2014 Directed by Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia
Two women, each named Helen, live out their mirrored lives in the town of Troy, NY. The first Helen is in her 60s, is married, and takes care of a small, extremely lifelike baby doll, which she treats as a living baby. The second Helen is in her 30s, has a successful art career and is four months pregnant. One night, something falls from the sky and explodes over the town. In the aftermath of this event, bizarre and unexplainable things begin to happen.
Italy
USA
Italy
USA
59/100
Ends up going nowhere, but so confidently that it almost doesn't matter. First section in particular superlatively balances WTF elements with precisely observed naturalism; Robin Bartlett, whose no-fucks-given anger was the best thing in Chronic, does equally fine work here, refusing to condescend to a character who would seem batshit crazy on paper. (Her entire role is like Seidl minus the gawking.) Second part introduces a shaky self-satirizing conceit, shifting focus to a couple apparently based on the filmmakers themselves—they collaborate on art while having what seem like very different objectives in mind—but remains formally adventurous and productively mysterious in very Carruth-ian ways (without feeling overly derivative, at least to me). Diminishing returns set in as the film keeps…
This film is soo my speed - eerie, hard to explain and quietly intense.
Though this low-budget, minimalist apocalyptic indie is sluggishly paced and doesn't do a whole lot, it's well-acted, nicely shot, superbly scored and benefits from a darkly funny bent cutting through the entire pic (particularly with the lonely old woman storyline).
Could've easily been 15-20 minutes shorter, but an interesting, strange movie nonetheless.
Usually something automatically gets a pass from me for merely being shot in Upstate New York. Not this one!
This is a tough one. I enjoyed it, yet I think it is ultimately a pointless film. The scene is set for pointlessness right from the start, when we repeatedly have forced upon us the absurdity of the elder Helen's 'reborn baby doll' obsession. The film proceeds to scenes of a black horse running through empty winter streets and forests, bits of asteroid and sculpture floating down slow rivers, men suffering blood-damaged eyes after ear-piercing vibrations nobody else can hear, women standing against walls for hours on end, etc etc. There is a plot buried in here amongst the ghosts of symbolism, but ultimately it gets lost amid the winter atmospherics and horror/scifi tropes. By all accounts there must be…
Should've known better when it valiantly begins with "in partnership with GUCCI". A lot of confidence with very little payoff. I really do wish the ending was more substantive. At least crazy old lady Helen didn't disappoint.
During the winter in the upstate New York town of Troy, two parallel stories unfold: In one, an older woman named Helen lives with her husband Roy and spends much of her time doting on her eerily lifelike "reborn" baby doll. In the other, a young woman also named Helen is pregnant with her first child. She and her husband Alex are a slightly insufferable upscale hipster type couple who together have a collaborative partnership making awful modern art. Both stories occur against the backdrop of strange, quasi-apocalyptic events happening in their town that could be straight out of a Don DeLillo novel.
Above is the set-up for this odd, enigmatic little whatsit from directors Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia.…
The Greek tragedy of Helen of Troy gets a modern retelling in Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia’s H., updating the action to Troy, NY with two separate Helens living out their lives concurrently; the first Helen is in her 60s (Robin Bartlett), living with her husband Roy, while the other Helen (Rebecca Dayan) is a successful artist in her 30s that also happens to be four months pregnant. Broken into four chapters, H. switches the focus between the two Helens, piling on the peculiarities in an endless stream of battling tones – one, a domestic drama and the other, an otherworldly tale of puzzling events stemming from an explosion in the sky and a giant stone head floating in the…
Regardless of one’s budget, a well-executed, smart idea can sell science fiction films on the smallest of scales. With seemingly little resources, the writing and directing team of Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia attempt to put that to practice in H., a character-driven, but narratively obtuse sci-fi film that vexes more than it satisfies. This isn’t to say a confounding experience isn’t appreciated to stretch our minds in the genre, but H. simply doesn’t feel fully formed, keeping us at a narrative distance from its relatable characters.
Featuring two separate stories split into four chapters in the upstate New York town of Troy, we first follow the aging Helen (Inside Llewyn Davis‘ Robin Bartlett) and her husband Roy (Julian Gamble).…
The first half produces some interesting mysteries and sets a solid confident tone and rhythm. And then when the filmmakers actually have to start pulling pieces together and creating, you know, drama it fails miserably. You know the directors are lacking in dramatic tension when their climactic moment at the end is a women walking through the woods for like 15 minutes and then goes to sleep. Very similair to another wannabe Carruth-ian film "Equals" in which the overall concept, approach and visual style is perfectly realized but everything else is not only forgotten but insanely neglected. You cannot write third act tension builders with people who just wander around on screen for ten minutes with no objective and no…
