Leichen unter brennender Sonne

First, let me tell you that I highly liked the Jean Patrick Manchette's novel which this film is based on, and written and - or - produced by Doug headline - Manchette's son. That said, this film is faithful to the novel written back in 1971. At least if you consider the narrative ark, the basic scheme. This book from 1971 was a turn in the French crime novels history; it was one of the last French crime novels where it was question of gangsters, bank robbers and so on, which was a topic usually spoken about since the fifties and Auguste Le Breton, José Giovanni and so on...After this novel it was the beginning of the post May 68 era and the rise of the "subversive" crime novels, inspired by extreme left winged ideas and topics, stories highly against the establishment and political power. Manchette was the master in this field. He opened the road. Back to this film, it is faithful to the book BUT the aesthetic aspect is too much hysterical, totally crazy. NOT FOR ME. Most of the scenes are unexplained, absolutely senseless, you wonder where the screenplay drives at. This was unbearable for me. Sorry. I won't say that's a crap movie. No, but simply not for my taste. But I am aware that this feature is a big tribute to the sixties ear and the spaghetti western in particular. I won't even mention the Ennion Morricone like score. This movie seems most of the time boring. I nearly fell asleep at some times. I deserves although to be seen. The armored truck heist sequence is also a tribute, but to Jean Pierre Melville's masterpiece THE SECOND BREATHE, in the heist attack scene, on the lost sea side mountain road.

This movie is like a pasta dish, with or without red pepper. It could have been told in a raw way, without all those artifices. But maybe some audiences could have found this tasteless. So they used this camera eccentricities.

See for yourself.

The concept is simple: a gang of criminals stay at the isolated hideaway of an eccentric artist and her lover after stealing 250 kilos of gold. Shenanigans ensue. And they ensue quite strangely.

This is a psychosexual surrealist film disguised as a spaghetti western. Many are judging this strictly in its capacity as a spaghetti western, claiming that the strange, surreal scenes were merely a waste of time. If anything, the opposite is true. The power dynamics, back-stabbing, and fights for survival are secondary to this film's main goal, which seems to be as follows: to show (as stylishly and creatively as possible) these characters' darkest impulses and fantasies. Very similar to their last work, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani place equal importance upon what's going on in the "reality" of the film and what's going on inside the characters' heads. One character's overwhelming and confounding sexual fantasy might be given just as much dramatic weight and screen-time as another character shifting their allegiance or being killed, despite the fact that one of these scenes makes sense in the context of the plot and the other does not. This feels less like watching a spaghetti western than it does like watching a nightmarish wet dream of someone who had seen a spaghetti western the night before.

The nature of this film makes it difficult to give it a rating. The mish-mosh of high-brow and low-brow elements makes it very hard to compare to any other films. Yes, people always compare this directing duo to Argento, but their obsessive need to explore the subconscious fantasies of their characters is vastly different than any of Argento's work. Their films take place maybe 80% in the characters' heads whereas Argento's films usually take place firmly in reality (albeit, a strange, uniquely lit reality). All in all, I would give it an 8/10, and that rating is hard-earned through ingenuity alone. The characters can barely be called archetypes, there's no one to sympathize with, you barely know anything about any of the characters save for the most banal backstories, the plot isn't given much attention, and there seem to be major moments that are oddly glossed over. Instead of focusing on all these elements that would make a movie "good" in a traditional sense, Cattet and Forzani dive deep into a sexual dreamland of violence and fantasy and do so with constant and I mean CONSTANT creativity.

Almost every single scene is filmed in a way that feels enchantingly fresh. Since it pulls heavily from the spaghetti western genre (a genre that I adore, but has been done into the ground, then spoofed into the ground, then tributed into the ground), there are scene types that we've all watched a thousand times before. Predictable moments that you'd expect to be filmed in a cookie cutter fashion. Instead, each scene is treated like a feverish, experimental short film designed to get the general gist of plot details across, but, much more importantly, utterly enrapture its audience with shockingly gorgeous cinematography, mind-bending editing, and sound design that will have you weeping with joy, all to communicate a sense of otherworldly, darkly violent sexual tension. Admittedly, for every experimental scene that works, there's one that doesn't, but because of the sheer quantity of risks this film is willing to take, the missteps are more than forgivable. I found myself thinking of Hausu while watching it, another film where at one moment I would say to myself, "Why would they film it like this...?" and in the next, "I don't know. But I love it." This is the result of two filmmakers having unabashed fun with their medium and I personally found their subversive glee to be infectious. If you want to see a traditional, Oscar-ready thriller...avoid this one. But if you want to see a whacky fun-house of experimental style, go get your ticket now.

Dang. Can we get some more arthouse action movies like this, please? This movie was a freaking blast.

"Let the Corpses Tan" is a highly stylized neo-spaghetti western (complete with a Morricone score!), and for all I know it's a pioneer in it's genre, because I've never seen anything like this: it's exciting, sometimes intense, and undeniably weird. To be fair, the weirdness in this movie works wonders up to a point, but there are other moments where I had no idea what the hell was going on, because (dare I say it, and risk angering the cinephiles?) the film was a bit too stylized at times, particularly when it came to the frenetically paced editing during the shootouts, and the rapid back and forth flitting between time. Still, if you've got a smidge of patience and a bit of imagination, you can totally understand what the directors are getting at, even if they are showing the audience a fully nude woman whose been painted gold and is peeing on a man's head whose been buried up to his neck.

It makes sense, trust me; you've just got to work with the movie.

Seeking to merge surrealist aesthetics with a vintage western shoot-em-up, a move somewhat precedented by El Topo, though with few other contemporaries.

Both action flicks and art films can often fall into the trap of putting style before storyline, and Let the Corpses Tan brings out the worst of both worlds in this respect. Nondescript characters are briefly introduced then thrown into a web of double crosses and crossfire. Add to this the wilful obscurity and non linear timeline, and you're left scratching your head wondering what's going on through the bulk of the film.

But it looks bloody fantastic. Capturing the majestic camera work of it's 70s influences, with vivid colours and creative angles capturing the natural beauty of the Mediterranean filming location. The abstract interludes are nothing if not great eye candy, crashing a psychedelic drug trip against the calculated cool of Quentin Tarantino.

It all serves to ask the question of how entertained can you be by something with visual appeal but little in the way of a discernible plot? The answer for me was: somewhat. I felt initially impressed, but my attention began to fade as it wore on. I'm sure this will polarize others, so it's good to know where your priorities lie before going in.

LET THE CORPSES TAN (LAISSEZ BRONZER LES CADAVRES!): A pretty good shootout thriller which is a bit messed up by philosophical and avant garde pretensions in fantasy sequences (some may be memories) and stilted dialogue. They don't quite negate the negation but might have negated the the film. Fortunately the action shots triumph over the postmodernist pisstakes to acheive a satisfactory synthesis.

An artist and a novelist are living in a series of ruins on a hilltop in the South of France, their lawyer arrives but has made a pact with a gang of Gold Bullion robbers to use the abode as a hideout. Meanwhile the author's wife arrives with her maid and a child (snatched) from a previous realtionship. Actually the robbers meet them by the hitching and give them a lift. Motorcycle cops investigating both the robbery and child abduction come to the ruins.

A many sided battle ensues with shifting allegiances taking place. This is very much a homage to/pastiche of the exploitation euro-Gangster films of the 1970's but is weakened by (imho) unnecessary psychedelic additions. The only effects I really appreciated was the effect of the Gold on the crooks, their faces tanned with avarice as they gazed on the bullion. Reminiscent of scenes from The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. Some really savage and bloody scenes.

Directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani with the assistance of novelist Jean-Pierre Bastid on the screenplay would have delivered a pretty good thriller if they'd left out or toned down the biarrare elements. 6.5/10