After touring the festival circuit in 2017, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's highly disturbing documentary Caniba is finally being released in the United States courtesy of Grasshopper Films. Caniba is playing theatrically in New York during October. Then, the film screens in Los Angeles in late November. Dates in other cities are currently in the works. Caniba tells the story of notorious Japanese killer Isseu Sagawa, who murdered and cannibalized Renée Hartevelt in 1981. The killer is still alive, but he is mentally ill and physically incapacitated. With the help of his brother Jun, Isseu Sagawa tries to tell his story. The subject matter is creepy enough but what makes this documentary so powerful are the aesthetic choices made by the directors and a series...
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- 10/25/2018
- Screen Anarchy
“Caniba” ranks among the most unpleasant movies ever made, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it. Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor — the directing duo behind the singularly immersive “Leviathan” — push the limits of documentary filmmaking even further this time around, albeit in a different direction: Their follow-up amounts to a feature-length monologue delivered by Issei Sagawa, who in 1981 killed and ate a woman named Renée Hartevelt. Chew on that for a moment: At a time when Errol Morris is facing backlash for giving Steve Bannon a platform in “American Dharma,” Castaing-Taylor and Paravel have done the same with an actual cannibal.
Sagawa, also known as Pang, was a 32-year-old PhD student at the Sorbonne when he lured his classmate to his Parisian apartment and shot her in the neck; Hartevelt accepted his invitation under the guise of translating poetry for class. He spent the next two days...
Sagawa, also known as Pang, was a 32-year-old PhD student at the Sorbonne when he lured his classmate to his Parisian apartment and shot her in the neck; Hartevelt accepted his invitation under the guise of translating poetry for class. He spent the next two days...
- 10/18/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
The number of living, non-tribal people who have a) eaten another human being; b) told others about their experience; c) escaped incarceration is, likely, one. Being the sole known winner of that particular contest, Issei Sagawa has spent decades as the subject of documentaries, songs (one by none other than the Rolling Stones), and perverse fascination, to say nothing of his post-crime work as a food critic. Looking at the list of films in which he’s been centered would suggest a more straight-ahead, true-crime initiative, making both unique and risky a version from Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, directors behind the immersive, immense, mind-blowing Leviathan.
That film, Caniba, has earned divided notices since its premiere last year: while some praised it, others — including our own — found it exploitative and grotesque. It goes without saying that they’ve made a work to see for oneself — making the below trailer for its U.
That film, Caniba, has earned divided notices since its premiere last year: while some praised it, others — including our own — found it exploitative and grotesque. It goes without saying that they’ve made a work to see for oneself — making the below trailer for its U.
- 9/17/2018
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Caniba, a hard-going film about a cannibal, has prompted walkouts – but highbrow film-makers who indulge in ultraviolence are often given more leeway by critics
Even hardcore cinephiles inured to navel-gazing noodlings can sometimes find them difficult to sit through. But, if hours of action-free footage weren’t punishing enough, auteurs have figured out a surefire way of making their films even more of an ordeal: the insertion of gruelling violence, taboo-busting perversion and ridiculously pessimistic worldviews.
Caniba, the latest documentary from Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, combines the best of both worlds. Or worst, depending on your point of view. There are no establishing shots, only extended out-of-focus closeups of Issei Sagawa as he obliquely reflects on his 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt, a fellow student at the Sorbonne who had rejected his advances and whose corpse he partly devoured.
Even hardcore cinephiles inured to navel-gazing noodlings can sometimes find them difficult to sit through. But, if hours of action-free footage weren’t punishing enough, auteurs have figured out a surefire way of making their films even more of an ordeal: the insertion of gruelling violence, taboo-busting perversion and ridiculously pessimistic worldviews.
Caniba, the latest documentary from Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, combines the best of both worlds. Or worst, depending on your point of view. There are no establishing shots, only extended out-of-focus closeups of Issei Sagawa as he obliquely reflects on his 1981 murder of Renée Hartevelt, a fellow student at the Sorbonne who had rejected his advances and whose corpse he partly devoured.
- 12/8/2017
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
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