Slamdance is a film festival positioned around micro budget productions, giving writers and directors an early step in their career – a step with considerable lineage given its on the doorstep of its third decade. That qualifier, micro-budget, gives a certain impression of what sort of narrative films the festival programmes and now in the second year of covering this American festival I can happily say that they rarely kowtow to stereotypes and conventions. The Complex Forms is every bit as unconventional as Jerry Plays Himself or The Demon Mineral.
I want to describe Italian filmmaker Fabio D’Orta’s fantasy drama as a weird film, but describing any Italian in such terms sets up expectations that are hard to live up to. After all, this is the country that also gave us Lucio Fulci, and titles like the Visitor. While now on that spectrum, The Complex Forms tonally scans closer to the neo-realist names who predated Italy’s fabulist era and work closer to that of Eastern Europe or Scandinavia. That is to say, shot in black and white with a slower pace albeit peppered with weird ideas that you’d expect to find in the filmographies of the aforementioned. All with a dash of liminal otherness added to proceedings.
Christian (David White, the only professional actor on board) is a down and out chef who has recently lost his job. Desperate, he learns of a scheme, or scam, where he along with many other men head to a villa in the countryside where they can revive their fortunes by selling their bodies to mysterious entities in exchange of money. A paid for willing possession of all things. And for a while it does appear to be a scam, with scores of old men pottering around this beautifully photographed villa. Christian works in the kitchen, while others work away the hours with their hobbies, poker and the like. We are looking at a reserved, quiet film until someone collapses and a contextually cacophonous air raid siren breaks the solitude – a noise which announces the arrival of an ungodly creature of slick black metal, constructed with glistening bits and trinkets. The creature swallows the elderly gentlemen as the guests of the villa are ushered out of the room, after which the staff ominously announce that the swallowed party has found their own way home and that there’s nothing to worry about. Suspicious, and naturally scared, Christian and his two friends – Michele Venni (Luh) & Cesare Bonomelli (Giant) – attempt to escape this portentous estate.
You could say that people are possessed by their possessions but I’d never say anything that cheesy. Instead, decoding who each of these characters are according to these designs is the movie’s great triumph.
Like many Slamdance films, The Complex Forms is refreshingly brief, getting an awful lot into a spry 74 minute runtime. There’s the gorgeous, vast abode shot in moody Chiaroscuro black & white which is a visual pleasure all of its own. And that’s the level that the movie is most satisfying, its visual flair, beyond the sedate vistas there are also creatures that I have never seen before. Almost like one of the bugs from Starship Troopers processed through the imagination of Shinya Tsukamoto circa Tetsuo albeit in a film closer to the work of Ingmar Bergman. Arrival or said beasts is also joined by effects like furniture being forced away in the presence of one of these creatures. There’s also vivid dream sequences too. This is no slow psychological drama in which people talking is the only tangible takeaway, D’Orta is admirably aiming for the stars and he pulls it off too. The only real notable limitation is the crudeness of the CG but given how low the budget of these micro-budget films are – that the visual effects and their vision aren’t hemmed in by lack of funds nor do they look awful is a big win for both low budget ingenuity and the director’s craft.
Subtextually, The Complex Forms is equally rich if not quite as interesting. In a video introduction with the writer/director (cinematographer, editor and effects man), he talks about how those who are most desperate are cynically exploited and while that is there, the design of the creatures is the nuance that kept me engaged. You could debate that these creatures appear too often and maybe they do, but the uniqueness speaks for itself. Simply because each creature is different, made of trinkets, bits and pieces that represent the lifestyles and desires of the person it has come to take. You could say that people are possessed by their possessions but I’d never say anything that cheesy. Instead, decoding who each of these characters are according to these designs is the movie’s great triumph.
If anything lets the side down it’s the final few minutes that take place away from the villa, where there is an appearance from the dreaded Captain Exposition. While I won’t say who fills that role or how many people are taken, a character appears at another yet another photogenic locale and literally explains everything. There’s some mystery left in tact, but too much is given away. With an idea as unique as this, explaining anything so much is short shrifting the material. While The Complex Forms is still fascinating in the ways that matter most, how you leave an audience is the single most important part of any movie – small, big, low budget or blockbuster. And honestly, D’ Orta ends an otherwise fascinating project badly.
The Complex Forms had its US premiere at Slamdance Film Festival 2024
