4 Review

‘The possibility of becoming the same as everyone else, not only in my behaviour, but in my inner structure would make me unable to feel real things, and would formalise everything – this is of such great concern to me that the film turned out to be partially about this. It’s about different-sameness.’ So says the director, Ilya Khrzahnovsky, on 4 (2005), a strange film about the odd concept of ‘different-sameness’, although even the DVD blurb is big enough to admit ‘it’s quite clear that something is going on – even if we don’t know what’.   

The film opens with prostitute Marina (Marina Vovchenko), meat merchant Oleg (Yuri Laguta) and piano tuner Volodya (Sergey Shnurov) randomly meeting in a bar, only to each begin constructing alternate identities for themselves. Marina passes herself off as a marketing manager for a new Japanese gizmo, Oleg pretends to work for the president (albeit only supplying him with bottled water) and Volodya claims to work on the secretive cloning operation that has worked successfully underground in Russia for years.

This first hour of the film is the strongest, as each lie slowly comes back in some way to haunt the characters, some even finding their actual lives becoming just as fictional as the fibs told in the bar. Constantly filmed in interesting ways with a brilliantly disgusting sound design, 4 (for it’s 1^st half at least) provides an interesting comment on the idea that our lives run smoothly thanks to the lies we tell. These characters seem to share Khrzahnovsky’s fear of becoming the same as everyone else and so invent these alternative lifestyles that, for one conversation at least, propel them out of the drudgery of their real lives and into important roles in society.

I have never been to Russia and thanks to the images seen in 4, I don’t think I ever really want to. Stray dogs roam the streets and can be found in almost every frame of the film set outside. Huge bulldozers and other heavy machinery clog the atmosphere with smoke. The people in the film make the faces of Fellini look desirable as Khrzahnovsky appears to have cast those with only, shall we say, unusually put together faces; all helping to cast Russia in a delightfully nightmarish glow.

And yet, despite the undeniably bleak landscapes and communities who look older than they probably are, the film is full of darkly comic moments. One scene in which two old ladies pull, tug and slap their own bare breasts is a sure-fire laugh or cry moment, depending on your tolerance for 75-year old stretch marks.

The film’s lack of any real point does begin to outstay its welcome when Marina goes to a funeral full of old women who make dolls from chewed up pieces of bread but despite this, 4 is ultimately an interesting, visually arresting, albeit pointless film that raises some interesting questions about the inconvenience that is truth.

Here’s the opening minute of the film. It very much starts as it means to go on so this is a fairly decent test to see if you’ll be able to stomach this kind of inventive but seemingly meaningless action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FcUyGAapjg&feature=player_embedded

Insidious Review

Just when you thought 2011 was shaping up to be a bit of a poor year for horror (The Rite, The Roommate and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never spring to mind) along comes Insidious, the new film from Saw’s James Wan to provide a some long overdue cinema scares.

The film sees Renai (Rose Byrne) and Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) move into a nice, big new house with their three kids. After some small, but severely strange goings on, their son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), falls into a coma and triggers the start of some seriously creepy activity in the house.

Horror films seem to be the easiest to deem good or bad. Did it scare you? If so, it’s good, if not, then bad. Insidious scared me several times. The first hour of the film contains more than enough jumps, scares and subtly terrifying moments to heartily recommend it to both horror fans and anyone looking for a few sleepless nights.

There are nasty images that linger in the mind, figures that invade the screen from every, unexpected angle and an opening sequence that, although brief, was ingrained in my mind long after the credits stop rolling. (Largely because at the end of the credits, the opening, ghoulish image is seen again).

In these kinds of films, particular moments and sequences stand out. Whistling shadows in M (1931), a ball going down the stairs in The Changeling (1980), THAT bit in Inside (2007) the flashing face in The House of the Devil (2009), the woman who lives downstairs getting some air in Martyrs (2008), take your pick from The Exorcist (1973). Thankfully, Insidious has one of these stand out moments that involves dancing and ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’ by Tiny Tim; one of the most effective songs used in a horror film in a long time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6qDOprU-Ps. Have a listen and try your very best to sleep with the lights off. Horrible.

Despite the scares, the characters seemed difficult to care about, but then again, horror is a bit of a selfish genre. Its not about them, it’s about you. You need to be scared. You need to look through your fingers. You need to shit your pants. If the characters strike a chord, it’s generally a bonus.

The film does stumble in its last twenty minutes, leaving the corridors of the haunted house and dipping into fantasy; a move that contained some scary moments, but generally stilted the tension that went before it which is a shame as had it kept up the atmospherics of its first hour, Insidious could have been a modern gem.

As it is, Insidious won’t win any prizes for originality, but despite losing its way in the second half, has more scares in it than anything seen in a while and with some truly memorable sequences, jumps galore and disturbing images that I’m finding hard to shake off, the first hour and a bit of Insidious is brilliantly, terrifying stuff. All together now: Tiptoe by the window, that is where I’ll be, come tiptoe through the tulips with meeeeeeeeee.