Fantasia 2011: FRIEND OF FLIES (Short Film, Short Review)

When a boy is picked on by his peers, or by life in general, he imagines his own personal reign of terror involving a lot of sugar and a lot of insects.  Mad scientists, zeppelins and Nazi rallies and death camps are all splashed in an orgy of blood and fascism to make the film audaciously irresponsible, yet it is cloaked in a sad whimsy of the bullied creative types and their revenge fantasies.  We can all be our own monsters, but Friend of Flies (which perhaps could have been titled 'Lord of the Flies') paints the revenge as the domain of the melancholy.  And yet, it is still a surprisingly fun short that whets the palette (mightily) for whatever follows (in this case it was Miike's equally anarchic Ninja Kids.)