Three Films Make A Post: What's left when the light goes out?

The Vanishing aka Keepers (2018): On paper, Kristoffer Nyholm’s film is a great little thriller inspired by the Flannan Isles Mystery, shot beautifully, acted intensely and effectively by Gerard Butler, Peter Mullan and Connor Swindells, providing a wonderful sense of place and a not implausible tale. However, for my tastes, there’s something missing here that never makes the terribly things that happen genuinely involving, an abstract look at the characters that talks about loss and guilt but doesn’t truly get into the minds of the characters but only ever observes from the outside. And that’s not really how you portray pain.

Serenity (2019): Curiously enough, even though it is a very different kind of film, Steven Knight’s film about fisherman Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) and his troubles with a big tuna he is obsessed with, a minor noir plot, and some weird shit that’s certainly going to turn out to be meaningful, also never managed to actually connect with me emotionally, even though it clearly wanted to quite, quite, desperately. As long as the film’s a noir, everything’s peachy and fun enough, even though the film’s cast (also including people like Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou and Jason Clarke) seems to be a bit overqualified for the ciphers they are playing, and an influx of the mildly weird has never annoyed me. Alas, once the film puts its cards on the table, it may explain why everyone’s a cipher, but it also does nothing whatsoever to actually make a viewer care, what with the people whose fates the film’s actually about hardly even appearing in it. I’m also not sure I buy the film’s weird moral discussion that somehow floats around the question if catching a tuna fish named Justice is better than killing a total piece of human shit.


Hellmouth (2014): Speaking of weirdness, John Geddes’s film (written by Tony Burgess) concerning the strange misadventures of a graveyard keeper played by the great Stephen McHattie in a heavily metaphorical world whose visuals suggest the horror fan version of the influences of Guy Maddin, is certainly weird, too. However, unlike Serenity, this film’s metaphorical language seems fully thought through, and its protagonist’s reality may be as dubious as that of McConaughey’s character but it also comes together instead of falling apart when you think about its meaning. Fortunately, this isn’t just an allegory, but also a film that clearly revels in German Expressionism and its followers, as well as in providing McHattie with many an opportunity to demonstrate a wonderful ability of making the film’s strangeness real and personal.