Daniel Radcliffe Has Totally Eclipsed Sundance As A Farting Corpse With A Constant Erection

We’re now a few days into the Sundance Film Festival, one of the biggest and most respected celebrations of independent movie-making in the world, and the main talking points have definitely emerged.

Unsurprisingly, diversity in film is a big one. In the wake of the recent announcement of the 2016 Oscars nominations and the ensuing re-emergence of #OscarsSoWhite, the topic has dominated interviews and panels with some actors offering more insight than others. Speaking to The Wrap, Julie Delpy unfortunately dropped the topic into an otherwise important point about feminism saying “It’s the hardest to be a woman”. “I sometimes wish I were African American because people don’t bash them afterward,” she said. “Feminism is something people hate above all. Nothing is worse than being a woman in this business. I really believe that.” She’s since apologised after significant backlash saying she “never meant to diminish the injustice done to African American artists.”

Alternatively, it seems like Matt Damon has learned from his previous mistakes on the topic — read: that time he mansplained diversity to a black filmmaker — and offered some humble words on the matter. “We have a long, long, long way to go [and can do] much, much, much more,” he told reporters from the Associated Press overnight. “We’re talking about huge systemic injustices around race and gender that are a lot bigger than the Oscars. They’re massive issues in our industry and in our country.” And, while that may not be groundbreaking stuff, it is interesting; further proof of the continued momentum of this conversation and the need for systematic industry change from within.

Then there’s the other thing.

Significantly less important than all of the above (but creating arguably more buzz) is Swiss Army Man: a film which stars Daniel Radcliffe as a constantly farting waterlogged corpse with an erection which lasts the whole movie. It also features a suicidal Paul Dano who’s trapped on an island with the dead man. It’s resulting in both sell-out theatres and walk-outs from the audience, and is being touted — not without reason — as the “strangest movie in Sundance Film Festival history”.

I've never seen anything like SWISS ARMY MAN. Example: Paul Dano riding a dead, farting Daniel Radcliffe like a motor boat. #Sundance

— Adam B. Vary (@adambvary) January 23, 2016

Best news headline I've read all day – Sundance: Daniel Radcliffe’s Farting Corpse Movie Prompts Walk-Outs https://t.co/RpTeBa6R2n

— Judah Friedlander (@JudahWorldChamp) January 23, 2016

As Vulture’s Kyle Buchanan pointed out — mere moments before interviewing Radcliffe about the subtle mechanics of his stage boner — that’s actually not the full extent of the film’s strangeness. It also has a scene where “Dano and Radcliffe make out underwater while Dano is dressed like Mary Elizabeth Winstead”, another where “Radcliffe pukes up buckets of water that Dano eagerly swigs” and one more where Dano uses the corpse’s erection as a (magically accurate) compass.

But this isn’t to say the movie’s bad. As the first feature film from acclaimed music video directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Swiss Army Man is collecting mostly positive reviews and has been nicely summed up by Variety as “Cast Away meets Weekend at Bernie’s, as directed by Michel Gondry”. This is a deliberately funny and surreal premise the creators were clearly shooting for.

“Originally it was just a fart joke that Dan made to me,” Scheinert said at a Q&A after the screening. “[We were] just joking along the way about how the man riding a farting corpse could be a feature, and I think we stumbled on something personal. It was an opportunity to express mortality and big ideas but with fart jokes so we don’t feel too self-conscious about it being a full-on drama.”

There are seven more days of Sundance featuring some very exciting new independent movies, reviews, panels and interviews; it’s unclear if Daniel Radcliffe’s decaying, yet surprisingly affecting, butthole will be the biggest star of the festival.