Category: GFF strand – Country Focus

Fuck me, I thought that would never end. Just saw The Demons. Boring as fuck.

I know you’re not supposed to say films are boring, in the same way that you’re not supposed to say people are ugly – they’re not ugly, they’re just not beautiful in the way you like – but fuck it! This film was boring! I was watching a shot about an hour and a half in, when I’d lost all patience, and was just like, “What is this for? What is this shot for? Huh?” It’s not even pretentious, self-indulgent filmmaking which can sometimes bore me but I get that the person thinks they’re making something entrancing because they’re in love with their own work. This just felt poorly made, aimless, flat and dull.

I can’t even tell you what it was about. I’m not sure it had a point. At first I was like, oh it’s a coming-of-age film, but I’m not sure anyone came of age or learned anything or grew. After a solid hour and twenty minutes, the film decides to have its first dramatic incident when a paedo kills a kid. Some might call that overdoing it. This incident floats disjointed like the rest of the mundane happenstances in the film, with no emotional resonance. This film is emotionally dead and it’s chronic sitting through it.

A film about a couple of junkies trying to come clean, and the struggle as they sabotage themselves and each other. Opens with a suicide, so you know it’s gonna be cheery.

I liked that the film was beautiful and humanising while not sugar-coating the characters, not making them super-likable or cast as martyrs. They’re in a shit situation, they shouldn’t have to be saints just to offset the stigma of being substance-addicted.

Also that it focused on how boring addiction is, instead of the dramatic sexy capers they get in to feed their habit, it’s two people trying to put right a very fucked up life with no tools – no support, no home, no income, no dignity.

Well, that fair wakes you up in the morning! Just out of Below Her Mouth, a hot as fuck erotic romance between semi-reformed rogue Dallas and closeted soon-to-be married woman Jasmine. Erika Linder is absolutely gorgeous as Dallas, the complete asshole you know you’re gonna fall for despite yourself. Everyone in this is fit as fuck, six-pack sporting. 90% of the scenes are folk without their kit on, sex scene after sex scene. It’s one of those movies that when you leave, you can’t look anybody in the eye. Ooft!

Window Horses, an animation about a Chinese-Canadian girl who is invited to read at an Iranian poetry festival, and goes on a journey learning more about her history, her family and herself. I did really well with this one, I lasted right up until the last 20 minutes before crying. It was so beautiful and so moving. It was about understanding beyond language; the intrinsic need to put feelings into words but the words themselves not being intrinsic to understanding the feelings. 

Just what I needed after yesterday’s gauntlet of films. A gentle hug of a movie, a road trip coming-of-age film set in the 70s with a killer soundtrack and a fantastic cast.