Taxidermia [Gyogi Palfi, 2006]

This must be prime contender for the strangest film likely to be shown
at this year's festival. And the sickest.

Grotesque. That's the word. Repulsive characters doing repulsive
things; and Gyorgy Pilfi shoots it all with loving care, with an eye for
the beauty in what's repugnant. The calm tearing of flesh, the
squelch of lovingly handled internal organs – all realised in a
perverse choreography.

It's all much too much, of course. An excess of excess. Lust, and
glutony, and vomit – humanity as self-destructive consumer. But
it's hard not to laugh with the blacker than black humour; to be
seduced by the breathtaking audacity of Pilfi's surreal visual
imagination.

The film may not be a success, but it is an interesting failure - if you
can stomach it.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410730/
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410730/>

----------

Approaching Union Square [Marc Meyers, 2006]

An interesting chamber piece: various individuals on a bus who we are
acquainted with through a series of monologues. Each separate scene is
nicely judged, a skilful revelation of character with just the right
tone of humour.

The 9/11 framing, though, just felt like a cheap trick.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0818739/
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0818739/>



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