Trance - Gefährliche Erinnerung

From directing Bollywood, Sci-fi and Zombie flicks, to action thrillers to the London 2012 Olympics, Danny Boyle is the most versatile director in the industry. Currently at the top of his game, Boyle directed Trance parallel to the Olympics on the same shooting schedule in the same weeks (literally!). In interviews he said relative to the Olympics that Trance is the 'dark cousin of the Olympics'. Boyle brings us a character-based, twisty thriller, just like the ones from the 1990's that launched his career.

Trance is introduced with a Scorsese sprint-heist, where Simon (James McAvoy) is an inside man on stealing a £27,000,000 Goya painting from his job at an auction. When Simon double crosses his partner Franck (Vincent Cassell) he suffers a strike to the head, leaving him with amnesia. In order to find out where he hide the painting he must take hypnosis sessions to revive his memory. But as lines blur and hypnotic suggestion takes over, the situation gets darkly complex.

Keeping you indulged for its entire one-hundred and seventeen minutes running time the film is imperatively based on narrative. Forget CGI and the rest. To make a good film use the three things that Hitchcock says is essential in film-making, 'the script, the script and the script'. Boyle does this wondrously.

While Boyle assembled his old gang behind the camera, in front of it, they're all new faces for the film-maker, and they all rise to the occasion. Vincent Cassel at first seems to have the least interesting part of the film. The same sort of character he has played in the Ocean movies. Meanwhile other cast members such as James McAvoy and Rosie Dawson give the best performances of their careers. McAvoy in fact has never been so good. Appearing in two films on this months release (also Welcome To The Punch). He breaks his character type and shows his malevolence.

The film is a trippy heist thriller. Think Fight Club, Inception, Memento and The Sixth Sense and the style of story and endings. Trance is no exception. Even as we left the cinema other audience members where throwing around the Nolan word. But this film does seem like it has earnt the comparison. Compiled with complex script flips and twists the film is all solved in the final act, much like Nolan's films.

Having earnt its deserved rating of 15 the violence and excessive swearing are throughout. And all of the three of the main cast are seen at one point of the film both naked and abused. Interesting, eh? This is one film that should not be missed. Released tomorrow (March 26th 2013) this film is highly recommended.

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Danny Boyle, a renowned director of stage and screen, not to mention a writer, directed the 2014 "Trance" -- and from a brief look at the reviews, people either loved it or hated it.

I hated it.

I'm always fascinated by films about art heists, but this time, I felt let down. That's not to take away from the originality of the story, but for me, it became too convoluted.

In London, an auctioneer, Simon Newton (James McAvoy), helps a gang, headed by a man named Franck, to steal a valuable painting at the auction house. Simon gets into a car accident and claims not to remember where he hid the painting. The gang sends him to a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson), under an assumed name, and record him -- he doesn't say he's looking for this painting, obviously, since it's all over the news, so he says he's looking for his keys.

The hypnotherapist turns out to be quite a character, and one can't really tell for a time if she's in league with the gang or trying to help Simon, as she plays both sides. It all gets kind of crazy from there, with murders, sex, car chases and hypnosis.

I love the plot, and normally, I like a complicated, involved story, but I admit that after a while, I gave up and didn't know what was happening. It reminded me a tiny bit of Memento, but that film was a lot more straightforward. This movie started out suspense and toward the end turned into a crazy horror movie.

The acting was good, with perhaps the exception of Rosario Dawson. First of all, she had an impossible role. Secondly, I am absolutely certain that in some scenes she didn't know what her attitude was supposed to be. It's not too much of a stretch that these actors lost their way in the script as well. I can't imagine anyone having to sit down and read it.

I think Danny Boyle is one of those people who, when he's good, he's fabulous, and when he's less than that, he's confusing.

I was quite looking forward to Trance; I had heard a critic say that it was a real effort by Danny Boyle to get out from under the "national treasure" status he had obtained by how well he opened the Olympics in 2012 and that as a result Trance was very much against that image. He was correct because this is a very graphic film in many ways but before that we get to the plot. The plot is simple – an art robbery goes wrong for some reason, with the painting lost when the inside man hides it but forgets where he hid it due to damage inflicted during the robbery. The gang go to a hypnotherapist to try to get it out of him and from here it only gets messy.

I can see what the plot was trying to do because it is constantly twisting and turning as minds are messed with; actions may or may not be programmed; events may or may not be happening and those who appear in control may or may not actually be in control and, even if they are (or aren't), they soon won't be (or will be) because everything will change in a minute. I guess the aim is that the film was aiming for a narrative similar to that of Inception or Usual Suspects, where the story the audience is being told may not be the real story at all. At the end of both these films the effect is to be impressed by how well it did it and I'm sure for many like myself there was the desire to watch it again to be able to see the film in the new context you have. With Trance I did not have this feeling, when things did fall into place I only felt that it was such a messy pile that it had fallen into and I had not enjoyed or been engaged in the manner in which it got there or indeed where it got me at all. You can sense it wants to be smarter and more thrilling that it is, but where Usual Suspects is slick and stylish on its journey, this really just bumbles and blasts it way to the finish hoping it can carry you with it by force alone.

This force comes in the style of Boyle's direction and mostly it is good from this point of view – it is a good looking film but it does really feel like he is forcing the excess for the sake of it rather than it being part of the film. So the very extreme scenes of gore felt like the complexity of the story – there for the sake of being there. Of course this is not to say that I didn't appreciate the extreme (almost "no holds barred") nudity from Rosario Dawson, but again even for the teenage boy in my head, it felt forced and unnatural (the use of her nude – not her as a nude). The cast go along with it the best they can. McAvoy is good while Cassel always has a mean presence. Support cast is decent but I am really not sure about Dawson. It is not that she herself is not good, it is just that the film asks too much of her character and it is clear that Dawson doesn't always know who she is be – in any one scene she can be what is required, but in terms of making it one whole character or making links between these scenes, she cannot do it. I do not think the fault is all her – I guess the relationship with Boyle didn't help with this aspect, but for sure her performance seems unsure and a bit erratic.

Trance will try to bluster and bully you into thinking you're watching something really smart and well structured, but this is not the case. The film is confusing for the sake of it, excessive for the sake of it and ultimately tries to ride this to a satisfying conclusion but in the end you will not be left with feeling that you immediately want to see it again but rather the lingering doubt as to whether you should have bothered in the first place.

The latest film from the Oscar-winning English filmmaker Danny Boyle is a racy crime thriller with a psychological bent. The movie revolves around the life of a debonair art auctioneer, Simon, who inexplicably gets mixed up with a group of ferocious criminals.

The criminals reluctantly partners with a sensual hypnotherapist whose job is to dig deep into Simon's mind and find out the whereabouts of a lost painting. Trance plays with the subconscious memory in the vein of movies like Inception and Shutter Island, but somewhat falls short of attaining the same level of brilliance.

Trance stars James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson in major roles. While McAvoy delivers his best performance ever, Dawson is a treat for the sore eyes. While Cassel is solid as usual, film aficionados just can't help but expect more from the veteran French actor.

Boyle's direction is topnotch and barring a few glitches the movie manages to deliver a powerful punch. The movie is quite high on eroticism and nudity but none of it appears to be extraneous. A must watch for the lovers of the genre!

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An art auctioneer suffers amnesia when a robbery of a Goya masterpiece went wrong. A hypnotherapist was recruited to jog the memory out of him. Thus begins the multi-layered puzzle that is "Trance". I could not say more about the story as this remains for you to watch the unfolding of each scene that complicates the one before it.

Danny Boyle was very much in the news in the past few years because of his "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as his London Olympics gig. Now he returns to the big screen directing this Rubik's cube of a film, and that itself makes this film an event to witness.

James McAvoy plays Simon, the art auctioneer with a huge gambling debt caught in a bigger web, with the necessary cluelessness and helplessness. In fact, I could imagine Boyle's "trainspotting" discovery Ewan McGregor in this role had it been done ten years ago.

Rosario Dawson lends her exotic appeal as hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb. It was her character that provides this film that complex structure which would keep the audience wondering which is reality and which is just a trance. She was credible, treading that delicate balance between good and bad, realistically keeping the two other male characters guessing at her real intentions. Her brave moment of frontal nudity was key to how the story turns, not gratuitous.

Vincent Cassel plays Franck, the ruthless mastermind of the art heist. His character would have been a one-dimensional bad guy in a lesser actor's hands. Here Cassel gives Franck another level of what seems to be vulnerability, or then again, maybe not.

Fans of film noir, of films that make you think, will enjoy "Trance". I am sure many fans of this film will watch it again to try and get it the second or third time around. Boyle has given us "Inception" without the grand special effects. So good. Must-watch.