Earwig

It's a visually attractive movie that makes you think that there is some goal or explanation, yet this never arrives. The environment is dark, dim, damp, old, ghostly. The characters behave in ways that only a writer can force upon, as their behaviors don't match with real people. You could bet that there is some bigger secret or explanation for such artificiality, yet nope. Again, there isn't.

The ending is a whimsical and random and slightly disgusting as the whole movie and you could play games about the explanation. But this is faux depth. Is trying to make the viewer or reader the creator, and that's a horrible technique.

I'm not a fan of films that are (literally) so dark I can't see what's going on. I know that this is a popular directors' device to "enhance engagement" but IMHO it risks losing the audience completely. In this case, I stuck with it, but remained quite irritated.

Fortunately, the tone and mood compensate somewhat, and the air of mystery is well-maintained, and the occasional bursts of extreme violence are appropriately shocking. I can't honestly say I worked out what it all meant and what was "really happening", but it was quite interesting nevertheless.

Worth a look - I preferred "Evolution" though.

"You have a week to prepare her to be on the outside." The chilling, emotionless instructions come over the phone to a creepy, unfeeling, shell of a man. This man, Albert, treats a ten-year-old girl in his charge like she is a machine or an experiment, not like the child that she is. Albert does not let her out of the house. He changes her braces of metal and ice, feeds her, and little else. The little girl dutifully follows his instructions and submits to the darkness and control. The meaning of it all is unclear.

Earwig is a perplexing, eerie, bizarre, shocking, and fascinating puzzle to unravel. It is full of colorful sequences of light that reflect the emotional states of characters. It is unsettling, strange, and disturbing, yet entrancing and radiant. By bending reality, immersing you in low light and moody music, and with flashbacks, the film brings you into a Kafka-like story. There are so many questions left unanswered; a girl diving into water, a woman watching, stabbings, surprising emotional shifts, a girl singing that triggers deep emotions, and so much more.

In an introduction to the film the director encourages the audience to keep an open mind. Try to keep your head from exploding is better advice.

World premiere seen at the Toronto international film festival. English is the spoken language of this film based on a novel by Brian Catling. Not streaming anywhere yet.

I understand that it might be some kind artistic expression but I'm afraid it's not everyone cup of tea.

I usually like slow development movies but this one ended up being utterly boring.

After 20 minutes of no dialog I gave up.

If you are looking for a good suspense and mystery movie I think this is not the case. Further more if you have to wait more than half an our to see something happening, I can't consider it entertaining.

As I mentioned in the title they probably understood that most of people will not reach the end of the movie and that's why they opted for adding the credits before the movie starts.

You gotta be in the mood to watch a movie like this, because it freaked me out because of it's realy weird and disturbing story. Therefore only recommended for the diehard arthouse movie fans, who can stumach a bleak and depressing story.

The good: beautifully photographed, with some scenes resembing a still picture or a painting. It really looks gorgeous and I really love that. The many unknown actors are acting really well, although there is definitely a lack of chemistry BETWEEN the actors and that brings me to the criticism...

The bad: this movie is definitely lacking spark and punch caused by a real lack of interaction between the actors, which wasnt bothering me at the start, but halfway through I began to get somewhat bored by this absence of actors actually speaking to each other. But this is only a minor criticism, many other folks might not mind about this at all.

A beautifully looking moody picture, with it's only downfall being a lack of actor's chemistry.