Audience Member
You know that scene in Tenebre where the camera keeps flying back and forth across the roof of the apartment building that seems to break the film's narrative or the moment in Opera where the bullet explodes out of the hole in the door? Argento is the master of these set pieces yet — for a while at least — he was able to make them work within his plot instead of being style over subtance.
For anyone that wanted all the style and very little substance — is it even worth saying that a giallo story makes no sense when that feels like one of the most essential parts of the form — may I recommend the Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (Amer, Let the Corpses Tan) film The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears. If you want a narrative film that tells a story, you will hate this will all your heart. But if you want to go on a kaliedoscopic ride, well, this one has plenty of visual horsepower.
If you need a thread to hold on to, Dan (Klaus Tange) is the protagonist, a man who comes home to find his wife missing. His journey to find her takes him through the dwellers in his apartment complex, who all have their own stories to tell.
Look, it's a gorgeous movie with a missing woman named Edwige, an awesome poster, an even better title and music from movies like All the Colors of the Dark, Torso, Eyeball, So Sweet…So Perverse, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, Short Night of Glass Dolls, Maddalena and The Violation of Emanuelle. So by all rights, I should love this. It's like watching a supercut of out there moments and feels like it would be perfect to put on at a party where people don't get offended by knives coming out of sexualized wounds (I mean, I've never been to this kind of party, but I figure they exist and people wear paper dresses and Ivan Rassimov shows up looking all sinister).
Yet it all kind of leaves me cold. The films of the past that this references, while strange to our American eyes, still had a beating heart. This feels like a cool move from set piece to set piece. And while I can't say that I didn't like it, it's not going to knock The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh or The Fifth Cord out of my blu ray player.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
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Audience Member
This is an odd slice of curio that i really had fun watching. Not exactly coherent but The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears has a rare brand of seductive delirium. It's charm is clearly for a niche audience and it's not the best movie ever but it is a wonderful experience. With a tantalizing blend of hallucination, visceral horror, and aberrant eroticism this movie will spell bind those willing to traverse the darker parts of the rabbit hole.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
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Ultimately less enjoyable to watch that the duo's previous 'Amer' but no less visceral and uncompromising. Strange and beautiful.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
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The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (Shudder App, Roku)- 10/10
Im not going to lie, people will either love this or absolutely hate it. It hasnt scored very well on RT and i can kind of see why if your someone who is not familiar with Giallo films in general. The movie is about a man who upon returning home from a business trip finds that his wife is missing. So he ends up searching and talking to other residents in his apartment building to see if anyone has seen her. Part thriller, part mystery, and part horror TSCOYBT's takes you on a wild journey between reality and fantasy in dreamlike sequences never really knowing what is real and what is not. Thus the problem people will have with the film is that the guessing game never really has a definitive conclusion as to what happened with the wife or why. I myself tend to love Giallo films so the mere fact that in 2014 that they could pay this much homage with great execution and flawlessness is astounding to me. The visual effects and usage of color and a 70's Go Go styled soundtrack are superb throughout the flick.
The filmography is so exquisite to me that halfway through i really didnt even care about the plot because i was so engrossed with the visual effects. This movie comes across as a mixture of Jacobs Ladder, Suspiria, Antichrist, Eraserhead, and Naked Lunch. While it has a sense of the macabre and some disturbing imagery overall its just a complete mindfuck of a movie. The only real drawback is that it is sub-titled but since most of the movie is visual based there isnt a massive amount of dialogue except when it is needed. This film will cater to those who love cinematic elegance and abstract artistic filmography. While i was somewhat disappointed with the lack of clarity with the ending it doesnt sway me from loving the movie as much as i did. When i get a chance i know i will be purchasing this on video. Even if you are not a thriller/horror fan you will or can appreciate how wonderfully shot this film is.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
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Audience Member
3.4/5
Clearly the work of an artistic enthusiast of film and with of experience-related joy, The Strange Color of your Bodys Tears is unique in its impossibility to differentiate between significance and just plain unclear narrative.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
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Audience Member
"A Strange Color of Modern Horror"
A review of The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears by Nadia Robertson
http://moviepilot.com/reviews/3779984
A brutal concoction of sound, color, sex and fury, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears has big ambitions and, for the most part, succeeds in bringing those ambitions to the screen. Few horror films in recent memory have been so intricately crafted and even fewer have had such brazen and fearless style. While on more than one occasion the film loses its way and dangerously straddles the line between the avant garde and the pretentious, filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani have enough tricks up their sleeves to create both a loving homage to the giallo classics of yore as well as a full blooded horror film with a distinctive style of its own.
The nightmarish visuals are tied together with a fairly simple story about a man, Dan (Klaus Tange), searching for his missing wife in the mysterious depths of their strange apartment building. With little to go on other than cryptic rumors from odd neighbors, Dan discovers a secret world of fetish and bloodshed of which his wife is a willing participant. This admittedly bare narrative serves more as a device to express what Cattet and Foranzi describe as a "cinematic orgasm", an intense collage of specific sound design, erotic images and graphic violence. It is difficult to fully understand what is on display here without seeing it in motion; The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears embraces the obvious influence of giallo masters like Dario Argento but many of the stylistic choices are unique to Cattet, Foranzi and cinematographer Manuel Dacosse. Distorted photography, extreme close-ups, slow motion and a vast color palette all lend to creating a truly surreal visual style that both sells the film's deeper themes of fetishism while also working on a simple, professionally polished level.
This is not to say that such polish and style come without a price; the precisely crafted approach that is the film's supreme asset is also its weakness. Some scenes are too buried in frantic editing or jarringly loud Italian rock music to make real impact, even considering the flourishes one expects from such a film. There are no real characters here, only ciphers and while it works for the most part, there is no emotional core to the film. Unlike many typical giallo, there is no focus on a Hitchcockian style mystery and any revelations coming from Dan's search are pretty obvious from the outset. The viewer's experience is mostly dependent on a willingness to embrace style over nuance, if not necessarily substance. But...what style it is, and for every misstep, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears recovers with a tense, beautifully orchestrated set piece full of energy. I was able to look past the many warts but not everyone may be so forgiving.
So few horror films these days strive to offer more than the minimum requirements of the genre. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears shows a fearless commitment to play by its own rules while evoking a bygone era; that fact alone makes it impossible not to recommend to horror fans.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
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