2012, Peter Strickland (In Fabric) -- download
But absolutely nothing fucking happens, and then it just ends.
Seriously, for a moment, I thought I had downloaded a bad copy, one that had a massive chunk accidentally deleted. But no, this was the entire flick.
Gilderoy arrives in Italy and is immediately beset by the strange behaviour. They refused to pay his expenses, miring him in fabricated red tape and delays. The staff continually seems to resent his presence, despite their foppish director completely fawning over him. The producer who is truly controlling the movie is rude, abusive, manipulative and just a fucking asshole to everyone. Gilderoy endlessly ponders a letter from his mother about murderous birds. As the film making proceeds Gilderoy begins participating in the foley work for the most gruesome parts of the giallo, torturing of the witches of which the movie is about. And then the lines between reality and the horror genre Gilderoy is now immersed in, blur. He is hearing things, seeing things and is suddenly fluent in Italian, and then the movie starts being less about witches and more about him and then... ends.
Visuals and audio are stupendous. Toby Jones is remarkable to watch. That is all I can get out of the movie. I am not someone to immediately dismiss a movie for its artistic focus, but nor am I to forgive a movie for only having that.
Or maybe I am just getting old and cranky and am only left being the monster Gilderoy saw himself becoming.
"Man subjected to hours and hours of women being tortured on film tortures an actress for 15 seconds to get a better performance."
ReplyDeleteI guess we were supposed to see the erosion of his empathy as his pysche is damaged by the horrors he is exposed to? My opinion: pretentious wannabe artsy-fartsy idea tacked on to an actually interesting exploration of an aspect of film making.