Dear friend,
this edition of Weekly visions marks a full year of summarising my weekly watches. I think it’s a decent achievement, and it would be the perfect occasion to stop writing these posts… but I have no intention of doing that. I’m not tired of them yet.
It is a sort of commitment that requires some time and effort every week, but these posts allow me to spend just a few minutes every morning writing, while having breakfast and before the daily routine starts, without worrying that the text has to make sense as a whole.
And there’s a serious risk that I would stop updating the blog if I didn’t have this recurring topic.
Of course, sooner or later, these posts will end. But not right now.
Oddity, written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy, Ireland, 2024 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Sometimes I rewatch a film the day after my first round, while the 48-hour rental period is still ongoing. This is one of those times. Oddity held very well, and, knowing the whole story, some scenes (such as the very first one) were even more enjoyable.
The Cell, directed by Tarsem Singh, written by Mark Protosevich, US, 2000 - ⭐⭐⭐½
There are two films in The Cell: one is a nonsensical men-who-hate-women Silence of the Lambs wannabe about a twisted serial killer. The other one makes as little sense - with FBI agent Jennifer Lopez wondering around the mind of a comatose, wonderfully terrifying, self-aggrandising Vincent D’Onofrio - but it’s the one Tarsem Singh wanted to direct and the one I wanted to rewatch.
So, it’s not a great movie, and I’m not convinced by Lopez’ acting, but for the pure viewing pleasure of the beautiful and nightmarish landscapes, it’s still a great experience.
Like the first time, the bit for which Tarsem essentially re-used the same set as his REM Losing My Religion video took me out of the film for some time, as I was expecting to see Michael Stipe in the corner.
Real/リアル〜完全なる首長竜の日〜, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, co-written with Sachiko Tanaka, based on the novel by Rokurô Inui, Japan, 2013 - ⭐⭐½
I had completely forgotten my watchlist included another film about a person entering, by way of futuristic technology, the mind of somebody else, this one directed by none other than my favourite Kiyoshi.
I felt compelled to watch it the day after I watched The Cell.
It’s much less visually interesting, and I’m not even fully sure the story makes sense: I did expect the switch that happens in the second act, but I don’t feel it’s consistent (I won’t go into spoilers to explain why). Then, at some point, it becomes all about a plesiosaurus.
It’s the kind of film in which Kurosawa puts one or two scares almost when they’re least expected, just to keep you engaged, and then he goes back to the film’s natural horror-less path.
That said, in some scenes you can see, in the background, a white sheet covering a sphere (maybe a lamp?), and I was terrified it would be a ghost ready to quietly make their move.
The Tunnel, directed by Carlo Ledesma, written by Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey, Australia, 2011 - ⭐
Recommendations from YouTubers are inherently hit-or-miss: everyone has their own taste and there’s no arguing about that. For me, this Australian found footage film was just yet another poor variation on The Blair Witch Project (complete with the crew rebelling against the woman who’s in the lead - but she needs to continue the mission), set in a series of tunnels instead of the woods.
It’s a mockumentary, so it would be clear from the beginning that someone will survive; I was giving it the benefit of the doubt hoping there could be some twist there coming, but… no.
It’s just a lot of tropes: cameras malfunctioning, hyper-confusing climax in a short closed space (ok, at least the title wasn’t lying), a ‘monster’ that you can’t really see because of budget constraints.
It was uninteresting from beginning to end, sorry to director Ledesma and all those involved.
Red Rooms/Les chambres rouges, written and directed by Pascal Plante, Canada, 2023 - ⭐⭐⭐
Another film I waited a long time to see, I almost managed not to know anything about it beforehand, except for a particularly emotional scene which had me immensely underwhelmed.
Then there’s the really surprising scene, but I felt its effect was artificially magnified by the audio cue, while the visuals would have looked silly otherwise.
It’s true that probably it works better on a second viewing, after you have deciphered a bit the lead character, but I didn’t feel motivated to revisit it.
The initial long take in the courtroom was impressive.
And I discovered my French is not good enough to understand colloquial Canadian French.