I had no intention of seeing Phantom final evening. I used to be on my method to one other movie at Montreal’s beloved Fantasia Movie Competition once I seen a big crowd snaking out of the doorways of the pageant’s headquarters and round a nook. Some individuals had clearly been ready some time — that they had sensible collapsible chairs. Many wore John Carpenter shirts, so I knew I might belief their style.
What’s taking part in? I requested somebody. He took a second to translate me in his head — it seems he spoke French, like so many individuals in Montreal — and answered again, with a stunning, smoky accent: Phan-tome.
I had by no means heard of Phantom. I searched the pageant information and discovered that it’s a story set throughout the Japanese colonization of Korea in 1993, about 5 prime Korean suspects who’re locked inside a distant, cliffside lodge after a failed assassination try on a Japanese Governor Common. They’re grilled by an interrogator making an attempt to unmask whoever amongst them is the freedom-fighter spy referred to as The Phantom.
I made a decision to belief the knowledge of the group. And the group was proper.
Fantasia and Phantom
Fantasia is among the premier style festivals on the planet, and maybe the very best of all. It constantly turns up on MovieMaker‘s annual listing of fifty Movie Festivals Well worth the Entry Price, which we use to recommendation filmmakers of which festivals are price submitting to.
One among Fantasia’s best strengths is its location — Montreal is elegant, and Concordia College offers many top-notch amenities and delightful screening venues, together with within the coliseum-like Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU, the place Phantom performed
One other large power is its programming group. These have been the primary of us to find Skinamarink, a $10,000-budgeted experimental movie that went on to earn $2 million and turn into the yr’s first horror phenomenon. Yearly, they flip me on to a daring film I really like. This yr these films embrace John Rosman’s gorgeously constructed New Life, which can debut subsequent week; in addition to Beautiful, Darkish, and Deep, an impressive park ranger mystery-horror movie by Teresa Sutherland led by Barbarian star Georgina Campbell. I used to be additionally very impressed by The place the Satan Roams, a movie by the Adams household that finds terror in opposition to a ghastly Nice Melancholy backdrop.
However Phantom would be the most Fantasia movie of all, as a result of it so completely highlights Fantasia’s best power: irrepressible, passionate, very sharp audiences. What number of festivals can draw a packed home on a weeknight to what may very well be described as a South Korean interval drama? The listing shouldn’t be lengthy.
Fantasia is thought for its wonderful curation of Asian style cinema, and the viewers clearly trusted the programmers’ judgment. Phantom has a pedigree followers of South Korean movie will certainly acknowledge, even when the common viewer gained’t: Directed by Lee Hae-young, finest recognized for Believer, it stars Sul Kyung-gu (Idol), Lee Hanee (Excessive Job), Park So-dam (Parasite), Park Hae-soo (Squid Recreation) and Search engine optimisation Hyun-woo (Determination to Depart).
Arguably the very best recognized of these performers, to the everyday Western movie fan, is Park So-dam, who performed the intelligent youthful sister in Parasite, the 2020 winner of the Oscar for Finest Image. And Park Hae-soo earned an Emmy nomination for Squid Recreation, a Netflix smash in South Korea and the U.S.
However to be sincere, I didn’t bear in mind both of them at first. And that was tremendous. As a result of the Fantasia viewers pulled me in and acquired me immediately invested within the screening expertise with infectious, relentless pleasure. They even clapped together with the music within the adverts earlier than the film.
Possibly a few of that was ironic, however I’m satisfied the delight for the gloriously over-the-top Nongshim noodle advert was completely honest. I felt it. Who wouldn’t love this advert? Watch:
Nongshim additionally handed out free packets of noodles, which we held up in salute at one level. That was actual, too.
However that isn’t the very best a part of the Fantasia pre-viewing expertise. The perfect half is the meowing that comes earlier than each movie, adopted by shushing, adopted by much more passionate meowing. Why the meowing? There are Reddit threads, however I choose to not perceive, and to easily meow. Such is Fantasia.
However again to Phantom: It’s fantastic. A gorgeously shot, film-history obsessed, noir-homage trendy masterpiece that turns into one thing else for its closing act. The combat scenes are excellent. It’s stuffed with lush rain and opulent rooms and completely positioned callbacks and a cat that the Fantasia programmers clearly knew would play nicely, in addition to glamorous smoking (which the film nearly apologizes for, then doesn’t). So, so, so many individuals get shot within the face. Gunshots have by no means sounded so actual, and there’s a bit with nooses that’s pure cinema.
Anybody who likes Inglorious Basterds or the early Indiana Jones films will adore it. There have been a number of occasions once I thought, “This could finish now” and every time I used to be fallacious — director Lee Hae-young had one other nice concept. My Googling tells me it’s been a decent-sized hit in South Korea, and I guess it might be large on this hemisphere. Simply watch this:
That is the form of expertise I’m going to movie festivals for. I discovered one thing I really like and by no means would have discovered by sticking to my fastidiously plotted on-line schedule. Trusting Fantasia and its viewers they led me to the cat’s meow.
As quickly as we all know the place you may see Phantom in theaters, we’ll let .
Predominant picture: The principle forged of The Phantom.
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