Vinyan

Superb scenery with some top class cinematography.

Fake lips however, if I remember correctly weren't really a thing back in 2005. The poor leading lady always appears to either have just been stung by a wasp on her top lip, or punched in the face.

Taken for a ride.

The great mistake in Vinyan is to have tried to sell it as a classical horror movie from Hollywood, like The Ruines or The Grudge.

Don't expect any cheap thrills or funny Fx, it's a deep drama about an occidental woman in Asia, falling into madness after the loss of her child, with a post-tsunami background.

I can understand why some people are so disappointed, the subject is disturbing and unusual : how can you accept the loss of your child without a clear evidence of his death, and how can you express your own pain in a devastated country where most people are going through intense sufferings, violence and poverty ?

Even if Vinyan is not perfect, i really liked the very dark atmosphere that stay with you long after the end of the film. I'm not a huge fan of Emmanuelle Béart but I think she is quite convincing in this role, far from her usual characters.

"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.

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.