Night Call (dir. Michiel Blanchart)
One fateful night, Mady, a young locksmith (Jonathan Feltre), takes what should be a quick house call. But when the customer (Natacha Krief) disappears before paying our hero his fee, his evening devolves into a white-knuckle story of survival, set against the BLM protests of 2020. You see, the apartment that Mady unlocked didn’t actually belong to his customer, and the real owner, a jacked up Nazi with ties to a powerful criminal syndicate, is not happy to see a confused Black man in his home.
And it only gets worse from there.
Before long, Mady has a new task: help a crime boss retrieve stolen money while trying to clear his own name and escape certain death at the hands of his captors. Unfortunately for said captors, Mady is a resourceful young man.
What follows is a wickedly intense real-time thriller without a breath to spare, existing somewhere between Collateral and Run Lola Run. Mady finds himself in increasingly sticky situations while trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. As is to be expected with films like this, the incessant onslaught of plot developments means that a few escalations are a bit contrived/convenient, but here its an asset. We all know that in the real world Mady would’ve been dead within the first 10 minutes of his ordeal. What makes Night Call so fun is watching the myriad ways the script weseals its way out of corners to escalate the tension further than anyone could reasonably expect.
It helps that Mady is a compelling character in his own right. There’s not much provided by way of background information, but Feltre’s performance lets us know exactly who Mady is. One particularly effective moment sees our hero faced with the task of torturing a young woman for life-saving information. It’s a battle of needs versus morals and Feltre gives us a full understanding of Mady’s ethical code without speaking a word. It’s all in his wonderfully expressive face.
The escalations, twists, and turns lead to a final act that isn’t afraid to land in a complicated place. Viewers seeking a Taken-esque deliverance need to look elsewhere. But that isn’t to say it’s unsatisfying — just that the murky ethics of the situation naturally prevent black and white characterizations of good and bad, effectively shooting any attempts at justified violent catharsis in the foot. Such committed writing elevates what could be a simple genre exercise into something meatier and more thoughtful.
Cloud (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Kurosawa (no, not that one) is nothing if not prolific, making it impossible to affix a specific genre to his name. Even so, I went into Cloud expecting another spooky, slow-burn, atmospheric horror flick, likely with techno-social thematic concerns. Instead, Kurosawa delivers a bizarre slow-burn action flick, complete with kidnappings, double-crossings, and gun play…
…and techno-social thematic concerns.
As such, it took some time for me to vibe with what the film was putting down, but once it clicked, it clicked HARD. In a festival stacked with bangers (seriously, it’s been uncommonly excellent), Cloud proves to be one of the very best.
Masaki Suda plays Ryôsuke, a man whose side hustle as a reseller is steadily growing into his main source of income. It’s a bit of a gamble at first. He must purchase products in bulk that he can subsequently resell at a premium. It’s not necessarily the cleanest income stream, but Ryôsuke is far from the most corrupt capitalist making some scratch on the internet. He soon quits his day job, invites his girlfriend (Kotone Furukawa) to move in with him, and abandons a former business partner. He’s going all-in on reselling, and dammit, he’s good at it.
As an inherently exploitative vocation, it’s not long before Ryôsuke becomes a target, and when a group of his ostensible enemies decides to doxx him, he must scramble to cover his ass, legally speaking, and protect himself, physically speaking.
It’s a truly bizarre film, much more in the realm of action than horror, but that doesn’t mean it can’t produce vintage Kurosawa chills. One image in particular (which is prominently featured in the festival’s pre-show reel) is beyond chilling — doubly so when you know the context. By defying expectations, Kurosawa is able to regularly shock the viewer and sidestep his preferred genre’s tendency to telegraph its spookier moments. This creates an unpredictable experience in the moment, as well as a haunting feeling that only increases as we bob up and down in the film’s considerable wake and ruminate on what it all means.
So what does it all mean?
Do you have all day?
First and foremost, there’s some great thematic material here about exploitation. Once you go down the path of taking advantage of others, you are doomed. Sure, success may come at first, as is expected within a capitalist framework, but the seed of self-destruction has been planted, and it will sprout whether you like it or not. Secondly, and much more in tune with Kurosawa’s previous film Pulse, is the notion that each character represents a facet of online transactions, be they financial or social. Kurosawa seems to be investigating what internet squabbles/internet mobs/internet justice looks like when the anonymity and intangibility of the digital world is removed. It’s like they always say: people are very bold online, but they’d never speak like that in real life.
It’s “do your thing, Twitter” made flesh, and it’s an illuminating look into the corruptibility of the human psyche. It also has really really REALLY LOUD gunshots, which is essential when you’re trying to stay awake at 1:00 AM after a full day of movies.
