Drowning By Numbers; The Reflecting Skin; Tatie Danielle

The latest multi-pack offering from LIVE Home Video, three independent films from Miramax, could be marketed as the "vitriol trio," an evening of video providing an unrelentingly bleak and mean-spirited vision of humankind. Peter Greenaway's (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, Belly Of An Architect) Drowning By Numbers, released abroad in 1988, but appearing in its limited U.S. run in 1991, is one of the least accessible of an already difficult director's films. Three women (all named Cissie), representing three generations (grandmother, mother, and daughter) each drown their husbands for various reasons (the first for infidelity, the second for sexual frustration, and the third for family tradition, apparently). They escape the attention of the law, though not the village folk, through the aid of the local coroner Madgett (Bernard Hill), who is smitten with all three. Madgett is a bit of a queer egg who delights in creating games based on numbers, and routinely plays them with his equally weird teenage son Smut (Jason Edwards). Smut also has a fancy for roadkill, and an elaborate system for tagging and numbering the unfortunate critters who met with "violent death" he finds in his forays. If all of this sounds rather confusing, it is--especially since we are given zilch understanding of the psychology of any of the characters. Visually stunning, as are most Greenaway films, Drowning By Numbers is a complicated, and heartless, game that is not much fun to play or watch. Not recommended. Next up is writer/director Philip Ridley's maiden effort The Reflecting Skin, an incredibly dark film that owes its inspiration (though not its intelligence) to the works of David Lynch. Set somewhere in the Bible Belt in middle America (endless wheat fields and dirt roads comprise the entire physical landscape) during the closing days of WWII, the film stars newcomer Jeremy Cooper as nine-year-old Seth Dove. In the opening scene, Seth and his friends Eben and Kim, explode a frog in the face of the neighboring widow Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) which pretty much sets the tone for the film. When Eben disappears (he is kidnapped by a quartet of joyriding homosexual killers who apparently tool around the wheat fields in their black Cadillac), the local law points the finger of suspicion at Seth's father Luke, who has a history of homosexual behavior. When Seth's nagging mother (Sheila Moore) wops her husband up aside the head a few too many times, Luke goes out to the gas pumps (their livelihood), douses himself, and lights up in front of Seth. Parental self-immolation does not bring the expected reaction of terror and sorrow from young Seth. On the contrary, he appears to enjoy the spectacle. Seth, it turns out, has his own ideas about who kidnapped his friend Eben--he is convinced that the widow Blue is a vampire. When Seth's brother Cameron (Viggo Mortenson, the only actor in the film who doesn't completely overact) comes home from testing atomic bombs in the South Pacific, and strikes up an affair with Dolphin Blue, Seth interprets Cameron's symptoms of radiation sickness as signs of vampirism. I'm not even going to talk about the stillborn baby that Seth thinks is an angel or the dressed in black twin sisters who speak in tongues. The Reflecting Skin is way too monstrous for its own good (and calculatingly so), and when Seth's epiphanic moment comes at the end of the film, and he raises a melodramatic jeez-ain't-humanity-awful cry to the skies, the filmmaker seems to have forgotten that the inhuman child Seth has shown no feelings, whatsoever, throughout the entire proceedings. Unquestionably, one of the most distasteful films of recent years. Not recommended. Tatie Danielle, promises light fare in the form of mean old aunt ("tatie") Danielle (Tsilla Chelton). The 82-year-old Danielle, a curmudgeon to the bone, lives with and virtually lords it over her housekeeper Odile. Advised by her doctor not to eat sugar, Tatie routinely bangs on the bedroom wall at night yelling for Odile to bring her sugar water. When Odile falls to her death while cleaning a chandelier, Tatie is absolutely delighted. Taken in by her nephew Jean, and his family, Tatie, of course, makes their life miserable in little ways: like stepping on their dog, taking their primary school son for a walk and leaving him alone in a park, and soiling herself in front of guests. Far from being cute, this extremely mean-spirited behavior borders on the psychotic, and we fervently hope that Tatie Danielle will soon take a one-way trip to Heart Attack City. When the family decides to vacation in Greece, they hire an aunt sitter named Sandrine (Isabelle Nanty), a humorless waif who matches Tatie Danielle in both spite and total self-absorption. The traditional war ensues, until both sides discover that each has encountered her soul sister. Unfortunately, Sandrine abandons Tatie in favor of an American boyfriend, and Tatie exacts her revenge by destroying her nephew's house. Tatie Danielle is almost entirely a one-dimensional creation--a walking personification of hate, a hate that is without rhyme or reason. Writer Florence Quentin and director Etienne Chatiliez can take credit for being a pair of sick puppies, and not much else. With the tri-pack offer, you can get all three films for the price of two ($179.94), but I wouldn't spend a dime for the lot. (R. Pitman) [Blu-ray/DVD Review—Aug. 27, 2019—Film Movement, 96 min., R, DVD: $29.95, Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD and debut on Blu-ray, 1990’s The Reflecting Skin features a nice transfer with 2.0 stereo sound on the Blu-ray release. Extras include audio commentary by writer-director Philip Ridley, an 'Angels & Atom Bombs' making-of featurette (43 min.), and a new essay by film writers Travis Crawford and Heather Hyche. Bottom line: although it often looks lovely on Blu-ray, this remains a pretentious, ugly film. ]