With IN FABRIC, Peter Strickland is back with more great ideas but only so-so follow-through

Offhand I can't think of another current filmmaker whose movies combine exotic erotica and creepy behavior in any more memorable fashion than those Peter Strickland. His Berberian Sound Studio combined audio for a giallo movie with an all-out dissolution of character; The Duke of Burgundy offered S&M, butterflies and the very bizarre world of all women; and now IN FABRIC he gives us a sexy red dress that tortures and then murders its wearers, and perhaps the hottest and most perverse sex scene of the decade, involving a nude and prone mannequin. You aficionados are hooked already, right?

Fair enough, but be warned: You'll have to put up with Mr. Strickland's (the filmmaker is shown at left) predilection for very slow pacing and some tiresome repetition.

Here, in fact, he has the naughty dress pull a series of nasty stunts on its first victim (which turns out to actually be its second), and then he parades this same series all over again with victims number three and four. Please.

A genuinely sophisticated filmmaker would know better and do things a little differently. And yet Strickland sure can thrill us with his inclusion of gorgeous, outre sets; creepy ideas; and sexual stunts.

The "fashion" shop (above) in which much of the movie takes place is a wonder of glossy, gleaming 1930s and 1950s off-kilter glamor, complete with that old-fashioned and fun pneumatic tubing used in the department stores of yore.

Visually the movie is mostly a treat, as you'll have expected if your seen the filmmaker's other work. He also casts his leading characters well: Borgen's Sidse Babett Knudsen in Burgundy, Toby Jones (giving a terrific performance) in Berberian. Here, he uses Secrets and Lies' Marianne Jean- Baptiste (above), and she proves as watchable as ever as a newly single mom put upon by her employers, her shit-ass son (the very hot Jaygann Ayeh, below), his callow girlfriend, and now this homicidal dress.

Strickland's film makes yet another pass at indicting our increasingly dumbed-down consumer culture (Dawn of the Dead did it earlier and 2016's Nocturama one hell of a lot more stylishly), and has at least, in that dress idea, come up with an original-though-not-terribly-interesting "villain." He also does a little indicting of bankers and banks, via mom's sleazy/screwball employers, personified by (below, left and right respectively) Steve Oram and Julian Barratt.

The writer/director also casts his supporting roles well, and each is performed with the requisite relish. That's Gwendoline Christie, below, receiving some oral pleasure from her aforementioned hot boyfriend, as mom watches with, hmmmm, a combination of pleasure and envy (yes, another perverse and over-the-top sex scene).

The film's next round of victims, an about-to-be-married couple, are played with nice comic brio by Leo Bill (below, relentlessly fucking) and Hayley Squires (beneath and putting up with it). These two, who appear maybe halfway along, add some needed humor to the proceedings.

In a most interesting casting coup, the aforementioned Sidse Babbet Knudsen (below) appears in the film as the dress' initial victim, seen only via newspaper and catalog ads -- which leads TrustMovies to suspect that this noteworthy actress may have had a much larger role, one that might now be on what we used to call (pre-videocam films) the cutting room floor.

As it is, the film is already two (too-lengthy) hours long, and more, no matter how good Ms Knudsen might have been -- see Borgen to lean just how good she can be -- would have been a surfeit indeed. Overall, there is plenty here for film buffs to savor but not, I think, for more mainstream moviegoers, even those who claim to love comic horror films, which In Fabric pretty much/sort of is.

From A24, the movie opens this Friday, December 6, in limited release, in 25 venues -- from New York to Orlando, L.A., DC, and elsewhere across the country. (Shown above is the impressive actress Fatma Mohamed, who plays, perhaps quite literally, the saleslady from hell.)

DAGUERROTYPE finds chiller-master Kiyoshi Kurosawa filming (and fumbling) in French

Some of TrustMovies' favorite chiller films have come from Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who has given us, over the years, Cure, Pulse, the recent (and perfectly titled) Creepy, as well as genre-jumping wonders such as Bright Future and Tokyo Sonata. In his latest to reach our shores -- DAGUERROTYPE (known originally as Le secret de la chambre noire) -- the filmmaker is working beyond his usual Asian locations and in the French language (the filming, I believe, was done in Belgium), and as is often case when filmmakers work in a language other than their first -- see Olivier Assayas' Clean or Personal Shopper for further proof, or especially Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of  a Sacred Deer, which I will cover whenever its distributor sees fit to open it here in South Florida -- the results can be pretty iffy.

Kurosawa's dialog (the filmmaker is pictured at left) has never been what the viewer remembers best, in any case, as his visuals -- usually as subtle as they are chilling, with masterful camera movement -- pull us in and hold us fast.

This is true again here, too, except this time his film moves exceedingly slowly and is freighted with a plot so utterly manufactured and full of coincidence and nonsensical behavior that we hold on only for those occasional but very impressive visuals. As usual, what Kurosawa chooses not to show us is often as meaningful and impressive as what we actually see.

Not being nearly as familiar with as many Asian actors as I am the western variety, I must say that the filmmaker has assembled a crack cast to perform his little divertissement. His star is that remarkable French actor Tahar Rahim (shown above and below, right), who broke through to international acclaim in 2009's A Prophet, has now amassed 25 movie/TV credits, and in the ten films I've seen has never given less than a sterling performance.

Rahim possesses a remarkably beautiful, sculpted face that expresses much yet seems to do very little in the process. I don't know that he has ever had an unbelievable moment on-screen, and his innate sensuality/sexuality is such that it spills over into everything he does without being at all "pushy." If you have not seen his lovely turn in Heal the Living (now streamable on Netflix), you really must.

His co-star here is the pert and delicate Constance Rousseau, above, whom I've seen a few times previously but never in a role as large as this one. She and Rahim make a fine pair; their chemistry is good, even if their dialog is generally so-so.

The movie's third wheel is that fine Belgian actor Olivier Gourmet, shown above, right, with yes, the great Mathieu Amalric, at left, who does a mere walk-on in the film. Here, as he often does, Gourmet seems to personify a "walking, talking frown." He plays the Rousseau character's unhinged father, an old-fashioned daguerrotype photographer who used to be a hotshot fashion fellow, but upon the death of his wife, seems to have gone round-the-bend. Gourmet has a single scene in which he is allowed to behave and emote a bit, and he's terrific, as ever. Otherwise, he is condemned to that movie hell reserved for actors working with directors of a foreign tongue.

It is Gourmet's hiring of Rahim that sets the would-be plot in motion, as the younger man learns some of the trade of the older, while beginning a relationship with the daughter. Botany and French real estate (along with its burgeoning value) figure into film's later development, and more silliness ensues. Daguerrotype is never in the least frightening nor chilling, even given its many nods to death and ghosts. Further, its love story seems paltry, despite the efforts of its two stars. I admit to being happy to have seen the film, however, if only for a few precious visual moments. It's a rare Kurasawa miss, nonetheless.

The best thing about the film, in fact, would be its lovely poster image (shown at top), which turns out to be cribbed from the still above and then colorized to make a certain point. (That point actually gives away the single surprise this movie has up its sleeve, and even that surprise should be obvious early on to those viewers who have seen more than a handful of films in their life.) From Under the Milky Way, in French with English subtitles and running an unconscionably lengthy two hours and twelve minutes, the movie arrives on VOD nationwide on Tuesday, November 7, on all major platforms including iTunes, Sony, Google Play, Amazon, Microsoft, Vudu, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Vimeo, and various other cable operators. 

Greek VFX artist Konstantinos Koutsoliotas' debut feature, THE WINTER, arrives on DVD and via IndiePix's new streaming service

Considering that Greek film-maker Konstantinos Koutsoliotas (shown below) is best known for his visual effects work on blockbusters like 300 and Guardians of the Galaxy, his debut feature film is relatively light on VFX. What's there is quite good, however, but it does more to clue viewers in to the character of the film's protagonist, Niko (played by soulful, if one-note newcomer, Theo Albanis), than to create the excitement and action that most special effects bring us.

This is all to the good, for awhile, at least, as we slowly identify with Niko and his plight. He's a writer who evidently can't -- or won't or doesn't want to -- write. And he's also in heavy financial trouble (well, he's Greek!), so he arranges for a good friend in London to take care of his pet plant and hightails it back to Greece to his former home in the hills of Siatista. So far, so good, particularly since the movie is gorgeously filmed, with stunning visuals filled with images that resonate and compositions and framing that bring them to fine life. In fact, the opening scene -- in which a man sits somberly at a work table and then slowly disappears -- is simultaneously beautiful, sad and strangely riveting.

The actor that plays this man (our protagonist's late father) is noted Greek thespian, Vangelis Mourikis, shown above, and he has a face -- baggy-eyed and haunting -- that you will not easily forget. Albanis, too, as his son (below) is blessed in the "interesting face" department.

When special effects are called for -- in fantasy animation, below, or in that key scene used on the box art (at top) and shown more completely two photos down -- the filmmaker finds symbolic images that alternately sparkle and darkly resonate.

If visuals were all, the film would be top notch. But theme and execution are important, too. And while THE WINTER offers some ideas -- home and what it means, family and how that apple never falls far from the tree, religion and what it has to offer society (very little) -- there is finally not enough content in this 105-minute movie to warrant its length or our time. And Niko is simply not that interesting a character to keep us concerned about him. He begins the movie in an irresponsible and fraught state and goes downhill from there.

Along the way he meets some of the town's children, a pretty pharmacist, the pompous and tiresome priest, and a kindly neighbor -- any of whom prove more interesting than our protagonist, who begins the film crazy and ends it crazier. As journey's go, this is not much of one. In a way, the film becomes a kind of a character study that is missing its character.

However so many of Koutsoliotas' visuals are so damned beautiful that I would view the film for these alone. But I also wish it were a better movie.

From IndiePix Films, The Winter hits the street in DVD format this coming Tuesday, March 29. In addition to making its U.S. home enter-tainment debut on disc, the film will also be available though IndiePix’s new signature streaming subscription service, IndiePix Unlimited. For more information on this new service, click the preceding link.

THE VANISHED ELEPHANT: Javier Fuentes-León's art film about love and identity arrives

It's being marketed as some kind of "thriller," with mentions of movies on the order of Tell No One and The Secret in Their Eyes tossed in for good measure. Comparisons, as they say, are odious, and so far as the new Spanish-language film from Peru/Columbia/ Spain, THE VANISHED ELEPHANT, is concerned, these do the movie little justice and, in fact, just might sink it once this comparative word-of-mouth gets out. Tell No One was a hugely intricate and fast-moving thriller, and one of, if not the most-successful-at-the-boxoffice foreign language film of its decade. More slow-moving, The Secret in Their Eyes, was also a kind of mystery thriller that built to a whopping and surprising conclusion (in addition to walking away with Best Foreign Language Film that year).

As written and directed by Javier Fuentes-León (shown at left, who gave us the bisexual drama about death and the closet, Undertow, some years back), The Vanished Elephant comes much closer to a genuine "art" film -- a kind of puzzle about the artistic process, identity, love and narcissism -- which poses as a mystery only in the sense that all of our identities are, finally, mysterious. This is also quite a beautiful film to view, one of the most visually compelling I have seen in the past year or so. I believe Señor Fuentes-León means this visual beauty to be part of the puzzle, as well as the film's fun. It is, in both cases.

We come back again and again to visuals that remind us of former visuals and/or begin to fill in certain blanks -- sometimes literally, at other times symbolically. As our hero, a cop-turned-mystery-writer, Edo (a commanding, encompassing performance by Salvador del Solar, above) tries to unravel the disappearance of his girlfriend (played by Vanessa Saba, below), some years previous, he comes up against quite an arsenal of oddities.

Chief among these is a man who appears to be impersonating the leading character, Rafael Pineda (Lucho Cáceres, below, right), in the series of popular mystery novels that Edo writes. There is also a District attorney set on proving that Edo was the person responsible for his girlfriend's disappearance, a photographer who has organized a new exhibit around Edo's famous novels, and other possible red herrings.

The "elephant" of the title is found in a museum painting that doubles as a rock sculpture relic somewhat destroyed during a famous earthquake that took a huge death toll just at the time of that Edo's girlfriend went missing.

Deaths begin to pile up, and yet the movie never seems to become any kind of realistic mystery. Instead the clues lead back and back again to our Edo, and Señor del Solar's quiet charisma and persuasive acting keeps us both on point and on hold as the mystery continues to be revealed.

As is sometimes the case, it's the journey rather than the destination that makes The Vanished Elephant as intriguing as it is. When we reach the finale, it is probably del Solar's handsome, troubled face that counts for most, making this movie about identity and losing oneself in grief and fantasy so unusually compelling -- even, finally, quite moving and sad.

From Oscilloscope Laboratories and running 109 minutes, The Vanished Elephant opens here in South Florida this Friday, March 4, at the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables and the Cinema Paradiso in Hollywood. To see further playdates, cities and theaters, click here then scroll down.

Native-American teens today fill Chloé Zhao's do-we-stay-or-leave-the-reservation movie, SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME

When you are "breaking" a horse, explains our Native-American hero, Johnny, at the beginning of the new independent film, SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME, you should "leave some 'bad' in it. They'll need it to survive out here." Initially intimate but spacious, with breath-taking vistas of the badlands of South Dakota, and extremely low-key, this new movie from Chloé Zhao (born in China, now living in the U.S.) is her first full-length piece, one that took four years to complete, as she lived & worked on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Those four years evidently helped give the movie the kind of authenticity that is not easily faked, as Ms Zhao (shown at right) shows us in leisurely, slow-moving fashion, the world of the kids who are "stuck on the res." The movie shows us their lives -- with their family and friends, at school, in church, at work and play, in love and sex -- without any expository or narrative comment, and we see how they must fit into a hugely downsized and circumscribed culture.

The filmmaker never stoops to proselytizing or special pleading. She doesn't have to. The lives we see on display make their point lucidly enough. She uses non-actors who pretty much appear to be playing themselves (or a reasonable facsimile). While this makes them seem authentic, it also diminishes the drama and much of the specificity that a good actor might bring to the role. (That's John Reddy, above on horseback, who plays our hero, Johnny.) Johnny's younger sister, Jashaun (Jashaun St. John, below) is the other character we learn most about, along with his girlfriend, who's soon to leave the res for college.

Perhaps the most unusual character is the tattoo artist/clothing designer who befriends Jashaun and is partial to the number 7. The movie generally avoids melodrama (except for one revenge-of-a-rival-gang scene), sticking to its low-key, slow pace. Once the film, around the halfway point, begin to lose any edge at all, it seems to turn generic in both its dialog and situations. At this point, the slow pace simply sinks things. (I can't remem-ber another film during which I consulted my watch as often as here.)

Songs My Brothers Taught Me is a well-intentioned movie that achieves its goals well enough to be successful on the "intentions" front. Visually, too, the movie succeeds (the framing is quite good: cinematography by Joshua James Richards). Sound-wise, perhaps not. It may have been the quality of the screener disc I watched, the lack of enunciation by the actors, or the sound design itself, but I missed a certain amount of the dialog along the way and felt periodically frustrated.

Another odd thing: our lead character's narration at both the beginning and end of the film sounds far too intelligent, poetic and writerly to be coming of this young man's mind or mouth. The rest of the dialog we hear from him is on a completely different level. But that, too, I suspect, is part of the "well-intentioned-ness" of this not uninteresting but likely to be overpraised film. Songs My Brothers Taught Me, from Kino Lorber and running 94 minutes, has its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, March 2, at Film Forum in New York City. Click here then scroll down to see all upcoming playdates, with cities and theaters listed.

Terernce Malick disciple A.J. Edwards makes pretty film debut with THE BETTER ANGELS

Confession time: when I first read the press release for THE BETTER ANGELS, because the release led off with the name Terrence Malick, I assumed this was the newest work from this lately-given-to-undue-rapture filmmaker (I try not to read much of a press release prior to viewing the movie, due to sometimes learning a little more than I would like to know about the film). So, there I sat during the entire screening, thinking to myself, "Well, so he's finally working in black-and-white, and doing a beautiful job of it, too!" "Hmmmm... He's still afraid of too much dialog, so consequently gives us too little." "But at least his lead character isn't dancing around like someone whose next stop is the loony bin!"

I only drifted off to dreamland a few times during the procession of beautiful images that kept passing my view. And when the end credits finally rolled (there were no opening credits, other than the title of the film), I suddenly learned that this was not a Terrence Malick movie at all, but a film by someone named A.J. Edwards, shown at right, who is on the face of what I'd just seen, clearly a Malick disciple (Mr. Malick was one of several of the film's producers, however, so the marketing department clearly knew what famous name to bandy about.)

The movie initially takes us to, as the title card tells us, Indiana 1817, where, in gorgeous, wide-screen, black-and-white images, we look in on Abraham Lincoln as a mere boy (Braydon Denney, shown above and at bottom) somewhere around the age of eight. Gosh, who knew that Abe was such a beautiful child? Or so short?

Before we can say, "Well that's movies for you!" we get those Malickian images of nature in all her glory -- particularly trees. I believe I have seen more trees in this one single film than I may have over the remainder of my entire life. We meet Abe's mom (Brit Marling, below) and dad (Jason Clarke, above), though mom soon makes a major departure. All we really learn about her is that "She knew so much of what she believed was yonder. Always yonder." Or, to put it more bluntly: She had religious faith in what she couldn't know, or see, or understand, and this was more important to her than anything in the here and now.

Still, this event does give Mr. Edwards the opportunity to do some nice visuals as though mom's spirit were present. Soon, young Abe gets a stepmother (Diane Kruger, below) to which he, his dad, and the film seem much more devoted. (One of the movie's better scenes involves Abe and a vision of his two moms.) Given Edwards' love of lingering shots of most everything and everyone (Wes Bentley, two photos below, plays a bearded, taciturn schoolmaster who spots Abe's possibilities and tries to point these out to the kid's dad), a certain stodgy pace begins to set in.

And speaking of taciturn, everyone is this film is about as verbally uncommunicative as possible, which may have fit the time period to some extent (people maybe didn't have that much to say to each other?) but unfortunately makes for a very slow-paced and finally enervating movie. I certainly understand a movie-maker's wanting to show rather than tell, but this does not necessarily mean "no talking."

So, even though The Better Angels runs only 94 minutes, these are awfully slow ones. If lovely b/w photography or anything Lincolnesque are your thing, however, you might just want to view the film, which makes use of some nice Anton Bruckner music along the way, and at the end suddenly jumps ahead to Easter, 1865 -- without ever answering the big question: When did our hero get his growth spurt?

From Amplify Releasing, the film opened this past Friday, November 7, in New York at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt. Overt the coming weeks it will open throughout the country. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then scroll down.

In the mood for a gorgeous visual nightmare? Try Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani's THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS

Should fabulously imaginative, if rather dark, visuals be your thing, rush right out to see THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS. While watching this very odd movie, which is unlike most else that I've seen, I was put in mind of another film I'd viewed a few years back, neither the name of which nor the particular filmmaker I could remember. But the very off-kilter visuals, the "darkness" of the themes, the barely concealed sexuality, and the uneasy/queasy combination of sex and violence -- all of this kept bringing to mind that earlier movie.

Sure enough, when I finished watching and went to the IMDB to look up the filmmaker(s) -- Hélène Cattet and  Bruno Forzani (shown above) -- there they were. And there it was, too:  that earlier movie -- Amer -- that this new one called to mind. Turns out this talented, if unusual, pair had made both films.

The plot of their latest, such as it is, does not particularly lend itself to description. Best to think of it as a kind of unending nightmare: one of those that goes from seemingly normal and routine to suddenly way off-base -- a man (Klaus Tange, above) returns from a business trip to find his wife missing (we suspect we have just seen her murdered, but we don't know for certain that the woman is his wife) -- and then into the utterly bizarre and fragmented, lunatic and perverse.

Involved in all this are stories within stories that include the man's neighbors (one of whom is above), that missing wife and/or maybe another woman (below), a seemingly useless detective (further below), and other assorted characters -- who may or may not even exist.

All this could be taking place within the mind of our not-quite hero, rather than in any kind of "real" world -- which, in any case, this movie never begins to approach.

But, ah, the colors and patterns and designs and cinematography (Manuel Dacosse) and editing (Bernard Beets). These are very nearly hypnotic (sometimes a little too much so) and often so beautiful, if always threaten-ing and dark, that you really do not want to take your eyes off the screen.

The movie is also highly sexual/violent (Amer, as I recall, was seen from a woman's viewpoint; this one is certainly more from a man's) with everything from male and female full-frontal on display to more subtle ramifications of sexuality.

So what's really going on here? By film's end, I think we know, but I am not sure if the movie-makers would consider my talking about it as a spoiler. So maybe, should you plan to see this film, better skip the following paragraph.

What we may have here (I say "may" because I can't be absolutely sure) is another nod to childhood sexuality and how it can frame sex for us for the remainder of our lives.  The visuals used to offer this up are as stunning as are all the rest in the film, yet the idea itself may by now be a bit overused.

Still, I swear you're not going to want to look away for even one second, so enticing (and then unsettling) is what Cattet and Forzani have on offer.

From Strand Releasing and running a just-slightly overlong 102 minutes, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (hard to resist a title like that!) opens theatrically this Friday, August 29, in New York City at the IFC Center and in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.