Reviewers of this French offering frequently comment about how there's nothing new here. If you've seen this or that then you won't be treated to the "never seen before". Okay, I agree. We're approaching a century of cinema, folks. Like Chefs with the same cupboards with the same spices and cooking methods turning out very different dishes ... it's about the recipe. Everything's been done before. The "never seen before" is a tall task. Think about it. Take a few minutes and come up with something "never seen before". Yeah, they're out there but very, very rare. More likely, to post with a "different" film, you're going to have to use ingredients common to movie goers and genre aficionados and deliver them in a different recipe. All film makers are in the same boat here and with the welcome explosion of independent film makers, similar movies are bound to be made. Some will be better than others regarding similar subjects. Anyone believing films like SAW or Hostel were breaking ground simply aren't familiar with cinema history. FX doesn't count here because technology advances and can make the "had to be implied" of yesteryear an "in your face" today. Not always a good thing. But it can be. The "skin peeling" scenes in the early 30s "The Black Cat" are going to be hard to beat, FX or not. Torture is old in cinema. Seems we've all been warped for a long time. All of cinema, except for the very cutting edge, is repeating and revisiting earlier themes. "Frontier(s)" revisits in a peculiar and interesting way ... if you're bent in this direction. It's a period piece, it has the TCM butcher, the family patriarch (played so well that I wanted to kill him - he had the look and nailed the heinous arrogance of a human monster), all kinds of uncomfortable sub tones, drippy bloody stuff, realistic butchery, cult-ish sickness, really weird ladies, gratuitous pigs, dead nipples ... the list goes on and on. Fess up, you wouldn't be here if you weren't warped a little. Relax, you're among friends. Scores high on the "icky" meter. But that's why we watch these things, right? This one has some intelligence behind it. And some real "whoa..." moments. Watch.
Review of Frontier(s)
