Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021) Surrealist, Classical Euro Horror reinvents itself (Cinema Review)

A knowing film can be a tricky thing. Make the knowing winks too subtle and it can go over the viewers’ heads. Be too obvious and the nudges become as distracting and irritating as actual elbows in the ribs. This does not stop many a filmmaker from tipping their hat to the audience and inviting us to share in their knowledge, especially of genre tropes, that they know we know and we know they know we know. It is known.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes navigates this tricky balance between knowing winks and actually telling a story. For the most part, it gets away with it. The genre tropes come thick and fast as a couple drive through the night and arrive at a spooky castle that Margot (Luisa Taraz) has just inherited (stop me if you’ve heard this one). Their intention is to take a quick look, and this brief inspection is all they need to ascertain that the place is a wreck and they should definitely not stick around. It’s occupied by bugs, rats, bats and a wryly observant cat. Exploring the basement is obviously a bad idea, but of course, Dieter (Frederik von Lüttichau) does so anyway, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a weird threatening shape down there, which we don’t see clearly and that he will not discuss. But thanks to reasons that can be best described as plot, they need to spend the night. And then things get weird. For good measure, the couple has marital difficulties that manifest in horrifying fashion, possibly (i.e., clearly) because of the bad place they are in.

So far, so familiar, but then the film becomes something else, and subsequently something else again. These genre shifts invite comparisons to works as varied as The Handmaiden and One Cut of the Dead, but unlike those films, Dawn Breaks Behind Her Eyes does not use humour as part of its shifts. Instead, cowriter-director Kevin Kopacka and cowriter Lili Villányi opt for outright surrealism. Different speeds of action switch the register from objective to subjective, and sudden insert shots break the continuity. These inserts are sometimes of the same location but with different figures and lighting, while at other times the action is abruptly but briefly transplanted to different places, which then reappear later in the film. The cumulative effect of these shifts is to unsettle the viewer’s sense of what has happened when and where and to whom. Indeed, the time of production is confusing and the viewer could be forgiven for thinking the film dates from the 1970s, since the visual palette, production design and cinematography feel like those of such Euro-horror offerings as The Blood-Spattered Bride and Daughters of Darkness. This cinematic resonance is further underscored by discussions and costumes of hippydom and the counter-cultural movements of the late 1960s and early 70s. But this is a 2021 film, and its imitation of earlier styles is reminiscent of The House of the Devil and X in terms of its references. Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes offers both retrospective and nostalgic pleasures, riffing on period as much as it does on genre, disrupting the narrative and the viewer’s engagement with the genre tropes and with the acceptance of cinematic artifice.

Similarly, our sympathies are reassigned between different characters as the events progress. Early on, we may side with Margot, as her husband is at best whiny and at worst abusive. Later, we are more drawn to the creative figure Gregor Grause (Jeff Wilbusch), but subsequent events may direct us towards the long-suffering Eva Ziehnagel (Anna Platen), as well as another figure who could be mistaken for her. As if this was not enough, characters also suggest revisions of what goes on in the film, much as the viewer often needs to revise their understanding of the events. Eruptions of emotion and of fire parallel those of insert shots and genre shifts, resulting in a sometimes dizzying and bewildering experience.

The heady mixture of registers and themes, combined with the trippy visuals, is a lot to cram into 76 minutes. It would be reasonable to describe the film as a little overstuffed and it may well leave viewers more confused than satisfied, and perhaps even frustrated. Despite this, Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes remains an intriguing and engaging curio that offers much for genre fans and those who enjoy surreal trips.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021)