L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 2 (Jingming Guo, 2020)

 ☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼(☼) out of 10☼

The continuation of L.O.R.D. saga by controversial young adult writer and pop idol turned director Jingming Guo marks a major milestone in the animation industry of mainland China. Striving to take your breath away with state-of-the-art CGI and over-the-top action sequences, Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 2 is a vast improvement in comparison to its predecessor in terms of both visuals and story whose ostensibly esoteric, convoluted nature poses no obstacle in the way of sheer enjoyment.

Drawing inspiration from various, oft-disparate sources, ranging from Chinese and other mythologies, to several centuries of European architecture, to wuxia and Yimou Zhang's historical spectacles, to Giger's and Beksiński's artwork, to Final Fantasy and Fate/Stay Night franchises, this extremely high gothic fantasy is first and foremost a deliciously fancy feast for the eyes. Its infinitely immersive world of wild magic, unbelievably handsome people and soul behemoths is replete with gorgeous medieval cities, sumptuous Versailles-like castles, seemingly inescapable labyrinthine ruins and bottomless oceans that act as portals to rocky wastelands and abandoned temples. And let's not forget a secret lake of blood inhabited by a slimy, Brobdingnagian triton that would give Guillermo del Toro a run for his money. To say that the attention to detail is awe-inspiring would be a severe understatement, because everything from a lacy, transparent nightgown of lovely princess Tianshu You Hua to splashes of water transforming into killer icicles during the final battle is jaw-droppingly gorgeous!

Speaking of battles, L.O.R.D. 2 is densely packed with elaborate, grandiloquent, gravity-defying set pieces of martial arts and swordplay extravaganza reaching almost poetic heights, despite their undeniable similarity to video game cut-scenes (which, by the way, have been increasingly cinematic in recent years). One particularly impressive sequence involves a flock of dragons and some mind-blowing aerial acrobatics accompanied by a pounding rock number followed by an operatic composition that elevates the grandeur of the proceedings. Eclectically epic in scope, the original score by Taku Iwasaki is perfectly matched to dazzling imagery in any given moment, whether the moment requires string-laden melodramatics or modern metal grinding.

As you might've already figured, Guo's film is all style over substance or rather style as substance, given that the narrative and the character development are of secondary importance. At its core, it is a good vs. evil fable with plenty of baroque flourishes which turn it into a larger-than-life adventure of mystical proportions, and with an enigmatic Duke, Gilgamesh, who is sealed in a God-forsaken cavern posing as a plot device. To learn what's so special about him, we will probably have to wait for the third installment promised by the cliffhanger ending...

Kinoskop Spinoff: B&W Celluloid Magic

Welcome to the first Kinoskop spinoff! Presented here is a small, yet eclectic selection of seven B&W films released during the past two decades, and publicly available on their respective authors’ Vimeo channels. Arranged chronologically, it opens with Phillip Barker’s illusionary, perspective-bending mystery drama Regarding that makes brilliant use of a single set, then takes a sharp turn into the absurdist territory with Dmitri Frolov’s punkish, darkly humorous piece The Daddy’s Meat, followed by Brittany Gravely’s esoteric music video Black Tide for avant-garde band Neptune set in the otherworldly realm of non-human. 

The longest of the bunch, Medeafilm by Behrad Gramian and Hailey Benton Gates pays a loving homage to silent cinema, as it subverts the Medea myth into a quirky, psychosexual cine-play. Susu Laroche’s less-than-two-minutes-long action fantasy Tzars of Eros elevates grain and scratches to a whole new level, depicting ‘Apollo and Dionysus at loggerheads’. Karissa Hahn turns the mundane into a recurring nightmare in her performative short Cataract Churning Grey marked by the whistling sound of a boiling teapot. And last but not least is Jared Michael Sobotka’s Anima – a dreamlike exploration of self and soul that was screened as a part of ‘Cine-Rituals in Magic & Alchemy’ program at the inaugural edition of Kinoskop in Belgrade, 2019.

Click on the titles to watch the films!

Total Duration - 37:11

Regarding | Phillip Barker | 2002 | 16mm | 4:50

The Daddy’s Meat | Dmitri Frolov | 2004 | 16mm | 3:36

Neptune – Black Tide | Brittany Gravely | 2008 | 16mm | 4:34

Medeafilm | Behrad Gramian & Hailey Benton Gates | 2010 | 16mm | 11:47

Tzars of Eros | Susu Laroche | 2014 | 16mm | 1:40

Cataract Churning Gray | Karissa Hahn | 2017 | Super 8 | 4:07

Anima | Jared Michael Sobotka | 2019 | 16mm | 6:37

Kinoskop 2 Online

Officially, the second edition of Kinoskop festival has ended, but the spirit of celluloid cinema lives on! In addition to the entire Music Videos selection which was one of this year's novelties, there are ten films publicly available on their respective authors' Vimeo/YouTube/official pages. Just click on the titles to watch them!

Nordic Grammar (Kaspar Peters, 2019) / Audience Award (along with The Man Who Became Everything, 2020, by Michael Alexander Uccello) - a hauntingly beautiful mystery in which interior and exterior spaces become the extension of the heroine's deteriorating state of mind.

My Selves Dissolving (Danielle Wakin, 2020) - meta-existing in a phantasmagorical realm of rambunctious psychedelic abstractions and introspective pseudo-occult rituals charged with glam eroticism, this has to be one of the most bewitching shorts, both aurally and visually, that I've seen this year.

A Body Travels in Darkness (Kyle Ryan, 2020) - if you are a fan of David Lynch's early experiments, don't miss out on this dark, head-scratching piece set in an alternate reality.

Inventory (Joeri De Jongh, 2020) - a tastefully humorous look at one woman's struggle with boredom during the lockdown we've all experienced during this year. (Cat people should know that there's a beautiful feline appearing in a supporting role.)

Espinado (Ivan Cordeiro, 2019) - an uplifting Super 8 documentary on Martin Espino, a composer of indigenous Yaqui and Tepehuano ancestry whose music harkens back to the exotic past...

Roadtrip (Isabel Padilla, 2019) - only two minutes long, this is an absurd, delightfully weird deconstruction of a road-movie happening in the middle of... where?

Crumbs #3 (Cinema Trailer) (Jack Wormell, 2020) - a droll parody of blockbuster trailers, as well as a prickly comment on the hyper-production of landscape films. 

Rainbow in the Dark (Ben Mosca, 2020) - an inspired anti-smoking PSA brimming with mesmerizing apocalyptic imagery.

The Lovers (Justin Brown, 2020) - a meditative romance of ethereal superimpositions which lulls the viewer into a dream state...

Risques (Thomas Gerard, 2020) - a tone poem / essay film / music video depicting inner turmoil, and featuring the strong, magnetic presence of model Rouguy.

Cinematic Favorites 11/20

This November was marked by intense preparations for the second edition of Kinoskop, yet I managed to see twentysomething features (and be disappointed by most of the recent offerings), and approx. 100 shorts, a good number of which were screened at online editions of North Bellarine and Fonlad film festivals. The following lists are presented in chrono-alphabetical order.

FEATURES

1. Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964) - In Antonioni’s stark psychological drama, Monica Vitti gives a subtly affected, strangely magnetic portrayal of a woman spiraling down into madness, with a fascinating mise-en-scène acting as an extension of her vacillating mind, and pulling the viewer ever deeper into her crumbling world. The boldly used colors and gloomy industrial setting complement each other in an almost surreal fashion...

2. Witchhammer (Otakar Vávra, 1970) - Nothing short of an uncompromising, awe-inspiring masterpiece, Witchhammer boasts superb direction, brilliant screenplay and bravura performances (particularly by Vladimír Smeral as a slimy inquisitor), brims with great allegorical potential and fiercely strikes with its bleak, unfading relevance, and on top of that, it completely absorbs you with its oppressive atmosphere of growing paranoia achieved through a carefully measured pacing, stunningly beautiful visuals of minimal camera movement and brooding music score that evokes the sense of despair and impending doom. This period piece is by no means an enjoyable watch, given the subject matter and all the themes explored, but it is one that leaves a deep, lasting impression.

3. His Motorbike, Her Island (Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1986) - Although tinged with nostalgia and inhabited with ghosts of memories, His Motorbike, Her Island appears like an invigorating portrait of temperamental youth, as well as a jovial ode to bikers subculture oft-filtered through the prism of punkish chivalry. Subtly stylized, seasoned with some nudity (that comes across as natural rather than exploitative) and brimming with infectious energy, this tongue-in-cheek melodrama plays out in a dreamlike reality reflected in a playful collision between the monochrome and color imagery. The highly attractive leads – Riki Takeuchi in his big-screen debut, and Kiwako Harada in her sophomore role – both shine in their portrayals of two sympathetic characters, Koh and Miyoko, who seek to scatter their ennui in the wind, eventually becoming inseparable from it...

4. The Bigmoon Nights (Dmitri Frolov, 1989-1993) - a mind-altering cine-delirium that defies any attempt at categorizarion. It has to be seen to be believed (click on the title).

5. Farewell to Autumn (Mariusz Treliński, 1990) - Based on the novel of the same name by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz – eccentric Polish philosopher and multidisciplinary artist, as well as ‘extravagant dandy, erotomaniac and Adolf Hitler impersonator’, as we’re informed in the film’s opening – Farewell to Autumn is a bizarre cinematic equivalent of a feverish dream, one that often makes you disoriented while pulling you in ever-deeper. Part (anti)romantic / historical drama and part philosophical meditation on the decline of bourgeois culture, communism, death and whatnot, it appears like an unruly, yet infinitely charming love child of Chytilová and Żuławski (or maybe Makavejev?). Its sudden mood swings, delirious rhythms, and decadent beauty that is best reflected during the orgiastic wedding party eventually crashed by the revolutionaries are integral to its brazen seductiveness.

6. Anchoress (Chris Newby, 1993) - Anchoress is, hands down, one of the most incredibly gorgeous period pieces that my eyes have had the honor to feast upon! It is an incessant, overwhelming stream of stunning tableaux vivants that reach the deepest layers of the subconscious mind, and it is also one of those films that rekindle my love for cinema right from the get go. If I had to draw comparisons, I’d mention the likes of Bergman, Vláčil and Tarkovsky. I’m awestruck by its magic...

7. Planet of the Cannibals (Hans-Christoph Blumenberg, 2001) - Made on a modest budget, but directed with gusto (and a tongue deeply planted in cheek), and beautifully captured in noirish, high contrast B&W, Planet of the Cannibals is a witty sci-fi satire (set in 2020!) that pokes fun at mass media, conspiracy theories, fascist governments and B-movies to which it simultaneously pays a loving homage. Involving a deadly TV quiz, a live talk-show with a Hannibal Lector-like superstar and aliens integrated into human society, the film runs at brisk pace, and brings a few twists and turns along the way, all for a delightfully weird viewing experience. A superb ensemble of actors lends gravitas to its quirky cast of comic-book-inspired characters, with a special appearance by filmmaker Fatih Akin in the role of a nicotine-dealer, Mr. Dark. 

8. Minotaur (Zulfikar Filandra, 2020) - Co-produced by Experimental Film Society, Dublin, and Kolumbija, Sarajevo, Minotaur is a bold, playful (or rather, puckish) and deeply personal feature debut from young Bosnian filmmaker Zulfikar Filandra. Part fragmented self-portrait (selfilm) and part meditation on life’s evanescent beauty, this peculiar docudrama is an ever-mutating collage of author’s home movies shot on various formats. Edited into a singular entity – a memory-labyrinth of which Filandra is not only the builder, but the monster and the hero as well – these moving images serve as reminders that poetry in its raw form can be found (and captured) in the mundane, whether you’re alone or in the company of family, a friend or a lover.

SHORTS

1. Trauma Industries (Jethro Massey, 2017)

2. Dada Time (Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, 2018)

3. Field of Infinity (Guli Silberstein, 2018)

4. mirARTE 010… (Hernando Urrutia, 2018)

5. Anatomy of Waters (Roland Quelven, 2019)

6. Come (Daniela Lucato, 2019)

7. Finding Uranus (Ivan Li, 2019)

8. Juniper (Robert William & Anchuvas Pereña, 2019)

9. Nostalgia in Domicella (Carla Forte & Alexey Taran, 2019) (excerpt)

10. Aegra timoris (Sick of Fear) (Úrsula San Cristóbal, 2020)

11. Autumn Walk (Eija Temisevä, 2020)

12. Drift (Elisabeth Lowe, 2020)

13. Elements (Simon Hardwick, 2020)

14. Polka-Dot (Alexandra Niemczyk, 2020)

15. Puparia (Shingo Tamagawa, 2020)

16. Water Blues (Francesca Fini, 2020)

Kinoskop 2020

The second edition of Kinoskop keeps celebrating the art of celluloid cinema with its eclectic program which encompasses 63 films, ranging from a quirky silent rom-com to powerful and unconventional documentaries to bold formal experiments to a brilliant, genre-defying feature! We invite both experienced cinephiles and rookie film enthusiasts to explore 12 of our selections and find something down their alleys. Dive into the moving images with grainy pattina for three days, starting on December 4!

Check out the TRAILER on the Kinoskop Vimeo channel!

Full program is available on our official webpage, HERE!

Each of the selections will be accompanied by pre-recorded Q&A with more than 40 filmmakers who share some insights into their work, as well as their experiences working with a film tape! As co-organizers, Marko Milićević and I would like to thank our guest curators, Ejla Kovačević and Aleksandra Dalichow, for their immense help, the jury trio of Aleksandra Sekulić, Nebojša Petrović and Csaba Bollók, and of course, all participating artists!

Still shot from My Selves Dissolving  by Danielle Wakin

Kinoskop 2020 Non-Competition Selection

The response to Kinoskop 2020 open call was so overwhelming that the program had to be expanded. There are three selections - Meditation Unchained, Music Videos and In the Realm of Non-Human - in addition to the first virtual edition of Live Soundtrack, encompassing twenty five films of richly textured visuals in total!

LIVE SOUNDTRACK

VENTRAL / soundtrack by Dimitar Dodovski

Juan Lorenzo Loureiro | 2020 | 10:15 | Spain | Super 8

An island, a woman and a presence, a phantom who follows her. This phantom could be me, the camera, cinema itself. But both the woman and the island could also be ghosts....

ANCIENT ALIENS / soundtrack by Balt

Jared Michael Sobotka | 2020 | 08:50 | USA | various formats

A meditation on the something lost to a contemporary society that might make us more whole, if we were to discover it. A 16mm collage of found footage and film shot by the filmmakers.

SELF PORTRAIT / soundtrack by Andria

Antonio Bértolo Vilariño | 2020 | 04:42 | Spain | Super 8

Portrait of the artist.

LUMINOUS VARIATIONS IN THE CITY SKIES / soundtrack by Exoterran

Giuseppe Spina | 2019 | 06:19 | Italy

Thirty years of research were necessary for the astronomer Guido Horn D'Arturo to invent the specchio a tasselli – also called multimirror or segmented mirror – an archetype of today's most advanced telescopes.Full of point-like shapes, Horn D'Arturo's photographic plates are now also full of spots and traces of deteriorated emulsions.

A silent film composed of digital scans and blow-ups of Guido Horn D’Arturo’s photographic plates depicting Bologna’s skies.

HIGH TIDE LOW TIDE / soundtrack by Kajaq

Federica Foglia | 2020 | 05:00 | Canada

"Art makes the familiar strange so that it can be freshly perceived. To do this it presents its material in unexpected, even outlandish ways: the shock of the new." - Viktor Shklovsky

High Tide, Low Tide combines layers of 16mm and 35mm found footage films to create a lyrical journey to accompany the viewer into the depths of a dream of another life.

MUSIC VIDEOS

FALE - DON'T WANNA WASTE YOUR TIME

Kamila Bialkowska | 2020 | 5:18 | Poland | Super 8

Don't wanna waste your time" is an experimental film and animation made on super8 and 35 mm films to the music of the band Fale. Techniques used to produce effects are inspired by the experiments of Len Lye and Kazimierz Urbański.

UNICORN SALIVA - ОБРАЗ

Daniil Demidov | 2020 | 3:57 | Russia | Super 8

This is what happens deep in the woods while nobody’s watching.

WARSHOW - A TURN OF TIDES

Máté Konkol | 2019 | 4:25 | Hungary | Super 8

Super 8 music video for art-rock band Warshow of Budapest, Hungary.

KRISPY & THE POOCH - HOLDING ON

Parole Dure (Theresa Stritzinger & Zejna Halilbašić) | 2020 | 2:57 | Germany | Super 8

The lyrics of "Holding On" talk about holding on to a past relationship. The video searches to portray other meanings of the term "holding on".

ALETULLE - 03 / 03

Jeff Zorilla | 2020 | 3:14 | Oman | Super 8

The film uses imagery to touch upon themes of isolation, of seeing life passing by around you and not participating in it, of feeling left behind. The song thoroughly explores an instant, an infinite afternoon, where the singer felt the absence of her lover. This absence materialised itself in the empty room, on the millions of windows she could see through her bedroom, the empty streets of London covered in snow. The film visually explores these themes with the use of a kaleidoscope of images of cities, facades, people...

LEO CRANDALL - HOW

Vasilios Papaioannu | 2020 | 6:08 | USA | Super 8 & 16mm

Music video for Leo Crandall's "How" included in the album "Unknowable and Stunning Thing". Shot in 16mm and Super 8 film.

IN THE REALM OF NON-HUMAN

EKTADOME

Laura Trager | 2020 | 03:06 | Germany | 16mm

100 feet of 16mm Kodak Ektachrome shot at a fun fair at night. Dark forces present themselves in plain sight in this magical place of lights and colors.

EXPLOSE

Cendrine Robelin | 2020 | 04:30 | France | found footage

« Appuie sur le champignon » (« Push on the mushroom » which means in french, Hurry Up driver) speak out tipsy carnival goers. Nuclear explosions, chains reactions in a delight mood. Party Goes on !Images and sounds are always ambivalent ; landscapes can always turn from the stability to oblivion. Carnival goers and explosions are faces of switchover. After the uproar, things roll again.

AFTER PAXOS

John Barlow | 2019 | 01:00 | UK | 8mm

8mm colour footage shot on and around the island of Paxos, Greece is juxtaposed with excerpts of black and white found footage from an old 8mm film reel containing views of Tokyo, Japan. A sequence of short colour clips portray a journey from a house in the wooded interior of Paxos to the island's shoreline, and then out into the Ionian sea. They contrast with four, much slowed-down, black and white clips, and a multilayered soundtrack comprising city noise, air conditioning hum and air traffic control chatter.

HARMONIUM

Miles Sprietsma | 2020 | 04:15 | USA | 16mm

A document of the ethereal features surrounding oceanic bodies, the re-cycling of life and death through the constant flux of coastline.

EIDOLON

Mike Rollo | 2020 | 03:35 | Canada | 16mm

The seer passes beneath branches, crosses fields, observes the quiet corners of creation. Bright and dark take turns showing their faces, a two-sided phantasm, one energy shape-shifting through time. The seer makes note, gleans eidolons.

THE GARDEN

Patrick Müller | 2019 | 05:00 | Germany | Super 8

Strange blossoms, sunken pathways, Déjà Vus: A hike through H.P Lovecraft's most personal garden.

MEDITATION UNCHAINED

UNCERTAINTY

Roman Ďuriš | 2019 | 04:28 | Slovakia | 35mm

The night before the biggest decision of her life, she feels uncertain.

I WAS A FREE DOG

Yuula Benivolski | 2020 | 11:28 | Canada | Super 8

Filmed in the final days before a global pandemic and influenced by the social isolation of 2020, this film employs dream logic to reveal a lonely idyllic landscape. Unable to connect with each other, on this beach each soul is contained in its own solitary action.

Two sisters see each other on an ocean beach for the first time since childhood. Field recordings of sounds from the sisters’ home country accompany this landscape: an orchestra of sirens, ocean waves and tropical birds, all indicate that we are within multiple realities. These recordings create impossible spaces that exist simultaneously and imitate the psychic effects of a diasporic existence.

RAINBOW IN THE DARK

Ben Mosca | 2020 | 04:07 | USA | 16mm & 35mm

An apocalyptic cosmic anti-smoking PSA.

CULTURE LEAP (NON-LINEAR)

Roger Horn | 2020 | 02:35 | South Africa | 16mm

The primacy of culture.

Culture over race.

ONE SHOULD NEVER BE CURED

Vincent Guilbert | 2020 | 08:30 | Japan | Super 8

"How hopeless it is

It would be better for me to sink beneath the waves

Perhaps then I could see my beloved from the Moon Capital"

A super 8 rendition of a 19th century woodbock print by Japanese artist Yoshitoshi.

THE LOVERS

Justin Brown | 2020 | 05:30 | USA | 16mm

A chemical wedding.

CHORUS 2

Benji Edelberg | 2020 | 05:15 | Canada | Super 8

A tourist, lost in the crowds, gets caught up in the moment.

RISQUES

Thomas Gerard | 2020 | 04:36 | France | Super 16mm

Human experience spiral down when panic strikes.

In this short essay, we pictured the turmoil that goes with the experience of the downward spiral. Starting from a bad place, fleeing it and eventually being caught up again, you are unable to escape your own prison and it is wearing you down. There is some twisted sense of being your own enemy and no matter what you do to tackle it, fear condemns you before the crisis.