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Film REVIEWS
DOCUMENTARY INTO THE ABYSS: A TALE OF DEATH, A TALE OF LIFE (12A) 107min ●●●●●
In an interview to promote Into the Abyss, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog declares that, ‘it is absolutely clear that the crimes of the persons in my film are monstrous, but the perpetrators are not monsters’. Although Herzog himself is staunchly opposed to capital punishment, his new documentary is much more than a righteous polemic against the state executing its citizens.
Split into a prologue and six separate chapters, it focuses on a triple homicide case which took place in the Texan town of Conroe in 2001. A mother, Sandra Stotler, was shot dead in her home by two young men Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, who wanted to steal her red sports car. They then proceeded to kill her son Adam and his friend Jeremy to get the electronic key allowing access to their gated community.
The facts of this shocking case are not disputed: instead Herzog probes away at the consequences to the lives of the victims’ relatives and the perpetrators. At a Texas prison he interviews through bullet-proof glass both Perry, eight days before his execution by lethal injection, and Burkett, who is serving a 40-year sentence. He speaks to Stotler’s daughter, who lost both her mother and her brother in the murders and he also talks to Burkett’s father (also serving a life sentence); a ‘Death Row groupie’ who married Burkett junior in jail and is now carrying his child via artificial insemination; and a former captain of the Death House team in Huntsville prison, who quit his job in protest at the death penalty after supervising 125 executions. Herzog himself remains off screen, but there’s no mistaking his idiosyncratic questioning, and Peter Zeitlinger’s digital camera picks out a host of revealing details, not least the impounded sports car – the trigger of the whole tragedy – in which a tree has now sprouted. (Tom Dawson) ■ Selected release from Fri 30 Mar.
THRILLER BABYCALL (15) 96min ●●●●●
HORROR THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (15) 94min ●●●●● DRAMA CORPO CELESTE (U) 100min ●●●●●
Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, whose fearless performance as Lisbeth Salander was the best thing about the original Millenium trilogy, gets a chance to stretch her acting muscles again in this creepy thriller. Rapace plays Anna, a young mother who has been rehoused with her eight-year-old son Anders after escaping her abusive husband. On the advice of child services, Anna buys a ‘babycall’ – a one- way baby monitor – so that she can rest easy while Anders sleeps in his own room. But one night she hears other voices through the intercom, both frightened and threatening. Norwegian writer/director Pål Sletaune keeps us guessing as to what is really going on, while drip- feeding information that slowly undermines Anna’s perspective. But as the film progresses, more outlandish plot developments pile up, and what begins as a tightly controlled exercise starts to fall apart. Sletaune aims for a Sixth Sense-type final reveal, but goes too far, with a twist that glosses over so many inconsistencies that anyone who’s attempted to follow the plot will feel short-changed. (Paul Gallagher) ■ Selected release from Fri 30 Mar.
A film that’s almost impossible to talk about without ruining its multiple pleasures, The Cabin In The Woods is the most original horror movie of the year. Reverential to the genre, yet shaking it up simultaneously, it’s exactly what you’d expect from co-writers Joss Whedon (Buffy, and this month’s Avengers Assemble) and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield), who also directs.
Showing how five sex and booze fuelled teenagers get more than they bargained for when they holiday in an isolated log cabin, this may sound overly familiar to anyone who has seen Evil Dead and its numerous imitators. Yet with a parallel plot, involving a group of white collar workers holed up in a high- tech bunker, nothing is as it seems. The performances are credible, particularly Thor’s Chris Hemsworth and Fran Kranz as the obligatory jock and stoner, respectively. The effects too are first rate, but it’s the cavalcade of images (and horror references) in the final act that will blow your mind. Geeks, newbies, it won’t matter – Cabin has something in its box of tricks to scare everyone. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 13 April.
Alice Rohrwacher makes her feature debut with this diligent, emotionally complex study of an adolescent girl attempting to square physical dislocation with incipient sexual awakening and the concurrent rituals of her family’s Catholic faith. Yle Vianello – one of those solemn child actors who remind us that it’s a short memory indeed that regards childhood as a lost realm of carefree irresponsibility – plays Marta, who’s moved with her mother and sister from Switzerland to their native Calabria just in time for her confirmation.
The small local church is awaiting delivery of a fancy crucifix, in time for a visit from the Bishop; it also faces losing its ageing priest, and Marta finds herself pivotal to both eventualities. The film makes neat if familiar associations between Catholic ritual and sexual identity, and between religion and civic corruption. Hélène Louvart’s accomplished cinematography achieves a persuasive sense of place. However, the film as a whole is a rather gloomy watch, and its slight story arc leaves it feeling like a skilled but overextended short. (Hannah McGill) ■ Selected release from Fri 30 Mar.
29 Mar–26 Apr 2012 THE LIST 67