Udine Dispatch. 5.

The truth is I was glad to have the laughs before the horror at the Udine Far East Festival, although, as some of the directors of Thursday's Horror Day panel seminar put it, horror can make you laugh or cry, depending on the day and how you feel. The day began with an art house tale, Ghost of Valentine, by Yuthlert Sippapak (Thailand 2006). "Why do I puke placenta every morning?" isn't a question from Tom Cruise but a line directly from the script. Fetuses are featured in more than one film at this festival. Will Showtime ban them all? First, there are the aborted fetuses with Miike on opening day (Imprint). Then the demonic experiments of a Philippine doctor in Rico Maria Ilarde's Beneath the Cogan and in Leste Chen's gothic tale, The Heirloom. Not to mention child ghosts with grudges in Ilarde's Aquarium and the Hong Kong horror classic, The Imp. As we move toward digital projection, it was almost touching to be watching an old copy of this film when it actually split in half at one point just before the conclusion. Another point made at the seminar is that digital production has opened up more possibilities for working with horror. But proper archival storage of 35mm films like The Imp also is crucial.

Ilarde said it best at the panel: Ringu has changed the parameters for horror, even for Hollywood. He added that since almost everything has already been done, we continue to recycle the same horror tropes. But when it comes to Asian horror, the ritualistic domain of the spirit world compels. The screening of The Imp, the 1981 landmark film billed as a Taoist Ghostbuster and directed by Dennis Yu, was a special surprise. A geomancer skilled in Feng Shui tries to rescue a young couple, Ah Kan and Yan, from a child demon that wants to be reincarnated as their newborn. Elaborate rituals and the placement of yellow markers where Ah Kan works as a security guard are all part of the process. We know something is up when a handyman hopes the child is born without an asshole. One of the first to die is "Fatso," who wears a t-shirt bearing the question, "Am I a girl?" What it boils down to, though, is that the husband-to-be has far too much yin in him, which is why he's prey to these evil spirits.

The theme of geomancy appears again in Chen's The Heirloom (the only film from Taiwan at the festival), but here a whole family has been buying fetuses for years to turn into demons - and they've gotten wealthy. Like The House, by Ng Man-ching (Hong Kong 2005), screened earlier, these relatives don't take kindly to strangers. Heirloom features Jason Chang and some excellent choreography, particularly with Terri Kwan in a production of Orpheus and Eurydice, and a surprise ending reminiscent of The Imp. That extra twist, according to Ilarde, is crucial to horror.

Choi Equan, educated at the Korean Film School and the San Francisco Art Institute, sets his homoerotic tale of suspense, Voice, in an all-girls school. The time span is a matter of days, and then a month. A depressed teacher with vocal problems initially appears to be behind the death of a young student, felled by a piece of sheet music. Or is she the undead? The magnificent art direction, although occasionally excessive, is on a par with Chen's The Heirloom.

Last up for the horror series in Udine: "Black magic, Thai style," with Art of the Devil 2, by the Ronin Team composed of seven directors (Kongkiat Khomsiri, Art Thamthrakul, Yosapong Polsap, Putipong Saisikaew, Isara Nadee, Pasith Buranajan and Seree Pongnit). In the same vein as Art of the Devil, featured at last year's festival, evil spirits take center stage, their gory deeds aimed at teenagers. This is the only film on this day of horror that really made you not want to look as the audience screams and laughs around you - and it was screened at the bewitching hour of midnight.

Photos of Takashi Miike, Rico Maria Ilarde, Leste Chen and Choi Equan © Moira Sullivan.

Posted by dwhudson at April 28, 2006 1:57 AM