After a wildlife biologist (Marco Marchese) becomes trapped
on the wrong side of the river while collecting data, he comes across an
abandoned village. Taking shelter, he begins to suspect he may be sharing the
grounds with more than just boar and deer.
I found Across The River a little perplexing. It is one of
those films that I wanted to like more than I did, yet still more than I should
have. I’m actually surprised by how much this film held my interest,
considering it is excruciatingly slow and almost without dialogue. I mean it
got to a point where I started wondering if there was anything more to this
film than just Marchese wandering
around the Slovenian wastelands. It is to the Bianchini’s credit that he was
able to successfully use the locale and sound design to fill in for the lack of
traditional narrative.
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| Marco Marchese in Across The River. |
However, when the antagonists finally did show themselves, I
was left even more confused by some of the stylistic choices. I’m sure their
few appearances, which involved weird cut-ins and oddly timed reveals, would have
been creepy if they weren’t so jarring. It was as if Bianchini wasn’t aware of “the rules”. Maybe that was the intent. If that’s the case, then all he did was
leave me scratching my head.
In structure and tone, Across The River reminded me of the
2008 Finnish film Sauna. I believe that film was slightly superior in that
there was more to chew on and led to a better payoff, but they both shared the
same minimalist storytelling vibe. Lastly, I have to say that I was glad the
recorded video footage was kept to a minimum, as after seeing three of four “found
footage” films over the last few weeks, I’m a bit POV’d out.
Across The River took a long time to get where it was
going and it's fair to say the journey was more satisfying than the conclusion.
1 comment:
If nothing else, the poster is pretty darn cool looking.
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