Adem (Chuku Modu) leads a splinter of his tribe across the sea to a new land in search of better prospects. Instead, they find a wasteland and something snatches Adem's son, Heron (Luna Mwezi), in the dark. The elder (Arno Lüning) thinks they have angered a demon that must be appeased. Adem believes it's a beast that can be tracked and killed.
The neatest thing about this movie is that every line of dialogue is in a made-up language created for the film. It adds an otherness where it's almost something you could recognize (based on Arabic and Basque, according to the director) but isn't. Otherwise, this isn't really a novel take on survival horror. There are long stretches where the camera just pans over each character in a way that's meant to increase tension but just ends up being boring.
The cinematography is great when it's gliding over the Scottish highlands but it devolves into shaky cam during action and you know I hate that. (I'm pretty sure I recognized the same ridge from Braveheart but I could be wrong.) The "twist" at the end isn't particularly well done and the message isn't as clever as it thinks. It is based in actual historical evidence, however, so that's nice. All in all, not super worth your attention. It's streaming on Paramount+ with the Showtime option. Which I think is just included now? Whatever. Paramount+.
If you're wondering, it was released in festivals in 2022 but didn't get a wide release, i.e. to the States, until 2024 so it counts as being from this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment