Cult
Epics | Buy
DEAD LEAVES at Amazon.com
| Review
by Crites
True
and romantic love comes to a sudden end
when Laura (Elizabeth Gondek) tries to collect
a housecat by climbing onto a countertop
in thick pump heels. Her boyfriend Joey
(Haim Abramski) comes home to find her dead,
and carts her body out to a series of East
Coast motels carrying on as if she were
still alive. He bathes her, dresses her,
paints her toenails, and relives the memories
of a series of bewildering bedroom games.
A hitch to this necrophilial
honeymoon develops when Joey has his car,
and his dead girlfriend, stolen and has
to hitchhike to Delaware. Finding himself
in the midst of some musical costume parade,
Joey almost ends up becoming a fixture in
one of the many lonesome wintry landscapes
through which the picture travels.
Somehow Joey manages to locate
his car, dead girlfriend tucked away safely
inside, so he shoots himself in the foot
and takes Laura to yet another motel. Darling
has started to decompose, and while Joey
tends to her as best he can she's definitely
coming undone. The couple continues moving
from town to town, but eventually it all
comes to the inevitable conclusion.
An exploration of the mourning
process, DEAD LEAVES is a very poetic film.
And I don't necessarily mean that in a positive
sense. Throughout the picture most of the
dialogue comes in the form of narrated poetry,
and many scenes are simple slow pans of
cold and uninviting scenery. It's a sorrowfully
sentimental film, one as cold as the East
Coast winter in which it takes place, lent
a gothic air by the voiceover of morbid
poetry and a soundtrack featuring Gitane
Demone and Rozz Williams, among others.
It all makes for one of the most artistically
tortured and pretentious presentations possible,
one as long as it is pointless.
Comes with optional director's
commentary and a 'making of' featurette.
For more necrophilia fun check
out our reviews of NEKROMANTIK
2 and LIVING
DOLL.
