I spent this past week completely immersed in Cucalorus 22. I spent half of my time at Cucalorus filming Cucalorus Connect events (that's how I earned my pass) and the other half viewing films. The following are my thoughts on those films.
Dance-a-lorus
This was my third year in a row going to Dance-a-lorus. As always, it was an extremely unique experience. While almost all of the dancing was impressive, I found the film elements to be underwhelming overall. In certain pieces the film made little to no sense while in others it felt mostly redundant, simply showing the same dancers who were appearing on stage.
The highlight, to me, was the piece in which a live cellist performed as four women danced around sails. This performance stood out to me because it was less narrative focused and more about the feeling/texture of the entire piece (both the dancing and the projection).
Overall a great show, and I'm glad I made it for the 3rd consecutive year!
Fangtooth Shorts
These shorts were a mixed bag, some of them were interesting/disturbing but none of them really grabbed me except for the 30 minute documentary at the end of the block. The documentary followed an artist who did elaborate pencil drawings and her personality/work alone were enough to carry the film.
The Arbalest
The Arbalest follows a fraud toy inventor who invents a gun in an act of vengeance against the man who stole the woman of his obsession.
This film was certainly interesting, but i'm not entirely sure what I think about it. The visual style was definitely distinctive, and I adored the costuming/set design, but i'm not sure the story really clicked with me. Definitely was interesting, though.
Buster's Mal Heart
Buster's Mal Heart follows the story of a mentally disturbed man who becomes a hermit after he murders his family and becomes obsessed with the apocolypse. It's a cross between Donnie Darko, The Shining and I don't even know what.
This film was FANTASTIC! I really enjoyed the story structure, the acting and the cinematography. And the soundtrack. The title is the only thing that I get stuck on.
I really enjoyed speaking with the director of the film as well -- she was a definite inspiration.
We Are the Flesh
This film was utterly disturbing. It was basically one long violent, sexual, surreal, post-apocolyptic poem. It featured a prolonged scene of incestual blowjob followed by a sex scene filmed in thermal camera followed by orgies and sex with corpses.
It honestly wasn't great, and after a long day of working and watching films my brain was not prepared for this film.
Over all it was a great festival, I saw a lot of strange and inspiring films and got to network a bit a Jengo's and around the festival.
And I got to try using an HTC VIVE! Finally!
