Erstellt am: 26. 9. 2011 - 12:12 Uhr
Masked Vigilantes
For the record, the annual Slash film festival is very Special. It is certainly the only film festival I've ever attended where I've been belted with candy, or witnessed a group of masked vigilantes participating in a pepper-eating contest, and then... well, I don't know what happened then. It was dark.
Saturday night the concept was Superheroes. All films, all day, featuring people in costumes fighting crime in places as diverse as Tokyo a.k.a Zebra City, Sydney, and somewhere in the USA. It also included a real-life Super Hero contest right there in the theatre, featuring some very creative (but mysterious) Wieners in some rather convincing costumes.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Oh, and there was a "surprise" movie too, which didn't have anything to do with the superhero concept, but made up for it by being really awesome.
The program started already at noon, with Zebraman, a film based in modern day Tokyo. I was still in bed, and missed it.
Just after two o'clock, I arrived bleary-eyed with a cup of coffee at Vienna's Film Casino and filed into the theatre with a small number of other people, just in time for a short 2005 US-film called Brobot, an amusing (and very low-budget) story about a deranged scientist who designs a robot to be a brother to, and ultimately replace, his estranged daughter. Naturally the robot escapes, and all manner of predictable things happen, but they happen in an entertaining way. So it's cool.
The pandemonium only increased with the next film, the full-length Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City. This one took place 15 years in the future, in a Tokyo which has been renamed "Zebra City" and is run by villains who managed to steal some of the Zebra-powers from the title character by taking him captive and putting him in this crazy spinning centrifugal machine. There are aliens involved, as well as a young pop star-villainess who also possesses "Zebra Powers" which enable her to "stripe evil" or whatever. See, she's Zebraman's evil counterpart.
Filmstarts.de
* - Or at least that was what another audience member told me later. I'm just going to go with that, because it makes me feel better.
The plot is very convoluted, not always terribly easy to understand, even if you watched the original before it.* But it's not boring, the characters are all interesting- if not necessarily believeable. If you're into watching Tokyo get destroyed by a giant green alien, or a sexy young villainess kill people with swords, then yeah, it's got everything you could possibly want.
If, however, you're into sensitive awkward indie-characters fighting crime inside of their heads whilst falling in love, then maybe the next offering, Griff the Invisible (out of Sydney, Australia) is more your cup of tea.
Despite my condescending tone, it is actually a really sweet and odd movie - and it is to the credit of the festival organizers that they chose to screen Griff right after the unreal pandemonium of the Zebraman franchise.
It also bore no resemblance to the usual offerings of the Slash film festival I thought I knew. Was not expecting a sweet romantic comedy meditating on the nature of reality, through the eyes of two grown-up children.
Markus Keuschnigg (festival curator): Well, we also did that at the first edition of this festival last year. We called ourselves Slash actually because we want to somehow slash the established system of how to run a festival, and how to behave at a festival.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Right. Whatever. Anyways, Griff the Invisible ended, leaving me in a soppy romantic mood... naturally the next film, Super, would grimly destroy that mood, but we aren't there yet. First there was the beginning of the Super Hero Contest. Some live action shizznet.
Some live action shizznet.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
By now there was a substantial audience present, not even counting the costumed crime fighters. From Griff onwards, the audience had multiplied exponentially. By the time the first cape came on stage and got quizzed by the special guest villainess-judge, nearly every seat was filled.
Johnny bliss
Viennese caped crusaders ranged from the impressively original to the oppressively bland. Some of the characters who I can recall included a music-heroine named Krawalla, who had some portable instruments, which I guess had some magic properties when used in battle?
Then there was The Marathoner, who as far as I could tell, was just a guy with a soccer ball. Who knew how to kick it. And stuff.
Then we had the Sweet Karies girl. Favoured by dentists everywhere. She kept littering candy, which ended up getting thrown at the audience by some Super Mexican Queens (see below).
Johnny Bliss, 2011
There was the Hausfrau - her weapon of choice was the Nudelholz, and her powers extended far beyond the kitchen.
And then we had Dadawoman, the surrealist superhero - she carried a big ol' pair of scissors.
Johnny bliss
Competitors also included some super flamboyant crusader queens, I think they were called Los Locas del Destruction. They sort of stole the show.
Johnny Bliss
They were very charming, outrageous and loud, and in my personal opinion could easily have stepped into any one of these films without missing a beat.
Overshadowing even these characters, however, was an unmotivated truant going by the name of Super Loser. His powers included sleeping in and going to the wrong crime scene. And he had a hammer.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
We had been introduced to all of the challengers. The villainous Villainess needed some time to ponder. Which meant the intermission was over, and it was time for us to watch
Another Film.
As I've already mentioned, the next film was called Super, and it was very, very grim: contrary to most of my expectations, actually. The poster for the film features the main character's face in a mask, with a comic word bubble that says, "Shut up, crime!", which seemed pretty funny.
The marketing successfully fooled me into believing the main character would be an ineffectual Charlie Brown in a costume, and we would follow his awkward yet charmed misadventures through the criminal underworld.
ambushentertainment
I was further misguided by the cast itself: the protagonist/anti-hero, Frank (aka the Crimson Bolt), is played to great effect by Rainn Wilson, who was Dwight in the US-version of the Office; his even more psychotic sidekick is played by Ellen Page, who starred in Juno; his lost wife is played by Liv Tyler, and his nemesis, by Kevin Bacon.
The Crimson Bolt has no powers. He is a delusional psychopath with a pipe wrench and a very foggy view of right and wrong. The same vicious beating awaits both a child molester and a queue-jumper.
It's a very rough film, which deserves credit for depicting ultra-violence without glamour. You end up feeling sorry for the lightweight criminals who bear most of the brunt of the Crimson Bolt's fury; and toward the end, when he embarks on a bloody assault on Kevin Bacon's mansion, there is little pleasure in his revenge.
If anything - and this may be the biggest triumph of the film - one watches the final events with some sadness and disillusionment. Not entirely sure how they managed that, but this quality alone makes the film worth seeing.
The Winners of the Super Hero Contest
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Super Loser took it, followed closely by Los Locas del Destruction, or whatever they were called. There was an FM4 goody bag given out, and then out of nowhere: a pepper-eating competition!
And then this super villain came out of nowhere, laughing maniacally! The lights went out! And there was briefly a disco party, there in the cinema.
Johnny Bliss, 2011
Johnny Bliss, 2011
But who would you want protecting your neighbourhood? I asked the audience:
The Überraschungsfilm
had nothing whatsoever to do with Super Heroes, at least not caped ones.
It was, however, excellent. It's called The Raid, and was filmed on location in Jakarta, with Indonesian actors. It premiered recently at the Toronto International Film Festival and it is one of the most intense action movies I've ever watched.
Blue Loon Films
Most of the subplot is explained in the first five minutes of the film: a unit of twenty or so elite police officers must go to the top of this derelict building belonging to an "untouchable" crime lord, and bring him back down in their custody. What follows instead is an incredible bloodbath, and some of the most amazingly choreographed martial arts scenes imaginable.
No one in the film wore any sort of hero-costume. However, it must be said: physically speaking, most of the super powers I saw over the course of the night were in that film. Seriously. Hence its inclusion in this review.
Could real-life costumed super heroes be beneficial for society? I asked the audience: