Saw Without Name (2016), a psychological horror about a land surveyor who starts to lose himself in a wild, mossy, tree-shrouded forest that he's been assigned to survey. The film is full of lovely creeping dread and sinister imagery. There's not a lot of jumps or axe-wielding maniacs, but the film is very nervy and pretty which I like better anyway.
The film is clearly about the tension between nature and human society. The protagonist's home is stark greys and whites, looking like a particularly severe Ikea show room. He pauses to look at a plant growing out of a crack in cement. In addition to the theme of society vs nature, there's the theme of society vs human nature. In addition to plastic and concrete, we have surly teenagers, nagging wives, bleeping macbooks. Wouldn't it be better just to wander in the welcoming green of the woods, forever lost and lost forever?
The film is relatively straightforward. There's overwhelming, psychedelic imagery and gobs of atmosphere, but it's a scary story in the vein of The Shining: a man losing his grip on reality in a strange land. I enjoyed the emphasis on nature and the timeliness of the climate-related paranoia. Soon enough, we may be much more at the mercy of nature than we were before. I for one hope I can get a few more films in before the water wars, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment