The above statement is a common truth, but what is happening if we have to understand it literally? What is happening if it refers to a certain perspective, point of view, a determined optical viewpoint? Our limited view on the story is part of the information distributing game of every plot, especially the crime or mystery film's syuzhets. At the same time there is another important "perspective": In the movies, - in this case - more precise in the cinematic theatres the position of the audience is crucial. What you see and what you know are usually hand in hand. But what is happening if a director takes this common knowledge serious? Then comes H.S. Miller's film, where the narratively restricted view's knowledge merging with an information rationing of the perspective. The narrative's only truth reveals only from a certain, defined geometrical angle. The truth depends where you stand.
"Anamorphosis is a Renaissance painting technique which uses the principles of forced perspective to construct an alternate image within the frontal composition." [more here]
I suppose at this point I should stop to talk more about the unique idea of the film (I'm talking about an 'unique idea' but not an 'unique narrative', no, not at all), rather I'll explain the starting point of the story. There are extremely strange and mysterious murder cases scare New York. The used adjectives are not for dramatizing the situation but to depict the reality: some Bacon-like horrific artistic-killer (he removes the body's inner parts, painting over it, hang it over the way around just to fit for a presentation by a camera obscura) threatens the people and even more the police, whose biggest fear materializes by the serial killer: the one time solved (...) Uncle Eddie's case came back (...) by this "copycat artist"...
"An artist never stops working. He always gathering material, preparing a new study."
A blog called 'bobbyperu' has to have a special attention on Willem Defoe (as detective Stan Aubray), who unfortunately becomes really old (the coloured hair doesn't help), and who is definitely better in a negative roles. Maybe next time... I have to mention Clea Duvall's performance in a tiny role (for me she is the new Tilda Swinton), Peter Stormare's short appearences ... and Paul Lazar' scary moments as the medical examiner (his face is more brutal than all the murders:).
Maybe the anamorphose technique "cancelling out all that you've learned about fixed perspective", but H.S. Miller's promising debut movie with its trendy sephia-brownish overcontrasted colours won't overwrite the existing patterns on serial killer movies. If you've seen The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en or Zodiac, then go and check it out. If not (huh?), then ... you know what to do.
6/10
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