BLACK ICE (Gololyod)

In addition to being a boring and pointless film, Black Ice is an exceptionally hideous and claustrophobic one as well.

Synopsis: A young female attorney finds herself caught in a maze of conflicting and deadly agendas when she discovers a tape proving the guilt of a prominent client she is defending. With a plot as labyrinthine as a hall of shattered mirrors, this cool, contemporary Moscow-set thriller sends the viewer hurtling through a blind alley of seemingly unconnected plot strands with relentless force.

Review: I'd like to begin this review with a special "I hate you" to the nitwits who were in charge of writing the blurbs for SIFF this year. Sometimes press materials will mislead you by emphasizing or de-emphasizing certain aspects of a film. However, this synopsis lies. This synopsis is hard evidence that the blurb-writer (is there a title for this job? Besides "idiot," in this case?) did not see this movie. I could write a term paper on how little this synopsis has to do with anything that happens in this film, except for the words "female" and "attorney," which is pointless anyway because the bitch is only in the movie for ten minutes. And the fact that the word "plot" is mentioned within ten miles of Black Ice should be grounds for arrest. But I digress. Going by what I read in The Synopsis Of Lies, I walked into this movie expecting a Russian version of an above-average episode of The Practice. Instead, to my dismay, I got... wait for it... O FANTASMA, THE SEQUEL!

I am actually stunned at the multitude of similarities between Black Ice and O Fantasma (which, in case you didn't know, is a film I saw at SIFF '01 and ranks #1 on my list of Worst Things That Have Ever Defaced My Field Of Vision. Della Reese's face is a close second). Both of these atrocities devolve into hour-long, dialogue-free "spiraling into madness" tripe that has zero meaning, motivation, logic, origin, destination, or anything else that makes a spiral into madness interesting. Black Ice jumps into the tail end of Young Female Attorney's story too late for it to make any sense, then it abandons the whole thing and makes some other guy she encounters for like one second the main character (and then the only character) for the remainder of the stupid film, during which he does absolutely nothing of interest. He just demonstrates his "craziness" in one pretentious, faux-artsy way after another, like spray painting his face orange while screaming and crying. I will thank God every day for the rest of my life that I saw this film with friends, so I can look back on this ordeal and sort of laugh through my hatred.

In addition to being a boring and pointless film, Black Ice is an exceptionally hideous and claustrophobic one as well. It's filmed in digital video, which is already three strikes against it right there. Also, this must be the only movie I've ever seen that is filmed entirely in extreme-closeups, most of which are also extremely out of focus. The camera work in The Blair Witch Project didn't give me motion sickness. The camera work in Black Ice gave me a headache within the first five minutes, and had me on the verge of puking by the end of it. Of course, that could have been a reaction to its general turpitude as well as anything else. I know I hide it well, but I am in fact very bitter over this whole experience.

Earlier this week, I sat through a three-hour movie and didn't look at my watch once. Black Ice, however, was 75 minutes long and at one point I swear there were images of calendar pages flying away superimposed on my vision. People started walking out in record time. When the suffering was over, I looked behind me at the sea of faces as the audience stood up to leave. Their expressions of horror said it all. Seriously, nobody could get of this theater fast enough. It was like a semi-civilized riot to escape the auditorium. Funny? Only in retrospect. It was hard to laugh when I was still trapped in the same room as the man who created this abomination of cinema. (So, no, I didn't stick around for the Q&A. I normally will not miss a Q&A for anything, but at this point it was a matter of cutting my psychological losses.)

If any of you accuse me of not being open to non-conventional styles of film, I will personally visit your home and slap you. I'm aware that apparent illogic and randomness can be employed create something artistic and meaningful (i.e. Mulholland Drive), and I'm aware that just because I don't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't have any meaning (i.e. Northfork). Right now I am calling a spade a spade, and Black Ice is without a doubt the worst movie I have seen in years.