City of God

2002 movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: The true story of how the Brazilian equivalent of the Boy Scouts of America was formed.

This movie starts with chickens. Chickens are haunting me this year. Sure, you expect to see some chickens in a documentary about chickens. But it seems that chickens find their way into about half of the movies I'm watching this year. Herzog doesn't like chickens.

 

See? The beginning of this movie is a stunning look at a chicken being de-feathered and eviscerated and chopped into pieces. Spliced into that are very quick shots of a large gleaming knife being sharpened and a bunch of people who are looking forward to eating a chicken. And then you have a shot of a scrawny chicken watching the proceedings and waiting for its turn, and that chicken gives one of the best performances I think I've ever seen by a bird in a movie. The chicken trembles, gives this "Oh shit!" look at the camera, and eventually makes its escape. Somehow, the camera follows the chicken through the streets. Watching it all unfold is invigorating for some reason, and the scene, one that starts the movie but actually takes place later in the story, really sets the stage for everything that happens in the titular slums. For the protagonist, a poor guy who just wants to take pictures and lose his virginity, this is a place that can be overwhelmingly frightening and seemingly impossible to escape. This movie is entertaining with a vibrantly told story and colorful characters, but its most effective at disturbing you with the harsh realities of this particular spot in our world and really making you feel what some of the characters are feeling. Lots will disturb unless we're all desensitized to seeing a movie with about half of the scenes featuring children holding guns and occasionally shooting each other in the face. Those faces themselves are disturbing, so callous as they go about their violent business. More disturbing is seeing Li'l Ze (actually, Lil Dice at this point) in action for the first time. It's a laugh that, if you don't remember anything else in any movie you've ever seen, you'll likely remember forever. That crazed character is probably more interesting and surely more complex than Rocket, the main character. It's fascinating to watch all these youngsters bounce off each other, dangerous little unpredictable firecrackers in a vibrating cube. It's a world dominated by children--I believe parents are shown in this movie during exactly one scene--but they're not children. They've been shaped into something else. And you think, "I can't believe that people are like this in any part of the world," but then you think about the part of the world you live in and see enough similarities. Your world's got chickens, too. This is flashy and fresh, with a twisty narrative that almost reminds you of Tarantino but with every ounce of hope slurped out. City of God (I think that might be ironic because I didn't see God in this place) is a great film, but it's almost hard to be entertained by it because these characters seem more real than movie characters, and you just know there's not much hope for some of them.

 

 

There were other movie posters for this, but I picked the one with a chicken on it. 

Waste Land

2010 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Popular Brazilian artist Vik Muniz befriends catadores who rummage through Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill and collaborates with them to use some of the recycled materials they save to make works of art.

The emotional impact of this caught me off guard, probably because I wasn't initially sure that I liked Vik Muniz's art or understood his motivations. The shots of the landfill and the catadores doing their jobs are pretty bleak, but you soon realize that this isn't about the location or a job that could easily be featured on one of those "Most Terrible Jobs Ever" television programs. At least it's not entirely about that. No, this is more about the individuals who work there, and the way this documentary (and Muniz) treats them as individuals is what makes this special. I enjoyed meeting these people, hearing about their pasts and problems and hopes and dreams, and most importantly, seeing the expressions on their faces that showed how much Muniz's work meant to them. More than any other documentary about art, you get to appreciate the impact that artwork can have on people, and that's a truly beautiful thing. This is a documentary that made me feel good.

My brother recommended this one.

Awakening of the Beast

1970 didactic drug movie

Rating: 20/20 (See: Coffin Joe Movies Get a 20 or He'll Eat Your Face Off Rule)

Plot: Psychologists test the effects of hallucinogenics by monitoring volunteers. Coffin Joe invades their lobes and chaos ensues.

What I learned from this movie because Coffin Joe taught it to me and if I even suggest that he's wrong, I'll end up having my face eaten off: Coffin Joe's world is strange and made up of strange people, but none are more strange than me. That's how he introduced this delightfully messy movie.

I promise this is the last Coffin Joe movie I'll review because I don't know where I'm going to find any more of them. This is the one that halted his career, banned for twenty years, probably because it's perverted and subversive. Also known as Ritual of the Maniacs (I would have guessed Ritual of the Sadists from both the content and the Portuguese on the gruesome poster above), this is sort of like a Brazilian Reefer Madness as directed by somebody really evil. It's almost like a collection of cinematic short stories, each one a sort of cautionary tale about what might happen if you take LSD. In the opener, some creepy men picture a gal naked while a little record player plays a song about war. Then the girl starts stripping and they all watch before unwrapping a chamber pot. They all laugh, and the record reaches its scratchy conclusion.

In the next scene, a pretty girl is taken to an apartment. There's a guy suspended from the ceiling, a guy playing drums (not quite as manic as the piano guy in Reefer Madness), a guitarist lying on the floor, some guys who burst into song. She sees a guy smoking something; another guy starts stripping. Everybody starts snapping at her like they're all beatniks or extras in West Side Story before somebody asks, "Dig it, baby?" She craws through a window and stands with her legs apart on a table while the men take turns putting their heads up her skirt. They circle around her while holding up a finger and first chanting but later whistling "Colonel Bogey March" from Bridge on the River Kwai. They take turns, well, poking her before Jesus walks in and violates her with a long staff. That's what drugs can do to you, kids.

The third scene is much simpler--a guy watches three women remove their brassieres. He smells them, of course. They bend over and he kicks them.

One fantastic mini-story involves a well-to-do woman setting it up so that her black butler and her daughter (I think) get it on. She watches from a hiding spot while snorting cocaine and fiercely petting a pony.

And there's a scene I'm surprised isn't really famous, one that involves the washing of undergarments and a guy with an absurdly bulbous phallic jug.

A lot of the more gruesome scenes near the end, the ones that involve sadism and cannibalism and Marins' Boschian idea of Hell, are a lot of the more memorable scenes in the incoherent compilation Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind. One would guess that they'd make more sense in context, but they really don't. And that's the beauty of Marins and this misogynist acid trip or filthy nightmare or whatever you want to call it. Did I dig it, baby? Yes, I did, Coffin Joe! Yes, I did.

Damned--The Strange World of Jose Mojica Marins

"I'm Coffin Joe, and I'm about to eat your amygdala!"

2001 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Director and actor Marins discusses the ups and downs of his life and career.

This opens with some amazing footage of what I guess was a mass hypnosis. It looks like something straight out of a documentary about a Pentecostal church though. Coffin Joe tells a congregation that they are on a plane, a plane which begins to shake and eventually go down. The people scream and weep uncontrollably. Then, Joe tells them that they're all going to hell and grins madly and deviously. I'm not sure what exactly it adds to the Jose Mojica Marins story, but it sure was interesting to watch. Flash-forward to '99, and Coffin Joe's let himself go a bit. He looks like an ordinary out-of-shape Brazilian guy, balding and pot-bellied, and I'm not sure if I was surprised or disappointed that he isn't completely insane. I did learn some interesting tidbits about the guy:

1) He was born, of course, on Friday the 13th.

2) He loved and was inspired by comics, but surprisingly, to me at least, not Batman. He didn't care for Robin apparently.

3) As a boy, he actually lived in a movie theater.

4) His "studio" was an old chicken barn.

5) The first shocking film that he saw was an educational film about venereal disease.

6) He had a bodyguard named Satan.

7) As a kid, he knew a guy who sold potatoes on the street. He and the other children loved the guy. But as all potato men must eventually do, he passed away. Then, at his funeral, he came back to life again and freaked everybody out. This would have an impact on young Marins' life.

8) When working, Marins rarely slept or ate, sometimes working for 96 straight hours without stopping. He had to be hospitalized after taking 20 amphetamine pills.

9) While filming a movie called God's Sentence, he decided he was cursed due to all kinds of problems. Two actresses died, another actress lost a leg, the producer died. An assistant camera man asked Marins, "Who's next?" Marins answered, "You are." Of course, four hours later, the assistant camera man died.

10) Marins used snakes, spiders, and vivisepulture to test his actors and make sure they had the courage to appear in his movies.

11) The banning of Awakening of the Beast (this one will be on my blog soon enough) ruined him. He funded his next movies with the earnings from the previous movie. Since Awakening of the Beast wasn't allowed to be released, no next movie. Marins had to turn to an Ed Woodish pornography career.

12) Unlike Ed Wood's work, Marins' often involved bestiality. At least one had a talking dog, played by a non-talking dog that Marins said was the best actor he worked with.

For those of you who are bored with my write-ups of Coffin Joe movies, be glad to know that I've only got one to go. For the rest of you, here's a picture of Marins at work:

Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind

1978 film that just ain't right

Rating: 20/20 (Yes, there's a new Coffin Joe Rule. If you don't like it, take it up with him and more than likely have your face eaten off.)

Plot: A psychologist is troubled by nightmares in which the movie character Coffin Joe fondles his wife. His colleagues try to convince him that Coffin Joe is only a character and even call Jose Mojica Marins to speak with him. Then, on the back of a fish truck that unloads, his conscience explodes.

"Flesh will be blood, blood will become water to bathe my eternal legacy and glorify the pleasure of pain in the bodies of the damned. So shall it be from one galaxy to another from one existence to another. The little forever midget and the great eternal giant."

If God called the Audience of One guy to make the science fiction Joseph movie, I think Satan was probably responsible for this one. Or a buttload of hallucinogenics. This starts with a drumming, spinning hunchback, an image that in a normal movie would probably be the weirdest one. But this is a Jose Mojica Marins movie, not a normal movie, and the hunchback is just a precursor to about eighty minutes that can only be categorized as an unhinged barrage of nightmarish visuals, mostly censored scenes from his other movies that he's recycled. Bugs crawling on people, wind-up toy snakes, really really bad naked dancing, devil figurines, a bridge made out of people, a mustachioed spider puppet, waving feet, snakes and the women who laugh at them, Coffin Joe shooting fuckin' lasers out his fingers like Emperor Palpatine, shots of colorful test tubes and beakers with frothy foaming liquids, walls made of tarp and naked women, laughing and then exploding black guys in Speedos, those curling fingernails, that ominous unibrow, Erik Estrada, people in animal masks, a magically appearing top hat with pyrotechnics, naked guys tumbling down staircases, Satan poking the half-buried with a pitchfork, fire-breathing topless women, nude posteriors with goofy faces painted on them, finger-eating pasty guys, a lot of shots of half-buried people, what appears to be a cannibalism game show with an upside-down guy and a smiling man in a tuxedo beside him, demons with claw hammers, laughing skulls, random shots of frogs, white mice danging in front of bare breasts, severed hands, gelatinous head walls, tongue yankin', and that guy with two different-sized ears I've seen in Marins' other movies. And yes, that's all as badass as it sounds. Low-budget insanity art, toxic and mystifying. I've seen my share of weird movies, and I can tell you with confidence that there's not much out there that is this relentlessly weird. And I know what you're wondering, so I'll go ahead and answer the question for you--No, you can't handle this movie. Sadly, you would probably have trouble finding it anyway.

The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasure

1975 Coffin Joe morality tale

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Coffin Joe is resurrected (I think) by some scantily-clad women and some male dancers with plastic breasts. His top hat magically appears, and he sulks off to an inn. A variety of guests arrive to escape a thunderstorm. Coffin Joe accepts some while turning others away. The guests engage in a variety of nefarious goings-on--biker orgies, gambling, an affair, shady business dealings, jewel thievery. At midnight, the clocks stop and some bad stuff happens.

I have to admit something--I think I'm terrified to give any of Coffin Joe's movies anything less than a 14. I almost want to make a Santo-esque "20" rule for Coffin Joe; then again, I'm terrified Santo will have an issue with that. The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasure might not be as good as its title. As a horror film (or whatever the hell it is), it's really bizarre. The freeform weirdness of the opening scene sets the oddball atmosphere--a train track rhythm, some of the worst dancing you'll ever see, people in masks, one guy wearing the neck-down part of a gorilla suit, those men with fake plastic breasts, wobbling shirtless men, silk-clad dancing girls. And, the piece de resistance: a guy who is wearing a giant plastic fake butt on his front. After that insanity, you get the opening credits, a hypnotizing asteroid field, and some terribly incoherent poetry. Things slow down, almost to a screeching halt, as some sort of story threatens to develop. For about forty minutes of so, it's just people arriving at the hotel and Coffin Joe saying some cryptic things ("Why are objects important if the goal is for eternal existence?"). Ad infinitum. The biker orgy scene is especially nutsy though. For the longest time, it's just this packed room of unattractive biker guys and biker chicks undulating on top of each other while, for what seems like forever, chanting, "Everybody naked, great! Everybody naked, great!" The juxtaposing scenes of the dealings of the strange hostel's inhabitants is a lot to endure, but thankfully, things get really bizarre again. Stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers. Coffin Joe, seemingly ubiquitous, pops in everybody's room, does his weird eye thing, and watches flashbacks where nasty things happen. All with some squiggly, howling, squelching Moog accompaniment and omnipresent screams. Oh, and an off-sounding "Auld Lang Syne". One guy puts a gun to his head. Suddenly, the screen is filled with superimposed fireworks before becoming drowned in blood. It's a sick effect. There's also some nifty fire effects that showcase Marins' ability to do a whole lot with just a little. Another favorite scene is where a couple are having a splash fight in a bathtub when the husband walks in with flowers. He pulls a knife and the flowers fall before, if I remember correctly, Marins decides to show us some insects or rats or a close-up of a creepy clock. Even more than the other two Coffin Joe movies on this blog (here and here), this has the feel of outsider art. It's not exactly the most coherent movie I've ever seen, but like any other Coffin Joe movies (there are two forthcoming), I'd recommend this to weird film enthusiasts.

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul

1963 Brazilian horror film (the first)

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Coffin Joe is an evil undertaker. You can tell because he's got an evil-looking top hat and a cape, and the severed hand motif in his home decor is pretty creepy. And he eats meat when he's not supposed to! Blazenly! Anywho, Coffin Joe really wants a son. His wife is unfortunately barren, so he does what any reasonable evil undertaker would do. He kills her sadistically, then kills his best friend, and finally rapes his best friend's wife. But will his evil extracurricular activities catch up with him on the Day of the Dead? Du-du-dummm!

Marins has got a real presence, like a Brazilian Vincent Price. Now maybe that's just because everybody else in this movie looks like a farmboy, and Coffin Joe is wandering around with that cape and top hat thing, but I really like this absolutely Satanic character, and I think Marins shows some acting chops. This is a cheap movie. It starts like an Ed Wood movie with two introductions (Coffin Joe himself and a gypsy woman who paces her pad with this gigantic skull) reminiscent of Wood's The Amazing Criswell. The gypsy woman gives the audience a warning like you'd get in a William Castle horror film, and it displays the showman side of Marins, more circus barker than director. Marins is the type of director who does a lot with very little (check out the owl special effect or the especially creepy parade of souls), including what seems to be sound effects ripped off from a Disney "Sounds of Horror" record I had when I was a little kid. The violence is gruesome, especially for a grainy black and white movie, and also kind of goofy. The spider scene? Not for the arachnophobic. The bathtub scene? That doesn't even make sense. The abrupt end to a poker game? Well, ok. But you know, it all adds up to something to a well-paced, atmospheric, and at times genuinely creepy horror movie. Somehow, you get this feeling that something really evil is behind the making of this movie, and that gives it an edge.

More Jose Mojica Marin on the murky horizon.