TIFF 22' Film Review - Venus

Lucia (Ester Exposito) is a go-go dancer in an ultra-popular Madrid nightclub. She jumps off her platform during the middle of a song making a beeline to the club offices where she breaks into a locker and swipes a large duffle bag. One of the bouncers spots her wondering why she is not on stage demanding to see what's in the bag. They scuffle Lucia manages to get out suffering a significant wound. Desperate with few options, She heads to her sister Rocio (Angela Cremonte) and niece Alba Ines Fernandez) apartment in the bad part of town. Little does she know that people are trying to get out of the Venus apartments more urgently then she is trying to get. in. As Lucia is arriving Rocio has packed up Alba fleeing the apartment in the night tired of the noises upstairs, bad dreams, and sludge coming from the taps. They make it to the stairwell when they run into the wounded Lucia headed their way. 

Director Jaume Balaguero crafts a horror/thriller contained mainly in the setting of one apartment complex. Lucia is hiding out from the criminal employer she stole from while Rocio is trying to get rid of her estranged always in trouble kid sister so she and her daughter can leave once and for all. The duffle bag is filled with synthetic drugs that Lucia hopes to see with the help of a friend. Her employers are sure Lucia had help and Rocio has disappeared leaving Lucia to get to know and take care of her niece Alba. She ventures out with Alba but sees heavies scouting the area having found her abandoned car. Back in the building, Alba's only child age friend is throwing a birthday party a couple of floors below. Writer Fernando Navarro slowly shifts the focus of the threat to Lucia from the external where her criminal pursuers are lurking to inside the Venus apartments starting with events at the birthday party. The neighbour's mother aunts, and other female relatives are present. A strange occurrence since everyone else seems set on leaving the building. The females ask Lucia some very personal questions that put our protagonist on the spot foreshadowing the direct nature of these women that will feature more as the narrative marches ahead. 

Venus is a horror film that witches from a heist/gangster, hunter/hunted to something more spiritual and ritualistic along the way. The moment of the switch is plain, obvious, and shocking, especially to the unfortunate soul whose on the wrong side of the moment. Ester Exposito who is best known for the Netflix series Elite gives a very physical performance seeming quite at home in her first horror film role. There are memorable killings, and plot point that seem unimportant at first only to pay off big later. In amongst the blood and gore, lies the development on a strong bond between aunt Luísa and niece Alba that unite the pair helping them in the present and setting them up for a strong future. 

*** Out of 4. 

Venus | Jaume Balaguero | 2022 | U.S./Spain | 100 Minutes. 

Tags: Night Club, Go Go Dancer, Theft, Designer Drugs, Hunt, Apartment Complex, Full Moon, Ritual, Queen of Sorrows. 

Lofty Sky Entertainment Film Review - Eternal Spring

Falun Gong is a religious movement that was founded in China in the 1990s. At first, the movement was not on the radar of the Communist government. But as the groups practicing the outdoor Buddhist/ Taoist exercise movements that encourage independent thinking. Meditation is also a large part of the practice. The end goal is the purification of the heart attainment of spiritual salvation. There are some cultist and alt-right sentiments mixed in here that the Documentary through the eyes of practitioners does not touch. The government saw them as an ever-increasing threat. The Party line was that Falun Gong promotes teachings that are dangerous and not in keeping with the cultural and social progress the Party wishes to obtain. A  heretical organization that causes social instability. The government talking points were repeated over and over on State television in living rooms across the county every night when families gathered to eat their dinner. 

To combat this false narrative in the eyes of its practitioners a plan was hatched to hack into the state TV signal in Changchun City and broadcast the truth about the movement. The next segments are perhaps the best of the film. Staging, training and planning for the takeover ahead of the March 5th, 2002 go date. The recruitment and prep hit all the beats of classic heist pictures from the past. Here the training includes learning to scale a cable pole. Keeping the planning meetings secret and avoiding the police who have a list of practitioners on their arrest for interrogation list.

The film is a combination of first person accounts and 3D animation re-enactment of events. Illustrator/ Comic book Artist  Daxiong a practitioner that fled from China to Canada helms the visuals. They are crisp on the screen as they seem to pop with each frame. The good, bad ,and violent are all broadly on display. Animated scenes of captured members being tortured in prison are followed by tender reunions of those that escaped often feeling guilty they survived  The other main voice in the piece goes by the moniker of Mr. White. He too escaped prosecution and lives with his family in Seoul, South Korea. Mr. White carriers a heavier burden than Daxiong  possessing a deep case of survivor's guilt that rushes to the service when he talks about colleagues that have passed or those that were captured in the same back alleys and laneways of Changchun City where he used to roam. 

The timing of the film is apt as current groups that stray from the expected path are cracked down even harder in recent years. Once independent Hong Kong has been drawn back to the practices of the Mainland. The percussion and treatment of the Uighurs is front and centre and China has turned a menacing eye towards Taiwan with recent  military shows of force circling that island. It's a wonderfully shot and paced film that I can recommend. 

***1/2 Out of 4.

Eternal Spring | Jason Loftus | Canada | 2022 | 86 Minutes.

Tags: Documentary, Animation, Falun Gong, Hacking, State TV, China, Religious Prosecution, Prison, Torture, Escape, Toronto, Seoul, New York City.