O Enigma do Tempo

I cannot comprehend how films this bad get made, what with all the time, money and effort that goes into film-making. Didn't anyone (the director, the producer, the editors) WATCH the film??? Couldn't they SEE how bad it was??? It contains some of the WORST acting I have ever seen. Reminded me of one of those "adult" films that Showtime broadcasts late at night. Just simply awful. I still can't believe that Nastassja Kinski agreed to be a part of this. Fortunately for us, David Bailey hasn't directed another feature-length film since! Avoid this piece of crap at ALL COSTS. Better yet, BUY every copy you can find, both the VHS and the DVD (I guarantee you this will be in the El Cheapo Clearance Dump Bins all over the world), and destroy them to spare the rest of humanity from this atrocity...

This film is yet another example of the less than adequate sound quality in many imports. This film has dialogue that counts, it deserves theatrical level sound - not the shoddy system that is all too common in Two Left Feet Corp. imports. There is a nice streak of relativistic sci-fi, and as in Event Horizon et al - it's amazing how all arguments about relativistic time can be solved by folding a piece of paper! If Only! The acting is reasonable - except for the worst impression of a lawyer I have ever seen! I think that this guy had the script in his lap! Oh Well - if nothing else on the shelf grabs you - this is worth the rent - but rental ONLY!

'The Intruder' is the second film by London fashion photographer David Bailey (his first: the obscure 'Who Dealt' was made for TV in 1993). Rather ostentatiously, Bailey's still photographs add a calculated touch of class to the somewhat anonymous and cavernous modern interiors in which much of the action takes place. How ironic then, that this silent clutter of his more successful art on walls and furniture makes the weakness of his motion picture even more disappointing! Mostly told in a single long flashback, while a shocked Catherine is questioned by police, this is a low budget scare story which falls short of being really frightening.

As Catherine, actress Charlotte Gainsburg proves simply too weak a presence to make a persuasive narrator of events. Her somewhat tremulous voice-over at the beginning lacks any sense of horror or conviction. Part of the blame can be found in the script, which leaves Catherine's character weak and undeveloped as a victim. As Nick's benighted wife, one feels she is merely a cipher for the terror that the director seeks to impel upon the audience, rather the source of any paranoia herself. What suspense there is in the film springs not so much from her dread of the supernatural, but from the much less interesting enigma of her husband's past romantic life, and how it affects the present. Catherine is left adrift, ultimately until the audience's only interest in her springs from deciding whether she will wind up alive or dead.

'The Intruder', despite the quantum mechanics mumbo-jumbo introduced to explain the goings-on, is at heart a ghost story, Nick's huge apartment the 'haunted house'. (At one point Catherine actually uses candles to light her way in a darkened room). Such narratives rely a great deal upon sustained tension wrought through carefully created atmosphere. In his attempt to manipulate mood, right from the opening scenes, Bailey introduces a solo saxophonist who repeatedly plays a lonely vigil, outside of the main plot and characters. His presence is never logically explained and with each repetition of this scene, it seems more and more superfluous. In addition this musician is patently unaffected by the snow, which falls almost continuously outside as events unfold inside. Whenever we are within sight of a window, inevitably there are thick flakes falling. No doubt the snow intends to suggest a sense of coldness and isolation surrounding the characters. Instead, it draws attention to the set-bound nature of much of the action, quickly becoming a symbol of creative laziness.

There are odd moments of genuine menace and danger, indicative of the better film that might have been. Catherine vainly searching for Rosebud (her cat)in Nick's vast apartment for instance, or the death of Daisy as Catherine rushes up stairs in answer to her frantic phone call for help. Here Bailey utilises space and motion effectively, creating dread. Even the final confrontation (shot using an unusual optical 'smearing' technique) is reasonably tense. At too many other points however, matters fall down badly. Particularly ineffective is the role to given to a janitor heavy, whose 'menace', filmed with risible over-emphasis by Bailey, appears instead bathetic. 'Somethings in life are beyond our control' he intones, as if fiddling with the lock on Catherine's door makes him the key to all that transpires (he is not).

Practically all of the action supposedly occurs inside the same apartment building, where most of the characters live. Yet by the end of the film, we still no real evocation of the building or location, and this poor sense of place is a continuing handicap (perhaps stemming from uncertain location work). Compared to, say, the mise-en-scene demonstrated so successfully by Polanski in 'Rosemary's Baby', a far more successful tale of terror, the difference is revealing.. In Polanski's work, the indentification between tension and living space is absolute. In 'The Intruder' this unifying sense of place is palpably missing.

Other plot elements appear, tantalise the audience with their possibilities, and then languish. Nastassje Kinski (the only 'big' name in the cast) who plays Badge, a friend of Nick, gives Catherine a job. In a couple of scenes together, there is a hint of supressed lesbianism. The failure to develop Badge as a predatory female, while it might show admirable restraint by the script writers, leaves her character hanging in mid air. A similar feeling of underdevelopment attends the introduction of twins in the film. Catherine and Jim are introduced to two at the start of the film. Later, Catherine discovers that Nick's first wife Stella was half of a pair of identical twins as well, and visits the surviving sister. And with this intriguing echo, the idea is dropped. But then why introduce it at all?

The coda of the film, which takes place at the conclusion of Catherine's flashback, is predictable. There's no point in spoiling what drama the film still possesses at this point, but needless to say that the resolution - or not - of Catherine's ordeal is hardly original. But that is the trouble with this film: it simply can't deliver enough original terror or suspense to prove memorable. In short, an exercise in supernatural terror which should have worked out more.

I saw this film on video, on a cold snowy day. Perfect conditions for this type of dark, mysterious movie. Charlotte Gainsbourg is quite intriguing as the lead. Ditto Nastassja Kinski as the oddly vulpine neighbor and Molly Parker as the eccentric Miss LonelyHearts. I wish I could say nice things about everyone else. Alas, there are some weak actors in some supporting roles who appear to be reading their lines from a teleprompter. And...the plot, though fun and slightly sci-fi, becomes so murky that as a viewer, I simply had to give up on understanding it and busied myself with the suspense factors instead. For me, it finally boiled down to "will she make it out alive or will she not?"

Does anyone know which character in the movie owns a "Claus Martin"? I've heard that this is a very strange movie, though not a very good one. I've looked around for it, but haven't been able to find it in any video store. I also wanted to know if it is worth watching and spending a whole bunch of time and money on this film. I would like to think that the fact of Natassja Kinski starring in this film would be determining towards watching it, given that she typically appears in very decent movies. But I'm not sure if I should give this movie a try. Can anyone tell me a little bit more about it? And where can i buy it from?