Here, here we raise the bar.
Let's be clear, Meander is a film full of flaws, with a story that doesn't seem to stand up (even if depending on the interpretation you give to everything it could also hold up) , with the spectator forced to continually challenge his suspension of disbelief.
But, well, once we accept that the film is very forced then there is little that can be done, it is made excellently (and has coherence, returning above).
A woman who has recently lost her daughter (missing or dead, we won't know) finds herself first in the hands of a serial killer (inside his van) then, we don't know how, in a gigantic maze of very narrow tunnels.
He has a bracelet with a timer on his wrist.
He will discover that he has to face a path full of mortal dangers at various stages (punctuated precisely by the timer). Once the time is up, death is certain (or maybe not...).
You understand it on your own, it doesn't make sense.
If we see the film as perfectly realistic we cannot believe that there is someone who built such a gigantic structure just to have fun torturing people.
If we see it in the science fiction side, any superior intelligence would never create such a structure.
If we see it in the unreal (dreamlike) sense , whether metaphorical or existential) you understand that in these types of films the world that is created must be less complicated than the one we see in the film (complex yes, but not that complicated).
In short, any of the 3 choices. ..you will choose the plot anyway and what happens will seem completely unlikely to you.
And then we take Meander as a "game", like a film that starts from a wrong assumption but which, with great honesty, is thrown against us, an assumption that if we continue with the vision we must "accept" it.
And having accepted the context, this is a great film.
It is very well shot, it has extraordinary artisanal special effects (the limbs of the bodies, the placenta ending, the cuts and wounds), it has a great leading actress, it has the "fun" side of the escape room, it has a great atmosphere (the tunnels are really very narrow and the physical test of the actress seems real) and for better or worse there stimulates the curiosity to answer the question of questions, that is: But why??"
What are we seeing?
Why is that girl there?
Here, here we are forced to try to "understand" Meander.
There is almost a certainty that we are faced with something science fiction (that light that comes from the sky and presumably kidnaps her after having escaped from the serial killer) but, at the same time, perhaps there is nothing science fiction nothing.
We could in fact imagine everything as a kind of afterlife in which the girl found herself (perhaps already dead when that Light arrives, a light which in this sense obviously acquires a completely different meaning) and everything that happens to her as a kind of path of pain, a crossing of Hell, to reach the final paradise (the last shots suggest it).
His daughter is probably already dead (and the scene where she tells him and refuses is very beautiful to follow her, very human and very plausible) but she must somehow reach her, wherever she is.
And there is another interesting matter here, namely the sensation (at a certain point even made explicit) that she in that mortal labyrinth she could NOT die, that even if she had done something wrong she would have always been saved because whoever put her there (aliens, God or whoever) is protecting her.
It was therefore not a question of life or death as much as a psychological and painful test to deserve something.
The film is very reminiscent of The Descent, not only for those almost identical blind creatures (perhaps avoidable) but also for this relationship with the dead daughter. So much so that in some sequences it really felt like being in Marshall's masterpiece (the tunnels, the monsters, the dialogues with the daughter which we later discover to be imaginary, the light at the end which seems like salvation but in reality isn't).
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Let's face it, there are forced attacks every 5 minutes (when you find those marks on your arm and understand that they are arrows it is the number 1 forced entry, not to mention when you fight with the serial killer for the protected place from the fire, a place where, placed one on top of the other, at least 3 people entered) but it is the film that is forced already in the subject, it should be taken as a distressing and adrenaline-filled game, nothing more.
But, oh, I repeat, she is very good, the deadly traps shot very well (remember that there is no space, it wasn't easy), the special effects are excellent (when she moves the limbs and guts of the first dead top man), the sound is very remarkable (almost a character) , the idea of ​​real time always a great idea, the monster doctor, an excellent homage to a certain type of horror-sci fi cinema, a couple of references to Arrival (two images of the tunnel that look like the one inside the spaceship in the film Villeneuve and her who finds herself in front of that foggy mirror), and even more than a hint of the Truman Show (her who sees her whole life filmed by a camera since she was an infant and the fake exit with the sky drawn).< br />In the finale, after another small mistake (her foot is no longer cut, it is clear that those scenes were filmed before) we find ourselves full of questions but also quite fascinated.
Is she dead or alive? Is it perhaps only her conscience that continues to live?
In any case, and even her daughter tells her, there is only one thing to do, the thing that we should all learn to do.
Living