(For more, read Chris' review here)
My daughter's at an age
where her imagination is starting to take shape as she interacts and
learns about the world around her. When she's not parroting an
inappropriate phrase she's overheard in our living room she's hosting
tea parties for her T-Rex figures or telling us about the “Silly
Gobble Gobbles” that live outside her window while whispering to
her at night. Often times it feels like my time to have great
adventures has passed, and everything I do is so she may one day have
hers, yet it's an idea I've made an odd sort of peace with. The world
is open for her to explore and take any path she wishes to choose,
and I can simply hope to offer gentle guidance towards any number of
them.
Yet there's the flip side
that I hate thinking about. What happens when the everyday banalities
press down from above and snuff out all hope and ambition? What if
the endless roads of dreams from childhood converge into a brick
wall, leaving one worn down and spiritless from the grind? What
happens when you just give up? That's the subject Montreal filmmaker
Eric Falardeau explores with his stunning feature Thanatomorphose.
Kayden
Rose stars as a young artist at the end of her frayed rope. She
suffers through a loveless relationship with an abusive boyfriend.
She's suffered professional rejection and her latest sculpture sits
covered and locked away, untouched by her hands for long spells of
time. She's given up, and admits as much lying next to her boyfriend
one night after a passionless bout of lovemaking that serves as a
means for him to dump his seed into her. She's done with life, with
dreaming, and with having false hopes and ambitions. She shuffles
through nondescript days as an emotionless husk.
Then
Rose begins rotting away.
Thanatomorphose takes its name from the act
of the flash rotting off the body in death and serves as the fate for
Rose's character from the moment she gives in. It starts small with
simple bruising (the boyfriend makes offhand jokes about him striking
her being the cause). It's not long before she can no longer hide the
blemishes with makeup and a change in hairstyle as her organ putrefy.
It's not long before her skin is blackens, leaving it rotten and
tacky. In one of an unending string of humiliations she loses control
of her faculties, streaming shit and piss down the back of her legs.
At the hour mark her appendages begin to slough off, leaving rose to
either duck tape them back on, or store the bits in mason jars, while maggots devour her from the inside out.
Despite her deteriorating and alarming condition Rose (and by
extension Falardeau) approaches the early stages of her condition
with the same detachment and acceptance The practical effects
Falardeau employs are both stunning and stomach turning in their
brilliance.
While
the mainstream regurgitates the same roles for women, dividing parts
between survivor girls and whores, the independent circuit has
crafted nuanced and complex characters ripe for exploration. Kayden
Rose takes her place alongside Gretchen Lodge (Lovely Molly)
and Katherine Isabelle (American Mary) atop the best
performances of the year. The role calls for Rose to suffer through
graphic debasement throughout as her character is torn down to shreds
before she's allowed to build her up ever so slightly towards the
end. She spends the majority of the film naked, she's used as a
sexual afterthought by two partners and has no one to turn to as her
condition worsens. In one of the toughest scenes to sit through she
feliates her boy-on-the-side. The camera locks on his expression that
is locked in a duel between euphoria and disgust. It's not long
before he gives in to the former, gripping rose by the back of her
head (digging a finger in to a hole in her skull) and finishing his
business before bolting out the door.
Watching
Thanatomorphose, I couldn't help but think of Tolstoy's The
Death of Ivan Ilych, specifically the line “Ivan Ilych's life
had been most ordinary and therefore most terrible”. Rose's fate is
set the moment her first bruise shows. Yet the woman that emerges out
of the shit hand she's dealt is more formidable than the emotionless
husk we first meet. As her body deteriorates Rose takes command of
her anger, her sexuality and her art in ways she was unable to
before. The most telling sign is the reemergence of her cast of
sculpting project. While her worsening condition leaves Rose unable
to ply the clay, the image of her fingernails embedded in the lump
represent a victory of sorts.
Thanatomorphose
may be the best independent work I've reviewed this year. Equal parts
horrific, challenging and calculating, it's unlike any other film
that's come my way. The obvious comparison when it comes to body
horror is Falardeau's fellow Canadian David Cronenberg. Like the
master, Falardeau punishes the physical form in order to explore
deeper seated neurosis.
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