Sydney Film Festival: Haemoo

Cold and frightened illegal immigrants huddle and cower together on the bow of a mid-sized fishing boat as the captain violently beats a complaining immigrant with a wooden broom. He turns to face them, the cameras focus slyly shifts from the captain to the human cargo and as his furious gaze washes over them they wince, physically and audibly. Writer and first-time director Shim Sung-bo’s confronting drama Haemoo (a.k.a Sea Fog) chronicles the disastrous first-attempt at people smuggling by a fledgling fisherman and his crew and is based off of a real life incident in South Korea in 2001. While obviously relevant for contemporary Australia, Haemoo involves the illegal smuggling of Chinese immigrants into Korea and the dangers and consequences of such an endeavour.

After a heart-pounding sequence set during a raging sea-storm, two dozen illegal immigrants find themselves at the mercy of the nervous crew of the Junjin. After an accident kills all but one of the immigrants, each member of the crew is driven mad in their own way. The execution of this insanity is brilliant, with each character’s mania being quietly foreshadowed and captured in heart-stopping, well-composed moments. Naïve, young shipmate Dong-sik forms an instant connection with the willful and demure immigrant Hong-mae and both are determined to ensure her survival, whereas Captain Kang is motivated by an inhuman determination to do anything to protect his ship and crew, and the other shipmates are driven by obedience, guilt and lust. The maddening guilt that overwhelms the elderly mechanic Wan-ho is particularly affecting in contrast to the cold dehumanizing logic of Captain Kang.  The tight direction of the engine room and fog scenes, the beautiful composition and colouring of disturbing night-time fog scenes on the ship’s bow and brilliant performances electrify a film teeming with social relevance and excellent dramatic tension.

Director Shim Sung-bo may lack the raw talent of other contemporary Korean thriller-drama directors, though with one of the most prolific and successful, Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Snowpiercer, Mother and Memories of Murder), on-board as producer certainly assists in helps Haemoo prove itself as a solid, thrilling human drama.

Sydney Film Festival: Deathgasm

"Death to false Metal!"

In a suburban neighbourhood in a New Zealand country town, in the garage of his conservative extended family, Heavy Metal purist and social pariah Brody (with his mates fellow purist Zakk and nerds Dion and Giles) forges garage metal band DEATHGASM and plays Black Sabbath-style tri-tone Doom Metal based off of sheet music he and Zakk found in an abandoned house. The sheet music is in fact an ancient demon summoning text and within moments local residents who hear the band play begin spewing bile and violently transform into flesh-craving demons. Now, DEATHGASM and Brody’s crush Medina must battle the King of Demons to halt a brutal demonic invasion of their town.

Deathgasm exists as a cross-roads between a classic high-school outcast/teen angst fable, B-movie horror comedy and fantastical Heavy Metal love letter, all the while feeling like it was meant to be made twenty-five years ago. The entire taste of the film, from writing to production design is straight out of the late 80’s, with demin vests, CD swapping ,Braindead/Evil Dead-style demon-zombies, clichéd bully encounters and even a VHS music video home movie. But Deathgasm works best as a sub-cultural comedy, whether it’s a spiked leather-clad, corpse-painted Brody on a cute ice-cream picnic with the classically pretty Medina, Zakk and Brody killing demonic parents with sex toys or a simple throwaway sight gag with a Poison vinyl, the film-makers sense of subject and timing is excellent. Often these jokes come caked in blood and gore, and the film contains some excellent stylistic flourishes, chaotic and bloody fight scenes, fantastic renderings of the joy of Metal, and even scene transistions, Deathgasm fits neatly into cult genre film territory (the razor-wire Whipper-Snipper Braindead homage is a quiet nod to the genre and location) though isn’t cinematically interesting enough to really leave an impact. In opposition to the great comedy and gleeful gore, the angst-ridden outcast story dilutes the on-point comedy (though obviously comes from personal experience), as does some wasted characters and narrative plot-holes that are likely the result of a brutal edit. Ultimately it’s a rough and fun ride that’s aimed squarely at diehard metalheads and curious teenagers, but well-made and funny enough to be enjoyed though likely rarely loved.