Wrapping up for another year

I've put together a post collecting a variety of films that I saw in the latter part of TIFF2013 to close the blog for another year. Here they are:

Soul

Interesting little psychological horror movie from Taiwan. A young man working in a restaurant in Taipei falls into a coma and, when he regains consciousness, claims that something has taken control of him. He is sent home to his father and sister for care and the rest of the film focuses on the relationship between the three.

It's a creepy and effective film, establishing its dark atmosphere with the first few frames and maintaining it throughout. It could be read as a film about demonic possession, but the relationship between the father and son suggests that there could be a more prosaic problem.

Most of the film is set in an orchid farm in the country, providing great visual support to the film's themes.

Intruders

A writer attempting to finish his latest work isolates himself at a cabin in the woods in this South Korean film. Isolation is the least of his problems.

What starts out as a fairly irritating farce turns into something quite different by the end. At the beginning, my mind started to wander and I started to imagine what an American remake would look like (it would be relatively easy to translate the plot and characters into a generic comedy with the likes of a Will Ferrell in the lead. I'm not sure, though, that the could handle the tonal shift of the second half as well as this film did.

A good argument for not walking out on a film. It ended on a much darker, but higher note for me.

A Field in England

This is the third film I've seen over the past few years by Ben Wheatley and he continues to surprise. "A Field in England" is his first period film, but he has a great knack for introducing twists that extend the final product in interesting and entertaining ways.

A group of deserters in the English Civil War find themselves in an isolated field (the field exists in a sort of bowl, which prevents you from seeing beyond the immediate vicinity. It's a setting that becomes increasingly otherworldly as time goes on). Led and abused by a charismatic shaman and feeling the effects of a meal of mushrooms with psychotropic qualities, things start to change.

It's shot in beautifully luminous black and white which gives it a look not unlike Peter Watkins' "Culloden".

A wondrous and strange little film. Recommended.