Quarantine Film Diary: April

I should probably stop saying things like “last year was a bit of a weird one” or “it’s a bit odd at the moment” because, well, the universe seems to keep going “oh, you thought THAT was a weird time to live through, well just you wait.”

What we are going through right now in the face of a global pandemic is strange, confusing, stressful, scary, and unprecedented. So, what can I, a film obsessive living in quarantine due to having a vulnerable family member do?

Well, I can watch movies.

Since going into full self-isolation in mid-March I have watched 35 movies, 26 of which were in April. Considering my usual average is about 8/9 and I consider myself very lucky to get up to 14 movies in a month, that is quite the jump.

So, what have I been watching? Well probably no surprise there has been plenty of comfort watches. Thank you to whoever decided to bring Studio Ghibli to Netflix, as this month I’ve watched My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Whisper of the Heart, probably my low-key Ghibli favourite. I know it’s not as flashy as Princess Mononoke, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, or Spirited Away, but I just connect on such a personal level to the protagonist Shizuku, her love of books, and her desire to figure out what she wants to do with her life. I know some find the romance element cheesy and simplistic, but honestly I find it charming. Also, is there a more wholesome movie in existence than Kiki’s Delivery Service? No big threat, no major antagonist, just nice characters being nice with pretty animation and music. It is food for the soul.

I also watched some non-Ghibli anime films. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that a film called Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack! was bad, but it is based on a manga by Junji Ito, a legendary horror mangaka whose work does body horror in meticulous and skin-crawling detail, and whilst the manga Gyo isn’t one of my favourite of his works it does have a lot of impact. The problem is that whilst It’s style is amazing in still image, it never has never been done well in animated form. A couple of cool shots of fish monster mayhem does not make up for flat characters, flat plot, and an incredibly boring 75 minutes. On the better side of things was Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll, a side story from the anime series Violet Evergarden, an achingly beautiful series about a child soldier learning the power of emotion that was easily the best of 2018 for me. The film is like two episodes of the show with a linked story about main character Violet’s meeting and impacting the lives of two sisters, but it has all of the emotional and artistic impact that fans of Kyoto Animation have come to expect. More in the middle of those was Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions: Rikka’s Story. This one was an example of this weird trend in Japan of anime movies that serve as an abridgment of a whole series in the lead up to a second series or a continuation movie, but maybe with a few added scenes or some cleaned up animation. This was an abridgement of the show Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions (funny that), a pretty fun series and (another Kyoto Animation creation) about a high school boy named Yuta Togashi who wants to lave behind him childish fantasies of superpowers and battles, but ends up making a connection with Rikka Takanashi, a girl whose delusions rival his own. You get all kinds of silly slice of life hijinks and fantasy anime battles, but a lot of the show’s best moments come from very real emotional places. So condensing 12 episodes into a single film you lose a lot, and that means that fans of the series are just getting the same story on fast forward, and people who don’t know the show aren’t going to get the same experience, so what’s the point? Then again, I’m the one who watched it, so I suppose they don’t need a point if people are still going to watch them.

The other big factor in my watching over April was found footage horror movies. I have this weird affection for them. Maybe it’s because two of the few horror movies that have really scared me, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, were found footage. There’s just something about the way that they invite you to inhabit the reality of their story which means that when they’re good they are excellent. Of course it also means that when they’re bad they’re terrible, but still highly watchable. I watched The Tunnel, okay Aussie claustrophobia, Hell House LLC 3: Lake of Fire which does not live up to the first film and ends the trilogy on a flat note, and Butterfly Kisses which I quite liked because despite a few really creaky effects shots I really dig that it looks at what the reaction to someone finding mysterious footage would be in a world where found footage horror movies exist. The standout amongst those I watched though was Savageland, a 2015 horror done in a faux documentary style. A small American border town where the entire population is killed in one night and the lone survivor is singled out as the perpetrator by law enforcement and media. A series of photos, taken by the lone survivor, piece by piece tell the story of what happened that night. I won’t say what it is that is happened, but the way that the fictional horror ties into real world issues, in this case the fraught situation of immigration along the American-Mexico border that has only become more relevant since 2015, is constructed so well. This one is a real hidden gem that I recommend.

Lots of other horror as well, because I am nothing if not in character. CAM is a pretty original little thriller set in the world of camgirls and speaking of original Thai horror The Victim has some very unexpected zigs and zags. Kuroneko is a moody Japanese horror classic, and also reminds me that I really need to get to finishing Kaidan one of these days.

I also couldn’t resist a watch of Empire Records on Rex Manning Day, April 8. If you know, you know, and if you don’t know, check the movie out because I guarantee you’ll wish you could have worked in a place this cool as a teen.

So what’s in store for May? Well I am running out of halfway decent found footage movies so I might have to switch up subgenres for a bit for one thing. Maybe I’ll try for a few more older films, like aiming for pre-1970s. Either way for as long as this pesky global pandemic lasts I will try to give some thoughts on my movie watching highs and lows.

Until then,

Happy Watching.