User Reviews

Writer-directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are the duo responsible for Amer. That film shares a great deal of similarities with their latest feature, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears. Both use the iconography and music of the Italian giallo films of the 1970's as the basic ingredients to construct an art film. Motifs familiar to fans of the genre include a character called Edwige, a black leather gloved assassin, retro phones, gaudy décor, early 70's looking women and a distinct lack of 21st century technology. We also have a soundtrack made up of a variety of music from 70's gialli – amongst others there are choice cuts from Killer Nun (1978) and All the Colors of the Dark (1972). Even its title is a knowing nod to the gloriously convoluted names that early 70's gialli often went under. Amer was made up of three parts, the middle section having no giallo influence at all; alternatively, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears is fully focused on a giallo influence from start to finish. But make no mistake, this film like its predecessor is really not a giallo per se. It uses the imagery and music from the genre in a highly experimental manner. Consequently, this is not a story-driven film in the least. It's all about the look and feel.

Frankly, I found the story to be pretty incomprehensible to be perfectly honest. In brief summary, it's about a man who returns home to his apartment to find it locked from the inside and his wife mysteriously gone; his subsequent investigations lead to a variety of very strange events. It is pretty episodic, with some parts being more successful than others. While the film is overwhelmingly beautiful to look at, a problem I had with it was that its story and characters were very unengaging. This meant that it wasn't always easy keeping your attention on events. The cinematography is really very, very good though; if anything even more impressive than in Amer. The widescreen is used to its full extent, there is interesting framing, the use of colour is fabulous, there is inventive use of split-screen and black and white is interspersed with colour. It's consistently inventive and often quite gorgeous. But it is so pronounced and relentless that after a bit you almost feel tired-out by it. And because there are such distant, unengaging characters involved in such an incomprehensible story, this means that the beautiful imagery doesn't always amount to as much as it could if there was something we could empathise with going on.

But don't get me wrong, the imagery is extremely alluring at times and there is an interesting atmosphere of mystery generated some of the time. In terms of visual artistry, this is rather good but as a thriller, it can try your patience. Overall, it's another very worthwhile effort from Cattet and Forzani but I sort of wish the next time they would employ their undoubted visual artistry around a thriller with a plot-line we can engage with more. If they can do that, then they could make something extraordinary. This one, impressed me in some ways but left me a somewhat frustrated as well.

I attended the Belgian premiere of 'L'Étrange Couleur des Larmes de ton Corps' at Film Fest Gent 2013 after reading that the film would be a homage to the giallo genre and therefore would contain music by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai (in my opinion the two best film composers there are). The only giallo I have seen until now is 'Suspiria', though I'm familiar with the names of some of the directors and actresses and also some of the titles through the work of Morricone and Nicolai. I undoubtedly missed a lot of references, but of course I understood that the name of Dan's wife, Edwige, was no coincidence :)

I was ready to immerse myself in a pure genre film, but it was still quite a challenging trip. On the plus side, the film is beautifully shot, with great use of extremely vivid colours and interior (Dan's breathtaking house by - I assume - Horta) and exterior locations (the Law Courts of Brussels). Much thought has also been put into the editing, the sound design and the choice of wonderful Italian film music. On a technical/aesthetic level, this movie is a triumph.

On the downside, the script is deliberately disorienting, which is even reinforced by most of the shots being exhausting close-ups. Some sequences/parts of the story are too short (the bearded man taking pictures of beautiful women, which is never explained), while others last too long (the sequence where Dan wakes up 20 times thanks to an incredibly irritating door bell that rings about 100 times). Although the story is thin, it's often confusing and hard to follow and the film's conclusion is rather unsatisfying.

All in all, this clearly is more of an art film than a narrative film, so while this means that it's beautiful to look at from start to finish, the story leaves much too be desired.

Dan Kristensen (Klaus Tange) returns home one day and discovers that his wife Edwige has disappeared. Dan starts investigating Edwige's disappearance and the strange and mysterious places and people of his apartment complex. Did she leave him? Is she dead? Also, what the hell is going on with his creepy neighbors? Of course the police can't help him, they just don't believe him. Soon his search and obsession cause him to descent into a world of madness. Fact and fiction become harder to distinguish. Dreams and nightmares intertwine with reality until they become one and the same. Will he ever find his wife's killer? Is there a killer? Who's the killer?

Written & directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears is a natural progression from their 'ABCs of Death' segment O is for Orgasm. The similarities aren't only on a surface level (cinematography, editing), but also on a thematic level, L'ètrange couleur des larmes de ton corps (original title) represents both an evolution and maturation for the two auteurs. Not only is this a very entertaining and visceral film, but it's also a complicated, surreal story. The narration is anything but linear or straightforward. Forzani explained that they are both inspired by the Italian Giallo, but also by Satoshi Kon. Cattet also cited Brian De Palma as an influence.

The characters in The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears have a way of relating to the space around them reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni's work (namely L'Eclisse). The '70s score, borrowed directly from Italian films creates a playful, but at the same time scary mood, while the loud sound mixing and the entrancing imagery enable the viewer to be transported into the film's world. Even if the story is anything but clear on a first viewing, the film is always interesting to watch and experience on a purely sensorial level (much like a David Lynch film). Like Amer, this film more than just a love letter to Italian cinema, it's a work of art that stands on its own. There are throwback qualities to it, but the film works for a modern audience as well.

What I appreciated and take away most from complex films like this one are the cinematography (à la Tutti i colori del buio), the tone and atmosphere and the fantastic soundtrack. While it loses some of its pace in the second act, it returns with a fury in the last act, with flashbacks, black & white sequences (with an altered frames per second rate) and all sorts of violent crazy stuff happening. It is a very re-watchable film, especially because it's difficult to fully understand on a first viewing (or ever?). I was a little bit let down by the poor character development in the film, though I realize that wasn't the film's intent or goal, still I like to have relatable characters beyond their physical appearance, accent and attire.

Personally, I'd say this is a step up from Amer and so I can only be excited for anything the two will do in the future. I recommend this film if you enjoyed previous work from Cattet & Forzani, you like the films or directors I've mentioned or just want to try something new. This is definitely a film best enjoyed in theaters (even if people walking out are annoyingly distracting), if you watch it at home make sure you have a good sound system: That's how the directors intended you to view their picture.

One of the few films that made me nervous with it's chaotic plot that leads to nonsense. I can say that the beginning of the action was in place, the shots were unusual, but still unique and well illustrated.

Many parts of the film are accompanied by intense music, which in some parts may be superfluous, at least with the power with which it is expressed. The subjective impression is as if you took a narcotic and as if you were straight, twisted at the same time.

The film served as an inspiration to Marilyn Manson for two music videos and I can say that he made a great whole, and 4 obvious reasons - the videos were much shorter than the film.

From another point of view, we can call this film an extravagant masterpiece in which a lot of effort has been invested, but through the continuation of the film, that same effort falls into the water.

Being visually stunning this movie is great essentially for its amazing cinematography and the way the camera is used.

Detailed and wonderful plans, vivid colors, amazing sets inside Art Deco buildings; it all have an astonishing visual effect.

The plot is mysterious and complex.

It's all about a murderer that is killing people inside their houses, but without breaking anything or leave any clue. But who is this murder anyway?

It's one of those movies you can't figure out the entire plot at the first sight! At least I didn't!

But I was amazed with the strange colors of this film!

Yet another exercise in all-style-no-substance film-studies-friendly/paying-audience-hostile giallo "homage" from Forzani and Cattet. Oh for Pete's sake - come on guys! Amer was one thing, quite interesting at the time, but the value of that film has somehow been retroactively diminished by the release of its identikit successor. Replicating the surface details of the giallo style is easy peasy - anyone can do it - it's the Spaghetti Bolognese of filmmaking. But the point of the original gialli classics was that they were proper functioning movies that would have worked as exciting thrillers even without the stylistic flash. Neither Amer, nor TSCOYBT, have proper plots, and for me, failure to provide an adequate narrative element is an abdication of the filmmaker's primary responsibility.

I hope, for Forzani and Cattet's sake, that they are not currently working on another EU-cash-lake-for-art-house-piffle funded giallo homage, because they will be risking losing their credibility forever after, which would be a shame, because I get the impression that they are extremely talented and visionary filmmakers.

Unfortunately, I absolutely hate films that are all style over substance. I find them tedious, a chore to sit through and the polar opposite of entertaining. THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS, a tribute of sorts to the Italian gialli of the 1970s and in particular the work of Dario Argento, is one such film and something I really struggled to sit through.

The basic plot sees a husband searching for his missing wife in his apartment complex, and there's literally nothing more to it than that. The filmmakers use this as an excuse to fit together dozens of arty shots of people being sliced, stabbed and some more surreal set-pieces. There's an unpleasant sexual side to the proceedings at times while in other places it's frankly dull.

The cast is nothing to write home about but the film is indeed beautiful to look at; the camera-work is very good and sometimes stunning, but I always find the look of a film comes second to the plotting which is why I couldn't enjoy this. If these arty bits had been interspersed with a more solid narrative and some real storytelling then I might have liked this; as it stands, I hated it. Your mileage may vary.

This film will be hated by many that cling on to any form of traditional storytelling in film. For viewers that get a kick out of abandoning the rules and diving headfirst into a brave new film-world it's perfect. Not that this movie breaks all the rules, in fact it builds and expands rather rigidly upon time honored film history. At the same time part of the fun is seeing how much the deconstruction and reassembling of the (early German expressionist through classic Hitchcock/ Lang, giallo and surrealist dream) elements of older movies are put through the mind-blender and figuring out what comes out at the other side. As the video-clip (thank you Ken Russell's Tommy) was the successor to the old MGM musicals, The Strange Color……….is a psycho-thriller with all the boring parts cut out. Does this come out as total sensory overload? pretty sure it does. The effect is a bit like a Jungian 2001 Stargate sequence.

This is not an affectionate homage but rather one of the possible next steps to expand the form and genre.

The makers (directing/ photography/editing / actors/ production design) are in complete control of what they want to put on the screen The vertigo and disorientation of the audience are absolutely core business of the genre. It doesn't mean the images are void of meaning, but active interpretation of the images/sounds and symbols is needed and are what makes the movie tick.

As for film and visual and sequential language the bar is raised very high, every shot is carefully composed to a T. Perfect soundscape and retro music. There's also a sly humor in playing with the genre elements (Inspector Vincenticelli and the "Europudding multilingual dialogue" that was so much part of the feel of 70's Italian films - would be great if there existed dubbed Italian/English versions. Red herrings and faux explanations/endings play out as well.

For adventurous viewers, see it on the big screen if you get the chance. Then multiple repeat home viewings to sort it all out.

(and after receiving my DVD…..happy to report, this movie definitely does make sense, does not drop the ball - as most routine Hollywood mystery thrillers do - plot-wise. The devil is in the details, but you have to be willing to enter the labyrinth.)

Returning from a business trip to find his wife gone but their apartment locked from the inside, a middle aged man investigates matters himself when labeled as the prime suspect in this mystery thriller that is more offbeat than it sounds. The man's amateur sleuthing leads him to conversing with his some of his apartment complex neighbours for the first time, none of whom seem normal, and as the film progresses, it is revealed that apartment complex has labyrinthine hidden walls and passageways that may hold clues. Some have interpreted the film as metaphorical with the condominium representing a disturbed mind, but the film works fine as a straight mystery too. That said, it is deliberately paced and full of bizarre imagery, including kaleidoscopic shots and fancy edits galore. At times, the film feels showy, like a canvas for the filmmakers to experiment rather than tell a story, and some images (the girl giving out candy) seem utterly random. And yet, it is hard not to admire the finesse put into all the graphic (and non-graphic) match editing, like the protagonist drinking cut against a hypnotic wheel. There is also an amazing bit in which his face is spliced against a detective's in split screen, giving the initial appearance of one whole face. The film is quite an assault on the senses if nothing else - which seems only appropriate to reflect the stress and agony of a man searching for his wife while under police suspicion himself. The title, for what it's worth, seems to be a reference to gushing blood; what sort of blood in particular is only revealed at the end.

Let's mention the good things first. The directors clearly have a feel for style. There are some great visuals all the way through this film, and the - mostly 70s - soundtrack matches these perfectly. However, the film is all style and no substance. In fact, it's worse than that - it's a confused mess.

The opening scenes are promising. We see Dan Kristensen, an airline passenger whose flight is landing. He has a book of matches with a woman's legs on the cover, together with the words "Table Dancing". In his taxi he looks across the street towards what appears (unfocused) to be a woman in a red-lit window space. An erotic club? A brothel? During his journey these images are intercut with monochrome images of a black woman, wearing leather, involved in some kind of bondage activity. Whether this is a dream image, a flashback, or a real-time activity elsewhere is never explained, though we later learn that the woman is Kristensen's wife.

Kristensen returns to his apartment to find his wife missing and the door chain-locked from the inside. After a smoke and a drink (or several) he goes searching for his wife. This brings him into contact with several odd individuals who all have strange stories to tell (in flashback): a sceptical detective, the old woman upstairs whose face we never see, and a naked woman on the roof.

Unfortunately, we are never given a character to care about, let alone any kind of narrative that makes sense. Interest starts to flag after about 30 minutes, and the film becomes more and more hallucinatory as it goes on. At one point, Kristensen is chasing multiple doppelgangers around his apartment and there is a gratuitous and nasty slasher sequence. Is it all a dream? Is Kristensen suffering a psychotic breakdown? Who knows? Who cares?

At first I couldn't really explain why I didn't like this film. After all, the foyer and staircase in the building are the kind of atmospheric luxury one expects in a giallo or apartment horror, and the old lady upstairs reminded me a bit of The Sentinel, one of my favorite films ever.

I think it's the main guy. I don't like him. Not that I like every horror protagonist or "point of view" killer in giallo, but I couldn't empathize or feel horror, I just felt a kind of worldly distaste. The kind of distaste I feel for Wall Street moguls, tax accountants, and Republicans. Not the kind of supernatural fascination or psychological curiosity one might have in the horror/thriller genres.

In fact nothing about this felt haunted to me. There was no pang of nostalgia, no whisper of ghosts (real or imagined), no monstrous memories sparked, no sleeping dogs refused to lie. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears is more of surreal modern nightmare centering about a rich white man. His dream felt incoherent in a bad way, it did not compel me to pay attention, I could barely get through this. But I have to give it 6 stars for the incredible beauty of particular scenes.

The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears is a tribute to Italian Giallo slasher films of the 60s and 70s. The film begins with a man returning to his apartment after he has been away on business for two weeks, only to find that his wife is missing. The man then tries to find his wife. He searches through her stuff calls, the police, and visits a mysterious lady up on the seventh floor of his building. But things take a turn for the worse when he discovers something that has mysteriously appeared in his apartment. The film then becomes a disjointed serious of dream sequences and flashbacks that become increasingly hard to follow.

The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears is second film by the Italian horror duo, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Frozani. And let me just say that these two know what they're doing, the film is very well crafted, the blocking and camera work in this is some of the freshest I've seen in any film from the past few years. The cinematography (shot by Manuel Dacosse) is fantastic. The film is vibrantly colorful, has flawless lighting, and does a great job of getting you up close and personal with the characters in the film. The sound design is also insanely good. There's little dialogue in the film, (we get most of the information about the characters through what we see.) but the void the absence of dialogue has made is filled with some of the most detailed and complex sound design I've heard in a horror film.

But where The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears succeeds in style, it fails in story. With all of its jumping around, cryptic storytelling, and dream sequences it becomes nearly impossible to follow, (at least towards the end.) and thus the film fails to engage its audience. The story in itself wasn't that great to start with, and they never really add anything onto it, if anything they take away from where the story started by making it so confusing and to make it worse they don't do much to try and make you follow their film. Their are aspects of the story that are really good, (like the back story of the lady on the seventh floor.) but on a whole the story is alright at best, and a muddled mess at worst.

While not bad a bad film, The Strange Color of Your Bodies Tears could have been much better than it actually was. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Frozani both definitely have talent, they just need to work on focusing in on a single theme or story, and making it coherent. If they are able to do these two things the film they make will almost definitely be a masterpiece. But for now I'm satisfied with The Strange Color of Your Bodies Tears.

5.9

The first project I saw from the Belgian duo of Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattete was their segment on the horror anthology The ABC'S Of Death. It was an interesting contribution to the film. Less a short horror movie and more a THX demo disc inspired sex-scene, for lack of better words. Reminded me a lot of Chris Cunningham's Flex. And while it wasn't among my favorite segments from that film, it did make me interested to check out their other works.

I'm honestly not sure where to start with this. I guess I'll start with the obvious inspiration of giallo. Although the genre was seemingly exclusive to Italy, this seems to be a Belgian/French attempt at a modern giallo. Wikipedia even flat-out calls it a giallo. And it certainly has a lot of staples of the genre. A mystery plot, a black leather gloved killer, a memorable soundtrack, gorgeous scenery. Dario Argento must be pleased with this.

But there are a lot of other influences that make themselves clear throughout the film. A pet peeve of mine is when someone calls a surreal piece of media "Lynchian", as if David Lynch invented surrealist film. I don't see anyone make similar comparisons to Luis Buñuel or Georges Méilès, despite them making surreal films long before Lynch was even born. That being said, "Lynchian" is a pretty apt descriptor for this movie. There are scenes that brought to mind the stranger moments of Twin Peaks and its movie adaptation, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and even Eraserhead to a small extent.

I can also detect the avant-garde style of Buñel, the fast editing of Darren Aronofsky, the maximalism of Luc Besson, and even traces of 2000's horror near the end. The opening credits even use a very similar typefont to the one that Gaspar Noé often uses. This takes as much from Torso as it does from Un Chien Andalou. Yet despite all the influences here, it feels like it has its own vision.

Befitting of its surrealist inspirations, the movie is quite hard to follow. The main plot is clear: a man is looking for his missing wife. Yet the weird narrative structure and all the visual flourishes throughout make things very hazy. I don't normally rewatch something less than a couple months after my first watch, but for this, I felt I had to make an exception. There was that much to unpack here.

And this really does benefit from multiple watches. Not only are plot points more clear, but certain parts end up becoming easier to understand amidst the sheen of surrealism. It's still somewhat incomprehensible in parts, but decidedly less so. And with each watch, I find something new about it.

A lot of the violence here is done more artistically than anything else, which is another trait it shares with giallo. As a result, they are among the more standout moments here. One such scene that particularly stuck with me is the (possibly a dream) sequence with the killer literally getting inside a victim and using his body to stab himself, like a deranged form of possession.

I do think the ending could've been trimmed a bit. It does seem to drag somewhat by then. Otherwise, this seems to be one of those films that, the more you watch it, the more there is to uncover. There is even a shot of a Matryoshka doll, which I'm sure is a cheeky way to remind the audience of how layered the whole film is.

Bottom line: this film is firmly recommended for fans of arthouse, giallo, and David Lynch. And if you're in the Venn diagram of all three, that's a bonus. Those who prefer a clearer structure in their film might have to look elsewhere, however. Regardless, it certainly is a film that sticks in my mind.

There is no ending and no beginning. Missing narrative destroys a film with mesmerizing sequences and images. Not sufficient unless we are simply looking for that, plus a sound track that at several junctures grabs a viewer by the throat.

What is so disappointing is the obvious filmic talent on display that goes nowhere. It is difficult to judge the acting because the style obviously demanded by the director is flat and almost entirely one dimensional. There are a few hiccups, such as an unwanted reflection or two, but generally the visual images are powerful, as are some of the sequences. I recommend serious viewers consult a copy of Kraft-Ebbing for a deeper understanding of some of the images.

Certainly in the spirit of giallo but with the soul of Kafka. No simple narrative flow, not even a regular narrative structure, this visual and aural treat is not the simplest of watches. Always beautiful with continuous references to stained glass, art nouveau, eyes, knives and bared and bleeding flesh, the music and effects are also alluring, evocative and disturbing. A man returns from a business trip to find he cannot find his wife ( Edwige, nudge nudge aficionados! ) and that's about it, unless you count the wondrous building in which the film takes place or the spaces behind the walls. The directing duo are clearly fascinated by the Italian genre films of the 60s and early 70s and deliver up the most sumptuous offering, its just that, not unreasonably, they are less interested in the story lines but more in the more primal elements that go into even the lesser giallo. They love the colours, the sounds, the wide eyed screams and the trickling blood. The confused participants who know not whether they are mad or even dead, cannot help but draw us in to this manic mayhem and those of us who, similarly enjoy this craziness, can only applaud and breathe a sigh of relief we got out alive.

I love Giallo stuff and when there's a movie that pays tribute or respect to the genre, I'd give it a go. So with this one, seeing a really cool cover of the DVD and being French and all, hey off course :) I like the idea of a missing lover story and I really like the stylized detailed, closed up shots and sounds of many of the scenes. BUT I find it a bit much. I feel that with Giallo, being psychedelic doesn't mean,psychedelic shots of every scenes, this movie has an amazing / best art nouveau back drop that it self already gives a certain persona. I find my self looking the other way just every now and then to rest my eyes also press the ff button just because my brain is telling me " yes I got it, got the idea...next ". However I still recommend it to you, because it has a very good story and all this stuff I'm writing about is worth to look at. But for me.....a bit over done

"Your dark side is your best side" a man is told as he searches secret passageways of his art-nouveau residence in Brussels. He may be searching inside himself or within his dreams. His wife is missing and presumed murdered along with others in the complex. Things seem to get murkier the more he looks into them. Elegant, bold, sinister, shadowy and stimulating, this film will have to be watched again and again, even by Kafka, in order to make better sense of it. It was intentionally designed this way. Eerie and piercing sounds heighten the effect of the stylish images. At times the repetitive images were too much for me, yet the film is absorbing and beautiful in all its darkness. Seen at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

Since I saw this one in a cinema (and sat in the middle otherwise I would have left) I had not only to endure the chaotic and annoyingly bad script. I also had to suffer from the annoying sound effects/music at quite a high volume which I think is on purpose. I also had to endure the chaotic visuals which seems to have been made by randomly using different effects to make it "arty".

When leaving the cinema I had the feeling I never ever wanted to see another movie again. Now after a good nights sleep I mustered the energy to try to share this horrible experience to help people avoid this "movie", which might be THE worst movie experience I have ever had, but I settle with saying that it is among the worst, even though I cannot recall any worse that I have had.

Avoid it.

Barfing out references in place of a coherent screenplay, the directors of this kitsch turd appear to have been trying to have a good time copycatting Lynch, Argento and Phantom of the Paradise, while masturbating on Alfons Maria Mucha's art, more than trying to make it worth the spectator's while.

The untalented and hideous actors, all lookalikes, and looking like the improbable offsprings of Klaus Kinski and Dominique Pinon, minus the talent, just show up on the screen doing various things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever, while atrocious camera-work, hard to bear colour schemes and an extremely unpleasant soundtrack attack the viewer in a most unpleasant way. No beauty, no poetry, if not for a couple of scenes that are nicely thought out, but that do not serve an actual cinematographic purpose in the film, more of an onanist visual act.

More than leeching off other director's trails, it would be a good thing for the two directors to go to a screenplay class, during which I'm sure one of the topics to come up would be "how to keep the viewer interested". If they don't go to one soon, they could remain amateurs for the rest of their careers but at this point, I'm not sure they have much left to say anyways because they already had so little to begin with.

Let's just hope that they will keep to short films: in the grind-house scene, their insufferable aesthetics would be praised if they keep it short, as in title sequences or collective movies.

In short, the lesson here is that one does not aim at directing a "cult" movie, it's not a genre, it's the viewers who decide. "Cult" films were usually trying to be interesting or narrative before they were trying to be "cult" films, and that's something we'll hope the directors understand soon.