After the movie Held (2019) failed to stream on the official site,I kept my fingers crossed that things would be up & running on the second day of Fright Fest. Checking the line-up for the day,I was intrigued to find a Ukrainian Sci-Fi title was to get a UK premier,leading to me discovering how much stranger things could be.
View on the film:
Swimming into the mystery of a synchronized swimming team disappearing in the middle of a performance five years ago, Anastasiya Yevtushenko gives a hypnotic performance as Inspector Gluhovsky, who is given by Yevtushenko a strong masculine edge, with the rejuvenating effects of the luxury water therapy clinic washing over Gluhovsky,as she boards a recent disappearance of a client at the clinic with the cold (water) case.
Mentioning the works of Thomas Mann a number of times, the screenplay by Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy dives into a surrealist whirlpool of Sci-Fi, mystery and off the wall Horror,with the enticing, clinical Sci-Fi surroundings of the water therapy clinic,twirling into the peculiar of a client called Zezulia, who claims to be a missing man that no one is missing,and photos of the long lost swimming team hanging as shadows on the walls of the clinic.
Dipping Gluhovsky into the pine and bubble baths offered at the clinic, Tomashpolskiy bathes the detective with a wonderfully off-beat Horror fever dream of talking fishmen, staff who have a ghostly disconnection to the outside world, and a sewage treatment facility next door spreading a toxic rash over the luxury shell of the clinic.
Dedicating the title to "The dad I never met." writer/director Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy & cinematographer Serhii Smychok place the shimmering mystery to the background, in order to release waves of a rich, transfixing Ambient atmosphere, glittering in ultra-stylised alterations to the shades of green in each room of the clinic, reeling the undercover Gluhovsky deeper into the inner workings of the location.
Agitating the image as Gluhovsky is confronted by the Fishman revealing what she is doing in reality, Tomashpolskiy brilliantly twists the surrealist Horror stings into a ethereal mood spun to elegant panning shots being washed over with a delicate score that soaks up Gluhovsky in pine and bubble baths.
View on the film:
Swimming into the mystery of a synchronized swimming team disappearing in the middle of a performance five years ago, Anastasiya Yevtushenko gives a hypnotic performance as Inspector Gluhovsky, who is given by Yevtushenko a strong masculine edge, with the rejuvenating effects of the luxury water therapy clinic washing over Gluhovsky,as she boards a recent disappearance of a client at the clinic with the cold (water) case.
Mentioning the works of Thomas Mann a number of times, the screenplay by Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy dives into a surrealist whirlpool of Sci-Fi, mystery and off the wall Horror,with the enticing, clinical Sci-Fi surroundings of the water therapy clinic,twirling into the peculiar of a client called Zezulia, who claims to be a missing man that no one is missing,and photos of the long lost swimming team hanging as shadows on the walls of the clinic.
Dipping Gluhovsky into the pine and bubble baths offered at the clinic, Tomashpolskiy bathes the detective with a wonderfully off-beat Horror fever dream of talking fishmen, staff who have a ghostly disconnection to the outside world, and a sewage treatment facility next door spreading a toxic rash over the luxury shell of the clinic.
Dedicating the title to "The dad I never met." writer/director Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy & cinematographer Serhii Smychok place the shimmering mystery to the background, in order to release waves of a rich, transfixing Ambient atmosphere, glittering in ultra-stylised alterations to the shades of green in each room of the clinic, reeling the undercover Gluhovsky deeper into the inner workings of the location.
Agitating the image as Gluhovsky is confronted by the Fishman revealing what she is doing in reality, Tomashpolskiy brilliantly twists the surrealist Horror stings into a ethereal mood spun to elegant panning shots being washed over with a delicate score that soaks up Gluhovsky in pine and bubble baths.
