1059 – Mutafukaz (2017)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Dark Meat City / New California

Mutafukaz (Japanese: ムタフカズ －MUTAFUKAZ－ Hepburn: Mutafukazu, released as MFKZ in some markets)  is a 2017 adult animated science fiction film based on the comic series of the same name.

The film is a French-Japanese co-production between Ankama Animations and Studio 4°C  and is directed by Shōjirō Nishimi and Guillaume “Run” Renard.

The comic was published in English as Mutafukaz by Titan Comics with only one volume released on October 27, 2015.  Mutafukaz was released in France on May 23, 2018 and in Japan on October 12, 2018. (wiki)

Angelino is just one of thousands of deadbeats living in Dark Meat City. But an otherwise unremarkable scooter accident caused by a beautiful, mysterious stranger is about to transform his life… into a waking nightmare! He starts seeing monstrous forms prowling around all over the city… Is Angelino losing his mind, or could an alien invasion really be happening this quietly…? (imdb)

THE ART OF MUTAFUKAZ – THE MOVIE

1057 – The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

timespace coordinates: South Africa / Botswana 1980 –  the Kalahari Desert

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 South African comedy film written and directed by Jamie Uys. Financed only from local sources, it is the most commercially successful release in the history of South Africa’s film industry. Originally released in 1980, the film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series. It is followed by one official sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II, released by Columbia Pictures.

Set in Botswana, it follows the story of Xi, a San of the Kalahari Desert (played by Namibian San farmer Nǃxau ǂToma) whose tribe has no knowledge of the world beyond, Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers), a biologist who analyzes manure samples for his PhD dissertation, and Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), a newly hired village school teacher.

The final scene was filmed at God’s Window, a site located at the edge of the escarpment between the Highveld and Lowveld, in the province of Mpumalanga, South Africa.

imdb   /   rt

1053 – True Detective (season 3 – 2019)

timespace coordinates: 1980 – 1990 – 2015, the Ozarks –  Arkansas

The third season of True Detective, an American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, was confirmed by HBO on August 31, 2017, and premiered on January 13, 2019. The story takes place in the Ozarks over three separate time periods, as partner detectives investigate a macabre crime involving two missing children. 

Mahershala Ali plays the lead role of detective Wayne Hays, while Stephen Dorff plays his partner detective Roland West. The season marks Pizzolatto’s directorial debut, with the series creator dividing up directing assignments with Jeremy Saulnier and Daniel Sackheim. Pizzolatto also serves as the showrunner and sole writer of the season, with the exception of the fourth and sixth episode, which he co-wrote with David Milch and Graham Gordy respectively. (wiki)

imdb

1003 – Gia (1998)

timespace coordinates: 1978 – 1986 New York City

“Dear book, this is another day in the life. A life is like a book. A book is like a box. A box has six sides. Inside and outside, so, how do you get to what’s inside? How do you get what’s inside, out? Once upon a time, there lived a very pretty girl, who lived in a beautiful box, and everybody loved her.”

Gia is a 1998 biographical HBO film about the life and times of one of America’s first supermodels, Gia Marie Carangi. The film stars Angelina Jolie as Gia and Faye Dunaway as Wilhelmina Cooper, with Mercedes Ruehl and Elizabeth Mitchell. It was directed by Michael Cristofer and written by Cristofer and Jay McInerney.

imdb

995 – Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

timespace coordinates: 18th century France (1730s – 1760s)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 2006 German period psychological crime thriller film directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Dustin Hoffman. Tykwer, with Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, also composed the music. The screenplay by Tykwer, Andrew Birkin, and Bernd Eichinger is based on Patrick Süskind‘s 1985 novel Perfume. Set in 18th century France, the film tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Whishaw), an olfactory genius, and his homicidal quest for the perfect scent. (wiki)

During pre-production, Tom Tykwer, Director of Photography Frank Griebe, Production Designer Uli Hanisch, and Costume Designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud studied the complete works of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Joseph Wright, in order to ensure the film’s aesthetic correctly captured eighteenth century France.

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Nirvana Scentless Apprentice

0978 – Don’t Come Back from the Moon (2017)

timespace coordinates: – – Southern California’s Salton Sea community

“An indie with one foot in the netting of social realism and another in the terrain of desolation fables, “Don’t Come Back From The Moon” offers up a tale of mass disappearance born of economic hardship: fathers in a depressed small town leaving their wives and children like something out of a Greek tragedy or a post-apocalyptic story. Or, as one could readily imagine, out of headlines from America’s rapidly dying, labor-driven towns.” (read review)

Don’t Come Back from the Moon is a 2017 American drama film featuring James Franco and Rashida Jones. It is based on Dean Bakopoulos‘ 2005 novel of the same name.

imdb   /   rottentomatoes

0935 – Das Boot (1981)

timespace coordinates: October – Christmas Eve 1941  harbour of La Rochelle, harbour of Vigo,  Strait of Gibraltar

Das Boot (German pronunciation: [das ˈboːt], German: “The Boat”) is a 1981 German submarine film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann. It has been exhibited both as a theatrical release and as a TV miniseries (1985), in several different home video versions of various running times, and in a director’s cut version supervised by Petersen in 1997.

An adaptation of Lothar-Günther Buchheim‘s 1973 German novel of the same name, the film is set during World War II and follows German U-boat U-96 and its crew, as they set out on a hazardous patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic. It depicts both the excitement of battle and the tedium of the fruitless hunt, and shows the men serving aboard U-boats as ordinary individuals with a desire to do their best for their comrades and their country.

During production, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, the captain of the real U-96 and one of Germany’s top U-boat “tonnage aces” during the war, and Hans-Joachim Krug, former first officer on U-219, served as consultants. One of Petersen’s goals was to guide the audience through “a journey to the edge of the mind” (the film’s German tagline Eine Reise ans Ende des Verstandes), showing “what war is all about”.

Today, the film is seen as one of the greatest of all German films. (wiki)

Historical accuracy

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