REVIEWS
UNCERTAIN REGARD
Antiviral Reviewed by Lee Marshall
Set in a future world where the viral infections con- tracted by celebrities are copy-protected and sold to adoring fans, Brandon Cronenberg’s feature debut is a cybermedical sci-fi vampire thriller that battles constantly, and with only limited success, against its ludicrous script. And though it would be nice not to have to present the director as ‘the son of David’, Cronenberg fils makes little attempt here to take his distance from dad, several of whose stylistic tics are reproduced, from in-your-face bodily fluids and blurring of the border between man and machine to some rather gelid, mannered dialogue. But for all the ludicrousness of its plot and style-
Granny’s Funeral Reviewed by Lisa Nesselson
A hand-picked ensemble cast elicits a steady stream of low-key laughs in Granny’s Funeral, a contemporary French comedy with the potential to amuse audiences wherever it is shown. The script, co-written by brothers Bruno and Denis Podalydes and directed by Bruno with both men in essential roles, makes the death of harried pharmacist Armand’s (Denis Podalydes) paternal grand- mother the mechanism that accelerates a reckon- ing in Armand’s complicated love life. Slated for a June 20 release in France following
its premiere in Directors’ Fortnight — where its frank humour and unpretentious approach was welcome — this is a light and silly riff on love, death and human foibles. The film (which has the original title of Adieu
Berthe: L’Enterrement De Mémé) is particularly good at showing how mobile phones have become fully fledged family members and text messages the modern equivalent of a Greek chorus. With an ensemble cast this size, it takes a while
for the relationships between players to be fully set in motion, but getting there is much of the fun. The late Berthe is described as having been so
discreet that nobody gave her much thought. Her son, Armand’s father (Arditi), is a jovial fellow in the grip of advanced memory loss, meaning Armand must manage all the funeral details. Bur- ial?Cremation? Inertia?
n 18 Screen International at Cannes May 21, 2012
over-substance mannerisms, this dark fable could well carve out a place for itself in late-night genre slots. With more needles on view than a porcupine — most of them sinking into flesh in extreme close- up — this is not one for the faint-hearted, but hard- core cyber-horror fanboys should lap it up. It is going to be a tough one for the censors to call: can you classify mainlining of diseases as the promo- tion of drug use? The film imagines a future world in which celeb-
rity culture has spiralled to the point where certain bio-med firms have contracts with stars that allow them to take samples of the viruses they fall prey to before selling them on to fans who are keen to enjoy the same cold, the same coldsores, the same stomach bugs that invaded their idols’ bodies. Syd March (Landry Jones) works for one of these, Lucas Clinics, and has been secretly smug-
DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT
Fr. 2012. 100mins Director Bruno Podalydes Production companies Why Not Productions, France 3 Cinema International sales Wild Bunch,
www.wildbunch.biz Screenplay Bruno Podalydes, Denis Podalydes Cinematography Pierre Cottereau Editor Christel Dewynter Production designer Guillaume Deviercy Main cast Denis Podalydes, Valérie Lemercier, Isabelle Candelier, Bruno Podalydes, Samir Guesmi, Michel Vuillermoz, Pierre Arditi, Catherine Hiegel, Noémie Lvovsky
Can. 2012. 110mins Director/screenplay Brandon Cronenberg Production company Rhombus Media International sales TF1 International,
www.tf1.fr Producer Niv Fichman Cinematography Karim Hussain Editor Matthew Hannam Production designer Arvinder Grewal Music EC Woodley Main cast Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Joe Pingue, Malcolm McDowell, Douglas Smith
gling samples by injecting celebrity viruses into his own body and taking them home to process. He sells his smuggled samples to a sort of biomed- butcher, Arvid (a nicely counter-cast Pingue), who sells cuts of meat grown from celebrity cells. But when Syd is sent by his boss to gather a blood sam- ple from Lucas’ star client, Hannah Geist (Gadon), who has been seriously ill, Syd sees a unique opportunity to jump the gun on other virus pirates by injecting her blood into his body immediately. But this particular virus turns out, predictably, to be a little unpredictable. The script spends a lot of time getting the little
details right but forgets to fill in some huge gaps in the bigger picture. A world in which a few saddos want to contract celebrity viruses is not unthinka- ble, but the film loses credibility by suggesting that a stupidity virus has infected the entire world. It also makes no attempt to make the virus-collecting fans remotely believable — they all seem to be sent from central casting. There is visual imagination here, but it is not
always entirely original: as well as the oeuvre of Cronenberg pere, Antiviral’s future world draws on films such as Blade Runner, A.I., and even (for the future as a shabbier version of the present) Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. But Cronenberg junior does exercise impressive control over the film’s airless cyberhorror atmosphere. His means include a pale colour palette in which blood stands out in stark relief, a moody, metal-edged elec- tronica soundtrack and, most of all, Syd’s increas- ingly ravaged body (the latter thanks also to an impressive performance from Landry Jones). But there is a certain lack of subtlety in the exercise — for example, in the way the script hammers home, at the end, the film’s vampiric subtext. We knew, Brandon, we knew.
Armand and his wife Helene (Candelier) run a
small pharmacy in a comfortable Paris suburb. Helene’s formidable mother (Hiegel) lives upstairs above the business. Armand and Helene share a decades-long complicity and have two sons, but Armand is head over heels for Alix (Lemercier), a dentist with a young daughter. Alix considers her- self the new owner of Armand’s companionship and sexual favours; ever-reasonable Helene tries to keep him from moving out. Armand is an amateur magician and his hobby
takes on additional comic heft when he visits his late grandmother’s retirement home to claim the body. Helene’s mother, who is pitching in for funeral costs, prefers the hi-tech-meets-New Age
ministrations of meticulous Rovier Boubet (Vuill- ermoz, a hoot). But Armand hires devil-may-care zen hipster Yvon Grinda (Bruno Podalydes, also a hoot), who has a sideline in small coffins for domestic animals. As compound pressures and obligations come
crashing in on Armand, the audience’s sympathy is aroused. What more could befall the poor guy? A lot, it so happens. Under the well-oiled farce lies a bittersweet meditation on how far it is possible to truly know somebody else, blood relative or not. The mostly sunny photography goes well with
Armand’s crestfallen and put-upon demeanour. Use of a capella melodies by the Swingle Singers is a glorious touch.
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