“Clash” - 1984
Deranged French horror (?) film about dreams (or is it?) that plays like ‘Eraserhead’-era Lynch directing a PBS Mystery...
A word of advice: You probably shouldn’t watch this right before bed, like I did. No, it’s not gory, it’s not a very quick-moving story, but god damn will it get under your skin.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen something that creeped me out in the same way ‘Eraserhead’ did, and this oddball flick came pretty close. It’s got the same kind of unreal characters meant to represent something bigger, and the same amplified sense of dread throughout.
I’m working with what I guess to be a Google-translated set of subtitles, so here’s what I THINK the plot is:
A woman seems to be assisting an older man (possibly her boyfriend? or she just wants him to be) who has done a large-scale robbery. She must spend a few nights in an abandoned mannequin factory with the money while he sorts things out.
The factory is, of course, creepy, but on top of that, there are some strange homeless men camping out in the courtyard who she must avoid. But then, she makes a lot of noise, and they don’t seem to notice...more on that in a minute.
Basically she is just getting creeped out by everything...weird noises in the night, an incident with the wind where a bunch of half-finished mannequins on poles start to twirl around (what the FUCK to that part)..and of course, the weirdo bums and their dog.
no thank you, spinning mannequin heads...
Well, it becomes apparent there’s a lot more going on. The woman starts dreaming about her childhood, and an ambiguous incident that traumatized her. Along this time, a nonspeaking younger man shows up in the factory with her. At first, he seems to be just a weirdo, and she is attracted to him...but he quickly becomes creepy like everything else.
yeah, ‘becomes’ creepy
He doesn’t acknowledge her, unless she does something like call for help on the phone, or try to escape the factory. For some reason, the windows and doors are all locked tight and are unable to be broken when the man is in the building. When he leaves, they are all unlocked. He also sings horribly. You’ll see.
Her dreams of childhood become more intense, and it is hinted that HE is the one who traumatized her. He is also friends with the bums, who keep asking ‘why not live in the shadows??’ and don’t seem to acknowledge the woman either.
Everything continues getting more chaotic, until the woman’s child self shows up to help her fight the silent man. Yeah. This is fucking nuts.
this part, where she is trapped in her sleeping bag, made me VERY claustrophobic. good job, I guess...
I won’t ruin the surprise ending, but I will give my interpretation of the film, since it seems to be one of ‘those’ movies.
To me, all the characters seem to be personifications of her anxiety and fear of death, especially the non-speaking man. Whatever happened in her childhood was simply a first experience with death or fear, even though we never find out EXACTLY what it is (a scene hints that her mother may have been raped.)
The whole story seems to be a dream in which she comes to terms with, and conquers her childhood fears. Something inside her subconsciously knows that this factory is where she will die, and she has this out-of-body experience to prepare her.
I wish my child self would come get me out of trouble
Or maybe not...I guess it could just be an incoherent haunted house movie. The only other works of note by this director are a gore flick and a TV Holocaust documentary, so your guess is as good as mine.
Either way, this one really stuck with me.
Clash