Originally published on Set The Tape
Contains serious spoilers.
2003’s High Tension, originally released in the UK as Switchblade Romance, is a French horror slasher film that was likely for a lot of people their first taste of the New French Extremity scene; a genre of film that wasn’t even named that until a year after High Tension was released. It’s not hard to see why High Tension would be included in that genre, and some of the visual depictions of violence and mutilation in the film are extreme to be sure, but so are some of the bizarre turns in the story.
High Tension tells the story of two young women, Marie (Cécile de France) and Alex (Maïwenn), who begin the film driving across the French countryside together, smoking, singing to music, and enjoying each other’s company, as they head to stay with Alex’s parents in their remote farmhouse. The beginning feels very relaxed, and doesn’t reveal much about the horrors to come, though the brief prologue scene before, that shows a beaten and brutalised Marie in hospital sets up tension. The two of them arrive at the family home and settle in for the night.
It’s here that it becomes clear that Marie has feelings for Alex, something hinted at in earlier scenes. Going outside for a smoke, she watches her friend shower through the bathroom window, before heading up to her guest room to masturbate whilst thinking of her. It’s during Marie’s self pleasuring that a van arrives at the farm, the driver frantically banging on the front door. Alex’s father goes to see who it is, and is brutally attacked by the man. Thus begins a series of brutal, bloody killings that turns the two women’s lives into a nightmare.
It feels impossible to talk about High Tension in any real way that skirts around the big twist of the film, so I’m not even going to try. Over the course of the film the Killer (Philippe Nahon) brutally kills Alex’s father, and kidnaps Alex, tying her up and throwing her in the back of his van. We’d seen this man earlier in the film, with a brief scene showing him fellating himself with a severed head which he then dumps on the side of the road. He’s cruel and twisted, and clearly means to brutalise, rape, and kill Alex. As such, when Marie goes after him, determined to stop him and save her friend she becomes our hero, the final girl of the piece.
Except that she’s not. Towards the final quarter of the film it’s revealed that there is no Killer. Marie is the one doing everything. She killed Alex’s family, kidnapped her friend, killed a gas station attendee, and has been imagining the whole thing as someone else doing it. Her secret desire for her friend has manifested in a rageful, murderous lust. The problem with this twist is that it just doesn’t work. Why did we see the killer using a severed head to get off earlier in the film is he’s not real (other than to mess with the viewer)? How did the car chase sequence work? Did Marie bang on the door and kill Alex’s dad, or did that happen differently?
There are so many questions as to the logic of the film this twist raises that it reveals that the movie may not have been fully thought through, that there is no internal consistency and there are no answers to those questions because the filmmakers only cared about how the twist affects the audience, and not the story. It’s frustrating, and it takes a film that already was beginning to drag and feel dull into the full realm of unbelievable and off-putting.
I’m not the only person who dislikes the twist, or other aspects of the film, but there are others who disagree loudly, who see High Tension as a subversion of the genre, and an examination of sexuality and feminism. Whilst I’ll agree that there’s possibly more to be found than just a surface viewing would allow, the film just feels too flat to really be worthy of such deep diving and investigating. Neither of the lead female actors feel like they are doing anything particularly special, and their performances never rise above fine. Neither brings anything to the film that I’ve not seen in dozens of other cheaply produced horror films.
The new release from Second Sight contains both the Ultra HD and Blu-ray versions of the film, with the new Ultra HD version of the film having been approved by the director, Alexandre Aja. It comes with an audio commentary by Dr Lindsay Hallam, a Senior Lecturer in Film, who goes into the themes of the movie in ways that might be more interesting than the film itself. There are also a number of new interviews with crew, as well as archival behind the scenes features. The release comes with a slip-case, art cards, and a 70 page book that contain a number of essays. We were not given a copy of the book to review, so cannot comment on the quality of these writings and how they affect the experience.
Is High Tension a clever film that subverts expectations, takes pot shots at American slasher horror films, and doesn’t have to fully work and make sense because it comes from an unreliable narrator? Maybe. That depends on your own opinion. This is a film that is absolutely going to mean different things to different people. You might agree with some reviewers and analysts that it’s a masterpiece, a hidden gem that examines the roles of women in horror, and queer identities in new and exciting ways. Or you could come away hating the movie because for you it just doesn’t work, and the lack of a clear and consistent world or explanations will frustrate you.
There’s no wrong way to come out of High Tension, but giving it a go is a gamble for whether or not it’s going to be enjoyable or a complete waste, and considering the cost of this new release is a penny shy of £40, it’s a high price gamble for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment