Vinyan

Horrorphile

follow this blog

1043 followers

3405 daily readers

rank of 1

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Vinyan

December 16th 2009 04:47

Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz who directed Calvaire (aka The Ordeal, 2004) turns his attention from the dark forests of Belgium to the sweltering jungles of Burma, but remains entrenched in the savagery of human nature. Vinyan (2008) is a desperate and vivid account of a couple’s descent into madness as they search in vain for their lost son.

Six months after losing their young son in the Southeast Asia tsunami of 2005 Jeanne (Emmanuelle Beart) and Paul Bellmer (Rufus Sewell) are still living in Phuket, struggling to move on. Their plight is aggravated and their relationship tested when at a special screening of a documentary about jungle orphans Jeanne is convinced she’s seen young Joshua (Borhan Du Welz), and insists they embark on a search.

Emmanuelle Beart as Jeanne

More than a million dollars later Paul and Jeanne find themselves in the pirate-infested Thai/Burma border at the mercy of the crooked men responsible for leading them to the village they saw in the doco. The human traffickers involved have different agendas, and soon enough Paul and Jeanne are abandoned to fend for their lives and sanity in the bestial realm that surrounds them. Jeanne’s grip on reality is swiftly slipping as Paul’s tether is torn apart. Yet a mysterious thread still pulls them deeper into the wilderness …

Rufus Sewell as Paul

Vinyan is Thai mythology that describes when a person dies a horrible death; their spirit becomes angry and confused. Indeed Vinyan inhabits a very perplexing existence; the supernatural mingling with stark reality, legend with myth, immediacy with history, and all around the oppressive, disorientating heat; first of the city, then of the jungle. Fabrice Du Welz has fashioned a superbly atmospheric psychological horror that moves like a thriller, but bites like a primordial beast.

The jungle peers into the soul

The production values, as with The Ordeal, are excellent, and the central performances from Beart and Sewell are also of very high calibre. Even the support work from the unknown Thai actors are very convincing (these characters are dodgy as hell). Also of note, in a strange peripheral role is Julie Dreyfus who plays Kim, a colleague of the couple who is at the doco screening, and later pops up one of the Burmese villages with a hazy motive of deceit.

Vinyan Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart

Paul and Jeanne find sleep elusive and dreams invasive

Vinyan won’t be to all tastes; it’s meandering narrative and saturation of atmosphere and ineffectual lead characters will no doubt frustrate those looking for easy answers and capable solutions. Writers Oliver Blackburn, Du Welz and David Greig are more interested in providing a symbolically-rich narrative that writhes like a snake and stings like a scorpion. The confronting denouement delivers visceral horror and ethereal ambiguity in equal measure as the feral children of the wilderness overwhelm the chosen parents.

The orphans of confusion and rage

Vinyan features a wonderfully eerie score, but it’s the stunning cinematography by Benoît Debie, in particular the camerawork in the jungles, that is truly astounding; the DVD making of featurette revealed how the grips created a kind of flying fox carriage system for the camera operator to enable the amazing close aerial long takes that track Jeanne and Paul as they blunder through the jungle undergrowth, and in one stand-out extended shot they discover and pass through a ruined temple façade.

Vinyan is an exotic palette for those who like to mix dirt with sweat, tangle dreams with nightmares, and marry sensuality with violence, amidst an alien universe inescapably made of earth.