Director: Mikel Balerdi
Year: 2021
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Exploitation
Plot:
Living alone in their apartment, a man and his girlfriend are overwhelmed by their impulses and desire to explore the more taboo side of life eventually leading them down a road of darkness and self-perversion that neither of them was ever expecting after she succumbs to a tragic accident.
Review:
There's quite a lot to like with this effort. The film is at its best when working with the far more psychological undercurrents that are being utilized by the experimental imagery present. The almost dialog-free effort tends to bring about scenes with plenty of context about their intentions, from the attempts by the woman to calm herself with cat photographs that gradually turn into more ferocious and vicious snapshots indicating the flashes of blood-covered figures working throughout her conscious mind. The fact that this precedes both of their constant need to press forward with exploring more taboo aspects of their own self-mutilation in the name of confronting the taboo nature of the human condition, revolving around blood-play, carving symbols or other figures into their bodies or generally disfiguring themselves as a means of stopping these visions from continuing speaks highly of where the intent behind this one lies.
Moreover, it's also rather enjoyable in the fact that it doesn't just explore these themes but is openly at ease with featuring such material in the first place. The frankness with which it displays the bathroom pleasuring, cleaning off dead skin from various orifices of his body or purposefully placing objects inside him by getting into close-up views of the act being performed offers up a shockingly perverse ease and numbness to the imagery on-screen. This also extends to the close-quarter views of the male form in unexpected and graphic means, growing erect while pleasuring himself, actually showing the insertion takes place inside his orifice or the release of actual bodily fluids. This becomes rather more disturbing as time goes on after realizing the whole intention was done while trying to remember and honor the forgotten memory of his lover based on their relationship together, all of which make for a wholly disturbing and bizarre trip.
There are some drawbacks to this type of effort, though. Most obviously is the complete lack of dialogue that brings a more coherent understanding to their snapped mental state as the experimental state presented here might be off-putting for some to get through. It does the same for the extreme content on display, as a lot of the scenes here might be far more offensive and shocking than actually disturbing as were the intentions. From the seemingly endless scenes of him fondling himself in the bathroom that takes forever to get to the expected release and her self-mutilation with the scissors that has been shown before in various stages before which devalues some of their impact. However, the biggest issue is that in spite of this being nearly an hour, some of it comes off as needless filler running on a bit too long for its own good. Not only does it hit a natural ending point and then keep going rendering the material somewhat irrelevant past that point but has several scenes designed merely to pad the running time as it is, which are enough to hold this down overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
With plenty of offensive, vile content and a brain behind what to use it for, this is a finely impressive psychologically-tinged exploitation effort that is only undone by some small issues in several areas. Fans of modern extreme cinema or this type of exploitation film are going to have a good time with this one, while those with no tolerance or appreciation of the style should heed extreme avoidance for what's featured here.
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