The island setting is excellent, and contributes a lot to the atmosphere of the film. The story follows a security warden, who arrives in a small boat on a remote island which he obviously has responsibility for looking after. This one also had very little dialogue, mainly because it only featured one character, so he had no-one to talk to. I suppose I could have asked the director what he thought it meant - if, of course, I had cared enough. I guess the photo probably means that the figure in the painting wasn't purely an artistic creation, though, but perhaps an actual past or unrequited love of the painter's. ![]() Until we saw the photo at the end, I assumed that it was a sort of homoerotic Pygmalion story, in which the artist fell in love with his creation, but then when it manifested was so horrified by his own forbidden passion that he tried to 'kill' it. Once Bowie was just standing there in the hall advancing towards the painter, he simply wasn't frightening any more - even with all his androgyny and slightly alien demeanour, he just looked too much like an ordinary person rather than a supernatural manifestation. We could have done with quite a bit more time spent on slight movements in the corner of the frame, half-glimpsed faces in the dark and so on, to ramp up the tension before moving on the full manifestation of the figure. It's OK I guess, but even given the short length of the film I felt that the figure manifested too early and too concretely. The camera then reveals a photograph in a frame on a table, which shows the same person as the figure from the painting. Only when he attacks the painting itself does it disappear. Before long, the figure is in the house, and the painter is attacking it - but it keeps on coming back to life. The story begins with a painter putting the finishing touches to a portrait - only to find that the figure he is painting (David Bowie's character) has materialised, and is staring in through the window. Given the quality of Armstrong's script for Mark of the Devil, though, that's probably a very good thing. It's not silent, though, as it has sound effects and some excellent bongo music - the characters simply don't say anything over the course of the story. The film is shot in black and white, and has no spoken dialogue. ![]() Sure you did, chum - just like everyone else claims in retrospect. The director, of course, claimed that he could see Bowie was going to be a great star in the future, even though no-one else believed him at the time. Still, then again, it just happens to be David Bowie's first ever screen appearance, so has to be worth watching just for that, really. Since he was around as part of the weekend anyway, he introduced the screening - and although he again showed the same capacity to say intelligent, plausible things about his work, my expectations sank even lower as he described how they hadn't had time to film all the footage they'd wanted for it in the three days which had been budgeted for, and had had to re-edit what they did have afterwards in the studio to cobble together a coherent piece of film. This was by the same director as Mark of the Devil, which meant that I didn't have very high hopes for it. So technically I saw 6 films in a 90-minute session, but I'm numbering them as a group from the point of view of my annual film-count.ฤก5a. ![]() ![]() Most of these were about 10-15 minutes long, and all were shown continuously as part of a single screening. But I've managed it now! It's up to you to decide if you are brave enough to read it all. Strange_complexWhew! It's taken me a couple of days to type this lot up, as I saw a lot of films on the final day of the festival, and I think we all know I am a bit prone to tl dr reviews, even when I think the thing I'm writing about was rubbish.
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