I've been waiting for an alternative to 8 Films to Die For, which seems rather inactive.
In The Human Race, a random selection of 80 people of different ages, abilities and ethnicities who happen to be on one American street block one sunny afternoon find themselves suddenly transported to a large, drab-looking arena, where they hear (their own) voices in their heads instructing them to race one another or die. This gladiatorial set-up might recall The Running Man or Battle Royale, with just a hint of Predators, but this visceral feature debut from writer/director Paul Hough is better than all of these thanks to its solid focus on characterisation and moral choice, as well as on broader theological/cosmological questions about our place in the universe. It’s not as sociopolitically rooted as, say, Punishment Park, but remains a bleak and often bloody portrait of humanity as a plaything for drives and forces beyond its comprehension or control.
My favourite film of the festival (and one of the year!) however was Martin Villeneuve’s Mars et Avril, an oneiric ‘space opera’ of a kind that, had he had access to CGI, no doubt Cocteau would have made. (He’s duly name-checked in Villeneuve’s script).
So much in this film is vibrantly original and odd. How many future-set films exist that are in no way dystopian, that feature not a single moment of violence, and that have a 75-year-old virgin musician as their hero? Not this movie.
HERE
