Sirenengesang

Not going to lie, I had no idea about this film till I saw the upcoming artwork for the release of this film on Criterion Collection. I was instantly intrigued. Mermaids? Hell yeah! I don't think I've seen anything from Polish cinema; I only really watch foreign films when there is a good amount of buzz for a film and I feel I need to see it. I have to say this film is weird and bizarre but overall I felt it was quite creative despite not always hitting the right notes (not a pun on this being a musical, I swear).

The film is about two beautiful mermaids who befriend a rock band and then use their condition to become part of the group and entertain fans. Along the way one of the mermaids falls in love with a group member and longs to become a human to win his affection. The other has blood lust and is out to slash the throats and eat the hearts of men. Visually the performance scenes and the presentation of other dark scenes are done wonderfully.

I thought the film had a nice mix of being a horror film, a fantastical film, and a rock opera. The music was often catchy although I wasn't sure about the lyrics at all times (since they were very literal). The film is fairly erotic and captivating mainly due to the beauties of the two leads. The film does well to bring in mermaid lore and showing them as violent even if they may look beautiful. It basically felt like a horror take of The Little Mermaid at times.

My only concern is the film felt kind of imbalanced since it seemed fluid and didn't have a strong sense of accomplishing anything. Scenes just occur one into the next and seem like a progression without any real motivation. It's still a highly imaginative venture one that left an imprint, as I am sure was the intention. I'm not sure if I will pick it up on Criterion blu-ray but I am pretty pleased with the sort of outlandish nature of what was presented.

7.5/10

Criterion is the label - for special titles. Some say for classics (instant or not), others refer to the label for special movies in general. Movies that may not fit into a category. So this fits that category. It may not be a classic for various reasons, but at the end you may see and hopefully feel something that comes close to that feeling.

Up to that point there is some pacing issues, some timeline jumping issues and some issues with people and the way they behave, when faced with ... well our female main characters. If you can call their characters female that is. There is nudity, there is violence and there is singing too. A lot actually, so if you have issues with one or more of those things, this may not be for you in the first place. Otherwise a modern day fairy tale is what you get ...

It was hard picking a rating for the movie because the highs are so high and the lows are so low. One thing is for sure though, The Lure is definitely worth seeing, preferably on the big screen.

The film starts on the banks of a dirty river where a family are singing and drinking. They encounter two young girls in the water, sirens who sing about wanting to be lifted out of the water. The family, who turn out to form a band in a sleazy cabaret, see an opportunity to use the girls for their own purposes and they soon have them performing as a sort of singing/strip tease act the highlight of which is when at the end of their song they dive into the water and their land legs transform bag into their fish tails.

Let's get one thing straight: the script for The Lure isn't big on making sense. Characters drop in and out to explain exposition in a ham-handed fashion, the musical numbers are scattered infrequently throughout the movie and the English lyrics are difficult to parse and seem to have little relation to what's going on on screen.

Yet somehow the movie still contains a lot of charm. First time director Agnieszka Smoczynska seems to be having a ball co-ordinating the cheap glitzy glamour of the musical numbers. Actresses Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszanska are great in their roles as sister sirens Silver and Gold imbuing them with innocence even when their sleazy guardians use them both sexually and financially.

The movie flits with deeper themes like emotional heartbreak, sisterhood, exploitation, sex, work etc. but the script never gives more than a handful of minutes to each issue so they're never fully explored. That's too bad but at the same time if you turn your brain off and just try to enjoy the movie you're in for a wild ride like nothing you've ever seen before.

One would think that a story of predatory mermaids taking a holiday in a seedy cabaret could only be a disaster, but the filmmakers made it work here. This is a bit of a dark movie. I wish I understood Polish, because the subtitled lyrics of the songs were clunky compared with the fine voices of the leads playing the siren sisters.

Most of the musical numbers and dancing were well-choreographed, but a couple of sequences didn't quite gel. A bit less time is devoted to developing the most critical romance of the movie than it needed, which unfortunately lets a bit of air out of the ending.

The visuals and effects were surprisingly good. The mermaid tails especially were well done, with details such as broken scales and scars adding chilling realism. Be warned that some parts of the movie are a bit gruesome; the critical difference between traditional mermaids and their darker cousins is made clear on several occasions. Younger children probably shouldn't watch.

There are quite a few movies written around mermaids, but this is the first I have seen about sirens. Hollywood, take note-"The Lure" demonstrates that this area has a lot of dramatic potential.

All in all, definitely worth a one-time watch.

Foreign films can be so refreshing. So let's see. It's about mermaids. Fantasy. That eat people. Horror. Who fall in love. Love story. And there's lots of singing and dancing. Musical. The songs are decent, but the lyrics sound like they were written by a crack addict. Could it really have lost that much in the translation? Oh, its Polish, so its subtitled. The acting and directing are generally well done. However, it feels like they took it out of the oven and released it before the film was done. So sometimes, it is touching and beautiful, with a classy European style, and other times, it is stupid beyond words. It is a take-off on the myth about the mermaid who tries to be a human girl when she falls in love. And that is all about sacrifice on the one hand, and being true to our nature on the other. A very unusual movie, especially for a director's debut film.