I wanted to like this film, I really really did. There are some good ideas here, as well as some great visuals. The problem that bugged me is the film doesn't try to really explain anything until the end, where the big reveal could have been partially predicted at the beginning and doesn't address all the strange things that came before. I should have typed this comment yesterday, when I saw the film*; I was going to provide a list of all the different questions I had after watching it (I believe I had seven long series), and now I can only remember three of them. WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
1. It appears at the end as if Volmer having sex with his daughter is the culmination of a religious practice. What is the reason for him raping her (as at one point he makes it sound like there is a reason), and how does it tie into the idea of cleansing people from the hideousness of the world? After he is done raping her, what is he expecting to happen? Another child? Why? And what about Hannah?
2. If Volmer is a couple hundred years old, how old is Hannah? If she is really the daughter who was thrown in an aqueduct to die, she should be plenty old as well. Has she really been in a deluded trance all this time, her menstrual cycle finally starting up because she left the clinic with a friend that is a boy, had one sip of a beer, went bathroom in a public toilet, found a stick of lipstick which she applied, danced awkwardly to a song with someone close behind her hinting at trying to seduce, and experienced a barroom brawl that put her nerves on end? If her father really was waiting a couple hundred years for her to become a woman so he could have sex with her, why didn't he ever think of bringing her into town, introducing her to beauty products, or doing something to arouse her? Yes, he couldn't do this himself without stepping out of the doctor role into a father role and then into something else, but honestly, after a couple hundred years of waiting for her to grow up, don't you think you would have to try something different to get something to happen? Also: If Hannah and her father have both been taking "vitamins" to keep themselves alive, doesn't that mean that Hannah is really a sickly-looking being under a costumed skin as well?
3. How do the eels determine when to show up and when to eat or cause damage? When Lockhart is in the isolation chamber he is surrounded by multiple eels, which don't harm him. Are they a figment of his imagination as stimulated by the "water" he has been drinking? If so, how did he know about the eels? If they were real, how are they able to so quickly appear and disappear, how do they go up the plumbing, and why has noone else ever noticed them in the top compartment of their toilet? When Hannah loses blood in the pool, why do the eels just circle around her? Does it have something to do with when she was a baby she was thrown into an aqueduct? If so, what happened there? In fact, how far along was she when she was cut out of her mother's womb? I would like to say far along, but I have the strangest feeling I heard someone mention that she was a fetus sometime in the film, though I could be wrong. Also: How do people not die from live eels being forced into their bodies? It seems as if the eels really only cause damage down in the catacombs, when bodies are put in the water. Is there more than one type of eel, or are there only certain environmental factors that set them off? What is the special nature of the eels? It is barely addressed, people mostly just talking about the water the eels inhabit. But the significance of the eels is stressed so much toward the end that I question myself and wonder: Is it the water that makes the eel, or the eel that makes the water?
I wasn't deterred by the length, and some scenes are gripping. It was mostly all the different questions, a lack of a satisfying/impactful/frightening/original ending, the stupidity of Lockhart (I see a small little thing wriggling around in a drop of the water I just drunk, the village doctor says a symptom in some patient papers looks like dehydration and Lockhart points out that people are always drinking water at the wellness center, he sees eels swimming around in water in different places, and he doesn't suspect for a long time that there is something wrong with the water?!), and the multiple cop-outs of scenes showing Lockhart in mortal danger, the danger coming to pass, and Lockhart still being all fine and dandy that upset my rating for the film and gave it less than the concept should have warranted.
Oh, and one last question: What is the point of the tanks with human bodies in the locked-off wing of the center, and how do people survive being in them without oxygen? Because I'm stumped! (Sadly)
My rating: 3 3/8 /5
* Note: This review was written about a month before appearing on this site.
1. It appears at the end as if Volmer having sex with his daughter is the culmination of a religious practice. What is the reason for him raping her (as at one point he makes it sound like there is a reason), and how does it tie into the idea of cleansing people from the hideousness of the world? After he is done raping her, what is he expecting to happen? Another child? Why? And what about Hannah?
2. If Volmer is a couple hundred years old, how old is Hannah? If she is really the daughter who was thrown in an aqueduct to die, she should be plenty old as well. Has she really been in a deluded trance all this time, her menstrual cycle finally starting up because she left the clinic with a friend that is a boy, had one sip of a beer, went bathroom in a public toilet, found a stick of lipstick which she applied, danced awkwardly to a song with someone close behind her hinting at trying to seduce, and experienced a barroom brawl that put her nerves on end? If her father really was waiting a couple hundred years for her to become a woman so he could have sex with her, why didn't he ever think of bringing her into town, introducing her to beauty products, or doing something to arouse her? Yes, he couldn't do this himself without stepping out of the doctor role into a father role and then into something else, but honestly, after a couple hundred years of waiting for her to grow up, don't you think you would have to try something different to get something to happen? Also: If Hannah and her father have both been taking "vitamins" to keep themselves alive, doesn't that mean that Hannah is really a sickly-looking being under a costumed skin as well?
3. How do the eels determine when to show up and when to eat or cause damage? When Lockhart is in the isolation chamber he is surrounded by multiple eels, which don't harm him. Are they a figment of his imagination as stimulated by the "water" he has been drinking? If so, how did he know about the eels? If they were real, how are they able to so quickly appear and disappear, how do they go up the plumbing, and why has noone else ever noticed them in the top compartment of their toilet? When Hannah loses blood in the pool, why do the eels just circle around her? Does it have something to do with when she was a baby she was thrown into an aqueduct? If so, what happened there? In fact, how far along was she when she was cut out of her mother's womb? I would like to say far along, but I have the strangest feeling I heard someone mention that she was a fetus sometime in the film, though I could be wrong. Also: How do people not die from live eels being forced into their bodies? It seems as if the eels really only cause damage down in the catacombs, when bodies are put in the water. Is there more than one type of eel, or are there only certain environmental factors that set them off? What is the special nature of the eels? It is barely addressed, people mostly just talking about the water the eels inhabit. But the significance of the eels is stressed so much toward the end that I question myself and wonder: Is it the water that makes the eel, or the eel that makes the water?
I wasn't deterred by the length, and some scenes are gripping. It was mostly all the different questions, a lack of a satisfying/impactful/frightening/original ending, the stupidity of Lockhart (I see a small little thing wriggling around in a drop of the water I just drunk, the village doctor says a symptom in some patient papers looks like dehydration and Lockhart points out that people are always drinking water at the wellness center, he sees eels swimming around in water in different places, and he doesn't suspect for a long time that there is something wrong with the water?!), and the multiple cop-outs of scenes showing Lockhart in mortal danger, the danger coming to pass, and Lockhart still being all fine and dandy that upset my rating for the film and gave it less than the concept should have warranted.
Oh, and one last question: What is the point of the tanks with human bodies in the locked-off wing of the center, and how do people survive being in them without oxygen? Because I'm stumped! (Sadly)
My rating: 3 3/8 /5
* Note: This review was written about a month before appearing on this site.
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