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Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975)
Simply Numbing
Im not going to discuss whether or not this film is unsettling, and to what degree and why. I will admit the direction of the film is evocative. Every sequence is shot with a disturbing impartiality. When this impartiality is juxtaposed against the extreme violence that is depicted, one cannot help but feel utterly surreal.Stylistically the director imposes upon the viewer an utter lack of empathy for what is happening to the characters in the film. But this is not, in my opinion a movie with a plot or compelling characters. It fails, at least in my view to disturb on an emotional level. We can't really connect with the victims because they act like objects. We don't even get a real sense of how they become so utterly objectified.They just saunter around the screen blankly, silently listening to the childish nihilism and tales of debauchery from their captors.
They do not behave like real people struggling to survive. Truthfully if this film is a metaphor how fascist violence is enabled by the willingness of society at large, why not see one of these victims descend, change into a monster similar to their captors for some possible advantage over the others or their own animalistic desires?
Really it is in the philosophical musings of these captors where this film really fails, really the film it could be nothing more than a discussion between them. How did these men become so, monstrous and why do they escalate their behavior other than for the sake of some point made during their discussions?
Really the film plays out like some disgusting and tawdry surrealist painting. Sure its making a larger point that much is clear, like all art their is some deeper intepretation that can applied.
But This movie didn't reach me on an emotional level. Like a lot of bad art that takes itself to seriously, it only made me cringe but I didn't feel anything for these two-dimensional charectars. And when a film, even one as heinous as this, has no emotional realism it is just to easy for me as viewer to remind myself "Why should I care its only a movie?"
In the Flesh (2013)
Paradigm Shifting
I give this show a 9 because although I do miss the gratuitous violence of traditional zombie flicks, I cannot deny the truly unique premise of the show. Rather than fighting to survive against a zombie horde the characters, are learning to live with zombies, who are not the real evil in the show. Instead the evil is rather the bigotry and ignorance of the human race itself, a kind of mindlessness paralleled in the behavior of zombies themselves. I could expound on and on about the thematic subtitles I've detected whilst viewing season one. But that would belabor the point. Besides the outstanding writing, and top-notch acting this show also delivers an amazing atmosphere, Kieran truly looks like an embalmed corpse all drenched in foundation, his haunting glassy eyes white and ghostly reflecting the foggy depths which engulf every scene... blah blah. In conclusion though I recommend this show because it really encapsulates what true horror, good horror is all about, a story wherein the characters themselves discover themselves to be monsters akin if not worse than the monsters they used to fight against.