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Reviews
Enemy (2013)
A clever film about cinema?
I like this kind of cryptic little film that bets on the open-mindedness of the viewer, his intelligence and his ability to grasp the meaning of the story that is told to him, or even, when the story resists, to make up meanings out of the folds of its opaque shadows.
Enemy left me disconcerted. And then my subconscious worked on it overnight, and the film allowed itself to be distilled. What emerges is now clear to me: it speaks of guilty conscience and sexual desire.
The film is built like a loop: its beginning announces its end and vise versa. The guilty-conscience-spider lurks over all the men in this story, who desperately try to stifle it, as the opening sequence makes it obvious; the women, they are saved by the screenwriter, as terribly attractive, but fundamentally innocent creatures. Men are guilty of their fantasies and imaginations. The film also speaks of the appetite for mystery, of desire for better things, of the fabrication of reality, of infidelity, and therefore of cinema.
The cinema, Villeneuve seems to tell us, would be a virtuous and fruitful way of releasing one's guilty conscience. A clever film in its message and the sobriety that is used to convey it.
The Grudge (2004)
Convincing remake
I tried and watched Ju-on/The Grudge, the original Japanese film; what a turkey! Absolute rubbish, no tension, an irredeemable incapacity at structuring the story, no good actors, no substance. Laughable. I can't understand this film is seen as cult.
To complete the circle (pun intended), I watched also The Grudge, the American version.
Although directed by the same guy who wrote and directed the original, this one has been produced by Sam Raimi. Given the much clearer, smoother narration, I'm tempted to think his contribution has been important. The film gains more impact, the storytelling is sharper and more natural and the actors are really convincing. In the end, it makes for a good watch. Not really spectacular or memorable, but still, it's worth a try.
De uskyldige (2021)
The Innoncents don't make any claim
Rare enough are the movies presenting children is such a realistic manner, played by very natural young actors not to recognize this very merit of The Innocents. And the director can be proud of his paediatrician skills as the world he place his little actors in is dark and uncomfortable.
Childhood fits right in a fantastic frame: a child's mind is an open door to the irrationnal made rational; it is a smooth, efficient way to install a paradoxal situation that is the fabric of horror cinema.
I have yet a problem with this film: either the story is too simple to bear any relevance (the temptation for evil at a very early age is a hackneyed subject among all) and even to become a justification for a feature film, or it has an underlying message, one about integration and the radicalization of ill-integrated young people raised by single mothers in suburban disctricts; you see where this leads us...
If the film delivers this kind of political subtext, it raises other dubious questions. Like why are the heroines white blonde girls and the evil one is a dark-skinned boy...
As it is, walking on a frail line between ethics, needs, frustration, friendship, alienation, differences, The Innoncents don't make any claim, the film holds its mystery and that is already a precious virtue.
The Northman (2022)
What a disappointment!
The abysmal emptiness of this film is an overwhelming refutation of Eggers' abilities to transcend pop culture. What a waste of talent. The story is so stupid and rudimentary I hardly can stomach this is what adult men have to tell us, spend time and money on when it is obvious (from his previous works) Eggers' ambitions are ones of a mature mind.
This production of his is a stain in his (still very young) career and I hope he'll learn from the broken momentums, the dragging-on sequences, the goofy solemnity, the stereotypical characters, the too-visible presence of the camera, from the absence of poetry, the lack of mystery etc. And that he'll revise his relation to cinema as an art.
Hellbender (2021)
Full of fustrating teasers
That is a weird film.
Funnily, it looks like a rough sketch of something bigger to come, but that would never exist - a bigger feature film, or a series, something that would offer the space needed to develop the ideas the creative crew (all members of the same family it seems) only touch on during the brief moment of the movie.
The framework is very simple: it's the story of two outcasts lost in a space and a time they don't fit in. Graphically, the film is a joyride, really: many are the good, inventive ideas of cinema, great are often the way the camera moves, the pace, the editing, the settings.
Yet, Hellbender's plot is then full of holes.
The center of the film, the relationship between mother and daughter, is interesting, thanks also to the two actresses whose simple, almost blank acting contributes a lot to the alchemical mystery. However, it's also very fustrating to be given so little clues. The screenplay invite us viewers to share for a brief moment their geographical as well as cultural isolation, but without telling us too much. So ethereal and vaguely suggested are the whys and wherefores that in the end these two figures escape us completely - which might also be a good thing as it deepens even more their out-of-place, otherworldly idiosyncrasies. Fustration can be intellectually and emotionally fruitful, it's always a matter of balance between what is showed, what is hidden, what is intelligible, what stays puzzling.
And puzzling Hellbender is. The film could be compared to a tapestry, but the spotlight would only be focused on a couple of pieces of fabric; of the rest you'll know nothing; it lies in the shade only to materialise briefly in some occasional suggestive scenes one can take a glimpse of in the course of the story; these snipets of an aborted, more ambitious work are quite thrilling, really, but in the context of this very film as an object, that's only what they are: flourishes to drool over, never completely daring enter the heart the tale to make its pulse more vivid.
This reluctance to reveal the whole of the tapestry is really too bad. I don't disaprove ellipsis: it's fuel for the imagination, but Hellbender uses them in excess. I hope one day I'll eventually see these vain teasers give birth to that greater, more complete narrative thread they're calling for.
Spring Breakers (2012)
A film that is weirdly in and out of his subject
I've been wondering all along the film what it was all about, what the writer/director had in mind and wanted to say. I felt a kind of underlying reactionary intention: one girl is saved by religion, the other one by education, the whole bunch of libertarian party goers being doomed to crime and to a total lack of ethical sense.
I don't have a clue about where all this is leading. The film has a very critical, almost patronizing side, and then it also shows an obvious fascinated indulgence towards this overall nihilistic attitude. Seen from another perspective, It's also a caustic caricature of America, at least of the way cinema can fantasize it.
So, in the end, the director stands at the same time in and out of his subject... his intentions are totally unclear, what makes the whole film rather empty - although full of movement, colours and noise... Go figure!
Alien Trespass (2009)
A very enjoyable vintage charm!
Aien Tresspass is in my opinion a genuine horror movie: not only does it belong to the tradition of horror films in the broad sense of the term but it is a modern recreation of a genre that is pure horror cinema: films meant to scare the audience. This is particularly true of the American films of the 50s that came into existence within context of the Cold War and the possibility of a nuclear war. The ideological confrontation between two "alien" worlds was simply transposed in a S-F kind of setting. This is the innocent homage to that outmoded genre that this film is modestly offering us, succeeding, at any rate, in lighting it up with a delicious vintage flair. I absolutely recommend it.
Chompy & the Girls (2021)
Joe Dante's spirit - hardly the taste of it.
As much as I can find interest in broke horror-affiliated flicks that make the best out of their limited means, exploiting their economical poverty to give more boldness to their creative potentialities, Chompy & the Girls fails to raise its ambitions above an average bored-children-targeted show.
Poor special effects are never an issue as long as the plot is solid enough; this one isn't sadly. As enjoyable and delightful its absurdity can be, and beyond the 'wow-what-is-this?!' factor of the first appearance of Chompy, the writer plays it very safe and lazy. In retrospect, it feels like lots of original opportunities have been virtually wasted by a lack of imagination, and the story turns out very basic in the end making Chompy and his quest orphans of what could have been a really crazy tale.
The film obviously tried hard to counterbalance its loony side with the presentation of some human situations... that didn't convinced me more. Here again, the film misses its target: the young female character is too histerical, too superficial to bring about any valuable emotion to the father/daughter relation the writer obviously wanted to become the center of gravity of the plot. If the daugher's character is thin, the father's personality is empty (although I found the actor was good in all his restraint); and physically, really, he bears no resemblance at all to his alleged daugther - what at least could have make the possibility of a family link more tangible (there's still a doubt about the reality of the link however, but its too vaguely expressed to bear any relevance). As for the couple's crisis that abruptly reveals it-self towards the end, it is too very roughly sketched to make any sense at this point of the film.
The grand final is as funny in a good way as it is laughable in a bad way, and the happy-end epilogue drags like the crew didn't give a damn anyhow, what also raises the question of the editing and of the overall - messy - rhythm the film has. Again, like for many horror-tagged movies, what I miss the most here is an atmosphere, the sense of a peculiar mood that would really take you on a ride. Too bad, as its monster-ish character has a strong vintage Joe-Dante appeal and it could have opened to a more exciting experience.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
systematic soulless, meaningless butchery
I'mnot aware of the course the franchise has taken from the original Tobe Hooper's film onwards and I think I can say I wasn't expecting anything from this latest installment.
My first impression is that of a very vapid cinema experience, and that thin substance the film has must be related to the historic architecture it's part of. So, that must be forgiven. Still, the film is also making very little effort to present itself as an interesting object per se and ends up being totally forgettable. That is less forgivable.
As someone pointed out, the figure of Leatherface is only bearing meaning when placed in the context of a family of which he's only an element, and a very subordinate one, simple-minded, assisted and used. Seeing him taking a whole script in charge is weird and unrealistic, it can only open to very simplified narrative ways , and it does in this film.
What you get is a systematic butchery; every chance is given to the maniac to harvest as many victims as possible. It is all what it's about: a bloody bodycount without goal, direction, and worse: without emotion or soul. All the sense of dread and unease the seminal T. H's film conveyed is gone with the super caricatured characters that lidicrously seem to fall victims to their multiculturalism/woke/me-too leanings in favor of the down-to-earth, reasonable conservatism of born-from-the-fields Leatherface (as one of the sequences suggests).
Poor acting performances overall, not a trace of anxiety, cartoon-like situations, poor plot, good cinematography though and full unashamed effective gory scenes. The film catches your interest during 25 minutes, it is tiring for the rest, and in all its shortness, it still seems very long.
Malignant (2021)
Baroque and captivating but sitting on the fence
James Wan is an interesting screenwriter who believes in the genre he stands for with the naivety of a Spielberg and the cunning of a M. Night Shyamalan. This time, he spiced up his new film Malignant with a touch of Sam Raimi as well. In the end, it's an enthralling but half-successful cocktail.
I like the structure of the film, made of cleverly distributed flashbacks; I also like its slideshow of fantastic settings which have a strong theatrical identity and help a lot to compose an atmosphere of dreamlike quirkiness, quite worthy of a good Hammer film. Strangely, at first glance, all the private interiors are decorated in the exact same elegant and impersonal style; in the context of a perverse fairy tale like this one, I can admit this unrealistic permanence, even if feel it's more probably the effect of the laziness of an uninspired props man.
What I like the most about Malignant though is undoubtedly this angry and utterly delightful bogeyman. He's tremendous, and Wan knows it a bit too much - I'll explain my feelings about this.
The horror genre calls for the viewer to adhere to conventions, familiar codes; Wan's strength is to twist those expectations and, at least until the patient's photo is discovered in the doctor's archives (this detail is not a real spolier I guess), he superbly manages to keep the doubt alive and lead us by the nose. Inevitably, halfway, the narration clears up more and more, and despite everything, the film maintains a high degree of fascination - who, why, how? We formulate 20 hypothesis and always a detail remains in the shade and the mystery retains its aura.
Without mentioning Wan's usual inability to direct his actors properly (irremediable flaw it seems), the issue I have about Malignant which prevents it from being an excellent production, is the metamorphosis of the villain into a super-villain and in the process, the transformation of the film into some kind of unpolite Matrix-like martial art film. As exciting these action scenes can be, I consider their triviality to spoil the dark force of the first part: it makes the film a bastard object, alluring as a whole but sitting on the fence.
These flaws, these too sexy complacencies can be explained, I imagine, by the desire not to let the creature disappear without having shown it in all its facets; and I say the righteous pride of having created such a baroque and graphically interesting character is quite forgiven!
Annihilation (2018)
A brillant piece of modern experimental cinema.
I read some comments speculating on some deep philosophical intentions this film would have, but really, I don't think one should look for much reason in it. All I perceive is an aborted speech whose fragments of meaning are so - I guess intentionally- badly articulated and so unclear in themselves that what is offered to the viewer is just a lid of extra mystery, an unfathomable esotericism on which the director completely relies to generate the spell needed to scramble that 'philosophical theory' which he knows is very insufficient in it-self.
That is not the purpose of the film.
I see it rather as a pure object of fantasy that only plays on its emotional scales: thrill, fear, rapture, love. There is nothing more ambitious in there than a purely dreamlike, fantastic construction, whose fascinating plastic beauty is the only justification. A beauty full of sap, contrasts, poisonous movements that unsettle and upset.
And the music is such a perfect soundtrack to this otherworldly voyage; It also contributes to making this film a brillant piece of modern experimental cinema.
The Empty Man (2020)
It does make an impression
A Lovecraftian film; they are not so many, so I'm pleased when one comes with a good reputation. This one does have style, the soundtrack in particular stands out - too bad the lead male actor isn't better.
It's half thriller, half fantastic, quite baroque and eccentric but unfortunately not really sure of itself and of his ideas. And yet, it exudes an atmosphere of fascinating mystery, and this already is taking the film above the usual run-of-the-mill production.
The prologue is very exotic, simple, linear, with a gripping but opaque situation. However, what you can accept from a 20-minute film turns into serious scriptwriting shortcomings over 1h40, that is to say, the time of the main film which follows this prologue.
It's hesitant, full of plotholes that mean to be shadow zones stimulating for the imagination but where I see complacency, too many easy options which show a lack of vision. I understand the global intention, but the structure is so frail, nothing is really strongly linked together that would make sense. It appears to me as a patchwork of ideas, graphic visions, atmospheres that is worth less than the sum of its parts - intriguing enough in themselves.
In the end, it looks like a student experimental film that is too eager to imitate Lynch, Parker, Fincher etc. And ends up like an immature charade.
But to its credits, it does somehow make an impression. I won't wach it again but I recommend its viewing once.