Author: SceneByGreen

Lucrecia Martel | 1hr 27min

Guilt and paranoia haunt every second of Vero’s waking life. From the moment she hits something with her car on a rural road in Argentina, her mental state starts to slip away. As she drives off, we see a dog lying dead, and we might be sure that is all there is to it. For her, it’s not. Her suspicion that it was in fact a person who she killed is only exacerbated by the recovery of a young boy’s body from a nearby canal, while all around her friends and family try to soothe her concerns. Soon enough, we start to doubt what we saw as well. Lucrecia Martel’s uneasy atmosphere doesn’t let up all through The Headless Woman, purposefully disorientating us from any firm understanding of Vero’s true actions, and leaving in its place a façade of bourgeoisie privilege that one can either expose and risk losing, or accept at face value.

Were this narrative to move in more conventional directions, it might have been a densely plotted mystery leading towards some grand reveal towards its conclusion. But here, no one present is properly invested in understanding the truth of Vero’s accident, and as such the answers we naturally gravitate towards seem impossible to grasp. There is something of Michael Haneke’s cold, detached style of open-ended storytelling here, especially when considering Martel’s social critique of those wealthy European citizens who wilfully ignore the presence of lower-class troubles which they are largely responsible for. It is as if two entirely different worlds live side-by-side in Vero’s everyday life, divided by economic disparity, social status, and skin colour, and invisible to each other on every level.

Even if it was simply a dog that Vero ran over and even if the boy did die under unrelated circumstances, there still lies a cold horror in the way her husband appears to cover her tracks. Martel is sure to deliver these narrative progressions as sly understatements, almost like passing thoughts that one must not dwell on for too long. They often go unchallenged by Vero too, who is largely unable to communicate her thoughts beyond bewildered silences and short, uncertain responses. Maria Onetto often feels barely present in this role, moving like a wispy ghost afraid to affect the world more than she already has. All it takes are some hands over her eyes and a whispered “Guess who?” to trigger an extreme panic, and in that instant she seems as if she is ready to face her own death.

Martel rarely pulls her camera back far enough to remove us from the immediate vicinity of Onetto’s face, but when she does it is notable the number of times that she frames a shot to obscure the actress’ head from the composition, as the film’s title suggests. Elsewhere, we are held back from easy readings of facial expressions that are kept out of focus, turned at slight angles, or otherwise silhouetted against rain-glazed car windows, diminishing Vero’s presence within her surroundings. In choosing to shoot so frequently in close-ups while keeping us detached from faces, there is a tension woven into the film’s formal construction. Where the director is trying to push her camera in closer, her subject is actively hiding from its view, suffocating behind visual obstructions that keep us from fully grasping her mental state or the details of specific settings.

Despite the abundance of close-ups seeming distant from Haneke’s own characteristic wide shots, there is still something distinctly reminiscent of his icy style seeping through in Martel’s long, static takes, dispassionately observing the tortured subject upon whom her camera is fixed. Perhaps the most memorable is that which sits in Vero’s passenger seat when she first crashes her car, letting her shock and fear settle in real time across the scene. Just as memorable though is the final shot of the film, which very subtly tracks Vero’s movements through a crowded party. It remains unwavering in its intent, refusing to cut until she entirely disappears, absorbed back into the mass of middle class of men and women with whom she mingles.

With no resolution to her questions of guilt, there are few other options other than to live with the same blind privilege that upholds an entire class system built to preserve its own ignorance and wealth. The guilt that carries through The Headless Woman is as fleeting as the film itself, evaporating before it gets a chance to justify itself, but for the time that it does hang around in Vero’s life, it remains an exhausting, mortifying force of self-loathing.

The Headless Woman is not currently streaming in Australia.

Krzysztof Kieslowski | 1hr 49min

Even for Krzysztof Kieslowski, No End is an exceedingly sombre affair, exhuming the voice of a recently departed lawyer and haunting his widowed wife, Ulla, with visions of his apparition. It has been four days since Antek’s passing, as he informs us in the opening minutes, and he has borne witness to all of it, from the immediate aftermath of his heart attack right through to his funeral. Behind him, Ulla lies motionless on their bed, incapacitated from the grief. Elsewhere, his final client sits in prison awaiting trial, having illegally organised a factory strike after the introduction of martial law. Along two parallel paths, Kieslowski follows both the personal and political implications of Antek’s untimely death, binding them together under the shadow of Poland’s Communist authoritarianism.

Though he is our entryway into this story, Antek steps to the side right after his monologue, from this point on only appearing as a mysterious presence vaguely interfering with the lives of those he left behind. His impact is ambiguous, implicitly leaving a red question mark on a legal document and making a fellow lawyer drop his watch. Even when we do see him, his appearances are often only fleeting. While Ulla meditates, his hand slips into the foreground to pick up a glass before retreating, and later when she is describing his presence to someone else, Kieslowski cuts away to his hands playing with the holes in her stockings.

The longer she mourns, the greater her love for him grows, but she also evidently has trouble expressing this to anyone. In one scene that sees her sleep with an English tourist, she is driven to tell him of the powerful union she shared with Antek, though only in Polish so that he cannot understand. Perhaps Kieslowski himself is making a point here about the inherently unique and honourable qualities of Poland’s Solidarity movement, which Antek embodies. The crushing loss of this Polish push for workers’ rights and social change simply cannot be comprehended by anyone not directly affected by it.

It is in the courtroom drama side of No End that Kieslowski elucidates this metaphor a little more, centring Artur Barciś and Aleksander Bardini respectively as a political dissident and his new lawyer. Both men would later go on to play significant roles in Kieslowski’s Dekalog series, particularly Barciś who bears witness to each individual episode as a silent, supernatural entity. In the role of No End’s Darek, that neutrality is exchanged for fervent passion, trying to make himself a martyr of the suppressed Solidarity trade union that was rapidly terminated by the Polish government’s imposed martial law. Here, the ghost of Antek serves as an even greater reminder of that pacifist resistance movement, physically absent yet still active in the minds and memories of Poles.

Though Darek’s lawyer, Labrador, possesses a warmth and genuine desire to help his client, his convictions are not as strong as his predecessor’s. He wins Darek’s case, and yet it doesn’t feel like victory. There is nothing brave or impressive about a Solidarity leader getting off with a slap on the wrist. As Antek stands in the courtroom with them, the insignificance of this entire trial gradually sets in.

In constructing an allegorical narrative with so few direct representations of Poland’s political landscape, Kieslowski often keeps No End at an intellectual distance from audiences wishing to grasp its historical details. Due to censorship, the word “Solidarity” is not even mentioned anywhere in this screenplay. Where it does connect is in its solemn representations of devastating political defeat, likening it to the death of a loved one and the hopeless depression that follows.

It sinks in very subtly, but this despair does take root in this ensemble of subdued performances and Zbigew Preisner’s slow, grim music. If No End is a eulogy, then his church choir, strings, woodwinds, and organ make up a liturgical underscore, ploughing along in grave unison as if brought together under a common cause of shared melancholy and reverence. Just as these musical instruments move as one through haunting minor progressions, too does this overwhelming sense of loss spiritually unite Kieslowski’s characters throughout the film, together commemorating a death that carries demoralising implications across multiple levels of society.

No End is currently streaming on Mubi and The Criterion Channel.

Krzysztof Kieslowski | 1hr 54min

Had the first and final shots of Blind Chance been cut, the film could have been a pure examination of three alternate timelines, branching off from a singular point in one man’s life when he is at his lowest and most impressionable. With context of these bookends, everything we see is reframed under the umbrella of impending mortality and heavy regrets which may flash past our eyes in half a second before our death. What small actions could have we done differently that might have set us on a different path, leading us away from our current lives? For Witek, this is a question that arises every now and again as a passing thought. What if he never reconnected with his old school friend and found God? What if he were not there to save that old lady from being run over? It is only when Witek ponders the greatest one of all – what if his attempt to catch a train years ago had turned him away from the path to his own demise – that the rumination over what could have been becomes an all-consuming thought, manifesting as fully developed realities.

That fateful run towards a departing train is the tiny action upon which everything hinges for Witek. Or to narrow in even further, his outcome is even more minutely determined by his attitude towards a man carrying a beer, which only minutes earlier was purchased with a coin that he knocked from a woman’s hand while in a mad rush to get to the platform. Played three times over with minor adjustments, these nearly identical scenes either see Witek successfully catch the train, be arrested for causing a public disturbance, or miss it and go on with his life.

With this divergence of possible futures catching him at his lowest point when he is most open to embracing new ideologies, the broad swings we witness in his character are monumental. Should he make the train, he will meet an influential Communist thinker, and conform to the party thinking. Should he be arrested, he will meet a priest who drafts him into the anti-Communist resistance. Should he go on with life as normal, he will remain politically neutral, falling back into the medical school that he previously decided to quit, and eventually starting a family.

In each timeline, it is an older man who comes into Witek’s life as a patriarchal figure, offering the sort of guidance that he no longer receives from his recently deceased father. In his father’s ambiguous final words, “You don’t have to,” there is a vague absence of any specific instruction – he doesn’t have to what exactly? With the heavy weight of uncertainty leaving Witek aimlessly drifting, he finds himself lost in a modern world of competing priorities, distractions, and relationships, and thus looking for something to hang his identity on.

In 1981, Krzysztof Kieslowski was similarly on the verge of his own transition, contemplating a shift from the familiar realm of social realism to a more transcendent style with broader, more metaphysical ambitions. Blind Chance falls right in the midst of it, aiming to probe questions of fate just as much as it seeks to examine the radical political landscape of 1980s Poland. Inadvertently, it was these revolutionary sentiments which led to the film’s censoring by Polish authorities, from which it never fully recovered. Even today, there is a single unrecovered scene still missing from the final cut.

In exposing the flimsiness of such fervent followers, Kieslowski manages to rile up both sides of the political aisle, though in the mind of the dying Witek who safely straddled the fence, there is some question as to whether some sort of whole-hearted political commitment might have changed his life for the better. His life is not one of significant introspection, but with a director as thoughtful as Kieslowski behind the camera, fleeting hints of self-reflection manage to break through Witek’s mindless surrender of his own agency. Later in his career, Kieslowski would perfect the art of the symbolic cutaway and weave them in as constant motifs through his work, and here we see an early glimpse of that, following a slinky tumble down a set of stairs. “It’s like it died,” he reflects as it reaches the bottom, and perhaps in that moment he sees a piece of himself set on a rigid path that leads nowhere but his own death.

As each timeline ends in social rejection for Witek, Kieslowski begins to slow down the frame rate until they freeze entirely, anticipating the impending rewind that will take us back to the turning point at the train station. It is notable that he does not return to this device a third time as the last timeline approaches its conclusion. There, Witek arrives at an airport to disembark on a trip to Libya where he will deliver some medical lectures, and much like the ending of Three Colours: Red, he brushes past two characters whose lives he has come close to intersecting with. Given that we have only seen them in alternate timelines, they are simply strangers to him, though both times he does stop and notice their presences.

At first it might seem that he is picking up on something familiar about them on a subconscious level. This is not an unreasonable assumption either, especially considering some of Kieslowski’s later films that imbue characters with intangible, mystical qualities. But if Blind Chance is to be read as a split-second vision conjured up between Witek’s realisation of his death and the explosion of the plane he is on, then perhaps at this point he is simply storing them in his mind as characters for his dream, ruminating over the alternate lives that might have saved him from his tragic fate. It is said that your life flashes before your eyes on the verge of death, and indeed that happens here in the fast-moving character introduction towards the start, but Kieslowski’s sights are not so much set on “what was” than “what could have been” – all those turning points that might have given us happier, or at least longer lives. But then again, what is the use of such regrets anyway if the paths upon which we travel are merely governed by blind chance?

Blind Chance is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Krzysztof Kieslowski | 1hr 52min

It isn’t that Krzysztof Kieslowski lacks a sense of humour, but it is surely no coincidence that whenever small pieces of comedy emerge in his films they are placed in the capable hands of his muse, Jerzy Stuhr. Camera Buff capitalises well on those talents, sending Stuhr’s amateur cameraman into inappropriate situations that he hopes might prove interesting to audiences. He doesn’t discriminate between subjects – when asked what he shoots, his reply is simply “Anything that moves.” Given the success Filip finds in competitions and inspiring others, there is no doubt he possesses the talent to back up his hobby. But there is also an insidiousness to his singularly focused obsession, throwing off his balance of responsibility and passion, and slowly disintegrating his once-happy family life into a fable of poignant tragedy.

Camera Buff remains firmly in the world of social realism that Kieslowski is very familiar with at this point in his career, though his political critiques aren’t immediately so overt. Filip first picks up his camera just before the birth of his daughter, intending to use it to document this precious time in his and wife’s life. If there is one thing that he never loses sight of throughout the film, it is the beauty of mundanity, and it is evident that his ability to preserve these moments in time and share them with others is a truly valuable gift. Problems arise when his camera turns away from his loved ones and towards others, thereby avoiding any opportunity for self-reflection. The lens is his portal into other lives, disconnecting him from his own “quiet life” to the point that it no longer feels like enough.

Kieslowski and Stuhr achieve a fine balance here in their sympathetic development of Filip, never distancing him so much from the audience that he becomes entirely repugnant, even when he acts purely in his own self-interest. His habit of framing his fingers like a camera viewfinder is an amusing mannerism we warm to, though when he is caught out imagining how he might shoot his wife storming out after an argument, it only worsens the situation. Even when he is happy to let his baby keep crying for the sake of a good shot, we still resist despising him too much when his excitement exudes such a genuine innocence.

There is also something of an underdog persona about Filip as well that ingratiates us to his cause. As a labourer working within the rigid structures of Communist Poland, the opportunity to seize on something creative and be recognised for it feels like a victory, and it is within this social context that Kieslowski begins to turn Camera Buff to more serious political critiques of censorship and control. At the factory where he works, the local Communist Party boss enlists him to film its jubilee, and besides a few requests that he cut shots considered too invasive, he does receive praise both from superiors and judges at a film festival. Later when he takes more initiative to capture subjects of his own interest, the pushback grows stronger. Given his value to the Party he is relatively safe from their threats, though his supporters are not so fortunate.

Even as Filip loses his family, Kieslowski still draws out an affecting beauty in his documentaries, suggesting that his obsessive efforts are not entirely fruitless. “It’s beautiful what you guys do. A person’s no longer alive… yet she’s still here,” contemplates one man upon seeing footage Filip shot of his late mother, overtaken with gratitude. Another man, a dwarf with whom he works, is similarly moved by seeing his humble life depicted on film and broadcast on Polish television.

It may be virtuous work, offering others the opportunity to reflect on their lives, though it is also a tool of distraction, letting Filip point the lens in every direction except towards himself. For Kieslowski, neglecting the personal aspect of creation is to disregard its most fundamental foundation, and so it is with that one mind that Filip finally steps in front of the camera to examine his own lonely life. In its dark lens, Kieslowski captures a faint reflection of his face, infused with the very instrument of his obsession. With the closing shot letting Filip dominate the frame in a close-up though, he becomes the independent centre of his own focus, prepared to take responsibility for his actions by finally his own story.

Camera Buff is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Krzysztof Kieslowski | 1hr 52min

Somewhere deep in the heart of Poland, loggers, developers, and civil servants are hard at work discussing plans. Their silhouettes stand behind columns of trees, splitting the frame into fragments that will soon coalesce into whole images as the natural vegetation is cut down. It might look as if the forest is collapsing in on itself, though down below we can clearly see men with chainsaws carving out a blank canvas for their associates to build on. Krzysztof Kieslowski had experimented in the realm of documentary and television before this point, but his theatrical feature debut The Scar acts as a launch pad for an illustrious career that would only go on to reach grander heights, probing questions in the realm of politics, metaphysics, and religion.

Relative to his great masterpieces of 80s and 90s cinema, The Scar is a modest piece of social realism, so grounded in the details of Communist Poland’s bureaucracy and use of non-professional actors that one might mistake certain scenes as being entirely real. At town forums where locals protest the development of the new chemical factory, dialogue spills out chaotically, and it isn’t hard to believe that the constant stumbling and interruptions might just be authentic expressions of anger. Though we are sympathetic to their plights, it is Party member Stefan Bednarz whose journey is placed at the forefront here, struggling against both the short-term thinking of the angry townspeople and the inefficient administration of his own co-workers. Kieslowski’s scathing critiques of Poland’s attempts at progress are organically woven into these interactions, each one chipping away at Stefan’s idealism until all we are left with is a frustrated, disillusioned man.

From behind glass windows, Stefan looks out at the industrial results of his efforts. Steel beams and towering concrete structures imprint against the frigid white landscapes of the Polish winter where trees once stood, like colossal monuments to human progress. Though The Scar is rooted in a realistic style like most of Kieslowski’s early work, there is something a little otherworldly in his sparse musical score, particularly memorable in the scene of Stefan switching the lights on and off from within his office. When it is dark, we can see the industrial architecture outside, though when the lights come up we catch his reflection in the glass, infused with the modern development that, depending on any character’s perspective, has either destroyed this small town or given it a future.

“We haven’t accomplished all we wanted to here. And neither have I,” laments Stefan towards the end of the years-long project, wishing to leave it at the earliest possible opportunity. Seeing his colleagues kick out a reporter with whom he has developed a casual friendship is one of the last straws. The government’s lack of openness not just with the public but within its own ranks is its ultimate downfall, failing to connect with the state of the world in any meaningful way.

That detachment is one that pays off towards the end as the men in suits stand multiple storeys above the congregating factory workers below, staring in fear at what possible unionisation might be taking place to dethrone them from their tower. The sequence is wordless but powerful, delivering both a sense of unease and a taste of hopeful change on the horizon. Perhaps this potential uprising could have been averted had there been more men like Stefan in the Party, though that may be too optimistic for Kieslowski. As far as we see in The Scar, Poland’s soulless, corrupt bureaucracy is operating exactly as it was intended.

The Scar is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

James Gray | 1hr 55min

Recently paroled gangster Leo Handler finds himself at a similar turning point in The Yards as the one which Michael Corleone faced many years before in The Godfather. The decision to either follow in the footsteps of the family business or turn against its patriarch is absolutely pivotal to both journeys, and one that James Gray chooses to examine even closer than his predecessor, Francis Ford Coppola. In placing the dilemma under intensive moral examination, a pervasive unpredictability underscores Gray’s dramatic tensions, constantly ready to tip over these family dynamics into full-blown antagonism. Even if The Yards is not a wholly original crime drama, it still retains a freshness in moving its study of classical corruption and redemption arcs in inverse yet complementary directions.

Perhaps in 2000, three years out from Boogie Nights, it might have seemed that Mark Wahlberg was destined for a career trajectory that would place him among the best actors of his generation. He is by no means weak here as the morally conflicted Leo, but within this well-rounded cast of established and newer talents, he is not afforded a lot of chances to dominate the screen. It is his young co-stars, Charlize Theron and Joaquin Phoenix, who often carry greater urgency in their performances, and Phoenix especially whose disintegrating integrity as Willie sets in motion some of the film’s most heartbreaking moments.

On the older end of the spectrum, it is surely no coincidence that Gray calls in James Caan from The Godfather to play the equivalent Marlon Brando role, bearing more than a striking resemblance to the Don with his thin moustache and slicked back hair. Frank Olchin heads this shady crime family from the dim light of his office which itself looks modelled off Vito Corleone’s, and in his close circle of confidantes Gray pulls in the talents of veteran actors Faye Dunaway and Ellen Burstyn. It is almost as if Coppola acolyte himself is setting in motion a passing of the torch between older and younger generations of Hollywood stars, lending an even greater weight to the ensuing havoc wreaked upon cultural traditions.

It is fitting that we first meet Leo leaving prison on the same railway that his family exerts corrupt control over, heading towards a welcome home party where each key player is introduced one by one amid joyous celebrations. Gray lights this world with murky yellow and green lighting, not unlike that which David Fincher was innovating at the time with Seven and Fight Club, and the visual impact is tangible. Through hospitals, houses, and train yards, moral ambiguity dominates our characters’ journeys, wrapping them in an uneasy atmosphere crafted by their elders as if to test their loyalty and fortitude.

As Leo and Willie travel along divergent paths from the inciting incident that sees them accidentally hospitalise one man and kill another while out on a vandalising job, The Yards grows progressively gloomier in its lighting, accompanying them with an ever-encroaching visual darkness. Guilt weighs heavy on both their consciences, and yet most of the blame lands squarely Leo. Perhaps this is partially what motivates him to seek some sort of redemption, while a relatively unscathed Willie submits to his angriest, most jealous impulses.

Ultimately, it is not just the actions of one man speaking the truth that brings down this crime family. It is just as much the reckless impulsivity of its own loyal children that sees them fall from glory. If Leo is who Michael could have been had he turned against the family, then The Yards might as well be an alternate proposition to The Godfather’s statement of generational decline. Whether it is by corrupting old traditions or bringing them down through the force of justice, the ties of family are not destined to last long in these modern worlds. At least in The Yards, the youth who survive retain some dignity.

The Yards is not currently available to stream in Australia.

Denis Villeneuve | 2hr 10min

There are shocking family secrets buried within the Marwan family history that are enough to make your skin crawl. Even more chilling is just how obscured they are – no one living or dead really knows the whole truth until the puzzle pieces come together in the present day, revealing a devastating reality entwined with the very being of its parents and descendants. Simply the process of uncovering these fragments of history is a hefty task unto itself, seeing twins Jeanne and Simon travel back to their deceased mother’s home country in the Middle East so they may deliver letters to a father they didn’t realise was still alive, and a brother they never knew they had. Incendies in English translates to ‘Fires’, plural, but as Denis Villeneuve drives his gripping narrative towards a moment of truth, each of these tiny mysteries coalesce into something far more singular than anyone might have predicted.

Though it is the children who peel back the layers of the past, it is their mother, Nawal, who we stick with for much of the film. Her character is based partially on real-life figure Souha Bechara, a Lebanese communist militant who attempted to assassinate Antoine Lahad, the prominent leader of the South Lebanese Amy. Parallels aren’t drawn too heavily given the creative licence present, and so the Middle Eastern nation in this story goes unnamed, with only the fictional Daresh being named as the city that Nawal must escape from after a civil war breaks out. Right from the start, we recognise her life as truly harrowing – her lover is murdered, she is exiled from her family, her baby is forcibly taken, and this isn’t to mention her fifteen years of imprisonment during which she was raped by a guard.

Villeneuve skilfully weaves in these flashbacks throughout Jeanne and Simon’s search for their missing relatives, tracing paths through old neighbours, nurses, caretakers, and warlords who all seem to hold some piece of the puzzle. Chapter titles also serve to introduce new characters and locations, cleverly interacting with our assumed perspective at one point when we believe we are following Nawal’s son, Nihad, scavenging for food through bombed streets. Suddenly, the boy is shot, and we discover that the real Nihad is perched up in a building with a sniper rifle, training to kill for the Christian nationalists.

All through these flashbacks, Incendies doesn’t let up in its brutality. It is evident that Nawal is only able to get by on her own wits, but even that isn’t enough to save those around her as well. Though she disguises herself as a Muslim to escape a city on a bus, she quickly reidentifies as Christian after the vehicle is stopped by nationalists, and upon being let go free, she pushes her luck by pretending to be the mother of another’s child. Sadly, the young girl doesn’t possess the same self-control under dire circumstances. As the bus burns in the background, Villeneuve captures an affecting shot of Nawal’s profile in the foreground, set against the orange flames and black smoke, and suffering through a tremendous grief.

Given the scope of a single life that Villeneuve covers in Incendies, it is also appropriate for him to blow it up in scale as well, and through the abundant helicopter shots capturing urban and rural landscapes, the widespread harshness of it all sets in. Tied to that harshness is a tragedy that is as equally extensive, and between the two there is a symbiotic relationship, allowing them to feed off each other across war zones and within individuals. As much as Jeanne and Simon would like to believe the conflict of their mother’s past was a case of inherently bad men and victims with pure souls, the lines are revealed to be blurrier and far more disturbing than they would like to believe. The characters of Incendies contain remarkable depths, hidden not just to others, but to themselves as well, and it is only when they are brought light that anyone can reckon with the true root of human suffering.

Incendies is currently streaming on SBS On Demand, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.

Mimi Cave | 1hr 57min

In a way, even knowing the title of this film is a spoiler. It isn’t until thirty minutes in that first-time director Mimi Cave transforms the rom-com thriller conventions of Fresh into full-blown horror, announcing loudly with its opening credits what exactly this story is going to be about. Up until then, the horrendous exchanges that Noa has had with men through online dating run an undercurrent of tension beneath the story, though not without some hope that she may eventually meet a more ideal match. Then, one day in a grocery store, she meets Steve. Perhaps he is a little odd in the way he phrases things – “I just don’t eat animals” could simply be a roundabout way of saying he’s a vegetarian – but unlike so many other men, he is funny, charming, and seemingly harmless.

By the time he tells Noa explicitly what his intentions are with her, the heavy foreshadowing has well and truly done its job. Close-ups on his chewing mouth, lingering shots on bared flesh, and his frequent conversations about food only barely conceal his covert cannibalism. Or perhaps industrial cannibalism is a better description, given his day job of kidnapping women, cutting them up, and sending the pieces off to wealthy men with perverse, ravenous appetites.

In his luxury home deep within a forest, he has cells for keeping his captives chained up, an operating theatre for taking pieces of their body, and cold rooms for meat storage. Within these walls, Cave crafts a visually sumptuous atmosphere of red lighting and production design, bleeding through the carpet, décor, and even large art murals against which she stages her actors in arresting compositions. There is a slight Italian giallo influence in this colourfully expressionistic imagery, consistent with the sensationalist gore that Cave savours with macabre delight. This disgust which she so effectively provokes goes beyond visceral reactions to the butchery, but develops further into a revolted moral outrage as she flicks through montages of Steve’s affluent customers dining on their gruesome deliveries.

Within Noa’s disorientated perspective, her prison is a sinister, upside-down dating game that she must play against her captor to stay alive. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan establish an alluring chemistry between both characters in their strange dynamic, with Noa playing the part of a compliant love interest to slowly earn his trust. Cave’s metaphor for abusive relationships is skilfully constructed in these interactions, particularly when Noa begins to adopt his dark sense of humour and share in his cannibalistic meals to reclaim some power for herself. As for Steve, Cave never lets the terror fade from his character even when he is at his most charming, turning his operating theatre into a funhouse of mirrors that fragment and multiply his intimidating figure all through the space.

From a narrative standpoint, there are several plot beats in Fresh where the Get Out influence encroaches a bit too far in on its own originality, letting it come off as derivative in those overly familiar horror conventions. It is partially this reason which makes the final act feel rushed in its execution, brushing over all the expected developments one might expect from a horror of this ilk while letting a handful of other narrative threads go unresolved. Cave’s immaculate crafting of atmospheric tension through her camerawork and visual design may exceed her ability to craft a wholly original story, but in the end that is all Fresh needs to succeed as a thrillingly feminist tale of subjugation and vengeance, pulling us along in its tight, repulsive grip.

Fresh is currently streaming on Disney Plus.