Belgian giallo Amer hits NY and LA on October 29

By Eric Walkuski

Posted 16 years ago

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

AMER is an unusual film to say the least. While it appears to be a giallo on the surface, it sides closer to the artier, more self-conscious “modernist” Italian films, like those by Antonioni and Godard. That’s why a Halloween release is slightly suspect; people going in expecting something scary will end up leaving very disappointed. (Read The Arrow’s review right HERE.)

That said, it does have its moments, especially in the first half hour, which does bring to mind the work of Mario Bava (a personal fav). For that section alone, it might be worth a Halloween weekend view – if you’re looking for something that isn’t going to provide typical gross outs. However, you’ll have to be living in New York or L.A. to enjoy AMER, as it will only be screening at the Cinema Village in NYC and at the Sunset 5 in L.A. More theaters will be announced soon.

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Ana (Marie Bos) is confronted by Body and Desire at three key moments of her life. Her carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more and more oppressive. A black laced hand prevents her from screaming. The wind lifts her dress and caresses her thighs. A razor blade brushes her skin, where will this chaotic and carnivorous journey leave her?

A dream-like, eroticized homage to 1970s Italian giallo horror movies reimagined as an avant-garde trance film, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s pastiche tour de force plays out a delirious, enigmatic,almost wordless death-dance of fear and desire. Its three movements, each in a different style, correspond to the childhood, adolescence, and adulthood of its female protagonist. Drawing its stylized, hyperbolic gestures from the playbooks of Bava, Leone, Argento, and De Palma and taking them into a realm of near-abstraction, AMER has genre in the blood. Its bold wide-screen compositions, super-focused sound, emphatic music (lifted from original giallo soundtracks), and razor-sharp cuts make for an outrageous and intoxicating cinematic head-trip.

For more AMER goodness, keep your ears open to the AITH Podcast, because we’ll have one of the directors on as a guest in the coming weeks!

Source: AITH

About the Author

Eric Walkuski

Film Critic

10,340 Articles Published

Favorite Movies: Jaws, Star Wars Trilogy, Aliens, Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Dawn read more of the Dead ('78), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ('74), Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Reservoir Dogs, The Manchurian Candidate ('62), Taxi Driver, Back to the Future, Stand by Me, Shaun of the Dead, Boogie Nights, La Dolce Vita, 12 Angry Men, The Birds, Touch of Evil

Likes: Film, Beer (who the hell DOESN'T around here?!), writing, NY Mets, read more The Jets, Girls who love film AND beer (at the same time), Jazz, Deadwood, The Wire, The Office, The Twilight Zone, Cormac McCarthy, Graham Greene, Stephen King, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scorsese, Spielberg, Halloween season, Marvel movies, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Ash vs Evil Dead, Game of Thrones, Edgar Allen Poe, Mother Nature

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