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Film: Eaters: Rise Of The Dead
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 13th June 2011
Distributor: Chelsea
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Luca Boni & Marco Ristori
Starring: Rosella Elmi, Guglielmo Favilla, Elisa Ferretti, Riccardo Floris, Alex Lucchesi
Genre: Horror
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Italy
Language: Italian
Review by: Daryl Wing
Uwe Boll, taking a long overdue break from adapting every video game property he can, has decided to lend his questionable expertise, as well as a welcome cash injection, and allow someone else to destroy the zombie movie once and for all. Despite Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead (2010) breathing new life into a tired species, it’s been a while since a feature-length has had anything new to say on the subject, with Boll’s House Of The Dead (2003) one of the finer examples of how to put a bullet through the head of a lifeless genre. Will newcomers Luca Boni and Marco Ristori be able to resuscitate the zombie flick with their apocalyptic offering, Eaters?
The world has been ravaged by a zombie epidemic of grave proportions, now governed by hordes of living dead. Igor (Alex Lucchesi) and Alen (Guglielmo Favilla) are two of the few survivors, forced to spend their days searching for fellow survivors and capturing zombies so that a scientist, Gyno (Claudio Marmugi), can continue his experiments to find an improbable cure.
On their travels, they meet an array of characters still clinging to life: a crazy painter, neo-Nazis, the imposing Plague Spreader (blamed for its escalation), and a mysterious girl, uninfected, hidden from a red-blooded land of laddishness.
In a world where the ever-evolving dead lay down the law, Igor and Alen know that the girl, Christina, is vital if the human race is to survive, but when they discover Gyno’s plans to create a new breed, they realise it’s not the undead they should fear the most…
Humanity is in chaos, there’s a birth rate of zero, and the Pope just blew his brains out because he doesn’t want to come back to a world overrun by a vicious breed of anarchic thugs – and they’re just the living. Welcome to the wonderful world created by first-time directors Luca Boni and Marco Ristori, who together have engineered a movie that thankfully dares to offer some originality to proceedings, eventually.
Taking time out from reading the latest edition of Girls and Corpses magazine, our two protagonists, Alen and Igor, go on a little road trip to keep boredom at bay, and after half an hour of seemingly pointless banter with each other, the mad scientist Gyno and two annoying loons that demand to be eaten (the sooner the better), the plot finally finds its feet and the cast, suffering from the same acute boredom engulfing the audience, are finally thrown a bone or two. Boni and Ristori offer hints to where the plot will finally end up, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if the viewer has switched off long before the foreshadowing of Gyno’s experiments, Alen’s doctor-fiancée held captive in a cage and the mysterious plague spreader finally pay off.
It really does take forever for anything to happen, and although Lucchesi and Favilla are likeable, there can only be so much of the two knuckleheads minding their own business amidst an all-too-familiar backdrop you can take. Even when hunting day arrives, you’re still left twiddling your thumbs for another good five minutes before the first zombie is dispatched. Luckily, the attractive blonde with it all hanging out is a satisfying first kill, not because of its brutality, but because Igor is able to deliver the first of many wonderful lines of dialogue. Then, finally, after yet another brief encounter with a character (the madcap painter) that offers little to the plot, things start to get interesting.
The gore may not be top notch - all too often the scene is cut just before the blood can spill - but the murky wastelands explored on route are beautifully realised, especially when they probe neighbouring sectors, and the soundtrack pumps harder than Schwarzenegger in his heyday. By this point, despite a brief sidestep when our protagonists decide they need beer and must therefore visit an old nemesis (involving a fun game of Nazi target practice), the plot is finally starting to unravel into something worthwhile. The appearance of the Plague Spreader may disappoint in terms of chills and a potentially decent idea wasted (Igor does get to deliver another cracking one-liner), but, on the other hand, the discovery of Christina turns this timid tale into a mind-boggling head-screw.
Although our two leads are charming in their own unique way, and Alen must have something going for him if he once dated a doctor, adding a young girl (a slightly older Mathilda from Leon) into the mix fascinates. Will they protect her or the human race first? Igor, certainly, hasn’t seen any action for a while, and despite Christina’s tender years, couldn’t be trusted alone with her. But this subplot is just the beginning, as it isn’t long before they discover Gyno’s warped plans, involving a new breed of zombie.
It’s not like they haven’t already evolved enough. Our two auteurs have cleverly moved on from a living dead that can merely keep up with their victims, allowing them to be entertained by television, carry and use weapons, and even, dare you believe it, talk. Astonishingly, it somehow works, made the more fun when Alen shoots one dead because, “she was asking too many questions.”
The weirdness is stretched even further, involving aborted babies and zombies able to reproduce, but because this is a story rarely told, you’ll be grateful for the ride. One of the final stand-offs may disappoint after all the good that went before it, and a scene involving a bomb about to detonate doesn’t make any sense, but our band of heroes prove that it’s friendship that comes before science, even if you can’t help but think Christina may regret where she aimed that machine gun.
Eaters keeps most of its horrors under wraps for the majority of the disappointing opening act and instead diverts the audience with two sufficient leads and an escalating sense of dread that pays off in an appropriately apocalyptic final act that needs to be seen to be believed. DW
Film: We Are What We Are
Release date: 21st March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Jorge Michel Grau
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitán, Carmen Beato, Jorge Zárate
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Mexico
We Are What We Are is Jorge Michel Grau's independently produced, genre-bending shocker, acclaimed as the Mexican Let The Right One In (2008). With big shoes to fill, has this grisly satire got the stomach to compete with one of the greatest horror films of recent times?
Dying in the middle of a shopping mall, a middle-aged man leaves his widow, two sons and daughter destitute. Not only will the devastated family have to cope with their terrible loss, but without a breadwinner in the house, they also face a massive challenge.
Not that bread will satisfy this family of cannibals, driven to eat human flesh in the Latin American urban jungle rife with poverty and corruption. Justifying their bizarre diet with ritual blood ceremonies is one thing, but now they must decide who will provide the victims now that father has gone.
The task falls to the eldest son, Alfredo, yet he's far from ready to accept the challenge, carrying a secret that will rip a hole through his family, thus finally supplying the desperate police force with a recipe for success…
You know that you’re on to something good when you’re rooting for a bunch of flesh-eating cannibals. Either that or the other characters are so unpleasant you have little choice in the matter. Director Jorge Michel Grau has created such a bleak world filled with poverty and decay that you are forgiven if at any point you hope this dysfunctional family finally manages to find some food for the table.
The youngest are certainly the victims here. Whereas the prostitutes and bent cops had, at some point, a choice in which direction to take, the three children had no such luck, raised into a family that already relied on human flesh as their only means of protein. Why the mother, played with such menace by Carmen Beato, decided to pursue her husband’s odd dietary requirements, especially as she despised whores, isn’t really explained, and it leaves a sour taste because for the most part she revels in being by far the strongest character.
This isn’t a unique family either, because throughout, cannibalism, although revered, is seemingly treated as a common occurrence, almost on a par with shoplifting. This is hardly surprising when you witness Grau’s Mexico City, rife with official incompetence and corruption. In a world where nobody trusts anyone, the cannibals are just another band of scum that need to be wiped out. It’s certainly an interesting angle, summed up superbly when the daughter tries to persuade her siblings to take a lady of the night, insisting they should, “Hunt down a whore. It’s not cheating - we’ll dress her in my clothes.”
It’s this battle that holds the most interest. Beato juggles her dual roles of monster and mother quite superbly, but it’s the loathing of her husband’s acquired taste that leads to the film’s standout scenes: her dispatching of a hooker, the special delivery that succeeds it, and her final comeuppance are easily the better of a sub-plot involving the seedy policeman and his quest for approval from his comrades. Having said that, Grau still manages to deliver a scene even camper than Alfredo’s out of place sexual meanderings when the streetwalkers chase his brother Julian down the street.
For the gore-hounds, there is surprisingly little on offer here. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although, at times, it wouldn’t hurt for a few more slashes of violence. Too much happens off screen, and although, in certain cases, it’s best to leave some horrors to the viewer’s imagination, here it would arguably add a little bit more clarity. Having said that, a brief scene that shows the teenage boys sexually toying with their victim, as any teenage cannibal would, comes as such an explicit surprise, you’ll be disappointed to find it cut short by their mother who halts proceedings the only way she knows how.
Suggesting rather than showing, We Are What We Are changes direction in the final act, and somehow comes to life as the ailing police force raid the family home. How they came upon the property so swiftly is a bit of a headache, but the ensuing shoot-out will wake most viewers from their quiet slumber of satisfaction, surprising some, upsetting others, with a finale that will divide opinion. It may be a lazy way to end proceedings, or it may be the inevitable outcome, but it’s certainly entertaining.
And here lies the problem. Whereas their father’s death, staggering through a shopping mall in the city, clutching his stomach before collapsing in front of semi-clad mannequins in a shop window is poetic, the police autopsy soon after introduces a character so pointlessly over the top it’s embarrassing. A sub-plot that revolves around their mother’s hatred for prostitutes is ruined by another about a dirty cop who wants to go out with a final bang, pulling the trigger to a finale that doesn’t quite sit right. A film that, at times, tastes of chalk rather than cheese, inhibited further by the lack of brutality on show, or in fact, a lack of anything that doesn’t even warrant debate, means that the final serving will probably leave the audience hungry.
If Grau had stuck to his guns, and concentrated on the far more interesting family relationships and the conflict generated, heightened by such a distressing series of events, We Are What We Are could’ve sat proudly beside Let The Right One In as one of the most beautiful horrors of the last decade. Instead, it’s memorable, but not a classic. DW
Film: Shock Labyrinth 3D
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Starring: Yûya Yagira, Ai Maeda, Suzuki Matsuo, Ryo Katsuji, Shôichirô Masumoto
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Best known for his Ju-on/The Grudge series, Japanese director Takashi Shimizu returns with Shock Labyrinth 3D, a 2009 supernatural horror in which a group of teenagers find themselves unwittingly revisiting an amusement park’s hospital-themed house of horrors where one of their friends disappeared in mysterious circumstances ten years earlier. The film is released as a two disc special edition, with a 3D version (two pairs of old school 3D glasses provided) on one disc and a standard 2D version on the other.
When Mikoto (Ryo Katsuji) returns to his hometown in the company of old friend Ken (Yuya Yagira), he is in for an unexpected, not altogether pleasant surprise. Arriving at the home of their blind friend Rin (Ai Maeda), Mikoto and Ken are greeted by the strange presence of a disturbed young woman who claims to be Yuki (Misako Renbutso), a former friend who disappeared many years earlier after the group broke into an amusement park’s house of horrors.
Unsure of what to make of Yuki’s apparent reappearance and strange behaviour, Mikoto, Ken and Rin decide to take her back to her old home, but once there, Yuki falls down a flight of stairs and has to be rushed to hospital. Together with Yuki’s younger sister Miyu (Erina Mizuno), the friends drive Yuki to a hospital, but find themselves at a place where their health and safety is placed under serious threat; a place where rubbish food and surly nurses are the furthest things from their minds.
At the hospital, Yuki soon disappears again, and as the hapless friends wander through the eerily deserted building, they begin to realise that they have somehow been lured back to the hospital of horrors they had all tried to forget…
Largely filmed on location at a haunted hospital attraction in Japan’s Fuji-Q High Land amusement park, Shock Labyrinth is a strangely unsatisfying beast; a horror without any real scares, but with plenty of atmosphere and a smattering of vaguely surreal sights to prevent it from being a complete disaster.
The plot is a bit of a mess, to put it mildly; a blur of flashbacks and muddled narrative strands that never really add up to anything substantial. There are suggestions that past and present are intertwined, and that actions in the present are somehow inextricably linked with what happened in the past, but this potentially intriguing plot device is never really explored with any conviction. It’s one thing to keep viewers guessing, but in Shock Labyrinth, there is a sense that ideas have been floated, but not followed through on.
In the final few minutes, there is an attempted explanation of events that have unfolded and what caused them, but it seems tacked on and not particularly convincing. The mannered, over-expressive acting doesn’t help matters either, although in the case of Misako Renbutso’s vengeful Yuki, it is at least in keeping with her character, thinly sketched as it is.
As an audiovisual spectacle, Shock Labyrinth is more successful, though the 3D version is virtually unwatchable, unless you enjoy giving yourself migraines. Best stick to the 2D version, where gently falling feathers and a hovering bunny backpack floating through space, and walls, make for visually engaging, rather than eye-wateringly irritating viewing.
Director Shimizu also makes fairly effective use of the film’s setting; a less than hospitable hospital populated by creepy mannequins, with plenty of long, dimly lit corridors and stairwells for the cast to trudge nervously through. In the absence of a coherent plot or dialogue that rises above the mundane, however, the visuals are left to do all the work.
Vengeance is a powerful theme in the right hands, but Shimizu has failed to deliver with Shock Labyrinth. Attempts have been made to show why Yuki has a right to be unhappy with her friends and younger sister, but most of the punishments seem to be ridiculously out of proportion with the crimes. Perhaps that wouldn’t matter so much if the film was more coherently structured, or if there was some indication of Yuki gaining some sense of closure, but Shock Labyrinth fails on both counts.
Shimizu seems to be aiming for a younger, teenage audience with Shock Labyrinth, so the absence of gore is excusable, but even so a horror has to have more tension than is evident here to succeed. In short, there are no real shocks, and it’s more of a dead end than a labyrinth.
Takashi Shimizu fans may well be disappointed by Shock Labyrinth, and even the impressive cinematography is let down by a 3D version that will have most viewers lunging dizzily for the eject button. JG
A middle-aged man dies in the street, leaving his widow and three children destitute. The devastated family is confronted not only with his loss but with a terrible challenge - how to survive. For they are cannibals.
The group have always existed on a diet of human flesh consumed in bloody ritual ceremonies - and the victims have always been provided by the father. Now that he is gone, who will hunt? Who will lead them? How will they sate their horrific hunger?
The task falls to the eldest son, Alfredo, a teenage misfit who seems far from ready to accept the challenge... But without human meat, the family will die.
Following its major theatrical release, shocking, bloody and deeply moving, We Are What We Are is a remarkable reinvention of the horror genre - a visceral and powerfully emotional portrait of a family bound by a terrible secret and driven by monstrous appetites.
Film: We Are What We Are
Release date: 21st March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Jorge Michel Grau
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitán, Carmen Beato, Jorge Zárate
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Mexico
Check out the trailer below for Shock Labyrinth 3D, which comes to DVD on 31st January 2011.
More information on this film can be found by clicking here.
Directed by Shimizu and based on the world’s largest walk-through ‘haunted house’, The Haunted Hospital attraction situated at the world famous Fuji-Q Highland theme park, Shock Labyrinth 3D is the first Japanese film shot in HD Digital 3D (and J-Horror’s first ever live action 3D movie) and stars some of Japanese cinema’s hottest acting talents, including Ai Maeda (Death Note: The Last Name), Suzuki Matsuo (Robo-Geisha) and Shoichiro Masumoto (Goemon; Ichi; Tokyo Gore Police).
When a small group of young friends spending the day at a theme park near the foot of Mount Fuji sneak into the park’s haunted house attraction after hours, the innocent children’s escapade results in the mysterious disappearance of one of them, Yuki.
On a rainy evening ten years later, Yuki inexplicably reappears, turning up at the apartment of one of the girls who was present when she disappeared. Yuki is soon reunited with her friends but shortly afterwards collapses and the group rushes her to a nearby hospital where they are unable to find anyone to treat their friend. With little option but to wait in the hospital, they begin to look for help but soon find things are not as they seem. As the night wears on, the friends begin to relive the events from a decade ago, and soon come face to face with the terrible truth behind Yuki’s disappearance.
With the highly entertaining Shock Labyrinth 3D, Shimizu expertly combines a series of striking 3D visuals with his trademark filmmaking style to create a foreboding atmosphere and sense of unease that permeates the film until its final, alarming revelation.
Film: Shock Labyrinth 3D
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Starring: Yûya Yagira, Ai Maeda, Suzuki Matsuo, Ryo Katsuji, Shôichirô Masumoto
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Film: Not Like Others
Release date: 25th October 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 78 mins
Director: Peter Pontikis
Starring: Jenny Lampa, Ruth Vega Fernandez, David Dencik, Omid Khansari, Peter Järn
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD
Country: Sweden
Thanks to the ridiculous success of the Twilight saga over the last few years, vampire movies are hot property. So hot in fact that it’s starting to become a worldwide obsession; Sweden’s Let The Right One In (2008) and South Korea’s Thirst (2009) being two notable examples – the former having already been remade by Hollywood, soon to be released. Naturally, distributors and producers want to flood the market with as many vampire movies as possible, which leads us to Not Like Others; a film made back in 2008 that has been given a wider release.
Not Like Others is the story of Vera (Jenny Lampa) and Vanja (Ruth Vega Fernandez), two vampire sisters ostracised by the normal world who live like outcasts on the fringes of society. Vera has learned to accept her fate, killing in the name of sustenance, but Vanja, a chronic depressive, is desperate to adapt despite the risk of being found out.
Wanting to enjoy some of the Stockholm nightlife, Vera drags Vanja along to a nightclub. Whilst Vanja mopes at the bar, the leader of a local, tattoo-sporting biker-gang propositions Vera on the dance floor. After several unwanted advances, Vera concedes and lures the man into one of the club’s toilet cubicles where she decides to feed on his haemorrhaging blood. Vanja gets her fill before they both promptly leave the club.
Upon discovering that their leader has been murdered, the gang are in hot pursuit, as Vera and Vanja run for their lives…
Made in the same year, set in the same city, tackling similar subject matter, and exhibiting a similar cold and detached iconography as the critically acclaimed Let The Right One In, Not Like Others certainly has its work cut out in terms of distancing itself from unwanted comparisons. The similarities listed at the start of this paragraph are hard to ignore, plus the fact that both films use vampirism as a metaphor for social inadequacy and acceptance. Having said that, Not Like Others manages to do its own thing, making it an intriguing, yet flawed companion piece.
Flashbacks interspersed throughout the ongoing chase take into account often overlooked details about the day-to-day realities of vampires living in a modern world: Vera and Vanja gate crashing a house party to plunder the coat room for money, as their destitute living arrangement and their inability to withstand sunlight puts neither of them in a good position to function in a conventional manner; i.e. through employment. Another flashback suggests Vanja’s reluctance to murder people for food – as it’s pointed out earlier that they’re unable to process normal foodstuffs – opting to loot a hospital for blood packs. However, despite the potential of being a rare gem in a subgenre of mostly lacklustre offerings, Not Like Others is unfortunately not as successful as it could’ve been.
The film quite wisely and refreshingly plays down on its vampire conceit, eschewing much of the usual dogma for an altogether realistic approach. There is absolutely no talk of crosses, silver or garlic; there is no superhuman speed or strength attributed to either Vera or Vanja. They don’t even have fangs, a controversial and bold move that further leans the film towards being a text about prejudice and existing outside the norm as opposed to a work of pure fancy. Vera carries a small knife in which to puncture the throats of her victims before feeding on the spilled contents. On the upside, this obliterates all opportunity for annoying and cliché open-mouthed-hissing-to-camera moments that plague almost every other vampire flick out there.
However, this minimalism represents a double edged sword, resulting in a woefully underwritten script and a plot that’s stretched so thin you’d be forgiven if you thought that there wasn’t one. Surprisingly, for a film that’s barely over seventy minutes in length, Not Like Others feels overlong and padded. Aside from the occasional flashback, the main story consists of Vera and Vanja running around the empty streets of Stockholm, and hiding out in underground tube stations with the occasional shot of a man on a motorcycle to remind you that they’re still being chased. There is a distinct lack of tension or even urgency, considering that the two girls will most likely be killed if they get caught which, for a film with a set up and all the pretensions of being a thriller, is rather damaging indeed.
Performances are adequate but nothing special. Lampa is perhaps the most at ease with the minimal material, partly because she is given the most to do, frequently leaving Vanja to lay low while she checks that it’s safe to move on. One such excursion sees her interacting with a taxi driver (David Denick), which makes for a truly bizarre centrepiece. The driver offers Vera a lift in his cab, which she accepts to avoid being caught by the biker in pursuit. When the driver realises that she has no money, he pulls over, makes a sexual advance on her, only to then change his mind. By way of apology, he decides to drive her to the destination of her choice, making friendly small talk along the way. When they arrive, he changes his mind and decides that sex would be nice, attempting to trap Vera in the car.
However, it is Vera and Vanja’s relationship that is the main focus here, but, apart from a couple of flashbacks, we never really find out that much about them. A shame, considering the potential depth of their sisterly bond made stronger through their shared circumstance. A scene that sees them screaming under a bridge as a train passes overhead offers a glimpse of happiness within their bleak and ostracised situation, but its too odd and fleeting a moment for it to truly strike a chord. And when the bikers start to close in on them, not only is it a predictable turn of events, but emotionally underwhelming as well.
Unfortunately, Not Like Others had great potential but ends up wanting. Its intriguing ideas and fresh take on the subgenre is severely undermined by a minimal and uneventful story that lacks the atmosphere, tension and empathy that was achieved in the similar and altogether superior Let The Right One In. A stronger plot and better developed characters could’ve turned this into a touching and unconventional essay on human loneliness, but instead we have is a textbook case of missed opportunity. On the bright side, purists can rest assured that it probably won’t get remade by Hollywood anytime soon. MP
Film: Rapt
Release date: 13th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Lucas Belvaux
Starring: Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, André Marcon, Françoise Fabian, Alex Descas
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD
Country: France/Belgium
Reflecting a growing disaffection with the economic ruling classes, Belgian director Lucas Belvaux’s 2009 kidnapping drama is both thought-provoking and entertaining.
Parisian businessman Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal) has the kind of life most people can only dream of. He is hugely wealthy, enjoys powerful connections, and has a wonderful home, complete with a loving, beautiful wife, Francoise (Anne Consigny), and two doting daughters, but all of this doesn’t seem to be enough for him. As we soon discover, he has made a habit of being unfaithful to his wife, and has a serious gambling problem that is spiralling out of control.
When he is kidnapped, and one of his fingers is cut off to be sent with a ransom demand, we feel more sympathy for his wife and daughters, if not his coldly indifferent mother, than we do for him. It becomes clear, as his gambling and womanising ways are exposed by a baying media, that his personal wealth is not as large as previously thought, but his business colleagues agree to advance the money to his wife for his ransom payment, perhaps more out of expediency and the desire to put an end to the embarrassing media revelations than any genuine concern for their director’s well-being.
As the media revelations continue to mount, and the police increase pressure on Francoise and the board of Stanislas’s company to do things their way, the kidnappers begin to lose patience, but are in no hurry to forfeit their chance at getting their hands on the kind of wealth that Stanislas allowed to slip through his fingers…
Given the nature of the story, and Stanislas’s flawed personality, it would have been easy for Belvaux to slip into a heavy-handed social commentary about the dispossessed trying to even the score against a rich and unscrupulous tycoon, so it is to his credit that Rapt functions primarily as a taut human drama that is as subtle as it is stylish. Stanislas may be an arrogant scion of wealth and a cheat, but he is only human, and in the hands of his kidnappers his perceived power, in a cruel twist, only makes him more vulnerable.
What also gives Rapt an edge over most other films of this type is the way Belvaux focuses on the fear and confusion experienced by Francoise and her two daughters. The daughters, in particular, are forced to confront the fact that Stanislas may not be the perfect man they thought he was, and when they discover that their mother was at least partially aware of his philandering ways, they feel that she is complicit in having created the illusion of a perfect life that now lies shattered around them.
Where the film does take on a more pointed political edge is in its treatment of the business and political figures that Stanislas works with. Belvaux takes care not to overdo this side of the film, but he does not shy away from presenting the majority of these characters in an unflattering light. Most of them are only concerned with what they see as a public relations problem and the ongoing profitability of the company, while Stanislas’s second in command, Andre Peyrac (Andre Marcon), seems to quietly relish the opportunity to take control.
As the tension mounts, and Stanislas unravels under the pressure, it begins to look as though certain parties would prefer him to disappear for good, and there is even a suggestion that he may have organised the kidnapping himself in order to get the company to pay off his debts.
Aided by editing and cinematography that add to the slowly building tension, and sense of emotional unease, Belvaux has delivered an absorbing and, at times, almost austere dramatic thriller that avoids mainstream gimmicks. If there were a Hollywood remake, which is apparently on the cards, Rapt could well end up looking like a cross between a big budget advert and a pop video, with lots of flashy editing, saturated colours, pointless effects, fanciful camera work and an obtrusive soundtrack, but Belvaux knows when to hold back and maintain a sense of distance.
An experienced actor himself, Belvaux has also coaxed excellent performances from his cast. Yvan Attal handles Stanislas’s transition from an assured man of power to a cowering physical and mental wreck with consummate skill, but it is perhaps in the latter part of the film - spoiler alert - when he impresses most. Once he has been released from the clutches of his kidnappers, Stanislas is arguably at his least likeable. Reunited with his wife and daughters, he is more interested in seeing his dog than confronting the conflicted emotions of his family, and responds with petulance and remarkable selfishness to their feelings of betrayal.
Anne Consigny is even more impressive as Francoise, and is nothing less than mesmerising as a woman who struggles to keep her dignity and sanity intact while trying to support her children in the face of agonising humiliation and fear for her husband’s life. In many respects, Francoise is the heart of the film: a woman torn between the old order and the uncertainty of the new; between her priviledged, if fatally compromised life and the chance at another, less submissive existence.
In some respects, Rapt is a conventional kidnapping drama, but Belvaux invests it with a heady sense of weight and an awareness of context that transforms it into a film of unusual power and intelligence. JG
