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Capsules

CAPSULE: ADAM’S APPLES (2005)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Ulrich Tomnsen, , Nikolas Bro

PLOT: Priest with a troubled past tries to provide a way to redemption for a young neo- Nazi.

Still from Adam's Apples (2005)

COMMENTS: An aggressive man arrives at a chapel as part of a social reintegration program. Accompanied by two other ex-criminals, he will strive for personal redemption under the guidance of an enigmatic priest with some controversial methods and a tragic past.

Sometimes redemption is just an apple pie away. A trivial purpose, the baking of an apple cake, motivates the young neo-Nazi protagonist, and becomes his path. However, this tale is not really about him, or at least not only about him. He is mostly a vessel to introduced us to his mentor, the  priest, a tragic figure hauntingly performed by one of today’s most acclaimed European actors, Mads Mikkelsen (a close collaborator of director Jensen).

And what a personality this priest is! Even though he has been struck by many misfortunes in his life, he maintains a sense of confidence in himself and in God’s plan, while striving to remain a role model for others. Not everything is as it seems, though, and it is gradually revealed that his calmness is an effect of his constant denial to acknowledge burdensome tragedies. He will have to confront his demons, abandon hope, and embrace stoicism if he wants to obtain true happiness and find salvation. Shots of the priest in his car—either as a driver or as a passenger—masterfully convey the ups and downs of his mental state.

What we have here is not exactly a character study, however. Hints of the supernatural and the magically realist, like crows and worms that try to prevent the baking of the apple pie mentioned above, give this tale the sense of a religious parable. Moreover, the movie draws a comparison between Mikkelsen’s priest and the Old Testament’s Job, making this movie akin to a modern retelling of the classic tale.

From start to finish, this is a grim and haunting cinematic experience, an art-house oddity with parabolic tones and much religious symbolism. It is recommended mostly for fans of religious dramas in a contemporary setting; ‘s Calvary (2014) and the Danish series “Ride Upon the Storm” by Adam Price are similar, even when they stray away from the weirder aspects of this work.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The performances are spot-on, as all play this darkly funny material as if they are in a deadly serious Shakespearean drama, highlighting the situation’s absurdities and asking us to consider how much our reality is shaped by our preconceptions, beliefs and, yes, faith.”–Dan Jardine, Cinemania (festival screening)

Adam's Apples

Adam's Apples

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(This movie was nominated for review by Mauser. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

366 Underground

366 UNDERGROUND: HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCE (2025)

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Weirdest!

DIRECTED BY: Tatu Heikkinen, Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen

FEATURING: Tatu Heikkinen, John Haughm, Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen

PLOT: Strange events beset a grieving husband in the wee hours of the night leading into October 31st.

Still from Haunters of the Silence (2025)

COMMENTS: The facts, as best they might be determined, are these: 1) the unnamed lead character has lost his beloved wife, and 2) his night-vision exterior surveillance camera picked up more than just a midnight rodent behaving in a silly manner. As for the rest of Haunters of the Silence, it’s just about all up for interpretation. A faded photographic image loses a balloon, a father (?), and finally a boy; ceremonial drumming may be a temporary cure for mind de-anchoring; and if a dream facsimile of your dead wife mutters “It’s okay”, perhaps it’s best to take her at her word.

Or not.

In the hopes of better explaining the Haunters of the Silence experience, I quote from director Tatu Heikkinen’s IMDb bio: “His work embraces abstraction and emotional stillness—rejecting the fast-paced editing in favor of grounded, contemplative storytelling.” This statement, as reflected in Haunters, is true in many ways. Heikkinen (and his real-life wife and co-director, Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen) embraces abstraction and emotional stillness. Abstraction comes in many forms, many of them being unlikely camera foregrounds framing background action, for instance, but also long stroboscopic sequences, and plenty of forays into straight-up dream imagery. (The protagonist retreating through a large storm drain through the center of the Shadow Man’s menacing outline in the cosmos is of particular note.)

Haunters of the Silence does have fast-paced editing, though. Shots hastily flicker from one to the next, which might risk leaving the viewer disoriented if weren’t for the meticulous, subtle, and grounding sound design: the listener, as it were, is rarely if ever jarred from the dream-logic ordeals put before them. This sensory-tension works nicely with the temporal-tension: time does not pass per usual in this film, and the Ancient and the Modern co-exist, with incense-burning and buzzing smartphones pulling upon each other across the millennia of human ritual.

As the reader will have noticed, my remarks fell into abstruseness more quickly than usual here, but I blame that on what I saw (and heard). Haunters of the Silence is a weird thing to experience—and it is more in the realm of an experience than a customary film. Tatu Heikkinen and Veleda Thorsson-Heikkinen have built a precise sequence of sounds and images, which is as often baffling as it is beautiful. I give nothing away with this observation on the final scene when the Shadow Man emerges through the bedroom door of now-waking protagonist: life—like time, memory, and grief—does not finish so long as we are on this Earth.

If not longer.

Currently streaming on Relay, check the Haunters of the Silence official website for future updates.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Haunters of the Silence is avowedly experimental; this is not a narrative piece of filmmaking in any recognisable way, so this review opens with a proviso: it will not be for everyone, and in fact it will probably appeal to a very select band of film fans.” — Keri O’Shea, Warped Perspective (contemporaneous)

List Candidates

APOCRYHA CANDIDATE: SHE LOVED BLOSSOMS MORE (2024)

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Agapouse ta louloudia perissotero

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She Loved Blossoms More is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Yannis Veslemes

FEATURING: Panos Papadopoulos, Aris Balis, Julio Katsis,

PLOT: Three brothers try to cope with their mother’s untimely death.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Hallucinating your dead mom as a talking vaginal flower, complete with glowing clitoris, might be a totally natural Oedipal response for a son still processing grief and loss. But when Hedgehog then makes a psychedelic drug from said flower so he can hold a séance with a transdimensional severed head to perfect his time travel experiments, things get pretty weird.

COMMENTS: You can tell life just hasn’t been the same for Dummy, Japan, and Hedgehog since their mother passed away. They try to maintain some semblance of normalcy, coming together for meals and decorating their house for the holidays as Christmas rolls around. But they inevitably drift apart into their own mournful rhythms. Dummy, a failed scientist, spends all his time making and taking pharmaceuticals, then sleeping in the family car with his hands tied to the steering wheel. Japan, the computer nerd, prefers to play chess online before getting drunk on cognac and passing out in the bathtub. Only Hedgehog feels seriously devoted to their family and their ongoing project: he even sleeps in their mother’s Art Deco armoire, the very piece of furniture the brothers are converting into a time machine so they can bring her back from the dead.

After a series of experiments, with variable success (one results in a chicken with its head in another dimension), Mom’s garden has become a pet cemetery (where she also lies buried). Her sons need more money for additional equipment, but Hedgehog avoids taking calls from Logo, their mysterious Parisian funder. Logo (Pinon, in an excellent cameo) has set a daunting deadline, and seems to have questionable motives of his own for pursuing time travel.

When Dummy brings his dealer/girlfriend Samantha to join the party, an increasingly desperate Hedgehog begins hearing his mother’s voice, begging him to bring her back. During a heavy trip she urges him to “try it” with the girl. Needless to say, Hedgehog doesn’t interpret “it” the way most people would; but do his subsequent actions disrupt the time-space continuum. Or is everyone still high on grave flowers?

Like , Yannis Veslemes clearly has a deep love of late seventies to early eighties cinema. A sensuous trippy vibe pervades Blossoms from beginning to end, but this is lo-fi sci-fi: a blend of neon light filters enhanced by distorted sound and visuals with the bluish static of cathode-ray televisions and glowing green text on early computer monitors. The strategic use of animatronics ups the weirdness factor as the plot veers into an uncanny valley. Veslemes may be the only contemporary director to have not only seen, but taken inspiration from the obscure films of (a close examination of the computer screen in the opening sequence reveals the user’s handle: “zoozero79”.)

Veslemes composed scores for films before turning to directing and, also like Cosmatos, he displays a interest a soundtrack that adds to the film’s unique ambiance. She Loved Blossoms More features mainly neoclassical compositions, with some electronics, but avoids clichéd over-reliance on imitating the stereotypical sounds of ’80s movies. The music always complements the visuals without trying to overpower the imagery’s otherworldliness.

The story provides no plausible explanation for how hooking electrodes up to a closet could create a time machine. Blossoms requires a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, or perhaps outright cynicism. The characters’ plight generates sympathy; the retro technology on display leaves the viewer wondering whether we’re actually witnessing groundbreaking DIY research, or a family caught up in a collective delusion. As the identity of Logo and the backstory of Mom’s tragic death are gradually revealed, it only adds another layer to an already ambiguous reality.

As Hedgehog, Papadopoulos  gives an understated performance that sometimes recalls Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko, displaying a similarly creepy dead-eyed intensity. It’s an interesting point of comparison, given that both films explore ’80s nostalgia, weird physics, and altered states of consciousness, though in entirely different ways.

As with most time travel narratives, the story loops around on itself, but the ending is not quite the same as the beginning. You can’t travel through the back of the wardrobe and come out unchanged.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…gets super psychedelic and downright weird… for those viewers who are on its very particular wavelength, She Loved Blossoms More could be a soothing journey to a dark place within themselves, exploring the peripheral spaces just beyond memory, and that is worth the trip. – Josh Hurtado, Screen Anarchy (festival screening)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZOO ZÉRO (1979)

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DIRECTED BY: Alain Fleischer

FEATURING: , , , ,

PLOT: A singer spends a night trying to escape from her overbearing manager while pursued by one admirer who insists he heard her sing in a city she’s never been to, and another who claims he lost his voice when he heard she’d given up singing.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Have you ever thought to yourself, if only someone would make a Last Year at Marienbad/The Magic Flute mash-up, written according to the non-narrative principles of  Eden and After? They could have Catherine Jourdan in the lead as the “A” character, and Klaus Kinski as “M”. . . and why not set it in a grimy, late ’70s Paris overrun with rabid animals? Okay, you probably haven’t; but someone did, and that someone was Alain Fleischer. A director largely unknown in the English-speaking/Region A world, Fleischer moved in the same artistic circles as and . While he was clearly influenced by the same ideas as the better known Alains, Fleischer’s work is perhaps too weird to have been rescued from obscurity; all the more reason to give him some consideration.

COMMENTS: There are so many WTF elements in Zoo zéro I can’t possibly cover them all, but between the ventriloquist chauffeur who only speaks through his socialist revolutionary Donald Duck dummy, to a brothel where clients simply listen to prostitutes describing their actions from unlit rooms, practically every scene features someone, or something, inexplicable.

The opening credits sequence recall those of Eden and After‘s. The actors announce themselves by name, then begin reading texts featuring animals, including the biblical story of Noah and the Ark, and the French fairy tale about Reynaud the fox. Each actor keeps reading as another joins the chorus, until, by the end, the overlapping voices form an unintelligible cacophony. A fitting introduction to the experience of watching Zoo zéro: a movie so jam-packed with references and metaphors, its actual meaning becomes almost impossible to interpret.

Zoo begins at the Noah’s Ark nightclub on a rainy night. Eva (Jourdan), dressed like Liza Minelli in Cabaret, performs before an audience all wearing animal masks. A mysterious man later appears in Eva’s dressing room, saying she once knew him as Ivo (pronounced “Eevo”; all the characters have names beginning with vowel sounds and a majority begin with a long “e”.)

Ivo claims to have heard her performance in Salzburg, in The Magic Flute. Even though Eva says she’s never even been to Salzburg, Ivo has a recording to prove it. Uwe, Eva’s manager, takes possession of the tape and refuses to let her hear it.

The dialogue, while not as obscure as in Marienbad, never resolves Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZOO ZÉRO (1979) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: HARVEST (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Harry Melling, Arinzé Kene, Frank Dillane,  Rosy McEwen, Thalissa Teixeira, Neil Leiper

PLOT: Life in a Scottish farming village changes dramatically with the arrival of a new lord.

Still from Harvest (2024)

COMMENTS: In a nameless village in an uncertain time—sometime after the arrival of tobacco, but before the Industrial Revolution has reached rural Scotland—Walter (Caleb Landry Jones) eats bark and sticks his tongue into a knothole on an oak tree. You can’t get much more at one with the land than that.

The village Walter lives in has no name. That changes when a chart-maker comes to map out the area. The natives see cartography as a threat; naming things is the first step to owning them, and the village operates (although somewhat hypocritically) on the principle of communal ownership of the land. Not that these people are noble savages, exactly; they’re as cruel, superstitious, and racist as they are poor. Walter wasn’t born there, but married a native and is now a widower; he is a close confidant of the beneficent landowner Master Kent, also not native born. He is a semi-outsider, caught between worlds, not fully accepted by the villagers but lacking another place to call home. His liminal status turns him into an observer. He befriends the cartographer, but also scolds him for “flattening” the land by mapping it. Walter is also spineless, sensing danger but as unable to stop progress from marching into the literal one-horse town as is the weak-willed Mater Kent. A fire in the Master’s stable foretells evil to come. Then, three outsiders are pilloried—for the crime of being outsiders. Walter is the only one who sympathizes with the trio,  but he is unable to muster the strength or courage to challenge any decision of the powers that be.

Harvest is beautifully shot (sometimes reminiscent of the “harvest” subgenre of European painting) and impressively scored (one peasant threshing song is synced to the rhythm of swinging scythes). But the storytelling is confusing, the dialogue can be stiff, and the feckless protagonists supply little dramatic momentum as the story limps to its inevitable conclusion. The “hallucinatory” element suggested in Harvest‘s promotional materials is vastly oversold; in truth, the strangeness (mostly coming from the slightly alien behavior of the village’s peasants) never rises beyond the occasionally odd. Nor is the movie, as a few have claimed, folk horror (there’s plenty of folk, including some authentic-sounding bagpipe tunes, but no real horror). With this project, director/co-scripter distances herself from her association with the “Greek Weird Wave,” delivering an on-the-nose exploration of the ruthlessness with which capitalism replaced agrarian societies. Weirdophiles may safely skip this one; arthouse fans with a taste for historical, class-conscious narratives might find it worthwhile.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

” Smatterings of the earthy, the occult, the hallucinatory and the neo-realist never coalesce into a pacy narrative…”–Carmen Paddock, The Skinny (contemporaneous)