Told in majestic monochrome , „Keyhole“ is a haunted house movie unlike any other.
It is a sorrowful waltz of grief.
Keyhole reunites the filmmaker with the divine Isabella Rossellini.
To this melancholic encounter he added ghosts of the past
– Méliès, Cocteau, Deren and Buñuel –
taking the old,
and arranging it into a delightfully new.
To this melancholic encounter he added ghosts of the past
– Méliès, Cocteau, Deren and Buñuel –
taking the old,
and arranging it into a delightfully new.
It is a film splintered like a broken mirror.
Its story strands of family secrets,
buried bodies (at sea) and betrayals.
Its story strands of family secrets,
buried bodies (at sea) and betrayals.
Keyhole begins with a criminal gang under siege.
They’re at the home of their leader Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric), the perfect anti-hero, straight out of a 40ies comic).
They’re at the home of their leader Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric), the perfect anti-hero, straight out of a 40ies comic).
This first scene resembles a different “key” movie,
John Huston’s 1948 film noir, Key Largo,
in which gangsters and their hostages
are hold up together
during a violent storm.
John Huston’s 1948 film noir, Key Largo,
in which gangsters and their hostages
are hold up together
during a violent storm.
In Keyhole,
the gangsters are in the kitchen,
the ghosts are in the hallways
and upstairs rooms.
the gangsters are in the kitchen,
the ghosts are in the hallways
and upstairs rooms.
It is a gangster drama built as a reverie,
as a Gothic fantasy
and as Greek mythology.
as a Gothic fantasy
and as Greek mythology.
But what’s it about?
The question is like asking what a dream is about.
As this one could firstly be interpreted
as a fable about marital breakdown
and the fight for reconciliation with the past.
The question is like asking what a dream is about.
As this one could firstly be interpreted
as a fable about marital breakdown
and the fight for reconciliation with the past.
The movie surface is archetypal,
absurd
and delirious.
It is shot in crisp black and white
with digital cameras and,
a couple of times,
bursting into colourful life.
absurd
and delirious.
It is shot in crisp black and white
with digital cameras and,
a couple of times,
bursting into colourful life.
The unusual inhabitants of the house
include Ulysses’ wife Hyacinth (Rossellini), several of his children,
and Hyacinth’s father Calypso / Camille (Louis Negin)
who spends the film naked
and unhappily chained to his daughter’s bed, and who serves
as the movie’s occasional narrator, periodically intoning
“Remember, Ulysses.”
Ulysses is led by a blind, drowned girl Denny (Brooke Palsson)
as he searches for his dead wife,
to whom he speaks to through keyholes.
Could she be Danae,
the princess who was set at sea
with her infant in a wooden chest?...
as he searches for his dead wife,
to whom he speaks to through keyholes.
Could she be Danae,
the princess who was set at sea
with her infant in a wooden chest?...
And the ghosts-count rises as bodies fall.
Jason Patric, virile and confident,
is spitting out tough-guy lines like:
“This kind of weather stirs me up.
Man’s weather.”
is spitting out tough-guy lines like:
“This kind of weather stirs me up.
Man’s weather.”
Keyhole is jam-packed with an artistic delightfull absurd,
such as a pit of fog where the gang dispose of the mounting corpses,
the appearance of a bicycle-powered electric chair,
or the observation that a male member is gathering dust if penetrating a wall.
Keyhole is an enchantment of chiaroscuro compositions
which float across the screen like a dream.
It is a film that brings back in our souls pure cinema.
which float across the screen like a dream.
It is a film that brings back in our souls pure cinema.
At some point Ulysses wants to count the casualties,
so he asks anyone who’s dead
to go and face the wall.
Several of the men oblige…
Perhaps then yes,
it is a Gothic phantasmagoria,
where Lynchian touches abound,
with ghosts and a courtyard
where things are buried.
The living, the long dead and the recently dead walk,
float
or are carried through the same corridors, and some of the living
don’t know they’re dead.
Throughout it all,
Ulysses keeps trying to get up the stairs, through the rooms
filled with family memories,
turning back clocks
and trying to enter his wife’s bedroom door.
Ulysses keeps trying to get up the stairs, through the rooms
filled with family memories,
turning back clocks
and trying to enter his wife’s bedroom door.
There are here echoes of James Joyce’s modern Ulysses,
a bit of Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (anatomical parts as decoration)
and a whole lot of sexual-mechanical fascinations
that disrupt the gloom
with rude jokes.
a bit of Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (anatomical parts as decoration)
and a whole lot of sexual-mechanical fascinations
that disrupt the gloom
with rude jokes.
This film is creepy, depraved and often funny!
On another level, this work, strangely commissioned
by the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University,
is conceptual.
is conceptual.
It is an exercise
of a repeatedly frustrated narrative,
which turns into a repeatedly intriguing, repeatedly frustrating,
exercise.
of a repeatedly frustrated narrative,
which turns into a repeatedly intriguing, repeatedly frustrating,
exercise.
It is a mystery with no solution...
by giulia ghica dobre
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