Instead
of Gialos, Belgian filmmakers Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani are now paying
homage to Italian Poliziotteschi movies, but there is still plenty of patent
leather for them to fetishize over. They must swoon whenever they pass a Coach
store. It is still a case of style over substance, but at least they give
viewers a little bit of plot-like stuff in Let
the Corpses Tan (trailer
here),
which opens tomorrow in New York.
Although
it is based on famously untranslated French cult novel, Cattet & Forzani
are still more interested in reveling in the images and tropes of Italian genre
cinema (as was even more the case in their gialo pastiches, Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears), than telling a story, which
is so bourgeoisie. In some ways, this orgy of double-crosses and shoot-outs
shares a kinship with the remake of Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs, but it has a far less cohesive narrative than its
predecessor.
Most
of the action takes place in the Mediterranean ruins surrounding Luce’s villa,
which serves as an artist colony and a crash pad for anti-social anarchists.
She has been whiling away the time with her dissipated ex-lover, Max Bernier, a
burned out novelist, and Brisorguiel, the slimy lawyer she has been hooking up
with. Rhino’s gang is indeed expected, because Luce digs rough outlaw types,
but she did not know they had planned to heist gold bullion from an armored car
before their arrival (not that she would have cared). Rhino is even
sufficiently cool and collected to give a lift to Bernier’s estranged wife,
their daughter, and the nanny, after executing the uniformed couriers.
True
to criminal form, things get awkward quickly when the gang breaks into two
hostile, double-crossing factions, led by Rhino and Brisorguiel. Then two
motorcycle cops blunder into the scene. From here on out, the film basically boils
down to a series of armed skirmishes. However, the characterization is so thin,
it is often impossible to figure out who is shooting at whom.
That
is really a shame, because they no-fooling helm some impressively down-and-dirty
action sequences. Unfortunately, they insist on punctuating the blazing gun
fights with trippy interludes featuring scenes from a scatological passion
play, in which Luce plays a fluid-spouting Mary Magdalene-slash-satanic figure.
Even if you do not self-identify with Christianity, these nauseating fever
dreams are just interminably painful to sit throw. Oh, for the love of Dario
Argento and Franco Nero, show us some mercy.
Once
again, the real star of Cattet & Forzani’s film is their regular cinematographer
Manuel Dacosse, who achieves some amazing visuals with a 16mm camera, the
Corsican sun, and who knows how many Red Bulls. The film looks great and it is
by far the duo’s most accessible work, but there is still not a lot of there
there. Again, style has it all over substance. Recommended primarily for the
Belgian filmmakers’ fans, Let the Corpses
Tan opens tomorrow (8/31) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.
