Visages d'Anne

Awakening in a strange hospital, a young woman kept there by a group of administrators looking after her feels alarmed at their lack of urgency surrounding her belief that her face is constantly changing, and when others at the hospital are attacked by a strange demon must stop its true intentions.

Overall, this was a solid enough genre effort. Among the better elements present is a genuinely intriguing concept that provides a framework for a great mystery. The fact that her constantly changing face is an incredibly impactful part of the film, especially once the twist of it all comes into focus later on, comes off nicely with a wide berth throughout here as it's a creepy enough concept by itself enhanced by the unfamiliarity of the rest of her surroundings. Waking up inside the strange hospital you aren't familiar with surrounded by a cold, seemingly lifeless staff more interested in carrying out their assignments completes a rather effective setup to be featured here. When the changes take place, whether it's subtle or explicit, the slightest uptick in her personality provides even more here involving a changing personality to really speak highly of the topical identity issues she faces, combining nicely with some of the later revelations to give this a great overall setup. That all gives the film a great means of launching a slew of effective creature and horror attacks. The overall look of the main creature, with its deer face on a hulking, humanoid stance and clawed hands, gives off a fantastic imposing structure that is utilized quite effectively. Keeping it to brief bits noting its demonic presence during the chase scenes to be the focal point of their fear is another well-done tactic to generate some solid chills. From the opening attack on the victim seen through a door peephole, a fine chase through the various staff rooms, and a final encounter inside the hallways of the facility, these encounters with the creature house a fine sense of fear regarding the situation. While not over-the-top with the gore, they're brutal enough to leave an impression of what happened as well, and when added together with the revelation about the creatures' backstory connecting it to her there are some positive points to be had with the film. There are some pretty big issues here that bring the film down. The biggest drawback to what's going on here is the overly complicated storyline that might be incredibly unique and creative but makes no sense. It's quite clever to have the film utilize various actresses appearing at random intervals to showcase her changing appearance, but this becomes quite hard to keep track of the intent at times. The revelation about secret identities and hidden personalities that serves as a means of tying everything together happens so late in the running time that there's no way of getting acclimated into this universe early on. As a result, the pacing becomes incredibly sluggish waiting around for these explanations through endless hypnotism sessions, flashbacks, and conversations about the need for identity that drag the running time out waiting for everything to make sense. These factors are enough to lower this one overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.

I get the point of the movie, but it is really to much long for what it tries to say, and in the end, you can only feel scammed bit this film.

It just too longs, shorter would have been better, or at least with a better rhythm.

The movie talk about social/psychological problem, identity issue, and loneliness, but again it's so much long for the final message, some director just don't know when to stop, sometimes less is more, and this is what this movie needed, less, not more, especially with an end like this that let a bad taste in your mouth, the taste of your live time on earth being stollen for nothing great.

I really do not recommend, you will end up disappointed.

I know most of film viewers won't like it that much. And yeah I admit the pace is kinda lack of interesting. But actually the film is so much beautiful. Don't trust others opinion. Different people, different taste.

Spoiler Alert

This film reminds me of Jacob's Ladder and Alice in Borderlands. That metaphor and loops enhance the state of mind outstandingly. It's so much different from mainstream Thailand cinema. And I love it. Those kind of films should have been encouraged and supported. And in addition, this one is good enough. I want more like these rather than useless mainstream comedy shiis.

Sure, when I sat down to watch the 2022 Thai mystery thriller "Faces of Anne", I did so without ever having heard about the movie. So I can honestly say that I didn't know what I was in for here. But since I had never seen, nor actually heard about the movie, prior to watching it, of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

While writer Kongdej Jaturanrasamee didn't exactly deliver a bad script for the movie, I have to say that it was a storyline that fell yards short of entertaining me. The narrative in "Faces of Anne" just made little sense, and watching the events on the screen brought little enjoyment, so I found the movie to be rather dull, monotonous and slow paced.

It should be noted that the acting performances in "Faces of Anne" were good. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble. But they had some good actresses on the cast list, and they did perform quite well, despite the fact that the storyline fell short of capturing my interest.

Visually then "Faces of Anne" was okay. It wasn't a movie that really made usage of a lot of special effects, nor were a lot of special effects really necessary for telling the story.

"Faces of Anne" is not a movie that I will recommend, simply because the storyline wasn't interesting to me. And thus, my rating of "Faces of Anne", from directors Kongdej Jaturanrasamee and Rasiguet Sookkarn, lands on a four out of ten stars.