#impolex

06-22-2016 Queen Of Earth (2015) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3993894/

Ever since filmmaker Alex Ross Perry from Pennsylvania made his debut with 2009’s Impolex, his career has been a busy one. He averages almost a project a year, with 2014’s Listen Up Philip and 2015’s Queen Of Earth giving him opportunity to really showcase himself; both movies have been released more widely than any of his other projects, and they are both rewarding views.

Queen Of Earth focuses on the relationship between two best friends: Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) and Virginia (Katherine Waterston). Catherine is having a hard time personally, having just been dumped by her boyfriend right after her father died. To recover from this catastrophic turn of events, Virginia invites her up to her parent’s vacation house in the woods, just like the year before. Catherine however behaves rather awkwardly, and as her strange behaviour gradually grows stranger, Virginia is having a hard time coping with her friend. They want to recapture the experiences they had in the house last time around, but as we find out that that vacation wasn’t as idyllic as we first thought, everything starts to turn hostile and perhaps even violent.

Heartbreak and grief does funny things to people, and I am sure one of the people closely involved in making this movie has suffered from it. There is hardly a worse feeling, and while many filmmakers in the past have gotten inspired by this, Alex Ross Perry (director, writer and producer) takes this inspiration and makes a greatly awkward movie, fueled by fantastic acting by Moss (who almost singlehandedly carries to the film), painful dialogues, feeling of eerie impending doom (brought to great heights thanks to the minimalist score by Keegan DeWitt) and a healthy dose of what-is-happening-here. I was intrigued throughout.

Impolex is an imperfect, ridiculous beast of a low budget first feature from writer/director Alex Ross Perry. The first thing I could think of about it is that it could easily be 10 minutes shorter. That said, it's so eerily inventive and fascinating in its premise and details (I'd absolutely LOVE to read this script). Issues of suspension of disbelief and the amorphously-fitting nature of Perry's style had me at odds constantly, especially when it's just about this man walking and walking around with a rocket. All this walking leads to fantastical revelations and occurrences that add to the intrigue, but it takes a little too long to bridge together these sequences, as interesting as they are. It's funny, because Perry has grown to be such an esoterically hilarious and quick witted writer, director, and editor when it comes to pacing. Comparing this film to Perry's latest, Listen Up Philip, is looking at two extremes of narrative hand holding; Philip has intensive narration giving us even more than we expect, while this tosses us into the wild just like its protagonist. Impolex feels more dreadful, in a non-negative sense, toeing the line between tension & aforementioned intrigue, and restlessness-invoking turtle-pacing.