Obsession

I honestly don’t know what to rate this film. I went into it with what I know see were impossibly high standards. This film was really hyped up to me not just as a great film but one I would love, and not just love but one that would scare me. Did I love it? Yes. Did it scare me? For some reason not at all, and not without lack of effort I really really wanted it too. I keep combing over this film and its scenes trying to invoke some sort of scared reaction out of myself and I just simply can’t. I genuinely think the wannabe filmmaker in me just speaks too loud, I genuinely lack the ability to just watch and enjoy a film. Whether I want to or not I am subconsciously picking apart every aspect of what I’m viewing. Every minuscule thing in a frame just seems to scream at me. Every object in the background, every slight change of light or color, every small stylistic change in the framing or sound design. Now aside from that, I absolutely adored this film. The cinematography was simply gorgeous. Every scene felt so beautifully lit and every set so perfectly lived in. I was absolutely obsessed with whatever lens it was they used in the opening scene, I’ve never seen such a narrow rectangular bokeh and I absolutely love the way it appeared. I love the way that everything was framed ever so slightly lower than it should’ve been. I also loved the use of the lower right third in this film. Not only was the cinematography amazing but the editing had such a satisfying rhythm to it. You could really tell that Curry Barker not only directed but also edited this. The coloring was absolutely stunning, I love the use of red in Nikki’s character specifically. Speaking of Nikki the acting in this film was absolutely phenomenal. Inde Navarrette had what is easily the best performance I’ve seen so far this year. She absolutely masted the level of eroticness and intensity needed to pull of this character and make you really feel for her. Michael Johnston also did an amazing job as Bear. Bear as a character was just through and through a coward, the bravest thing he did was kill himself and even that he took far too long to do. The themes of this movie were so eerie. I think forced love is something that I see in so many of my favorite pieces of media. It’s a topic I’ve grappled with for pretty much as long as I can remember, that honestly may be another one of the many reasons this film didn’t scare me. But also I say that as I lay her hours later unable to fall asleep because I keep replaying this film in my head. I feel like I have so many more feelings I just can’t quite make words or coherent thoughts of them. But I will say the longer I sit with this the more and more horrifying it becomes. The more I think about these characters and the level of insanity they were driven to the more unsettling it becomes. I think to really give it a fair rating I need a second watch, a watch where I can really admire the strong themes and not expect and intense scare. Edit: after sleeping on it, or lack of sleeping on it this is undeniably a five star film