Silent Voyeur

A naked man (Jake Molzan) wanders in a Florida swamp, bloodied and unable to remember if he was "wounded in love or wounded in hatred", or to recall any circumstances that brought him to his present state. Things do not become clearer when he stumbles upon an old house and sees a semi-hysterical man and woman aiming a shotgun at a man sitting on the floor in chains. This is only the start of the puzzle that awaits viewers of Georg Koszulinski's thriller Silent Voyeur, a film that challenges us to discover for ourselves where the truth lies and to what extent we are accomplices in media manipulation and exploitation for profit.

Shot entirely on location in Florida in Micanopy, Cross Creek, and the Florida Everglades, the film is loosely based on an actual incident in which a couple vacationing in Florida told authorities that they were kidnapped and forced to perform deviant acts while being filmed by a video camera. As the wounded man slowly regains his memory, we try to piece together what may or may not have happened. Koszulinski asks us to consider events from different points of view, one showing the amnesiac (called Victor by the couple and Tanner by his cameraman) as the instigator of the assault and another with the cameraman as perpetrator.

From Victor's vantage point, he and the young married couple, Randy (Eric D. Cheek) and his wife Veronica (Laura Sfire), were kidnapped by Edward (Nick Savage) and his buddy Logan (Shamrock McShane) while out fishing. The cameraman then forced all three to perform lewd acts while being filmed. This account raises questions as to how two rather slender middle-aged men could have overcome and subdued three younger people and dragged them back to the cabin. In one scenario, while Victor is beaten and driven to die in the swamps, the couple escape their bonds, kill Logan and chain the cameraman to the floor. In another, Victor overhears the cameraman and his accomplice plan to dispose of him to increase their take of the money but he is unable to prevent them from drugging him and driving him to the Everglades.

When Victor makes his way back to the house, he listens to Veronica who urges him to kill Edward while he has the chance, and to Edward who asserts that Tanner is actually the instigator of the affair. Edward claims that Tanner is the director who makes sordid films for a big paycheck from three avaricious movie moguls who are cashing in on the public's need to be voyeurs. In support, we hear Tanner recite a prepared speech that will send chills through your bones. Backed by the music of Monitor and some vintage country songs, Silent Voyeur is a small budget film and the acting can be very amateurish at times, but the grizzly plot will captivate you and hold your attention throughout. Do not expect any neat resolution, however. This one is in David Lynch territory.

I watched this together with "Mirrormask." That had great cinematic values, moderately acceptable performances and an inadequate story. This is the obverse, with a great story idea and poor cinematic execution.

I saw this fellow's earlier project, ambitious in many ways. You had to pay attention, but though it masqueraded as a zombie movie, it had higher harmonics in the ambiguities. Here, that same guy writes, acts, and directs.

It is as a writer that he may have a stellar future. There are inadequacies in the other elements here that cannot be merely explained by budget. But as a writer.

This story. Well, I'm the first to write a comment on this, so I cannot discuss the story in any detail because I don't want to spoil it. It starts as a "Rashomon" - like tale, where several versions of the past are "witnessed" to a man with amnesia about why they ended up in a remote cabin in such a strange situation.

(Never mind that everyone's story involves a video made earlier that could easily have been consulted.)

What's cool about the story is stuff that am attracted to: all the stories he is told involve the making of a film, a film of a diabolical type.

There's a surprise which comes too early for my taste, but it is a very clever twist. And there is a zinger at the end, which I think could have benefited from a great deal more ambiguity about which version of the story the filmmaker at the end believes was true.

I love this stuff. This isn't quite the untrusted narrator business; the trust issue is all pushed on screen, but there are enough clever elements here that I think we can expect something good from this guy soon.

{The best dialog is lifted from Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, scene 4.)

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.