Connect with us
The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears review
Anonymes Films

Film

The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears is Disappointing

31 Days of Horror: The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears

The first 45 minutes of The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears lay the foundation for a full-throated suspense thriller that might have felt at home in the ‘70s.  Sadly, the last hour degenerates into a monotonous slash-fest that’s too preoccupied with its own weirdness to bother with our enjoyment.  By the end, you may be unsure what is real and what is imagined, but you’re damn certain you no longer care.

Dan (Klaus Tange) returns home from a business trip to discover his wife is missing, despite the door chain still being attached.  These early scenes are interspersed with enough flashbacks, flashforwards and plain-old-flashes to make you question Dan’s motivation and sanity.  He frantically searches his ornate apartment building, festoon with plate glass and mysterious tenants.  Writer-directors, Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, tell their story in close-ups, with faces and objects dominating the screen as the background fuzzes and blurs.  A trippy, psychedelic soundtrack pulses just beneath the dull roar of the cavernous hallways and claustrophobic crawlspaces.  More so than Dan, the building itself feels like the central character in this story, harkening back to such ‘70s brain-screws as The Tenant and The Sentinel.

We encounter an expanding cast of curious folks, some of which seem to be only figments of Dan’s imagination.  His missing wife oscillates between being a Black woman and a fair-skinned brunette.  A surly detective has a few too many secrets of his own to be considered trustworthy.  A creepy landlord has something to hide.  There’s gratuitous nudity, bondage and voyeurism.  Knives dance seductively across hardened nipples and blood drips through holes in the ceiling.  And, of course, there’s a weird old lady who lives in the apartment where you know the final scene will play out.  Things are all set to twist our melons into a fine shade of fuck.

The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears
Anonymes Films

But then a funny thing happens to Body’s Tears… it stops caring about paying off the mysteries it has so expertly established.  Instead, it takes a detour into the land of Italian Giallo, relying upon pretentious slight-of-hand and meaningless gore to amuse itself.  Occasionally, it flirts with re-establishing a plotline—a tidbit of information here, a seemingly important clue there—but these are just momentary diversions from its self-indulgent objectives.  For a movie that is so dedicated to style, it seems almost cruel to tease the audience with any substance.  It’s a bait-and-switch that will leave you bored and, quite likely, frustrated.

There’s no denying that the look of this film is mesmerizing.  Its lurid subject matter is perfectly complemented by the translucent colors and undulating imagery.  In matters of the visual, Cattet and Forzani knew exactly what they wanted and executed their plans almost flawlessly.  It’s an audacious gamble that might have paid off with a little more attention paid to their underlying story.  Thematically, too, The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears has much to say; hidden passages and gaping orifices beckon to these men who are doomed to admire their passions from afar.  It’s all obscured, however, in a torrent of bloody slicing-and-dicing.  The line between accentuation and desensitization is a fine one, and these filmmakers cross it like an Olympic sprinter hell-bent on gold.

The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears
Anonymes Films

It’s difficult to critique the performances in The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears because the actors are required to be constantly confused.  In that way, at least, we can empathize with them.  The women are gorgeous and beguiling, while the men remain hopeless and befuddled; it seems that the only depth concerning the filmmakers were the sucking flesh wounds.

Perhaps, fans of Bava or Argento will find something of interest in The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, out of a feeling of nostalgia, if nothing else.  Most audiences, however, won’t have the patience to decipher its impenetrable riddles.  That’s assuming there was ever a riddle to decipher in the first place.

JR Kinnard

Now Streaming

Written By

J.R. Kinnard is a film critic and aspiring screenwriter living in Seattle, Washington. He's also a chemist by trade who works in an environmental laboratory. You can find his film reviews at PopOptiqSound and Motion Magazine, and CutPrintFilm. His personal blog, Apropos of Nothing, features his thoughts on film and music. You can find him on Facebook at jrkinnard, and on Twitter @jrkinnard.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Facebook

Trending

2001: A Space Odyssey 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: Clarke and Kubrick’s Odyssey of Discovery

Culture

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie review Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie review

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Caps Off the Trilogy With a Heartfelt Bang (Mostly)

Film

Deep Impact was a serious look at the end of the world Deep Impact was a serious look at the end of the world

25 Years Later: Deep Impact was a Serious Look at the End of the World 

Film

The Best Movies of 1973 The Best Movies of 1973

The Golden Year of Movies: 1973

Culture

The Zone of Interest The Zone of Interest

Cannes 2023: Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is a Manicured Vision of Hell

Culture

Jeanne Du Barry review Jeanne Du Barry review

Cannes 2023: Maïwenn’s Great Hair Goes to Great Lengths in Jeanne Du Barry

Culture

Black Flies Gripping Black Flies Gripping

Cannes 2023: Black Flies— Gripping Descent into the Underbelly of New York’s Urban Misery 

Culture

Asteroid City: A Gimmicky Vanity Project Asteroid City: A Gimmicky Vanity Project

Cannes 2023: Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is a Gimmicky Vanity Project

Culture

La Passion de Dodin Bouffant: La Passion de Dodin Bouffant:

La Passion de Dodin Bouffant: Surfeit Cooking Drama Most Inane Film at Cannes

Culture

BlackBerry movie review BlackBerry movie review

BlackBerry Is a Wonderfully Canadian Account of a Dying Tech Dream

Film

Godzilla 1998 Godzilla 1998

Godzilla at 25: When Hollywood Made a Manhattan Monster Movie, with Disastrous Results

Film

The Mother Jennifer Lopez and Lucy Paez The Mother Jennifer Lopez and Lucy Paez

Jennifer Lopez’s The Mother is Eerily Similar to Enough, But That’s Not a Bad Thing

Film

10 Best SummerSlam Matches 10 Best SummerSlam Matches

10 Best SummerSlam Matches

Culture

Discovery channel Discovery channel

The Head-Scratching Moves Discovery Has Been Making

Culture

Sean Connery Sean Connery

60 Years Later, Dr. No Remains the Paragon of Bond

Film

The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Reloaded

20 Years Later: The Matrix Reloaded was Underwhelming, but Still Underrated

Film

Connect