Dark Waters

This week's movie Dark Waters (1993) is a re-watch. Back in the mid 90's, I watched this movie a couple of times and had in fact almost forgotten it until I read an article in an old horror magazine. Armed with the name and some vague memories I sat down and took a trip down memory lane.

Dark Waters is probably the first foreign movie filmed in the Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. They were plagued by problems throughout and a crew member was nearly killed in a cave in. It was a seriously tough shoot for everyone involved but in the end they created an interesting movie.

Mild spoilers ahead, not that it matters in this case.

Our main character Elizabeth travels to a monastery on a remote island to investigate her own past, some cryptic clues left by her dead father and to figure out whether she should keep up with the payments to the monastery as her father had done. This is the only part of the story that truly makes sense.

For some reason a friend of hers had gone ahead which isn't properly explained. She wrote a letter urging Elizabeth to travel there but it may have been a fake, I'm not sure.

Once there, Elizabeth is welcomed by the Mother Superior and told that she will have access to all their books and rituals in order to prove that they are worthy of receiving further money. They assign a novice, Sarah to help her and guide her around. Then the nuns promptly try to murder her on multiple occasions. They never said she couldn't look around and they never tried to stop her. They simply go from Hello to Murder just like that.

There seems to be a monster trapped under the monastery and the nuns are fond of performing rituals on the beach, on the cliffs and in the catacombs, but we never find out why. Is it an obscure version of Orthodox Christianity, some way to subdue and contain the beast? We're never told.

The plot unravels and Elizabeth discovers a bunch of things while dodging murderous nuns, culminating in some form of climax leading to an unsatisfying ending. I'm all for not having the plot spoon fed to me and I don't need closure on every little thing, but a movie should probably try to explain something at the very least. Dark Waters apparently disagrees.

So if this is the bad part of the movie, what is the good part? The visuals!

Dark Waters is crystallized style over substance. The story is bland and uninteresting, yes, but the visuals from start to finish are incredible. In the beginning, the bus she travels on drives down a seemingly endless road bisecting empty fields. The road is studded on both sides by power lines whose poles mimic the long crosses the nuns carry, creating a foreboding religious vista as the sun sets and a storm rolls in. Scene after scene of rituals, crumbling corridors, a beach covered in dead fish, grim dreams and flashbacks weave together into an amazing visual feast that are well worth the tedious plot.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes, to horror fans I do. It's little wonder that I remembered so little as the movie as such is forgettable but the visuals are a blood-spattered and gruesome joy. Non horror fans should probably avoid it as there is nothing for them here.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

A movie called Zeder

 I got recommended a horror movie called Zeder (1983) so I watched it and now we're talking about it.

Back in 2016 I wrote about The House with Laughing Windows by Pupi Avati and it so happens that seven years later he made Zeder. Zeder was released in the U.S. as Revenge of the Dead which is frankly a ridiculous title, designed to ride high on the popularity of the zombie genre which was running hot at the time. This is not a zombie movie.

After a somewhat baffling but interesting intro, we are introduced to Stefano, a struggling novelist who gets an unusual typewriter from his wife as an anniversary present. When it jams he discovers that the ribbon has some fascinating text on it and he eagerly transcribes it. It seems to speak of an experiment to raise the dead by burying them in special places full of spiritual energy called K-Zones. Stefano becomes obsessed with finding out more and goes on the hunt.

To go deeper we need to split the movie into two parts, what Stefano knows and what we know. Stefano spends most of his time talking to people; professors, priests, old ladies etc. and as he gets gradually closer to the goal, tensions rise.

What he doesn't really know but we find out is that there is a sort of conspiracy surrounding the K-Zone theory. It seems to be mostly academics but there are others involved from the church, the police and others and they are willing to kill to preserve their secret. It's interesting to see Stefano stumble deeper into the web without really realizing it. Ultimately it all comes to a head, except it sort of doesn't.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

As is normal in a movie with this kind of conspiracy, Stefano unwittingly talks to members of said conspiracy so they are aware of his sleuthing, but even though they decide he knows too much and want to kill him, they really don't. The amount of people he knows that are involved in this plot is also ridiculous. Towards the end, it seems like everyone except his wife and four other people are involved which becomes pretty silly. Sometimes less is more.

SPOILERS END

The first half of the movie is really good. The typewriter idea is inspired and the mystery is tantalizing and you get a feeling of really wanting to know more. The other half however is pretty weak. You discover things that don't really have much of an impact, the conspiracy itself sort of goes nowhere with no real involvement, it's all kind of rushed and half-arsed. As an example, Stefano is investigating in an underground vault in a cemetery when someone locks him in. And then someone lets him out again. Nothing happened, he never questions it and it never comes up again. Weird and pretty pointless.

For this story to really work it needs more time. You see members of the conspiracy but you don't learn of their motivations, their organization or their capabilities. They just do what they want to and stuff happens. The ending also leaves some things hanging which is annoying. I'm alright with an ambiguous ending, but Zeder unfortunately leaves a lot of smaller threads unraveled.

From a technical point of view, Zeder is competent. The shots are very nice, the scenes atmospheric, the actors are solid and the music is excellent. What I didn't like is how abrupt the cuts are between scenes. People are having a conversation and they barely have time to finish a sentence before a new scene is slammed down in front of you. You expect a certain rhythm to this and Zeder just yanks you from one scene to the next. It's not a deal breaker but it is somewhat jarring.

Funnily enough, parts of the plot mirror elements in one of Stephen King's more famous works, but both that and Zeder came out in the same year, so it is likely a coincidence.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes, for all its sins. Zeder is a solid horror movie with some really cool ideas. The second half is a let down, but they do enough to get the job done, even though they lose points. Any horror fan ought to watch it the one time. If I seem conflicted it's because I liked it and I wish it was better, the story deserves that.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Is he above the law?

 A couple of days ago I decided to watch yet another Italian crime movie, this time Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), written and directed by Elio Petri.

I have to say first of all, that this is a super weird movie. What we have is a reversed murder mystery, in that we know who the killer is within five minutes of the movie starting. It's not even a spoiler for me to say that the killer is the head of the Homicide Division. He kills his mistress and then fluctuates between impeding the investigation and trying to get caught. His ultimate goal seems to be to discover whether he is above the law. That is the mystery.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is less of a thriller and more of an experience. It's absurd, ridiculous, interesting and at times perplexing. What it isn't is boring, it's much too odd for that. It is also pretty hard to describe, as you can tell.

The main character, know only as Dottore (translated as Chief) is played by Gian Maria Volonté, who is perhaps best known for playing the main villain in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars more. Even knowing this I had a hard time recognizing him. In the Leone spaghetti westerns he is dirty and unshaven, here he is extremely well groomed. What all three roles have in common is the madness he portrays so well. Make no mistake, Dottore is nuts, but there is method to his madness. Through a series of flashbacks we get a glimpse of his mentality. His manias and insecurities. We also get to know his mistress and her foibles. It all leads up to a rather satisfying story all in all, but I'm not a huge fan of the ending.

In case you think I've watched some obscure unknown film, it won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film as well as the Grand Prize at Cannes amongst other awards. The New York Times called the film "a suspense melodrama with the moral concerns of angry satire”. I guess that is true but I feel like I'm missing a lot of social context as well as a lot of the historical background. What remains despite this is how horrifying a police officer can be when the system is broken. There is an old saying “Who watches the watchers?” and this movie demonstrates what happens when no one is watching the watchers. Citizens have no protection against a corrupt police force when they decide that you are guilty because you'll do. Quite terrifying and the real center of the film compared to a “who dunnit”.

Otherwise Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is a very accomplished film both technically and actor wise. It is well shot and many of the scenes are pure art. The music is by none other than Ennio Morricone and although it is a far cry from his masterful The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack it is both evocative and very good.

Do I recommend this film? Yes but with a reservation. If you are a omnivorous film buff or otherwise keen on Italian history of that time, then you are probably going to enjoy it. If you just want to relax and watch a cool movie, I'd say watch something else.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

The Fourth Protocol

 Since I was in the mood for a Cold War spy thriller I had a look around and found The Fourth Protocol (1987) starring the great Michael Caine and started to watch.

This was literally all I knew about it, so imagine my surprise and delight when the following names scrolled across the screen: Pierce Brosnan, Ned Beatty, Julian Glover, Michael Gough and Ian Richardson. There are of course many more but this is already a great cast. To top it off, the screenplay and the novel it's based on is written by Frederick Forsyth. We are in star country folks!

The Fourth Protocol itself is a fictitious part of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that states that all nukes must be delivered either by missile or bomber. They can't just be hidden somewhere and detonated.

Mild Spoilers ahead.

Alright, so Caine plays John Preston, a free wheeling MI5 officer who despite his attitude gets results. He is on the outs with his boss, acting director Brian Harcourt-Smith (Glover) but the director of MI6, Sir Nigel (Richardson) likes him, so when Preston discovers a plot to smuggle an atomic bomb into Britain in pieces, his boss suspends him and Sir Nigel helps him.

On the other side of the plot is Brosnan as KGB Major Petrovsky, whose job it is to do the bomb bit. In fun twist, all but one of the Soviet generals are played by Americans. Usually when an American movie needs a Russian or two they employ a Brit, so the reverse was fun.

Despite the great cast and the general quality of the film itself, it has a couple of problems. First off, it is too long for how it uses the time. Clocking in at 1h52 it is a bit of a slog particularly since there are so many scenes that are superfluous. Most of the bomb parts are delivered to Brosnan without any complications. He just meets the contact, grabs the item and drives off on his motorcycle. Why bother with scene after scene like this when it leads nowhere? Put some excitement in it, please. The second problem is the nuke. Plot wise it is necessary but you know from the very beginning that it's not going to explode, and you are right. Something less over the top would have added a realistic fear of failure.

Michael Caine was an associate producer besides being the main star, and he said that quote: "We wound up with a wordy action movie which, although it was quite a good picture, and did fair business, never had the speed and pace of the best American action movies. So for long sequences in the film, we not only had a talking picture, but a lot of talk, and even worse, most of it unintelligible. I went there as the star and associate producer, and one might have thought this would give me sufficient authority to put my own strongly-held opinions into practice, but no chance. Even I, in my exalted position, wound up making a talking picture, when it should have been a moving one."

He's not wrong. The action is too poor to call it an action-thriller and the talky bits are too weak for a pure spy thriller like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. What we get is a weird hybrid creature that for all it's faults is still pretty damn good.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes. It is more of a lazy Sunday afternoon movie than a must-watch, but it is never the less worth watching. It could have been better but what we get is at least good enough. Besides, all the scenes that takes place in Russia are filmed in Finland so that is a bonus point for me.

That's that an all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!