We’re
not psychiatrists mind you, but we still caution against combining a mid-life
crisis with an isolated locale and a satchel full of psychedelic drugs. Eric
the independent land surveyor is a good case study. His latest job will take
him deep into the eco-heart of darkness in Lorcan Finnegan’s Without Name (trailer here), which screens during
this year’s Seattle International Film Festival.
Eric’s
marriage is on the rocks, partly because his wife more or less knows he is
having an affair with his grad student-intern, Olivia. Their relationship has
also been strained lately, but he still needs her assistance on his latest gig.
His practice would ordinarily be too small for a job of this size, but his corporate
client appreciates his reputation for “discretion.”
Fortunately,
the company found him digs in an ominous looking cottage, left vacant since the
previous tenant went insane and disappeared into the woods. He left behind a
hand-written volume on the power of trees that looks like it holds plenty of
relevant warnings, but Eric is not paying attention. He is too preoccupied with
his suspicions regarding Gus, the mushroom-tripping camper-dwelling drifter,
whom Olivia is so obviously attracted to. Both the surveyor and his assistant
have some strange “lost time” incidents in the woods, but nothing they can’t
shake off, until Eric overindulges in the ‘shrooms, throwing open his doors of
perception (and letting in evil Mother Nature).
If
the return of Twin Peaks is not
enough to scare you out of the woods, Without
Name ought to finish the job. It is smarter and more disciplined than The Hallow, the last previous uncanny
forestry horror film to hail from Ireland, but you could say it is moody to a
fault. Generally, it is always a better genre strategy to suggest than to
explicitly show, but Finnegan maybe pushes the point too far. Still, he
masterfully sets the scene and stokes the foreboding vibe. Cinematographer
Piers McGrail and the sound effects team also contribute distinctively creepy
work that really helps establish and maintain the film’s disturbingly surreal tone.
It
is indeed frightfully convincing to watch Alan McKenna’s Eric slowly descend
into paranoia and madness. Even in the early scenes, he is so tightly wound,
you could get a migraine just from looking at him. On the other hand, Niamh
Algar plays Olivia with such shallow petulance, it is hard to buy into their
relationship, especially considering Eric’s wife is played by the striking
looking Olga Wehrly (granted, she is frosty with him, but she has good reason).
