The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears

Dan Kristensen (Klaus Tange) returns home one day and discovers that his wife Edwige has disappeared. Dan starts investigating Edwige's disappearance and the strange and mysterious places and people of his apartment complex. Did she leave him? Is she dead? Also, what the hell is going on with his creepy neighbors? Of course the police can't help him, they just don't believe him. Soon his search and obsession cause him to descent into a world of madness. Fact and fiction become harder to distinguish. Dreams and nightmares intertwine with reality until they become one and the same. Will he ever find his wife's killer? Is there a killer? Who's the killer?

Written & directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears is a natural progression from their 'ABCs of Death' segment O is for Orgasm. The similarities aren't only on a surface level (cinematography, editing), but also on a thematic level, L'ètrange couleur des larmes de ton corps (original title) represents both an evolution and maturation for the two auteurs. Not only is this a very entertaining and visceral film, but it's also a complicated, surreal story. The narration is anything but linear or straightforward. Forzani explained that they are both inspired by the Italian Giallo, but also by Satoshi Kon. Cattet also cited Brian De Palma as an influence.

The characters in The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears have a way of relating to the space around them reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni's work (namely L'Eclisse). The '70s score, borrowed directly from Italian films creates a playful, but at the same time scary mood, while the loud sound mixing and the entrancing imagery enable the viewer to be transported into the film's world. Even if the story is anything but clear on a first viewing, the film is always interesting to watch and experience on a purely sensorial level (much like a David Lynch film). Like Amer, this film more than just a love letter to Italian cinema, it's a work of art that stands on its own. There are throwback qualities to it, but the film works for a modern audience as well.

What I appreciated and take away most from complex films like this one are the cinematography (à la Tutti i colori del buio), the tone and atmosphere and the fantastic soundtrack. While it loses some of its pace in the second act, it returns with a fury in the last act, with flashbacks, black & white sequences (with an altered frames per second rate) and all sorts of violent crazy stuff happening. It is a very re-watchable film, especially because it's difficult to fully understand on a first viewing (or ever?). I was a little bit let down by the poor character development in the film, though I realize that wasn't the film's intent or goal, still I like to have relatable characters beyond their physical appearance, accent and attire.

Personally, I'd say this is a step up from Amer and so I can only be excited for anything the two will do in the future. I recommend this film if you enjoyed previous work from Cattet & Forzani, you like the films or directors I've mentioned or just want to try something new. This is definitely a film best enjoyed in theaters (even if people walking out are annoyingly distracting), if you watch it at home make sure you have a good sound system: That's how the directors intended you to view their picture.

At first I couldn't really explain why I didn't like this film. After all, the foyer and staircase in the building are the kind of atmospheric luxury one expects in a giallo or apartment horror, and the old lady upstairs reminded me a bit of The Sentinel, one of my favorite films ever.

I think it's the main guy. I don't like him. Not that I like every horror protagonist or "point of view" killer in giallo, but I couldn't empathize or feel horror, I just felt a kind of worldly distaste. The kind of distaste I feel for Wall Street moguls, tax accountants, and Republicans. Not the kind of supernatural fascination or psychological curiosity one might have in the horror/thriller genres.

In fact nothing about this felt haunted to me. There was no pang of nostalgia, no whisper of ghosts (real or imagined), no monstrous memories sparked, no sleeping dogs refused to lie. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears is more of surreal modern nightmare centering about a rich white man. His dream felt incoherent in a bad way, it did not compel me to pay attention, I could barely get through this. But I have to give it 6 stars for the incredible beauty of particular scenes.

Being visually stunning this movie is great essentially for its amazing cinematography and the way the camera is used.

Detailed and wonderful plans, vivid colors, amazing sets inside Art Deco buildings; it all have an astonishing visual effect.

The plot is mysterious and complex.

It's all about a murderer that is killing people inside their houses, but without breaking anything or leave any clue. But who is this murder anyway?

It's one of those movies you can't figure out the entire plot at the first sight! At least I didn't!

But I was amazed with the strange colors of this film!

Yet another exercise in all-style-no-substance film-studies-friendly/paying-audience-hostile giallo "homage" from Forzani and Cattet. Oh for Pete's sake - come on guys! Amer was one thing, quite interesting at the time, but the value of that film has somehow been retroactively diminished by the release of its identikit successor. Replicating the surface details of the giallo style is easy peasy - anyone can do it - it's the Spaghetti Bolognese of filmmaking. But the point of the original gialli classics was that they were proper functioning movies that would have worked as exciting thrillers even without the stylistic flash. Neither Amer, nor TSCOYBT, have proper plots, and for me, failure to provide an adequate narrative element is an abdication of the filmmaker's primary responsibility.

I hope, for Forzani and Cattet's sake, that they are not currently working on another EU-cash-lake-for-art-house-piffle funded giallo homage, because they will be risking losing their credibility forever after, which would be a shame, because I get the impression that they are extremely talented and visionary filmmakers.

Certainly in the spirit of giallo but with the soul of Kafka. No simple narrative flow, not even a regular narrative structure, this visual and aural treat is not the simplest of watches. Always beautiful with continuous references to stained glass, art nouveau, eyes, knives and bared and bleeding flesh, the music and effects are also alluring, evocative and disturbing. A man returns from a business trip to find he cannot find his wife ( Edwige, nudge nudge aficionados! ) and that's about it, unless you count the wondrous building in which the film takes place or the spaces behind the walls. The directing duo are clearly fascinated by the Italian genre films of the 60s and early 70s and deliver up the most sumptuous offering, its just that, not unreasonably, they are less interested in the story lines but more in the more primal elements that go into even the lesser giallo. They love the colours, the sounds, the wide eyed screams and the trickling blood. The confused participants who know not whether they are mad or even dead, cannot help but draw us in to this manic mayhem and those of us who, similarly enjoy this craziness, can only applaud and breathe a sigh of relief we got out alive.