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Written by Sarah Boslaugh Thursday, 07 August 2014 22:26

Frank is hilarious and sweet and more than a little odd, but definitely succeeds on its own terms.

 

 

 

One of the more mainstream films at this year’s Fantasia is Frank, a Lenny Abrahamson comedy about a musician who is never seen without an enormous fake plaster head (he even wears it in the shower). Everyone in the world but me seemed to already know that the character Frank (Michael Fassbender) was based on British musician/comedian Chris Sievey’s alternate persona Frank Sidebottom, but even without that knowledge I enjoyed this film as a satire of musical pretentiousness. Maybe people who know the background got more out of it than I did, but you can go in cold and still have a good time.

The real main character in Frank is not Fassbender’s character (he’s pretty much limited to acting with his voice—plus he’s more the center of the other character’s orbits than an active character in any meaningful way), but instead is Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a James McAvoy–type audience representative and uninspired wannabe songwriter who is bored with his suburban life but doesn’t have the talent or drive to get himself out. Then, through pure chance, he becomes the keyboard player in Frank’s band (the previous keyboard player tried to drown himself in quite dramatic fashion—it’s that kind of film). The other band members include a real pill of a theremin (!) player (Maggie Gyllenhall), a disdainful French-speaking bass player (Francois Civil), a frankly bizarre drummer (Carla Azar), and a manager (Scoot McNairy) who is running on fumes.

The band has an appropriately unpronounceable name (Soronprfbs) because they’re all about flying up their own assholes in the belief that they’re inventing something so wonderful that the vulgar world could never appreciate it. Unfortunately, the line between genius and delusion is not always sharp. Also, Jon is further handicapped by the fact that he actually does lust for mainstream success, putting him in opposition to the rest of the band (and his hunger for success only highlights his appalling lack of talent). Frank is hilarious and sweet and more than a little odd, but definitely succeeds on its own terms.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Real takes a hyper-modern idea—a machine that allows two people to communicate telepathically—to tell what is basically a sweet, old-fashioned love story. Koichi (Takeru Sato) and Atsumi (Haruka Ayase) first met as children on Hikone Island, where Atsumi grew up and Koichi lived for several years while his father was building a resort on the island. Now they’re adults and living together while Atsumi develops her career as the creator of a popular manga series, “Roomi,” about a psychopathic killer.

Atsume is in a coma following a suicide attempt and Koichi is using the telepathic communication machine (at what appears to be a medical center) to try to reach her. In the process, they dig into each other’s childhood memories, but the experience of traveling so deep into someone else’s mind disturbs Koichi’s ability to distinguish between truth and reality in his daily life, and he begins to encounter frightening phantoms termed “philosophical zombies.”

Real is an absorbing film but becomes overcomplicated (with a disappointing Twilight Zone–style twist that is both unnecessary and jarring) and goes on about 20 minutes too long. Still, if you take it as a genre film rather than an intended masterpiece, and are willing to accept things like the tacked-on eco-criticism and some strange shifts in tone, it’s more than worth your while. | Sarah Boslaugh