I Kill Giants (2017) - Dane debuts with balderdash B.O. disaster

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A girl wielding a huge weapon in front of a massive giant makes up this dramatic poster for Anders Walter's I Kill Giants

A small girl in a US coastal town rejects normal school life in favor of her hobby; hunting and killing in the forest along the ocean. - But does this curious interest cover over something else?

 

I Kill Giants is written by Joe Kelly (Monsuno (2011-12)), adapting his same-titled 2009 graphic novel co-created with Ken Nimura (Henshin (2015)), and directed by debuting Anders Walter (Helium (2013, short)).

A Monster Calls (2016) reminiscent story with an eternally supercilious, self-governing protagonist with a well-meaning, worried school councilor (Zoe Saldaña (Amsterdam (2022)) gives a dull sad-face performance), dumb brothers and a powerless bigger sister. An overly sweet new British schoolmate girl seems invented solely to get us closer to our little miss nonsense, who is given many a scene to elaborate her wacky nonsense universe. It is all gravely dull.

Humor, real suspense or dramatic development is missing in I Kill Giants. SPOILER The ending unsurprisingly shows that the fantastical elements are all self-invented in order for the girl to cope with her mother's cancer illness. She dies. The girl did not get to see her mother through her last time on earth due to her nonsense hunts in the wild. Nevertheless she thanks an imaginary giant in the film's last scene, wrapping up a story and film that is distant from actual reality and prone to hokum.

 

Related post:

 

Anders Walter: The day after ... The Oscars 2014

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Estimated 15.1 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 369k $

= Box office disaster (returned 0.02 times its cost)

[I Kill Giants premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 106 minutes. 13 companies and support bodies collaborated in the financing and production of the film. Shooting took place from September 2016 - ? in Belgium, Ireland and New York. The film was released day-and-date (online and in a few theaters) in North America with the gross numbers remaining secret (but likely being tiny). The film's reported gross comes from 7 markets, which, along with Denmark, where it sold just under 2,000 tickets, comes to 369k $. The three biggest markets were Russia with 165k $ (44.1 %), the UAE with 85k $ (23 %) and Portugal with 40k $ (10.8 %). The-Numbers.com allege that the film additionally made more than 1.7 mil. $ on domestic home video sales. Walter returned with Når Befrielsen Kommer (2023). Madison Wolfe (Keanu (2016)) returned in Trafficked (2017); Saldaña in a voice performance, a short and a music video prior to her theatrical return in Avengers: Infinity War (2018); and Imogen Poots (The Father (2020) in Age Out (2018). I Kill Giants is certified fresh at 78 % with a 6.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of I Kill Giants?

Petite Maman (2021) or, Girl Fantasy Lullaby

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A childlike landscape painting in the shape of a heart is intermingled with the two central girl actors on this bright poster for Céline Sciamma's Petite Maman

A little girl is helping her mother out after the passing of her maternal grandmother, removing furniture and belongings from her house. The girl befriends a very similar girl in the forest by the house, and she soon discovers something very strange about the girl.

 

Petite Maman is written and directed by great French filmmaker Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies/Naissance des Pieuvres (2007)). The title translates to, 'little mum'.

It is an extremely calm, meditative and quiet film, which only uses music once towards the ending. The calmness surrounds a plot that seems to be mesmeric to some, while it was regrettably soporific to me. The characters have little concrete characteristics; they are more so kind of art movie 'universal mother', 'universal father' and 'universal daughter' in 'mythical forest house'. Mother and daughter are quietly grieving someone we haven't seen or met, SPOILER and then the daughter befriends a girl who looks like her twin, (they are played by real life siblings Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz) and who turns out, strangely, to be her own mother when she was her age.

Spellbound or lulled to a lethargic state of relaxation, many will claim the first due to Sciamma's politically correct credentials, (woman-centered lesbian art cinema.) But in the case of Petite Maman, the hype is wrong; the film is but a pretty and snoozy mind game.

Related post:

Céline Sciamma: Portrait of a Lady on Fire/Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu (2019) - Sciamma spoils us with picturesque period romance

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 2.8 mil. €, approximately 3.18 mil. $

Box office: 1 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[Petite Maman was released 2 June (France) and runs 72 minutes. Shooting took place in France. The film has been screened at numerous film festivals. It is set to release in Germany and Poland in February and March. So far the film looks to theatrically become a huge flop or even a mega-flop. Naturally its performance is heavily influenced and hindered by the China Virus pandemic. Sciamma does not have her next project announced yet. Petite Maman is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Petite Maman?

Cría Cuervos/Cría!/Raise Ravens (1976) or, Mother Never Lets Go

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The poignant poster for Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos

QUICK REVIEW:

Ana is a girl who lives in Madrid during Franco's dictatorship with her general father, her depressed housewife mother and her two siblings. Ana witnesses her mother's death struggle and tries to poison her father. The grown-ups spare their children nothing, which vitiates them. Ana sees her mother everywhere.

This fateful portrayal of a family is an outstanding, tragic film, which can be viewed literally, as Ana's story; symbolically, as a Freudian mother-nightmare, (SPOILER Ana even recounts her story in her late mother's figure); or metaphorically/politically, as an inventory of Spain in the Franco-years.
English-born pop-singer Jeanette's Porque te Vas plays as a musical motif in this pretty advanced yet accessible film, which came out to acclaim and popularity the year after Franco's death.
It is directed by great Spanish director Carlos Saura (Peppermint Frappé (1967)), who had fathered a son with Geraldine Chaplin (The Impossible/Lo Imposible (2012)), who plays Ana's mother, at the time of Cría Cuervos. The title means 'raise ravens' and comes from the Spanish proverb, 'Raise ravens, and they'll take out your eyes.'
Saura has offered his perspective on this psychological family-themed drama with these words:
"Cria Cuervos is a sad film, yes. But that's part of my belief that childhood is one of the most terrible parts in the life of a human being. What I'm trying to say is that at that age you've no idea where it is you are going, only that people are taking you somewhere, leading you, pulling you and you are frightened. You don't know where you're going or who you are or what you are going to do. It's a time of terrible indecision."

Watch the trailer for this extraordinary film with English subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown, although admissions and reports make me count it as a box office success
[Cría Cuervos was the 6th highest grossing Spanish film in 1976, Saura's biggest hit up to that point. It won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, was Golden Globe-nominated as Best Foreign Film and drew 1.2 mil. and 1.5 mil. admissions in Spain and France, respectively. It was also, reportedly, a hit in other foreign markets including the States, which solidified Saura's status as the best known Spanish director internationally. Cría Cuervos was also Spain's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, but did not receive a nomination.]

What do you think of Cría Cuervos?
Other Saura-films that are worth looking for?