EDEN LOG (Mongrel, 2007) D: Franck Vestiel, w/ Clovis Cornillac, Vimala Pons. Rating: NNN DVD package: n/a Rating: NNN
While Hollywood admirals and captains explain every step before it’s taken, European sci-fi titles like Time Crimes and Chrysalis toss ordinary people into a mess and let them, and us, figure it out as best they, and we, can.
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Eden Log takes this approach to the limit. Somewhere far underground, a guy (a thoroughly believable Clovis Cornillac) wakes up face down in the muck and struggles to reach the surface. He can’t remember his own name and has no idea what’s happened, but the mutants, patrolling cops, shell-shocked survivors and tangled nightmare of biological and industrial mass make it clear that something nasty has gone horribly wrong.
Director Franck Vestiel opts for shakycam all the way, flickering lights and a colour scheme of black and blue. This makes for a strong sense of terror, but he occasionally takes it to the point of eyestrain.
It’s such an unusual movie that a making-of would have been welcome.
EXTRAS Widescreen. English, French audio. English, Spanish subtitles.
