All posts by Giles Edwards

Film major & would-be writer. 6'3". @gilesforyou (TwT)
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: IDENTIKIT (1974)

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AKA The Driver’s Seat

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DIRECTED BY: Giuseppe Patroni Griffi

FEATURING: Elizabeth Taylor, Gino Giuseppe, , Maxence Mailfort

PLOT: Having been fired from her job after a nervous breakdown, Lise travels to Italy to find the man of her destiny.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The fractured narrative, which freely jumps back, forth, and freeze-frames, disorients the viewer ceaselessly as we try to figure out just what Lise is up to as she has random and unlikely encounters in a version of Rome which appears to have been cast into the Uncanny Valley by a miffed deity.

COMMENTS: Elizabeth Taylor brings the goods full to the fore as Lise, pivoting between blasé tourist, unhinged pixie woman, and ferocious lioness—all while sporting a rainbow-seared traveling dress. This dress, which is quite the eye-catching sight among many eye-catching sights, somehow manages to get the jump on us. Identikit opens from the neck up, so to speak, as the camera follows Elizabeth Taylor’s famous face gazing around an undefined space filled with aluminum-foil-topped mannequins. Then, a medium shot, and we see the dress, a dress I suspect is one of the more famous in motion picture history. Lise loves it! The German saleswoman tells her it also has been rendered stain resistant. Lise hates it! A fit ensues, a senior clerk is summoned, Lise is calmed with an untreated dress, and so an ambiguous adventure begins.

Identikit‘s somewhat odd beginning shifts into full-blown ambiguity during a scene at the  Hamburg airport. Shortly after advising an elderly woman which dime-novel might be “more exciting, more sadomasochistic,” Lise retrieves her boarding pass. The frame freezes on Lise’s face (and wild ‘do, which veers between being free-spirited and crazy), and a voiceover breathlessly communicates an Interpol investigation. Throughout, the director doesn’t shy away from further still shots, as well as copious timeline-ambiguating interviews between those who interact with Lise—airplane passengers, porters, a nobleman played by Andy Warhol, because it’s 1974 and why not?—and even the Italian police, who are also neck-deep in a sub-sub-plot investigation into terrorists, bombings, and a Middle Eastern royal in hiding.

The story isn’t illogical in its progression, but doesn’t make clear its arc until the final scene involving a young, mild-mannered Nova Scotian who wears a size nine shoe. Countless such details are dropped into the dialogue as Lise spends a hectic day in Rome before her assignation at a park pavilion. There, a delightfully chaotic mountain of park chairs graces the otherwise orderly park-scape, mirroring Lise’s coif. And even when the story becomes clear (enough), the purpose remains something of a cipher—mirroring Lise herself.

Elizabeth Taylor’s dedication to this character is apparent: from her wild hair, to her dramatic makeup, and down the length of the psychedelic dress. As an exercise in dramatic storytelling, Identikit keeps the viewer on their toes, with promise of a crime (or crimes) to be unearthed. But it is more a character study, dissecting a single frenetic day in the life of a woman who has obviously been much put-upon, and who has decided to let go of everything in order to determine existence on her own terms.

Indentikit is available as part of the “House of Psychotic Women” box set (reviewed here), or can be rented on-demand separately.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…super-weird narrative… the star-power of Elizabeth Taylor drives this strange, yet fascinating project with remarkable verve.”–Eddie Harrison, film-authority (2023 Blu-ray)

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CAPSULE: DO NOT DISTURB (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: John Ainslie

FEATURING: Kimberly LaFerrière, Rogan Christopher

PLOT: Their relationship on the verge of collapse, Chloë and Jack honeymoon in Miami—and ingest a lot of peyote in their hotel room.

COMMENTS: John Ainslie’s evidences certainty as a director in how he orchestrates his main characters’ indecision so convincingly. At one moment—well, at plenty of moments—the audience really, really dislikes Jack, the childish fiancé-no-wait-husband of Chloë, an aspiring nurse; at the next moment, Ainslie forces you to consider that his fuck-all attitude is maybe the way to go. The distressing codependency between this pair saturates their scenes as gloppily as pools of blood will eventually saturate their hotel room carpeting. This film is about the ugly collapse of two people and their relationship.

Saving this relationship is the purpose of the spastic journey traveled by Chloë and Jack—a honeymoon of sorts at an “adults only” Miami hotel during the off-season. This is only one example of the many ways Chloë is disappointed in her now-husband—he was too cheap to book something during a more fashionable time of year. It’s a petty concern, certainly, but as is the case with many crumbling relationships, it’s the petty things that stack and stack, until something breaks. And in Do Not Disturb, break they do. Grandly.

While most of the film is believable (Ainslie made me hate Jack from at the start), the catalyst for the couple’s descent into mayhem is one of the most random and unbelievable bits of screen nonsense I’ve laid eyes on. While at the beach, the pair witness a fellow wake up from catatonia in a passionate haze. He’s high, he’s been duped somehow, and to emphasize how he won’t be duped again, he tosses down a bag of peyote and some red powder at their feet before walking into the ocean.

Ainslie’s story is dialogue-heavy, violence-heavy, and most emphatically drug-heavy. Breaking it down, it’s around one third chamber drama, one third gorefest, and one third feminist hurrah. The feminism and gore were nicely done; I loved witnessing this intelligent, if somewhat confused, woman break free from her shackles—doing so, primarily, through drugs and the aforementioned gore. But golly if the bad relationship dramatics didn’t tire me. That’s probably the point, though, as the bickering and flip-flopping are an icky and tedious phenomenon. Kimberly LaFerrière shines as the mousey-then-new woman, and I hope that Rogan Christopher finds the time for physical comedy; a sequence wherein Jack’s trying to brain a chatty visitor with a lamp whose cord seems it must be glued into the socket is a delight. All-in-all, this movie is like a peyote-fueled cannibal buffet: not to everyone’s liking, but a refreshing change from the ordinary.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“In John Ainslie’s trippy hotel psychothriller, a drug-taking couple checks in, drops out, eats in and works through what they really want.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: OPEN (2023)

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Open can be rented or purchased on-demand.

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Miles Doleac

FEATURING: Lindsay Anne Williams, Miles Doleac, Jeremy London, Elena Sanchez, Amber Reign Smith

PLOT: Kristina comes to regret pursuing her long-time fantasy of dating her teen idol when she and her husband explore sharing an open marriage.

Still from OPEN (2022)

COMMENTS: Be advised: if you have an aversion to New Wave music, you will want to avoid this movie. Over its run time, there are some dozen or so interludes featuring ’80s style studio music videos wherein Kristina Corbin’s subconscious processes her situational and emotional circumstances. Her youthful dream of fronting a glamorous synth-rock band is the pulsing heart of this quietly satisfying romantic comedy, and while the segues slip into the narrative like clockwork, they never feel unwelcome.

Ultimately unwelcome, however, is Erik LaRoux, an erstwhile teen idol whom Kristina adored growing up. When she and husband Robert’s marriage hits the rocks—triggered by a recent miscarriage—they are unsure how to proceed. They feel, they know—it must be!—that they’re good together, and that they shouldn’t split up the metaphorical band; but they’ll be damned if they can figure out what direction to go. And so, Kristina makes a suggestion: an open relationship. The first act of Play runs like a cute-‘n’-clever little relationship dramedy, with Kristina hooking up with a charismatic has-been, and Robert falling in bed with a long-time friend.

Open is very much an “all well and good” kind of experience. It shuffles along, capably attaining its realistic ambitions. The characters are all likable (even Erik, before his dark turn) and the songs hover around the better side of average. Sometimes the band is mediocre, other times they flirt with genius. (The tune “Aspic” merits bonus points for the choral couplet, “Damn it to Hell, get me out of this stinking putrid well/I need some elevation for my aspic to gel,” a line which prompts the husband-keyboardist character to exclaim, “‘Aspic’? Really?”) Even when it begins to flounder in the third act, Open is still charmingly executed.

In the end, I was kind of surprised—in a good way. When the closing number queued up, I was hit with the sentiment, “It’s over already?” So, be advised: anyone looking for a fun, mature, and tuneful romantic comedy would do well to take a look at and listen to Open. It’s got heart, brio, and plenty of good advice: “Grab love by the balls, but don’t twist ’em too hard when you feel small.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Doleac, whose previous features have been horrors of deliciously demented delicacies, tries his hand at a quirky musical thriller – and the result is completely darling and truly absorbing.”–Bill Arceneaux, Moviegoing with Bill (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: CONTAINER (2006)

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DIRECTED BY: Lukas Moodysson

FEATURING: The body of Peter Lorentzon and the voice of Jena Malone

PLOT: A male figure wanders around an apartment and derelict areas; a female figure inhabits an hotel room, occasionally interacting with him.

Still from Container (2006)

COMMENTS: This reviewer deleted his original opening to these comments, as it was profane and filled with curses. Perhaps this suggests the power of Lukas Moodysson’s contemplation on modern life, despair, and transgender perception; but, as the director’s namesake painfully suggests, this is a moody, moody piece. It is a litany of nouns and complaints. Some are grand, but most comprise a barrage of irksome sadness, a steady flow of quiet misery delivered in a squeaking near-monotone that forever flirts with outright un-stand-ability.

Occasionally interesting things float to the surface of this collage of tragic mundanity. Moodysson’s metaphor is apt. The film’s subject is not a gay man, she tells us, but a straight woman trapped in a disgusting body (her words, mind you) with a willy. They are alternately tired of lugging this horrible form around—illustrated when the woman figure acts as caretaker to the bloated frame, brushes its teeth, puts it to bed—and tired of carrying this insistent, petulant creature inside—shown through recurring images of the large man carrying the elfin form of the woman on his back. There is no satisfaction here, no relief—not through gossip magazines, drunken soirées, random hook-ups, gallons of lotion, or untold amounts of medication.

Container overstays its welcome for nearly as long as its run time. I felt the pain and confusion, but I felt it within minutes of beginning the ordeal. Moodysson’s dabbling with meta-narration is intriguing: at various points the thoughts of the voice actress, wondering why she was cast, comes through the noise, as do the occasional remarks presumably from the actor Peter Lorentzon. (I’m not actually this depressed, he comments through Jena Malone’s reading, I’m just performing a role here.) And there are even moments of absurd humor—making the line “How the Hell did all of Romania fit inside Britney Spears?” perfectly reasonable in context is quite the coup. However, the director has a lot of the exact same thing to say, and takes the liberty of doing so. I am certain that this is the point: gender dysphoria is a serious beast, sometimes deadly so. I am also certain that the ever-accumulating tedium blunts the impact, making something tragically inspirational into something merely wearying and dispiriting.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Moodysson says he expects his film to find an appreciative audience of seven. He’s probably right. But those seven will doubtlessly think it’s one of the weirdest, most disturbing things they’ve seen in ages.”–Jamie Russell, BBC (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: EYES OF DREAD (2023)

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Eyes of Dread can be rented or purchased on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Andreas Marawell

FEATURING: Malin Saine, Luna Dvil, Karin Engman

PLOT: Nina is rumoured to be dead; her sister Anna doesn’t believe it and investigates in dreams, while the other sister, Julie, investigates in the physical world.

Still from Eyes of Dread (2023)

COMMENTS: Another reviewer groused that the strip club scenes in Eyes of Dread far too often featured far too clothed dancing. While most of his other remarks were on the mark (if perhaps phrased undiplomatically), he did miss a point here: this is an artistic dance club, featured in random intervals in an artistic movie. This is evidenced by the prevalence of red and blue lens filters; thwompy, but not overpowering, sound; and the appreciable use of mirrors, alleyways, candles, and foreign accents. It’s one of those films where any given screen capture might suggest it is interesting.

It is not. A big spooky delivery of “She… went into.. a building(!). That’s where she disappeared. She disappeared there. But I can’t tell you where it is…” is as good example of the dialogue (although I did like skeazy guy’s advice to Paul the photographer: “the alpha animal, he gets all the bitches”). Much of my grousing about the dialogue might have been avoided had the filmmakers written it in the actors’ language of choice. Funneling Z-grade English-language lines through non-native speakers can make for an odd and unsettling experience.

It does not. Not in Eyes of Dread. Digging around the more charitable corners of my mind, I will remark that the camera work is sufficiently interesting, taking advantage of the undisclosed Central/Eastern European’s nook-filled density with its understated meandering. But that may be all. Unnatural phenomena typically demand a naturalistic approach: the unspeakable needs some veneer of relatability, if not necessarily believability.

I did not believe any of these characters, in spite of their painted-on earnestness. And while I don’t mind—and often can take considerable delight in—narratives that flirt with incoherence, there needs to be an “aura” to the film, that difficult-to-describe combination of elements that trap the viewer like a dream. Writer/director Andreas Marawell takes a stab at it, but relies too heavily on vague facsimiles of stuff seen in other films. He captures images handily—and it might be best if he stuck with cinematography until he can whip up a better movie formula.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“I swear it was just some student film with thrown together scenes at times since there was no plot to speak of. ” — Justin Whippo, Jackmeats Flix (contemporaneous)