Schmollywood Babylon

Nails (Andrey Iskanov, 2003)

Sometimes you run into a movie intense, so mindfucking unbelievable awesome it will change your world. Nails is like discovering Eraserhead or Tetsuo again - with a dash of Alphaville, a feverish, bizarre and very personal journey from Khabarovsk-based filmmaker and cat-lover Andrey Iskanov. Iskanov has been outside just outside my range of viewing for quite a while - even if I heard good stuff about Philosphy of a Knife and Visions of Suffering, so when I had the pleasure to watch it this weekend I couldn't say no. Nails is basically a story about a hitman (Alexander Shevchenko) who's kills slowly starts to creep up on his mind and he starts to hit nails into his head, to make the thoughts go away. But his state of mind becomes increasingly strange and surreal and soon he's not sure what's reality or not. 

You know, it's totally impossible (at least for me) to recap the story of Nails, but I guess what I wrote above could be one way to interpret it. But Nails is more about visual madness and that weird idea that it seems to want to enter your mind with so many out of this world moments, rapid editing - I wonder if there's some subliminal messages hiding in there? - and an interesting mix of very, very good performance - especially from leading man Alexander Shevchenko - and more amateurish moments. Nails is a typical first movie, a first epic from a genius. It has the enthusastic experimental style almost all filmmakers began with, but like with Lynch and Cronenberg, Iskanov goes all the way, throwing away every idea of making a commercial, sellable production, and instead follows his own unique path. 

As a genre movie it's quite hard to grasph, it's all over the place - which seems very deliberate. You have everything from weird hallucinations and dreams, gore and splatter, social realism, nudity and that wonderful form of pretentiousness that you can't dislike it. Nails IS art because it wants to be art and somewhere along the way it has something to say. I'm still not sure what or why or when or was - I need to watch it again sooner or later - but it's one of those flicks which stays in your mind for quite a while afterwards. Iskanov does something I admire very much: he films a story that actually needs a much bigger budget to attract the mainstream geeks out there, but he just doesn't give a shit! He makes HIS movie and he makes it the hard way. The ideas used is so far out, wow, I mean man, I wonder how this flick would be under the influences of some kind of mind-altering drug? Would it open doors previously locked?  I have no damn idea, but I love, Love, LOVE Nails and now I can't fucking wait to work myself through Andrey Iskanov's filmography. 

Andrey Iskanov's Nails is an unforgettable film about a dude hitting nails into his brain. It's so much more than an gory indie-movie. Nails places itself together with Eraserhead and Tetsuo in the shelf of awesome artyfartyness. And I'm sure Lemmy Caution is smiling somewhere, at this insane, fucked-up version of what could be Iskanov's version of Alphaville. 

The Dyatlov Pass Incident (Renny Harlin, 2013)

A new day, a new found footage film! That's what I like with living in this age. I can't stop myself from watching them! What makes this special is two things: directed by Renny Harlin and partly based on a real incident that happen in the Soviet Union 1959. A real mystery actually with new good answer - neither from scientiests of believers of the unknown. But first of all, Renny Harlin. He's without a doubt the most underrated popcorn-director of our time. I'm totally serious about that. When other directors with the same level of ambitious just makes it boring - Michael Bay and Rob Cohen comes to mind, Harlin mixes classic filmmaking with a serious, slick exploitation attitude. He KNOWS what the audience wants - his audience - and doesn't even pretend to bother with boring romances, unnecessary drama and trying to avoid to show the goodies. He's a real life tivoli barker, wanting us to be entertained and nothing else. Yeah, I adore the guy. Please Renny, soemtime... let me be in one of your movies? You can see links to me resumé on the right here! ;)

Somehow a bunch of moronic students got money from their university to do a documentary about The Dyatlov Pass Incident and they're off to Russia with their cameras and two (hopefully) good guides. All of them are quite experienced with skiing and mountaineering, but nothing can prepare them for what's up there in the mountains - or at that place bapitzed after the old expeditions leader, Igor Dyatlov. Are there aliens? Or maybe Yetis? I'm not gonna tell you, but something is soon sneaking around their camp at night and is not especially friendly at all - and the question is, do the Russian government really want American students up there, nosing around in their business? I don't think so!

I don't like to complain, but for once I would say that Harlin's super-professional style kinda made The Dyatlov Pass Incident a bit weaker than it could have been. Movies like this craves a bit more... rough style, and Harlin is way too talented to make it that way. Thank heavens it's about a crew of documentary filmmakers, so everything can look good without feeling ridicolous - but for me it could have been a bit messier, a bit more shaky just to enhance the found footage concept. Except that this is a quite good movie, it obviously have some budget behind its back and the actors are - most of the time - good. This time I kinda liked the Russian actors better than the American students - who suffers from the always annoying "too cute, too sexy"-syndrome. Also see the new Evil Dead for the same problem. 

What's awesome with it is the location. It's gorgeous! Snowy landscapes, a mysterious mountain... and some surprises along the way. It feels real that way, far from sets and other controlled environments. Harlin's camera captures everything - sometimes too much (I'm sure haters of CG effects will be upset about some of the very clear - but cool - dangers that shows up) - but always beautiful and with Harlin's speciality of making everything look great. It's a depth in almost every shot that I haven't seen for quite a while in this genre. It have a big look, nice productions values. Now, I can't say I got scared. That's so seldom nowdays, but it still delivers quite good regarding tension and the story is build like a Russian doll, something new always awaits around the corner. I also wonder if they've used real photos from the 1959 expedition during the set-up of the story? They're both very realistic and disturbing without look fake.

There's always something extra creepy with a movie based around real events, especially such a a weird one as this incident. It triggers the imagination in a way not possible with a totally made-up story. but The Dyatlov Pass Incident is something that's needed in the genre, or else everything would be ghost hunters trapped in spooky abandoned asylums or middle-class American families being haunted by ghosts in their own backyard. The Dyatlov Pass Incident gives us something bigger and bolder, spectacular and absurd - and I love that. I can't get enough of shit like this. So bring it on, give me more Mr Harlin. I need this fix from time to time. 

Anyway, somehow it would have been even cooler of Harlin made a movie about the actual expedition, but setting it in modern times and about a documentary about the whole thing maybe is the best thing after all. In that way there's always gonna be a mystery to solve...