We were surprised to see Screen 7 packed to the rafters and Sandra Hebron introducing the film herself.
We were confused when Anton Corbijn joined her in the introduction.
We were also a bit pissed off to see that people were in our seats.
Only they weren't. Our seats were in Screen 6....
Screen 7 was The American.
So, we were escorted out and led to a much smaller screen for our small art house cinema...
Imagine the worst kind of art house black & white subtitled foreign film you can. Now imagine it knew this and played on it. It embraced it's absurdity and encouraged you to laugh at the increasingly bizarre but knowing scenes....then imagine it punished you for laughing and enjoying it. This film is Temptation of St. Tony and from the very beginning it appears to be in on the joke and punishing you for being in on it too, parts of the film seem almost cliche but from the comedic beginning you get the feeling the director also knows this.
The film has a plot of sorts (or at least you create one in your own mind from the seemingly random shots and scenarios that come into play) but it is far too convoluted to actually go into - involving a struggling middle manager, relationship woes , dead dogs and a seedy underground club from hell .
Whilst the film becomes progressively more and more difficult to understand (ending up as just a series of nightmare images) it remains beautiful throughout.
There is some wonderful imagery, every screenshot could be an artistic photograph. It manages to be both captivating and chilling.
While it has an amazing soundtrack that manages to flip between live action accordion playing from old men, hard core electronica and a beautiful old blues number. It then manages to create a sense of dread with militaristic and clashing sounds worse then any recent horror film.
Altogether a film that is definitely one to watch...once.
Oh and excellent dancing.
Now that I can compare screens 6 and 7, there is surprisingly ample leg room in the west end Vue screen 6.
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