity, and the locals deserve praise for the ability to laugh at themselves, for taking self-deprecation to such an extreme. This is not family fun, a film that you can show to your small children – it’s teeming with sex, violence, while the f-word is the most consistent element of the narrative. The movie proudly opens up with a character quoting the poet Dylan Thomas, who described the second largest city in Wales as “an ugly lovely town” and a “graveyard of ambitions”, while someone else complements: “this is a pretty shitty city” while shouting out his newly discovered rhyming epiphany.

Is the future shit?

Swansea is bidding to become the UK City of Culture in 2021, so it’s safe to say that they are looking for a brighter future ahead with more cultural options. The City was indeed shortlisted last month, which generated large amounts of excitement amongst locals. You too can support their campaign by visiting their website.

Meanwhile, we recommend that you watch Twin Town and discover (or reclaim) the dirty Welshman or woman inside of you. In order to maximise enjoyment, we suggest that you do it while drunk and feeling like shit. Or alternatively, while heavily intoxicated with a Class A drug (locally sourced cocaine is probably your best option).

Twin Town is available for viewing online for free here, and also in most dodgy streaming websites. This experience might turn out to be infectious for both yourself and your computer!