indietrix: Recent Episodes
Will Webb
Film reviews, from old movies to new, with blockbusters and arthouse movies getting equal footing. Presented by Will Webb, a filmmaker and film programmer.
Witches, pigs, and thick midlands accents: in this episode we’re discussing Murran, the 1975 teleplay by Nigel Kneale.
When vet Critch arrives at the Bealey farm to treat a mysterious illness in a group of pigs, he’s surprised to discover a growing conspiracy in the village, centered around a suspected witch, Clemson.
For this discussion, I’m excited to be joined by Daniel Kokotajlo, director of Apostasy and the upcoming folk horror film Starve Acre with Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark. Dan knows his folk horror really well and has some fascinating insights on how this inspired Starve Acre, so hope you enjoy listening.
In Cast-Offs, a group of disparate disabled people – like wheelchair user Dan, thalidomide-affected Will, and deaf Carrie – are stranded on a deserted island for 3 months as part of a reality TV show. Cutting between their lives at home before the show and the challenges of living together on the island, Cast-offs takes aim at disability representation with dark humour.
Joining me to chat about this hidden gem is Delyth Thomas, a director across film and TV whose previous credits include all-time fave The Story of Tracy Beaker, as well as episodes of Vera, Silent Witness, Victoria, and working with baby Bella Ramsey in The Worst Witch.
Erica Tremblay joins to discuss Kelly Reichardt's film Certain Women. Erica is the director of new film Fancy Dance, which follows Lily Gladstone as Jax, who searches for her missing sister and cares for her niece, as they prepare for an upcoming powwow.
Erica offers a super insightful analysis of Reichardt's film and walks through casting Lily Gladstone in her own film, her inspirations as a director, and working with the nearly extinct Cayuga language in Fancy Dance. This conversation can't be missed!
Certain Women: in Livingston, Montana, the intersecting lives of three women illuminate tensions between old and new, and male and female, in the American West. Attorney Laura Wells is dealing with an unstable client. Gina is building a period-inspired home with her husband, who has just broken off his affair with Laura. And Jamie, a lonely ranch hand played by Lily Gladstone in her starmaking role, chances into an education law night class and forges a bond with teacher Beth, a junior attorney who works at Laura’s practice.
In this break from normal programming, I sit down with Curzon's Jake Garriock to talk about the historic Curzon Mayfair cinema, which is currently in jeopardy, as well as the importance of cinemas serving their communities, the gorgeous design of Mayfair itself, and my illicit Christmas decorations there in 2019.
Help with the campaign:
https://www.curzon.com/save-curzon-mayfair/objections/
Director name lengths, the hazards of POV filming, and guest Ed Lovelace's new film Name Me Lawand; join me and Ed to explore why this 2007 disability drama by Julian Schnabel is so intriguing.
Queer kitsch, the varied career of Jimmi Simpson, and whether 'Charlie's Angels knockoff' is such a bad thing after all. In this episode I'm joined by video essayist Queline Meadows (aka Kikikrazed) to explore why D.E.B.S., a lesbian spy parody directed by Angela Robinson in 2001, is a queer comedy is worth watching.
00:00:02:09 - 00:00:23:09 Will Hi. I'm Will Webb, and this is why you should watch. In today's episode, we're looking at DEBS, the 2003 spy comedy directed by Angela Robinson. Before we get started, if you aren't subscribed yet, then make sure you are so you don't miss out on another cracking episode in future. And if you could leave a comment and give the video a thumbs up, that would be awesome.
00:00:23:23 - 00:00:25:06 Will Okay. On with the episode.
00:00:27:06 - 00:00:53:13 Voiceover Deep within a college exam is a secret test. It measures a student's innate ability to lie, cheat, fight and destroy those who score well are recruited into a secret paramilitary university. Some call them seductress, as some call them spies. Fools call them innocent. They call themselves Debs.
00:00:54:14 - 00:01:21:09 Will Amy is top of her class at the Debs Academy, where the spies of tomorrow receive their top secret training. But a chance encounter with supervillain Lucy Diamond leads Amy to question her place in Debs, as well as her own sexuality. Joining me to discuss this movie is Queline Meadows, a video essayist whose previous work includes plenty of sight and sound, mentions commissions for the BFI and a physical media release on the film wolfwalkers.
00:01:21:18 - 00:01:25:02 Will Hope you enjoy our discussion. Hi, Queline, and welcome to the show. Hey.
00:01:25:02 - 00:01:28:00 Queline Well, thank you for having me. I'm very happy to be here.
00:01:28:00 - 00:01:45:24 Will Oh, no, thank you. And thank you so much for picking such an interesting film. When I get in touch with people about being in the podcast, what I often say is like, I want to hear about what you think of really interesting films. They don't even have to be good. And I think Debs is like right on the line of being maybe more interesting than good.
00:01:46:03 - 00:02:06:29 Will I think it's definitely merging the good, but it may not even be good, but we might get into that as we go. I'm happy to have like a fight about it. It's great. And I know that you're a as I use your video essayist and we know each other through discourse, we're part of what I guess we sometimes call in our CVS a collective of video assets who function, who organize remotely.
00:02:06:29 - 00:02:14:09 Will And one of the things that's come up in that a lot is that you are like a massive rom com fan, particularly Hugh Grant.
00:02:14:09 - 00:02:18:19 Queline Movies. Yeah, yeah. Notting Hill is is number one for me.
00:02:19:00 - 00:02:21:06 Will Have you engage with any of the discourse about Notting Hill?
00:02:21:11 - 00:02:22:29 Queline What's the discourse? What? What?
00:02:23:17 - 00:02:50:03 Will So Notting Hill, the area of London is a historically black area. It's one of the main historic black areas of London. It's also where our carnival is, is where like the Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean community particular lived from about the fifties onwards. So the fact that Notting Hill, the most famous depiction of this area, features no black cast at all, as far as I can remember, is like quite a discussed point in like for film criticism.
00:02:50:13 - 00:03:12:25 Will It's interesting because it like it. I think about it as being the the peak of like Blair, Tony Blair like neo liberal cinema because it's basically like imagine a London where there were no black people. Everything was fine in this area. Yeah. So it's interesting. I mean, I really like Richard Curtis movies for what they are. I don't have like a great love of rom coms.
00:03:12:25 - 00:03:13:20 Will Like, I know you do.
00:03:13:23 - 00:03:16:20 Queline Yeah, I do know that. I love you, girl. You know that at all about Notting Hill?
00:03:16:21 - 00:03:35:10 Will I will send you off this. There was a like, I guess what we now call adult animation show on BBC three, which was like a teen focused channel. That kind of come and gone from the airwaves over the years over here. And they did a surreal animated sketch show, basically. And one of the sketches was them shooting at Notting Hill.
00:03:35:10 - 00:04:06:01 Will It came out in 2000 for the program. And so it's like Hugh Grant as a caricature, like wobbling around of a giant has and there's like a big brick wall and armed police, like holding out anyone who's like, I think they're darker than like a certain color scheme. Yeah. So yeah, it's an interesting it's interesting legacy and I've always wanted to think about like doing a Blair Blair romcoms thing because there's also like Billy Elliot from that time is very light of a school of that kind of film.
00:04:06:27 - 00:04:24:28 Will But I do love Hugh Grant. I have to say, I think he's like a fab actor. And when he's actually trying, which is, I don't know, maybe half the time he can be he can really act. Yeah, but I love his particular brand of just like, awful. He's great. And I like that he can play a villain and a romantic lead with basically the same character.
00:04:25:24 - 00:04:45:00 Will He never really changes it. Like to think about how he is in Bridget Jones, where he's essentially the bad guy versus how he is in one of my favorites. And I've said that I confess that I've ever tackled music and lyrics. Oh, okay. Yeah. I like it because it has an excellent fake song in it. Oh, yeah, there's not many.
00:04:45:02 - 00:04:46:17 Queline Pop Goes My Heart. Yeah, yeah.
00:04:47:01 - 00:05:06:22 Will Oh, yeah. One of my favorite 80 songs that was not made in the eighties. And yeah, I think even the song at the end is quite good. But yeah, as a as a movie overall, it's not great. But I think that that's like the nadir of his rom com experience, right? He kind of after that took a bit of time off and then did Cloud Atlas where he ate someone.
00:05:06:25 - 00:05:07:25 Will And I think that kind of.
00:05:08:03 - 00:05:08:10 Queline That.
00:05:08:16 - 00:05:12:16 Will Gave him and it gave him a new reputation. And now he does gangster movies nicely.
00:05:12:27 - 00:05:15:23 Queline And he's going to be in the new Dungeons and Dragons movie, too.
00:05:16:24 - 00:05:34:09 Will He is, indeed. Yeah. I saw a beautiful interview of someone trying to explain to him what a DM was and him thinking it was something to do with BDSM, which is just like he obviously is not engaged at all, which I love. Good for him. I mean, that's fair enough. And so it's fun that you chose a rom com for us to talk about.
00:05:34:09 - 00:05:52:02 Will We did actually talk about chatting for me and all of the dying girl, which I think is like a really interesting pic, but maybe for another episode. But Depth is a movie that I like, have very fond memories of having seen the first time, and then I have not watched it about a decade until like about a week ago.
00:05:52:09 - 00:05:56:03 Will And I would love to hear about how you first came to see that.
00:05:56:12 - 00:06:23:02 Queline Well, when I watch it, today was my sixth time seeing it. The first time I watched it, it was my freshman year of college. I was 18 and I think I was just like making my way through different like lesbian movies like I had seen. But I'm a cheerleader, I think, these days, but I'm a cheerleader is like the first lesbian movie that a lot of like baby gays will watch.
00:06:24:07 - 00:06:39:29 Queline So I had seen that a million times and then I heard about Debs. I don't even know, probably like Letterboxd or something. So I watched it on like some legal website and yeah, I just thought it was so awesome and fun.
00:06:41:09 - 00:06:45:27 Will Yeah. How did you watch it? Like you slept in a dorm room sort of environment. Do you watch it with people?
00:06:45:27 - 00:06:47:04 Queline I watch it with one of my friends.
00:06:47:23 - 00:07:03:19 Will We I feel like that's a that's that's how I saw it the first time as well. And I feel like that is a better way of doing it because there's something sort of like crowd pleasing about it that I think maybe doesn't hold up if you watch it just on your own. Like I did this by where I watched any new for the first time as well.
00:07:05:00 - 00:07:27:29 Will I think it would have been about about six, seven years old. Then the L word had come and gone, which is what Andrew Robinson, the director of this, did after Debs. So I actually did one other thing after Debs that we'll talk about in a sec. But yeah, L-word was the next one. And I actually was also going through all the gay movies basically when I was at uni and they had I'd seen but I'm a cheerleader.
00:07:27:29 - 00:07:53:12 Will It was like 1 a.m. on film for I was just like one of our free to air film channels in the UK. And I, it's not surprising to me that the Debs would come up. I feel like Debs is what IMDB would recommend you if you had just watched. If you'd gone to the page of I'm a Cheerleader, there's about three years between them and I think there was a real move in comedy in general to go towards like more surreal stuff, heightened sort of settings.
00:07:54:25 - 00:08:05:11 Will And then there's also that like there's a reaction against it. Like Anchorman is like the dividing line, I think, when they start doing like improv instead and that's 2004, which is the same year this came out. It's all right. You've all.
00:08:06:10 - 00:08:07:10 Queline Got to take your word and.
00:08:07:10 - 00:08:19:04 Will Release period because it was indie. Yeah, okay. But yeah, I'd heard about it because it won. She won an award at Sundance for the short film The Starter Off. Have you seen the short film?
00:08:19:04 - 00:08:19:15 Queline No.
00:08:20:20 - 00:08:49:19 Will So it's essentially the opening title sequence of the film. It's basically like an intro for a fake TV show about Debs and it has like the SAT tests and stuff like that, which is great and it's really fun, a very crowd pleasing. And I think at Sundance they must have been like, Well, fuck, fuck. It's like fun. And I do think that's like the place that it has in the kind of queer cinema canon and in America anyway, because like so many LGBT films are tremendously sad, like for really good reason, but it's nice to have like, like fun.
00:08:50:01 - 00:09:10:10 Will And I think even but I'm a cheerleader is very much about it's about gay conversion camps, right? Like it's not inherently a fun premise, it's just the way that the film treats it. And so yeah, I would have introduced the plot a little bit, but just to recap it, like Debs basically is about a group of indeterminate aged girls.
00:09:10:10 - 00:09:12:25 Will I think they're supposed to be like in their early twenties.
00:09:12:25 - 00:09:13:04 Queline Yeah.
00:09:13:20 - 00:09:44:12 Will But they're wearing schoolgirl outfits and they tend to institution with a headmistress that seems to be training them for spy work. And no one really knows how they're select, why they're selected as they're selected through the SAT test. And they have a handler who is Michael Clarke Duncan dearly departed massive nerd that he was and yeah it basically uses that as a jumping off point to tell essentially like a coming out story within the context of supervillains and a very cops and robbers way.
00:09:44:12 - 00:09:55:06 Will So I was wondering like, what hit you about that when you first watched it? Because you I guess you'd seen all the major rom coms by this point, right? You'd seen the holy text. Yeah. The Richard Curtis is the Nancy Meyers.
00:09:55:25 - 00:10:23:15 Queline Yeah. Well, I think the thing is, especially with like other gay movies, it's like a lot of them, like they're good, but they have to do with like coming out is like a major conflict. Like being gay is a major conflict. Like and with Debs. The the real problem with Amy. Amy, I think is the one who gets the Lucy Diamond.
00:10:23:15 - 00:10:42:18 Queline It's like, yes, she discovers that she's gay. But to me, like in the film, the problem is just that she's, like, sleeping with the enemy, you know? It's like, not like really an issue that that she's queer. So I just, like that.
00:10:42:18 - 00:10:49:07 Will I think no one actually mentions it when they find her in bed. They're like, immediately, like, oh, come on. Like, she's the enemy instead of anything else.
00:10:49:10 - 00:11:10:20 Queline Like someone like Holland, Taylor's character or the headmistress makes a joke, like, Oh, like you wanted to have your collegiate lesbian fling in style. Well, yeah, it's just like it just. And I just. I think it's nice to watch a movie where it's not a big deal that someone's gay. So.
00:11:11:16 - 00:11:34:04 Will Yeah, and it seems like not unexpected within the context either. One of the things that strikes me really early on is that we meet this super villain character, who's Lucy Diamond, which is his greatest Jordana Brewster, who I think is underrated. I mean, she's very funny and she's very funny in this context. I think the name of her lackey, the actor, could really recognize him.
00:11:34:05 - 00:11:34:17 Queline Good.
00:11:34:17 - 00:11:34:27 Will Yes.
00:11:34:27 - 00:11:36:11 Queline Got played by Jimmi Simpson.
00:11:36:26 - 00:11:55:16 Will Yeah. Who's like well, these people, he pops up in, like hundreds of things in like small but weird roles. He always plays that character and he's a great kind of counterpoint to her. And we see her like doing some evil plan that looks like she's setting up a hit. And then it turns out to be the she's being set up on a first date with this ex assassin or possibly current assassin.
00:11:56:01 - 00:12:24:25 Will And what I like about that is that there's no there's not a moment there over this character who is out already. There is no moment in the film text of like a reveal that she's gay. The reveal is that she's going on this first date. He's really anxious about it. Yeah. And that even is different. I keep going back to it, but I think it is a kind of interesting comparison of I I'm a cheerleader because that is about a coming out that is complex for the courage to navigate, whereas isn't really for Amy.
00:12:24:25 - 00:12:54:19 Will And even like Amy's main relationship problem is that she already has a boyfriend. More than that, she's gay. Yeah. I was struck, you know, watching it. Just how cheap it looks and feels, which is like an interesting thing to consider. It's right when the first digital films were starting to come out, because I even if you watch Attack of the Clones, the second Star Wars prequel, it looks awful by modern standards and in similar ways.
00:12:54:19 - 00:13:26:24 Will And that was shot around the same time. But I do think that almost plays into what works in the film. For me, as you might have gotten the sense I didn't love the film watching it again, but it's a it's fundamentally camp, right? And I mean that not in the way of like how sometimes people think about camp has been like this certain kind of shall be style but in the sense that it's using this really stupid spy kind of context to basically present a very straightforward lesbian love story kind of in that as well.
00:13:27:00 - 00:13:37:14 Will And they're in a way like looking really cheap to me, kind of sells that, like it makes it feel more like and deliberately trashy or something like that. It gives it that kind of camp energy.
00:13:37:14 - 00:13:48:00 Queline Yeah. I also I've watched to prepare for this. I watched Charlie's Angels for the first time 2001, and it felt very much like it was riffing on that too, just like.
00:13:48:08 - 00:13:49:06 Will A 100.
00:13:49:06 - 00:13:52:01 Queline Stylized nature and the corniness.
00:13:53:20 - 00:14:24:10 Will I can't tell if it's riffing on like the original Charlie's Angels or that remake more. But yeah, it's it's absolutely a Charlie's Angels parody. And even down to like the having people of different ethnicities and different roles within the group, you know, Roger Ebert, actually, who did not like the film, it may not surprise you to know, described it as no more than lesbian angels, which I actually think is is very on the money, but also nowhere near the insult that he thinks it is, because I think that's exactly the point.
00:14:24:10 - 00:14:52:17 Will Right. And even like the dialog delivery kind of has that level of humor to it. Like there's a complete lack of apparent stakes within these. Okay. So to break it down, I guess there's two major stories going on, right? There's a story about a spy agency hunting a supervillain who they think is like a mass murderer. They obviously we find out that she is and she has stolen a lot and she did try to kill everyone in Australia, including during the film.
00:14:52:17 - 00:14:53:05 Will But yeah.
00:14:53:12 - 00:15:00:28 Queline She tried to sing Australia. It's just such a bizarre thing for a villain to do for ransom.
00:15:00:28 - 00:15:25:25 Will Yeah. And then there's also this, like, kind of immediate attraction when Amy, who's the kind of head student, the best girl in the class, meets Lucy finally and what she thinks is a professional fascination turned into a romantic one. And so I guess the point of the film is that there's a tension between those two things, right? Like they're playing with this very over-the-top thing, which is kind of prosaic story.
00:15:26:05 - 00:15:42:19 Will And for me, the big problem that I had watching this was that I don't think I love the central love story and I think all the scenes of that are great. I don't think they actually have enough fun with the rest of it. So do you think the film's a comedy? And I think there isn't enough Dead's fun.
00:15:42:23 - 00:16:00:29 Will MM So there's a couple of bits. There's a bit right at the start when they walk into the house and you see they have a forcefield around the house. Yeah. And the forcefield is tilted, it's like clad in the same way that their skirts are the same. That was awesome and that's really funny. Yeah, that's a great joke and a really good visual joke too.
00:16:01:10 - 00:16:15:02 Will And I just wish there was more of like interesting. Roger Ebert said this in his review as well. He was like, the moment we step into like a spy college that dresses everyone like Catholic schoolgirls, I start thinking, what are the classes?
00:16:15:02 - 00:16:15:23 Queline Yeah, yeah.
00:16:15:26 - 00:16:35:25 Will What do they have for dinner? You know, like, tell me about some of this stuff that sounds really weird. And for my money, I think that actually ends up damaging the love story bit because the tension that should be building up there with her being a supervillain. Likewise, because we don't really get much sense of how she's a supervillain, doesn't really end up landing in the same way that you would want it to.
00:16:36:03 - 00:16:37:28 Will I have to know what you think about that.
00:16:37:28 - 00:16:54:27 Queline Oh, yeah. I would have wanted just to see to flesh out the Deb's world more like especially since like Amy is like doing her thesis on Lucy Diamond. I just think that's so funny that she's that she's doing a thesis on a real supervillain and then she meets.
00:16:54:27 - 00:16:56:11 Will She's completely wrong as well. Yeah.
00:16:56:25 - 00:17:11:06 Queline And it's like it's like she's like doing like psycho analysis and stuff on Lucy Diamond. It's like, it's so silly that I wish. I don't know, I. Well, I'd like to hear what other people are doing their thesis papers on.
00:17:11:24 - 00:17:18:01 Will Oh well I guess it's like I don't know if you know this, but it's near the magic circle. This is like the professional organization for the magicians.
00:17:18:14 - 00:17:19:13 Queline Now, are you mean.
00:17:20:00 - 00:17:20:05 Will Like.
00:17:20:12 - 00:17:21:02 Queline Magicians.
00:17:21:11 - 00:17:54:21 Will A magician? No, I'm not in the magic circle. But to join the magic circle in the UK, at least you have to write a thesis. Oh, you have to write a thesis on a topic of magic. So, you know, Darren Brown is a British magician, he is a mentalist. So he does like mind control. That's a very big on British TV and a while ago but he wrote his dissertation on like mediumship how people fake ghost readings right so that's like you can't write theses on really weird topics that are very specific but as you say, like I would love to know what everyone else is doing in the class.
00:17:55:01 - 00:18:03:00 Will Like Dominique, this woman whose sole function in the film is to be really horrible for no reason and smoke. Yeah, but what's her class? What does he do?
00:18:04:04 - 00:18:36:08 Queline Yeah. I also like to see with the. The college, I just think it's so crazy. It kind of implies that they're forced to go there if they're, if they pass the secret sat like section with just like bizarre. But I mean, it kind of like if you want to, like, give a look at it in like the clear way, like it's kind of playing with that idea of like what you're forced to do, what you're expected to do versus what you actually want to do.
00:18:36:29 - 00:18:37:24 Will Oh yeah.
00:18:38:00 - 00:18:38:16 Queline It's just very.
00:18:38:16 - 00:18:59:24 Will Flat a lot of the time, people. Yeah, I guess it's like people saying to her, like you, you're such a perfect student. Why would you throw this away to pursue this other thing? I mean, that does have some corollaries with like stories that queer people tell about what people say to them basically when they come out. So to tie that back to what I said about being cheap, I wasn't just being mean.
00:18:59:24 - 00:19:19:09 Will I generally think this is because they don't have enough money to show that stuff. It's not for time because there's about four montages in the film that are the great and very camp and all like set to pop songs, but they are like very like draggy on the film's pace. And I'm assuming that they couldn't pay for full college.
00:19:19:15 - 00:19:30:14 Will They didn't have the time to put people in certain rooms. Some of the scenes, including a lot of the stuff with Oh, you said her name earlier on the well-known older female.
00:19:30:16 - 00:19:31:10 Queline Holland Taylor as the.
00:19:31:10 - 00:19:31:27 Will Headmistress.
00:19:32:01 - 00:19:32:12 Queline Taylor.
00:19:32:14 - 00:19:51:14 Will Holland Taylor. A lot of scenes with her seem to be green screens, but she's she's actually superimposing some locations. I don't think she was actually on set for a lot of it. And yeah, it just means that they it limits the feasible scope of the film. Like I would love to get like Marvel saying that they're going to do like they're going to have gay characters.
00:19:51:14 - 00:20:06:20 Will So Disney's first gay character, right? Give Angela Robinson the money to do Debs to where it's like massive budget. It's like big lesbian spy academy. Let go. I'd be great. I was wondering if you've seen anything else of Angela Robinson's work, but.
00:20:07:12 - 00:20:16:14 Queline I don't think so. She did the did she do? Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman. I haven't seen that, but yeah, let me see.
00:20:16:23 - 00:20:17:25 Will So it's interesting, like what.
00:20:17:25 - 00:20:19:15 Queline Else she's done.
00:20:19:15 - 00:20:37:15 Will I can I've got a little list here if you want to hear. Okay. So she did the L Word. She did about 25 episodes of the L Word, which is like great. She did she produced the show Hung, which run for a while. So she directed some of that as well. She did one episode of the Charlie's Angels TV show reboot that happened in 2011.
00:20:37:15 - 00:20:57:20 Will So yeah, she's obviously a massive Charlie's Angels fan. And then she also produced True Blood and How to Get Away With Murder. So she's a really prolific creator in TV and some of that comes across here. I don't think there's anything particularly special about how the films directed that said Professor Marston, The Wonder Women, if you haven't seen it.
00:20:57:27 - 00:20:58:25 Queline Goodness, no, I know.
00:20:58:25 - 00:21:31:11 Will I'm really underrated. Yeah. And it was interesting watching that because that also is about using a a campy kind of overblown figure, writes Wonder Woman, to bring forward a story of not I guess I guess you call it queer love like a polyamorous relationship in the 1870s, right? Yeah this queer because it's Twitter and it so I was just thinking about like the list of things that are not queer in my head and especially because that film is very, very astute in a way that Debs isn't.
00:21:31:24 - 00:21:57:10 Will And it's also obviously not that expensive, but does a lot with very little to kind of tell its story. And I guess it's different because it's a period film, but it is interesting to kind of see those as to takes on the same sort of concept, I guess like that she would want to explore those things. I think for what it's worth, I love that she has consistently worked on making stuff that's over genre stuff or has LGBT leads, and quite often it's both.
00:21:58:12 - 00:22:20:07 Will And she's doing it entirely in like a non arthouse kind of perspective. I mean that's great. And then she is also openly she's an out gay woman, so it's like, yeah, an older black gay director working in the high as bits of American TV. Right. That's a good thing. Right. And I think she has made some really good stuff there.
00:22:20:08 - 00:22:25:07 Will She made one of her film it, which came out in the same year, which was Herbie Fully Loaded.
00:22:25:07 - 00:22:25:24 Queline Oh.
00:22:26:22 - 00:22:29:01 Will Yeah. Lindsay Lohan's. Yeah.
00:22:29:01 - 00:22:30:23 Queline That's like the racing one, right?
00:22:31:08 - 00:22:58:05 Will Yeah. Yeah. So Herbie was like an original franchise also from the same errors as Charlie's Angels, and it's about like a sentient car that's at the scented Volkswagen Beetle that has a funny personality of its own. They did about five movies in the sixties through to the eighties, I think. And then they did Herbie Fully Loaded, which is the first time that anyone ever used CGI to reduce the size of someone's breasts in post-production for real.
00:22:58:19 - 00:23:16:23 Will This is like was a major news story when it came out and yeah, so she was running in slow motion in some scenes and the execs at Disney refunded. The film felt that it was too it was obscene. So they digitally, you know, slimmed down Lindsay Lohan and yeah, I don't know how I would Robinson felt about that.
00:23:16:23 - 00:23:18:04 Will Probably not great. Yeah. See.
00:23:19:11 - 00:23:20:06 Queline That's crazy.
00:23:20:12 - 00:23:42:09 Will I did like looking at it. Yeah, it's so weird. I mean, that has happened since as well, like a lot. And to the point of like if you saw that film full, which is about like two women stuck up a radio tower, but they wanted to get a lower license for the theatrical release, so they faked the actors faces to take out all the swears.
00:23:42:22 - 00:23:43:24 Queline Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:43:25 - 00:24:13:14 Will So they had loads and loads of swearing in it. Yeah. And the sweary version has been put on Netflix. Interesting. They could do that kind of stuff. It's funny enough actually I watched Mean Girls today. I'm thinking about like queer subtext in films that came out in 2004 with Lindsay Lohan. Anyway. So the other thing that I wanted to just talk about is whiffing and it ties in to the cheap thing to there is something like deliberately poorly about the film, right?
00:24:13:27 - 00:24:35:03 Will Like it's funny because it's a very chaste film. I think like there's this bit I me significantly they walk in on her when she's in bed with her lover, which is like, you know, still pretty chaste. But I, they are like in these little Catholic schoolgirl outfits, which I think are very light. LEARY And it's also filled with ostensibly, I guess like a female gaze.
00:24:35:03 - 00:24:56:23 Will I don't think there's a particularly strong like it's not like a revealing in the content, but maybe I'm being followed by that video. Look, I don't know what you think. I like watching women walk around in, like, tiny skirts in, like, ditzy digital video. Just weird, like the the tension that that has with what the film is trying to do.
00:24:56:23 - 00:25:22:26 Queline Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty silly, but I don't know. I well, to me I think it works for the, the kind of the Charlie's Angels like parody and also just like this kind of extreme femininity that Amy is like forced into and then wants to break out of. I think it kind of I don't know, it works for that.
00:25:22:26 - 00:25:28:19 Queline It is like kind of silly. But also for me when I watch, I just like write it off like. Oh 24 you know.
00:25:30:13 - 00:25:51:02 Will Yeah. I wonder if that was yeah, maybe. Right. Maybe that was something she had to do to get the film made. And I do love that scene where they go to that club on the beach that's like covered in graffiti and like UV lights and full of punks. It looks great. And one of the biggest surprises in the film, like in a film of that era, you'd normally have a bit when they're like, Who are these people?
00:25:51:02 - 00:26:11:03 Will And then they're like, Lighten up. You go to like a lot about, well, that's really like kind of vague. And instead her friend Janet just immediately walks off, start dancing with Scott in the club, and it's like, fine with it, which I love. It's very good. Oh, yeah. We didn't talk about the other the other main characters does so that she's in a kind of for people unit.
00:26:11:22 - 00:26:20:21 Will You have David Aoki who plays Dominique. Who is this like scowling French, Asian smoking lady?
00:26:20:21 - 00:26:26:06 Queline Yeah. Her only purpose is to, like, have little terrible French accent one liners.
00:26:26:21 - 00:26:47:25 Will She's easily the worst actor of the film. And I always said, I think that's necessarily her fault because there's nothing for her to do in the movie. And then there's Amy is the central one. Then there's Janet who's like kind of not very good at school, but is kind of her friend. And then there's Megan Good, who plays Max is her name, right?
00:26:47:29 - 00:27:10:27 Will And Max is a black woman who's like in this unit and she is the leader of the squad, but somehow like second best to Amy in a way that I don't really understand and says horrible. It's like like weird me out like watching the film is that Max consistently schemes against I suppose a best friend and only in the last like 5 minutes, just out of nowhere is like so good in a way that is very confusing.
00:27:11:08 - 00:27:33:09 Will But I just thought was worth noting. I also think she's, she's good in it. I like her performance more than I like Amy's actually. Yeah at don't how you felt about Amy's performance watching it back I doesn't help I think the best person in the film is Jordanna Bristow. And because they share so many scenes, you're kind of constantly being like, Oh, I wish that Amy was good.
00:27:33:09 - 00:27:50:08 Queline Yeah, Amy is kind of very like, boring, kind of. Well, Max, I don't know. I kind of understand why she's, like, mean, because she wants to be the like, what is the award that Amy It's like Val valedictorian but.
00:27:50:11 - 00:28:01:07 Will Yeah and end game is there like that prom equivalent right to do like a final battle royale or something and then have a problem. Yeah. Which again, like, I wish, like, show me. I want to see it.
00:28:02:00 - 00:28:22:02 Queline It's like Max just. I think Max just wants to be the best. I don't know. And then to see someone who doesn't even want to be a Deb continues to be like get handed all of, like the awards and leadership roles, I think. I don't know. I think I would be mad.
00:28:22:02 - 00:28:39:01 Will But I guess I haven't really considered that they basically not voluntary as far as we can tell. So like the whole thing of Max being like, don't you want to be a Deb makes even less sense in that context because it's like as far as I was that being coerced and that in some way or another, or at least they're not really presented with alternative options.
00:28:39:11 - 00:29:11:13 Will She just says she wants to go to art school in Paris. Right. Which is just like wild because we never see her do it or anything. I love that. For her, it's great. What a dream to go live a like scuzzy bit of Paris and yeah so I was one question that I ask often on this is if you were going to show like an excerpt of this to somebody who wanted to see the film but kind of wanted a bit of a sense of it, it does have one of those embarrassing trailers from pre 2000 where it's like a man saying the plot of the film over the top of shots of it.
00:29:12:09 - 00:29:21:18 Will So like if there was a sequence or scene in particular that you think that really sells the film and and why you think that's the case.
00:29:21:18 - 00:30:08:09 Queline I would have to say, well, what you talked about earlier, the scene where Lucy Diamond goes on a blind date and the debs like do like a stakeout. Well, it shows like pretty much all the characters. So you get a sense of that and it also kind of it it shows that Lucy Diamond is like not your average villain.
00:30:08:09 - 00:30:19:09 Queline Like she's literally just on a date looking for a love or whatever. And then when the, like, the debs are like up really high, like suspended on this little, like, I don't know, spy chairs.
00:30:20:06 - 00:30:23:27 Will Yeah. They like the things that the like wall painters use, right.
00:30:24:03 - 00:30:24:22 Queline Yeah.
00:30:25:08 - 00:30:27:05 Will The people who clean windows on buildings.
00:30:27:10 - 00:30:45:02 Queline Just like it's like this. This building with an outrageously high ceiling. And like once the debs are like, discovered up there, like, I like the shootout is just like very, just very Debs. Like there's like the slow mo walks and stuff.
00:30:45:08 - 00:30:52:23 Will That have huge guns. Like Max has like a massive guy with a huge site on the top as well.
00:30:52:23 - 00:30:59:23 Queline Yeah. So I think that scene, it just it really just kind of sums up the whole vibe of the movie.
00:31:01:07 - 00:31:28:02 Will I like that scene a lot because I think the film's at its best when it's doing some physical comedy or like some slight gags, and that scene is really full of both of those things. Um, like I always feel a temptation from Andrew Robinson to make like a Top Gun type movie, not Top Gun, what's it called, but Hot Shots or like it's like with Leslie Nielsen could be in it, you know, like it's that kind of very sight gag, heavy type stuff.
00:31:28:02 - 00:31:48:14 Will In the first 30 minutes, I do feel like the film loses pace really badly once they actually kind of like start getting together because it's all like the tension, the actual plot of the film up until that point is all about like that. Will they? Won't they kind of thing. But that first 20 minutes up until they get into the club is great.
00:31:48:25 - 00:32:07:03 Will And yeah, I would absolutely say like that scene is really indicative of it. I like the absurdity of it too, as you say, that that this ceiling is gigantic. There's like it's huge. It's like they're in the in that famous hotel in San Francisco. It's in loads of movies that has, like, glass elevators and like a massive atrium.
00:32:07:12 - 00:32:28:00 Will It's like that. Like, it's massive. And I think some of that was done practically. It does seem to be like a huge location, but all of that stuff is done on green screen. All of the stuff when they're on like the the platform. And Amy's maybe ex-boyfriend continuously comes in, interrupts their spying during the sequence, which I find really funny.
00:32:28:02 - 00:32:46:05 Will Yeah. And they so he's like, you know, whirring up and down and they're all like swaying around a bit. And actually I noticed that they changed the debs change order on the platform in between some of those transitions. Oh really. As if they're like yeah. As if they're like somehow shuffling between each other, which I think is like such a cute sight gag.
00:32:46:13 - 00:33:06:11 Will And there's also they're not the only agency staking out the thing, right? So we first see the debs there and then her boyfriend shows up who I think is with the DEA. And then there's the FBI. Is there the CIA is there. And they just like whip pan around this like roof where there's like random dudes on platforms kind of hanging all around.
00:33:06:27 - 00:33:37:03 Will And I think that's a really funny like that for me is an example of like what I want them to be, where it's like it's playing with this spy stuff a bit more and is having some more fun like with that, with that other stuff around the Lucy Diamond story. Interestingly, the the short is basically uses that will they like it doesn't reveal that they're getting together it's like told within the context of this TV show.
00:33:37:03 - 00:33:59:00 Will VOICEOVER So it's sort of like repeatedly has her being kidnaped by this supervillain and her friends always being like, Oh, we managed to get you out of your her bedchamber where you were tied up and she's like, Yeah, like it's like that. And that to me, like that speaks to a more interesting version of this as like a comedy, if you think about it in its structural sense, not that I like, I think there's plenty of good laughs in it.
00:33:59:00 - 00:34:08:27 Will I just think that's that there's maybe a better way of make it work as a story through that. Yeah and that that 20 minutes at the start that bit that you talked about just then really does sell it. Yeah.
00:34:08:28 - 00:34:32:22 Queline Because once they, once they get together they're kind of just like in love, like head over heels, like and it's like, okay, a little boring. And then like there's like that montage of their relationship that lasts one week. We find out later, it's like, Yeah, I don't know. It just, it's, but it's nice. I like, just, like seeing just like the cheesy, happy stuff.
00:34:33:19 - 00:34:53:07 Will I like them like when they're in there like said, they have this relationship where they, the dead think that she's been kidnaped. Really. She's like willingly with her lover. And there's this whole section where they're just like lounging around in, like, pajamas. And I love the idea that they just have, I don't know, like super villain pajamas that were difficult thing for a costumer to do.
00:34:54:25 - 00:35:17:13 Will She's like, more like the punky and a supervillain, right? She feels like, I guess like like a Batman Forever type villain more than like, say, a Blofeld from from James Bond. Because I sat in pajamas. That's the only guess I have. Like, it's, like, really sleek and cool. Yeah. I don't know if she'd do it. She's wearing, like, t shirts and, like, PJ bottoms, you know, like, it's it's really weird.
00:35:17:29 - 00:35:36:26 Will And I also like, there's that there's a bit in that when they have that kind of meaningful connection when she's like, What do you really want to do for life apart from a dad? And she tells her about her apparent dream of being an artist in Paris and Lucy. I can't read what she has, but she also has like she wants to do, and it's kind of made clear she's going to be a villain particularly.
00:35:37:05 - 00:35:55:16 Will But like like Amy, she is compelled into it because she was born into it. And what you're saying about there being that kind of metaphor about like something about how heteronormativity kind of lines you up for this life that you maybe want to have? I kind of want to pull that out more like give me more of that stuff.
00:35:56:09 - 00:36:19:27 Will I don't know if I if I was going to pitch it again. It was Deb's to when Marvel finally makes it, you know, like I'd love a Hannibal Lecter type thing instead, like and that is where Hannibal Lecter eventually goes. Like start off with Lucy getting caught and then have the star student who has written her thesis on her come in to interview her and then be like, This girl's great.
00:36:20:29 - 00:36:23:17 Will And it kind of be that's like a bit more tension, you know?
00:36:23:17 - 00:36:27:05 Queline It it reminds me of, like, killing Eve a little bit.
00:36:27:29 - 00:36:28:28 Will Yeah, because I feel like.
00:36:29:02 - 00:36:29:12 Queline I've.
00:36:31:09 - 00:36:33:15 Will Got. That's such a good show, actually. That's very true.
00:36:33:26 - 00:36:43:23 Queline You have, like, the assassin, and then there's like, well, I don't know, British FBI. I don't remember what she works for it like.
00:36:43:27 - 00:36:44:22 Will Yeah, I myself am.
00:36:44:23 - 00:37:07:26 Queline I think she's like trying to find her, but she also, like, thinks she's, like, really cool and wants to, like, study her or whatever. And both of them are kind of finding excitement when they go outside of, like, their roles. Like for Eve, it's like getting like outside of, like her sort of boring, like civilian life and relationship.
00:37:07:26 - 00:37:13:02 Queline So yeah, it's very, it kind of I think Deb's walked killing Eve. Good run.
00:37:14:03 - 00:37:29:23 Will Right? Yeah. That's a good tagline. Thanks. Um, I do think they are like Killing Eve is basically one of the gayest things to be made recently that isn't explicitly about gay characters, like in terms of the subtext is just I mean, it's barely not barely subtext ready.
00:37:29:23 - 00:37:32:27 Queline And then they well, they kiss at the end. Okay. I haven't seen the end of killing Eve.
00:37:32:28 - 00:37:34:22 Will I do they, I've only seen the first series. Yeah.
00:37:35:02 - 00:37:51:28 Queline Oh well spoiler alert, they closed the end and one of them dies. I think they'll know. Dies. One of them dies. I didn't watch the last season because I well, because I like I know I didn't have like whatever it was on. And then I heard about it online. I was like, oh, I'm not going to watch this.
00:37:52:17 - 00:37:55:20 Queline I'm just going to end it season three or whatever. That's good enough.
00:37:55:20 - 00:38:15:15 Will Yeah, that's how it really ended. I for what it's worth, my favorite bit from the film is that opening sequence where it uses all these kind of sweeping camera moves to do this. Like, I love the central idea of there being a hidden intelligence test in the SATs that recruits people to a secret school for spies is so cool.
00:38:15:26 - 00:38:18:22 Will I don't. If you ever watched the TV show called Totally Spies.
00:38:19:10 - 00:38:19:26 Queline No, I have.
00:38:19:27 - 00:38:21:04 Will It's like an animated show.
00:38:21:07 - 00:38:21:21 Queline Yeah.
00:38:22:08 - 00:38:22:27 Will I think it.
00:38:22:27 - 00:38:25:17 Queline Comes out when I was like, little. I don't remember as well.
00:38:26:07 - 00:38:59:03 Will It wasn't particularly good, but it came out around the same time and it has no subtext whatsoever, unsurprisingly, for kids movie, TV show made in the noughties. But it has a really well-developed weird lore about like how these teen girls ended up working as spies and like how it works. So like they whenever they get like a notification that they've got to go out and like be spies wherever they are, like a trap door will open like a little desk, and they go down like ships and land in the same, like office where they're like put in.
00:38:59:03 - 00:39:15:18 Will They have, they're these like vinyl jumpsuits they're in and they have all their gadgets and there's like this running joke that like, how are they getting these desks in these places? Like sometimes they're upstairs, like, how is it, where's the tube going? And I wish there were jokes like that in this. Sorry, I keep being really negative about it.
00:39:15:28 - 00:39:39:11 Will For what it's worth, I do think that is a really fun watch and also like a great crowd movie. Yeah, some of the stuff that feels rough to me, like the pacing, especially in the last half. No problem. If you had a couple of drinks, you have your friends with you, that's fine. Time to talk. Right? Even though right at the end when they're building up for a bacon like finish, that's like an extensive karaoke bar when.
00:39:39:15 - 00:39:48:03 Will When she's giving back all her assets, the villain, Lizzy, it's like, Yeah, you got to love it. Yeah, she don't love it.
00:39:48:09 - 00:40:09:09 Queline Well I would just like going back to the S.A.T. that I just, I just think that's so funny because it is so boring and like, I just want to know what questions on there make you a spot because it's like. Because they say it measures your ability to lie. That's what they like. Just does it. It doesn't make any sense to me.
00:40:09:09 - 00:40:09:18 Queline I don't know.
00:40:10:02 - 00:40:12:13 Will Yeah, that's a teaser multiple choice, right?
00:40:12:13 - 00:40:12:25 Queline Yeah.
00:40:13:19 - 00:40:17:03 Will So like, how would it would it register an ability to lie at all?
00:40:17:04 - 00:40:17:20 Queline Yeah, it's like.
00:40:17:21 - 00:40:19:00 Will It's just like a great idea.
00:40:19:29 - 00:40:20:10 Queline Yeah.
00:40:21:10 - 00:40:33:00 Will For what it's worth, it was not well-received at all when it came out and again, like, unsurprisingly, it didn't get a particularly wide release. Um, it was a critically mixed box office bomb.
00:40:34:16 - 00:40:43:12 Queline I'm looking at my, my DVD and it says, I don't know, this might be backwards for you, but it says, Does this gun make me look fat.
00:40:44:05 - 00:41:08:21 Will On a great. I guess the gun thing is interesting because, I mean, guns are famously talked about as being like phallic symbols. Right. So I think she's having a lot of fun by having like statuesque women. In short skirts holding massive guns. Okay. So I just read you a quote from Pete Travers in Rolling Stone. As quite a prolific film critic, you might think there's no downside to a movie that picks up the skirts of babes in micrometers.
00:41:08:21 - 00:41:21:26 Will But writer director Angela Robinson's dimwitted satire is libido. Killing Proves to the contrary that you have one that heteronormativity boiled down to like a single sentence in the film industry. There you go. That is a deeply embarrassing bit of film criticism.
00:41:23:11 - 00:41:24:21 Queline That's hard.
00:41:24:21 - 00:41:34:04 Will Yeah, that's rough. On the flipside guy for The Washington Post, there is exactly what you said. He said it's gay in a way that might be called homo normative.
00:41:34:04 - 00:41:36:05 Queline Hell, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:41:36:09 - 00:41:45:00 Will I like that. I think that's a good way of thinking about it. I can't believe that this guy watched a movie about lesbian characters and was like, This isn't erotic to me. One star.
00:41:45:11 - 00:41:48:13 Queline Why is this movie not made specifically for my tastes?
00:41:49:04 - 00:42:00:03 Will I'll have to go watch all of the other films ever made. Queline since a fab chatting to you, we are kind of at the end of what I normally talk about in this stuff, but is there thing you want to talk about? The films we haven't covered yet?
00:42:01:19 - 00:42:27:25 Queline Let me see. I have notes now. The only thing I want to say is I love Scud hurts. Lucy Diamond sidekick. Okay I just love yeah love how here is name is just scud like they pull up his file or whatever it's scud and I love how like you think he's going to be like a little like, like henchman or something, but he's just like her wingman and her bestie.
00:42:27:25 - 00:42:52:14 Will Scott is like, by far my favorite thing in the film. Yeah, just like a normal technical point of view in comedies. And as you say, like the most disarming thing is that he's like genuinely, extremely tender, nice. He's like semi catchphrases like, hey, fighting is easy, but love is hard, okay? And it's like I've said, absolutely straight. And during one of the many montages, he like keeps up a nice private message, like instant message conversation with Janet.
00:42:52:14 - 00:43:09:15 Will Yeah, apparently just friendly. I don't think they get together at the end. As far as I remember. But he does like he drives her to her dates, he picks her up, he like stops the car when she wants to go back and talk to another person. And also when she tries to bomb Australia during the third act of the film, he he's like, hey!
00:43:09:22 - 00:43:24:18 Will And he turns off the super villain machine and it's like, look, now in a way that I think is a really good well-observed joke about like break ups and stuff in the same way that a friend might tell you, Don't dye your hair blue, I know you really want to, but you should. And he's like, Go blow up Australia, come on, what did they do to you?
00:43:24:18 - 00:43:25:29 Will He says.
00:43:25:29 - 00:43:29:22 Queline Yeah, look, this movie has such a vendetta against Australia.
00:43:31:09 - 00:43:49:15 Will I think that's a weird thing that happened around that time because I don't know if you know this, but in the back story of Grand Theft Auto, America had a war with Australia in the 1970s. Oh yeah, it is completely like. Yeah, it's very consistent across all the games, but it is completely in the background. Like it's wild.
00:43:50:12 - 00:44:09:17 Will Like I'm talking about like I think in Vice City, which is the most historical of recent to the war, there's an advert for guns on the radio where they talk about like fighting koalas and wombats. And then someone in one of the gunshots is like, Yeah, I served in Australia kind of thing. And then it just, they had very low level references from that.
00:44:09:17 - 00:44:15:06 Will I think in DC five the guy is running for president and the online campaign talks about having better the Australia War.
00:44:15:20 - 00:44:16:28 Queline Wow, I never noticed that.
00:44:17:21 - 00:44:29:26 Will And one day I was like in this gun shop, like, you know, looking at my phone or something and I hear this line and I'm like, Hmm, that's interesting. Why? I mean, just was it a Jimmi Simpson?
00:44:30:06 - 00:44:39:02 Queline Yeah, Jimmi Simpson. He was in that one Black Mirror episode like the Star Trek USS Callister.
00:44:39:26 - 00:44:45:10 Will Yeah. And he's on Always Sunny in Philadelphia. That's where I'm from. He's also in Westworld.
00:44:45:26 - 00:44:47:05 Queline Mm.
00:44:47:05 - 00:45:03:14 Will And he was in there. They did another version of The Man Who Fell to Earth. Ha did not know that. He is also in Herbie Fully Loaded. So obviously he knows as a Robinson. Well, that's good. Oh, and he's just Broadway as well. I love this guy. I love this for him. He's just out there doing this stuff.
00:45:04:16 - 00:45:16:05 Will He was in Zodiac. This is a good TV call. Always good to have a love in for Jimmi Simpson. Queline. Is there anything that you'd like to plug while we're here?
00:45:17:12 - 00:45:19:13 Queline Oh, geez.
00:45:19:13 - 00:45:20:29 Will You haven't mentioned your YouTube channel.
00:45:20:29 - 00:45:28:11 Queline Yeah. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Kiki crazed. And what is this going up? I might have a new video up. I have.
00:45:28:18 - 00:45:29:20 Will No idea what's going.
00:45:29:20 - 00:45:41:28 Queline On. Well, I'll probably have a do with it because I say Library Anthology Volume five is coming out soon. I think as of when we're recording it, it'll be out probably next week. So.
00:45:42:04 - 00:46:06:09 Will And shaping up to be a doozy, too. Yeah. And also Queline recently did a video about Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All at once, which is a really fab video. And you should watch for the transitions alone, but also makes a beautiful argument about how Son Lux has used this single melody over the course of multiple soundtracks and projects which shows up in every role once gone.
00:46:06:09 - 00:46:07:19 Will It's a mouthful, isn't it?
00:46:07:19 - 00:46:08:01 Queline Yeah.
00:46:09:26 - 00:46:10:16 Will Thanks so much.
00:46:10:29 - 00:46:11:20 Queline Thank you.
00:46:12:07 - 00:46:25:19 Will To hear more conversations on film, check out the indietrix Podcast Search. That’s indietrix.. I know, it was 2008. Search wherever you listen to podcasts to get started.
The most obscure pick yet: 2001 cryptic Japanese horror Suicide Club! Joining me for this conversation is Cassiah Joski-Jethi, a writer-director whose previous credits include Catch a Butcher, a BFI Network funded horror. Cassiah's analysis is super interesting and makes this episode a must-listen.
If you have questions about the film, film in general, or anything indietrix-related, get in touch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Willwebbful https://twitter.com/indietrixfilm Cassiah can also be heard on her podcast, One of Us Is A Filmmaker: https://oneofusisafilmmaker.podbean.com/ indietrix film reviews is a movie review channel hosted by Will Webb with a wide view of cinema, taking in arthouse, indie and blockbuster movies with lots of analysis and discussion. Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indietrix Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/indietrix Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indietrix Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/Willwebbful/
Transcript:
00;00;02;02 - 00;00;24;10 Will Hi. I'm Will Webb, and this is why you should watch. In today's episode we're talking about Sion Sono’s 2001 film, Suicide Club. As you might expect from the title, this is a very transgressive film with multiple content warnings around suicide, animal harm and sexual assault. So please be aware of that going into this conversation. In this subversive Japanese horror.
00;00;24;10 - 00;00;47;26 Will A mass teen suicide sparks a spate of copycat incidents as police and the audience work to untangle the possible motives behind these disparate events. Joining me for this conversation is Cassiah Joksi-Jethi, a writer director whose previous film Catch a Butcher was funded by BFI Network and played at a load of BAFTA qualifying festivals. I can see how you do.
00;00;48;10 - 00;00;50;26 Cassiah Hi Will, thanks for having me. I'm good. How are you?
00;00;51;09 - 00;00;59;19 Will I'm really well. It's like I didn't mention in that intro that you always have your own podcast as well, which we should probably like. Let's plug it now and we can chat about it later as well.
00;00;59;24 - 00;01;21;00 Cassiah Yes. So my podcast is called One of US as a filmmaker, and I actually do it with my brother. We get along like a house on fire and we essentially just chat nonsense about our favourite nostalgic films. So that's, you know, big franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean. But we're going to do episodes on like classics like George of The Jungle, and, you know, those films we watched when we were kids.
00;01;21;12 - 00;01;39;05 Will George of The Jungle is like my go to when someone says, like, What's the film that really inspired you to be a filmmaker? And it's, I think, a bad answer because it sounds it is a bad film, I think, by and large, from an adult point of view. But I do have a distinct memory of it being the first time I realised that films didn't just like appear.
00;01;39;21 - 00;02;01;14 Will They were made by people. There's like a talking chimpanzee character, right? Mm hmm. And I remember I was about six when it came out, and I was watching it, like, monkeys don't do that. So someone has taught that monkey to do that thing. And, yeah, it was a super, like, super formative moment. I mentioned it in my NFTS interview and that did not get in so that I really maybe a good thing to not mention.
00;02;01;26 - 00;02;22;14 Cassiah I hate when people like I have two lists of favourite films, so I have my favourite films which are full of nostalgia that are fun and yes, objectively are probably not great films. And then I have myself more sophisticated group of favourite films, which Suicide Club? Probably falls under. I suppose that they're all valid, like even bad films.
00;02;22;14 - 00;02;32;23 Cassiah If they get a kid who's five years old, I don't see it in the cinema. When I was five on my birthday. If it gets me into wanting to tell stories, you know, it's a valid film. You know, it's done its job, you know.
00;02;32;24 - 00;02;53;28 Will I totally agree. And I also like my whole philosophy about film criticism insofar as I can call myself a critic, is that we ought not to talk about watching good films. We ought to talk about watching films. Well, regardless of their quality, like to think about them as attempts by people to tell a story or kind of like engage an audience, even if they suck.
00;02;54;12 - 00;03;17;05 Will Like a lot of the stuff that I see does. I watched Ant-Man Quantumania the other day in the cinema, which was like just a completely sterile experience, really rough, but it was, you know, there was interesting failures in it, I would say. But it's just the attempt to do things. And there's some stuff I liked very little. But it was that you've chosen probably the most obscure film anyone's chosen for this.
00;03;17;17 - 00;03;39;21 Will I'd certainly give you like a round of applause for that. This film is only available in the UK on DVD, where second hand copies at sea currently sell for about 28 quid, which is a extortionate price for DVD nowadays. And it's interesting. It's the first film from the director, see on Now, who is a very prolific Japanese director, made a number of very transgressive films.
00;03;39;21 - 00;04;00;29 Will I think some of them actually kind of cross into like softcore porn kind of territory. He has also recently been accused of sexual misconduct, so we're probably not going to have any further films from him and not for a while. And it's interesting to go into that movie, this movie, kind of knowing that I will put a content warning on this podcast because there is a lot of stuff in this that is very transgressive.
00;04;01;12 - 00;04;15;14 Will Even, you know, 22 years after it originally came out right from the opening, which I think is like saying that really bears a strong discussion. But what I wanted to start off with is just asking you how it came to be the case that you saw Suicide Club.
00;04;16;19 - 00;04;36;16 Cassiah So I was staying at my sister's flat in London and back in this must have been 2014 or 2015. And she has an extensive cinema collection. If you went to both our houses, she looks much more than like a filmmaker than I do in terms of the stuff that she has. She has very upscale films, very international films.
00;04;36;26 - 00;05;03;28 Cassiah And I was just I just that's how I just want to watch something different, you know, pick a film for me and the things you recommended, Suicide Club. And I was like, All right, so I know. And I watched it, and it was one of those films that just stuck with me. And I can't say I don't think again, like you were talking about whether it was a good film or not, I don't think I could quite quantify this film in that way.
00;05;03;28 - 00;05;14;16 Cassiah It's almost too simplistic and I don't know if it's a good film. That's my honest answer, but it's a film that will stick with you and has a lot to unpack.
00;05;14;21 - 00;05;32;21 Will I feel like sometimes those the worst films, especially talking from a filmmaking point of view, I often find that the films that really influence me are not films I particularly love. Like I eat the Gaspar Noé film and To The Void is a film that I talk about constantly, kind of like in the context of my work. But actually the film itself, I don't really like it.
00;05;33;04 - 00;05;53;20 Will I mean, there's plenty of stuff that's interesting in it and I think this is absolutely like the opening I think is like fascinating and it is extremely attention grabbing is probably the way I would describe the whole film, but it starts off with introducing this mass suicide incident where 54 schoolgirls kind of all go and stand on a busy train platform.
00;05;53;20 - 00;06;26;05 Will So very documentarian style is sort of like long lenses, shaky cameras, and then this carnival music kind of stops up. It's like very jaunty song and they very happily throw themselves in front of a train and all this really kind of like heads exploding, blood spring up of commuters underneath. And I think it's a good microcosm of the whole tone of the film in the sense that it just seesaws between these like this, this very brutal violence and like this weirdly realistic portrayal of everyday life.
00;06;26;24 - 00;07;00;28 Cassiah Yes. Yeah. I think the film is very unpredictable and that's purposeful. I think in terms of the overall theme and what Sanjana is trying to say, but also his style constantly changes. So you have that opening, which is very documentary style. It's a handheld, very shaky guerilla shot feel, but then you suddenly go into these much more cinematic, slow shots after this main sequence, which is actually quite scary and tense and, you know, very considered camerawork.
00;07;01;09 - 00;07;14;03 Cassiah It and throughout the whole film, it just changes styles between those two senses. And I think the point is to keep you on edge and to say you don't know where this ride's going to take you.
00;07;14;27 - 00;07;40;04 Will Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely like the the reviews at the time when you look at them often said that the film feels uneven. And I think that is a deliberate choice. Whether or not that's a good choice, I don't know. But it definitely like produces a very difficult to describe feeling when I describe the plot. At the start of this, I was kind of searching for a way of describing what goes on in it, because there's very little through line.
00;07;40;04 - 00;07;58;11 Will And if we can talk about spoilers, I'd like you have a main character, ostensibly this police detective who is just killed off with his entire family 30 minutes from the end. Yes. You suddenly have the lost you no further. The film really has no protagonist in a very disarming way.
00;07;59;03 - 00;08;18;20 Cassiah Yeah, I feel like the protagonist sort of split between, as in this detective, which is called Coda. And then it's almost then switches to this young woman called Miss Mexico, who only then only really appears in the first hour like once, but then is suddenly in it quite a lot in the last 30 minutes.
00;08;18;20 - 00;08;32;18 Will And likewise, there's this hacker character who looks like she's going to be like a recurring free line in the film, and then she kind of gets ignored for a load of runtime and then gets and I think she gets killed off, but she gets like kidnapped and kind of taken out of action. So she doesn't really feature in the lost vote at all?
00;08;32;21 - 00;08;33;03 Cassiah No.
00;08;33;07 - 00;09;07;00 Will Yeah, it's very, very strange. Structurally I do sometimes find out what she Japanese films I think there's a different cultural expectation about the shapes that story can take. Yeah, I often find myself thinking, Oh, we're almost at the end of the movie. And then there's like an hour left film as a Japanese trilogy of, I guess you would call them sci fi films that I really like called 20th Century Boys, which were all released in the same year, like frame ups, the parts really cool idea of a way to release films and likewise like it has just the wildest pacing film to film.
00;09;07;13 - 00;09;33;01 Will Sometimes you'll spend like 40 minutes with this family and this guy trying to learn how to play guitar after an apocalyptic invasion by aliens or something like that. Like it. Very odd decisions about it, but it's even in the context of Japanese film feels very strange. I guess I would describe it as chaotic. And that's even within the story itself, because there's a sense like one of the things that really drives the first half hour is like the police have this level of confusion about what's going on.
00;09;33;16 - 00;09;39;09 Will They can't even agree that there's a pattern at all. You know, or that there is, like, something behind it.
00;09;39;15 - 00;10;02;29 Cassiah Mm hmm. Absolutely. And I think also what you were just talking about, understanding Japanese culture and trying to look into a bit more of the context of the backdrop of the movie. Japanese and Japan has a very high suicide rate. So whether that's something that Saito is trying to sort of dig into, and also interestingly, he grew up in a cult.
00;10;03;10 - 00;10;29;15 Cassiah So I think the sense of is there a cult behind this? Is this a fad? Is this what's going on? It is quite open to interpretation, but I think it really leans into that in-flow and other people can have on you, whether that's pop culture, whether that is a cult or whether it's societal expectations, whatever it might be about how we can really as humans bend to other influences.
00;10;30;08 - 00;10;45;04 Will Yeah, it's interesting. The angle is quite a fascinating one because it's sort of low level within the context of the story overall. It's one of those things where like you can tell the marketers of the film before that was a good selling point for it because it's in or the synopsis is and stuff, but there's never really like a defined cult.
00;10;45;04 - 00;11;10;22 Will We don't see a leader or iconography attached to it except for this tattoo that may or may not have something to do with it. Yeah, especially because there are a lot of stories in Japan and dealing with like Teen Adult Social Division. That's a very common theme, especially in horror. And you think about stuff like Battle Royale and then also a whole kind of spate of horror films that came out at the time that are more well known in the West.
00;11;11;10 - 00;11;14;20 Will There's a film actually that came out the same year called Pulse, and if you've seen that.
00;11;14;20 - 00;11;15;27 Cassiah And I haven't seen Pulse.
00;11;16;19 - 00;11;36;28 Will Is great, is more straightforwardly good than Suicide Club, but similarly, it's about basically evil computers and people using computers as a way of kind of like spreading dissatisfaction. And it's also very chaotic and ambiguous. So I highly recommend there is also that really distinctive green tint. It's like throughout the film, which I really associate with films of this era.
00;11;37;01 - 00;12;02;24 Will Yeah, because they were all like, this came out when I was, I think like eight or nine. I think these were the films I was not allowed to watch. So I kind of associate them with this like childhood fear. There is also a career, a film about cults that came out around the same time, although I was struggling to remember the name of it, which is bad because I wrote Psych about it, so that's terrible.
00;12;02;24 - 00;12;14;15 Cassiah It's also that Netflix documentary that came out really recently about the cults, and I think it was Japan and just yeah, about one very prolific one. One leader.
00;12;15;04 - 00;12;17;13 Will Oh, yes. Yeah. I remember the one that I've ever.
00;12;17;19 - 00;12;18;01 Cassiah Read in.
00;12;18;01 - 00;12;38;20 Will This podcast is a very assertively naughty film. Actually, we should probably touch on that. There is a lot of like flip phones and bad computers kind of floating about, but my favourite thing about it and the thing that I, you know, like with a mysterious film like this, you sometimes feel there's one thing that if you could just understand why that was there, yeah, you'll be able to understand everything else.
00;12;38;29 - 00;12;47;17 Will My one of that is the pop idol group called Desert or Desert. It's not really clear sometimes both.
00;12;48;04 - 00;12;57;18 Cassiah But it's also felt differently throughout the film, which I think is like a purposeful thing. Again, I can't quite figure out why is that? There's reason. Probably, maybe, maybe no reason in it.
00;12;57;20 - 00;13;25;05 Will So they are there's a five piece like Young Women Idol Group Stories in the classic Japanese sense. We have this very aggressively naughty song. It's about emailing people, which is like that bit in the Nelly song where she brings out her phone and types of text into an Excel spreadsheet and they wear these like awful oversized polo shirt dresses while they're singing the song as well, which end up being plot relevant.
00;13;25;08 - 00;13;25;19 Cassiah Yeah.
00;13;26;06 - 00;13;59;10 Will And yeah, like that. They're fascinating because they recur throughout the film. Everyone seems to listen to them like these nurses who kill themselves listen to them before they do it. The main character's family are like obsessed with them and some of their songs seem to mirror the plot in some ways. One of the candidates for possible cult leader talks about one of their songs and how much it means to him at one point and what I can't get my finger on is why they're in the movie, because they never set out with the main characters, and yet their music seems to have some sort of subliminal influence.
00;14;00;06 - 00;14;09;05 Will A character very late on takes numbers from the polo shirt, dresses and uses them to work out a possible subliminal message about suicides, which is never really picked up on.
00;14;09;22 - 00;14;24;15 Cassiah Now and again. That's in the last like 20 minutes of the film. So and there's not been any build up to that per se, apart from the appearance of these singers randomly and always through other mediums of people watching them on TV or radio or etc., etc..
00;14;24;19 - 00;14;39;05 Will Yeah, that's true. We never meet them directly, right? They never feature in the plot. I think one of the characters is sent to a secret concert, supposed to be by them and turns out just to be a meeting of. I think we're supposed to think it's the cult, but it seems to just be children.
00;14;39;22 - 00;14;58;14 Cassiah Which potentially is the cult. You know, it's it's yeah. Very open to interpretation actually in those last few minutes of that sequence, you do see very cult like behave like strange things like they're in that she's like in a box with with it like rabbits and children. It's like what's going on here?
00;14;58;23 - 00;15;19;15 Will And they, they that it's one of the most kind of like disturbing images in the film I think is weirdly for me this she goes on a stage in this like kind of auditorium and about 20 children are like clapping and talking to her about her physical beliefs. Yeah. And they do it kind of in a legion sort of speech style where they will pick up each other sentences and finish them off.
00;15;20;02 - 00;15;34;02 Will The kind of implies like a kind of hive mind or like some kind of joint entity or something like that. And it's very disturbing to me. It's almost the fact that there's very little gore or anything like that in that scene is more disturbing than anything else in it.
00;15;34;10 - 00;15;55;15 Cassiah I mean, I think that is what the film is trying to achieve, is trying to make you feel unsettled and disturbed and like I think it reflects all of us in life grappling for answers and grappling for a sense of what's our point being here, what is our connexion to the world and ourselves? And that is repeated a lot in the film.
00;15;55;18 - 00;16;11;13 Cassiah And these children. So I think the film itself is just this representation of how messy and unclear life is, which I think is part of what makes it brilliant. The other people would say, Oh, that makes it nonsense. And I think both the true.
00;16;13;14 - 00;16;30;18 Will And interesting, the people who are in theory supposed to be behind it. There's a child who constantly calls the police station and kind of coughs after every sentence, which is such a good little bit of detail about kids. They deny that there is anything behind it at all. They say that it's just, you know, people go along with it.
00;16;31;06 - 00;16;34;29 Will And interestingly, the director did make a sequel Slash prequel. I don't know if you've seen that.
00;16;35;05 - 00;16;43;06 Cassiah I haven't seen it. I know. So where it takes place within the events of the girl's first suicide, of the 54 school girls.
00;16;43;06 - 00;17;03;04 Will So I read the plot outline and it's supposed to be made to like clear up some of the elements of the plot, some of the ambiguities. And it does not at all, for my understanding, if anything, it complicates things and implies that most of what happens in the film is misunderstood by the characters in it, which, as you say, in a way is in line with those themes of communication and the failure to understand.
00;17;04;18 - 00;17;28;08 Will I guess for me, like what I found really disturbing in terms of the uneven tone, maybe disturbing the long term, disquieting is the those very ordinary moments, a shot so realistically and portrayed like with realistic acting styles. And then the the deaths of those characters often in the same scene are usually like played for laughs or really.
00;17;28;09 - 00;17;52;01 Cassiah Is the woman when she's like chopping the things, she chops her hand off. And that's such a terrible it's like, right, like really bad prosthetic, prosthetic, really weirdly coloured red blood. And it's definitely not me. You can tell it's not blood. Yeah, very sort of cheap tricks in terms of how they do these things. Again, whether that's part of it and they're ridiculousness of it.
00;17;52;01 - 00;17;57;06 Cassiah So whether he's trying to sort of say, is this even real? Is it happening?
00;17;57;15 - 00;18;11;26 Will Even though I feel like it has to be somewhat deliberate. I was watching it thinking, I know the films are relatively low budget and you can tell because they they have like one or two big set pieces and then everything else is just like people in rooms. Yeah, like very available sets, like an abandoned hospital and things like that.
00;18;12;11 - 00;18;35;13 Will But I was trying to tell like is how much this will purpose, how much of this is just can be weird, how much this is not have enough money. But that first scene where there's like carnival music playing over this really violent, like extremely overdone death sequence of 50 kids. And that was what made me think, okay, this is definitely on purpose because adding that music is something that they could have saved money on.
00;18;35;24 - 00;18;45;26 Will And that was a deliberate choice to do something that was silly. Yeah. And you see, again, that's the scene that really struck me was this conversation between teens on a rooftop of their high school.
00;18;46;03 - 00;18;46;12 Cassiah Yeah.
00;18;46;21 - 00;18;52;06 Will And they all just basically convince each other to throw themselves off. And it's never clear if they're even into it or if it's just.
00;18;52;13 - 00;18;54;20 Cassiah A big joke and. Yeah, yeah.
00;18;54;20 - 00;19;08;04 Will And yet when they land, it's not treated sadly. You just see like a, like a kind of funny explosion of blood up. It's so much so that an ear lands on the roof again, and then the coroner kind of flips it off to the crowd below.
00;19;08;05 - 00;19;31;17 Cassiah And it's and that's definitely a dark humour moment. It's like having it throws it down and I think the film is, is got splattering of dark humour here and there with different characters like the security guard, you know, waking up with the phone and things. And I think with meant to kind of find him as a funny sort of bumbling character.
00;19;32;04 - 00;19;54;25 Cassiah And then obviously he discovers the suicide. He watches one of the nurses kill herself, and then she turns he turns around and there's that jump scare where the two nurses appear in the dark after they're dead. And he's like, look, and it's yeah, it's this constantly changing tone as you're watching it. You really I feel it. You watch it, and you're kind of in like a rollercoaster ride.
00;19;54;25 - 00;20;22;03 Cassiah Because I do appreciate, I think, the film actually, even though it doesn't make the most sense, it doesn't if it was any longer, it would be could go into boring or sort of it's so they're not going somewhere. You're just like, well, what's the point in watching it? But I think because it's short, you kind of just jump and roll with it and then get off the ride of watching and be like, What the hell was that?
00;20;23;07 - 00;20;33;08 Will I think any attempt at explanation would kind of ruin it to one of my favourite horror filmmakers. Yeah, we haven't really talked about. You're primarily a horror filmmaker, is that right?
00;20;33;15 - 00;20;35;05 Cassiah Yeah. Yeah. Horror thriller.
00;20;35;11 - 00;20;55;20 Will So space like I love Dario Argento, the Italian horror filmmaker. A ballplayer is known for this. And his film similarly, like often completely resists explanation and yeah and that's like a lot of people say is not good in his films. I would argue that the films themselves make sense. It's just that the plot doesn't because he doesn't care.
00;20;55;20 - 00;21;17;00 Will And I think likewise here the film itself is actually quite consistent in terms of how it plays with tone and how it like brings out these horrible images. It's just that the plot, he doesn't care. There isn't really an answer. And that's why the sequels he wants to make another one apparently will always be had poorly explained. But I think that's what makes really good horror because it gives it the ability to live on in your head.
00;21;17;28 - 00;21;37;10 Will And I find that a lot of my favourite horror is have like a central symbol that often isn't well explained or particularly like meaningful within the plot, but nevertheless kind of holds onto popular consciousness. So a deep reds the Argento film I think we've in that there's a animatronic doll that rides a trike and it's in one scene.
00;21;37;10 - 00;21;51;25 Will It's like a jump scare. It never comes up, it's never explained before or after. And his whole family, who are the producers of the film, hated it and wanted it all away for the process. And then when they screened it, everyone freaked out about the doll and he was like, Well, that's why, right? That's why it's in the movie.
00;21;51;25 - 00;21;54;13 Will It's a freak people out. It doesn't really need more explanation than that.
00;21;54;21 - 00;22;19;17 Cassiah Yeah, it's kind of it's having things that are methods and tools and on the story, as you say, like plot points or character development or explanation, it's literally it's a tool to incite a reaction in an audience. And I actually agree that I really like horror where it presents you with images or ideas, and actually they sit with you and you then linger with them.
00;22;19;17 - 00;22;26;26 Cassiah And everyone takes different things from different films. And that's kind of the beauty of filmmaking, I think.
00;22;27;11 - 00;22;50;09 Will And so I think that the, the equivalent in this is basically as the scenes of some of these suicides, a role of human skin is left behind in like a white person. And it is like 200 ish bits of human skin, the same size and like sewn together like a long sort of hose like shape. And we never really understand why that's happening.
00;22;50;09 - 00;23;10;21 Will And it seems to be used by whoever's behind this, if anyone, to kind of the police and maybe prefigures some of the actual suicides. We did see it happening right at the end. The use of a plane. One of these things that cuts kernels of wood, which is just like a horrible and absurd image. I don't think you could do that with human skin.
00;23;11;00 - 00;23;20;20 Will Yeah, that's the thing. Like it invites you into this kind of nightmare space that doesn't really require or indeed like react well to explanation.
00;23;21;12 - 00;23;44;24 Cassiah And that's the thing with this plot is you can't try and think about it logically because it doesn't make sense. You know, there are all these people that have killed themselves yet they must have predetermined it if they have their roll of skin on this thing. So it can't just be just of the of the moment. But then you see characters seemingly do on the moment suicide.
00;23;44;25 - 00;23;56;23 Cassiah So yeah, you can't really try and logically compute the order of events and you like, like we said, the plot doesn't make sense and I think that is purposeful.
00;23;57;14 - 00;24;13;09 Will I mean, one of those little details in it that I think leads me towards that interpretation is that it constantly tells you the dates, make sure that you have a very clear chronological timeline of why all this stuff is happening, as if that helps, which it doesn't at all. It doesn't add anything to the film. And I think that's been kind of having fun.
00;24;14;07 - 00;24;35;17 Will The the film actually. But this remind me of the most is another one for you this as a recommendation and you probably haven't seen it because it's very, very rare in the UK. But generally Ito is a Mangaka, a manga maker who is kind of in rising prominence. He had a Netflix anime adaptation this year. Oh yeah. Junji Ito is a nightmare.
00;24;35;18 - 00;24;36;01 Will Just like like.
00;24;36;01 - 00;24;37;26 Cassiah Oh yeah, you know, I've watched some of those.
00;24;38;11 - 00;25;03;13 Will So he made a manga called Ursa Maki Spiral, which is really popular and it's manga form and is being adapted again in the next couple of years. I think Adult Swim are adapting it in a live action adaptation of the noughties that has this same kind of green tint and everything. And they compressed this, I think, 12 year manga into a two hour film and it doesn't make any sense like it is.
00;25;03;13 - 00;25;19;27 Will I mean, it, there's a lot of it, but what's great is that they capture the imagery. So there are these really visceral and like disturbing images of spirals and people just doing things in a kind of nightmarish way. His films, his stories have that kind of nightmare logic in them, which I love. And yeah, I highly recommend it.
00;25;19;27 - 00;25;22;04 Will If you haven't seen it, don't watch the trailer.
00;25;22;15 - 00;25;22;22 Cassiah Right.
00;25;22;24 - 00;25;36;02 Will For some reason is edited exactly the same as the trailer for the 400 Blows. The original oh Francois Truffaut's film, apparently on purpose. I have no idea why I haven't been able to find out that I don't speak Japanese. So I have read an interview.
00;25;36;11 - 00;25;53;15 Cassiah I mean, I love anime, so I'm very up for going to find different anime if that, if that's out there as well as that, I tend not to watch the live action remake of the cinemas, but if there's a decent one I might give it a go. You can see my Attack on time poster over here.
00;25;53;29 - 00;25;55;05 Will Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;25;55;06 - 00;25;55;13 Cassiah I mean.
00;25;55;22 - 00;26;03;13 Will I love like, I love a good anime. I feel like kind of like I do, but musicals and consistently disappointed by it. But I like the idea.
00;26;03;28 - 00;26;16;13 Cassiah Oh yeah. I mean there's, there's plenty of ones that I do not connect with or like, but you just sometimes you find those ones and you just like, Oh my God, this is amazing. It's great. And you just fell in love with it.
00;26;16;21 - 00;26;37;03 Will I did that with Parasite and I did that with that's actually these ones actually are the live action versions. But there's a man of May called Gantz. Oh, okay. That was a manga first. Gantz is like a load of people die on like desperate times, just like accidents and stuff like that. And they come back in a little room in like a high rise and a guy, he's like, in a tank.
00;26;38;04 - 00;26;54;29 Will It's them like assignments to go and kill giant monsters who appear in bits of Japan and they can go back to their normal lives day to day otherwise. But they have to always go and do this thing with like these high tech weapons and they get score like like an arcade game style score every time they do it.
00;26;54;29 - 00;27;16;06 Will The two live action movies, which are a lot of fun, I don't think they're particularly good, but they have a lot of good ideas and them of like good visual sense. Yeah, it has the normal kind of Netflix adaptation style problems like F9 did raise is an interesting idea and I was also struck, I was reading critical reactions to this and someone compared the ending of this to Neon Genesis Evangelion.
00;27;16;10 - 00;27;17;07 Cassiah Oh yeah, I read.
00;27;17;07 - 00;27;36;20 Will That because the very final note of the film, you this person whose story you have been following for the last 20 minutes, we believe that she's been prepped to basically part of this cult, and she enters with a load of other women into the same chip station that we see in the opening of the film. Yeah. And then she crosses eyes with a detective she knows and she just doesn't do anything.
00;27;36;20 - 00;27;45;03 Will She gets on the train and leaves is so wild. Like such a wild way to finish your film, this completely inert image.
00;27;45;23 - 00;28;10;19 Cassiah Yeah. And I think there could be more that that action is saying because this idea of how you're I think what the encouragement of these suicides are from this cult, whoever is is this idea of who are you connected to? And if you're connected to the dead and then you die, you're more connected that way than necessarily than your living.
00;28;10;29 - 00;28;35;06 Cassiah And I think in a way, it's maybe her deciding not to die or commit suicide is stopping that connexion because the skin is all connected. And I think it's her skins in there, but then she's not going to commit suicide. And whether that stops the chain, I don't know. This is me again making my own ideas from from this very unclear and not specific plot or ending.
00;28;35;29 - 00;28;52;11 Will I think that's a great that's a great read. And I think if the film is about anything, it is about the connexion kind of stuff and for what it's worth, like I feel like as a satire, it largely doesn't work because it is too interested in its own weirdness, which I think is, you know, so specific to what he thinks and feels that it doesn't really make it applicable.
00;28;52;21 - 00;29;12;19 Will No, that doesn't make it. That's not a problem. I don't mind that it's in there. And I do like the the very light elements of satire that we see is basically like a large amount of the runtime is a load of old dudes in offices trying to work out what teens think. Yeah. And the only person who seems to work out is a teenager who has just spontaneously worked out.
00;29;12;29 - 00;29;23;00 Will And it implies she even kind of understood what might happen before the attacks happened. So that's like this idea that adults don't understand. Teens kind of taken up to a million.
00;29;23;00 - 00;29;24;00 Cassiah Yeah, absolutely.
00;29;24;01 - 00;29;31;16 Will Again, that's the thing that kind of reminds me of stories and also Akira to some extent, because they often also have those themes of like teens are inexplicable.
00;29;32;16 - 00;29;41;00 Cassiah I love battle overall. That was another option that I was going to suggest actually, if you thought Suicide Club was too obscure, like go, I'll suggest Battle Royale instead.
00;29;41;00 - 00;29;57;27 Will Oh, it was great. It also even has a sequel that isn't as good. It doesn't try to explain it. It doesn't do a very good job. I'm always interested by that real because I think it's a really emphatically and symbolically dense film. I find that every time I watch it, I feel completely differently about what the film's about or its focus.
00;29;58;03 - 00;30;22;12 Cassiah And differently about the characters as well. I think in such a short amount of time, the characters are really well-drawn and even when it plays on these stereotypes and actually I do think that is a strength of Suicide Club as well as even though I feel like the whole film is just all just fleeting moments with characters, or we're just seeing fleeting moments of other things.
00;30;22;12 - 00;30;43;02 Cassiah You know how documentary style. There's just a scene where and the detectives on a tube or train and there's just purposeful closeups of other people looking kind of depressed or distracted or anxious. And and that's why the whole film, I said, just feels like these images of fleeting moments that just pass and kind of the fragility of life, I suppose.
00;30;43;20 - 00;31;06;14 Cassiah But I think his performance is is actually really strong and rooted characters. Yeah. Yeah. The main detective, his performance is actually very rooted in reality. And even though it's very out of the blue that he gets that phone call when his family have just died and he's listening and the kids talking to him and then he calls him, you know, you're scum.
00;31;06;14 - 00;31;13;22 Cassiah You're scum of the earth to the detective. And he's like crying. Your you felt quite felt that. Yeah. Like, oh.
00;31;13;22 - 00;31;32;12 Will And in a way, that's sometimes the most impressive acting is like watching Laura Dern Inland Empire, where she has no idea what's going on, but it's still making you feel something about it. Yeah. Yeah, I. I think it's significant that, like, crossroads main scenes are with his family and being unable to get them to listen that we see early on.
00;31;32;12 - 00;31;39;11 Will He wants a family meeting and then the pop idols interrupt on the TV and he can't have that meeting. So yeah, he's definitely the centre of it.
00;31;39;15 - 00;32;02;15 Cassiah And also I think that's interesting because the again, the main question that is shared in the film is I you connected to people and he clearly wants that connexion with his family. But will they have a better connexion with them in death? Because I know maybe it's quiet that you have all this noise of pop cultural influence around you and around them.
00;32;02;15 - 00;32;12;27 Cassiah So, you know, is that is it is that what is driving people to do it? Is that what the CO is is brainwashing people to start to believe and possibly.
00;32;13;29 - 00;32;33;25 Will I find it like, you know what you're saying about it. It's kind of structured like a series of vignettes that has a loose thread of character, kind of coming in and out of the story. A Mitsuko, you know, surname here is the kind of potential protagonist I guess I would describe her as for the last 10 minutes or so, we meet her early on in a small scene, like you said.
00;32;34;07 - 00;32;44;09 Will And I'm struck by that because she gets hit by her boyfriend, who has just jumped off a building. So he's dying on the street and he's kind of like happily like, oh, I almost hit you. Isn't that cool?
00;32;44;12 - 00;32;45;22 Cassiah Yeah, it's ironic.
00;32;46;06 - 00;33;08;19 Will Yeah, it's a really interesting moment, and I think we even really get it confirmed, if that's to do with the main set of suicides. It seems to have happened kind of independently of it. But like you said, you only meet those characters for like a moment. You get so much out of those little conversations. And then it's interesting when she comes back and actually does get cast that later on versus everyone else, I mean, partly because almost everyone else dies.
00;33;08;19 - 00;33;27;12 Will So, yes, difficult to do, but I guess that's what. Yeah, that does remind me of that far out of the way because likewise I don't if you've read the the original versions, but I think it is a novel first and then it was a manga after the movie and each adaptation does it differently. But there's a lot of little stories that are picked up on by the film.
00;33;27;22 - 00;33;33;13 Will The one that always gets me is I think that's four or five girls who have looked after each other really well too much.
00;33;33;14 - 00;33;43;19 Cassiah And then they will turn on each other in the accident. Yeah, because one of them is like eating the poisoned food. And then she was meant to give it to someone else again. That whole scene is great.
00;33;44;12 - 00;34;08;00 Will Yeah, and that's basically self-contained. I don't think any of the characters really run across those people afterwards. But what interests me about Bar Royale is that my focus in the film changes every time I watch it. So the first time I watched it, I was like, This is a fun, kind of schlocky sci fi movie. The second time I was like, Wow, this is a really melancholy story about Takeshi Kitano kind of like dealing with his life and this awful world he lives in.
00;34;08;12 - 00;34;27;20 Will And then the last time I watched it, I was thinking about it from the perspective, being a very melancholy story about teens and like trying to relate to your peers. And so in that sense, it's got a real depth to it. I wonder if I'll come back to this I'm sure it's only currently available. The UK I should be clear on like a 240 p rip on youtube is hard coded subtitles.
00;34;27;20 - 00;34;29;09 Will Not very good. Yes.
00;34;29;09 - 00;34;40;06 Cassiah Yeah. I watched this. I called last night on YouTube. It was 720 though, so I found a 7:20 p.m.. Oh, that was very exciting. I stopped watching the two for you and I was like, Well, I see there's a better one on here.
00;34;40;14 - 00;34;41;10 Will Oh, yeah, it's muddy.
00;34;41;16 - 00;35;03;29 Cassiah Yeah. And I mean, I think even less than ba or owl, you know, it's like, doesn't really fit into a genre easily. Like, even less of a horror because yes, it's got these ridiculous bloody moments, but that's kind of about it. It's got that one jump scare, which is sort of like a ghostly moment, and that's kind of about it.
00;35;03;29 - 00;35;27;13 Cassiah Then it's got this horror and then these real moments of some of the characters, really emotional drama, but then other characters, you play things very sort of minimal. And then you've got I know that you were talking about satire earlier, but I think the character of Genesis is quite satirical, this maniacal, egocentric. He kind of plays like he wants to be the villain.
00;35;27;13 - 00;35;36;02 Cassiah He wants to take all the glory and basically just want the fame and the take the credit for the suicides that are happening. He's not actually the leader of the Suicide Club.
00;35;36;17 - 00;35;38;11 Will Yeah, as far as we understand.
00;35;38;11 - 00;35;39;15 Cassiah As far as we know.
00;35;39;16 - 00;36;02;14 Will We're actually never given that exactly. But yeah. And he's also played by a very famous Japanese musician of the time. I can't remember his name. There's possibly real animal abuse in that scene. Japan's animal abuse laws are nowhere near too strict as ours. And you can actually sell crush fetish videos online, which is what he's doing, basically crushing animals with his feet.
00;36;02;24 - 00;36;16;00 Will So it's unclear that that scene was cut for international release. So, yeah, it's unclear if that's actually for real. I hope not. I don't think so. There's very little real looking stuff in any of the film, so I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly did that for real.
00;36;16;00 - 00;36;23;12 Cassiah Oh, God, I hope not. I mean, you don't because you don't see the animals at all. You just hear them and see movement. So like it would be.
00;36;24;27 - 00;36;25;21 Will Maybe we're watching the cut.
00;36;25;21 - 00;36;27;11 Cassiah Version of Mad, perhaps. Yeah. Yeah.
00;36;28;10 - 00;36;49;02 Will I don't think it's real for what it's worth, but yeah, that's the kind of ambiguity that the film kind of encourages and I should say so the other question I was asked people on this podcast is if you were trying to sell this movie to someone to watch it right in the way that your sister sold it to you and you wanted to give them like, I don't know, like a two minute chunk of the film.
00;36;50;05 - 00;36;58;01 Will What bit do you think is like the best indication of it? And it's difficult because, as you say, so much of this comes down to like a very strange tone that kind of builds up over time.
00;36;58;10 - 00;37;20;19 Cassiah Yeah, I actually think the rooftop scene where the high school kids are talking about the suicides that happening and then make sort of a joke of it and you can't tell if they're being serious about why don't we make a suicide club and some of them join in. And then suddenly there's a group of 20 of them who will run to the top of the building, but one of them hangs back and is like, this is you're being stupid.
00;37;20;19 - 00;37;40;11 Cassiah Like, like, I don't find that funny. So you go off and do whatever and then they end up jumping. But then three of them hang back and don't do it. And then one of them gets pushed off by another one who's like, We have to do, we have to. And there's another one left up there, but then another group of teachers and other students run to them and they're like, What the hell are you doing?
00;37;41;00 - 00;38;09;05 Cassiah And I, I feel like that's a good representation of the film. My role is and kind of what it's trying to say about people easily being or indoctrinated or, you know, things not having a logical explanation like these teenagers just deciding to do this. But then the fractions between them and then obviously other people realising this is that's not safe, what are you doing?
00;38;09;16 - 00;38;11;21 Cassiah And yeah.
00;38;12;07 - 00;38;26;27 Will That is a fight scene. Yeah, it's a great choice. And I think it's also maybe the most like self-contained storytelling in the film. Yeah. And it was a bit more reserved than the opening with The Train, I think is another good example. But it's, it's very cartoonish in terms of its violence.
00;38;26;27 - 00;39;01;09 Cassiah And just in terms of the violence, it's it's kind of interesting because there are these very Suki clearly fake over the top moments and obviously extremely serious in terms of what it is actually suggesting people are doing. But then there are other moments of violence which they he kind of hides, which I find is, again, that it's predictable in its unpredictability, in the fact because there's a really horrible scene in that same place where you keep the animals, where one of them is raping and murdering a girl.
00;39;01;09 - 00;39;18;06 Cassiah But all under she and you actually don't see any of it. And I'm very glad that they don't do any gratuitous showing of anything. But I'm surprised by the filmmaker, the fact that he didn't he made the choice not to. Yeah, but again, I think it's that thing of keeping you on your toes I suppose.
00;39;19;05 - 00;39;40;16 Will Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen. Moment to moment, even down to like the level of violence that's portrayed. And just immediately before that that those girls are kidnapped and they put a sheet around their heads and pull them back, which is probably the most visceral bit of violence. And I think, yeah, it's interesting that despite the Gore levels, almost all of the violence in the film is self inflicted just inherently for the premise.
00;39;40;16 - 00;39;59;03 Will But that's of the very few bits that isn't. And I think that that does make it stand out as well. As you say, it's like very destabilising to reveal the main villain 30 minutes from the end and then about 8 minutes later revealed that he's not the main villain. Yeah, and there is no villain. You know, maybe it's just like a very strange, difficult thing to do.
00;39;59;15 - 00;40;19;27 Will But yeah, that scene with the rooftop is great, and all the things that really strikes me about it is you were mentioning like, you know, it's hard to pin this down in a genre. I've seen it called horror, which, as you say, I think structurally is not true, because I think it has the kind of build up. I seen it called a psychological thriller, which I think is also not true because there isn't really enough realism in the writing to do that.
00;40;19;27 - 00;40;39;23 Will I've seen it called a supernatural thriller, which I think is up for interpretation, because I don't know that there's anything clearly supernatural going on. And weirdly, like, I keep going back to that old way of referring to before thrillers resisted suspense films. Yeah, they used to call them, like the Hitchcock stuff, because that is the only tone that's consistent is suspense.
00;40;39;23 - 00;40;54;27 Will And that rooftop sequence is a really good example of it. The thing that strikes me about it is that those kids, as they get up onto that, the side of the roof and eventually go the whole way through it, you're unclear how much they're joking with each other, and they seem to be unclear about how much they're joking with each other, too.
00;40;55;05 - 00;40;59;00 Will One of them says, Why are we really doing this? And the other one says, Yeah, of course. But then laughs.
00;40;59;06 - 00;41;00;07 Cassiah Yeah, exactly.
00;41;00;11 - 00;41;10;21 Will So it's sort of that's that's the moment for the job. It's very unclear what will happen. And I guess the film is often because it keeps you on the back foot is pushing you to think, how far are they going to go with us?
00;41;11;00 - 00;41;11;12 Cassiah Mm hmm.
00;41;11;22 - 00;41;23;03 Will And there are kids like really young kids at the centre of the film's worst moments near the end. And so basically, yeah, they will go as far as they want and they really do very intense.
00;41;23;06 - 00;41;51;17 Cassiah Mm. It is like definitely out of all the films I've seen in my life, this one really has, has just stuck with me for these have many years since I've seen it and actually I hadn't rewatched it since I first saw it. So I watched it back in 2013 or 2014 and then I watched it again last night and I still had very similar sort of visceral reaction to it.
00;41;51;28 - 00;42;05;08 Cassiah It's like, Oh my gosh, this is intense. And like you say, well, like I said, that you do feel like you're on some sort of rollercoaster ride, but you can't see where you're going or why this is happening. You kind of surrender to it.
00;42;06;07 - 00;42;20;12 Will Do you think it influenced your filmmaking at all, like a touchstone that you could kind of talk to other people about? I know when I'm on set sometimes, oh, like before in the prep period, I would show people films that I think are kind of touching like similar.
00;42;20;12 - 00;42;48;12 Cassiah I think perhaps certain elements of it because it is such a film which is made up of these tableaus of vignettes where it is. Betty there may be certain sequences or scenarios. I would reference it, for example, you working on a feature which is about these girls in detention and it turns into this sort of battery situation that I would probably reference that rooftop scene and just trying to get that and those dynamics too between high schoolers.
00;42;48;12 - 00;43;16;15 Cassiah And then how the the sort of where the planned or accidental violence happens. And, you know, you look at that scene, for example, or if there's something more surreal and obscure that I wanted to to have in my film, I might reference the scene where he's got all the people in the bowling alley and the like, the white sheets, and he's just sat there in his glittery trousers.
00;43;17;03 - 00;43;18;15 Will He does a musical number.
00;43;18;15 - 00;43;23;03 Cassiah Yeah, he does. He starts singing, and you're just. It's very bizarre. I might have just a.
00;43;23;03 - 00;43;35;14 Will Great line, too. Yeah. And he's like, I've had delusions of grandeur since I was a child. It's just like a very funny way of putting it. I think that's also there. There's apparently quite bad English subtitles, so I don't know how much of that is just that translation.
00;43;36;01 - 00;43;55;00 Cassiah Yeah, I remember I was watching, so I was watching the film last night. My partner was playing poker one half watching the film, and it got to the bit where he appeared, where and Genesis appeared, and I said to him, Oh, this is where it gets weird. And he's like, It's just about to get weird. It's already been quite weird.
00;43;55;09 - 00;44;01;11 Cassiah The truth that it's about to get even stranger now and then. Yeah, I had forgotten he sang that song and I was like.
00;44;01;27 - 00;44;25;14 Will Huh? Yeah. It's a story where it's caught on to. It just is in one of the nastiest bits of the film. And yeah, like you say, it's just like constantly searching for a way to keep you on the back foot and succeeding. I think for the most part, it is interesting that when all that stuff drops off and within some of those vignettes, I think you do see very strong technical directing of suspense and horror and not be in the hospital with the two women who commit suicide immediately after the opening.
00;44;25;20 - 00;44;44;13 Will I think it's a really good example of like tension directing because very little happens in it. And if you are misdirected the whole way through about what is happening and it's got some of the more over-the-top acting in the film as well from the guy, the comedy relief. And yet it is a very strong bit of it. You feel like kind of what's going to happen the whole time.
00;44;44;28 - 00;45;10;20 Cassiah And I think it's so powerful because you've had that very shocking quick cut opening with shaky camera and then suddenly you come into this very slow, very considered scene and suddenly there is tension. And also just it's so dark and all you see is the light from the flashlight looking around and yeah, really suddenly then you feel you're in a horror and then another scene later, you suddenly feel like you're in something else.
00;45;11;10 - 00;45;24;08 Will Even that it's a really strange scene. I mean, I think about it because they're in a completely empty hospital. It seems. Have no patients whatsoever. Africans run around screaming as need to free people in the hospital and at night. Why are they there? I don't. Yeah, it's very strange.
00;45;24;23 - 00;45;51;29 Cassiah And I think it goes this film particularly and like you were talking about it, it goes back to the bias of us as an audience thinking we know what these settings are and what our expectations of these environments are. Actually, yes, maybe we're completely misinterpreting everything. Maybe that's not a hospitable maybe they aren't even police detectives. You know, there's so much that we could be just filling in the gaps for ourselves.
00;45;51;29 - 00;46;01;27 Cassiah But what we don't really have any choice because there are a lot of gaps in this film, but maybe we are just completely reinterpreting a lot of it. Wrong, who knows?
00;46;03;11 - 00;46;14;13 Will Oh, that sounds like a lovely, a lovely point to stop, because as you say, we'll never know. So why worry about it? Just sit back and kind of feel the vibes. But I wonder if there's anything that you want to talk about that we haven't talked about yet?
00;46;15;09 - 00;46;29;02 Cassiah Um, I don't think so. I think we've covered all the bizarre and the interesting angles of this film, and I mean, I think that the title of this is, you know, films that people should watch. Right?
00;46;29;18 - 00;46;31;07 Will And yes. Oh, yes.
00;46;31;18 - 00;46;54;19 Cassiah I'd say if you want to watch something that's challenging, that you don't really have a clue what's going on and you just want to take different things from it, roll with it. If you're looking for a very conventional horror film, something with a clear plot, with some sense of gratification, as an audience member wouldn't encourage you to watch this.
00;46;55;04 - 00;47;09;02 Cassiah But if you want to challenge yourself, if you want to just go for a visceral experience and understand that you're going to be making a lot of your own meanings and exercising your brain while you're watching it go for it.
00;47;09;11 - 00;47;17;29 Will Yeah, I agree. And I mean, if you want a straightforward horror film from Japan in this time period, it's like the heyday of Japanese horror. So there's plenty of choices.
00;47;18;02 - 00;47;20;11 Cassiah Yeah. Have to audition stuff up.
00;47;20;11 - 00;47;38;00 Will Yeah. And if you want to think ambiguous and good, unambiguously good pulse is very good. So I highly recommend that there's even like a lot of Korean films from around the same period as well. So there's plenty of options, but there is like singular about it. Like, as you say, the name of the podcast or the name of the series is why you should watch.
00;47;38;00 - 00;47;52;12 Will And I people do tend to tend to pick stuff they like, which I think makes sense. But I've always said people like it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be interesting. Yeah, and I think this film is undeniably interesting, if very confusing.
00;47;52;12 - 00;47;53;01 Cassiah So yes.
00;47;54;04 - 00;47;57;01 Will AS Yeah, thanks so much for chatting. Is there anything else you want to plug?
00;47;57;13 - 00;48;14;00 Cassiah I don't think so. I think if you want to check out some nineties nostalgic movie podcasts, podcasting, check out one of us as a filmmaker. But otherwise, you know, everyone have a great day and just enjoy your life and find that connectivity wherever you can.
00;48;14;16 - 00;48;18;29 Will Yeah, it's a nice sunny day today. It's a good day to sit inside and watch this grim Japanese horror film.
00;48;19;00 - 00;48;21;10 Cassiah Yeah, exactly. Why not?
00;48;21;10 - 00;48;22;02 Will Thanks so much, Cassiah.
00;48;22;06 - 00;48;22;28 Cassiah Thank you.
00;48;23;28 - 00;48;39;22 Will Thanks for listening. To see more film reviews, video essays and commentaries like this one, subscribe to Indietrix Film Reviews on YouTube.
Funfairs, truancy and typewriters: it's time to discuss a bonafide classic, Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows. Joining me for this conversation is Tara Creme, a film composer whose previous credits include documentaries Seahorse and March for Dignity. Tara’ brings her personal journey into cinema to this discussion, making for a fascinating conversation.
If you have questions about the film, film in general, or anything indietrix-related, get in touch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Willwebbful https://twitter.com/indietrixfilm indietrix film reviews is a movie review channel hosted by Will Webb with a wide view of cinema, taking in arthouse, indie and blockbuster movies with lots of analysis and discussion. Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indietrix Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/indietrix Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indietrix Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/Willwebbful/
In Golden Bear-winning drama Alcarràs, the Solé family, peach farmers in the titular region of Spain, have until the end of summer before they will be removed from their land. Joining me for this conversation is director Carla Simón. Her first film, Summer 1993, was an autobiographical story from her childhood; in our chat here, she discusses broadening her scope, working with actors and crew to create a naturalistic style, and some surprising inspirations. The film is now out in UK cinemas and will soon be available internationally on MUBI. Listen to our chat to find out more.
Want to see Michael Caine's John Lennon impression?
In a dystopian future where mankind is infertile, Theo lives a disaffected existence until his ex-wife employs him to escort a young refugee across the UK, unaware that she is the only known pregnant woman in the world.
Joining me for this conversation is James DeLisio, one of the hosts of the Socratic Cinema podcast, as well as a maker of video essays on their YouTube channel. James has some fascinating insights into the movie, so I hope you enjoy listening.
Listen to our chat to find out more.
Cowboys! Country songs! John Wayne's sensitive side!
In this classic western, a stubborn small-town sheriff rounds up a posse, including the town drunk, a young stranger and a disabled old man to keep a criminal in jail, away from the reach of his ruthless rancher brother.
Joining me for this conversation is Will DiGravio, a video essayist and podcaster who brings a very special expertise in Rio Bravo to the table. Listen to our chat to find out more.
In this episode I'm joined by Syd Heather, filmmaker, to chat about Strictly Ballroom, the 1995 film directed by Baz Luhrmann. Be prepared for chats about camp, Luhrmann's bewitching directorial style, and a very big Coca Cola sign. (And if we make any out of date references to an upcoming Elvis flick, it's because this was recorded a year ago).
Syd's great documentary Micropubs: The New Local is currently available on demand and touring the UK: https://micropubdoc.com/
You can find him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/syd_heather
If you have questions about the film, film in general, or anything indietrix-related, get in touch on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Willwebbful
https://twitter.com/indietrixfilm
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
What's your first family movie memory? Did you sneak downstairs to watch a late night action movie? Or was it a trip to the cinema to see something with giant spiders in it?
Recorded back in the UK's second lockdown, this episode is a conversation between me and a very special guest- my dad! We start off with childhood movie memories, how divorced parents divide up movie franchises, and spin off into a wide-ranging chat about Star Trek, Carrie Fisher and the future of film. Hope you enjoy listening.
Let me know your early movie memories by getting in touch on Twitter:
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Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
It's that not-very-regular time you're always waiting for- here's my round-up of reviews from July 2021. Featuring Fear Street, Deerskin and Martin Eden.
Black Widow and The Suicide Squad finally end a long gap without any new superhero movie releases; it’s an interesting time to cast our minds back to the late 90s, where superhero cinema was on the ropes and looking like yesterday’s news.
Joining me to discuss this topic is David Molofsky, Editor-In-Cape of A Place To Hang Your Cape (www.ap2hyc.com), the premiere source of British indie comics news and reviews as well as plenty of superhero content. We sat down to discuss Steel, Spawn and Blade, a triptych of 90s superhero films that experimented with the established format and in some ways prefigured the challenges and successes the genre would face over the next 20 years.
By the time you hear this, England may or may not be in the Euros. But in other big screen news, here's a round-up of my reviews from June 2021. Featuring Capone, Palm Springs, The Hunt, Gretel and Hansel, Monster Hunter, and Awake.
In this episode I'm joined by Arjun Sajip, film writer and programmer (www.twitter.com/ArjSaj) to chat about The Hudsucker Proxy, the 1994 film directed by the Coen brothers.
In the movie, Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is fresh off the bus in New York City, 1959, and lands a job in the mailroom of the monolithic Hudsucker Industries on the same day its director commits suicide. Norville is suddenly propelled to the directorship of the company, attracting the attention of ace reporter Amy Archer, who smells a rat. Both are unaware that Norville’s change in fortunes is part of a scheme by villainous board member Sidney J Mussburger (Paul Newman) to buy a controlling interest in Hudsucker Industries, and no-one is prepared for the impact of Norville’s amazing new business idea… for kids.
You can check out Arjun's writing here: https://oldrockinchair.wordpress.com/
If you have questions about the film, film in general, or anything indietrix-related, get in touch on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Willwebbful
https://twitter.com/indietrixfilm
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
In this episode we’re discussing The Others, the 2001 film directed by Alejandro Amenàbar. In the movie, Grace (Nicole Kidman) lives with her two children, Ann and Nicolas, in a large empty manor on Jersey in 1945. The children are allergic to sunlight, so the manor is perpetually dark and Grace is always on edge. As the children begin to tell stories about speaking with ghosts, and Grace herself starts to experience strange phenomena, her carefully-balanced state of mind starts to fall apart.
I'm joined by director Ellie Rogers, (https://twitter.com/EllieRogersDir) who brings lots of filmmaking insight to this really fascinating movie.
If you have questions about the film, film in general, or anything indietrix-related, get in touch on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Willwebbful
https://twitter.com/indietrixfilm
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
Just under two weeks til cinemas re-open in the UK, here's a round-up of my reviews from April 2021. Includes Undine, Godzilla vs Kong, Chaos Walking and The Reckoning.
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
In this episode we’re discussing Knife+Heart, the 2018 film directed by Yann Gonzalez. In the movie, gay porn producer Anne (Vanessa Paradis) is forced to shut down production and investigate when a series of killings target her former cast and crew.
I'm joined by critic and curator Elle Haywood, (https://twitter.com/ellekhaywood) who provides a really fascinating perspective on this singular horror movie!
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
In this episode we’re discussing Letter from an Unknown Woman, the 1948 film directed by Max Ophüls. In the movie, concert pianist Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdain) receives a letter from an anonymous woman (Joan Fontaine), describing a romance with him which becomes an obsession and ends in tragedy.
I'm joined by film critic Ben Flanagan, who in addition to bylines for MUBI and Vague Visages also edits Cinema Year Zero, a slow criticism journal: https://cinemayearzero.com/
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
In this episode we’re discussing the long-awaited 2017 TV series / film Twin Peaks: The Return, directed by David Lynch. It's a series that totally defies explanation, so let's just say it involves Kyle McLachlan, a murder in a small town, and lots of heavy red drapes.
I'm joined by cinematographer Rob Ellis, who alongside his film work also runs a fantastic YouTube channel about lights, lenses, cameras and more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkUqsfGFBCDJYQpixh0Wxww
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
Creepshow marks the collaboration between two horror greats- Stephen King and George Romero- and is filled with quotable moments, kitsch visuals and seriously good gore effects. But it lost something with each successive sequel, including its key creatives. In this deep dive, I look back on what made the original film so special, and why its sequels failed to pass muster.
This podcast is adapted from my video essays on Creepshow, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/xUQ15cMKT10
Facing up to big questions about life, death and the world beyond with a typically dry British sense of humour, Powell and Pressburger's classic A Matter of Life and Death is a favourite of Martin Scorcese. Here to discuss why the technicolor world of the film is so appealing half a century later is film critic Laura Venning.
Read some more of Laura's work here:
https://lwlies.com/articles/my-brilliant-career-gillian-armstrong-feminised-australian-cinema/
https://www.girlsontopstees.com/read-me/2020/10/30/finding-the-missing-girl-the-fractured-fictional-lives-of-shirley-jackson
And follow Laura on Twitter: https://twitter.com/laura_venning
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
In The Mood For Love was voted the second best movie of the century in Sight&Sound, but has only just received a high quality remaster. Here to discuss director Wong Kar-Wai's melancholic, bittersweet romantic masterpiece is YouTube film critic Laura Keeble.
Check out Laura's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrDqrJ666lcD_Xl6JKkPGyQ
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
indietrix is a film review and discussion podcast, where host Will Webb (hi) discusses movies and dives deep on cult classics and mainstream favourites with a range of critic and filmmaker guests.
For more film reviews, video essays and discussion, watch indietrix on YouTube: www.youtube.com/indietrix
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.
Princess Mononoke is one of the great anime classics and one of the best Studio Ghibli films, but its high stakes, complex fantasy lore and surprisingly dark themes can put off fans of director Hayao Miyazaki's softer, lighter films. I sat down for a chat with YouTube film critic Hizzy Hay to find out just why you should watch Princess Mononoke.
For more film reviews, video essays and discussion, watch indietrix on YouTube: www.youtube.com/indietrix
All That Film podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-that-film/id1467011179
Hizzy Hay YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcp2bMXGKiWt7Ct1bF3cLw
Music: "Glass Android" by Lee Rosevere, available on the album Music For Podcasts.