time machine // database // travel guide
timespace coordinates: 1988 – 1994 – 1997 Japan
JU-ON: Origins is a Japanese horror web television series based on the Ju-On franchise. The series premiered on Netflix on July 3, 2020. (wiki)
A paranormal researcher searches obsessively for a cursed home where something terrible happened to a mother and her child long ago. The J-horror classic franchise Ju-On was actually based on real events that occurred over four decades — and the truth is even more terrifying. (rt)
timespace coordinates: The film is partially presented in a found footage format by featuring fictional interviews, news footage, and video from surveillance cameras. The story, which explores themes of humanity, xenophobia and social segregation, begins in an alternate 1982, when an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. When a population of sick and malnourished insectoid aliens are discovered on the ship, the South African government confines them to an internment camp called District 9. Twenty years later, during the government’s relocation of the aliens to another camp, one of the confined aliens named Christopher Johnson, who is about to try to escape from Earth with his son and return home, crosses paths with a bureaucrat leading the relocation named Wikus van der Merwe. The title and premise of District 9 were inspired by events in Cape Town‘s District Six, during the apartheid era.
District 9 is a 2009 science fiction action film directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature film debut. It is a co-production of New Zealand, the United States and South Africa. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James, and was adapted from Blomkamp’s 2006 short film Alive in Joburg. (wiki)
imdb / rt / Future / the-art-of-district-9
timespace coordinates: In 1990, Johannesburg is home to a number of extraterrestrial refugees, whose large spaceships (estimated to be nearly one kilometre in length) can be seen hovering above the city. When the visitors first arrived, the human population was enamored with, among other aspects, the aliens’ advanced “bio-suits”, and welcomed them with open arms. However, the aliens later began moving into other areas of the city, committing crimes in order to survive and frequently clashing with police. Playing as a documentary, the film continues with interviews and footage taken from handheld cameras, which highlight the growing tension between Earth’s civilian population and the extraterrestrial visitors.
According to individuals “interviewed” in the film, the aliens were captive labour (slaves or indentured servants), forced to live in “conditions that were not good” and had escaped to Earth. Because the film takes place in 1990, while apartheid was still in effect in South Africa, the aliens were forced to live amongst the already-oppressed black population, causing conflict with them as well as the non-white and white populations.
All of the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from authentic interviews with many South Africans who had been asked their opinions of Zimbabwean refugees. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: Paris, 2016
District 13: Ultimatum, also known as D13-U (French: Banlieue 13 – Ultimatum or B13-U), is a 2009 French action film and a sequel to the 2004 film District 13. Directed by Patrick Alessandrin and written and produced by Luc Besson, the film sees parkour artists David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli reprising their original roles of Leïto and Damien. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: World War II-era Berlin (September 1940 – April 1943)
Alone in Berlin is a 2016 war drama film directed by Vincent Pérez, based on the 1947 non-fiction book Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. The novel’s characters Otto and Anna Quangel are based on Otto and Elise Hampel.
When their son dies in France, the couple start writing postcards to urge people to protest against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. The film stars Emma Thompson, Brendan Gleeson, Daniel Brühl, and Mikael Persbrandt.
The Irish Times wrote: “the film offers a fascinating and timely blueprint for political dissent, a methodology that connects with pamphleteering, graffiti, and memes.” (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1945, 1950, 1957, 1965 rural southern Ohio and West Virginia
The Devil All the Time is a 2020 American psychological thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Donald Ray Pollock, who also voiced the narration in the film. Directed and co-written by Antonio Campos and produced by Jake Gyllenhaal and Randall Poster, the film stars an ensemble cast comprising Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Haley Bennett, Eliza Scanlen, Mia Wasikowska and Robert Pattinson. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1995 urban, nighttime Hong Kong
Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung, and Karen Mok. As with the filmmaker’s other features, plot takes a back seat to mood.
Originally conceived by Wong as the third story for 1994’s Chungking Express, it was cut after he decided that it was complete without it. He instead decided to develop the story further into its own feature film and borrowed elements of Chungking Express, such as themes, locations and methods of filming. Wanting to also try to differentiate it from Chungking and to try something new, Wong decided along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle to shoot mainly at night and using extreme wide-angle lenses, keeping the camera as close to the talents as possible to give a detached effect from the world around them.
In an interview, Wong had this to say:
…To me, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels are one film that should be three hours long. I always think these two films should be seen together as a double bill. In fact, people asked me during an interview for Chungking Express: “You’ve made these two stories which have no relationship at all to each other, how can you connect them?” And I said, ‘The main characters of Chungking Express are not Faye Wong or Takeshi Kaneshiro, but the city itself, the night and day of Hong Kong. Chungking Express and Fallen Angels together are the bright and dark of Hong Kong.” I see the films as inter-reversible, the character of Faye Wong could be the character of Takeshi in Fallen Angels; Brigitte Lin in Chungking could be Leon Lai in Fallen Angels. All of their characters are inter-reversible. Also, in Chungking we were shooting from a very long distance with long lenses, but the characters seem close to us.
In the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote:
The acme of neo-new-wavism, the ultimate in MTV alienation, the most visually voluptuous flick of the fin de siècle, a pyrotechnical wonder about mystery, solitude, and the irrational love of movies that pushes Wong’s style to the brink of self-parody.
wiki / imdb / rottentomatoes
timespace coordinates: 2020 South Korea / Hong Kong
Peninsula (Korean: 반도; Hanja: 半島; RR: Bando; marketed in the United States as Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula) is a 2020 South Korean action horror film directed by Yeon Sang-ho.
It is a standalone sequel to the 2016 film Train to Busan and follows a soldier who is sent along with his team to retrieve a truck full of money from the wastelands of the Korean peninsula now inhabited by zombies, rogue militia and a nice family. (wiki)
TimeSpace Warps 