2008 Program guide - Victoria Film Festival

THE BOTHERSOME MAN
(DEN BRYSOMME MANNEN)
DIRECTOR: JENS LIEN
NORWAY
2006 95 MINUTES 35MM
PRODUCER: JØRGEN STORM ROSENBERG
WRITER: PER SCHREINER, FROM HIS RADIO PLAY
Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how
he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife.
But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong.
The antiseptic metropolis’ stark, desert environs are a perfect match
for the personalities of its emotionally barren inhabitants. This carefully
planned utopia is a world without kids where food has no taste and
alcohol can’t get you drunk. In fact, you can’t even hurt yourself, as
Andreas learns when he accidentally chops off a fi nger only to have it
magically grow back.
Surrounded by somber automatons who appear content with
their zombied lifestyle, Andreas feels isolated, despite an arranged
relationship with a cute, if cold, interior decorator (Petronella Barker)
with not much of a personality. Then, when he can’t generate any
passion in a co-worker (Birgitte Larsen) who’s a little too willing to be
his mistress, our frustrated fi sh out of water gets fed up and simply
wants out of his harrowing nightmare.
But that is easier said than done in this surreal dystopia, where even
if a Norwegian would, he couldn’t commit suicide. A deliberate,
thought-provoking, existential meditation on the curse of creating a
never-ending heaven on Earth.
Screened with
OVERNIGHT, A ROSE
Ching-Yao Koh Taiwan 17 minutes
A Taiwanese teenager, Xiao Mei, and her youthful but spirited
grandmother struggle to co-exist through the series of lies that every
family makes. But love, above all else, shines through, however quietly.
THE VANISHED
(AME NO MACHI)
DIRECTOR: MAKOTO TANAKA
JAPAN
2006 95 MIN. 35MM
PRODUCER: TSUYOSHI MATSUURA
WRITERS: HIDEYUKI KIKUCHI, MAKOTO TANAKA
Canadian Premiere
Thirty-fi ve years ago, a group of young school children disappeared
in the Japanese woods. In present day Japan, a lazy young reporter is
tasked to write a story on a child who is found dead with gory injuries
and inexplicable missing organs. Suddenly, the child rises from the
dead, and takes the journalist on a journey into the woods to unravel a
decades-old mystery of what happened to these missing children. With
the help of a beautiful young city offi ce clerk, he soon discovers that
the children are undead, and have not aged in the 35 years since their
disappearance, haunting their families who are intent on ending this
cycle of violence.
In the tradition of the Japanese horror fi lms of recent years, The
Vanished is shockingly scary from its opening sequence, in which
an adult attempts to do away with one of the undead children. As
the fi lm moves forward, a unifying vision is kept intact, as the fi lm is
grounded in a realistic story, with a horrifi c undertone that is so typical
of the best Japanese horror and monster fi lms. Truly a perfect fi lm for
horror fi lm fans, as well for fans of Japanese cinema.
Screened with
HARRACHOV
Matt Hulse & Joost van Veen Netherlands/UK 10 minutes
A strange and ominous machine assembles itself.
Tuesday • February 5 • Capitol 6 - 6 • 9:00 PM
Thursday • February 7 • Capitol 6 - 6 • 9:00 PM
Sunday • February 10 • Capitol 6 - 6 • 12:00 PM Sunday • February 10 • Capitol 6 - 6 • 4:30 PM 31
WORLD PERSPECTIVE