Divided Into Zero

Out of the wilds of Canada, wunderkind filmmaker Mitch Davis opens his heart and soul to an unsuspecting audience for 34 minutes. In the span of three years, Davis and his team of cineastes toiled on this beast of a short film, alternating between scenes of beauty, perversion, and savagery. There is imagery in this film that will pierce your heart and soul. In many ways, the film carries the multi-pronged attack of a film like El Topo or Martin. However, Divided Into Zero has enough in its' head to carry the weight of such comparisons and create its' own impression. An experience like no other...

Without a doubt, this is one of the most unshakeable visions of hell I have ever encountered. Divided Into Zero rubs in it's bleak logic with a slow, eerie calm. Predictable comparisons with 'Salo' and 'In A Glass Cage' are inevitable and probably justified, but Divided Into Zero is all the more disturbing in that we have only one character during it's 40-odd minutes to attempt any understanding of. In the end, we become as deeply rooted in this soulless man's agony as he is.

Many viewers will be incapable of absorbing it's uncompromising graphic sensibility, with long shots of self inflicted razor punishment, piss drinking, and child murder. Those who do, however, will have a part of themselves forever changed.

Whether this is a good thing or bad thing, I can't say, and don't feel is very important, ultimately. The film offers vitality, anger, and extreme images that have more purpose, more INTENT, than simple minded shock value.

It's true cut-throat cinema.

A remedy...not only for mediocre filmgoing, but for any unaffirmed need to see your own taboos brought to life in color, screaming.

`Divided Into Zero' is one of my favourite horror films. This haunting reflection of an aged Madman digs deeper into the aberrant psyche than any film I have ever seen. Imagine that same assault you felt when first viewing `Texas Chainsaw', coupled with a heady dose of Dostoevski. `Divided Into Zero' is that good. The disembodied narration of John Alton Jr. exposes the tortured soul of a man who is fascinated by `bleeding fine cuts' and feels relief in the searing urine of prostitutes. Other film portraits of psychosis and serial killers have been more brutal, but none more honest, controlled, and cerebral than what you'll find here. Gritty photography by Karim Hussain; Sound Design by David Kristian; and Score by Teruhiko Suzuki contribute greatly to the film's power. Writer\Director\Editor Mitch Davis strikes dark genius with this one.

In `Le théâtre de la cruauté' Antonin Artaud wrote of a theatre that shakes and awakens the heart and the nerve of the audience. Director Mitch Davis transposes this point of view in cinema with his movie `Divided Into Zero'. The power of the images contribute to provide an intense experience into psychological violence and aesthetic research: through a non-linear structure, a freedom of reading is given to the viewer. The presence of cruelty, the fabric of violence includes in a poetic aesthetic; in this way, the violence depicted isn't gratuitous. It has a deep significance which takes its source into a slow narrative thread and fast short scenes which give the film all of its rhythm. The composition of the frame is a force of Davis. The closeup on the young girl's face, bleeding, (played by Mikaeka Davis, the director's young sister, who doubles actress Stephanie Keepman in this scene) is unforgettable: her intense, mouth-gaping gaze, makes me shudder. David Kristian's sound design goes with fluidity with the entire film; the ambient music compositions of Teruhiko Suzukia and Kristian are becoming a discreet actor.

`Divided Into Zero' is a hybrid film, navigating between horror and art film; it brilliantly demonstrates and stretches the spectrum of horror film's possibilities.

When a gore fan tries to make a movie ...

This short movie is pointless. Horror in movies illustrate problems or issues in life using surreal images of violence and tension. Divided into zero only shows gore for gore. It's a very personal movie from director Mitch Davis who also works at the Montréal film festival FANTASIA. He probably tried to reunite all his favorite gore scenes from other movie. Being a cinephile before a filmmaker, the graphic part of the movie was probably is most important concern. He says about the movie that it was a tough part of his life. As far as we can understand from his movie, he needed to illustrate nothing but mostly explode with rage. If you want to see someone's twisted mind ... believe me, his is not interesting at all.