Riese (2009)

I'm Back

I know. I've been gone and completely inconsistent. I have a few days off and will be blasting through my queue on Netflix. The first one I chose to re-emerge with is Riese. As IMDb says:

Riese, a seemingly random wanderer, is being hunted by a terrifying religious cult, The Sect. Traveling from nation to nation for years, she is accompanied only by a wolf, Fenrir. Together they must evade the assassins sent by the Sect - who'll stop at nothing to complete the task they failed to achieve many years ago. 

Before I explain anything I need to admit something. For this blog I work hard not to look into any details at all. I choose the movie and as I'm writing I get on IMDb quickly to find the synopsis and links. But that's it. I cheated with this one, but mostly because once I was a half hour in, something felt wrong. The creation felt disjointed and incomplete. In fact, as I was watching I took the note that a lot of world building needed to happen and that it was better suited as a mini-series on Encore. Turns out this is a prelude to a webseries. You can probably find the rest of it on Hulu and/or YouTube. All that to say: I would spoil this movie just to save you from it, but I can't because that would require me to watch the rest of it and I'm not doing that. 

Synopsis

So, before I tear into this movie I'll give you a brief synopsis. Riese (Christine Chatelain) is a princess and on her 16th birthday her family is slaughtered so that her cousin, Amara (Sharon Taylor), may rule. Many years later, it is discovered that Riese is still alive. Amara, enraged, tells The Sect to find her. Since the beginning of Amara's reign, The Sect has infiltrated many villages, but a Resistance arose. They believe Riese to still be alive and fight to restore Riese to the throne and the tyranny of The Sect.

Soon into the movie, Riese suffers an injury, but avoid death because of her loyal wolf Fenrir. She asks for a room at a near-by village, but before she can be properly shooed away, she passes out. She awakes bandaged in a hospital bed. Though she is weak, she knows the Royal symbol on her back makes her a target for any Sect spies and thus works to leave hastily. On her way out she sees a room full of babies, which is unusual in these times. The doctor explains that women in the village are to give birth within the same month. At that moment a woman comes screaming in that someone took her baby. 

This sets the scene for Trennan (Patrick Gilmore). He is a Sect member who liaises between Amara's court and The Sect. He is cruel and disregards much of what Amara says but wants to find Riese. When she looking for the secret of babies, Trennan is on her trail and comes close to finding her, but she eludes him.

Next Riese is off to another township. However, when she arrives, it is obvious that this place has been abandoned for along time. Her and Fenrir stay the night to rest up. When she awakes she realizes she may not be alone. A young boy shows himself and lures her to where many others await. They are demented and have weapons, but she finds a building where a man lets her in and rescues her. 

However, it is soon clear this man is not friend, but a member of The Sect. He tells her how her little brother survived and was taken by The Sect. He is the chosen one but first they had to "fix" him. They tested the operation on a boy they referred to as the prototype and then executed the surgeries masterfully on him. It is then revealed that Trennan, the man who has been searching for her, is actually her brother. He works for The Sect, but his intentions toward Riese are still unclear. 

The prototype still lives in the village and barges in on the man and Riese. He kills the man and then runs after Riese when she attempts to escape. Fenrir wards off the boys and when Riese and the prototype fight she has no choice but to kill him. 

Riese goes off into the woods, but is confronted by Sect henchmen. When she thinks she is about to die, members of the resistance appear and save her. The movie ends with a stand off of the resistance and The Sect, with both Riese and Trennan facing each other.  

Thoughts

So, this movie has elements of a steampunk, dystopian world that is set in Sherwood Forest. Dystopianism, while always a genre, seems to have become quite in vogue the last five years, plus I enjoy the creativity that steampunk brings out in designers. Unfortunately, this movie let me down in the first ten minutes. Here my list of troubles:

• Exposition with obvious narration throughout. My God this was annoying. If a movie has to use narration, it should tell me something I don't know, or is hard to understand. In this instance it was used to restate facts that the characters had JUST spoken. Narration can often add to the essence of a movie by giving you knowledge from a wise, unseen storyteller. It didn't work in this case. It really just distracts.

• A map as prop used ineffectively. This may be a new tick I formed by watching Game of Thrones. GoT uses the map well and does a good job of dividing the land and helping the viewer/reader understand how the kingdom is divided and the characteristics of those particular people. The movie did not do that. The map was an ill-properly issued visual.

• No real sense of the antagonists. When Amara was the main antagonist it was clear what her motivation was. Get rid of Riese once and for all. However, when the new element of The Sect began to emerge it was not really clear who they are. I understand they wish to undermine Amara, but that's it. The tag line talks about a religious cult, but all you ever see is a simple secret ceremony. I think the story would have done some wonderful things by exploring the workings of The Sect. As it is now, the writers would have done better by calling them a dissenting regime, or given the group a name like the Bolsheviks.

• A resistance that exists but that is of no use until the end. Self-explanatory. The movie would cut to them for two minutes to check in. But it was actually distracting to the story. It would have been interesting to make them a mythical group that emerges at the end.

• Plot goes no where. When Riese is at the hospital and finds that the babies are being shipped to another lcoation I thought this would be a major item to explore. They did not. I don't understand what they were trying to do, but it would have been interesting to see what was happening with the babies and maybe it tied into the demented boys at the second village. This simply asked more questions than were answered.

• Mislabeled as fantasy, barely science fiction. No elements of this story ring as fantasy and not really science fiction. I suppose the operations on Trennan and the prototype make it kind of sci-fi, but it feels like a stretch. Steampunk to me is a fashion statement, but not a genre of movie and literature. Categorizing it as such, seemed like a way to lure in a certain audience and frankly, it was a cheap trick. 

Overall, I think it's obvious I think this is a waste of time. It's probable that a lot of my complaints and questions are answered in the webseries, however, I'm not invested enough to seek it out. I will say this though. This movie had a very ambitious story to tell. I don't think all was executed properly, but I think in the right hands it could be a fantastic movie/mini-series/book. 

Zenith (2010)

So, I'm a little late in posting this. Let me explain: 

1. When I started this project I wanted to review all genre of movies. While I hadn't pre-selected my movie, yesterday I wanted to do something in the horror genre. I just couldn't do it. I will at some point, but a lot of stuff is torture porn, which I just can't watch.
2. The movie I did end up choosing is Zenith. Once I finished watching it, I had this, "What the fuck did I just watch" feeling. Not because it was super weird or gross. It's a convoluted story with multiple framing (story telling) tools that left me extremely confused. I thought I'd better watch it again just so that I can explain how bad it is properly. And because I felt this way, you better believe there will be a spoiler alert at the bottom.

According to IMDb.:

A retro-futuristic steam-punk thriller, about two men in two time periods, whose search for the same grand conspiracy leads them to question their own humanity.

The movie begins with an older man, Dale (Raynor Scheine), turning on a camera and recording another man, Ed (Jason Robards III). The Ed begins to explain the Milgram Experiment. They then "muscle" their way into a house. A gun shot is fired, and the camera is dramatically rustled about and then goes to black.

We then cut to the main character, Jack aka Dumb Jack (Peter Scanavino). He begins to explain his story. The year is 2044 and the world has been genetically engineered to be happy. However, with this happiness,  the world has also become numb. Emotional words and feelings are lost to the world as no one has reason to use them anymore, except Jack knows these words. "Virtue, Comfort, Curiosity, etc". Jack is a med school drop out turned drug dealer. In this dystopian world, the drugs of choice are emotions; epiphany, pain, etc. Ed is Jack's father, now dead, and one someone he still resents. The movie captures Jack, falling down the same conspiracy rabbit hole that his father fell down.  

Jack searches for these tapes with the help of his mute friend, Nimble (Al Nazemian), random old-timer friend Mateo (Arthur French) and eventually a bookkeeper, Vito (Michael Cates)

We being to see that Ed, once a preacher, has become wrapped in the conspiracy theories of the world and it began with him happening upon a book called Zenith. He records his thoughts on VHS (really???) and subsequently numbers them. At least that's what I believe the tapes are.

Jack finds a tape years later and then begins the hunt. Not just for the tapes but for the answers to the questions Ed had been searching for. Along this search he meets Lisa (Ana Asensio). A woman who "knows words too." She is the wife of a very rich and powerful man. When she predictably finds herself in trouble, Jack rescues her and they then begin a romance.

Literally, mid-way through the movie (minute 40) they begin to share the plot.  Up until this moment it was all background and build up. But wait, there are no real new plot points.  The only thing new thing is that the beginning moments of the movie (when Ed and Dale go into the house) are explained and Lisa and Jack's love really begins to bloom. We are given more about how Lisa's trapped in the marriage and how there is virtually no way to get out.  

Before I spoil this movie let me air a few things out.

Let me tell you how many elements you'll have to deal with if you watch this.  Ed in live action. Ed through a camera. Jack reciting words in a camera. Jack in live action. Jack doing voice overs throughout. Jack speaking in the third person. Cuts to numbers meant to show you the order of these mysterious tapes. A search for the truth and the conspiracy that's covering this up.  The obligatory love story that gets intertwined.

This movie is billed as being made by Anonymous.  I don't know if this is the hacktivists group (whom I do have the utmost respect for) or some other entity that didn't want their name out. Either way, this movie is awful and I don't blame people for not wanting their name attached.  But perhaps I'm not being clear.  The acting is fantastic. Perhaps a bit forced at moments, but believable. My problem comes from the story trying to hard. to be too many things. There are so many ideas in this movie that the viewer gets a bit lost and having to focus on so much that is only peripherally related is dizzying. 

Lastly, I have a problem with dystopian story-telling. They chose the year 2044, which seems lazy. VHS's are not still a thing, let alone VCR's to play them on. It's almost as though they chose a time so close to the current date so that design of costume and creativity wouldn't be necessary. They could have taken a huge leap forward and said 4167. Design aesthetics could have been explained by a halted society.  With numbness comes a lack of beauty and a reverse evolution of society. Not a big deal, but an annoyance throughout. The movie relied so heavily on dark, muted colors and run-down abandoned environments. This, to me, didn't feel like a strong story-telling point of view. Just a personal opinion though.

Spoiler Alert

Jack is prepared to leave the area with Lisa, but destiny intervenes   Another tape is found and it traces back to Lisa's husband. In the last 20 minutes of the movie we are given back and forth few of Jack and Ed confronting the same man, Lisa's husband, Berger (David Thornton) or is it Schleimann, because at this point the story is so confused it's hard to know who everyone is and what the truth really is. 

Ed is brought to Berger. When speaking to Ed, it seems it is at the beginning of the moment when happiness is going to be pumped throughout the world and genetic engineering will allow people to live for 300 years. Ed is told there is no conspiracy, that it's all about happiness and that we now has a choice, he can leave the house and go back into the world where everyone thinks he's crazy, or he can have a new life. This new life would give him a new face, a job, a new chance.

On the other side there is Jack. He enters Berger house with a gun not wanting answer, but Lisa. See Berger tries to give Jack the same chance as Ed, but Jack leaves no room for discussion.  Oh, by the way, Jack has epilepsy. It's mentioned in passing throughout the movie but does not become a main tool of the story until this moment. When Berger sees Jack won't listen to reason, be pushes a button and turns the room into a strobe light, that severely cripples Jack. In this moment, while the strobe light is flashing a few things come out. Vito, the bookkeeper, is really Ed. Lisa is pregnant but doctors are giving her an abortion at this very moment. He could have had eternal life with them, but he decided to be dumb.

He wakes up in a hospital room unable to remember much, but being addressed as Ed Crowely. According to the calendar, the year is 2012. Apparently he had a brain tumor which caused a brain tumor and the epilepsy. It's weird, it seems we are meant to believe that all that transpired is a brain malfunction in Jack (Ed's?) imagination. Or has he been exiled from his world so that his mental balance is always called into question?