Let The Corpses Tan, 2018.
Directed by Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani.
Starring Elina Löwensohn, Stéphane Ferrara, Bernie Bonvoisin, Michelangelo Marchese, Marc Barbé, Marine Sainsily, Hervé Sogne, and Pierre Nisse.
SYNOPSIS:
A gang of thieves with over 250kg of gold try to hide out in a French island retreat. However, there are all sorts of complications; a love triangle with the writer who lives there, a sexually devious muse, disloyalty among the crew and of course, the police find them. This descends into a day-long stand off where corruption and double crosses erupt from the madness.
Cattet and Forzani’s vibrant thriller opens with credits typical of 80s horror movies, homaging maestros of the genre but particularly alluding to Dario Argento. This is quickly followed up with a cerebral punch of a gunshot played against the picturesque surroundings – this foreshadows some sort of terror mixing with the idyllic, ‘trouble in paradise’ you could say.
One of the things that’s immediately striking about the feature is its imagery. There’s a sequence woven throughout the whole thing with a mysterious, elusive naked silhouette being worshipped in several ways by men. In one scene their throwing gold glitter and paint all over her and rubbing her down; in another a man is buried beneath the sand amidst the ants (insects which are drawn as comparisons quite frequently for the scuttling of the main characters) while this woman pees on him and laughs; in one of the later sequences, she is tied up against a cross, almost like a crucifixion, but instead of drawing blood the various men drain her of her liquid and drink it. Sounding a little bit weird yet?
These moments are dropped in at random moments throughout the narrative, feeling like split-decisions made in the editing room in efforts to take an otherwise straightforward action outing to deeper depths of art. Really, the erotic imagery detracts from the fun, leaving you feeling a little disorientated and probably uttering to yourself, “What the hell was that?”
The filmmakers’ stylish indulgence is their greatest flaw, with the confounding imagery starting off as a visceral, impactful addition but only serving to cause confusion as the chaos accelerates. It’s a shame, because there’s a lot of really fantastic work here. The central heist isn’t shown, instead only the getaway. In this heart-thumping sequence, they stop to pick up a stranded mother and child, quizzing them, assessing the risk factor they add to their job. As the car races along, the camera cuts to super close ups, to gold bricks, to the tires, to the road, to a stop watch. It’s racing stuff, and the film succeeds at continuing this strong editing throughout.
The influence of Tarantino is supremely present here – the flash zooms, the ultra-violence, the multi-character ensemble face off. If the famous director tackled a french heist flick, this is pretty much what it would be like. The gunplay is striking and bracing, constantly given mystery through the relentless ‘who dunnit’ structure of the narrative, at times feeling like the repeated shooting in The Thin Blue Line. As far as all day shoot em’ ups go, it’s not a patch on Ben Wheatley’s underrated Free Fire – but it understood what people want from a film like this. Pure bullet fights, simple as that. But as Let The Corpses Tan plods along and drags into its final half hour, it struggles to tie the profoundly weird background to the more thrilling events in reality.
The attention to each character is pretty weak. Considering this is played as an ensemble piece, you’ll likely find yourself questioning whether you actually understand what’s happening and who’s who. The film is dangerously incoherent and disjointed, with the unnecessary stylish flourishes (keep an eye out for the coloured filters ripped straight from the final act of 2001: A Space Odyssey) conflicting with the time driven narrative. The events are split up into the times of the day, but this is another way in which the writers, also Cattet and Forzani, initially succeed but fail to give continuing purpose that isn’t for the sake of being artsy.
For an effort with such serious issues, it is still a great effort. It’s a try at something more than a large face-off; an attempt at infusing the psychedelic into a simple structure we’re all quite familiar with – it just doesn’t always work. That being said, the sound design is frankly astonishing, smothering you in the slightest of clicks and breaths. Fastidious is its combination with the consistent close ups too, a very evocative technique which places our characters psyche as a main focus rather than the danger of their surroundings. For the most part, it feels like a neo-western, slightly exploitive work, given some extra nostalgic life through the brilliant score composed by Simon Jamart; fans of Morricone will most certainly be pleased.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Cameron Frew – @FrewFilm
