1 more month until the first death anniversary of the legendary Mocky, it's been a year already and just 3 days back was his birthday. I decided to revisit my favourite films of Mocky and "Litan" will be the best followed by "Love Hate." This movie is a surreal Gallic folk-horror fantasy set during a peculiar town's Festival of the Dead in the city of Litan which works as a cross genre hybrid like one-part Lovecraft one-part Jean Rollin/ Alain Robbe-Grillet. A couple is on vacation where the traditional mask festival is taking honoring the dead like Mexico's "Día de Muertos." But soon it can be observed that there are numerous deaths among the inhabitants, behind which there appears to be a mysterious power. Meanwhile, a premonitory nightmare, mysterious disappearances and the inhabitants begin to act more and more strangely. The mist-shrouded passages give it a Wicker Man-meets-Don't Look Now atmosphere. Director Jean-Pierre Mocky has showed a good eye for atmospheric pictures and sceneries Amidst doing the role of Jock in the film. The swift editing, the pig masks, the Nietzschean metaphor avoiding intrusive showmanship in favor of subtle surrealism is also the highlights of the film. You will experience a highly unusual film, which also reveals once again what diverse cinema is commonly referred to as "horror", with "Litan" so much more than just "just" a horror film. The movie does not step too deep into "the usual" horror tropes and what is going on in "LITAN" is impossible to describe in words, you must look at it yourself. Highly Recommended for the fans of Harry Kümel's Malpertuis (1971), Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso (1975), Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981), and Janusz Majewski's Lokis (1970). RIP Jean-Pierre Mocky.
