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| Angelica Jansson in Mara, 2012 |
When I was 16 or so, I made a black and white super 8 horror movie called White Light or something like that (no reference to the Velvet Underground there, sadly). A beautiful blonde (played by a class mate of mine and incidentally the daughter of one of the members of the Swedish Academy) woke up in cold sweat after having dreamt that she was chased by a vampire, only to realise – of course! – that it was no dream at all. Et cetera. Heard it all before? I’m sure you have, as it’s the most puerile horror movie concept or gimmick ever. And it never ends, does it?
Recently I saw a Swedish ”made for DVD” movie called Mara
(Kondrup, Hedberg, Gustafsson, 2012), where the very same plot thickens (sans
vampires) until it’s impossible to see anything beyond it. Jenny (Angelica Jansson), a blonde
20-something, recalls the trauma of watching her mother kill her father as she
returns to the very same house to party with some friends. Strange things
happen, the music grows scarier, and young eyes stare in fright this-a-way and
that-a-way. And yes, there’s splatter carnage and some tits too.
We can see some fairly decent performances by these amateur
actors (the leading lady’s claim to fame is that she’s been in Playboy
Magazine) and overall the film looks good. Actually very good. Someone has
worked on it. The sets (basically an old farm and inside the house in question)
are well lit, there’s (slow paced) continuity and the sound design and music
does actually set an atmosphere of horror quite well.
But there’s also something undefined in the film that makes
me wonder if it’s conscious or not: a slow-paced, drawn out anti-dramaturgy, in
which I find myself looking for something to fill in the voids. It’s not slow
enough to turn you (or the film) off, but it’s still so lethargic it makes me
wonder if it’s there to create some kind of extra ultra-tension. For instance,
the scenes in which Jenny is interrogated by some police officer are bizarrely
theatrical and drawn out. If we had some Angelo Badalamenti on top, the
atmosphere would be called ”Lynchesque”. Now it’s just a mystery. I’d say the
filmmakers have managed to achieve an unconscious emotional film state
unconsciously.
Actually, when I think about the film, it’s weird enough to
pass as an art film. There’s such a defiance when it comes to the narrative
logic, and the slick cinematography and contemporary video effects add on to an
impression of not as much ”suspension of disbelief” as ”suspension of belief”.
In that sense, it’s worth seeing. You can add your own flavour because in
itself the film is floating on a clinically reflective surface.
Take a large portion of the Electra Complex, add a
presumably great love of horror movies (there’s even a slyly hidden hint at the
theme of the Halloween score in the closing sequence), mix it with
absolutely decent production values for such a low-budget film and you have
Mara.
It’s not good but it could have been worse. I hope the
people involved integrate two things the next time that are absolutely essential
to moviemaking: interesting actors and a good script with twists and unexpected
turns. Mara unfortunately has neither and will therefore, I suspect, be
remembered as a sketch of something to come. But in all fairness I have to say
that I’d gladly sit down to watch their next film.
You can buy your own copy of this film at SUB DVD. The film
is in Swedish but has English subtitles.
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