The Magic Sword (U.S., 1962)
D: Bert I. Gordon

When I was a kid, The Magic Sword was on TV every Saturday afternoon, it seemed.  I tolerated it, but I really wanted to see stop-motion monsters – and the grotesque monster makeup on some of the characters gave me nightmares.  In adolescence I discovered the film again on Mystery Science Theater 3000, where it made perfect fodder: the film wasn’t bad but it was awfully goofy, with its petulant hero, his addled sorceress mother, her companions (a two-headed man and a chimp), and, of course, Basil Rathbone as the villain, hamming it up.  What the film did have was a great dragon (a two-headed puppet breathing real fire), and a handsome look, straining its low budget with decent matte paintings for a real fairy-tale feel.  Legendary B-movie director Bert I. Gordon brought his personal print to the Wisconsin Film Festival, and unfortunately with age the colors had faded to pink.  One adjusted to this very quickly, but for some reason the glowing-green eyes of the film’s hag retained the green hue, which made the film seem a little more stylish than it ever was.  After the screening, Mr. B.I.G. entertained audience questions, including a nice anecdote about how he won over a stubborn Orson Welles (through his stomach, naturally).

Paddle to Seattle: Journey Through the Inside Passage (U.S., 2009)
D: Josh Thomas and J.J. Kelley

The Wisconsin Union Theater was close to being sold out for the Wisconsin premiere of the WIFF Badger Award-winning documentary Paddle to Seattle: Journey Through the Inside Passage.  Festival director Meg Hamel was present (of course, as we’ve now established she’s been cloned for this year’s festival), presenting the award to the filmmakers and getting a bit choked up when someone in the audience handed her a bouquet of flowers.  The documentary itself is both fun and mesmerizing, as J.J. Kelley and Josh Thomas embark upon a several-months-long trip by kayak from Anchorage, AK down the coastline of Canada to Seattle.  Along the way they endure sickness, bad weather, “red tide,” tainted store-bought meat, and general fatigue; they encounter grizzlies, a friendly lighthouse keeper living in complete isolation, a manatee, and humpback whales who swim right under their boats.  To keep their own sanity, they crack jokes and occasionally perform skits for the camera.  That can get a little wearying, but there are some solid laughs here too.  Really, it was perfect Sunday-afternoon film-festival viewing, because my wife and I were suffering from some fatigue ourselves (of the too-many-movies variety), so we were sympathetic.  Our asses were just as sore.

Terribly Happy (Denmark, 2008)
D: Henrik Ruben Genz

So apparently rural Denmark is exactly like the rural American Southwest.  Or, to be more precise, the rural American Southwest as depicted in the films of the Coen Brothers.  The Coens are clearly a very big influence on Henrik Ruben Genz’s offbeat Terribly Happy, which, like Blood Simple and Fargo, involves moral corruption, bizarre incidents, character quirks, and film noir stylings.  Unfortunately, the whole is less than its parts in this case. Jakob Cedergren plays a cop who, because of his own rash actions (revealed late in the film), is exiled by the police force to serve as the only officer in a remote Danish town surrounded by muddy bogs that swallow up anybody who wanders too close.  Almost against his will, he becomes entangled in the local sordid melodrama involving a sexy housewife who claims that her alcoholic husband beats her.  Murders are committed, the bodies are hidden, and the bog gets crowded.  Yet, somehow, none of it is sufficiently compelling.  A much better neo-noir handling of similar themes arrived with the Orpheum’s very next screening…

Mother (2009, South Korea)
D: Bong Joon-ho

This, the (unofficial) closing film of the festival, was sparsely attended, which was something of a shock.  Mother had great buzz, and past closing night films Sita Sings the Blues and Fermat’s Room were packed.  I can only assume that weariness was settling in upon the Madison crowd; the person ahead of me in line said that his wife couldn’t sit in a theater any longer, so she stayed home, but he refused to give up.  Mother made it worthwhile for the stalwart film buffs.  Director Bong Joon-ho had a mini-retrospective at the festival this year: his films The Host, Memories of Murder, and Barking Dogs Never Bite were screened.  Mother is a showcase for his talent; like Park Chan-Wook he has a virtuoso visual style, but he roots his stories in characters who are, to my estimation, more honest and believable, if nonetheless just as astonishing in their actions.  I knew little of the story, which lent a greater impact to the twists; as a result, I’m reluctant to reveal too much, except that it involves a mentally damaged young man, his overprotective mother, a brutal murder, and the mother’s subsequent amateur detective work.  That her snooping really is amateurish – and often takes her well in the wrong direction – is part of the story’s fascination.  We follow her down one blind alley after the next, inevitably toward a “terrible truth,” but one which is far more loaded and meaningful that most films of this genre.  Mother proved a suitably perfect closing film for the festival, dark, savage, emotional, bleakly funny, and ultimately very satisfying.