Those familiar with Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s previous films, Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, will be well-prepared for another of the duo’s audiovisual genre abstractions. Except Let the Corpses Tan is geared toward vintage Euro westerns and splashes of French New Wave mis en scène, as opposed to the earlier works’ giallo and horror influences. The new film also largely jettisons these filmmakers’ deconstructionism: instead of interrogating the presentation of female sexuality in a notoriously misogynistic genre, Corpses is content to remain, primarily, an action film, albeit one stripped down almost entirely to the filmmakers’ patented, glorious insert shots and blaring sound effects (hope you like the noise of creaking leather). Practically an 85-minute demonstration of someone’s kink fetishes, Corpses may be for fans only, but if you can tune into its wavelength the effect is exhilarating.
Published as part of Toronto International Film Festival 2017 | Dispatch 1.
