Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: MAD GOD [Locarno Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

Phil Tippett has been at the forefront of many seminal science fiction films in terms of effects with "Return Of The Jedi", "Willow" and "Starship Troopers" among them. But these kind of FX filmmakers sometimes don't get to make their own films because it is about bit and piecing together while having multi-year commitments to other projects. Having interviewed Tippett at his studio in 2000 near San Fran for an Inside Reel Digital Filmmaking Special as well as other times before, the focus seemed to be on purely as a studio. That is why it is interesting to see "Mad God", a blending of stop motion, live action and other forms of media into a unique, almost no-dialogue film this many years later. In comparison to his studio work, this is a much darker, nightmarish descent into existence as it were with many primal images playing through the ideas of survival.

Unlike something like "Junk Head" which just played at Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal which was much clearer in its story (without dialogue), "Mad God" is a different monster...more motley inn some ways but not as clear. The underworld seen here is a vast labyrinth of life that is biomechanical and breathing, even as it is ingesting everything around iit and then expelling it. A explorer of sorts, who seems on the outside mechanical too, is lowered into the depths knowing and focused on finding something at the core. He knows exactly what he needs to find and tries not to be distracted by the would-be souls trying to claw their way to and into him. However the takeaway is that they are unsavable no matter what.

The beauty of what Tippett does here (it seems like he maybe worked on these segments maybe a year or so at a time) is that the motion and shadows even with camera movement is almost unreal because you can tell most of it is done without CG (which I am sure he has the resources to do). This is more analog and maybe a hark back to how he did things originally. At one point the film devolves as far as moving in one direction into a sequence that deals with blood and money in a way wrapped up in bandages. It is a dark metaphor and very bleak depending what it means.

But the film is filled with these metaphors, including a never ending quest as well as regurgitation of various kinds. The explorer himself is one of many but his existence whether he is a clone, automaton or partially organic is unknown. But as he further descends, the more he finds himself many times where he began, and in a limbo of sorts. "Mad God" is a multi-tiered diatribe of sorts...inherently nightmarish and filled with undeniable images requisite of Tippett's experience but also much more abstract in its points of view with multiple metaphors and less of a narrative complication, simply a throughline. B-

By Tim Wassberg