The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears

Sometimes homage degenerates into parody, which is what happens in this wildly flamboyant attempt by Belgian-based directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani to replicate the tone of the Italian giallo films from visionaries such as Dario Argento. The nominal plot revolves around attempts made by a man named Dan (Klaus Tange) to discover how and why his beautiful wife Edwige (Ursula Bedena) disappeared from their locked apartment while he was away on a business trip, but anyone trying to follow along will need an advanced degree in garish surrealism. The directors' apparent purpose is simply to ratchet up the giallo style to previously unimaginable levels, employing quick cuts (with knives and pieces of glass as well as editing machines), split screens, sudden splashes of color, and weirdly suggestive inserts in such profusion that the viewer will likely grow benumbed by all the visual hubbub. Genre fans might get a rush, but this actually does a disservice to the giallo classics that admittedly sported lurid and ridiculous plots but still ultimately made sense in an absurd way (while also serving up visual acrobatics that sported a cultivated touch). The moral here is that ostentatiously mimicking something is not the same as celebrating it. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)