I I I: Das Ritual - 2015 - 6/10
Russian film set in remote village beset with plague like wasting illness.
When one sister comes down with the sickness, the healthy sister consults a rogue priest.
Most illness is mental, he declares, if one enters the other’s psyche the cure can be found.
Being marketed as Horror, yet this is not genre true. By any standard, though, a beautiful film to watch.
Scene after scene of marvelously composed images.
For cinematography and atmosphere, I’d boost this to 8/10.
Thus noted, for narrative, I’d kick this down to 4/10.
Damn little happens, and the pace is numbing.
Actors seem little better than somnambulists, serious and plodding.
Scenes and characters are introduced, then abandoned.
The nudging suspicion - “was this all a dream” - whispers after a bit.
