[Horrible Imaginings Film Festival San Diego 2015]
Thanatos is partially inspired by the personification of Death in ancient Greece. Hsin-Yen LU’s student film of the same name follows a young photographer who captures an image of Death as a young woman. He becomes captivated and enamored with her, his interest becoming obsession as he stages his own death multiple times to be able to see her again and again and to photograph her each time. He desperately wants to go with her but she cannot take him as it his time has not come yet.
The story here is more a love story than a horror movie. The many deaths of the lad are interesting and creative, but it eventually becomes repetitive as it’s “live, die, see girl, take photo, wake up” rinse and repeat. The characters are interesting and do bring a bit of fun to all this death but it does not save from the repetitiveness and this is not all quite enough for a full length feature.
This story could have been told as a medium or short film and it would have gotten its point across its point across just as well. That being said, it’s a lovely story and the leads are interesting. These leads are Yi-Hsun Chung as the photographer and Coara Huang as Death. Both of them turn in subtly nuanced performances, bringing a touch of sadness to each of their characters. Also notable here, Death is beautiful which helps explain the photographer’s attraction to her, outside of her mystery and presence. Also, her being beautiful may represent that to him, dying is not scary or ugly but something for him to run to.
This film has multiple death sequences as mentioned, all happening to the same young man, hence requiring originality from one to the other to not become boring. The many scenes are interesting but are repetitive being that their subject does not change. The most visually compelling death here is the one with the blue flower petals. It’s a particularly gorgeous scene to watch unfold and it brings much needed color to the film.
That scene and many others are more visual than anything else, they are like slow moving photographers, carefully planned and framed, making sense with the situation and the lead character’s occupation. Thanatos is a visually stunning film while maintaining a sense of calm in what is shown and seen, even with all of the death scenes present. This is a serene movie in a way as the lead faces death embracing each it time which is reflected in its look and color scheme.
All of this leads to a pleasant but morose film, a beautiful series of images but with a slight slowness to the story that can be seen as boring in parts, while very entertaining in others. The story of love and death, and love of death, unfortunately takes a bit too long and comes off a bit uninteresting in parts using too much time for what its subject matter needed to be fully explored.