ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD - Got quite enthusiastic about this one, another from that maestro of incompetence Bruno Mattei. It's about some treasure hunters who end up shipwrecked on an island full of zombies. Because it's a Bruno Mattei film, most of what happens is ripped from other people's movies - Zombie Flesh Eaters, bits of The Evil Dead, even The Blind Dead (sort of). That doesn't matter, because it's all rammed together in such a way that, after a while, you'll question whether you have a mild fever (it may even give you one). I've noticed some reviews have complained about its leaden pacing. That's not really true - lots of stuff goes on, at quite a fast rate. It's just, none of it really makes much sense. For me, that's a good thing. I don't always question why two ghostly hands play an ancient guitar, why a zombie regenerates its arm to no dramatic effect, why there are vampire zombies, why there are cowl-wearing satanic zombies, why everyone's facial expression seems slightly bizarre at all times, why the dubbing seems deliberately crazy as f*ck. It's because I know the answer to these questions - there is only one. It's Bruno Mattei. And he's rad. And I think he's maybe self-consciously taking the piss a bit with this one, but I might be wrong. I might not quite 'get it'. But I'm kind of glad I don't. Recommended x3 (for friends of 'Zombies - The Beginning', Intervision's companion release, this one shares the same preHD shot on video look and overall cheapness, is less frenetic but more rambling and weird).
IRREVERSIBLE - A kind of rape-revenge flick, but one which has been gutted, stripped down, hacked up and rearranged. Gasper Noe's controversial 2003 offering tries to marry vicious content with mashed up form - as you probably all know, it's told in reverse and shot with an ever-careening camera. It traces its bleak storyline of love in ruins from the brutal aftermath of a nightclub assault to the hopeful beginnings of a new relationship, the latter making for a particularly cruel 'happy ending'. One or two scenes are unflinching, and difficult to watch - the subway rape is quite the pinnacle of dead eyed, sombre rage. Noe clearly loves to rub our faces in it, and that's how it should be. Some films are simply not meant to be 'enjoyed'. There's something here about critiquing violence as entertainment, but I don't think Noe thinks along the same lines as someone like Haneke - here, it's all about impact, not ethics. As much as I admired its cynicism, I found myself intrigued by its weird little gestures - the stuff about precognition, the strange portents and connections that crop up from time to time, the intimations of an utterly bleak cosmos. This slightly 'psychedelic' angle was pushed more in his next movie, but I always find his first, 'I stand Alone', to be his most powerful and disturbing (and heart-rending). A necessary film, one which will keep many at bay through its refusal to entertain.
THE GOD MEMOIRS - What a strange film! I really liked it. It's by Brian Hirschbine, who did necro-sicky 'Black Ice' and a couple of others. He always has quite an odd world view, and 'The God Memoirs', his first I think, is no exception, being filled with dime store surrealism and frequently repulsive gore. Hold on a second though - don't gear yourselves up for a whacked out splat-fest just yet, because 'The God Memoirs' has another side to it, one made up of really long philosophical monologues delivered direct to camera by the film's main (and practically only) dude. If you're in it for the red stuff, you'll have to wade through some serious socio-philosophical tracts first. That's not all - when he's not hacking or waxing lyrical, he's kind of not doing all that much - and we get to see that, too. 'But what does it all mean'? It's a meditation on the absence at the core of our meaningless world, and is basically about a guy who goes round hacking people up so he can reassemble them in the form of his own personal 'god'. So we get endless diatribes about alienation, long long stretches of murder guy walking around doing nothing, then a smattering of weird bits (a flower cries "you will never be beautiful like meeeeee!) then a splattering of gory bits (nice to see the H G Lewis butcher's left-overs tradition alive and kicking). All of this is completely lacking in any dynamism or forward focussed momentum, but it makes for a unique viewing experience when looked on more as an example of where scuzz-bucket underground gore meets experimental / avant-garde (see also 'The Mutilation Man' et al). It's shot on grainy video. It's two hours long! I found it completely satisfying. The talky bits lulled me into a strangely blissed out stupor, whereas the gore aggravated and the strangeness enthralled. I haven't really captured what it is that makes me think 'The God Memoirs' is so special. Maybe it comes down to tone, the strange atmosphere of cheapness versus strangeness. The difficult to talk about stuff which haunts every frame. There aren't many like it.
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25th March 2015, 09:15 AM
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