Tag Archives: Germany

An Ice Fishing Contemplation Becomes Interrupted by Kidnapping EVIL! “Dead of Winter” reviewed! (Vertigo Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

After the death of her husband, long time Minnesotan Barb travels to the snow covered, frozen over Lake Hilda to ice fish, the spot where her and husband had their first date.  When asking for directions from one of the few people she’s seen in hours, she inadvertently interrupts the kidnapping of a young girl by a husband and wife with an illegal self-preservation plot.  With help hours away, Barb knows she must do all that she can, push the limits of herself, to help the young girl escape the clutches of a determined woman who will stop at nothing and do anything to keep her desperate plan intact and moving forward.   Two against one seems like impossible odds but Barb is determined to keep her promise to the girl tied up in the basement and soon to be murdered for the one thing the wife, the lady in purple holding the rifle, needs. 

A transfiguration of one last goodbye during sudden loss into a destiny of saving a life brings chills to the bone in Brian Kirk’s snowy thriller “Dead of Winter.”  The 2025 released film is the latest feature length film from the “21 Bridges” director from a collaborating script between actor Dalton Leeb (“One Day Like Rain,” “Feeding Mr. Baldwin”) and composer Nicholas Jacobson-Larson (“Wildcat,” “Leave the World Behind”) in what would be the writing duo’s first screenplay as individuals and as a duet.  Koli, Finland doubles for the fictious Lake Hilda in the coldest parts of an upper Midwest winter that’s ever fleck of the season with snowcapped trees, drifts of snow, and a frozen lake, an overall sense of frigidity that reestablishes reference back the film title.  The Finnish, Germany, and U.S. coproduction from the company partnership of Stampede Studios, Augenschein Filmproduktion, Leonine Studios, Zweites Deutsches Fernshen, MMC Studios, Crafthaus, and Wild Bunch Germany is produced by Quirin Berg, Max Conradt, Cloe Garbay, Jonas Katzenstein, Greg Silverman, Maxmilian Leo, Max Widerman, Cosima von Spreti, and Bastian Sirodot. 

Two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson finds herself in a tan mechanic suit driving up a frozen lake in the middle of nowhere and coming across a kidnapping.  The English actress, fondly known for her dramatic period pieces in “Howard’s End” and “Sense and Sensibility,” develops Minnesotan attributes for her role as Barb, a smalltown woman who lost the love of her life, a husband for decades, now on the precipice of letting him go for good by spreading his ashes into the lake where they first courted, as part of his last request.  While going through the emotional catalogue of reminiscent flashbacks and teary-eyed loss, Barb’s distracted by young woman, hands tied, and being held at gunpoint by a kidnapping hisband and wife.  While their names are never divulged, only credited as Camo Jacket for the man and Purple Lady for the woman, their scheme is not lost upon them as they are very aware of the dangers that confront them.  The only difference is the danger they face is dichotomized, Camo Jacket sees the immorality and the punitive measures of kidnapping someone for harm but does it anyway to save Purple Lady whose mortality is at stake with a terminal illness.  “Companion’s” Marc Menchaca doesn’t wear the pants in the dynamic in doing his wife’s bidding but the fear, the reluctance, and the sense is there enough to where it becomes pitiful to what he’s reduced as a man and as a husband whereas “Jurassic World’s” Judy Greer is an unstoppable monster with calculated intent who will stop at nothing, and I mean nothing, to get the young girl’s healthy organ.  Hearing Thompson in a Minnesota accent is not terribly jarring but it’s carries with it enough of a zing that it doesn’t suit her well but her character Barb’s tough as nails without exuding an equal presence as such and resourceful inside a mild panic veneer when coming inches away from death every time her and Purple Lady’s path cross.   “Dead of Winter’s” remaining cast sees Laurel Marsden (“The Pope’s Exorcist”) as the kidnapped girl in a role that doesn’t have any depth compared to Barb’s overdrive depth, Emma Thompson’s daughter Gaia Wise and Cúán Hosty-Blaney as young Barb and her husband Karl, and Brian F. O’Byrne (“Bug”) and Dalton Leeb as two hunters caught in the middle.

There’s something to be said for these genre types where an unfortunate, regular pedestrian is thrown into a forced hero position.  There’s an extra something when the setting is snow-covered and isolated with limited, what’s-on-your-person resources.  Barb’s very well written to be that exact person as if she was destined to be, maybe even lead by Karl’s hand, to be a young girl’s savior.  The root cause for the kidnapping is a bit of a far stretch with an illegal and clandestine medical procedure held out from being completed until Camo Jacket and Purple Lady can setup a pop-up surgical tent over the iced lake, a concept that often feels longwinded through the whole ordeal, but this gives Barb the opportunity to make constant fools of the kidnappers by sabotaging gear and setting up traps that cause they enough harm to make the cold by an extreme factor and delay them enough to attempt rescue.  Kirk misses a few important editing and factual elements that put blights on the authenticity and the performance of an otherwise competent action-thriller.  Barb scouts, hides, and runs around an area with less clothes than her counterparts and perhaps Barb’s lifelong residence in the extreme cold of Minnesota has acclimated her body but for this long period of time without being indoors would, shielding from the outside elements, would have taken a toll on anybody.  There are also some editing issues, such as a flame shown before the fire start in the next scene, in a blatant miss of continuity.  Barb’s flashbacks of her past life with Karl are active and sporadic throughout which feels out of place with a contemplative activity when time of slaving someone’s life is of the essence and the threat is always near.

Vertigo Releasing releases elderly woman tenacity and determination to do what’s right in “Dead of Winter,” now available on Blu-ray.  The UK release is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 presented in an anamorphic widescreen 2.23.1 that captures the majestic of a winterized Minnesota (aka Finland) with extra wide shots and creating immersive depth.  Despite all the snow, there’s no whiteout here with a higher contrast to define shapes amongst the powdery white stuff, such as the tall tales, hillside terrains, and the man-made objects that stick out in the back and foreground without losing focus or delineation.  Textures are nicely crisp around the edges and on the body to get a full sense of each character’s attire – which is important for credit classification – and the environment surrounding.  There are select scenes of superimposed effects, such as when people go under the frozen lake and into the water, that appear more angelic in the slowed down moment of dramaticism that denote a very polished stylistic choice in what too is a stark contrast against a harsh winter landscape.  There’s also a purposeful desaturation of color that juxtaposes against Barb’s flashback scenes that are more brilliant with the colors and softer lighting to recount Barb’s happier days.  Skin tones and details appear nature with an extra wrinkle or two on Emma Thompson’s face to make her appear more midwestern rugged.  The English language 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio is accompanied by a second encoding, a 2.0 LPCM Stereo.  The surround sound mix is the preferred option here that captures the reverberations of a snow-scape through the side and backchannels.  The gunfire really comes through with a pop and a directional sense.  Every effect hits the intended marker with clarity and has a vigorous impact while Volker Bertelmann’s synch-harrow score weaves into and out of the action and the reminiscing moments.  Dialogue is clean and without issue, and though I made a negative remark of Thompson’s Minnesotan accent, it’s not, in fact, that terrible but does feel unnaturally off as it contents with her classic British English.  English SDH subtitles are available.  Extras include a making-of featurette and the theatrical trailer.  The Vertigo Releasing physical set is also just as simple with a standard Amaray case with a battered and bruised weary Emma Thompson in character on the front cover.   There is no reverse side image on the sleeve insert, no other physical extras, and the disc is pressed with the same front cover design.  The UK certified 15 feature, for strong language, threat, violence, and injury detail, has a runtime of 98 minutes and is region locked on B. 

Last Rites: “Dead of Winter” ices the filmic competition with a tundra-sized unlikely hero thriller who never looked for trouble, but trouble finds her in a fit of righting wrongs kismet. The standard Vertigo Releasing Blu-ray is just that, standard, but the film itself embraces the cold elements with stark winter harshness and an even colder organ heist.

You’re Not Going Crazy. EVIL Has Snuck in Its Egg! “Cuckoo” reviewed! (Neon / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Fresh Horror for the Taking! “Cuckoo” Available on Amazon!

Moving to the Bavarian Mountains can be breathtaking, relaxingly scenic, and peacefully remote.  For Gretchen, however, the involuntary move comes shortly after the death of her mother, and she’s forced to leave the U.S. with her father, stepmother, and half-sister to now live at the base of the German Bavarians where an isolated vacation resort is overseen by Herr König who has hired Gretchen’s father to architecturally design an extension to the resort’s vast campus.  Reluctant to make the best of an undesirable situation, Gretchen attempts to run away with another woman and go back to America but on the way, an accident lands Gretchen in the nearby hospital and the odd, omnipresent and oppressive sensation that has surrounded her upon her arrival begins to unravel around Herr König and the resort grounds.  Disorientating visions and sounds, entranced female guests vomiting in the hotel, and an aggressively cloaked women pursing her in the shadows, a battered and bruised Gretchen can’t convince her family of the oddities around her or the ones that have plagued her mute half-sister without warning like a flash flood but with the help of a police detective, the only other person who believes her, the two investigate the strange threat that’s closing in on Gretchen’s family.

For fans of the 2018 under-the-radar, mighty mite demonic possession film “Luz,” director Tilman Singer helms another inimitable horror that’s literally for the birds.  “Cuckoo” is Singer’s this year’s released production in which he penned the script.  His sophomore feature-length film, a plotted preservation of a quickly diminishing deadly, infiltrating species, keeps in line with his Germanic heritage by filming on site at the base of the Bavarian Mountains around the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany.  “Cuckoo” is a production of Neon, Fiction Park, and Waypoint Entertainment, spearheaded by producers Thor Bradwell (“Saint Clare”), Emily Cheung, Maria Tsigka, Josh Rosenbaum, Ken Kao (“Rampart”), Markus Halberschmidt, and Ben Rimmer (“Midsommar”).

Having established himself as a refined and charming British actor in the widely popular BBC series “Downton Abbey,” Dan Stevens has slowly but surely infiltrated himself in what Lydia Deetz might describe as strange and unusual films.  Shortly after the untimely demise of the Matthew Crawley character, the principal love interest to Lady Mary (for those who know, know), Stevens jumped right into the Adam Wingard thriller “The Guest” where the then slightly over 30-year-old actor proves himself capable of portraying so much more than a stiff socialite.  As resort owner, nature preservationist, and the overall prototype of Zen in Herr König, Stevens displays another side of his deranged splits while showcasing his perfection of the German language.  Opposite Herr König in the teen heroine role is the rising star from “The Hunger Games:  The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” and the provocative HBO series “Euphoria,” Hunter Schafer.  As Gretchen, Schafer instills a grappling of grief for a mother she was not ready to let go, institutes steadfast judgements about her father’s new family, and impresses a level of loneliness when having to move away from familiar America to the foreign and alienating grounds of Eastern Europe which all evoke the epitome of teenage angst who can’t see beyond her music, her longing for home, and her new family aversion to see that all those negative, destructive traits innately push her away from what’s important, her family.  Herr König embodies Gretchen’s impediment to move forward while another, Henry the detective (Jan Bluthardt, “Luz”), is stitched to ground Gretchen as the past representation of events you can’t change and the anger it has over you.  Jessica Henwick (“Love and Monsters”), Marton Csokas (“Evilenko”), Greta Fernández (“Embers”), Proschat Madani, Kalin Morrow, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (“Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides”), and the introduction of Mila Lieu as the mute Alma rounds out the cast.

There are no Coco Puffs to go for here in what will be Tilman Singer’s signature breakthrough hit in the cult genre.  “Cuckoo’s” unique spin on the certain genus of the titular bird is next to none as it radicalizes extreme measures to save a mimicking, infiltrating, surrogate-forcing species from extinction.  The story, which takes on the play God and find out narrative, is a perfect prefect of cutting your nose off despite your face in both the sensationalized horror element and in the rite of passage of teenager squabbles that oxymoronically favors a contrasting parallel.  “Cuckoo” falls into area of weirdness that could be an episode of the “Twilight Zone” in its earthbound peculiarity hidden from public view for decades, if not centuries, blending the once unforeseen man and animal into one and trying to keep that unity intact no matter what the natural process of survival decrees; the story goes between the shadows into its lockbox of nature’s little dirty secrets left in the dark recesses of the forgotten closet and what’s found there is unnatural, wrong, and perhaps even prehistoric.  “Cuckoo” might be too weird.  Understandably, audiences may find “Cuckoo’s” birdy thriller too intractable and maybe too, too far-fetched for a horror film that tiptoes around political hot topics, such as with the violation of women’s bodies and the pregnancy genetics that ensues.  Yet, that controversial conversation starter inside a soupy mixture of on-your-toes tension and the solid acting from Schafer, Stevens, Bluthardt, Bergès-Frisbey, Lieu, Henwick, Csokas, and Morrow develop a much needed off-the-wall and cacophonous-stirring horror that offers a new breed of horror.

The unbelievably scary ordeal arrives onto Neon’s standard Blu-ray set with an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD50, presented in the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio 2.39:1 CinemaScope.  Graded with a lower contrast, “Cuckoo’s” antiquated, perhaps wall-to-wall 70’s or 80’s veneer, elevates the finish with bolder conventional colors, enriching wood paneling, gaudy wallpaper, and the like to pop out rather than blend in.  Textures are retained in finer fabrics but appear to be lost on much of the skin surfaces with the revolving door of lighting.  Cinematographer Paul Faltz’s play on light, shadow, and depth creates tension, mood, and a lasting impression.  The lossless English (and some German, which isn’t listed) language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix provides favorable fidelity, especially when a partial of the film’s story revolves around immersive sound – Gretchen’s music, vibrating vocal sirens, Herr König’s recorder tune, etc.  Depth and range hit on the exact spatial amalgam, diffusing nicely and dynamically into the back and rear channels when scenes play out to a chase or civilly devolve into gunfire.  The second, accompanying audio option is an English Descriptive Audio 2.0 mix that provides same quantity without much of the immersive quality.  English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available.  Bonus features include the making-of “Cuckoo” with snippet interviews and behind-the-scenes look, a video diary series, on-set interviews with actor Hunter Schafer, costume designer Frauke Firl, and production designer Dario Mendez Acosta, a handful of deleted scenes, and a teaser and theatrical trailer.  Neon’s hard-encoded region A, standard Blu-ray comes in the traditional blue Amaray case with the poster art as primary cover design.  Disc is pressed with a black background and “Cuckoo” in red font.  There are no inserts or other tangible features.  The R-rated film, for violence, bloody images, language, and brief teen drug use, has a runtime of 102 minutes.

Last Rites: “Cuckoo’s” a devouringly devilish and deranged nightmare discording from the pattern to breach onto a new form of terror.

Fresh Horror for the Taking! “Cuckoo” Available on Amazon!

Under an Urban Club Scene, EVIL Horrors Connect Us All. “Flesh City” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Flesh City” Yearns for Connection on DVD!

An insomnious city pulsates with an industrial soundtrack and claws cantankerously at denizens without pity. Under one of the raging night club scenes, enamored raver Vyren follows the beautifully alluring Loquette, an inspiring electronic DJ, down into the club’s labyrinth of old stone corridors. Their coquettish play becomes the monitored study of Professor Yagov, a glowingly cadent and mad experimenter of anthropology. The two lovers are drugged and abducted by the Yogav with the intent of genetic mutating the couple’s anatomy that renders Vyren’s hand displaced with a bulbous nub and Loquette impregnated with an ingestible sludge. What becomes of their affliction insidiously infects the entire city population with a flesh tentacle curling through the city’s underground sewer and drainpipe infrastructure in what amasses to a single connection of brain-invading techno-horror.

“Flesh City” annexes our individuality for the sake of connective solidarity conveyed in an electronically infused and alternatively aesthetic experimental film from Germany’s own jack of all independent media and artistic trades, Thorsten Fleisch. The 2019 released feature is Fleisch’s first and only written-and-directed full-length film depicting his feverish analog avant-garde, reflecting the filmmaker’s menagerie of orthodox-shredding short films, video art, and written and produced music. Overseeing “Flesh City’s” cinematography and special effects, Fleisch has complete and utter autonomy of the visuals to obtain a harshly discordant image melody edited together, which Fleisch also manages, into an agglomerate of acetic aesthetics to shock and stress the audio and visual cortexes. Once under the working titles of “Berlin Blood” and “Zyntrax: Symphony of Flesh,” “Flesh City” is entirely shot in Berlin, Germany, produced by the director and United Kingdom producers Arthur Patching and Christian Serritiello, and is a feature of Fleischfilm and Tropical Grey Features.

One of the film’s coproducers and musical artists, Christian Serritiello (“Streets of East L.A.”), is at the front lines of “Flesh City’s” afterthought cast of characters with Vryen as essentially the naïve and lured-in Alice chasing the white rabbit Loquette, played by Eva Ferox (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), down the twisted rabbit hole of a cellar dwelling doctor.  I say afterthought because the characters take a backseat to Fleisch’s contortion of reality and the analogical subtext generated by Fleisch’s love for analog anomalies, using them as supporting pawns to carry out his visceral vision of vitality.  Music videos, psychedelic montages, and grotesques images of beetles absorb screen time like formless or arthropodal principals.  Even Professor Yagov (Arthur Patching”) is obscured by a rainbow shimmer, never visually seeing his face as an individual seemingly between two dimensions.  “Flesh City” is a very multiverse, multidimensional nightmare-scape of unconventional color that has culminated from Fleisch’s imaginative idiosyncrasies over the years and that’s what being intently showcased here with more evident display of a less-character driven, shapeless story within the technical aspects of the DVD release where the soundtrack drowns the dialogue into a muffled deaf tone, like any good loud music venue would subdue.  “Flesh City’s” urbanites fill out with Marilena Netzker (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), Shaun Lawton (“Possession”), Denis Lyons (“German Angst”), Anthony Straeger (“Call of the Hunter”), Maria Hengge (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), Helena Prince (“12 Theses”), and Thorsten Fleisch in a Max Headroom meets Total Request Live-like host role of Quantum 1337.

“Flesh City” will not be everyone’s approx. 90 minutes of how to spend their time choice.  The experimental film will only speak to a few select souls with a filmic affinity for Lynchian peculiarities, Terry Gilliam’s bold fantasy, David Cronenberg’s body horror, and a hellish capriccio along with an eclectic music palate for noise rock, henpecking alternative, and strident industrial bass.  I wouldn’t go as far as saying Fleisch’s film is akin to nails on a chalkboard but can be boisterously unpleasant to the ears at times while, in the same breadth, be stimulating visually, even if that stimulation may induce a photosensitive epileptic seizure.  Fleisch’s non-traditional narrative design splices in music videos from various underground and indie artists with him providing introduction as an illusionary host in a virtual world, breaking up the Vyren and Loquette’s post-punk-adelic core quandary with a teetering melodic cacophony of feedback rock electronic, a hostile rhythm, and bizarre lyrics and visuals.  Fleisch pushes the taboo envelope with not only liberal nudity, to which Germans are very at ease with their body image, but also within the unconfined stylistic creativity of multi-formats that razzle-dazzles like the innards of radiant plasma globe; the Tesla coil electrons that’s drawn to your conductive flesh won’t hurt you but provide a feeling of captivated wonder.  Yet, don’t expect to be thrilled in a traditional predator-and-prey sense as “Flesh City” appeals more to our disconnect from each other and how to reconnect must be through some kind of inclemency. 

Likely to transmit under the radar, “Flesh City’s” biomorphic body horror arrives onto unrated director’s cut DVD home video courtesy of cult and independent distributing label Wild Eye Releasing in association with Tomcat Films.  The DVD5 presents the transfer in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio with varying levels of image quality due to different types of equipment and methods used to create Fleisch’s tripped out vision that contains, but isn’t limited to, black and white, color, stylistic lighting, analog equipment, digital equipment, stock footage, and so forth.  This mishmash movie makes for divisible degrees of signal quality that can be look crystal clear in one scene and then heavy noise interference the next, but the overall clarity is remains stable without any scenes being rifted because of visual vagueness.  The audio comes in two formats:  a English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a English Dolby Digital 2.0.  Frankly, the original English dialogue track is feeble under the tremendously potent soundtrack and sound design that makes comprehending Vyren and Loquette subterranean exchanges under the industrial rumble of the score virtually impossible to discern.  Even Quantum 1337’s cyber-stutter chat softly introduces us into his world, essentially leading the blind into a mound of musical mania. Bonus features only include other Wild Eye Releasing trailers with the physical aspects of the DVD come with a misconception cover art that has a terrifying gaunt and fleshy, humanoid creature front and center, but that creature doesn’t exist in the film until maybe at the climax that’s nebulously discernible at best what viewers are supposed to see. Inside the standard DVD snapper, the disc art is pressed with the same front cover image but with no accompanying insert. The region free disc features the unrated film with a runtime of 84 minutes. “Flesh City” is a delicacy of distortion, but the Thorsten Fleisch film is an acquired taste that general audiences won’t have taste for but, then again, general audiences are not Wild Eye Releasing’s target audience, now are they?

“Flesh City” Yearns for Connection on DVD!

Three Women Murder to Stand Up Against EVIL! “A Question of Silence” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“A Question of Silence” Laughs Louder than Words on Blu-ray!

Three different in age and lifestyle women carry on with the routine of their normal lives until police offices arrest them on the charge of murdering a male owner of a clothing boutique.  Having seemingly no motive and have no connection to each other, never having met each other before, the confounded prosecution hire a psychiatrist to determine the women’s mental state for the brutal beating of the shopkeeper.  As the psychiatrist interviews and digs into their personal lives to give rationality to an irrational crime, she finds herself drawn to the women and their heinous act stemmed by a life history that paints a picture of dehumanizing neglect and of providing zero respect.  Subjectively overwhelms objectivity the deeper she looks into their case and her professionalism is put to the test when she has to decide whether being labeled insane fits the accusation or if a more gender bias systemic issue is at play.

After a rousing first part of feminist revenge with “Red Sun” from 1970, we fast-forward slightly over a decade later in 1982, and moving from out of Germany and into the Netherlands, with Marleen Gorris’s acclaimed crime drama “A Question of Silence.”  With little-to-no film prior film experience, Gorris becomes a provocateuse with her debut picture that stirs controversy amongst one side of the sexes.  “A Question of Silence,” natively titled “De stilte rond Christine M,” or “The Silence around Christine M.,” became the best Dutch film of the year with local accolades, including a Golden Calf for best film at the Netherlands Film Festival the year of release.  Along with the Rudolf Thome’s “Red Sun” and the German social commentary on women integrating into equal social and professional positions, Gorris comes at a time where the status of Dutch women were on the lower end of the gender equality scale, especially in the workforce.  Matthijs van Heijningen, who produced polemic features directed by women filmmakers, such as Nouchka van Brakel’s “A Woman Like Eve” and “The Cool Lakes of Death,” risked yet another credit to his name with the virtually unknown writer-director Marleen Gorris and her sizeable undertone story under his company, Sigma Film Productions.

The narrative opens with Janine van den Bos and her husband Ruud having a flirtatious moment on the couch where Janine playfully annoys her book-reading husband with advances sexual foreplay.  Without knowing who these two people are exactly, other than they’re in a version of a relationship, Janine, played by Cox Habbema, and husband Ruud, played by Eddy Brugman setup metaphorically what’s inherently wrong with society with a woman seeking something and the man ignoring her and practically commanding her to stop the foolishness in a dismissive way.  This opening scene then cuts to the three women being arrested, led up to by intercuts of their daily routine before the police confront them.  We’re treated to some of the most idiosyncratic and grounded performances by Edda Barends as the muted housewife Christine, Nelly Frijda as the cackling coffee barista Annie, and Henriëtte Tol as the beautiful and intelligent secretary Andrea.  The three women never met before, never plotted before, and never killed before but a sudden epiphany while shopping became the straw that broke the camel’s back, turning watershed into bloodshed that unveiled something just as sinister as murder.  Cox Habbema engrosses herself into the psychiatric role as an educated woman analyzing and judging other women while also being judged herself by the opposite sex despite a higher-level of learning and professionalism.  Without exposition, characters express themselves through action while being ambiguous through dialogue, working to convey the lopsided gender equality across the screen perfectly without even one ounce of explanatory detail dropped. 

What’s most intriguing about Gorris’s film is it’s mirroring quality to society.  “A Question of Silence” doesn’t fabricate grand futures or alternate universes with eccentric, wily characters to be metaphorical fodder of expression; instead, Gorris remains earthbound, present, and timely by incorporating true-to-form examples that create derogatory silence on women.  The non-linear narrative, cutting back-and-forth from investigative present to the chronicled past visualizes the women’s struggles and frustrations living inside a male-dominated culture.  From being expected to handling all aspects of the household and childcare, to being brushed off and dismissed by colleagues, to forgotten and underappreciated, Gorris forces a frank contemplation on a patternized and patronized patriarchy.  Heightening the tension, Lodewijk de Boer and Martijn Hasebos’s giallo-esque and experimental soundtrack adds a layer of loadstone to see whether these extempore femme fatales executed a crime. 

Cult Epics, in association with the Eye Film Institute, continue their campaign on delivering thought-provoking, provocative, and controversial Dutch masterpieces onto the high-definition stage with their latest release, “A Question of Silence.”  The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50 stored feature is presented in the 1:66:1 European widescreen aspect ratio.  The 2K HD scanned transfer and restoration is based off the 35mm print; however, judging by the grain levels and very little preserved detail, especially in a HD scan, I’d say the original negative was 16mm and then blown up for 35mm project, which was a fairly common process.  The noticeable enlargement of grain dampens picture details less favorable yet not the image quality is not a total wash with a stable graded rendering, with a natural skin tone and pigment of objects, and the presence of imperfections kept in a minimum – such as the occasional cigarette burns and dust/dirt.  What excels here mostly is the lack of compression issues so we’re only treated to the innate quirks of the original celluloid film.  The release offers two Dutch language audio options – a LPCM 2.0 mono and a DTS-HD MA 2.0.  Toggling between both tracks, there’s not much different between them until Nelly Frijda’s crone-cackle distinguishes itself with robust HD prominence projecting full-bodied through the dual channel.  Again worth noting, Lodewijk de Boer and Martijin Hasebos synthesizing score, coupled with Marleen Gorris’s tense and taut flashback storyline, casts a disquieting tone that’s very fitting for a film entitled “A Question of Silence.”  Dialogue, as well as the score and overall soundtracks, suffer very little from the slight hum of the running camera and some minor hissing but the general result has tremendous.  English subtitles are optional and synch well with error-free translation; however, upon watching the special features, the Cult Epics’ feature translations differ from the copious amount of snippet clips of the interview segments.  Roughly the same interpretation but the phrasing maybe clearer and less wordy in the snippets so I’d be interested in the, what I assume would be, the original English translation.  Special features include an audio commentary by film scholar Patricia Pisters, an archival Cinevise interview with Marleen Gorris from feature release year 1982, a sit-down, one-on-one interview with lead actress Cox Habbema and Cinevise host a year later, a Polygoon Journal Newsreel from ’82 that mentions the Golden Calf award from the Netherlands Film Festival, a promotional gallery, and trailers.  The clear Blu-ray cover comes with the tear-drenched and shadow-obscured face of Cox Hebbema with a reversible still image of the three accused women on the inside.  No insert included and the disc is pressed with the same front cover art.  Cult Epics Blu-ray comes with region free playback and the feature is 97-minutes and unrated.  Marleen Gorris first run as a filmmaker denotes her as a masterful storyteller with a timeless tale of close-quartered and subtle masculine tyranny in an attempt to open the unwilling eyes of the narrow focused. 

“A Question of Silence” Laughs Louder than Words on Blu-ray!

When Men Want More, They Receive More… EVIL! “Red Sun” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Red Sun” on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films!

Peggy, Sylvie, Christine, and Isolde have made a mortiferous pact to lure wanton men into their spider’s web before snuffing them out. Armed with guns and homemade explosives, the four women find themselves strapped for cash but managing to get by with their all-in scheme to take out as many licentious men as possible. When the nomadic loafer Thomas re-enters Peggy’s life, she initially sees him as just another mark to relieve from the mortal coil, but Thomas’ uninterest in sexual desires appeal to Peggy’s compassion and care for the man she once loved who just happened to show up in her life one night. As the two become closer, Peggy’s accomplices continue their deadly ideology, working their individual johns, but Christine and Sylvie find Peggy slipping under Thomas’ beguiling draw, an affect she can’t seem to comprehend, and pressures Peggy to be thorough with Thomas to the bitter end.

“Rote Sonne,” or “Red Sun” translated into English, is the 1970 feministic crime drama from German filmmaker Rudolf Thome and penned by the late Switzerland born screenwriter, Max Zihlmann.  Thought-provoking as it is enticingly cold, “Red Sun” tears open a void between lust and violence that separates the sexes of scorned scars.   The pre-European Union film looks at feminism during a highly patriarchal Germany time, West Germany to be specific, when women rights were essentially molded and determined by men.  Wives relied heavily on their husbands to make decisions for them on a permissible granted condition and even some marriage-related abuse crimes we’re not punishable under German law.  Thome helmed a politically anti-conservative and socially anti-inequality picture during the second wave of German feminism of the 1960s with ironfisted and revenge-seeking protagonists as an active cell blending into cultural norm.  “Red Sun” is produced by the director as well as Heinz Angermeyer of Independent Film productions and is part one of our double bill look at radical feminism with Marleen Gorris’ “A Question of Silence” to follow.

At the tip of the cast spear is a Rudolf Thome regular, Marquard Bohm, having had roles in another of Thome’s empowering women feature “Supergirl – The Girl from the Stars” as well as the skin-laden “Detektive,” and the narrative’s focal character stirs confounding interest in that it revolves around a male principal of a women liberation-by-force feature.  As Thomas, Bohm is not a traditionally depicted German man but has all the some of the minuscular familiar qualities of masculine behavior.  Thomas loafs into to life of Peggy, played by fellow “Detektive” star Uschi Obermaier, and her cohort of conniving men eaters – Christine (Diana Körner, “Barry Lyndon”), Sylviie (Sylvia Kekulé) and Isolde (Gaby Go) – simply by being at the right place at the right time or visa-versa, depending on how you look at it.  For Thomas, his nonchalant leeching onto Peggy morphs into something more than just freeloading off of already strapped for cash Peggy and friends, becoming a distraction and an attraction from his previously failed relationship in Munich.  The role is in a mirror reversal of the then current German society with Thomas being a stay-at-home man, running errands at the behest of the woman Peggy as she goes to work and earns to keep their clandestine killing chugging along, but Thomas does what he wants, whether be spending Peggy’s extra cash on cigars or eating all the food in ladies’ fridge.  Opportunistically asserting his needs onto their, often inimical, hospitality, Thomas is the Peggy beloved free-range chicken strutting his stuff around other hungry, more axe-wielding, farmers that put the pressure on Peggy to nix him before he insidiously collapses their pact.  Under the “Red Sun,” the cast fills out with Don Wahl, Peter Moland, and Henry von Lyck.

Unfortunately, Thomas has inadvertently sowed the seeds of destruction within the four women, dividing the group’s cause and on what to do with Thomas.  The women are arranged in a spectrum range of how to handle their contested guest; Thomas has caught the eye of Peggy and Isolde, though active in certain measures of man-slaughter, refuses to partake in the act of killing altogether where Sylvie pushes back against her indifference amiability for Thomas to continue the good fight and Christine just flat out owns her oppositional stance to eliminate the man many would find lackadaisical and nocuous to their friendship and plans, like an usurping boyfriend coming in between two best friends.  What Thomas represents is the potential squash, or delay of, the feminist movement against an arrogant and authoritatively unfair patriarchal society and each woman is a different perspective and reaction to the measures of feministic movement.  “Red Sun” is also a tragic love story that pits rightful duty against the heart’s urges and Thome is able to fashion a path through the commentary to depict both views in a sad, yet heartful conclusion.  What Thome doesn’t do well is the appropriate stitching of time passed.  Perhaps through editing or the within the confined text of the script, what feels like weeks passed is actually only a handful of days, but Thomas’s comfort level is so ingrained, coupled with the brief mentioning of how long he’s been around, the comings-and-goings of time blend into one jerky story that can’t properly materialize a granular tone and “Red Sun” becomes a bit sun blind at times when trying to keep with the characters’ narrative.

“Red Sun” blazes onto a world debut, limited edition Blu-ray release from independent cult film distributor, Radiance Films. The AVC encoded, high-definition release has been scanned in 2K from the original 35mm camera negatives, supervised by director Rulfe Thome, at the Cinegreti Postfactory in Berlin as well as additional touchup restoration work to spruce up the dust, dirt, and scratches. Radiance Films’ presentation features a brilliant quality that has restored to void out any celluloid cankers. Grading appears natural and vivid under the breadth of the welcomed 35mm grain. Aside from a handful of faint vertical scratches here and there, this Blu-ray has none the worse for wear with compression issues as the transfer is stored on an ample BD50 to reduce any compression artefact effects. The original German language LPCM 2.0 mono track vivaciously keeps up with a clean, clear, and robust post-production dialogue recording. No major issues with hissing or popping though minor specimens rear their ugly audibles sporadically to a negligible outcome. Since ADR is used, depth is lost amongst the dialogue track, but the environmental ambience nicely courses through the output with a small explosion and episodic skirmishes to keep the range from being too concentrated. English subtitles are available and are well-synced, well-paced, and are grammatically sound from start to finish. Bonus features include an audio commentary track with director Rudolf Thome and Rainer Langhans and also two visual essays with film academics Johannes von Moltke, in German with English subtitles, on the subject of cultural and social influences on “Red Sun” titled Rote Sonne: Between Pop Sensibility and Social Critique, and Margaret Deriaz exploring the developments on the New German cinema, titled From Oberhausen to the Fall of the Wall. The physical attributes are just as enticing with non-traditional and clear Blu-ray snapper case with a thicket, 51-page color booklet insert featuring the 2022 Guerrilla girls: Radical Politics in Rudolf Thome’s “Red Sun” essay by Samm Deighan, an interview with the director, Letters to the German Film Evaluation Office by Wim Wenders and Enno Patalas from 1969, film review extracts between 1970 and 1991, and transfer notes and full package release credits. Sheathed inside the case is a reversible cover art with a Bond-esque prime cover of Uschi Obermaier in a white, short-skirted outfit holding a revolver in front of a shoreline red sun. Alternate, inside cover notes the original German language title “Rote Sonne” with the 3 of the 4 femme fatales posed around Peggy’s VW bug. The disc press art is perhaps the less exciting aspect with just a plain, off-white disc with red letter of the title. Radiance Films’ release comes region free, has a runtime of 87 minutes, and is not rated. Limited to 1500 copies should not stop a film aficionado from looking directly into the “Red Sun,” a highly provocative and pulpy thriller full of contempt and full of ambivalence curated to pack a punch on a new Radiance Films Blu-ray.

“Red Sun” on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films!