New Life Movie Review:


Synopsis:

A young American tourist, (Knighton) in an anonymous Eastern European country, becomes besotted with a local stripper, (Mouglalis) in this dark tale, set against a background of violence and exploitation.
This is a surreal, and highly explicit tale of obsession.

Apparently, when New Life was shown at the Toronto Film Festival last year, much of the audience had left the auditorium before the dialogue had kicked in. Granted, it takes about twenty minutes for this to happen, but it still seems like an extreme reaction to what is essentially a meditation on the viciousness and cruelty of human nature.

Obviously, this isn’t likely to be hitting your local multiplexes any time soon. It contains scenes of extreme sexual violence and brutality without redemption, but the base issues (slavery, prostitution, masochism, obsession) exist in reality and therefore justify the existence of movies that don’t shy away from these taboo topics.

The opening scenes, zooming onto well - worn faces which appear from the darkness, are uncomfortably close. Every line and sullen crevice, the moist whites of their eyeballs as they seem to be waiting for something. It’s creepy, but it doesn’t make you want to run for the hills.
Following on from this is a passionless meeting between a prostitute (Mouglalis), and the American (Knighton), both of whose names we never learn, and later, her pimp. This is the part where you can understand why people may have walked out, but it’s probably a backward compliment to Grandrieux and the actors, who have made it so bloody convincing.

There is little in the way of speech in the work as a whole, enriching the concept of this being an unspecified location, with nameless characters.
This seems to be a technique enlisted to make the viewer feel unsettled and unsure sometimes of what is happening or what is going to, mimicking the direction and editing.

If the director could affect the temperature, he’d probably have made the audience freezing cold to up the eerie factor, so much control
Instead of verbal impact, Grandrieux relies on visuals and sound to express what’s happening, both are the strongest aspects of the feature. There is a scene which is completely out there, even for this film, where everything becomes blurry and a dank cavern filled with savage beasts that appear to be a hybrid of man and canine writhes and screams. It will either intrigue, or scare the living Be-Jesus out of you depending on your fear threshold.

Quite often dogs are in sight or earshot, and this movie seems to be saying that the impetus behind all of this is exhibiting the animalistic qualities buried within. It exhibits the violence and brutality the so - called civilised species is capable of when driven by insane desire, much like a starving dog whose entire focus is on the one thing it cannot have.

“New Life” should be perceived as an artistic interpretation, rather than a piece of conventional film – making. With this expectation, there is more time to appreciate the qualities which have gone into creating it. Darker than hell, but just as intriguing.

Terresa Gaffney

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of New Life and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.