Blechtrommel

When we talk about Portuguese TV fiction, it's easy to start thinking about telenovela. A format inherited from Brazil, but one that has never grown in Portugal beyond being a sub-product of something that is in itself a cultural sub-product. In recent years, and with the rise of streaming, Portugal has been producing series that almost appear embarrassed by the legacy of the telenovelas. Some filmmakers who once tried their hand at auteur cinema are now trying their hand at auteur series. But if it's easier for a TV director to make an auteur series, it's practically guaranteed that mega-nepobaby Ivo M. Ferreira won't be the maker of a TV masterpiece. The plot is perhaps the most lifeless (and sexless) thing that has ever graced our screens. Pretensions to being American in style are undermined by a verbose script with no particular literary force, informative dialogue that would make the series better as a radio drama, and flimsy performances that don't lift the story's madcap potential beyond the academism of dimensionless character types. As much as the true story piqued my curiosity, the first episode didn't make me want to watch the second.

It was an exceptional experience, even in a year when the majority of films without an established director proved to be absolutely worthless. Donnie Darko looks like he has been botoxed into a permanent Sean Connery smirk, and even his voice sounds like it has been put on auto-tune throughout the movie. I assume that's what his AI version will look and sound like. Newcomer Daniela Melchior can't act her way out of a cardbox. It's painful to watch her not know what to do with her hands and eyes in every scene. The rest of the cast isn't brilliant either, with the exception of Lukas Gage and Billy Magnussen, although they too don't seem to know how to carry themselves through such a substandard script and such pedestrian direction. Why has this been done? It's not even Halloween yet...

I saw this maybe 14 years ago and I remember thinking it was clichéd and in very bad taste. 14 years later, I find myself thinking about this movie a lot. It's the quintessential type of movie that would never be made post #MeToo, and for a whole bunch of obvious reasons that I don't need to go into here. But the most obvious reason is how the film capitalizes on the cheap thrill and seems to fetishize the method of murder without any satirical perspective or anything vaguely resembling a critical position. Women are treated in the movie as an inconvenience, a reason for horror as much as the freak accident, while the men - killers and accomplices - seem to be portrayed as victims of a party crasher who overdosed or a justice system that ruined their weekend. There is much to mock about these people, but is it ever funny? Is it ever sharp? Is it even remotely interesting?