Released: 31st July
Seen: 13th September
Ever since 1974, Troma has been one of the best-known independent movie companies on the planet. The company responsible for bringing us such treasured films as The Toxic Avenger, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. and Class of Nuke ‘Em High have managed to somehow keep their doors open for 5 decades and counting, through a combination of making quality cheap underground films and just raw determination. They’ve also just been relentless in trying to sell their films, pimping their product like a desperate Girl Scout trying to make quota. One of the many tactics that they’ve used over the years to get their films distributed is to attend the Cannes Film Festival and use guerrilla marketing stunts to get attention, and in the documentary Occupy Cannes, we get to see just how that goes for them.
Occupy Cannes tells the story of the trip that Troma took to Cannes a decade ago to try and sell their latest film, a follow-up to their film Class of Nuke ‘Em High called Return to Nuke ‘Em High Volume 1. Of course, Troma doesn’t really have the funds to do large promotional campaigns like the big companies that tend to take over Cannes, so they have to be a little more inventive, doing things like pretend protests or marching dressed as zombies or having a guy running about as Sgt. Kabukiman… and every time they try to do one of these, Cannes security shuts them down, even when the things they do line up almost perfectly with something that someone else is doing to promote a film from a major company.
Presented as something like a travel vlog where we’re invited along with the crew, Occupy Cannes presents this scrappy little studio trying to get attention and being thwarted by pointless bureaucracy that’s almost intentionally designed to make it impossible for anyone who isn’t a major film studio to advertise their work. It presents the events that happen with an earnestness that you might not expect from Troma, even the people making the film can’t seem to believe that their attempts to do some marketing stunts are getting this much blowback from something like Cannes, which is supposed to champion creativity. Now sure, sometimes that blowback feels warranted, Cannes probably isn’t the greatest place to have someone run naked through the street while screaming like a banshee, but surely they can hold up signs that say “Troma” on them… Welles, no, signs that look like protest signs are banned, so they can’t do that. They can’t have their Sgt Kabukiman either because he’s wearing a mask.
Every single thing they try to do, cops say they can’t for some reason or another, which is presented for what it is, blatant suppression. Watching this little ragtag group of volunteers and film fans just trying to get their silly little film noticed is galvanising; you want nothing more than for them to succeed and find their audience with their little gimmicks. The longer Occupy Cannes goes on, the more that we get to know the gang that made the trip to Cannes, and you really just feel their love for cinema and art. Sure, it’s Troma and their films are not for everyone (having seen Return to Nuke Em High Vol 1, I can confirm it’s definitely not a film for everyone, but it’s absolutely for a Troma-loving audience), but their love for the art is universal and comes off the screen every single second.
What’s particularly touching about the film is that it really lets you see Lloyd Kaufman’s love for film in all its glory. Any Troma fan knows Lloyd more as a character than anything, the man understands the company he’s running and so over the years he’s seemingly taken on a heightened character of a desperate movie producer with a raunchy weird streak but this film has moments where his character drops and we’re just seeing Lloyd’s actual exasperation at how he and his crew just can’t seem to be allowed to sell their film in the place where films are brought specifically to be sold. It lets you see a side of him that we don’t normally see, which could be due to the reality of constantly filming, meaning it’d be pretty impossible for him to maintain the character all day. Still, I think it’s mostly due to the film being made by his kids whom he really let his guard down around.
Occupy Cannes is a love letter to underground film and the art of making the glorious, weird, nasty shit that keeps cinema interesting. Sure it’s hard, it’s tough, it has a few spots you might want to give up but the love of the art keeps you going and seeing that presented by such a weird and charming group of people is a real uplifting experience because at the end of it all you can see they’re going to fight for their right to make and sell gloriously wild original films. Now, go watch Return to Nuke Em High Part 1, it’s actually pretty good and should’ve been much easier for them to sell than this movie presented.
Movie Meister Reviews 