FRONTIERE(S)
(Review)

And the French have done it again…

Xavier Gens’ Frontiere(s)—which brought him to the attention of Hollywood and got him the Hitman gig—follows a group of youths on the run from the police, who decide to stop at a hostel in the French countryside, with disastrous results.
Riffing freely off Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Gens’ splatterfest is a gruesome and sordid affair that puts Yasmine (Karina Testa) through the wringer in the worst way. If you thought Marilyn Burns had it rough in Chain Saw, think again.
Seriously. That was a cake walk.

Now, for those of you who’ve been to the Iguana before, you’ll know that I love me my horror with subtext.
Sadly (for me, at least), Frontiere(s) is more survival horror than anything else, one of those cinematic endurance tests for its prospective audience. The thing is, unlike Alexandre Aja’s Haute Tension, which seemed to focus more on the thrill and the tension of the hunt, Frontiere(s) seems more preoccupied with revulsion and degradation than anything else.
On the level of a balls-to-the-wall piece of extreme horror, it certainly delivers, no question about it. It delivers in buckets of blood and gobbets of flesh. I just wish it had been about more than just a French variation of the “pretty young things in peril” scenario.
And to be fair, though the protagonists’ personalities are rather negligible here, the snatches of filial relationships within the family of crazies which we do get to see are fascinating, though those remain pretty much in the background.

Ultimately, Frontiere(s) is a nasty piece of work, and if you strap yourself in for that sort of ride, you’ll have a hell of a time with this one.
This is so much more effective than the recent slew of 70’s horror remakes from Hollywood, and just the latest reason why I will never, ever set foot in France, where the crazies really seem to be over-the-top wacko…

Parting shot: Frontiere(s) gets a limited U.S. release on May 9, 2008, and hits DVD shelves four days later on the 13th.

Parting shot 2: A review of Gens’ Hitman can be found in the Archive, as well as one of another gem of French disturbo-horror, Kim Chapiron's Sheitan.

(Frontier(s)—as per its international title—quad courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

reVIEW (45)
DANS MA PEAU
(IN MY SKIN)
(Review)

When the French want to make you squirm, they really don’t kid around.
In recent years, films like Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, Fabrice Du Welz’s Calvaire, and Kim Chapiron’s Sheitan have played like violent, visceral assaults on their audiences.
Somewhere amidst all of that grueling cinema lands 2002’s Dans ma peau (In My Skin).

Directed and headlined by frequent François Ozon collaborator, Marina de Van, Dans ma peau introduces us to research analyst Esther, ambitious, hard-working, and in what appears to be a healthy relationship with Vincent (Calvaire‘s Laurent Lucas).
For all intents and purposes, Esther is normal.
But after she gashes her leg badly in a fall, an injury she doesn’t even notice till much later, Esther is gripped (and gradually overwhelmed) by an inexplicable compulsion to cut herself.

Given its grave subject matter of self-mutilation and the unflinching manner in which de Van approaches the material, Dans ma peau is one of those cinematic experiences that feels more like an endurance test than anything else, the kind of film I grow hesitant to view a second time.
Bereft of a traditional Hollywood cause and effect plot, and with its distinct refusal to shed light on the psychopathology of Esther’s dysfunction, Dans ma peau is clearly not for everyone, and is the sort of film that will repulse, revolt, and alienate many a viewer.
De Van disturbs, and ultimately, terrifies, her Esther gradually transforming over the course of the film into a single-minded obsessive, as we bear witness to the impact her newfound tastes have on her job and her relationship. (The dinner at around the midpoint of Dans ma peau has to be one of the most bizarre and unsettling ever committed to celluloid.)
Esther’s journey to reconfigure her psyche by carving into her own flesh has the lingering aftertaste of Cronenberg, a nightmare journey through the tantalizing realm of the organic. It also recalls Takashi Miike in its atrocious regard for the human body.

As I said, this certainly isn’t for everybody, but what is perhaps undeniable is the potent piece of transgressive cinema de Van has produced here.
I’m almost afraid to see what she comes up with for her feature length follow-up, Ne te retourne pas, with Monica Bellucci and Sophie Marceau…

Parting shot: A review of Chapiron‘s Sheitan can be found in the Archive.

(Dans ma Peau DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk; In My Skin DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

SHEITAN (January 2006)

SHEITAN

(January 2006)

As if to forewarn the audience of the wild ride that is about to begin, a DJ at the Styxx Club asks if I am ready.

Ignorant of all that is to come, I say, “Hell, yeah!”

Poor, stupid fool, me.

With Christmas Eve right around the corner, a group of clubbers finds trouble at the Styxx, where Bart (Olivier Bartelemy) gets a bottle broken on his head.

Leaving the club behind, they travel to the country home of Eve (Roxane Mesquida), where they meet backwoods yokel and housekeeper Joseph (Vincent Cassel, one of France’s busiest actors, whose face I became familiar with from films like Christophe Gans’ Le Pacte des Loups—Brotherhood of the Wolf—and Les Rivieres Pourpres—The Crimson Rivers).

It isn’t long before they meet some curiously inbred-looking villagers, and experience a number of unsettling situations.

What gradually becomes clear is that all is not right out here in the French countryside.

Now, if it’s one thing the French can do, it’s to serve up some pretty disturbing, effed-up horror movies. From Alexandre Aja’s Haute Tension to Fabrice Du Welz’s Calvaire, I have come to be very wary of France; if these films are anything to go by, France is one country I am never stepping foot in.*

Sheitan follows in that fine, anti-tourism vein.

Though it is a variation of the young pretty things-in-peril fright flick, Sheitan succeeds in making the idea of being stalked by some mad cannibalistic killer with a chainsaw seem like a Disney movie.

Recent Hollywood offerings like The Hitcher or House of Wax or the Texas Chainsaw movies?

Wussy.

And Sheitan isn’t in the Hostel or Saw mode, either; what some industry observers have come to term as “torture porn.”

Sheitan takes the horror beyond the visceral, getting underneath your skin without the fixation on the blood and gore.

Kim Chapiron (who also directed both Cassel and Bartelemy in his short film La Barbichette) sets up a situation that is truly disturbing, painting a world seething with insanity and chaos, a world where God is deaf and blind.

And although this is the general thematic attitude the average horror film cops anyway, there is actually a crucial dining table discussion in Sheitan which serves as a cornerstone of the film’s portrayal of an indifferent deity.

And can we really blame Him?

After all, we watch a group of youngsters (some of them espousing a deep faith in their chosen god) cheat and steal and have wanton sex. General horniness, in fact, seems to be the major motivational factor which drives them, which muddles their judgment, making them easier prey.

Two telling points towards the film’s end bolster the God-in-absentia idea: the direct plea which goes unanswered, and the end result of the perhaps one true selfless act in the entire movie. (And keep in mind, this is happening just as Christmas comes around, a temporal setting incidentally shared by Calvaire.)

If there is any suprahuman force active in Sheitan, it’s the one the film is named for. Note though that there is no actual physical presence of the demonic or the supernatural which appears onscreen, no rotating heads or pea soup vomit. (Unless you consider Cassel wearing a set of fake bad teeth—and other head gear—demonic.)

There are, however, motifs: from the Styxx Club, to a dog called “Cerberus,” to a tale told by Joseph, to a ghastly birth on Christmas.

(Also, please note Joseph’s wife’s name…)

Sheitan is a cinematic experience that is by turns absurd and unsettling, and is the sort of movie that stays with you in a way that the majority of Hollywood’s horror doesn’t.

There are some images that will sear themselves indelibly on your mind’s eye, so be warned.

(The family portrait at film’s end is one of the most disturbing images in the entire movie.)

So if your idea of horror is the watered-down Hollywood PG-13 variety, or the measured quiet creep of long-haired female contortionist ghosts, you’d best be advised to stay as far away from Sheitan as you can.

If you are, however, open to the experience of being unsettled by your horror, then Christmas dinner with Sheitan could be just the ticket.

(Sheitan French OS' courtesy of impawards.com.)

* And Belgium too, as Calvaire is a Belgian horror movie.

(Not France, yes, but it is right next to France, so… Let’s change that to “I am never stepping foot in France and its surrounding areas.”)

[Originally posted 021807]