Whoa, this looks like a weird one. More experimental sci-fi from producer Steven Soderbergh and director Eddie Alcazar, the same team that gave us Perfect from a couple years ago, which I thought missed the mark, was much wankery. Pretty pictures, but story made no sense. This one here debuted at Sundance and won a bunch of awards otherwise, so let’s see how it goes. Hopefully it makes more sense than that other one.
In the intro, we have an older scientist, who seems to be at the precipice of finally stabilizing his fountain of youth concoction. He gets nothing but positive results from his testing, so now he must start the human trials. Cut to some later time, and a younger man, presumably his son, has perfected the potion, called Divinity, and is now bottling up this elixir of life and sending it off to market. Apparently it keeps you from physically aging, but the brain ages and eventually dies as normal.
This scientist lives in a luxurious and secluded estate in a rocky desert, seems like inland California or somewhere in Arizona. Two young men, or alien humanoids that look very much like young human men, infiltrate the estate. Why? We don’t know, but I doubt they’re just stopping by for drinks. They’re looking to do some damage, or some malicious thing.
And then we have a hostage situation. And then somebody orders a hooker. And then we see what happens when you overdose on Divinity, and it isn’t pretty.
In the end, I dunno. Something to do with life and death, and lifespan, and what we do with our lives that might bring value or meaning to us and to others. No idea what the whole stop motion animation was all about. And totally no idea what the whole penis plant at the end was about. So no, no idea what this one is about, either. Or maybe is it just a cautionary tale about the dangers of anabolic steroids? No idea.
Starring Stephen Dorff, with Scott Bakula, who doesn’t seem to fit too well in this movie, because every other character has this bizarre-o David Lynchian vibe to them, and Scott doesn’t have any of that.
Shot in super grainy black and white. Recommended if you like Beyond the Black Rainbow, Perfect (obviously), Eraserhead, anything by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
This one just hit selected theatres (code for: hardly any) this past weekend, and will hit streaming in a couple months. But, apparently some internet film festival streamed it for a short time in late 2022, and the pirates, doing what they do, grabbed a copy so now it’s already all over the download sites, so anybody can get a copy of it if they know where to look, months before it hits the regular streaming sites.
This one is a million percent style-over-substance. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as the substance is something worth watching. But, it’s the same idea as those Guy Maddin films with the colored filters. It’s obviously a very specific style, something nobody else would attempt. And then it’s a question of whether the style of the film overshadows (or completely defeats) the content of the film, or complements it.
This one doesn’t have the same sort of colored filters as the Maddin films. But the style of this one is throwback, 80s, massive grain, VHS look, lo-fi, retro, lots of film scratches, super-8, vintage, whatever you wanna call it, and is super heavy handed. Everything very low contrast, so it all has a weird, flat, postcard look. No exterior shots, all interior. And all of it matte look, so it all has this weird hazy haze to it. Massive widescreen (1920 x 804 = 12:5 aspect ratio, = about 16:6.6). And, while not the same as Guy Maddin, this one does have some colored filters throughout- mostly blue, some green, yellow, pink. Movie is just over an hour and a half, but the dialog is so minimal that the script was probably only a few pages. And all dialog is whispered or mumbled or processed into strange tones. And no faces on screen. If somebody has a line of dialog, their feet will be on screen, or legs or something like that. Or not at all. All that’s gonna put off a lot of people from even engaging with the content of the movie. If you’re expecting a normal movie with a traditional plot. Because this one is definitely not that.
The movie itself is a psychedelic sci-fi movie with some spooky undertones. Very slow, minimalistic, sparse, no music, almost all of it dimly lit, like every shot has one of those day-for-night filters on it. Something about a very young brother and sister who wake up one day to find that their dad inexplicably isn’t home. They become really disoriented and frightened. Many of the shots are so abstract and shadowy that I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to actually recognize what the shot is- could be stairs or a ceiling or a wall or carpet. Several shots are upside down.
So in a movie like this, with such minimal dialog and with such abstract imagery, much of the movie will need to rely on sound design to let us what exactly is going on. But the sound design is as minimal and experimental as the rest of it. And that’s probably the point. And obviously the cartoons are supposed to be symbolic of what’s really going on in the house, or going on with their dad. I’m terrible with symbolism, so I never make the connection with things like this.
It feels like a short, shoulda been maybe 15 or 20 minutes (somebody could probably edit it down to that length and it could still be the same movie), that was blown up to an hour and a half with lots of weird shots of house hallways or legos scattered on the floor or kitchen cabinets as filler. But it’s not really filler. It’s all supposed to be unsettling in its sparseness and mysteriousness and shadowiness. Recalling the famous line from Dolls (1987)- ‘You’re not scared of the dark, are you?’ ‘No, I’m scared of what’s in the dark,’ it’s another one of those movies where there’s nothing particularly scary onscreen. It’s just that the scariness is supposed to be derived from what we imagine happened or is happening off-screen or in the darkened corners of rooms, and that these kids are in some sort of danger because of that.
And that’s the make-or-break point of this film and every film. Filmmaking 101- do we care about the characters? With small children, it’s almost automatically yes. But, with absolutely nothing defined or explained, how much can we really care? Are they really under some sort of threat? It certainly seems like it, with the knife in the eye thing, and Kaylee’s mouth, and the disembodied demon voice, and the occasional ominous electronic musical notes.
What I like about this one is that the filmmaker was going for something unconventional and very specific, and he achieved that. I don’t think many people will like this one, though (outside of the midnight movie indie crowd), because everything about it is so abstract and impressionistic and avant-garde-leaning and unexplained. Some people will say ‘well, ya, that’s why it’s so good!’ Other people will shrug their shoulders.
And I have absolutely no idea what ‘572 days’ means. Obviously, it means something, or else it wouldn’t have been on screen. And actually, I think it might mean something rather important in this film. But how are we supposed to know, without any context or explanation?
At the end of the day, this is a film that fits squarely in the ‘experimental’ sub-genre, and is getting a lot of attention. People who like experimental films will like it, those who don’t won’t.
Some big names behind this one. Produced by and music composed by LA luminary Flying Lotus. Executive produced by Steven Soderbergh. Won all sorts of awards at film festivals.
High concept sci-fi flick with some disturbing stuff in it. Totally not the same thing, but it should appeal to fans of Beyond the Black Rainbow or Ex Machina, maybe even THX 1138.
A troubled late teen / young adult with emotional and behavioral problems gets himself into some serious trouble, and is sent off to some futuristic clinic for some treatment of some kind or another. Not a jail thing, but one of those wholistic, yoga hippie commune type things. It seems his mother, who doesn’t look but five years older than him, went through the same treatment some time ago.
So, in this treatment, there’s something about choosing a path, and something about cutting cubes of flesh from your face and replacing them with these gel cube things. There’s a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo in the middle, it’s all sort of leading somewhere I think, but it’s all wrapped up in philosophical stream of consciousness noodlings and analogies.
We have no idea what’s going on, nor does our main character. Scenes are interspersed with these vignettes that look like they were pulled from a Tool video.
Lots of geometric stuff in this, furniture and sculptures and art and design. Lots of Quay Brothers type camera trickery going on. There’s an enormous, single camera shot, in that flowy, pseudo slow motion look, of almost 10 minutes towards the end. I’m not sure what the message of the movie is. I think something about the difference between who you are and who you think you are, and coming to terms with that difference. No idea what that split rock formation is all about. Is the movie worth watching? No. Not unless you want to watch one of those movies which is a cavalcade of pretty, underlit, slow motion scenes and other artsy weirdness in slow motion and don’t care if it makes sense or not in the end. Art-house wankery.
Pakistani movie about a young woman, maybe 20 years old, who travels to the countryside to a friend’s unoccupied vacation getaway house, where she can get some rest and relaxation and work on her art.
They pulled out every artsy fartsy technique for this one- very long edits, slow movement, rack focus, slow motion, reverse footage, dream sequences, Dutch angle shots, blurry shots, strong blue and red neon lighting, grainy film look, double exposure shots, macro shots, dreamy landscapes, epic synth-rock for the soundtrack, extreme close ups of people’s faces when they’re just doing regular stuff like talking on the phone or eating breakfast.
So it takes this movie 50 minutes to do what any other movie would take care of in 15. It’s at that point, the 50 minute mark, where the story finally kicks in- something about a dead girl in a village and a cursed scarf. Then we get a tragic event (I think, not sure), then a music video. Then some more random scenes of random stuff, then another music video (Berzum?). Then some more random shots of stuff (alligators, hills, cows…) and a mysterious and somewhat threatening woman emerges from the lake. But she has no lines. She just writhes around in the water and in the mud. And then the movie ends. The script for this one was probably not more than four pages.
This screams of film school project. Good for them. They made a movie and I watched it. And even though I watched it, I have no idea what it was about.
OK, so this is a weird one. Slow, artsy Euro-style with all the atmospheric cinematography, lots of macro shots with super shallow depth of field. Not as weird as David Lynch. More like the Terry Gilliam movie that more comfortably fits within the horror genre than any of his others, Tideland, combined with Tarsem’s work like The Cell or The Fall, although his stuff, especially The Fall, is all big bright strong colors, whereas The Pond is all gloomy, all overcast skies where the sun hardly comes out, and the characters seem to have the same sort of temperament.
The story is about a man, a college professor until he was recently forced out by his uppers for having some radical ideas about the basic condition of human existence. He has a daughter, maybe 11 or 12 years old, and they are both mourning the loss of her mother. He dedicates himself to his research, although he’s not doing it for the university anymore. But his research about human existence is related to the death of his wife, so he takes the challenge head-on every day. Progress is slow, but steady.
He has a girlfriend, one of his former students, who helps take care of the daughter while he is busy with research. He also is the caretaker of a large pond or lake that is near his house. His trailer where he likes to work is on an island in the middle of the lake. He seems like a very thoughtful and determined man, peaceful and well-spoken, but obsessed with this work that haunts him.
His idea of human existence harkens back the classic From Beyond from the mid 80s. In that H.P.Lovecraft adaptation, a machine called The Resonator, when vibrating at a specific frequency, reveals other dimensions that humans have no other way of perceiving, and it also reveals the monstrous creatures that live in those dimensions. This guy’s theory, while not related to that movie nor to Lovecraft, is that multiple dimensions exist, and humans don’t have the senses, the capability, to perceive them. He believes that when people die, they don’t just cease to exist, it’s just that they cease to exist in this dimension, the one that humans can perceive. At death, they move to a different dimension that normally has no way of interacting or intersecting with ours. Presumably, he’s looking for a way to access those other dimensions to contact his dead wife. And something about his research involves naturally occurring circles and Fibonacci spirals.
A few other very odd characters pepper the movie- a man with whom he plays chess every day and who likes to eat sugar cookies. The ferryman, a young man who doesn’t speak and sleeps at odd times and who barely seems awake even when he is awake, who ferries our main character to an island in the lake every day so he can work in his trailer. A couple sisters about the same age of the daughter who get together and play with the daughter occasionally, although sometimes they don’t play nicely. And a young man who seems to be a handyman of sorts, but who seems to get extremely frustrated at the simplest task, like every second of every minute he’s thinking to himself, oh why did I even fuckin’ bother waking up today?
I’ve already written way too much about this movie. In the end, it’s something about madness, about Hell, about the successor to the Devil, and about the basic condition of human existence. It’s not really a horror movie. It’s another one of those Euro cinematography movies with some nightmarish imagery. Is it good? Sure. It’s very nice to look at. Doesn’t make much sense.
Wow, this one is heavy duty. It’s two hours long, it’s very slow, and it’s Russian. And it’s VERY disturbing. Post-apocalyptic sci-fi art-house cult drama.
Made in the 1980s (it looks much more early 80s or even late 70s than its official release date in ’89), so comparisons to Tarkovsky are inevitable, but this one doesn’t quite have the poetry or the atmospheric cinematography of Tarkovsky. Nothing else does; nothing else even comes close to Tarkovsky in those elements.
But, this one is some difficult viewing, and a completely bizarre and disturbing story. In the title, the word Museum is really what we Americans call ruins. So there’s this guy who wants to visit some ruins. Problem is, after the apocalypse, the sea levels rose, and these ruins are only accessible for 7 days every year as the water recedes just enough for only that one week, and it takes a couple days to walk each way, so you gotta time it perfectly or you are screwed. In fact, it’s a life-or-death proposition.
But then there are the subplots, and that brother and sister who are clearly mentally stunted, and then that whole underground society of dwarves, and themes of alienation and isolation and slavery and spiritual epiphany. It’s really kinda brutal.
And it also has that scene- the ocean scene towards the end is generally regarded as one of the most astounding, one of the most astonishing in all of cinema history.
So if you’re ever in the mood for some Tarkovsky, but don’t want to watch Stalker or Nostalghia or Solaris or any of his others, and want something altogether more discomforting than anything Tarkovsky ever made, look this one up.
Five stars.
No trailer available, but here’s the full movie with English subtitles.
B-movie Roundup 