Endorphine

Well, I like Endorphine (2015). The structure and themes are highly original, and the acting is pretty good. I attribute the low ratings to reviewers who probably wanted a simple romp and found this creation contrived and overthought. I am sure that most of the negative reviews will contain the word 'pretentious'. But it's not.

There are different worlds beyond the physical realm, and they are just as real. Endorphine takes us into dreams, premonitions, hypnosis, unconsciousness, past and future, alternate realities, different characters and ages, death, passion and fear, pain, hope, science, religion and more. As hard as it may be to imagine, they all merge into one. Expect at the completion of the film to look for the remnants of your shattered brain among the seat cushions, candy wrappers and stale popcorn.

We explore these parallel universes through the character of Simone, and at various stages and spheres of her life. Simone foresees, witnesses and revisits the brutal death of her mother. She disconnects from world and those around her in the wake of this.

Endorphine explores how people deal with trauma. The film is heroically bold, raw and uninhibited. It is a puzzle for sure, yet a fascinating one. Story lines and scenes repeat, expand, merge and fold into themselves. There are layers of meaning everywhere. I truly believe these different realms (i.e. dreams, visions, premonitions etc. .) are as real as what we can touch, and yet I certainly don't understand them. I doubt anyone does. This is why it is so wonderful to explore such themes in the transforming, influential and magical medium of film. The director was the cinematographer for one of my favorite films of all time; Incendies. The connection between Incendies and this film is evident. I wish Turpin and Villeneuve still collaborated on this film. It might have perfected Endorphine, which lacks the symmetry of Incendies. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.

Behind plot of the movie lies an interesting idea which could be expressed and delivered with much more strong and representative methods in comparison to what have been really used. Also I've disliked some common characteristics such as uncolorful picture, too much unnecessary activity and details as well as lack of details which are important for viewer, unsuccessful tryings to capture a beautiful visual composition. However, these tryings and explorations are exactly nice by their own, no matter successful are they or not - I would always prefer to see on the screen something unusual than interpretation of the same story over and over again. Definitely, there are much work for creators to fix in future projects, but direction is right and this is the best side of the movie - we could see the contemporary cinematography in it's developing from another angle. As a result I would claim - you should watch the movie primarily if there were not really good movies in your list for a long time and you are ready to give a try to something strange, partly unfinished and unclear to see which impression will it left in your mind.

Picture perfect collage of first year movie making disaster! Why waste time and money on a nothing story line, bare bones scenery, and build-up to non-existent finale? Whoever wrote the previous wonderful reviews must be related to movie (not really a movie, more of a scrapbook of potential scenes practice) makers. The psychology and the mental adventure in this Alice-In-Wonderland is a miserable fail. Period. Could have been a really cool movie with editing, story-line, and follow through of a carefully threaded ending. Too bad. It just plain sucks.

It is bad, really really bad.

This movie should never have been made. Sorry, wait a minute no YOU should be sorry for making such experimental trash.

This is probably the worst movie I ever saw (including silly Hollywood films). Lacking almost any history, lacking a good photography, the thread if the movie is set around a vacuous conference about what is time. Avoid at all cost!