ConvitHouse

Is it possible to combine The Picture of Dorian Gray, Great Expectations, and Macbeth? Clearly yes, and the result is a film of impressive emotional depth and creativity. Wilde's story may seem timeless, but Dorian's depravity, rather sketchy in the novel, can be difficult to convey to modern audiences. Through the device of making the main characters female, and with the benefit of at once lush and moody cinematography, the illicit romance of Dorian for a younger woman works well here, all the better for being almost entirely implied (there's a single kiss). The film transcends its low budget limitations; though filmed in Italy, there are few exterior shots, but one hardly notices. Leone Kessel and Lizzie Willis give convincing performances with real chemistry, and Kessel nails Dorian Gray's combination of bitter cynicism and seductive romanticism with a performance that never entirely loses the viewer's sympathy. The horror aspect of the infamous picture representing Dorian's corrupted and corrupting soul is suggested but not overdone. The narrator turns out to be Rula Lenska, though I feel her narration sometimes makes explicit what would be better left implicit. A few Wildean touches such as blue china and copious cocktails help set the decadent mood. Overall, this subtle but emotional adaptation represents independent filmmaking at its best.

On a planet in a distant galaxy, colonized by women when the Earth got sick, Roxy (aka Toxic), rescues Katarzyna Buszowska (aka Kate Bush), who has been buried up to her neck in sand to await death by the incoming tide. Roxy's merciful act unleashes a tide of misfortune on her friends, as Kate Bush turns out to be a killer. The village's coven of elders therefore order Roxy (Paula-Luna Breitenfelder) and her hairdresser mother Zora (Elina Löwensohn) to pursue and kill Kate Bush, a task that takes them into sci-fi western territory, as they ride off with designer weapons on an amateurish bounty hunt that turns out to be a sexual and spiritual odyssey for them both.

Nothing could have prepared them, or the viewer, for what they encounter as they travel inland - hallucinogenic caterpillars, giant fungi, monstrous creatures of various sorts, and a pretentious artist called Sternberg (Vimala Pons) with her male android partner. Director Bertrand Mandico overwhelms the viewer with a torrent of bizarre imaginings - the lesbian jacuzzi session that takes place in the entrails of a recently deceased antediluvian creature isn't the half of it.

The living planet with its sexualized flora is a field day for Freudians, and the film is obviously saying something about female liberation from the patriarchy, though exactly what is anyone's guess. Is it indeed a dirty paradise, or a world just as violent as the male-dominated Earth was? This is a true work of surrealism, from which you can take any message you can find, or none. Kate Bush has a third eye (no spoilers here, but it's not in her forehead) and we are invited to have our own spiritual awakening, not though being preached at, but by allowing this seductive stream of weirdness to float us out of normality.

Although the film never runs out of ideas, I found the two hours plus running time overlong. The plot is confusing, though arguably that's the point of it. If you want something different, After Blue certainly delivers: it's so bonkers it's beyond good or bad, and it is difficult to think of another film like this one. Perhaps if Tarkovsky had directed Barbarella it would have been something like this.

An architect (Neneh Cherry) skips her lecture on Swedish architecture and wanders around Stockholm coming to terms with a fatal road accident she was involved in a year ago.

There is only one character, who speaks predominantly as a voice over. This is varied by interludes of Swedish music, including songs by Cherry herself, whose pleasing voice lends itself to narration. In turns, she explains Stockholm's notable buildings, recounts the story of the accident, and muses philosophically, as one does on long walks.

The film lacks not only plot, but purpose. We learn little about Stockholm, and the philosophising is shallow and leads nowhere, though the film is the better for not trying to put over any particular political or moral point. Stockholm does not look particularly attractive, and the music is not memorable. There is, however, something about the film that has stayed with me: a sense of place, and of love for that place, and beauty in the mundane; the idea that whatever you look closely at seems to look back at you. Perhaps we do not look at our surroundings closely enough.

This is not a film for everyone, or indeed for anyone not in the mood for a guided cinematic meditation set in a rather bleak urban environment. If you don't 'get' slow cinema (yes, that is a thing) then this is not for you.