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LET THE CORPSES TAN
Directors: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani Cast: Elina Löwensohn, Stéphane Ferrara, Bernie Bonvoisin, Michelangelo Marchese, Marc Barbé, Marine Sainsily, Hervé Sogne, Pierre Nisse, Aline Stevens, Dorylia Calmel, Dominique Troyes MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:32 Release Date: 8/31/18 (limited); 9/28/18 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 27, 2018 There aren't real characters in Let the Corpses Tan. There aren't even archetypes. Generously, the players here are pawns, set in motion by a plot about stolen gold. More accurately, they are bodies to be moved from place to place in an isolated location, to shoot and be shot at, and to die in gruesome ways. Co-writers/co-directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani possess no higher ambitions for this material (based on Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid's novel), though, and it shows in how this story has been assembled. It darts through time, repeatedly showing us the same events from multiple angles, with the somewhat helpful intertitle of a clock, which flashes on screen for a brief second or two between the shifts. In one scene, someone might be shot, and immediately, Cattet and Forzani go back to the start of the sequence of events that led to the violence. We'll see it from the person who did the shooting, and then it goes back again, in order to show us someone who may have witnessed it or heard from a different place. It might sound like chronological whiplash, and it is at first, as we try to get our bearings and figure out which characters are aligned or in conflict with other ones. At a certain point—particularly when the entire story becomes nothing more than a series of shootouts, double-crosses, betrayals, and schemes, all of them leading up to more shootouts—we determine that these characters don't especially matter. It's all about movement—from one hiding place to another, from one side of the conflict to the other, from one moment in time to the same moment in time from another angle. As such, the movie is an invigorating, hyper-stylized exercise in choreography and editing, until we further realize that the movie is that—and only that (Some dreamy scenes about a naked woman, who represents fate or greed or something else, only add to the initial confusion). A plot summary would be pointless, but to be brief, it's about a group of gangsters whose armored truck robbery goes wrong when a couple of cops show up at their hideout. From there, it's controlled chaos. Let the Corpses Tan is best described as a ride. Unfortunately, it's one with early thrills that eventually become routine through repetition. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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