Sugar

I saw this at the Edinburgh film festival. All I gathered from the programme of events was that it began with a woman emerging from a fridge and went from there. For me this initial image itself seemed worth the price of my reduced student ticket alone, so I went in expecting to be baffled, and expecting to have to think, and think I did. Sugar is a film you have to use your imagination to understand. It's art, not in a pretentious way, but in the sense that its images and ideas are not inclined to present themselves within the temporal and spatial framework of the narrative of the real world. And I think, if you're prepared to view it this way, you will, guaranteed, come out with something that you didn't have before.

It taps into a multitude of ideas, most of which have been done before, but never in quite the same way. At moments it felt like a movie about domestic violence. An abused woman taking revenge on her boyfriend by replacing the sugar in a cake with poison. Sometimes it felt like a serial killer movie. The previous tenant of the house seems to be incarcerated behind a grating, and the art direction is as grotesque as anything from Se7en. Then it became a Lynchian meditation on identity. The body behind the grating was at one point the same person as the main character. Again, it reminded me of Polanski's The Tenant. Was the man/woman behind the grating the ghost of the former tenant haunting the new owner surrounded by what might well have been metaphorical clutter.

I enjoyed this film simply because it hinted at so much but confounded nothing. All these interpretations and whatever else anyone might have come up with remained valid beyond the rolling of the credits. If anything though, there was too much there, and the film sometimes felt the equivalent of the filthy, messy apartment. This did however feel quite fitting, and ultimately the film lived up to its title, a slightly sickeningly large dose of refined sugar, that may just have been replaced at times by poison.

It's rare that I personally see films that boarder on experimental and narrative that actually work for me. "Sugar" is a definite exception to this rule. This film was interesting without being obvious and used devices, such as a mixture of B&W and color, to their full potential for once. I wouldn't dream of trying to go into what this film is about as it will likely be translated differently by everyone that sees it; that's part of it's charm. Hopefully this film will receive some sort of release, but don't expect to see it at the mega-plex near you any time soon. Samara Golden does an exceptional job in the lead role and stays compelling throughout even without dialog while appearing in almost every frame of the film. The craftsmanship is unbeatable and I consider this film a must see for anyone that that is really interested in the medium of film.

This movie is a weapon of mass destruction or at the very least, a fine torture device. I must say it was VERY intriguing at the beginning- there's a petite woman holed up in a run down top floor apartment that is hot as hell. We hear the steady whine of the various appliances and it is very quiet. The contents of the refrigerator are strewn on the floor- we wonder why- then we see she is inside the fridge curled up to cool down. And the rest of this movie is just like that- makes you curious as to why something is the way it is- and then you find out in a very underwhelming visual presentation.

I liken the feelings this movie emotes to the feeling you get when you are coming down hard after a very long nite of partying, every part of your body is worn out and ready to fall apart but for some reason you are simply too tired to sleep. You haunt yourself in an ethereal existence of non-being as no real thought or action occurs- it's just you sitting there wishing you could sleep or wishing you had more energy and not knowing how to pursue either endeavor so you just sit there like a zombie hating life.

That's this director in a nutshell- he had an idea but had no idea whatsoever how to pursue it so in true student art film cookie cutter method he does something stupid to make the audience not understand this film so he can feel like he is smart by confusing them. Baby, smart don't come from stupid- plain and simple. This movie is dumb, boring and torturous to attempt to bear. It will scar you and make you want that time of you life back. It fully sucks in every way conceivable. Have I made myself clear?

Who knows how Sugar ended up in my Netflix queue, but it did, and it wound up here on June 11, sitting atop the TV hutch all that time while I bided my time. I think I watched about the first ten minutes of the film before ejecting the disk. Perhaps the worst movie ever made. It's a super-cheapie B&W indie film with no sound effects, no soundtrack, and no dialogue. None. At least, not in the first ten or so minutes. You want to watch a silent movie about a girl in a filthy apartment who re-arranges the filth in her room for no apparent reason, you watch Sugar. Me, no frickin' way. What's the movie about? Who knows, you'd have to watch the thing to find out, and since you get no hints up front other than the theoretical tease with the body in the wall, well, the filmmakers just haven't done their job in setting up the story. Experimental? Nah. Horse dung dressed up as meatloaf.

I loved the film. I have never seen something like this before. Might not appeal to everyone's taste as it is a very original and poetic experimental film. Those who are familiar with film history and psychoanalysis might enjoy it the most. This is a film about confronting one's own death and madness. Warning: might be disturbing to some, and incomprehensible to many. The atmosphere these people manage to create is terrifying and very unusual. One set, one actress, black and white and color. Intriguing and very mysterious. The actress is wonderful even though she never speaks. The images are enough to tell the story and she creates the emotions. The camera work, the surreal plot and the dynamic montage work together to create the feeling of being in a dream or nightmare.