All the Gods in the Sky

As singular as his director Quarxx. Between a flashback of the past and the prediction of a foretold drama? The life of a man in which, as the social worker says, "there's nothing to steal here!". Who'd want his life? And then that lunar face of Estelle (Melanie Gaydos) who shares with her brother a possible deliverance to come. She in the silence of a few tears and him with this cold anger against him, the others who judge or pretend to want to help and against this sky that is waiting for us? A UFO.

Of course, this movie is not destined to wide audiences and I am also sure that it was a disaster in terms of gross. But I like it, because the director was totally on his own, he wrote and showed excactly what he had in mind. He wanted to do it for himself first and was damn right. He was totally free, without any nasty and pain in the a...producer on his tail, to check every cent spent for the movie. This director made several short features before and it is obvious in the way of filming and story telling too. It is depressing but poignant, gripping. I love such movies not destined to silly and happy f...endings seekers.

This is a dark, unflinching look at guilt and abuse. The trauma of a childhood accident has pushed Simon, now in his early 30s, to the edge of madness. Caring for his sister who carries the physical scars, he is almost equally debilitated by the psychological toll it has taken on him. His grasp on reality becoming more tenuous, is what he is experiencing a genuine escape or just the last vestiges of sanity slipping away ? It is a gruelling watch, with a mixture of body horror, violence and an underlying tradegy at a loss of childhood inocenents. Sometimes muddled with too many story themes it still maintains a dark fascination to the very end.

In France ,where the film passed almost unnoticed on the feel good scene,it was labelled " horror " movie and got a R-16.

When they were children ,Simon and Estelle toyed with their dad's gun ; accidentally the brother made his sister a monster who lives a vegetative life . Another flashback shows the boy put the blame on his father who should not have left a loaded gun in a drawer.

Now adults ,Simon takes care of his disabled sister, but his motives remain obscure: is it because he is consumed with remorse?(whereas he's not really responsible) or is it because God (check the title)has plans for them ? (one sees Simon in an open field cursing the sky )?Most likely ,he is waiting for some ETs to take them away (the sister resembles a sci-fi ET cliché and in the last part,so does her sibling .There are close shots of a star (the sun?) and once again ,Simon call them :"come and take us!we are ready !")

It can also be seen as a rebellion against the establishment ,here represented by a doctor and a social worker (in the one real violent scene in the movie);after all ,in spite of her "progresses", is the sister happier in the convent?The nuns represent another side of the repression.

This is a complex movie,not your routine horror flick where gore and special effects get the lion's share ;there's another keyword:game ; the brother tells his sister tales of far away and long ago ,when fair knights rescued damsel in distress;he pays a man to make love to her ; he invites a strange little girl to play with her : she uses her as a doll , painting her lips and making up her eyes ;and towards the end ,the siblings' roles seem to be reversed .

Quarkxx (Alexandre Claudin) is certainly one of the most promising newcomers to emerge in the decade;should he continue in that vein, he will be a name to reckon with in the years to come.

The restrained story centers on Simon (Jean-Luc Couchard), a factory worker who lives in an isolated farm with his severely disfigured bedridden sister Estelle far away from the society. He cares for his sister while preparing for the awaited arrival of mysterious "those up there" who just might be the siblings' salvation. Simon is plagued with guilt and depression and keeps the secret hope deep in his flesh of saving his sister by freeing her from earthly gravity. He will soon discover that this is not what it seems to be and conceals a dark and macabre truth. Visually the film is one of the most stunning in recent memory, we are seized from these first moments by its aesthetic which evokes the scenes close to that of David Lynch films, the cinematography of Antoine Carpentier is simply sublime. The idea of insidious contamination of body and mind is at the heart of the film. The director plays with the expectations and the psychology of the spectator, primal fears, fear of disease, madness (and also ET creatures in the process) and the atmosphere is carried by a shadowy external photography and a powerful cinematography whose use of lights transforms the vastness of the setup into a sum of little closed places, conveying the disturbing feeling of a suffocating paranoia. Quarxx operates a delicate stylistic transition, in our eyes successful, more flamboyant summoning the spirit of the films of the Lynch or a Cronenberg. If New French Extremity techniques between Cronenberg and Lovecraft to raise the tension, helped by an anxious sound-design he also knows how to turn this "old-school" approach against the spectator with shock scenes whose impact comes from the fact that the camera does not don't turn away.

I mentioned in the early paragraph the atmosphere of the film and, no pun intended, it's indeed the key element that drives the film. The atmosphere is so intense that we don't need to be scared, because we constantly keep our guard up, it's the kind of situations so calm we know something will happen. If you like horror films to be clear and unambiguous, you won't have much fun here, as " All the Gods in the Sky " reveals a different result to almost every viewer. This French gem fits many genres into one film, and it pays off in the end.