Black Night (2005) User Reviews

Fascinating but extremely dark movie

[mdp1986 · 8/10 · 29 December 2008]

Extremely interesting and intriguing movie. The similarities to David Lynch (who is even quoted literally by the presence of red curtains in the film) and the novels of Franz Kafka (the house keeper in this film is called Mrs. Grubach, as is the one in Der Prozess...) are clearly present but in this case are accompanied by clear references to the colonial past of Belgium in Africa. The exact content of the movie I can not clearly describe: this colonialism is an important part, as is the inability to cope with such a past, but the personal memories of the main character are a central issue as well, and his quest for social contact and love. These are the symbolic themes I deduced from the movie, but in fact they're no more than impressions.

But even if you just try to follow the linear story without these symbolic backgrounds, you still will discover an extremely fascinating movie filled with splendid imagery (beautiful close ups of beatles, larvas and other nasty insects are alternated with great dream sequences and also the dark atmosphere lends the film extra style). Maybe you can say that I didn't quite 'get' the film, but I have been watching like hypnothised for 1.5 hour, deeply impressed by the visual quality and the fascinating mysteriosity.

sharpen your eyes

[hochladen2000 · 8/10 · 26 November 2013]

to see the story behind nuit noire you have to use your eyes a pen some papers and your brain.

this movie have lots of hidden dots.

Oliver Smolden is an Artist and gives his audience a puzzle.

Im not being smart ass.

Wake up from your Hollywood trip and i guarantee you art and joy.

As a young Filmmaker. I must also admit that i've learned a lot, by watching and decoding it (still thinking about the whole picture).

i definitely recommend this to all large minded.

People who just consume movies should stay away.

Slow, difficult, surreal fantasy steeped in allegory of colonial guilt

[chaos-rampant · 7 September 2010]

On a surface level, Black Night is about a lugubrious entomologist who works in a natural museum history in an unspecified place where it's always night and comes back to his apartment one day to find a black girl sleeping on his bed. Director Olivier Smolders seems to be trying to say something about colonial guilt, which is only fair enough considering the fact he was born in the Belgian Congo in what is now the capital Kinshasha of the DRC, but whatever it is he's trying to say holds little interest to me. Or more precisely, because black Africa and the juxtaposition of European manias against it fascinate me, Heart of Darkness is one of my favourite novels and it takes place in the Belgian Congo after all, how Smolders says what he has to say.

As the intertitle at the beginning says, Black Night wants to be about something that can be very well recognized if not fully understood. This is not a movie where you make sense in literal ways but rather called to live through an experience or a certain feeling. The problem for me is that it's not very well recognized at all, even those bits from which I can decipher that Smolders is haunted by an image of black Africa that is only familiar to those who have truly experienced it, so I can't even acquiesce to the idea that this is an experience worth living through. The bigger picture is held from me so that whatever it is this movie is a dream of, or a hallucination or something fantasized, it's not part of something "I" would dream. As personal as it is to Smolders, it's impersonal to me. And then those parts I can at least partially recognize are steeped in allegory, the kind of which entire theories are made to explain when David Lynch does it, where things translate into other things in a direct "this means that" manner. I like things to linger in the mind and be poetic but something tells me Black Night can be deciphered to the fully explainable if someone has a mind to it.

Those parts of Black Night I did somehow enjoy are connected to the fact that it all takes place in a claustrophobic Kafkaesque universe where the protagonist seems a helpless cog in the grinding wheels of an unseen world, where guilt and paranoia figure in at some point, and disconcerting voices can be heard coming from other rooms or behind closed doors. The "retro otherworldly" decor reminded me of Dark City. It's all a bit like opening a door to an attic that has been sealed for years, the colors in the velvety furniture are faded and there's dust everywhere, and you can smell the musty smell of decay and formalheyde in the air. Once you clear the cobwebs and adjust your eyes to the dim light, something nightmarish can be discerned lurking in the corner, but it doesn't chime in with how I see nightmares so it's all a bit irrelevant to me.

Surrealistic stand-alone masterpiece

[haewatein · 9/10 · 22 December 2008]

A great film! Slow: YES.

...but original, deeply atmospheric, dark and horrifying, perfectly SURREAL (feels like a nightmare).

I'd compare it to David Lynch (Eraserhead, Inland Empire, Blue Velvet) style maybe with mixed with a little bit of Barton Fink and Naked Lunch (Insects!). Also a bit of Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis)....

Add some Night on Earth, Angel Heart and a bit of Begotten, Pi, (would it be wrong to mention Tetsuo?) Jacob's Ladder, Barker's The Forbidden and Salome - that should form together at least the concept of a dark night... NUIT NOIRE.

If you're out for avantegardistic and/or surrealistic cinema (like I am) you're gonna like this one. If you're expecting anything else like a movie full of action with some average plot - try your luck with something else.

Final words: The plot is very, very strange and unusual and that's probably the #1 reason why most people who don't appreciate this film hate it.

You never had a sister

[nogodnomasters · 5/10 · 27 March 2018]

Oscar lives in a nightmarish world where he imagines himself a killer of his sister who may be black or white. It is a 19th century world with an odd old fashion view of Africa. Oscar is a museum Entomologist. The sun shines for only 15 seconds a day.

This is an art house style film. I thought it was heavy into metaphors such as insects representing the final stages of death on a dying planet etc. However in listening to the director's commentary it was not that sophisticated. It was a disjointed film by design with no real meaning other than it was like a dream, a mirror with broken pieces, a kaleidoscope. In other words, the director created images with little or no regard to plot, continuity, or symbolism hoping the audience will like it.

Good luck. My plebeian advice is to watch "Dark Knight Rises" instead.

Guide: Nudity. 5 stars for messing with my head.

Like a nightmare

[jochen-debock · 9/10 · 7 February 2009]

This film is amazing - it's just like a nightmare. The bizarre story, the dark decors, the swarming insects everywhere, the idea jumps and the surrealistic dreams... Really great! People who love cult movies or very dark thrillers will find this fantastic. It seems a little to the films of David Lynch: the strange story, the bizarre dreams, the red curtains. Nuit Noire contains almost no plot. It's rather a succession of surrealistic happenings, nightmares and meetings. That's a drawback. If the film had a really fascinating plot full of tension with a captivating denouement, I would give it a 10 out of 10. But that's missing, and that's why I gave the movie an 8. Nuit Noire is a film worth watching. Search that DVD and you'll be rewarded!

What the hell is this?

[kingdio · 1/10 · 11 November 2007]

I don't know what this movie is about, really. It's like a student's art school project. They never say why the world is dark, but it is always darkness except for seconds a day. There are long, interrupting shots of insects of all sorts for no reason. What little dialogue there is in the movie is as inane and nonsensical as the images. A black woman enters the main character's apartment. Somehow she becomes pregnant overnight, then gets shot in the head. The main character takes care of the body until it becomes a cocoon after which a white naked woman emerges. I have never been so blown away by how bad and pointless a movie can be. Honestly, I would like someone to watch it so they can tell me what they think it's about. But I wouldn't wish this level of hell on anybody else.

Don't have a clue what the movie was about...Cocooning?

[zmaupzy · 1/10 · 20 April 2006]

I was really horrified by this eerie movie. What an unusual dark atmosphere. And such a creepy musical score. Really promising! Indeed, after ten minutes you really start sweating, and feeling uncomfortable, for you start fearing the worst. This movie has the atmosphere of a true nightmare, and what's worse-it all comes out. For one hour and a half I have been trying to fight complete boredom and falling asleep, but the monstrous soundtrack kept me awake. Nuit Noire is a truly horrifying picture - for your eyes, your ears, your intelligence, and most of all: your wallet, since the thought of spending precious money on a movie ticket for this cheap amateuristic homevideo is the biggest horror of all.