George Cukor's Gaslight is a mystery thriller told with elegance and grace, a film that is part mystery, part psychological thriller about one woman's descent into near madness at the hands of a tyrant, her husband. Taking place in London, the film opens to the murder of Alice Alquist, a prima donna whose death is a confounding mystery. In an effort to avoid the chaos surrounding the murder, Alice's young niece Paula is sent to Italy to study music, with the house remaining empty in her absence. Flashing forward ten years, George Cukor's Gaslight finds young Paula all grown up, on the cusp of marriage to pianist Gregory Anton, who convinces Paula it's time to move back into her home in London, the house which she was forced to abandon so many years ago. On their arrival, Paula discovers a mysterious letter from an unknown man, Sergis Bauer, which in turn causes her husband's tone to become instantly abrasive and confrontational, with it becoming very clear to the viewer that Gregory may have other intentions for wanting to return to Paula's childhood home, more so than simply being a good husband to his wife. A great performance piece for Ingrid Bergman, George Cukor's Gaslight is the story of a woman in extreme peril, a psychologically abused character whose sanity is slowly and systematically destroyed by her authoritarian husband. A man on a mission to recover famous jewels, which are believed to be in the possession of Paula's aunt Alice at the time of her death, Gregory is a character who manipulates his wife's psyche at every turn, becoming more and more controlling over her as the film progresses, diabolically making Paula question her own sanity eventually due to his devious mind games. The torment Paula goes through is captured in vivid detail thanks to Ingrid Bergman's performance, who manages to capture the extreme fragility and gullibility of a character who thinks they are slowly losing their mind, one who grows wary of what her own two eyes are telling her thanks to her husband's tactical psychological manipulation. One could argue that Cukor's Gaslight is a performance piece for Ingrid Bergman, and it's a good one in that regard, but that's also selling the film's visual aesthetic short, as Gaslight visuals beautifully articulate the underlying battle between good and evil which takes place between Gregory and Paula. The black and white cinematography, the contrast between light and dark, good and evil, is a major component to Gaslight's visual aesthetic, with Cukor's visual design capturing the vivid contrast between the shadows and the light, with many tight compositions which themselves to accentuate the oppressive situation Paula finds herself in. Cukor's visual design is mostly stationary, but the film uses well orchestrated camera moments to accentuate certain moments throughout the film. One example of this would be the visual punch-in on Gregory to reveal his sinister underlying motives to the viewer, something which isn't spoken but is shown through the camera's fixatoin on his face as he deceives his wife directly to her face. A film which amounts to a rather archetypal damsel in distress story when viewed through a broad lens, thanks to Joseph Cotton's British Yard character saving the day in the end, George Cukor's Gaslight elevates itself far beyond that due to its detailed look at the horror and trauma associated with psychological abuse, with Ingrid Bergman's strong performance capturing the menace associated by a woman whose psyche is pushed to the brink of sanity.
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A subversive social commentary masquerading as body horror, Brian Yuzna's Society is a oddly stigmatizing piece of filmmaking, a film which drips with a palpable sense of paranoia from nearly its opening frame, slowly revealing the grotesque and shocking horror that lies beneath the surface in a finale that is sure to be memorable to the viewer. Taking place in Beverly Hills, California, Brian Yuzna's Society is centered around Bill Whitney, a teenager and son to a wealthy family, who feels completely like a misfit around his parents and sister Jenny. An outcast of sorts, Bill doesn't feel like he belongs with his family, who routinely mixes it up with various 'high brow' members of society, upper class socialites who don't appeal much to Bill's more 'down-to-earth' sensibilities. Ben's feelings of alienation and confusion are only escalated when his sister's ex-boyfriend, Blanchard, shows Bill what appears to be disturbing tapes of sexual deviancy, linking both Bill's sister and his father to some type of incestual relationship stemming from a larger sex cult. When Blanchard mysteriously dies in a car accident, Ben begins to investigate these strange occurrences, soon discovering the truth behind his family and their gruesome sexual cult of the social elite. Brian Yuzna's Society is a brooding piece of paranoia, a film which dedicates much of its running time to creating a tangible sense of impending doom, using typical tropes of a teenagers' feelings of inadequacy to deliver a sharp, subversive socio-political commentary on class struggle and the oppressive nature of socially conservative culture when it comes to sexuality. Much of Society is a study in paranoia and mood-building, with the whole film carrying an odd, off-putting energy that haunts our young protagonist, though it is never entirely clear if the strange happenings are merely introspective manifestations related to coming-of-age or if what this character is discovering is truly based in reality. Being a teenage boy, Bill's budding sexuality is used as a way of deflecting the strange happenings around him, with the film using the sex-crazed thoughts of a teenage boy to add a bit of mystery and uncertainty to this strange, sex cult which Bill himself seems to be uncovering. When the finale does come, viewers are in for one of the more unique spins on body horror, with Society delivering some grotesque vfx one isn't soon to forget, as Brian Yuzna's film quite literally captures the haves leeching off the have-nots, in a pseudo-sexual display that is sure to trigger a visceral reaction of sorts in the viewer. Tonally singular, Brian Yuzna's Society is a film which balances its comedy, thriller and horror elements extremely well, delivering a one-of-a-kind social-political commentary about class struggle and sexual repression that mixes tropes of the political/conspiracy theory thriller with body horror with great, subversive results! Visual poetry in its purest form, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a transcendent experience, a film which beautifully encapsulates the vast lexicon of human emotions through its tale of a husband and wife. A story full of dichotomy, Sunrise is the story of a rural farmer, whose life becomes on the verge of collapsing after a steamy affair begins with a vacationing woman from the city. Pleading for the farmer to leave his simple life behind him, this mysterious urban woman suggests that the farmer drowns his wife, and while the farmer reluctantly agrees in the passion of the moment, when the time comes he is unable to go through with the heinous deed. With his wife now shaken to the bones by her husband's near act of lustful violence, the farmer desperately begs for his wife's forgiveness, which he eventually receives on their arrival in the city, setting off a day of renewed passion and vigor in the big city. Later that night, storm clouds offer another test to this couple, when they find themselves stranded on a boat in the middle of the water with a violent storm which threatens both their lives. Beautifully exhibiting the wide array of human emotion, Sunrise encapsulates the grand, diverse canvas that is the human condition through its simple morality tale. Allegorical in nature, we find this simple farmer wrestling with the good and evil which exists within himself, grappling with the coercive emotions and the emotional dichotomy of his actions. Betrayal and redemption, love and lust, innocence and guilt, the dichotomy of such grand traits of the human condition are all explored with poetic grace, with Sunshine detailing a man in this farmer who finds himself reinvigorated by his love for his wife and the sense of commitment he has to both her and her family, with perhaps the film's greatest truth being in its ability to capture how we are all imperfect creatures of emotion. I truly believe that a part of cinema died with the invention of sound, and F.W. Murnau's Sunrise illustrates this point, exhibiting the purity of the cinematic form through its ability to capture the vast and complex array of emotions through visual acumen. Sunrise has an inventive, impressionistic cinematic language exuding through every frame, the emotional turmoil often reflected in contrasts between light and dark photography, the use of interlacing of compositions, front projection, and superimposed imagery, all working together to create a visual feast which often exudes the inner-emotions of its characters. F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is poetry in motion, perhaps best described as a allegorical fable of morality and the forces between good and evil, using visionary direction as a way of delivering an affirmation of the power of human expression and the complexity of the human condition. Based on true events, Garth Davis' Lion is a well-crafted crowd-pleaser, a film focused on telling a compelling human interest story about family, love, and perseverance which shows very little interest in tackling the complex socio-political issues facing India and the larger world as we know it. Opening in 1986, Lion introduces us to Saroo, a five-year-old child living in the rural countryside of India, the middle child in a poor but happy family that is held together by his strong-minded, hard-working mother. On a trip with his brother to find work, Saroo finds himself separated from his older brother, trapped on a decommissioned passenger train which takes him to Calcutta, leaving the young boy over 1500 miles away from home. Lost in an alien, urban environment and too young to identify his home to any of the authorities, Saroo survives as a street child until he is eventually sent to an orphanage. Soon after, Saroo is adopted by a couple in Australia, and Garth Davis' Lion fast-forwards 25 years later, finding a now adult Saroo attending a university in Melbourne. For all of his good fortune, specifically growing up in a loving and prosperous home, Saroo can't help but shake the thoughts of his lost family, haunted by the uncertainty associated with what has become of them. Plagued by guilt, Saroo sets out on a search to locate his place of birth in India, dead set on finding his lost family, tormented by the questions in his mind about their well-being. Garth Davis' Lion is a simple, yet effective story of the power of love and family, a film which effectively pronounces the importance of empathy and sacrifice while exhibiting how love is not something which adheres to scarcity, exhibiting how Saroo as a character has always been loved by both his mothers, regardless of the life-alternating circumstances. In a sense, Lion is a film which laments that family in itself is to a degree nothing more than a social construct, with shared blood being simply a symptom of most families but nothing more significant. It's through unconditional, selfless love which a family is truly formed, something which Saroo doesn't fully grasp until the end of the film, coming to the realization that he has two families now, both of which love him very much. For much of the film, guilt drives Saroo to hide his search from his adoptive parents and girlfriend, fearing that they will feel underappreciated by his burning desire to located his birth parents. Saroo doesn't want to emotionally hurt or disappoint his adoptive parents, unable to grasp that they want nothing more than his own happiness, with Lion as a film beautifully exhibiting the true selfless nature of love. Saroo is psychologically tortured by the questions and uncertainty of his birth family and his adoptive parents recognize this, understanding that their child needs to find peace of mind when it comes to the fate of his birth mother. For the most part, Lion avoids commentary on poverty, colonialism, and other socio-political issues, instead focusing much more on its deconstruction of love through the introspective study of a man who is mentally adrift, lost in a haze of guilt and uncertainty. While the story itself is rather straight-forward, Garth Davis' direction really impressed me, being far more impressionistic than I was expecting, effectively getting into the psyche of this tortured character, a young man who feels haunted by questions about his past. The pain and guilt Saroo feels about living a privileged life, while knowing that his own birth mother has no idea he is even alive is the emotional weight of the film, with Garth Davis' use of impressionistic, even surreal techniques effectively getting into the headspace of this character, whose consumed by guilt and unanswered questions about his past. Emotionally resonant and well-crafted, Garth Davis' Lion is a well-told story of perseverance and love, an undeniably uplifting film that manages to mostly avoid the typical cliches of the genre. Alain Guiraudie's Staying Vertical is an enigmatic, challenging experience, a film which delivers its message of sexual repression and alienation through allegory and an unorthodox narrative which places more weight on character introspection and theme than on traditional storytelling values. Centered around Leo, a filmmaker who is on a scouting excursion in the South of France countryside, Alain Guiraudie's Staying Vertical paints a complex and beguiling portrait of a character who never feels at all comfortable in his own skin. A vagabond, who is homeless as he works on his next film, Leo is a very much a character in solitude, both physically and psychologically, who finds himself seduced by Marie, a free-spirited shepardess, while on his film scouting excursion. Nine months later, Marie gives birth to a child, but Leo is despondent, detached, and uninterested, sending Marie into post-natal depression, ultimately abandoning both Leo and the baby. Guiraudie's Staying Vertical is unconventional and quite brilliant, a story that evolves as it progresses, deceptive in its execution as it begins more as a story of paternity and the fear of domestication, while ultimately revealing itself to be a story of sexual repression, alienation, and seclusion. Everything about Leo is symbolic to his struggles as a homosexual man - his homeless, vagabond status being the most obvious indicator, a man who is drifting, out of place, unable to find somewhere he feels comfortable. Every interaction he has with male characters is full of sexual tension, with this repression and need for seclusion perhaps best represented by the allegorical nature of the relationship he forms with Marie's father, an older man who struggles to protect his sheep from the wolves in the plains in the south of France. There is a shared intimacy between these two characters, a repressed sexuality, with Guiraudie juxtaposing the nature of wolves and sheep with that of masculinity in society and how it treats homosexual men, with these two sexually repressed homosexual men being sheep, men who must appear heterosexual to the world, if not to be exposed and ridiculed for their differing sexual nature. Of course none of this is said throughout Guiraudie's film but it's built through mood and character, as the film always represents Leo as a man who is alone, but early on he is more confused about his sexuality, with the ending offfering him solace in a sense, the wolves being almost a symbolic representation of him accepting his sexual nature. Through much of the film, Leo's writer's block could very much be construed as an allegorical device to convey his confusion, with Guiraudie juxtaposing his struggles and confusion as a homosexual man with that of a filmmaker who struggles to complete a screenplay, an oddly satisfying decision as both art and sexuality are deeply individualistic in nature. Unorthodox, beguiling, yet ultimately satifying due to Guiraudie's uncanny ability to slowly reveal his intentions through symbolism and atmosphere, Staying Vertical is a powerful and intimate statement on sexual identity and the outside forces that can inflict harm on those individuals whose identity falls in the fringes of society. Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle is a beautifully-realized, transcendent celebration of life, a minimalist film that features absolutely no dialogue, resounding in its pacifist fable of kindness, companionship, and love. Detailing the life of a castaway on a deserted tropical island, The Red Turtle is a film where reality, fantasy, and spirituality blur, tapping into the psyche of a character early on who is in a place of solitude, a victim to a myriad of thought, concerns, and fears. The arrival of a mysterious and mystical red turtle finds this man's loneliness broken, as he finds companionship in the form of a young woman, whose arrival herself on the island feels supernatural, granted in a sense by the passing of this mysterious, red turtle. Documenting the cycle of life of this man, who has a son with this woman, Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle is a beautifully realized examination of life itself, a film which manages to capture the preciousness of it by appreciating the fact that death itself is merely a part of life. A fable of rebirth, The Red Turtle is a bit ambiguous from a narrative perspective, as one could argue that everything which follows the arrival of the Red Turtle is merely a figment of a man's deteriorating psyche, but the message itself would remain very much the same, as the film taps into the preciousness of human connection, and the beautiful nature of the cycle of life. Minimalism is an ally to The Red Turtle's serene story, where reality, fantasy, and spirituality blur, with the film itself becoming a transformative experience, one which encapsulates the human experience in such a utterly unique and beautiful way. Featuring absolutely stunning hand-drawn animation that is minimalist is design, yet beautifully textured, vivid and alive, The Red Turtle is a stunningly beautiful piece of animated filmmaking, a film that dare I say is life-affirming in its humanizing qualities, being just the latest emotionally resonant and intellectually stimulating piece of work from Studio Ghibli. A slow-burning tragedy and unrelenting critique of the family institution, Ritwik Ghatak's The Cloud-Capped Star is a dark melodrama set in late fifties Calcutta, documenting a refugee family from East Pakistan and the vast struggles of Neeta, the oldest daughter, a selfless woman who does whatever is in her power to keep her family afloat. Neeta sacrifices everything for her family, including her own personal happiness, her income, and eventually her health, the quiet martyr of this middle-class refugee family who receives absolutely no empathy, sympathy, or gratitude from the family around her, many of which blatantly take advantage and exploit Neeta's selflessness for their own personal gain. Unsentimental and elegantly told through the use of experimental techniques including expressionistic sound design and sensitized compositions which evoke the inner emotions of its characters, Ritwik Ghatak's The Cloud-Capped Star is a haunting experience, an angry film which finds the filmmaker set his sights on the tragedy which the partition had on India, most notably the disintegration of the family. Ghatak's film is a bitter critique of the family institution, showcasing the loss of family values, empathy, and sense of togetherness which was lost in the partition, seemingly suggesting that these important values have been replaced by the wrongs ones, mainly selfishness and greed, fueled by monetary dreams which are deeply rooted in individual-facing endeavors. The way Neeta finds herself raked through the mud, taken advantage of, and effectively disposed of in the end is a commentary of the filmmaker's perspective on the partition in India, a symbolic representation of an exploited India, one that is being ruined by selfish interests which create division and conflict in the country. Ghatak's film is an angry film about those who exploit the weak, and those who let themselves be exploited, a melodrama which much like the films of Douglas Sirk, is extremely effective due to its expressionistic direction. Neeta is a character who is unable to grow as an individual due to the unrelenting burden placed on her by taking on too much responsibility in the family, a tragic character who finds her life completely stolen from her and placed in the hands of others, hands which themselves make Neeta's well-being a secondary concern to their own successes. While The Cloud-Capped Star is a commentary on the loss of family values, it's also a statement about the importance of personal resolve, as Neeta herself never manages to free herself from the leeches of her family, unable to place her own dreams and ambitions first, always putting her personal ambitions secondary to her family. Even in the end of the film, when we learn that one of her brothers has reached a place of fame and substantial wealth with his music, it is far too late, as Neeta has seen her health erode, with this tragic character only finding the burden of her family lifted and her personal freedom re-instilled to her in her death. From an artistic perspective, The Cloud-Capped Star is reminiscent of neo-realism in its grounded, day-to-day exploits of this refugee family, yet Ritwik Ghatak's use of composition and sound design is far more experimental and expressionistic, frequently using idiosyncratic compositions and editing which illuminate the sense of pain and hardship felt by its central protagonist, effectively telling a tale of melodrama with startling cinematic elegance and humanizing tone that is resolutely unsentimental. Taking place in the not-to-distant, dystopian future where humanity has been ravaged by a mysterious fungal disease, turning the afflicted into flesh-eating 'hungries', Colm McCarthy's The Girl With All The Gifts is the latest film to take advantage of pop culture's zombie obsession, offering up one of the more unique spins on the subgenre. A film which manages to satisfy both those viewers who simply want their fix of bloodlust, as well as viewers who are looking for a little more introspection with their horror, The Girl With All The Gifts presents itself as a tense, thought-provoking, survival story, one that challenges the viewer to question the value of life, the desperation of survival, and ultimately the morality associated with the loss of any form of human life. Keeping the viewer in the dark early on as to what exactly is going on, The Girl With All The Gifts' opens on an army base in rural England, where we are introduced to a small group of children, hybrids, who crave human flesh but also retain the cognitive abilities. Endlessly experimented on in an attempt to find a cure by Dr. Caroline Caldwell, these children are kept under lock-and-key, something which Helen, a school teacher assigned to educate the hybrid children, grows somewhat tiresome of as she grows close to these children, specifically Melanie, an exceptional young woman. When the base is invaded by a host of 'hungries', Helen, Melanie, Dr. Caroline, and a few other soldiers manage to escape in the nick of time, which sets in motion an expedition of survival which in turn helps Melanie come to terms with exactly who and what she is. Colm McCarthy's The Girl With All The Gifts is a film that works more so than it doesn't due to it being more dedicated to its characters and thematic ideals about morality than serving the typical tropes of the zombie genre. The Girl With All The Gifts' doesn't even reveal itself as a zombie-style film until a good 30 minutes into the film, opting instead early on to build the sense of intrigue about its characters, establishing Melanie as a gifted, yet dangerous young woman, something which everyone on the base is fearful towards, except Helen, who sees Melanie as nothing more than a scared child. This attention to character early on in the film pays off in the back-half, as The Girl With All The Gifts revels itself as a rejection of barbarianism, using the tropes of the zombie genre to comment on humanities nature to fear what it doesn't understand, with Dr. Caroline being so driven to solve the cure that she rejects the obvious humanity of these hybrid children, individuals themselves who cognitively are barely any different than those unaffected by this harmful pathogen. Empathy over barbarianism is the film's overlying principle, deconstructing the morality associated with life itself, asking the fundamental question of whether extinguishing life is ever clearly justified. In a sense, The Girl With All The Gifts is a coming-of-a-age story, a survival narrative that finds young Melanie come to accept who she is, a character who comes to embrace those things which she herself cannot control, while discovering and finding comfort in who she is as a person. For those interested in another fun, violent, zombie-film, The Girl With All The Gifts should strike your fancy too, but it's the film's more introspective ideas related to morality and barbarianism that makes the film worth seeking out. Annie J. Howell & Lisa Robinson's Claire In Motion is a quietly astute study of loss, grief, and acceptance, a film exploring the far-reaching effects tragedy has on the human psyche, detailing specifically the opportunity for self-discovery and introspection which can occur in the face of loss. Centered around Claire, a mother and wife, Claire in Motion follows a woman in utter disarray, whose life has been fundamentally uprooted psychologically due to the mysterious disappearance of her husband, who went missing after one of his more routine outdoor excursions. After nearly a month of searching, the police begin to call off their investigation and Claire's own son begins to grieve, an acknowledgement that his father is gone forever, yet Claire alone refuses to give up, maintaining a steadfast hope that he may still be out there somewhere. A psychological study of grief and eventual acceptance, Claire in Motion is a film that follows a woman who begins to be confronted with the notion she may not have known her husband as much as she previously believed, a character who finds herself emotionally sabotaged by learning of her husband's close relationship with a graduate student, Allison, one that was not sexually but psychologically intimate. Claire's attempt to understand her husband's disappearance, her utter-disregard for even acknowledging the possibility that he may be dead, is what leads her down a path of self-discovery, as she herself begins to realize that her husband himself had interests outside of standard academia, being drawn to Allison's more artistic, free-spirited way of doing things, a startling contrast from Claire's more academic, assertive type of attitude. While a character that was never physically intimate with her husband, Allison is still a character who comes off very threatening tp Claire, a shattering force that knows a great deal about Claire's husband, things Claire herself didn't even know. Claire is blindsided by such a large aspect of her husband's life being completely unknown to her, but it's through this tough relationship she forms with Allison that Claire herself eventually reaches a form of acceptance about her husband and his presumed death, coming to the realization that her and her husband's wants and desires as individuals from a psychological fulfillment point of view had drifted apart, with the film itself honestly and painfully exhibiting the type of confusion and vulnerability such a revelation can create on the psyche of a character such as Claire who herself is still simply trying to get by. From a visual perspective, Claire in Motion uses a lot of tight compositions throughout, creating a restrictive space for its main protagonist, one that beautifully exhibits the boxed-in, loneliness of a character whose emotions have left her in a prism of her own thoughts and fears, exhibiting a type of psychological intimacy through its visual design. Astute, observational, well-acted and crafted, Annie J. Howell & Lisa Robinson's Claire in Motion is a film about grief but eventually acceptance, being very much a film about a woman in Claire who begins to rediscover her own personal identity in the wake of tragedy and the vulnerability and confusion it can bring. Emiliano Rocha Minter's We Are The Flesh is a hypnotic dissent into madness, a film which gleefully pushes and prods the viewer's limitations when it comes to horror, mainly from a psychological perspective, offering up an experience that is hard not to admire, even if the film's overall message remains unclear. The film is set in what appears to be some type of post-apocalyptic world, which finds a groveling, middle-aged man sifting through the rubble of a derelict building, solitary in his dedication to survival, astute in his actions, which remain mysteriously unclear. In search of food and shelter, two siblings encounter this enigmatic, perhaps necromantic man, who provides them with what they seek, but as time passes it becomes clear that malevolent forces are at play, with the diabolical and subversive actions of the middle aged man slowly consuming both siblings, leaving them with no conventional moral boundaries, only adhering to the primal, carnal instincts of violence and lust. A subversive, psychological horror experience which places far more weight on atmosphere and mood than cohesive ideas, Emiliano Rocha Minter's We Are The Flesh is an artistically told descent into madness, a film which features some brilliant use of both audio and video techniques, which together create an atmosphere of diabolical mystery and a brooding sense of unease. The middle-aged man's intentions are mysterious from the onset, but the film makes it rather clear early on that his intentions are rooted in some type of diabolical nature, being a character himself appears to come from a very primal nature of humanity, one where social stigmas are non-existent and desire itself reigns supreme. There appears to be some supernatural, malevolent force at play, which the man dedicates his life too, as if his god is rooted in carnal desires and dedicated to the destruction of all social inhibitions and interdictions. As these two siblings descend themselves into this primal state of being, We Are The Flesh has its moments of exploitation, pushing the envelope at times when it comes to both sexual deviance and violence, yet the film maintains a genuine artistry throughout its running time, one which encapsulates the horror, subversion, and brooding sense of unknown which gives the film a palpable sense of mood from start to finish. While We Are the Flesh's beguiling nature is sure to frustrate some viewers, the film's vague thematics are both a blessing and a curse, as the film's intentions could be interpreted via various socio-political commentaries. We Are The Flesh seems to have something to say about order and control, with its most palpable commentary being about social norms and the primal nature which exists. The film seems to suggest that we are all just animals, victims eventually to our primal desires for blood and lust yet it never fully and cohesively makes such a statement, though judging by the finale one could also argue it's a commentary on the need for secularism as well. The way the two siblings adhere to the middle-aged man and what he preaches feels rooted somewhat in the way many adhere to religious decree, with others joining the siblings in their descent into a primal nature, which inevitably feels very much like a cult. The finale pulls the rug out from the under the viewer in a sense too, with a member of this 'cult' walking out of this secluded, desolate building and into the busy streets of a major metropolitan area, almost as if the filmmakers' wish to present a commentary on the restrictive nature such decrees have over the individual. Both the siblings and others adhered to the middle-aged man's primal and carnal decree for much of the film, but by the end we the viewer learn that everything we thought is a lie - the post-apocalyptic setting is reveals as nothing more but a derelict building in the middle of a metropolitan area, with the filmmakers suggesting that these character's blind faith in the subversive beliefs of this man led them down a path full of violence and immorality. This of course is merely one attempt by yours truly to make some sense out of a rather enigmatic, beguiling slice of atmospheric horror, which of course is what makes Emiliano Rocha Minter's We Are the Flesh so alluring, the various interpretations it allows. |
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June 2023
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