Fantasia 2013 Gets All Wrapped Up With Our Top Picks and Reviews

What was your favorite film, overall?

Andrew Mack: Big Bad Wolves. Not only is it a decent thriller in the vein of Park's Vengeance trilogy. But it takes that violence to the next level while also managing to be hilarious as well. Very few movies have made me clamp my hand over my mouth to keep myself from yelling out profanities in surprise. And very few films make me laugh this much too. Is it okay to laugh during a movie when police are torturing a suspected child killer? Apparently.

Kurt Halfyard: Broken Circle Breakdown, the bittersweet Flemish melodrama from Felix van Groeningen involving love, loss, and bluegrass musical numbers had an overwhelming emotional effect on me as I took it in with a packed house at Concordia's J.A. de Sève theatre. The movie is manipulative in the best possible ways without losing one bit of its earnestness and integrity. At one point I looked around and half the audience was crying, the tears reflecting back towards the front of the room the light coming from the screen. Powerful and quite sophisticated storytelling (the film is told out of order for maximum effect) and to incredible lead performances, between this and The Misfortunates, anything from van Groeningen is an instant must see, and Broken Circle Breakdown is in the running for my favourite film of the year.

Justin Delcoux: The Great Passage is a small Japanese epic about a group of people writing a dictionary over a period of fifteen years. It's not overly dramatic, nor does it ever attempt for any grandiose statements, but it has got subtle moments of character that left a lasting impact.

Greg Christie: Would it be some form of a social faux pas if I listed a theatrical play? Title 66 productions' rendition of Clive Barker's sprawling epic appropriately named The History of the Devil may have been the most impressive and dazzling work of storytelling that I experienced during my time in Montreal. Hand-picked by Mitch Davis after a brief run earlier in the year, History of the Devil is three hours of funny, intellectually stimulating, haunting, beautiful, and visceral material. Devil garnered a lot of popularity in Europe where in played in London for 2 years before touring the rest of the continent but it's only received a few scant productions in North America. This was a rare chance to see a masterful piece of theatre performed by developing masters and it was by far the most memorable thing I saw at Fantasia this year. Otherwise, if I have to choose a film, it'd be Resurrection of a Bastard.

What was your biggest disappointment?

Kurt Halfyard: Hardly the worst film I saw, but I was utterly disappointed that I got zero emotional connection with Darren Paul Fisher's OXV: The Manual. A science fiction film big on ideas, ambitious in structure and storytelling on a micro budget deserves some love, but since the film fails to generate any feeling with its core love story, well, that has to be written down as a failure on a fundamental level.

Greg Christie: I expected to be left unimpressed with You're Next but secretly hoped to be proven wrong with my assumptions. The hype has just been so damn strong for this, and I don't understand any of it; not at all. It's a flaccid excuse for a thriller, completely devoid of any genuine thrills. My only other disappointment was not being around for the first two weeks.

Andrew Mack: Zombie Hunter. Really not so much about the film but because I knew in my heart it was going to be crap. I went anyways because another reason I was at Fantasia was to look for possible titles for a film festival I help program and ZH stood a chance of possibly being considered for one of our midnighters. To which I say 'Nay nay'. Look. If you create a monster that looms near three feet above everyone else and is all muscle then why in Zeus's name does it stagger like a drunken hobo? It is all frakking muscle!!! There is a gajillion (or other suitable outlandish exaggeration) more kilojoules of stored energy in this thing's pinky and my grandmother could still hobble slowly away from what was on that screen. And she has a bum hip, a walker and doesn't like going outside because there are wolves out there.

Justin Decloux: Gatchaman was a really low blow on the last night of the festival. I could have easily done without. It wasn't awful, but it was missed opportunity on every front.

What was your top discovery of the fest?

Greg Christie: The Weight. I can't explain why I was so inexplicably moved by Kyu- Hwan Jeon's new film about a mortician and his transgendered brother. I'm fully well aware that it's an outrageous film and it's impossible to recommend. It's far too graphic for those who I think could appreciate the themes, and it's simply too silly for those who can otherwise handle the material. I've already heard peers referring to The Weight as the Airplane of art house melodrama misery porn. Yes, feel free to judge away at me but it's one of the few films I was able to catch that's stuck with me. I think there were better discoveries made at Fantasia that I couldn't be there for such as The Broken Circle Breakdown. And there were plenty of films that I did see that were far more entertaining and that would serve me and everyone else better to praise. But those films will eventually get distribution and I doubt The Weight will, making it feel that much more like a rare discovery.

Justin Decloux: The thing that impressed me the most was a 35MM screening of a TV Movie from 1975 called The Night that Panicked America. It's a re-creation of Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds that simultaneously shows the reactions of a group of people that believed that aliens were invading the United States. It's got comedy, social satire, drama and romance, all wrapped up in a fast paced package that also serves as fond look at putting together live radio. Vic Morrow gives a great performance as a father that is forced to do the unthinkable.

Andrew Mack: Bushido Man. The one sub-genre that I am most discerning of is action. I will never claim to be an expert on it but I feel I know how to tell when cinematic violence of a face-punchy nature is done well. And in Bushido Man oh is it done so well. Better than that, it was made on next to no budget by a bunch of guys who were tired of action cinema in their home country so they picked up a camera, went out the woods, and filmed each other getting punched in the face. Bushido Man has some of the tightest action choreography in recent memory. And it is also damned entertaining too. I did not expect so much humor as well. When so many Japanese lo-fi films that make the festival circuit end up disappointing me I was pleased as punch with this little gem.

Kurt Halfyard:Sebastian Silva's Magic Magic. A cinematic manipulation 180 degrees from Broken Circle Breakdown's melodrama, this film plays like an elaborate bit of misdirection while still retaining the power to harness the audiences empathy. Juno Temple plays a young girl for the first time out of the United States staying at an island cottage in the middle of nowhere in Chile with the worst hosts ever. She slowly goes from uncomfortable to full on hysteria as the situation gets out of control. But the films biggest trick is transferring sympathy from Temple's wilting wallflower to Michael Cera's socially awkward Brink who slowly realizes the consequences of the inattention he and his friends had towards their young guest. The title is no coincidence, this is one of the best bits of cinematic sleight-of-hand I've encountered in a while.

Finally, what was your favorite non-film Fantasia-tastic moment?

Kurt Halfyard: So many great moments when down at the Kafein Cafe, which functioned as the unofficial day-time meeting place for Fantasia guests. Many spirited and warm conversations went down on the sunny patio in front of the cafe whilst scarfing down Duck Confit salads, strong coffee and the occasional avacado smoothie. Chats with Buddy Giovanazzo and his lovely wife, filmmaker Larry Kent, writer Michael Guillen and festival programmers Peter Kuplowski and Brenda Lieberman passed many an afternoon before the screenings started. But, perhaps the most surprising moment came when chatting with OXV: The Manual director Darren Paul Fisher and Camera Lucida programmer Simon Laperrière at a table near the bar of Irish Embassy Pub late on my last evening at the festival. In mid-soliloquy (arms waving and such - I talk with my hands) about the low budget awesomeness of Daniel Cockburn's You Are Here, a homeless fellow rushes into the bar (we are not on the front patio) and grabs my full bottle of beer and hoofs away with his stolen treasure. Simon & myself, without skipping a beat chase after the fellow. Why? It's not like I'm going to take a sip of the beer at this point, especially since the old coot made a point of licking the rim of the bottle. A brief confrontation on Bishop Street has him barking out a cocktail of broken French and English regarding a need to get medicated for an operation he was having the next day. So off he went, enjoying his hoppy-medication of St. Ambroise Pale Ale. This was certainly the first and only time I had a beer lifted from me inside a bar, by a stranger, in such a brash fashion. He earned it.

Greg Christie: (Ed. Note: this is surprising NOT the opposite perspective on Kurt's story.) The festival was winding down by the time I arrived. The after parties were a more quiet affair than I had expected. There's no complaints here on that affront as it was awesome to have had the chance to meet and really talk to most of the festival programmers and visiting filmmakers. But I didn't get to leave with any of the type of crazy stories that could later serve as Fear and Loathing material. Predictably, there was a quite a lot of insanity surrounding the Nuke Em' High premiere when a fistfight involving multiple men and women in line and cops were called on the Troma team as they were staging a party on top of a school bus in front of the venue. But I wasn't directly involved with any of it. The funniest moment for me may have been my introduction to Fantasia director, Mitch Davis. Upon shaking his hand, I was told that he was surprised that I actually existed. He was a fan of the Fear and Loathing stuff but thought that I was a pen name for another writer. In fact, he was convinced that I was Todd Brown and that there has been speculation from most of the Fantasia staff over the last year as to who's been writing this stuff and who was going to show up at their festival. Throughout the night, I met other programmers and writers who came up to shake my hand and tell me that they were convinced that I was an alter ego for someone far more famous. You know, I still might be just a pen name. Then again, I might not even exist at all.

Justin Decloux: I got to meet the mysterious and fantastical ScreenAnarchy writer Greg Christie. Or did I? The facts of that night remain a mystery even to myself. Greg Christie cannot be contained on this physical plane of existence.

Andrew Mack: Probably my last night in Montreal. During the fest you convene at the Irish Embassy Pub for the remainder of the night (unless you were at Chez Serge for the mechanical bull riding or Katacombes for the Industry Rendez-vous Karaoke Night). I had come out of Library Wars and hit the pub early, planning to get my drink on, then hit the sack at a reasonable hour because I was going to interview the director Sato Shinsuke the next morning before catching my train home. I put a couple of hours hard work towards beer and whiskey when who should walk onto the patio but Shinsuke and co. We talked for the rest of the night, via interpreter, sharing our opinions about action cinema in Asia. Closed out the pub three hours later. Coffee was very much a necessity six hours later at the start of the interview.