My goodness, what a shame.
Censor had all it took to become "my" film.
Extraordinary subject, very interesting subtexts, staging at times of the highest level.
And distressing, and "sick", and in some way new.
And yet not, yet what remains a good film remains head and shoulders below what it could have been.
With the very strong (and rare) feeling of having found in front of an author who on paper really has everything to be defined as such but who then, in this film, when he had to translate the things he had in his head into images, did not (yet) have the competence, the hand and the grace to do it.
To tell the truth, I hoped to find another Possessor in front of me but, alas, the hope lasted at most half an hour.
We are in the mid-80s, in England.
There has now been a boom in VHS tapes and especially those of hyper-violent, cynical, amoral and visually borderline acceptable films.
Enid (a splendid actress to me to this day unknown, truly one of the best things the film leaves you with) works on a sort of censorship commission (I think state) which cuts and shreds horror films, assigns the various censorship approvals (the age groups) and, ultimately, she can refuse a work completely.
But there is something terrible in Enid's past, namely the disappearance (20 years earlier, in a wood with her) of her little sister.
This past of hers mixes in an increasingly morbid and disturbing way with his work, with the films he sees...
The beautiful things about Censor are many and it is for what I think about how, however you turn it, we still find ourselves in front of a good film.
Meanwhile, for example, the narration of a world so close and yet so distant to the present day like that of home video.< br />I was a video store owner, even though I started when the consumption of VHS tapes had already ended a long time ago.
But it is impossible for me not to remember, thanks to the film, the wonderful times when we went into the local electronics store (yes, there wasn't a real video store) and we were there, excited, choosing the horror film of the moment (yes, almost always only horror, which is why the film reminded me so much of that period).
The scene in which Enid enters the video store, therefore, was heart-stopping for me, even though it was nothing special (actually, a weak sequence).
It's true, there was a very violent and dirty cinema , which is almost impossible now. And here the film is certainly a winner, that is, in showing many clips (real or fake, I think mostly of the first type) of extreme horror films of the time.
The good old artisanal special effects, the uncontrolled violence, "disease", amorality. All things lost now in the name of ethics and political correctness which, if it is true that it has brought many benefits, it is also true that it has truly leveled everything, without being able to distinguish when that going beyond the limits is ethical or not.
And right here Enid intervenes, in a discussion that is not only visual, but also "moral", that is, knowing how to choose which scenes can either hurt the viewer or give him the wrong teachings. A very difficult job that the girl does with attention and rigidity (she is absolutely not big-sleeved, on the contrary...) even if with the most open mind possible.
Well, another great merit of the film is having brought to light this world of control, of censorship, a world where a thousand things such as personal sensitivities, indications from above, social phobias, current events, politics mix together, and where it is always difficult to choose what is yes and what is not.< br />In the first half hour of the film we talk about this, about the 80s, about censorship, about visual violence that can instigate other visual violence, about the limits of ethics and morality and about how the "fake" world of films could be either a mirror of what the real world is or, on the contrary, something that modifies the real world.
And the film works great.
Also thanks to a remarkable staging, of great class, with a perfect use of lights, colours, chiaroscuro and the camera.
The paradox is that when the film becomes more beautiful and interesting (with the story of the sister, of the past that returns, of the double personality and all the rest) loses a lot of that class, in short, becoming more beautiful becomes more ugly.
The flashbacks for example are really poorly done (even photographically), the psychological management as well, and then a couple of scenes are truly terrible.
But let's go in order.
Enid thinks she noticed in one of the films she watched (indeed, a film that was warmly recommended to her by the producer (which is not a coincidence, we will return to it) his sister, twenty years older.
That sister now believed to be dead.
Here, a device quite similar to Villeneuve's Enemy (obviously originally taken from " The duplicated man" by Saramago, although I prefer to quote the Canadian director because it was he - much more than the monstrous Portuguese writer - who gave the meaning of a second personality to the actor that the protagonist sees in the film seen in Saramago's book, according me, we are faced with something different), absolutely winning.
Not only is that actress identical to her sister "projected" 20 years later, but also the subjects of the films she plays recall the life of the same sister, in first of all the day he disappeared with her in the woods.
Enid is increasingly sure that Nina is therefore alive and, perhaps manipulated by the director, is staging her own past.
Well, let's go now to analyze the meaning of Censor.
Enid had probably committed a terrible act in that wood, she had killed her sister.
We understand this from many things, such as some dreams/flash backs, some cryptic phrases that come to her sayings ("Look inside yourself", for example, or "The horror is in the real world") and in the ending where we see that everything she was imagining it was almost certainly false.
It is no coincidence that she is also told "The brain creates things when we can't handle the truths".
Well, the entire Censor is a film about the sense of guilt, about the desperate attempt to deny the truth and about the creation of alternative paths (the sister still alive who is an actress, the monster director etc..) which can replace what actually happened.
And it is here that Censor, at least as a subtext, becomes extraordinary, that is, in this sort of metaphor of a girl in charge of censoring horror films who, in reality, in her own life, from 20 years old, he is censoring the most terrible scene of his existence, the murder of his sister.
It is no coincidence that even the killer who, they say, was inspired by a scene from an uncut film for his murder Enid is nicknamed "The Amnesia Killer", a name that, if you think about it, would be perfect for her.
A film therefore about censorship and self-censorship, about conscious (film cuts) and unconscious ( the "cut" to her past), truly wonderful in this.
And Enid who says to the others "I protect people" in reference to the cuts she makes in films (which therefore protect viewers from scenes that are too violent or uneducational ) is nothing more than a transposition of "I am protecting myself, I don't want to see the horror I have committed".
Very beautiful in this sense to see the actress often get lost in dark places, completely black, metaphor of his continuous return to the darkness of the mind that he tries to keep away.
Only there is no depth, there is no class in telling this second part, second part, however, full of wrong, weak, badly photographed, tacky and almost ridiculous scenes.
Let's take the killing of the producer, an almost Mephistophelean figure (he recommended her film because he knows that Enid is the sister of his actress, he who sends her to the set, he who somehow predicts her sister's death. Obviously all things probably only present in Enid's sick distortion of reality. Ah, by the way, on this theme of the double, of cinema, of producers and souls sold to the devil - see scene in the woods between the director and Einid - look at Starry Eyes, a jewel that actually works from start to finish).
The death of the producer himself is Fantozzian, with a fall onto a statuette that isn't even pointed (but, even if it were, it cannot pass through a skull).
True, we could say that this scene recalls the same films of the 80, has the same violence and forcefulness as those films, perhaps it is an homage.
But no, it doesn't work, it's just terrible.
Just as almost the entire ending is quite terrible, an empathetic and empathetic ending on paper apotheosis of the theme of the double. Yet it is poorly filmed, it has internal and conceptual errors (who is filming those scenes in the cabin???), it turns a very interesting and delicate theme into a truly coarse-grained one.
Yet the elements were all there, the sister who in reality she is herself, the Beastman who is perhaps the demon she wants to kill because - Einid believes - she is truly responsible for her sister's death (a sort of anthropomorphic Alibi that we have created for ourselves to hide our responsibilities). And that director, also Mephistophelean, who in reality comes across as an idiotic guru.
But nothing, the scene is crass (even the death of the actor with his head in the television, let's not talk about it) and it almost makes the entirely a film with a theme and a subject to develop which are both very notable.
True, there is also the short circuit between reality and fiction, cinema and real life, representation and truth. The whole film, in fact, plays on this duality.
Enid watches films, Enid made a film of what happened to her, in the end Enid goes to a set, enters a film, her film, but it was “just” a real movie. All good but...meh.
Let's not talk about the final ending, which is also very good on paper (Enid desperately telling her sister "Please, be her") because we have a girl who finally had to face the truth but, not wanting to accept it yet, she desperately asks the rest of the world not to take it away from her (that truth of hers, I mean).
And in fact, in a now full-blown madness, Enid still manages to remain in her world of lies, where his sister is alive and reunites with her parents (in a riot of banalities like "the world is beautiful and without violence", among other things all with the "graphics" - if you noticed - of the VHS poster that Enid picks it up in the video store).
No, we're not there, other super good ideas thrown down the toilet in images.
A potential jewel thrown away - halfway - in the nettles
Censor had all it took to become "my" film.
Extraordinary subject, very interesting subtexts, staging at times of the highest level.
And distressing, and "sick", and in some way new.
And yet not, yet what remains a good film remains head and shoulders below what it could have been.
With the very strong (and rare) feeling of having found in front of an author who on paper really has everything to be defined as such but who then, in this film, when he had to translate the things he had in his head into images, did not (yet) have the competence, the hand and the grace to do it.
To tell the truth, I hoped to find another Possessor in front of me but, alas, the hope lasted at most half an hour.
We are in the mid-80s, in England.
There has now been a boom in VHS tapes and especially those of hyper-violent, cynical, amoral and visually borderline acceptable films.
Enid (a splendid actress to me to this day unknown, truly one of the best things the film leaves you with) works on a sort of censorship commission (I think state) which cuts and shreds horror films, assigns the various censorship approvals (the age groups) and, ultimately, she can refuse a work completely.
But there is something terrible in Enid's past, namely the disappearance (20 years earlier, in a wood with her) of her little sister.
This past of hers mixes in an increasingly morbid and disturbing way with his work, with the films he sees...
The beautiful things about Censor are many and it is for what I think about how, however you turn it, we still find ourselves in front of a good film.
Meanwhile, for example, the narration of a world so close and yet so distant to the present day like that of home video.< br />I was a video store owner, even though I started when the consumption of VHS tapes had already ended a long time ago.
But it is impossible for me not to remember, thanks to the film, the wonderful times when we went into the local electronics store (yes, there wasn't a real video store) and we were there, excited, choosing the horror film of the moment (yes, almost always only horror, which is why the film reminded me so much of that period).
The scene in which Enid enters the video store, therefore, was heart-stopping for me, even though it was nothing special (actually, a weak sequence).
It's true, there was a very violent and dirty cinema , which is almost impossible now. And here the film is certainly a winner, that is, in showing many clips (real or fake, I think mostly of the first type) of extreme horror films of the time.
The good old artisanal special effects, the uncontrolled violence, "disease", amorality. All things lost now in the name of ethics and political correctness which, if it is true that it has brought many benefits, it is also true that it has truly leveled everything, without being able to distinguish when that going beyond the limits is ethical or not.
And right here Enid intervenes, in a discussion that is not only visual, but also "moral", that is, knowing how to choose which scenes can either hurt the viewer or give him the wrong teachings. A very difficult job that the girl does with attention and rigidity (she is absolutely not big-sleeved, on the contrary...) even if with the most open mind possible.
Well, another great merit of the film is having brought to light this world of control, of censorship, a world where a thousand things such as personal sensitivities, indications from above, social phobias, current events, politics mix together, and where it is always difficult to choose what is yes and what is not.< br />In the first half hour of the film we talk about this, about the 80s, about censorship, about visual violence that can instigate other visual violence, about the limits of ethics and morality and about how the "fake" world of films could be either a mirror of what the real world is or, on the contrary, something that modifies the real world.
And the film works great.
Also thanks to a remarkable staging, of great class, with a perfect use of lights, colours, chiaroscuro and the camera.
The paradox is that when the film becomes more beautiful and interesting (with the story of the sister, of the past that returns, of the double personality and all the rest) loses a lot of that class, in short, becoming more beautiful becomes more ugly.
The flashbacks for example are really poorly done (even photographically), the psychological management as well, and then a couple of scenes are truly terrible.
But let's go in order.
Enid thinks she noticed in one of the films she watched (indeed, a film that was warmly recommended to her by the producer (which is not a coincidence, we will return to it) his sister, twenty years older.
That sister now believed to be dead.
Here, a device quite similar to Villeneuve's Enemy (obviously originally taken from " The duplicated man" by Saramago, although I prefer to quote the Canadian director because it was he - much more than the monstrous Portuguese writer - who gave the meaning of a second personality to the actor that the protagonist sees in the film seen in Saramago's book, according me, we are faced with something different), absolutely winning.
Not only is that actress identical to her sister "projected" 20 years later, but also the subjects of the films she plays recall the life of the same sister, in first of all the day he disappeared with her in the woods.
Enid is increasingly sure that Nina is therefore alive and, perhaps manipulated by the director, is staging her own past.
Well, let's go now to analyze the meaning of Censor.
Enid had probably committed a terrible act in that wood, she had killed her sister.
We understand this from many things, such as some dreams/flash backs, some cryptic phrases that come to her sayings ("Look inside yourself", for example, or "The horror is in the real world") and in the ending where we see that everything she was imagining it was almost certainly false.
It is no coincidence that she is also told "The brain creates things when we can't handle the truths".
Well, the entire Censor is a film about the sense of guilt, about the desperate attempt to deny the truth and about the creation of alternative paths (the sister still alive who is an actress, the monster director etc..) which can replace what actually happened.
And it is here that Censor, at least as a subtext, becomes extraordinary, that is, in this sort of metaphor of a girl in charge of censoring horror films who, in reality, in her own life, from 20 years old, he is censoring the most terrible scene of his existence, the murder of his sister.
It is no coincidence that even the killer who, they say, was inspired by a scene from an uncut film for his murder Enid is nicknamed "The Amnesia Killer", a name that, if you think about it, would be perfect for her.
A film therefore about censorship and self-censorship, about conscious (film cuts) and unconscious ( the "cut" to her past), truly wonderful in this.
And Enid who says to the others "I protect people" in reference to the cuts she makes in films (which therefore protect viewers from scenes that are too violent or uneducational ) is nothing more than a transposition of "I am protecting myself, I don't want to see the horror I have committed".
Very beautiful in this sense to see the actress often get lost in dark places, completely black, metaphor of his continuous return to the darkness of the mind that he tries to keep away.
Only there is no depth, there is no class in telling this second part, second part, however, full of wrong, weak, badly photographed, tacky and almost ridiculous scenes.
Let's take the killing of the producer, an almost Mephistophelean figure (he recommended her film because he knows that Enid is the sister of his actress, he who sends her to the set, he who somehow predicts her sister's death. Obviously all things probably only present in Enid's sick distortion of reality. Ah, by the way, on this theme of the double, of cinema, of producers and souls sold to the devil - see scene in the woods between the director and Einid - look at Starry Eyes, a jewel that actually works from start to finish).
The death of the producer himself is Fantozzian, with a fall onto a statuette that isn't even pointed (but, even if it were, it cannot pass through a skull).
True, we could say that this scene recalls the same films of the 80, has the same violence and forcefulness as those films, perhaps it is an homage.
But no, it doesn't work, it's just terrible.
Just as almost the entire ending is quite terrible, an empathetic and empathetic ending on paper apotheosis of the theme of the double. Yet it is poorly filmed, it has internal and conceptual errors (who is filming those scenes in the cabin???), it turns a very interesting and delicate theme into a truly coarse-grained one.
Yet the elements were all there, the sister who in reality she is herself, the Beastman who is perhaps the demon she wants to kill because - Einid believes - she is truly responsible for her sister's death (a sort of anthropomorphic Alibi that we have created for ourselves to hide our responsibilities). And that director, also Mephistophelean, who in reality comes across as an idiotic guru.
But nothing, the scene is crass (even the death of the actor with his head in the television, let's not talk about it) and it almost makes the entirely a film with a theme and a subject to develop which are both very notable.
True, there is also the short circuit between reality and fiction, cinema and real life, representation and truth. The whole film, in fact, plays on this duality.
Enid watches films, Enid made a film of what happened to her, in the end Enid goes to a set, enters a film, her film, but it was “just” a real movie. All good but...meh.
Let's not talk about the final ending, which is also very good on paper (Enid desperately telling her sister "Please, be her") because we have a girl who finally had to face the truth but, not wanting to accept it yet, she desperately asks the rest of the world not to take it away from her (that truth of hers, I mean).
And in fact, in a now full-blown madness, Enid still manages to remain in her world of lies, where his sister is alive and reunites with her parents (in a riot of banalities like "the world is beautiful and without violence", among other things all with the "graphics" - if you noticed - of the VHS poster that Enid picks it up in the video store).
No, we're not there, other super good ideas thrown down the toilet in images.
A potential jewel thrown away - halfway - in the nettles
