What a crazy little film this was, working some of its magic in afterthought. Excuse me for making a wild connection, but this felt more like a giallo than a drama, though there are no knives, no black gloves or a far fetched denouement at the end.
There ís a series of murders though, but we know 'whodunnit' and there is a certain progression there; the first death happens in an operating room and isn't a murder, but we do see the protagonist - a middle aged nurse, strangely (?) reminiscent of the redeemed Lucia de B. - taking a 'souvenir' from the dead patient. Then we see her connecting on her own with a patient, whom she later 'helps' die, and it looks like the patient is okay with that. Yet even later she wants to 'help' a patient again, but this one protests - to no avail, though he does wound her and this causes quite a panic with her. We also learn that she has stolen many things from patients before, but still it doesn't prove she killed them all; I would still say things are starting to (really) get out of hand at the beginning of the film. In between, she tries to live her life, but it consists of sad incidents wherein she never really connects with anyone - she witnesses a rape from afar, but does nothing, she follows a man (a neighbor) into a video store, but later he ends up stalking her, and so it goes on.
The finale takes things up a notch and dóes in a way have that giallo-like denouement: the story had been playing with the notion of coincidence up until then, but the nurse and her neighbor meeting as friends of friends at a party is nothing short of over-the-top fateful. I won't reveal anything about the finale, except that even though I truly dislike the trend of putting in / out genitals for shock value, 'Code Blue' gets away with it, another strange, yet unrelated, coincidence...
In short, this is a suspenseful thriller (with plenty elements of drama), much focussing on the mental and physical vortex of a person losing control of her life, who doesn't seem to have started out being a bad person. Not as ugly and good as Marina De Van's 'Dans Ma Peau', but close, and well worth the reference. And of course kudos to Bien de Moor for her powerful performance and Urszula Antoniak for making such a bold movie.
A small 9 out 10.
There ís a series of murders though, but we know 'whodunnit' and there is a certain progression there; the first death happens in an operating room and isn't a murder, but we do see the protagonist - a middle aged nurse, strangely (?) reminiscent of the redeemed Lucia de B. - taking a 'souvenir' from the dead patient. Then we see her connecting on her own with a patient, whom she later 'helps' die, and it looks like the patient is okay with that. Yet even later she wants to 'help' a patient again, but this one protests - to no avail, though he does wound her and this causes quite a panic with her. We also learn that she has stolen many things from patients before, but still it doesn't prove she killed them all; I would still say things are starting to (really) get out of hand at the beginning of the film. In between, she tries to live her life, but it consists of sad incidents wherein she never really connects with anyone - she witnesses a rape from afar, but does nothing, she follows a man (a neighbor) into a video store, but later he ends up stalking her, and so it goes on.
The finale takes things up a notch and dóes in a way have that giallo-like denouement: the story had been playing with the notion of coincidence up until then, but the nurse and her neighbor meeting as friends of friends at a party is nothing short of over-the-top fateful. I won't reveal anything about the finale, except that even though I truly dislike the trend of putting in / out genitals for shock value, 'Code Blue' gets away with it, another strange, yet unrelated, coincidence...
In short, this is a suspenseful thriller (with plenty elements of drama), much focussing on the mental and physical vortex of a person losing control of her life, who doesn't seem to have started out being a bad person. Not as ugly and good as Marina De Van's 'Dans Ma Peau', but close, and well worth the reference. And of course kudos to Bien de Moor for her powerful performance and Urszula Antoniak for making such a bold movie.
A small 9 out 10.