Mécanix movie review

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Original Title : Mecanix

Directed by Rémy M. Larochelle

Written by Mélissa Hébert, Remy M. Larochelle

With Stéphanie Bilodeau, Julie-Anne Côté

Year : 2003

Country : Canada

Length : 69 min

Rating : 8 / 10

SYNOPSIS

The beginning of "MECANIX" strikes hard. The first seconds of the movie immerse us at once in a universe still unknown till now. The sepia tint of the chaotic image and the settings added to a stressed grain provoke at once a kind of time travel. Indeed, "MECANIX" seems to come from another time, a period when cinematographical technics were hardly known about. It then reveals its tortured world in which the biomechanical creatures walk across a rusteaten metal ground, some creatures who succeeded in taking the place of human beings as the dominating specie. The last human beings left alive were reduced to slavery and live in cages like cattle. However, these hybrid and nightmarish creatures doubt and are scared. They fear the "embryo", the only possible hindrance to their total and final domination. According to the legend, the "embryo" would be hidden in a human being bowels. Then, the slaves are regularly gored, as a security matter, that confirming once and for all their cattle in a cage going to the slaughterhouse status. That's when the last free man, a lonely being wondering in an apocalyptic setting, finds the embryo and, instictively, hides it in his belly. The biomacanical monster era is then threatened.

REVIEW

"MECANIX" is a disconcerting movie. It's hard to find an equivalent in cimena history. Shot in the old way, which means in a static way and entirely in studio, on 16mm film, the will of the author was to stress as much as possible the mecanical aspect of the material used, then allowing to set a parallel between the film contents and his creation. In both cases, the mecanical and the human soul are of major importance. The creatures of the movie are an unlikely mix of mecanical structures in corrosion with organic material, and on the other side the creators are organic beings made of flesh and bones using mecanics to to bring their project to a successful conclusion. It's out of question at that moment to use the digital technology in spite of the low budget, except for the sound conception of the film. Would "MECANIX" be an unintentional allegory of the decline of cinema on film in favor of digital cinema? Maybe.

Anyway, the result is facinating and reminds of the Quay brothers' short movies in some ways, without succeeding in reaching their quality as far as the animation level is concerned. This suffocating and gangrenous world in which nightmarish and visionary beings slaughter the human beings in order to survive is brought up almost in a contradictory way : although we could be waiting for raw and brutal violence, the movie evolves without falling into excess and takes its own rhythm. That means a calm rhythm, contemplative and willingly repetitive. An approach which will quickly dishearten the low receptive to avant-garde and innovator cinema audiences. However, the director gives some real bloody scenes, then stressing the surrealistic and desperate side of his universe. Some scenes which reminds, in their cruelty, the unavoidable, in underground cinema, "BEGOTTEN" by E. Elias Merhige.

Rémy M. Larochelle succeeded here the impossible bet of directing a movie which comes out of the beaten track, a movie which, as a whole, can't be compared to any other existing movie. This is pretty remarquable for a Quebecer grapher born in 1977 and whose eperience about image limited itself to the agressive rap band Tramaturge's video and a short movie which already delt with image by image animation. Finaly, we can only say one thing : roll on the next one!
Published on 2004-06-04

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