After the death of his strictly religious parents, Darkly, a young and lost man, wanders aimlessly through the woods. On deaths doorstep from exhaustion, Darkly is rescued by Jude, a truck driver. Jude brings Darkly to the house of Callie and Clay, a young married couple who live in a quaint old home in the middle of the woods. As Callie nurses Darkly back to health, he begins to develop sexual feelings for her, which threaten to turn violent when Darkly is exposed to the love which Callie and Clay have for each other. Philip Ridley's The Passion of Darkly Noon is an off-beat fairy tale for adults which turns an observant eye on a troubled young soul. Conflicted by his parents strict teachings and his sexual feelings, Darkly attempts desperately to suppress his feelings, which ultimately leads him to become even more troubled. Being almost entirely from Darkly Noon's point-of-view, the film does a great job at capturing this deeply troubled man. There are surreal moments where we get into Darkly headspace but maybe the best example is simply how the film presents Callie. Callie, the object of Darkly's affection, is almost always shown in an angelic light, with many sequences where she is back-lit by the sun itself, effectively capturing how Darkly Noon views this beautiful woman. While the transformation of Darkly and the building sense of dread is certainly interesting, Darkly Moon's transformation does come off a little hard to swallow. He goes from quiet and calm to unstable and angry a little too fast for my liking, and the film could have spent a little more time building up this lustful relationship. While The Passion of Darkly Noon is overwrought and a little too hard to believe, its examination of a young man's inability to understand his feelings is fascinating and fun. 7.25/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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