Terrific. I felt the presence of a Lynch, one invested like her parents were in "Velvet" in working with ordinary story elements. But she blows them up, deconstructs and scrambles them as an embedded metanarrative.
If you have not seen this, please do not read further.
This filmmaker has mastered three things. She knows how to make images that penetrate; she knows how to make transitions between them in such a way that they grow narrative; she knows how to fold in the viewer by playing games with the shifts in perspective of the narrative, triggered by the very thing that makes the images sear.
The basic setup is a couple of highway cops who waylay motorists and severely hassle them. They do this as a show for each other. We witness the truth of this cruelty through flashbacks after a traumatic event.
In what seems a parallel reality we have a pair of serial killers, chased by a couple FBI agents. They have been killing for a long time, brutally. The enclosing story is that we have the FBI couple entering the police station to get statements. It seems that in some way unknown to us at first, the pair of bad cops and the pair of killers encountered each other. Three cars worth of passengers are killed, plus one of the cops and we share space with the FBI couple and their cameras as the truth is revealed.
There are three survivors: one of the cops, who lies; a pretty young woman who is a junky; and a ten year old girl who is more alert than we are.
We hear testimony, but see what really happened with the three witnesses and is left out. We see and know what they have, not what they are reporting. Early in the game it becomes obvious that there are two groups of detectives here. The obvious ones are the FBI couple, who we discover are lovers. Julia Ormond is a real actress here. Who knew? The other group of detectives are the three witnesses. This is placed subconsciously as we participate not in what they reveal to the FBI, but what was actually revealed to them.
Near the end, the reversal is jarringly made complete when we discover that the FBI agents are actually the serial killers playing a role. Two of the witnesses are killed. Of the three, they are the witless ones; only the little girl survives. She has escaped, and at the end rediscovered but let go. She must have been, to bear witness for us.
The folds are clever and perfect. The sliding narrative is slippery in a crafty way. What most viewers will see is the strangely brutal world in images, but it is the other that gives this power.
Great, great film-making.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
If you have not seen this, please do not read further.
This filmmaker has mastered three things. She knows how to make images that penetrate; she knows how to make transitions between them in such a way that they grow narrative; she knows how to fold in the viewer by playing games with the shifts in perspective of the narrative, triggered by the very thing that makes the images sear.
The basic setup is a couple of highway cops who waylay motorists and severely hassle them. They do this as a show for each other. We witness the truth of this cruelty through flashbacks after a traumatic event.
In what seems a parallel reality we have a pair of serial killers, chased by a couple FBI agents. They have been killing for a long time, brutally. The enclosing story is that we have the FBI couple entering the police station to get statements. It seems that in some way unknown to us at first, the pair of bad cops and the pair of killers encountered each other. Three cars worth of passengers are killed, plus one of the cops and we share space with the FBI couple and their cameras as the truth is revealed.
There are three survivors: one of the cops, who lies; a pretty young woman who is a junky; and a ten year old girl who is more alert than we are.
We hear testimony, but see what really happened with the three witnesses and is left out. We see and know what they have, not what they are reporting. Early in the game it becomes obvious that there are two groups of detectives here. The obvious ones are the FBI couple, who we discover are lovers. Julia Ormond is a real actress here. Who knew? The other group of detectives are the three witnesses. This is placed subconsciously as we participate not in what they reveal to the FBI, but what was actually revealed to them.
Near the end, the reversal is jarringly made complete when we discover that the FBI agents are actually the serial killers playing a role. Two of the witnesses are killed. Of the three, they are the witless ones; only the little girl survives. She has escaped, and at the end rediscovered but let go. She must have been, to bear witness for us.
The folds are clever and perfect. The sliding narrative is slippery in a crafty way. What most viewers will see is the strangely brutal world in images, but it is the other that gives this power.
Great, great film-making.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.