nightmare at the landmark sunshine

last weekend, I went to see el orfanato at the landmark sunshine, and haven't slept through the night since. it's the kind of sleeplessness, though, that you savor, as you lie curled up under the covers: was that shadow there a blink ago? did the room just get colder? is someone breathing?

there's little else as deliciously gratifying as a good horror film. the kind that leaves fingernail crescents on your palms by the end, and tendrils of nightmarescapes reaching deep into the waiting nights ahead.

the start itself was in perfect pitch: a richly romantic palette draping the screen with the smeariness of hazy unreality--all greenish greys and mossy browns--a crumbling grotto opening up into the rising sea where a forgotten lighthouse flickers in and out of sight, boulders piled high on cliffs, and accusingly piercing the low clouds, the orphanage, holding its breath and lying in wait.

I'm fairly easily seduced with a particularized mise en scène. but.

the image of the dark-panelled hallway, with that slack-limbed child shuffling forward, wet snuffling sounds leaking out from inside the grotesque sackcloth tied over his head is the most profoundly unsettling thing I have ever experienced on film.

other portents of cinematic cringe-induced finger-biting to come:
* echoey nursery chants from children whose faces you can't see clearly
* entire handfuls of milk teeth
* grinning, lopsided scarecrows
* black prams lying in the road with one wheel slowly coming to a stop
* black orthopedic shoes, and the crazy-eyed wrinkled ladies shuffling away in them

okay, so the ending was bathed in a warm, slightly sugary bath. but I can forgive it for everything that it gave me leading to it. and love it for everything it didn't.

I plan on being awake most of tonight, too.


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somewhere between the wet snuffling and the orthopedic shoes, I turned around and caught a picture of TC and an ewok enjoying the show:

also, Stattler, I owe you an apology for gouging out those flesh divots in your upper arm during the "1,2,3 pica la pared!" sequence in the basement. sorry.