Year: 2009
Directors: Ayman Mokhtar
Writers: Ayman Mokhtar
IMDb: link
Trailer: link
Review by: Rick McGrath
Rating: 7 out of 10
There’s arthouse flicks, then there’s arty arthouse flicks. If there’s a level above that, then I’d nominate Anaphylaxis as a prime candidate… there’s not much Brit director/writer Ayman Mokhtar left out of this rashly affected hypermix of form and content.
I’ve been itching to see Anaphylaxis since the great Quiet Earth posted a trailer & plot synopsis, as the story – a doctor allergic to living skin and a depressed woman obsessed with writing – certainly suggests a quick dive into the deep end of some psychopathological pool. Question is: will we think or swim?
In actuality, the plot is great, revealing the pain and desperation of both a physical and mental disassociation with humankind, and the lengths to which the psyche will go to achieve some kind of satisfaction.
Directors: Ayman Mokhtar
Writers: Ayman Mokhtar
IMDb: link
Trailer: link
Review by: Rick McGrath
Rating: 7 out of 10
There’s arthouse flicks, then there’s arty arthouse flicks. If there’s a level above that, then I’d nominate Anaphylaxis as a prime candidate… there’s not much Brit director/writer Ayman Mokhtar left out of this rashly affected hypermix of form and content.
I’ve been itching to see Anaphylaxis since the great Quiet Earth posted a trailer & plot synopsis, as the story – a doctor allergic to living skin and a depressed woman obsessed with writing – certainly suggests a quick dive into the deep end of some psychopathological pool. Question is: will we think or swim?
In actuality, the plot is great, revealing the pain and desperation of both a physical and mental disassociation with humankind, and the lengths to which the psyche will go to achieve some kind of satisfaction.
- 10/1/2010
- QuietEarth.us
Using vibrant colors against a backdrop of black and white, Ayman Mokhtar's film experiments with "the rhythmic potential in film as a time-dependent medium [which] needs to be explored and unleashed." Beautifully shot and based around a Doctor's inability to touch human skin, Anaphylaxis reminds me of Olivier Smolders' Nuit Noire.
A successful doctor, content with life, develops a strange illness – anaphylaxis, a severe allergy to human skin. He tries to defy his illness, but his life is tuned upside down by his inability to touch people. He can’t function professionally, socially or intimately with his fiancée, whom he eventually loses.
Then he discovers that dead bodies don’t trigger his illness. He withdraws from life around him to work as a pathologist, dealing only with dead bodies. Life is calm until he encounters a woman’s dead body covered from neck to toe with writing. Intrigued, he starts to read.
A successful doctor, content with life, develops a strange illness – anaphylaxis, a severe allergy to human skin. He tries to defy his illness, but his life is tuned upside down by his inability to touch people. He can’t function professionally, socially or intimately with his fiancée, whom he eventually loses.
Then he discovers that dead bodies don’t trigger his illness. He withdraws from life around him to work as a pathologist, dealing only with dead bodies. Life is calm until he encounters a woman’s dead body covered from neck to toe with writing. Intrigued, he starts to read.
- 8/20/2009
- QuietEarth.us
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