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In the world of 21st century art, there’s nothing inherently new or interesting about not having a linear plot in a traditionally story-oriented medium. The bottom line, as always, is communication. It doesn’t have to be with words. And film is, after all, a visual medium. It communicates first and foremost with pictures. Story functions as the structure on which to arrange pictures and the resulting moving collage delineates meaning. Plot gives pictures a context for the audience’s visceral response. It’s the skeleton of the body of a film. If you’re going to disregard plot, or a clear story to follow, the other elements of the given film have to be that much stronger to make up for the void.
In David Holt’s The Psychomanteum we are put inside the head of his protagonist, Megan and it’s not a pleasant experience. From the outset we’re immersed in disturbing images of madness, fear, death and suffocating loneliness. Megan isn’t losing her grip on reality. Reality has already fallen apart and is re-creating itself as a twisted, howling dimension of pain. Periodically, she is visited in her nightmare by a woman/angel/ghost who we later learn (when we read the credits) is the Psychiatrist from Hell. We have brief encounters with Megan’s mother, and a man who could be Megan's father...or not. She kills two people by running them down with her car. We don’t know who they are to her or if they are anyone to her. The murders seem somehow secondary to the mental self mutilation to which we have already been witness. Throughout, a certain complicity on Megan's part in her own condition seems inferred. Her suffering takes on an air of indulgence. Even if she could help herself, there's a question as to whether or not she would.
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Insanity is measured by how different it is from the agreed upon “norm”. When there is no norm, when everything is insanity, that then, becomes the sanity – the norm -- of the world you’re in. Holt shows a Dali-esque talent for re-creating a dream landscape but the strength of the movie begins and ends there. So many images come flying at us it’s hard for any one to have real emotional resonance. In The Psychomanteum we’re inside Megan’s head but we’re outside of her insanity. Even though it’s all we see, we watch it from a distance because we don’t care about Megan. Each beautiful or shocking or haunting image is cut off, it exists on its own, nothing builds to a greater knowledge or a greater understanding. There’s no sense of loss of family or of innocence or a tenous grasp on reality or anything. When the sudden reveal happens at the end we feel nothing because there was nothing to hold on to before so nothing is taken away. It’s not a shock, it’s an anti-climax. It feels tacked on. It doesn’t help that, though all the scenes are beautifully shot and composed, too many of the symbols seem standard fair. A blown out candle signifying a life being snuffed out, turning fans (a la Angel Heart or Jacob’s Ladder), disembodied eyes appearing in strange places, blood…we’ve seen it all before. The symbols themselves are not as imaginatively chosen as they are shot and constructed. And Holt, at this point, is not a skilled enough storyteller to breathe new life into these symbols.
A film such as The Psychomanteum is heavily dependent upon a special kind of actor. She doesn’t need to disappear into a character or have movie star quality but she does need to have a certain kind of charisma. There are almost no words in the film so every look, every gesture has to carry a visceral impact. Megon Kirkpatrick as the lead is a misstep. She’s a hopelessly pedestrian presence where mystery and vulnerability are called for. She needs to be either striking looking or preternaturally innocent,visually open. Her soul has to be naked inside her eyes because her face is all we ever know of her. Kirkpatrick is not this actress. Every line she speaks – and she doesn’t speak many – seems to be either snarled through gritted teeth or yelled with a Sam Kinison-like primal scream. Why, we don’t know. It’s a crippling mistake. And the script, such as it is, doesn’t help her. When there are only a few lines in the entire film the ones chosen need to be money – and they’re not. And Kirkpatrick is not the one to sell the ones that are there.
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“Maybe the voices are – just in your head.”
“Are you messing with my brain???”
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| Yeah, pretty prosaic stuff. Cate Blanchett would have a tough time making these lines happen. And these moments are our time to interact a little more with the human side of Megan, something besides her madness. But we’re only pushed farther away. All of the actors fall prey to the same miscalculation. They're strange but not especially human. Before long you get that it’s because the actors are strictly secondary. Megan is not the lead, the director is. He’s the real star of the movie. Hence the constant barrage of fantastic images spliced together by jump-cut editing. You can’t ever forget he’s there. After a while it doesn’t feel like the kaleidoscope of images is supposed to explore madness as much as it is supposed to convey virtuosity. And it does. But that’s not terribly interesting. Not even for only half an hour, which this film is. The Psychomanteum, frankly, needs a writer, if only to give some kind of shape to all the creative energy of the director. |
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And yet…and yet…I’ll keep an eye out for other stuff from Art in Film Productions. I’ll be looking for other pieces from David Holt. I went to their website (www.artinfilm.com) and checked out there links on YouTube and MySpace. I found some interesting stuff there and some not so interesting stuff. The important quality that you see in all of it though, the reason why I’m going to keep a look out, is that there you will find an active and energetic imagination. And talent. And some genuine creepiness. Which is a good thing. We like creepiness here at the Plot Hole. But I would venture to guess that David Holt has bigger and better pieces ahead. And one day, I have a feeling we’ll see The Psychomanteum as an important step in the growth of a young artist. After all, if Scorsese doesn’t do It’s Not Just You, Murray, there’s no Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. For all the flaws in The Psychomanteum, David Holt has the eye of an artist and the energy of an entrepreneur and that…makes him a director to watch.
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