Gems that Got Away

Speaking as someone who watches way more movies than they should, here are a few cinematic gems that I have gleaned over the years that may have slipped by, knocked aside by the non-stop flow of ever-newer shows and movies that we are constantly bombarded by.

Puppet Fantasy - Strings

Classic movies such as The Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth are not stand-alones in the category of puppet-based fantasy. There have been many sleepers in this category of filmmaking, and the one that should immediately come to the world’s attention more than any other is the 2004 film Strings.

Strings is a mythic fantasy based inside a puppet world inhabited by marionettes. The protagonist, in typical hero style, sets out to avenge the death of his father. Undertaking a journey of revelations, our hero finally comes to a much clearer understanding of the struggle between the two sides of an ancient conflict.

Directed by Danish Anders Ronnow Klarlund, Strings has won many awards since its release, widely acclaimed for its innovative cinematographic techniques. The fact that the characters are marionettes is even incorporated into the fictional universe of the film, and all of their “strings” always remain shown, stretching endlessly into the sky. Certain wide-angle shots reveal views of the countryside of the puppet realm with millions of strings connected from the sky to the ground, each representing a connection from the “unseen realms” to one of the puppet beings below.

If a string is ever broken and detached, the limb it controls is thus severed, as if it had been amputated, and nothing can bring it back. There are even prisons inside the realm that keep the poor classes as reserves of body parts for when the higher classes accidentally sever a limb. Once the “head string” is severed, the puppet dies.

Instead of giving birth in the traditional way, in this puppet world a couple fashions a new child out of wood, or carves the new puppet. After a while, luminous strings float down from the sky and attach themselves to the wooden form, animating it with new life for the first time.

Nobody in the realm knows how far the strings go, or where they go, or who controls them, and this fact forms the backbone of the plot as the hero seeks answers to these existential questions. The characters are finally able to learn the act of leaping great distances, virtually “flying” from place to place, by causing the higher powers (on the other side of the strings above) to “jerk” them. This can only be accomplished by cultivating the power of love through the unity of all things, the oldest theme in the book.

If you liked The Dark Crystal, you’ll love Strings. With the recent re-invention of The Dark Crystal in its repackaged new Netflix series, the stage has been set for the masses to begin exploring the other great puppet movies of the past, such as Strings, as well as lure us into the future of filmmaking using puppets.

Dystopian Sci-Fi Romance – Upside Down

If you like immersing yourself in the rules of an imaginary world, such as the classic film Gattaca, but also enjoy a dystopian romantic element at the same time, such as the one within Edward Scissorhands, then a movie you would surely love is Upside Down.

Upside Down is a 2012 French-Canadian romantic fantasy/sci-fi written and directed by Juan Diego Solanas, staring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess. The backstory of the universe is explained in the first scene through a series of artistic diagrams depicting the laws of science and rules of society between their unique, two-planet system.

In this imaginary universe, these two planets orbit each other in very close proximity, and in one central, mountainous region, the two planets come the closest to one another. Between the span of the highest peaks on both planets, two reaching human hands can almost reach out and touch one another. If any form of matter from one side leaves its home world and goes onto the other side, it only has a few hours of life before it burns away into oblivion.

In this fantasy world, one of the planets (called Up) is the richer, dominant one, while the other planet (Down) is the home of the poorer, working class. There is one central corporation, Transworld, linking these two planetary societies together in a great skyscraper attaching itself to the surface of both worlds. Transworld is the only place where the inter-mingling between the two planetary populations is allowed, and even here it is highly regulated.

The basic storyline involves a romance between a man and woman living on either side, meeting at a young age through an accident on the mountaintops, and then years later again by the designs of fate when the protagonist, Adam, of the planet Down, develops a successful cream that counteracts the effects of anti-gravity, and as a result is granted access privileges into the planet of Up, where he sees the girl of his dreams from so many years before.

This movie is so good on so many levels, but the new element here is the fact that their being together, on either planet, for longer than a few hours, is not only “impossible” in the way we usually mean the word, but Impossible in a scientific sense, that their body will literally burn to dust if they remain together. Combining these elements of science fiction and fantasy with this classic kind of fatalistic, forbidden romance, the other element to this film is the action, for it is quite action-packed as well.

A recurring theme of Upside Down involves a rare kind of pink bees that collect pollen from the mountains of both worlds. As a result, the honey from these bees is prized as being the most delicious kind. Ultimately, this film portrays the Taoist view of equal but opposite forces, when working in harmony, producing the honey, or the sweet things in life. The final scene of the film, along these lines, is at once memorable and uplifting.

Psychological Thriller - Vivarium

If you like a good thriller with an element of psychological dystopia, such as The Stepford Wives meets Shutter Island meets the original Alien, then you will love Vivarium.

There are some aspects to this film that make it similar to Cabin in the Woods, but with less reliance on the special effects and more on the acting and uniqueness of the premise. Vivarium is more of an art form than a traditional movie, drawing in the viewer from beginning to end, keeping us enraptured in an addictive and chilling mood of uneasiness. Each and every scene has been carefully crafted, harnessing our innermost fears.

Vivarium saw its world premier at the Cannes Film Fesitval in May of 2019. Starring Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots, and directed by Lorcan Finnegan, Vivarium was an international co-production between Belgium, Ireland, and Denmark.

In the beginning, a handyman (Eisenberg) is cutting tree branches at a school when he sees a collection of dead baby birds, their nest having been overtaken by a cuckoo. A primary school teacher (Poots) goes on recess with her class and meets her boyfriend by the dead birds under the tree. They perform an impromptu mock funeral for the dead birds, thus setting the stage for the string of events to soon follow.

After work, the young couple goes out “house-hunting” for a nice place in the suburbs. They conveniently walk by an advertising office for a home in a new neighborhood complex called Yonder. There is a single worker in the office, and he offers to take them right then and there on a guided tour though one of the available properties. The couple is hesitant, but finally agrees to go take a look.

They follow their new guide in separate cars, through the main gates and into the mega-complex of Yonder. All of the houses look exactly the same, identical rows of boxes each painted in the same dull green. They finally stop at house number 9, and their guide shows them around. Turning away for a moment, the couple decides that the house is not for them and that they will go look elsewhere instead. However, they soon realize that their guide has left the scene, and his car is gone.

They get inside their car and try to leave the way they had come, only to return within a few minutes of winding curves to the same place they had left from, house number 9. So they try to leave again, only to eventually return once more to their starting place, house 9. The place begins to turn into a winding maze, a maddening hall of mirrors, as they continually try to drive out of the labyrinthine streets of Yonder, always to return to their starting position at house number 9.

Finally settling into their nightmarish condition, they decide to spend the night inside the house. Their reality soon turns into a Groundhog Day from hell type scenario as their every attempt to escape Yonder leads to inevitably circling back to house 9. Each morning they find they are replenished with fresh food and water by a mysterious basket left on their doorstep. Things take a creepy turn when one morning they discover that instead of food the basket has a little baby placed inside of it. A note is attached, saying, “If you want to be released, you must raise this child.”

The child grows way faster than a normal human, and in a matter of months is fully grown. You can leave it to your imagination, but suffice it to say that things get decidedly dark and dystopian from here. Leaving the viewer buzzing after the film concludes, the subliminal theme then seeps into the substance of our dreams, the sign of having done its job as a well-made movie.

Bank Robbers & Car Chases – Baby Driver

If you liked any of the many Fast and the Furious movies, and also appreciate a good heist, you’ll love Baby Driver. Written and directed in 2017 by Edgar Wright, and starring a getaway driver seeking a life of freedom from crime, Ansel Elgort plays the lead role alongside co-stars Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey and Jon Hamm. The creator of this project worked on developing it for over two decades, originally planning for the tale to be based out of Los Angeles, later changing the location to Atlanta and incorporating the city’s culture as an important element of the story.

The National Board of Review selected Baby Driver as one of the top films of the year, and it was a candidate for several awards including three Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, two Critics’ Choice Awards, and a Golden Globe for Best Actor, bolstering the possibility of a sequel.

An integral element to this story, like so many others, is its perfect Soundtrack, and with Baby Driver the soundtrack is actually written into the action of the story itself. The main character’s personal habit is to constantly listen to his personal mixed tapes using a set of earphones, seemingly oblivious to the world around him as he remains calm and steady inside his own head, always listening to the music.

During the multiple, fast-paced car chase sequences, “Baby” listens to specific songs on his mixed tapes, giving the action a very personalized feel. We sense the scene the way Baby senses it, not the way the world around him does, silently. Instead, we hear the action outside muffled by the roaring music, exactly as the driver hears it. For the perfect combination of fast cars and robbing banks in the South in the 90s, be sure to check out Baby Driver.

Surfing Movies – Riding Giants & Surfer Dude

If you’re like me and enjoy a good surfing movie, then perhaps you instantly think of the classics such as The Endless Summer or Point Break. Two others that I find even better are Surfer Dude and Riding Giants.

Surfer Dude follows the trials and tribulations of soul-searching surfer Steve Addington, played by Mathew Mcconaughey. When the waves suddenly stop crashing, an existential crisis hits hard. For over a month there are no waves. During this spiritual drought, Addington is brought face to face with the doldrums of his deepest desire, the waves, and is taken to the brink of sanity.

Alongside this storyline is another one, a Reality-TV show/Video Game company that desperately wants Addington’s cooperation with their new project, as he is one of the main characters in their virtual reality surfing game. However, old-school Addington wants nothing to do with any video game or TV show. He’s all about the waves. It seems, however, that the gaming company won’t take no for an answer, forcing their realities to collide.

Woody Harrelson is excellent, and there are multiple cameos from Willie Nelson on a goat farm too. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the main location of the film is the cascading seaside of Malibu, California. All these things aside, the main factor in promoting this to one of my favorite films of all time must be the Soundtrack. Without the brilliance of the soundtrack, the movie would simply not be the same.

On the other hand, if you’re less into the zany, stoner, artsy mood, and more into an intellectual journey through time, learning the history of surfing in the form of one of the finest documentaries ever made, then check out Riding Giants. Produced by Agi Orsi in 2004, this movie was directed and narrated by Stacy Peralta, the famous surfer/skateboarder who had recently directed the highly acclaimed Dogtown and the Z-Boys, of which he was a founding member.

From Polynesian and Hawaiian roots, to the evolution of wave riding at Waimea Bay in the 1950s with Greg Noll and others, the film progresses into the use of lighter boards and, at the finale, the practice of “tow-in surfing”, allowing for truly big wave riding, or “Riding Giants”. At the end, Laird Hamilton is documented riding one of the biggest waves imaginable, and in his own words, “the most humbling experience of his whole life”. Another highly memorable part of this movie showcases the biography of Jeff Clark, who discovered the surfing location known as Mavericks in Northern California and surfed there alone for years, an extremely treacherous location known for some of the world’s finest waves.

Real Superpowers – The OA

Shows about people with superpowers range from the cheesy yet lucrative Marvel franchise (among others), into the realm of depicting those with very real superpowers. The OA is one of these kinds of shows that got by just nearly everyone unnoticed. What is The OA exactly? Well, let’s see. It’s a fantasy, thriller, sci-fi, mystery, and supernatural drama wrapped in one. Yea, that about describes it.

Created and produced by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglii, season one debuted on Netflix in 2016 while season was released in 2019.

The OA follows the story of Prarie Johnson, a woman who mysteriously resurfaces after being missing for seven years. She begins to call herself “The OA”, the Original Angel, and now can see again, despite being blind before she had disappeared. Refusing to tell her adoptive parents or the FBI how her eyesight had been restored, she soon assembles a ragtag team of four geeky high school students and one teacher. She tells the newly assembled group to meet her in an abandoned house under construction, at a specific time and place, where she commences to tell the long tale of her seven-year imprisonment and escape. These “story sessions” on the second floor of the construction site come in installments every few days or weeks, and so the story therefore alternates between the present day and the recounting of her past.

In the narration of her recent experiences, Prarie reveals to the group that a man had originally lured her in because of her gifted musical ability, into his home, where she was quickly imprisoned in a glass cage underground. It turned out she was not alone down there, but that this man was a kind of “collector” of different young people exhibiting natural superhuman abilities, such as telepathy, telekinesis, and others. They all share the similarity of having had near death experiences, and coming back different.

The villainous scientist apparently captures these special humans in order to study them to learn more about the world of life after death. After being imprisoned with this group of others for a long period of time, she reveals the great bonding that occurred between them. During this time, their superpowers were cultivated naturally by the mutual affection they felt for one another and the bond of their shared sense of helplessness.

The second season left us hanging, and to the disappointment of all the show’s many loyal fans, the planned third season was cancelled. In fact, the creators had planned for this to be a 5-part series, each of the five seasons going into more and more detail behind Prarie’s seven-year captivity. Sadly, after two seasons, The OA was cancelled.

Was The OA revealing too much truth for comfort? Perhaps the plot of shows such as this one are just hitting too close to home? If you liked X-Men, try watching The OA, expanding from the idea of purely fictional superpowers into the taboo realm of what’s actually occurring in today’s day and age.