Behind any static appearence there is a disorienting wealth of movement and change.
The short is an early digital and high modernist distortion of a Japanese school building. Once the image gets moving via delayed pans & zooms, the whole 8 minutes could be described as a dread of never catching up. Droning music only seems to get louder and higher in pitch, while strategic pauses serve to insert more confusion.
But in all this perplexion, something new emerges. A glimpse resembles…
Coming back to the same only to find it different every time.
To grasp the content at hand you have to parse shadows, recurring memories, or an interrupted phone connection. Meaning always appears as if by chance, like a dropped flower on the ground.
Death is aptly portrayed as a reflection of the repetitiveness of life. To break free is to shatter this false mirror.
There’s a Native American tent for about 5 seconds in one of the scenes and that told me everything I needed to know about this film’s scope and portrayal of genocide and settler expansion. It’s up there with Night and Fog & Come and See
I strongly suggest watching it in a cinema, the sound design by Mica Levi is worth going by itself
Campy. Exciting. Neo-expressionism at its peak.
These deep ridges on the red armor of Vlad Tepes are enough to feel the passion exuded by this film. Eiko Ishioka encased him in solid, eternal flesh. Beautiful rendition.
Stunning shots all the way through. Wynona's character's love struggles unfold against the foggy courtyards and opulent interiors.
Their Romanian pronunctiation was too on the nose to take seriously, but they name-dropped my hometown Bistrita, so I let it slip.
It's a fever dream world with echoes of Murnau. A cauldron of blood, passion and lust.
