MasterMath® Reviews ... CineVegas (Part III)

William Greene Raley 

The 4th Dimension … 

To say Jack Emitni (Louis Morabito) is a troubled man would be a vast understatement. From the film's initial, grainy, black and white image of a man on a snow-covered mountainside using a briefcase as a pillow, we know that neither suburbia nor the traditional nuclear family have any role in his life.

   Cut to his childhood. His mother, Amanda Emitni (Karen Peakes), wakes up in a sun-filled upstairs bedroom, looking for her son. She knows he's different from his classmates—not many third graders are that into alliums research. Cut to young Jack (Miles Williams) in science class, not paying attention. When his teacher asks him a simple question, the depth and seriousness of his answer is shocking. Alas, Jack doesn't yet understand that often there are dire consequences to being that smart.

   As an adult, Jack works in an antique shop. One day, a woman named Emma (Suzanne Inman) brings him an old clock to be repaired. Fair enough, but the next day she's back, having changed her mind. She asks Jack, "You didn't do anything to it, did you?" An unusual question from an unusual woman.

   Jack subsequently finds, hidden inside the clock, Einstein's notebook on unified field theory. Which, in his talented and obsessive hands, is nothing less than a roadmap to the unknown and the seemingly unknowable. I won't go into the details thereof—suffice it to say the journey is wondrous, unpredictable and terrifying. And yes, they got the math right.

   The director's touch here is nearly palpable—even though the images onscreen are seldom disturbing in and of themselves, a constant level of discomfort and unease is nevertheless maintained throughout. The camera often doesn't follow characters' movements, as if it has a mind of its own about what's important and where to go. Not only do we never know what's going to be in the next scene, we don't know if it will involve young or adult Jack, where it will take place, the time of day or who else will be present. Kind of like Jack's own conundrum—not knowing what tomorrow will bring, if there will be a tomorrow, or what the definition of 'tomorrow', or time itself, truly is.

   It's amazing how much this film says in scenes sans dialogue. Appropriate that this film takes place in winter. Snow serves, not to cover the landscapes, but to accentuate them. Further, the music herein isn't so much a soundtrack as it is the inner clockworks of the universe, resonating throughout the film like the an off-screen character. Much of the film was shot among the remains of the Philadelphia State Hospital for mental patients, a.k.a. Byberry, which operated from 1903 to 1990. This is the only film ever granted permission to shoot there. The hospital is scheduled to be demolished this year. Though its haunting images and memories will live on, just as those in this film will live on in those who see it. 

The 4th Dimension [world premiere], 82 mins, black and white. Directors / Writers, Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni. I give this film 4 black candles (out of 4). 

L'Annulaire (The Ring Finger) … 

She could have been any female assembly line worker in the country; and she was. But when Iris (Olga Kurylenko) lost the tip of her ring finger in an industrial bottling accident, her life changed dramatically. She moves to a port city, tries unsuccessfully to find work on the docks. Then one day, she takes the ferry, gets lost in a park and stumbles upon a building with an advert on the front door: 'Help required for preparation of specimens.'

   The director of this laboratory (Marc Barbé) interviews Iris and hires her on the spot. What little tidbits of her past are revealed during the interview are all we ever learn of it. Her position is part receptionist, part administrative assistant. He is pleasant enough, a clean cut, informal, middle-aged man. But his face is drawn, as if he'd seen to much, as if each of his clients took a piece of him away. For this is no ordinary lab—it isn't a museum and it does no research. It just preserves ... specimens. Not macabre objects, just ordinary ones, such as mushrooms or a mah-jongg set. No, it's their significance to the clients that brings them to the laboratory, to be rid of them and yet to pay someone to keep and take care of them. Clients are free to visit their objects at any time—some do, some don't—but no one ever takes them back. And that's all the director tells Iris about the business, other than to give her a sheet listing the prices and delivery times. Then the phone rings; she handles her first customer inquiry well.

   Since her hotel had no vacant rooms when she arrives, Iris shares with a sailor named Costa (Stipe Erceg), who works when Iris is asleep and vice versa. In the course of time, she becomes curious about the young man, whom she sees only in passing. Their potential friendship / romance serves as an interesting subplot.

   Back at the laboratory, Iris becomes acquainted with a couple of friends of the director, two older ladies who live in the building, one of whom was also a telephonist. When Iris visits them alone, talk turns to speculation about what happened to Iris's predecessor, who was on the job only a matter of weeks and who disappeared suddenly. What happened to her, what fate awaits Iris and what secrets are contained within the laboratory and by the director, are, how shall I say, quite intriguing. 

L'Annulaire (The Ring Finger) [2005], 100 mins, French with English subtitles. Director, Diane Bertrand. Writers, Diane Bertrand (screenplay) and Yoko Ogawa (novel). I give this film 3 black candles. 

—xxxneon@earthlink.net, home.earthlink.net/~xxxneon

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