Jena and her fellow rider evidently enjoy feeling the wind in their hair as they motorcycle helmetless down lonely country roads. The fog though is a little too much forcing them to stop at truly gothic looking hotel. It seems the proprietors have been expecting them, or at least Jena’s companion, whom they can see, but she cannot, yet. It seems the uncanny woman has arranged to do some ominous business at their establishment, once the creepy staff leaves her to it.
Viewers soon learn Jena and the strange woman are profoundly connected and once she reveals herself, it is supposed to be curtains for the mortal woman. To the surprise of her ghostly captor, Jena’s will to live proves quite strong. Much like the knight in The Seventh Seal (a head-smackingly obvious influence on Mortem), Jena shows great resourcefulness navigating the games and rituals of death. As the fateful night advances, the stakes increase for everyone.
Mortem is a very strange stylistic and tonal hodgepodge. The opening scenes play like high camp, but as it cranks up the metaphysics, it gets deadly serious. It is almost like David Lynch took over the helm of Gene Wilder’s Haunted Honeymoon after the first fifteen minutes. Fortunately though, this is no Lost Highway. Atlan actually wants viewers to follow his story, which seems to follow its internal rules well enough once established.
It will still baffle the lowest common denominator, but at least Atlan offers them some steamy distractions. As it happens, Jena’s mysterious tormentor likes her a lot, which gives her a weakness to exploit. Indeed, for a surreal and cerebral genre movie mash-up, Mortem is rather hot.
Atlan and Marc Bercovitz, the co-producer and co-composer of the deliberately overbearing Bernard Hermann on steroids score, were clearly not concerned about going too far over the top with Mortem. In a way though, that is rather refreshing. It has been a while since a film has really gone for broke, but this one certainly does.
Panchenko Daria and Diana Rudychenko are, yes attractive, but also pretty compelling as the supernatural chess players. While their characters could easily be reduced to archetypal cut-outs, they suggest each has a real emotional investment in the face-off.
