DVD - No subtitles. Language: English
http://www.geocities.com/nzmermaid2003/reflecting.htm
"The Reflecting Skin" and "The Passion of Darkly Noon," (Director Philip Ridley) Reviews:
From Reflecting SkinThe only two certainties in Philip Ridley's films are death and that viewers will have something gorgeous and deeply affecting, at times disturbing to watch along the way. Panathos always seems just out of frame in "The Reflecting Skin" and "The Passion of Darkly Noon," stalking the characters, along with all their friends and relations with his scythe. "The Reflecting Skin" (1990) is a beautifully shot, high concept American Gothic horror tale about community, family and post war fallout.
Jeremy Cooper and Viggo Mortensen are Seth and Cameron Dove; two sons of deeply miserable parents who run a gas station in the midst of gorgeous fields. Seth (Cooper) gets into malicious mischief both with and without his friends waiting for Cameron (Mortensen) to return from the war on what their mother refers to as "the pretty islands." Lindsay Duncan plays a widow who lives near the Dove family and is often on the receiving end of Seth's mischief. When Seth's young friends begin turning up dead, the town starts looking for vengeance rather than justice and the fallout increases.
Duncan (also seen as Lady Markham in "An Ideal Husband") as Dolphin Blue has a gorgeous voice and a line that serves as the film's thesis statement: "Sometimes terrible things happen quite naturally." She is courageous and fully present for the grief and passion that rip through her character's world. Cameron (Mortensen) is instantly drawn to her and the triangle of the brothers and the mysterious widow share the best scenes in this film. In this town, terms like "radiation sickness" and "serial killers" appear not to have been either learned or shared, so Seth does his best to make sense of the incomprehensible with words like "vampire."
Stills from Reflecting SkinWhile not for the faint of heart, "The Reflecting Skin" is an unforgettable film. "The Passion of Darkly Noon" (1995) is a mind-expanding spell, from the crosscut of Brendan Fraser staggering through the woods with the opening credits, to P.J. Harvey's hauntingly gorgeous voice over the closing credits. The immensely appealing triangle of Darkly (Fraser), Callie (Ashley Judd) and Clay (Viggo Mortensen) explore all aspects of the concept of passion: distraction, desire, consummation, suffering and a few others for which words fail. While the entire ensemble is strong, the story revolves around these three, two of whom have been rescued, at different times from the forest and one of whom goes there periodically to sort things out.
The film also addresses the human tendency to confuse blame, justice and vengeance as well as how someone eaten alive by resentment and ignorant misinterpretations of events can level inestimable damage. The forest in this film is not just a place, but another character and works on both tangible and metaphoric levels. The action covers two weeks of a very hot summer when a young man is discovered unconscious near the forest and brought to Callie and Clay's home. Callie (Ashley Judd) looks after him and learns that he lost his family in a traumatic event, which sounds eerily like the siege of the Koresh compound in Waco, Texas in the early 90's. Darkly (Fraser) develops an obsession with Callie's beauty and sensuality and his strict religious upbringing has not equipped him at all to deal with his feelings for her.
When Clay (Mortensen) returns home and Darkly observes their close, loving relationship, unapologetically outside of the sacrament of marriage, the moonlit stroll across the emotional and ideological minefield begins. Fraser's title character is a fascinatingly unsteady balance of trauma, naivete' and repression. Judd's Callie both tenderly and richly evokes the complex dilemma of the once rescued becoming the rescuer. Mortensen, ever the shape shifter, is simply brilliant as Callie's carpenter lover who, at her request, welcomes Darkly into their family and brings him on as an apprentice, without uttering a word of dialogue. The original and remarkable vision Ridley showed in "The Reflecting Skin" is present in "The Passion of Darkly Noon," but it's a deeper, more mature and complex story I enjoyed infinitely more. Also known as "Darkly Noon," there were odd circumstances surrounding the release of this film in the US, which may make it harder to find at the video store. The extra legwork required to see "The Passion of Darkly Noon" is well worth the effort for the performances, story, spectacle and many surprises it affords.
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