Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #290: Checkered Ninja (2018).

 

In Thailand, a checkered ninja doll is produced, but after its maker (a child factory worker) is murdered and a lightning storm hits, the soul of 17th-century ninja Taiko Nakamura possesses it and it lands on a ship bound for Denmark. Once it arrives there, local drunkard Stewart Stardust (the voice of Anders Matthesen, with Michael Glenn Murphy doing the English dub) finds him and gives him to his nephew Aske (Alex in the ED, voiced by Cameron Simpson). Once the ninja defends Alex's friend John against bully Glenn (Paul Tylak in both roles), Alex realises the doll is alive and they become friends. Now Checkered Ninja recruits Alex's help in exacting his revenge on his maker's killer Phillip Eberfo (aka Eppermint; Luke Griffin), but first Alex recruits Ninja's help in winning the attention of his crush, Jessica (Ava Connolly).

This Danish animated effort, from co-directors Matthesen and Thorbjorn Christofferson and adapted from Matthesen's novel, gets as much wrong as it gets right. It's decidedly more mature in content than most other animated films (there's a lot more violence and, particularly, strong language) and the possessed ninja doll motif is fresh and subversive. But then it mixes a cheesy message about self-belief and numerous adolescent fiction cliches into it, diluting that subversion. Plus, Griffin doesn't come close to sounding like children as either Glenn or John in the dubbed version which I saw and that was very jarring for me. I also didn't find it anywhere near as shocking, with the use of swearing, as it tried to be, and the character of Sean, Alex's brother, annoyed me quite a lot.

The visuals are consistently crisp, and its heart definitely beats, but thanks to the afore-mentioned flaws, this Checkered Ninja misses out on a belt from me. 6/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #289: March of the Penguins (2005).

 

In deepest, coldest Antarctica, flocks of penguins live, breed and co-exist with each other and a rapidly changing world. French documentary filmmaker Luc Jacquet seeks to show how this way of life is not so very different from humanity's in his 2005 film March of the Penguins, which became a surprise, but deserving, mainstream hit.

It follows one flock of these flightless Arctic birds over one year in their lives together, as they all find a mate, breed, hunt for the winter and slowly but stoically complete the titular march around their home, with Morgan Freeman, Amitabh Bachchan, Charles Berling, Jules Sitruk, Sharon Cuneta and (in the version I saw) Maryanne Slavin all narrating their collective odyssey. This is an almost punishingly slow doco, but it nonetheless captivated me the entire way because of how wise, insightful and patient it is. Jacquet, who later made the 2018 sequel March of the Penguins 2: The Next Step, clearly loves these creatures to the point of empathising with them, and in his direction and writing he never judges or even tries to explicitly explain any of their behaviours; instead the narration as it's written simply explains why they're behaving as they are in each situation, and very helpfully, how females and males behave differently to each other. That approach also serves to emphasise the film's main message: that penguins feel the same emotions and have the same values as humans. Values like connection, identity, camaraderie, romance, family. Jacquet also touches extensively on how they breed and then how their chicks come of age in their wilderness environment, fighting against all the dangers (man-made or otherwise) inherent in that.

March of the Penguins is less emotional and polemical, and far less aggressive than Blackfish (2013), and again it's very slow, but if you have the patience for it, like I did, you should find it to be a very illuminating, subtly sweet, impartially political, educational, slow-burning beauty. Oh, and did I mention it won the 2005 Best Documentary Feature Oscar, and that Jacquet and his co-producer Yves Darondeau brought plush penguins to the Academy Awards with them?

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #288: Arrowhead (2015).

 

Kye Cortland (Dan Mor) is a political prisoner trying to escape a mining colony. A rebellion recruits him one day to rescue his father from a totalitarian government and he acquiesces, but during his mission he accidentally crash-lands on a desert moon of strategic value to both warring sides. Now he must survive and find a way off the moon, with the "help" of his ship's AI, Re3f (Shaun Micallef, giving a surprisingly effective dramatic vocal performance).

This 2015 Aussie science fiction flick, which writer-director Jesse O'Brien made for just $150 000, is like The Martian meets Mad Max meets WALL-E. But it's actually based on a film school short O'Brien made in 2012 for just $600. The result is a rather suspenseless but nonetheless intriguing and confident outer-space survival movie, and certainly one in the hard science fiction tradition (think writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, whose works were notably more factually scientific than other SF writers). Indeed it's very low on action but that's the point, as our hero is a mostly lone figure in his environment anyway, and Mor plays him with just the right blend of grit, vulnerability and composed loneliness.

Samuel Baulch's photography is calmly paced and focused, his and O'Brien's editing is never flashy or too subtle, and Ryan Stevens compliments it all with a suitably earthy and ominous score. For me, Arrowhead shoots and hits its target. 8/10.

How I'm feeling now about the aforementioned incident a fortnight ago.

So it's now been a fortnight since I ran into my ex-friend who I fell out with badly after I gave her email address out without her permission. I spent about the next five days dwelling on that, but while it's still on my mind to a degree, the dwelling has ceased since last week. I'm still remorseful about it, I promise you, but not to the point of beating myself up about it. At some point, I think you need to stop doing that. Remember your errors and flaws, without letting them continually make you feel bad about yourself.

Yesterday, I had another session with one of my therapists with whom I discussed the matter (I named no names, just for the record). After painting the picture and expressing all my feelings on it, she told me, frankly but gently, I'd been conned but that I was nonetheless largely responsible. She concluded that there was probably no way of resolving this conflict, at least for now, and that I'd therefore just have to live with it.

I do believe that's correct. Either way, many of the feelings I had when I composed my previous post about the incident are ones I haven't shaken, although I am consciously trying my hardest to uphold a balanced perspective about the entire fiasco, both for clarity and more importantly out of respect for the other two parties. And my anxiety and shock about it has eased now.

Another lingering thought I have about (and which I'm adding to this post almost two months later) is that the falling out had three contributing factors and sources. I shouldn't have given the email address out, my friend who wanted it should've told me really what for, and had my ex-friend simply given my friend (even if only to shut her up) a chance to host some trivia nights like she knew my friend had wanted to do for some time, then my friend probably would've left her alone.