Olivia Bonamy’s cries for help go ignored in THEM, a French thriller from the directors of the recent remake of THE EYE.
THEM Ils
2006, Dark Sky Films, DD-5.1 & 2.0/16:9/LB/+, $24.98, 76m 38s, DVD-1 By Tim Lucas
Festooned with overly en- thusiastic notices from various print and online critics (“This Film Nears Perfection in Al- most Every Aspect.” —Bloody-
disgusting.com), as well seven “Official Selection” laurels from various film festivals, this French picture is nothing more or less than competent survival/situa- tion horror. Olivia Bonamy—an attractive, competent and ath- letic-looking actress—plays Clémentine, a schoolteacher who looks forward to a relaxing evening of wine and romance with her boyfriend Lucas (Michaël Cohen) after a day with her diffi- cult étudiants. That night, their isolated country house is broken into by hooded intruders who unnerve them, chase them throughout the house and into the woods, where they are injured
and separated. Lucas follows Clémentine’s screams to an un- derground tunnel system, where a moderately surprising revela- tion is made about the identities of their attackers.
Written and directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud (who subsequently co-helmed the US remake of THE EYE), this is an short feature that, even at this brevity, is guilty of padding. There’s a lengthy opening se- quence involving a road acci- dent whose survivors fall prey to shadows in the woods, which rather betrays the “based on a true story” premise explained prior to the end credits. One wants to like the film better— the editing is spacious enough to generate suspense fairly and without the usual ADD- jackhammering—but the cin- ematography goes into strobe mode whenever people break into a run, which disrupts the carefully-wrought realism with a reminder that we’re watching a movie. The dialogue is so ba- nal (“Run!”, “Go, go, go!”,
“Move!”) that the subtitles seem almost comedic whenever the situations are most urgent. Lensed in 2.35:1 in color only a couple of steps above monochrome, THEM (an end titles legend suggests “THEY” as a more apropos title) has been brought to R1 disc in an accept- ably pretty anamorphic transfer. The picture is sharpest in close and medium shots, with leaves and other scenic minutiae blur- ring slightly in longshots, and there are degrees of grain evi- dent in scenes captured in low light levels. The muted color scheme is such that the film benefits from being viewed at optimal, rather than film, set- tings and the 5.1 mix, heavily reliant on jarring directional sound effects, is the film’s out- standing technical asset. A few making-of featurettes are also included, but, while the movie prompts certain questions (“Whatever happened to char- acter, exposition, subtext?”), it’s so basic that “How did they do that?” isn’t one of them.
13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
