Delirium |
Germany / Italy / Switzerland • 2015 • 79m •
Parasites that take over brains. Paranoia and Amnesia controlling the city. A state of emergency. Who is this mysterious person, who controls the parasites and what is her plan? A clockwork of puzzle pieces.
   • Directed by: Cosmotropia de Xam. • Starring: Feng Lingling, Shivabel Coeurnoir, Marcus Littwin, Maya Schneider, Theo TetraGrammaton. • Music by: Drug Machine. |
Review:
Directed by Cosmotropia De Xam, this is a visually jarring, low-budget horror project centring on Maya Schneider and her descent into madness. It could be said to be a very stylised, goth-glamourous descent, conveyed in behaviours ranging from navel-gazing to drug-induced urban psychedelia. Virtually without dialogue, this deliberately disjointed journey begins in head-spinning fashion, rather like a hard-core music video, and then becomes yet more extreme.
It could be a study in the dislocating loneliness of the big city, with many jumping images of Schneider scampering furtively past shops and coffee shops on streets filmed in rainy black and white. Sometimes you can see passers-by observing detachedly her erratic performance without ever stopping to help: clearly, they see her as a hopeless junkie - and to be fair to them, that is how she appears.
And yet occasional bursts of Lovecraft-like tendrils emerging from mouths lead us to believe events are far more horrifying. Indeed, the DVD 'blurb' explain that parasites are taking over brains, with paranoia and amnesia controlling the city. The picturesque, mysterious person who flits and out of the imagery is played by Shivabel Coeurnoir and appears to be behind these machinations. Events - if that is what we can call them - tumble and spiral into an almost spiritual conclusion.
This is a very experimental project. The fusion of non-stop juddering aerial views and swooping, stuttering camera movement creates a very frightening atmosphere not suitable for epileptics. The big city has never loomed so large, seemed so cold and so alien. It can all get a bit much, to be honest, but I'm imagining this is deliberate. An unremitting bleakness that does not stop but seems determined to swamp us. If this is a goth-alien invasion, it is a very convincing one.
The effectively disorientating electronic musical soundtrack, reminiscent at times of New Order's 'Blue Monday', is by Drug Store, and available under the title 'Amnesia'.
It could be a study in the dislocating loneliness of the big city, with many jumping images of Schneider scampering furtively past shops and coffee shops on streets filmed in rainy black and white. Sometimes you can see passers-by observing detachedly her erratic performance without ever stopping to help: clearly, they see her as a hopeless junkie - and to be fair to them, that is how she appears.
And yet occasional bursts of Lovecraft-like tendrils emerging from mouths lead us to believe events are far more horrifying. Indeed, the DVD 'blurb' explain that parasites are taking over brains, with paranoia and amnesia controlling the city. The picturesque, mysterious person who flits and out of the imagery is played by Shivabel Coeurnoir and appears to be behind these machinations. Events - if that is what we can call them - tumble and spiral into an almost spiritual conclusion.
This is a very experimental project. The fusion of non-stop juddering aerial views and swooping, stuttering camera movement creates a very frightening atmosphere not suitable for epileptics. The big city has never loomed so large, seemed so cold and so alien. It can all get a bit much, to be honest, but I'm imagining this is deliberate. An unremitting bleakness that does not stop but seems determined to swamp us. If this is a goth-alien invasion, it is a very convincing one.
The effectively disorientating electronic musical soundtrack, reminiscent at times of New Order's 'Blue Monday', is by Drug Store, and available under the title 'Amnesia'.
Review by Nigel P from the Internet Movie Database.
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