THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE – A mysterious cadaver turns up at the local morgue and spells trouble for mortician Brian Fox and his assistant son. TAOJD is a very well put together slow burn for the most part, and includes some interesting themes and ideas – I was quite taken with the nature / back story etc of the corpse in question, although I won't go into it for the sake of spoiling the fun. There's also a tense, looming atmosphere, although TAOJD falls down a bit in its latter sections when it goes for obvious genre stock-in-trades like jump scares. All in all though, a recommend.
A CURE FOR WELLNESS – Bit torn on this big budget but pretty weird effort from the director of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. It's about a company CEO whose icy dedication to the world of high finance is tested when he ends up stopping over at an Alpine sanatorium where bad stuff's going on. Latter includes things to do with eely organisms and rejuvination, not to mention some dark history and a bit of rape-by-burned-looking-guy at the end (slight spoiler). Visually, cinematographically, ACFW does pretty well, and manages to evoke both a frosty elegance and, at least at first, a mounting sense of unreality . There's a background resonance to it all which threatens to rumble all the way up to cosmically Ligottian dimensions somehow, but the film ultimately decides to play it safe and wrap up its oddness in easily digestible forms – getting a bit more actiony, the firey back story, the bit at the end with the 'House of Wax' style reveal etc etc. So, a bit disappointing in some ways, but an intriguing oddity that I shall definitely play again some time.
PERSONAL SHOPPER – Kristen Stewart plays a post-collegiate type washed up in Paris and haunted by unknown others in this eerie number from Olivier Assayas. Stewart's character Maureen is living in the shadow of her brother's death, and, convinced she's still connected with him, spends her time looking for evidence that he's making contact. She starts to receive enigmatic texts which brush up against her preoccupations. Has the supernatural arrived, or is it something to do with her mysterious boss, a rarely seen fashion celebrity, and her bitter ex? 'Personal Shopper' is a slippery film, difficult to pin down. It moves in places like a supernatural horror, at other times like a mind-gamey thriller, at others like a down-beat indie drama. I really liked it – it summons up quite a baleful atmosphere where it's difficult to tell what's going on or who's being played. The only certainty at its heart is Maureen's alienation, and Stewart gives another of her reliably neurotic performances, one which embodies the film's claustrophobia and gathering paranoia. And the last few moments of the film are as chilling as anything I've witnessed recently. Recommended.
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