Infuriating, amateurish crap; the end result of a fitfully inventive mind watching too many American horror movies and deciding to piece together an absurdist homage comprised of about four or five mildly interesting set pieces. There's not much reason to care about all the obtuse, heavily-implemented symbolism, as its
only purpose seems to be loaning stray bits of meaning to a film that really doesn't have much. To be honest, none of it seems to have been done with all that much thought. Calvaire has a gaggle of astonishingly self-absorbed defenders on IMDB who write anyone not fond of the film off as uncultured or thoughtless, when there's really not a great deal to think about here. The seasons change arbitrarily because Fabrice Du Welz thought it would look cool. There are red-coated midgets in the woods because Fabrice Du Welz wanted to throw in a reference to Don't Look Now. These are just little ribbons adorning a very shallow package, and the complete discordance with which they're assembled precludes them from adding any sort of depth. The sound design is hackish and overdone, a mistaken effort at substituting volume for menace; the performances are poorly framed and striving for very different things, be it outright horror (Lucas) or black comedy (Berroyer); the only thing Du Welz really pulled off is the elegantly-lit, unshowy cinematography, using the sparse terrain to its best advantage. Unfortunately, it isn't enough to justify a watch, and Calvaire ultimately adds up to nothing but a few mildly "shocking" scenes.
November 1, 2009
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