Ready for some dark erotic weirdness? Justin Anderson’s short film LES FLEURS DU MAL, produced by Epoch London for lingerie maker Agent Provocateur’s new collection, “Soiree.” (Caution: some nudity.)
Agent Provocateur - 'Fleurs Du Mal' from Epoch London on Vimeo.
In THE STORE by Bentley Little, a Walmart-type giant store comes to a small Arizona town, promising huge economic gains. At first, the citizens of Juniper are dazzled at the amazing array of products on the shelves offered at discount prices. Then the giant retailer begins to suck the life out of the town like a giant parasite, killing local businesses and soon after the local government with lack of revenue and commitment to expensive concessions. Little’s a great writer and the story flows along, focusing on one man who fights back to protect his family and try to save his community.
The basic plot suggests a social realism novel about the proven costs and benefits large discount retailing has on small communities, and it delivers on this. But Little goes much farther than that into something that reads like both satire and a cautionary tale. The giant retailer, The Store, takes over the town government, issues its own laws, builds a bizarre cult of personality among its employees around the corporation’s founder, sells unsafe and bizarre products, hires sadistic managers, violates privacy, humiliates its workforce, forces people into debt with dire consequences for default, and many other horrible acts.
But this is a horror novel, and the extremes to which The Store goes to control all aspects of life in the town, the sadism of its top managers, the Night Managers, the ritual humiliation of the employees, the evil at the core of the corporation and its founder, and the understanding that the Store is spreading everywhere around the country, puts it squarely in horror territory.
Good horror titillates but occasionally makes you think, and THE STORE accomplishes that. But the horror elements are purely seasoning for its social realism and satirical goals. For this reader, THE STORE is primarily a dystopic vision of corporate power run amok.
I was far more horrified by how easily the town surrendered everything it treasured for a wider selection of products at lower prices. I consider myself a citizen first, a worker second, and a consumer third. As a citizen, I want just laws and maximum liberty. As a worker, I want to sell my labor without being exploited. As a consumer, I want access to things I want at a reasonable cost. I sometimes feel like America’s greatest weakness is we’ve become a nation of consumers, with severe consequences. THE STORE embodies these fears, taking them into the realm of horror.
Susu Laroche’s photographs are deliciously macabre. Check them out here.
You can also check out one of her short films below.
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD was without a doubt one of the best films I watched in 2012. A strange, visual feast, the film tells the story of Hushpuppy, a six-year-old girl living in a bayou fishing community (the “Bathtub”) cut off from the rest of the world by a levee. The world falls out of balance, resulting in what is, to her, the end of the world; melting polar ice caps create storms that drown the bayou and release prehistoric beasts from the ice. Hushpuppy believes she must restore the balance of the world to save her dying father and disappearing home, while her father prepares her to survive without him. This is the end of the world seen through the imagination of a little girl, with enough oddball characters, striking imagery and incredible acting by Quvenzhané Wallis to keep you enthralled. Recommended for those seeking something different.
Patricia Piccinini’s art is provocative, disturbing and surprisingly sweet. She builds hyper-realistic models of monsters and humans interacting in a familiar way, suggesting a future of humans genetically engineering new animals to serve us in a variety of roles, from pet to bodyguard to nursemaid to playthings. The bizarre monsters in her work aren’t threatening but instead innocent and even helpful–the way an alien might see a cat or a dog. Bizarre in appearance, but familiar and even friendly in their service and the fondness the humans show to them. A few sculptures are below; see more here.
In SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, as an asteroid nears Earth, Dodge (Steve Carell) finds himself alone and decides to take a road trip to find “the one that got away”–his high school sweetheart. His free-spirited neighbor, Penny (Keira Knightley), who just went through her own breakup, goes with him. Along the way, with the clock ticking on Earth’s doom, Dodge finds more life and love than he’d experienced for most of his adult life. The movie is reminiscent of a similar earlier Canadian film, LAST NIGHT, but the similarity ends at the basic concept. The movie is quite funny as the people around Dodge engage in end-of-the-world sex and violence, everybody determined to go out with a bang, and Dodge just can’t go along with it, sticking with his old routines and even reporting every day to the insurance company where he works. It’s sweet, in that Dodge finally gets to experience rich, genuine human feeling he’s been denied for so long. And it’s sad, as everything ends. It’s a great movie on many levels, although some may find the almost abrupt switch from bittersweet joy to existential sadness jarring and even a little haunting. Recommended.