Amer (2010)

Dir: Hélène Cattet / Bruno Forzani

Slow, pretentious snoozefest without much in the way of plot shows us three key events in a girl's life that involve sex and death. These incidents are demonstrated largely through endless close-ups of earlobes, fingernails, navels, nostrils, etc. There's some Bava-style lighting and some music stolen from classic gialli but it owes more to French new wave cinema and dialogue-free avant garde directors like Kenneth Anger. The main problem is that while the directors it pays tribute to were genuine mavericks, "Amer" instead just clunkily recycles stuff that's been done better some 30+ years ago. There's nothing challenging about that. It's almost the antithesis of the art they're imitating. I suppose it works as a self-aggrandising showreel for the directors to show off how clever they think they are but, as a film, it's unwatchably dull. *