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I Can See You
A Psychedelic Campfire Tale
Ultimately opting for Brakhage over butchery, this surprising horror debut hits us where it hurts by turning vision itself into a mind-frying source of anxiety. The lengthy run-up is tedious and unpromising: A fledgling ad outfit—consisting of a drip, a menacing heel, and a frustrated painter—heads to the woods to brainstorm a pitch for a cleaning product, with a bored girlfriend in tow.
Introduced dabbing at a portrait with no face, shy Ben (Ben Dickinson) gets lucky with a free spirit who turns up at a campfire gathering. He becomes the film's portal for fugue states of increasing intensity, amid the usual forest unease; the often grating humor and familiar oddities (a plastic-grin TV spokesman) feed viewer irritation, which turns out to aid the film's agenda.
Working under Larry Fessenden's low-budget horror shingle, young director Graham Reznick is adept enough with sound and rhythm to incorporate, say, a borrowing of Lost Highway expressionism into his technique, which is self-enamored but effective. So much about this movie and its characters should be annoying, but the sensory disorientation climaxes in a freakout that wipes all your troubles away, as well as anything else lying around in your head.
— N. Raphold, Village VoiceI Can See You
Fri October 30, 2009, 7:00 & 9:00, Muenzinger Auditorium
USA, 2009, English, Color, 97 min, Not Rated, Widescreen, 1.85:1, digital projection
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