Recently watched Branagh's
Dead Again.
I wasn't overly keen on this. It felt exactly like what it was. Branagh making a rather obvious thriller for an American market, which in itself is no bad thing, but I was hoping for a bit of his manic and theatrical OTT style to come through, but the directing felt a bit flat and the characters were very one dimensional, leaving little for the excellent cast to work with.
I guess it probably comes down to the faults of the script more than anything, but what I hoped would be a noirish and stylish effort just turned out to be something run of the mill.
On the other side of the spectrum I watched Andrzej Zulawski's
Szamanka.
Flip me over and bugger me senseless, because that's pretty much what this does. Manic? OTT? Certifiable? You're not even close.
If you thought his extraordinary
Possession was a lesson in nutty performances and plotting, then this is the next (il)logical step in Zulawski's film making.
The central performance from Iwona Petry, is a volatile cocktail of two parts Isabelle Adjani in
Possession, two parts Beatrice Dalle in
Betty Blue and a dash of Famke Janssen in
Goldeneye.
From the offset she's going ten to the dozen and doesn't let up... ever... not once in the whole two hours.
She bangs her metaphorical drum quicker, harder and longer than the Duracell bunny could ever wish and struggling to keep up with her in an interesting but overshadowed role is Poland's equivalent to Tom Cruise/Bruce Willis; Boguslaw Linda - he's in the Sam Neill role, but has to perform some truly eye-opening scenes that I'm sure even Mr Neill would have balked at.
I'm not even 100% sure what the film is about but it features a lot of sex, a 25,000 yr old mummified male shaman with vaginal sperm up its arse, cannibalism, rats being used in a meat canning factory, nuclear apocalypse and a spot of suicide.
Highly recommended
