We Are the Flesh

It is very hard to have an opinion about We are the Flesh: in one way it says nothing at all,, but on the other hand it shows a great apocalyptic vision of people brought together in a situation driven to despair... at least in some way. I didn't like the boredom of the movie,, but I highly cheer for the level of experimenting in this movie.

Wish I could say it wasn't that bad, I like it, or rather parts of it.

When I saw the poster at a local theater I was thinking this was going to be a Si-Fi horror film. Even the synopsis gave me this ideal, and it was horrifying but more in a human way rather than super natural.

So two kids end up in a place were they meet a man whose out of his mind and the three have bizarre sexual encounters with one another.

I did like the crazy dude in the film, he was disturbing in that horrific sort of way.

Plus, I can't give a movie to low of a score considering it had so much awesome nudity and strong sexual content in it (Just being honesty).

But what I was expecting from the small paragraph that help me get interested in seeing the movie was not what I ended up seeing. I felt the ad campaign was met to be a metaphor of something. We Are the Flesh is very similar to M. Night Shyamalan's the Village in that all it's not what it seems, but with far less story (Or no story at all cause I really have no idea what this movie is about or trying to say).

When the movie starts and I realizes that it's a very small indi film in a foreign language I was expecting far more talking, but a lot of what I got was interpretive movement and in your face nudity (Which is where I think the actual name of the film was met to be about).

So I'm into hard core sex in mainstream movies but whatever the filmmakers wanted me to feel by watching this experimental feature I did not feel (Unless they wanted me to feel horny).

Never trust reviews from people who walk out of a movie. Reviews are opinions stressed by people who watched the whole film. When people write reviews of films they walked out of, that's not a review: it's an uninformed comment.

This is as much as a review as it is an honest opinion by someone who watched the film in its entirety. Keeping in mind that great films shouldn't be loved by everyone.

We Are the Flesh is a cinematic version of dark thoughts and ideas most people immediately remove from their train of thought. As long as you are human enough to understand what is right and wrong in reality, there isn't a single thing wrong with examining dark and even grim thoughts that every single human being has from time to time.

This film explores those themes and presents them in ways that are meant to be hard to watch. These are themes that you normally wouldn't bring up in random conversations with random people. These are themes that aren't meant to be visited often but should be explored at least once. Just to see what they look like. Just to see what dark and grim things you otherwise would not have in your life (by choice) but are curious to see the repercussions from the vile acts that go on in dark places.

For me, We Are the Flesh depicts a horrid version of common, hopeless and deprived humanity. It's a brief example of those dark things I never would allow myself to act upon physically or emotionally. But I find those areas of the unknown panning out visually stimulating. Afterward, I can walk away when the film ends satisfied for experiencing a story that made me think of things I don't want to think about. But I can leave those dark questions answered by putting them behind me and leaving them with this film.

Which to me, makes for a wonderful and well made film.

Rated TV-MA in the version I saw, but certainly not for any television station I could ever think of. Way rougher than that. There is an abundance of flesh, often shown in different color filters, which add impact to the scenes. It is supposed to be set in a ruined city in a decrepit building, where two young people come across a rather disturbed man who seems in charge of the building. He gives them shelter and food, and in return they work to erect structures inside the building. The two are brothers and sisters. It is difficult to say anything more without spoiling the movie. To say the least, it is rather far out. But also intriguing. Certainly not for everyone. Many wold appreciate the creative use of color and shadow in telling the story. I am straddling the rating, as some may rate it higher for the unique approach to film making, and others lower due to the subject matter.

I read a lot about this film before seeing it, and not many people had anything nice to say about it. It's being regarded as a crime against humanity! With that, I don't agree. I found the beginning to have been very well acted and the theme was setup well.

Then, it just goes off the rails in some surrealist artsy-fartsy direction that loses grip on what it was about in the first place (freedom = exploring the dark corners of your mind and embracing your taboo). It's not nearly as controversial as Serbian Film or Nekromantik, so if that's the hangup, people need to get over themselves. You spend 59 minutes of the 79 minute film not really knowing what is going on. All you can do is take in the pretty camera-work, which I thought was excellent. The musical selection was also really good. Basically, I wanted to hate this, but I'm able to easily find some noteworthy aspects to prevent me from throwing it away altogether.

This film is a bold slap in the face to the big studios who put out the same exercises in banality week after week. When you see the same romantic comedy and superhero movie over and over again, filmmakers tend to try to shock to get attention. Clearly We Are The Flesh accomplished that in spades with a mediocre film.