BEFORE: All right, while we're on the topic of imprisonment, let's try this one, which I recorded to fill up a DVD with "Kinds of Kindness" on it. Because "Poor Things" and "Kinds of Kindness" were both long movies by the same director, and they would not fit on a DVD together, so I looked for a couple shorter movies so I wouldn't waste space. Really there's an infinite space when you store stuff on DVDs, but still, I wouldn't want to waste any.
Willem Dafoe carries over from "The Man in My Basement" - I think this is really a solo show-piece for him, I don't recognize any of the other actors, so the only way for me to watch it (aside from scheduling it as the first or last film of the Movie Year) is to program it between two other films with Willem Dafoe in them - OK, done.
THE PLOT: A high-end art thief is trapped in a New York penthouse when his heist doesn't go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and ingenuity to survive.
AFTER: Well, just like last night's film this is certainly something I've never seen before. Sure, this makes two films in a row where Willem Dafoe has been imprisoned, not sure what that says about the man but he does tend to be drawn to a certain type of unsavory character, perhaps. If he's in prison in any way in tomorrow's film then we've got a theme going. This is another one of those think-piece films, like we're never really sure if what we're being shown is meant to be taken literally or if it's all one big metaphor for something. When you throw in the hallucinations that Nemo has when he's been in the same fancy apartment for days or maybe weeks on end, I'm not sure if anything here is meant to be taken at face value - the situation kind of starts out at far-fetched and then kind of gets more unbelievable as things go on.
I mean, surely there must be a way out, surely someone can hear him screaming behind the very thick apartment door - oh, wait, the maid is wearing headphones as she's cleaning the hall, never mind. But if the apartment owner is so rich, and the paintings were that valuable, wouldn't he have somebody watching his space, maybe not all the time, but you know, dropping in once a day or once a week to check on things? I don't know if this is a full-on NITPICK POINT because maybe not, and I guess if he did then we wouldn't have a story here. But there is a simple way out of there, however it probably involves getting caught for breaking and entering at least. If he were willing to just call the police, he could be out of there very quickly, though then he might end up in jail for real. Still, if you're going to break in somewhere, you've got to envision the worst case scenario, and maybe bring a cell phone and charger instead of just the walkie-talkie. Just saying.
Anyway, we're dealing with the situation as it stands, where this man gets trapped in the high-end apartment which is essentially an art gallery that someone sleeps in. The owner is out of town, so once the security system malfunctions and he can't escape, he could be there a while. Worse news, there's very little food, the fridge looks like a typical bachelor's, there are a bunch of sauces and ingredients but little actual food, because the guy was planning to be away for a while. Hey, here's an idea, call for a pizza and then promise the delivery guy a big tip if he'll help you get out of the apartment. Or get him to report the faulty security system and then hide in a closet or something, once the repairs are done maybe you can sneak out after.
Over time, Nemo learns how to live on caviar and crackers, and to drink the water that comes from the sprinkler system for the indoor garden - well, that's a lot easier than licking the permafrost in the freezer, I suppose. It's too bad you can't eat expensive art - wait, can you? I think it's OK (relatively) to drink the water from the toilet tank in an emergency, but not the water in the bowl, obvi. But then at some point the plumbing stops working, too, so now he's really in some shit, so to speak. I guess if he's not eating much, then he's not pooping much either. Things continue to get worser when the security system malfunction also affects the thermostat and climate controls, so one day it's 100 degrees F and the next it could be 32 degrees or colder. So it's either bundle up or walk around in his undies.
After that, it's a vain attempt to stave off madness, or cabin fever, or whatever you want to call it. Nemo can watch the building staff interact with each other and other tenants on closed-circuit TV, but that's no substitute for real human interaction. Also, the cable's on the fritz, that tracks, otherwise it would be a good time to binge-watch something other than the pigeon that's trapped on the balcony that came in through the hole in the screens that he created when he broke in. The pigeon doesn't seem to be doing well, and that for sure is foreshadowing of what could happen to Nemo if he doesn't get out soon, he'll either starve or go insane. Or both.
So his artistic and engineering-based brain creates a giant pyramid of furniture, so he can climb to the VERY high ceiling and try to get out through the skylight. But this means creating some kind of dark lenses out of a broken vase so he doesn't go blind from the sun. Or, you know, maybe work on this project at night, just saying. At some point he falls from the high furniture tower and injures his leg, he fashions a brace of sorts, but now he might need medical attention in the near future, great.
Once the hallucinations start, really, all bets are off - the homeowner and that attractive maid come to him in visions, and now we don't know if the events he's remembering are real incidents from the past or just his brain dreaming stuff in high gear because it's got nothing else to occupy it. I think a lot of people who were stuck at home during the COVID pandemic maybe struggled with confinement, but perhaps not to this degree. Who's to say? But this is what makes me think this whole story is a metaphor for something, maybe the pandemic.
As for the ending, I can't really say what it means - did he get out through the skylight? And if so, where did he go? Wouldn't that put him on top of this skyscraper, in the hot sun? He could just as easily get stuck up there, unless there's a convenient window-washing scaffold nearby or a random open door to the building's interior. It might be just as likely that this was a fantasy or a fever dream as he lay dying on the apartment floor. But before he left (one way or the other) he created some art of his own on the wall, along with a cryptic message for the owner. Heck, you could say that giant furniture tower was a piece of art, too, so we have to wonder what the home owner's reaction is going to be once he gets back in town, to find that none of his art was stolen, but some of it got destroyed and also, some art got created in the process. Is he likely to see things that way?
Directed by Vasilis Katsoupis
Also starring Gene Bervoets, Eliza Stuyck, Daniel White, Josia Krug, Cornelia Buch, Ava von Voigt, Youl Samare, Salim Angelo Karas and the voices of Andrew Blumenthal (last seen in "Moonwalkers"), Vincent Eaton
RATING: 6 out of 10 helicopters passing by
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