tributarystu

Sebastian Mihailescu follows up his controversial Mammalia with a truly independent film, shot in a few days, in an apartment, with a handful of people, about the year's hot topic: Romanian vampires. It's a proof of concept to making movies outside the established system and without the safety net of being a highly established director. Just don't take the whole thing too literal, because this isn't a wholly literal film.

It follows Catalina, a young artist who wants to shoot a film about her childhood stories/dreams. These feature a revived vampire who kind of resembles a real-life rocker from the early 90s, Mircea Bujoreanu, aka Marchizu'. So together with Roberta, who is to play the young girl of Catalina's stories, the three get together to make something happen.

What, is not very clear, because the movie they were striving for quickly becomes a backdrop to exploring the character of Marchizu' and Catalina's relationship with her estranged father. The limits between reality and fiction are quickly blurred and the viewer is in no position to decide where one ends and the other begins. This is jarring at times and does create some discomfort, but I would take that as the challenge to watching something that isn't easily classifiable.

What truly anchors Vampiru' is the presence of Marchizu', a larger than life character, whose eccentricity is doubled by a certain vulnerability. Bujoreanu has experience working as an extra on film productions, but in this film he proves to be a unique persona. I think the reason why the movie really works is because its two leads, Catalina and Marchizu', are bound together by a sincere solitude, even as they come towards it from very different places.

Mihailescu creates a dynamic visual flow that underpins a number of static scenes, thereby freely blending styles into an unfamiliar whole. It all comes together to tell a story that is almost...forced upon itself. In the sense that the plot and its conclusion appear like an inevitability, especially in the moments when it is discordant with the apparent direction of the movie. But what it lacks in narrative form and substance, it makes up for in style and its free-wheeling exploration of how one can make a movie out of next to nothing.

Vampiru' is a fun, irreverent take on vampirism with a distinctive flair that elevates what could easily have been a throwaway project to something unique and, dare I say it, relatable. The fact that it's not perfectly polished and doesn't just gel together smoothly adds to the charm of Vampiru' Zombi, a modern day testament to guerrilla film-making.

As a fan of Resident Evil, zombies and Romero, this documentary took me by surprise. I didn't know of its making, so faced with the news it had just been released piqued my curiosity. It proves to be moderately interesting, but diluted by uninspired structure and is ultimately unsure as to what it really is about.

Just to prove my Resident Evil chops, I was well aware of the near mythological tales of what-could-have-been Romero's Resident Evil and even read his script for it back in the day. I'm also in the camp of those who think Paul W. S. Anderson's take on the franchise is an abomination that should never have had any tangent to the Resident Evil universe. This means that I've often ruefully wondered about why Romero wasn't allowed to bring his considerably more faithful version to life.

Brandon Salisbury's take on the matter is a scattered one, diluted with narration and script read outs, but not without moments of charm and intrigue. It definitely tells a story, covering a lot of ground on both the RE franchise and Romero's legacy. After briefly introducing Romero as a creator, it goes on to the origin of the Resident Evil series. For about twenty minutes it then delves into what I thought the main topic would be about, how Romero's Resident Evil came to (not) be, before becoming a full-on ode to Romero himself.

The homage to Romero is the best part of the film and, to its merit, it does also answer the question of why his version of Resident Evil didn't come about.

Part of the reason why the tribute works best, is because of the colour brought by many of the people who were interviewed, obviously touched by Romero not only as an artist, but also as a person. This works well, even if there's very little from Romero himself in this film. It also delves into some interesting curiosities about the latter part of his career and his legacy, which leaves the distinct feeling that a movie focused on Romero would have had more to say.

Like the Resident Evil franchise, this documentary is torn between finding a commercial niche and telling something worth watching and listening to. It's going to be kind of interesting for fans of Resident Evil, but anyone who cares about this particular intersection of history, will probably know most of the things GA Romero's Resident Evil has to say.

Following up on last year's HL1 documentary, Valve go around the table once more to tell the making of its sequel.

In many ways, HL2 is the perfect sequel, by taking Gordon Freeman and placing him in a universe that's more grand, more complex and more (dystopian-y) relatable. But as this documentary points out, nothing was a given, the creation of the game world was unpredictable and took a while to shape up to what we know it as now.

I think this is generally a better documentary than last year's, as it frames the technical discussions and constraints in the wider context of game development. It is helped by some of the behind-the-scenes drama that took place, like the lawsuit with Valve's distributor Vivendi, or the hack and leak of the unfinished game.

The story also bears the heavy cross of the unreleased Episode 3, which fans have yearned for all these years. While the documentary does cover it and makes fair points, I sure feel it could've dug deeper and also elaborated more on the way HL: Alyx came in to complete the adventure.

What I would really like to see next is a proper documentary on the rise of Steam, ideally done by a third party. Even the hints present here tell of what a crucial moment the advent of the platform was for PC gaming and it has come to be unavoidable in ways that are, surprisingly, not completely dystopian.