Fantasia 2021: What Josiah Saw, Stanleyville, Glasshouse | Features

“What Josiah Saw” is an odd duck, a movie that jumps genres but maintains a throughline of unsettling intensity before tying them all back together. I’m not sure about the final few revelations and what they all add up to, but I am sure I will immediately watch whatever Grashaw makes next.

I’d extend that same anticipation to Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, even if I think his “Stanleyville” doesn’t live up to its clever opening half-hour. A twisted comedy that feels inspired by everything from Samuel Beckett to Wes Anderson to “Cube,” this recent Oscilloscope acquisition opens with the introduction of a dissatisfied soul named Maria (Susanne Wuest of “Goodnight Mommy”). After leaving her life behind, she’s approached by a mysterious character (Julian Richings), who informs her that she has been carefully selected for a very special competition. Not even knowing what she could win (a car!), she agrees to participate, quickly finding herself locked in a room with four quirky strangers as they compete in an increasingly surreal series of challenges.

It starts simply enough—who can make the most balloons explode using only their lungs in just 60 seconds? It gets much, much weirder. Why were these people selected? What do their very different personalities say about the human condition? What exactly are they really playing for? McCabe-Lokos piles up the questions in this odd little puzzle movie, but he stretches his concept a little too far for its own good, leading to a film that might have worked better as a short but lacks focus and weight at a feature’s length. Still, there’s an ambition here that’s admirable and engaging, even if you wish this puzzling picture came into a little more focus in the final act.

A similar and harsher realization that a film wasn’t going to live up to its potential happened with Kelsey Egan’s “Glasshouse,” a futuristic tale that feels inspired by “The Beguiled,” “Y: The Last Man,” and even “Mad Max: Fury Road” (Egan worked on that film as a stunt coordinator), but gets less and less interesting as it drags along. Egan’s concept is interesting, and yet she doesn’t imbue it with enough sensuality or mystery to give it weight or atmosphere, and the performances feel alternately wooden or melodramatic, too rarely finding the middle ground of believable human behavior.