If
your life turned into a horror movie, it would probably be fun for a while to
find yourself amid a group of super-fit teenagers getting hammered and frisky.
On the other hand, it would be horrifying to wake up in an experimental film.
Suddenly, the world would be a grainy black-and-white place, where dour looking
Seventh Seal-style figures in black
would ominously hard-stare at you across forlorn vistas. In some ways, we will
take an excursion into that nether-zone where the two genres intersect, but
filmmaker Lee Eubanks always favors the obscurely symbolic avant-garde
tradition in It Takes from Within (trailer here), which releases today on DVD, from First Run Features.
We
meet a man and a woman bickering in a hideaway motel on the day of a funeral of
someone well known to him. Perhaps they are also the older couple seen in the
prologue, but it is hard to say, since nobody has names in this shadowy world.
Regardless, the man and woman played by Kristin Duarte and James Feagin are clearly
a long way down the Lynchian Lost Highway.
Eubanks
regularly plays with the motif of couples in various states of discord or distress.
Their relationship to each other and their partners is always kept ambiguous. Frankly,
there are any number of sinister encounters and evil imagery that would be
perfectly compatible with an old school horror movie, but Eubanks refuses to
invest them with the context and meaning to make them scary. By comparison,
Nikolas List’s Tombville shares a
somewhat similar experimental aesthetic (minimalist sets, existential
characters and settings), but because it is at least 25% more grounded in
narrative, it is exponentially more frightening—and more effective—and more memorable.
Yet,
ITFW exists on a plane unto itself,
which for all practical purposes makes it immune to any criticism that might be
leveled at it. Eubanks is obviously deeply steeped in critical theory and
postmodernism. He also composes some striking tableaux, which look starkly
beautiful though the lens of cinematographer Jason Crow, but that is about all
we have to work with.
If
you want a film that invites you to impose all the meaning unilaterally than
this is your catnip. On the other hand, if you prefer a film at least meets you
half way than you’re just hopelessly bourgeoise. It is what it is and you already
know if its your thing, so if it is, have at it, when It Takes from Within releases today (1/30) on DVD.
