Post by Capo on Oct 25, 2009 19:56:58 GMT
The production of this film is interesting enough to see it: Peter Strickland is an English filmmaker who couldn't find funding in the UK so made this in Romania and Hungary, with local actors and in a foreign language (of which he has limited understanding).
Categorisation of any sort is a kind of spoiler here, but if you don't mind that, this is a consequentialist 'rape revenge thriller'; it's often tense, but more intriguing and weird than anything else. It has a disquieting air about it. It draws one in, though even at 85 minutes, it seems strained and insubstantial.
Its visual compositions are a treat - maybe the best film I've seen this year in this regard. Strickland and cinematographer Márk Gyõri seem to punctuate the minimal plot with beguiling establishing shots of saturated green countryside; critics are right to note that but for the infrequent use of a mobile phone, the film could be a period piece.
Accompanying the fine imagery is Strickland's layered, atmospheric soundscapes, which often override dialogue and diegetic sound completely. This is immersive at first but might wear thin after a while for some; there's little that actually happens for all its suggestion of horror ahead.
The film is interesting to a point, and gains much from Hilda Péter's hypnotic titular performance - she's stunning. Moral questions arise towards the end of the film, told almost entirely from Katalin's perspective, when she confronts her son's biological father, who raped her years earlier. Katalin has already killed one person before this, and things are complicated further when her second would-be victim is shown as a compassionate, loving husband.
Strickland leaves it at that, though; there's no further probing as to what this man is going through emotionally or psychologically, and the point at which things finally start to get interesting, the film ends on a very blunt note; revenge has its consequences in this film and nobody seems to benefit from it. Perhaps only Katalin, whose rape has eventually triggered these events, has found peace in carrying out this self-justified journey of vigilantism.
I'd recommend people see this; it's not a masterpiece but it's certainly worth seeing.
Categorisation of any sort is a kind of spoiler here, but if you don't mind that, this is a consequentialist 'rape revenge thriller'; it's often tense, but more intriguing and weird than anything else. It has a disquieting air about it. It draws one in, though even at 85 minutes, it seems strained and insubstantial.
Its visual compositions are a treat - maybe the best film I've seen this year in this regard. Strickland and cinematographer Márk Gyõri seem to punctuate the minimal plot with beguiling establishing shots of saturated green countryside; critics are right to note that but for the infrequent use of a mobile phone, the film could be a period piece.
Accompanying the fine imagery is Strickland's layered, atmospheric soundscapes, which often override dialogue and diegetic sound completely. This is immersive at first but might wear thin after a while for some; there's little that actually happens for all its suggestion of horror ahead.
The film is interesting to a point, and gains much from Hilda Péter's hypnotic titular performance - she's stunning. Moral questions arise towards the end of the film, told almost entirely from Katalin's perspective, when she confronts her son's biological father, who raped her years earlier. Katalin has already killed one person before this, and things are complicated further when her second would-be victim is shown as a compassionate, loving husband.
Strickland leaves it at that, though; there's no further probing as to what this man is going through emotionally or psychologically, and the point at which things finally start to get interesting, the film ends on a very blunt note; revenge has its consequences in this film and nobody seems to benefit from it. Perhaps only Katalin, whose rape has eventually triggered these events, has found peace in carrying out this self-justified journey of vigilantism.
I'd recommend people see this; it's not a masterpiece but it's certainly worth seeing.