Vinyan - Verirrte Seelen

"Vinyan" is the type of movie that just doesn't sit well with everyone or has a certain appeal to just anyone in the audience. I had expectations to this movie, because from what I read on the DVD cover, then I was intrigued.

And then I watched the movie, and that expectation dissipated like mist before the rising morning sun. This movie wasn't anything at all what I had expected it to be.

What works well enough in "Vinyan" is the atmosphere and the building up of suspense. However, it is not really given enough room to bloom into something great, because it is weighed down by the horrible slow pace the movie trots forward in. Plus, the characters in the movie were not really characters with dimensions and personalities that you cared about; they came off a shallow and lifeless drones that were just milling about at the whim of the director.

Visually, then there is a lot of great scenes, especially in the jungle, that are impressive.

However, entertainment-wise, then "Vinyan" fails to fully deliver, at least for my account. I suppose I wasn't in that particular target audience that would find such a movie enjoyable.

As Belgian compatriot, and a big fan of his more than promising debut feature (the genuinely eerie backwoods-oddity "Calvaire"), I pledged I would follow the work of writer/director Fabrice Du Welz regardless of what he would do next. I already broke that promise with his next film "Vinyan", though, and even now - more than 12 years since its release - I was still reluctant to see it. It all has to do with the plot, and the simple fact it doesn't seem like anything I want to see processed into a thriller/horror film. Released only a few years after the devastating tsunami in Asia, "Vinyan" revolves around a couple who lost their son in the wave and remind behind soulless and heartbroken. When, at a fundraising event, the mother think she sees footage of her missing son Joshua, she persuades her doubting husband to spend a fortune on heading deep into the Burmese jungle; -on a dangerous mission with unreliable guides and without any tangible evidence their son really is still alive.

I read comparisons between "Vinyan" and major milestones such as "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter". Because of the jungle setting, obviously, but also because Du Welz' script essentially revolves about the physical and emotional exhaustion, obsession, and the irreversible descent into madness. It's an extremely unpleasant film, thriving on a thoroughly gloomy atmosphere and the intense performances of both Emmanuelle Béart and Rufus Sewell, and the screenplay never gives you the slightest hope of a happy ending. The title allegedly means "angry spirits", and in the third act of the film these spirits are personified in a sort of hellish version of "Lord of the Flies".

In spite of a powerful and authentically dramatic first hour, it honestly feels as if Du Welz lost control over his own script and film throughout the entire third act. "Vinyan" becomes dull, repetitive, and frustrating when it should be getting more tense and building up to its climax. By this time, the comparisons with "Apocalypse Now" have long become irrelevant, and only the incredibly devoted Béart still makes an effort to drag the film over the finish line with her stupendous performance.

I completely get what the director was trying to do, and it was a mock-valiant effort on his part; the dark settings, the dream-like shots, and the faux-delusional performance by the main actress. The philosophical undertones are there, they just need to be dug out from beneath the hard-to-buy acting and set-ups. We are all interchangeable, at a physical and psychic level; in her state of utmost despair, Jeanne was hurdled into a psychotic state of mind, and very interestingly incorporating the semblance of delusional misidentification syndrome (namely, Fregoli syndrome); any and all of those children were Joshua. I do believe that this film could have gotten its point across, because the premise is actually appealing; unfortunately that was not enough to leave me with more than an empty sensation after it ended. The dude playing Paul was not believable, and his reactions to the bizarre situations arising were deadened by his own disbelief as an actor. Jeanne just figured that adopting the dead fish expression throughout the film would be sufficient, apart from a possible ripoff from the Piano Teacher with regards to the sex scene in which any and all human emotion has long abandoned her carcass. Now, the only crude emotion she displayed was during the final scene, and I believe this was not a scripted reaction; her smiling showed simply her obvious arousal with the situation, in a very primitive and sexualized manner, irrespective of any taboos people may have about the particular content. Again, it was the symbolic transfiguring into the literal, as the psychogenic breast was incorporated into the lives of children who had no healthy attachment to a caregiver, so we can look at the scene as a form of regression on their part, reacquiring the breast in an attempt to somehow be reborn through her... and she experienced the giving of life in this straining-to-be-poignant moment, and was thus reborn as well.

I was in the video store and saw this movie, read the synopsis on the back and thought it'd be pretty good. Nope.

It had such great potential and such a great idea in terms of story, but for some reason the script just never delivered, and the last 30 minutes leaves you wondering: "why after all they went through, did this sh*t happen?" The acting wasn't terrible, and the way it was filmed wasn't bad either, though with this story they could have made things a little bleaker.

If you do want to watch it, make sure you get something else to watch too because you'll be left feeling baffled, unfulfilled and wanting to watch something that wasn't a waste of an hour and a half.

If you like Green Inferno, Death of Me any tropical messed up horror flicks this is good to watch well messed up. Point is if you lost your kid and it's been 6months don't go to the jungle thinking they are there.