I've been catching up on French horror lately.

First up: MARTYRS!

It's real brutal.

Interesting, never heard of it.

Have you seen Human Centipede?

K

Nope, not yet. You?

A SERBIAN FILM is supposed to be the new standard-bearer.

I haven't. Truth be told, I'm not actually all that drawn to the genre in general. I'm curious to hear about it though, if you see it. It's an interesting and uniquely disturbing premise.

K

I haven't seen Human Centipede and perhaps it's a powerful and moving commentary on the human condition. Everything I've read about it, however, makes it seem like it's nothing but simulated fetish porn, simulated only because no one would be allowed to do that in real life.

Not that I have anything against porn, but there should be a distinction between it and legitimate storytelling.

Mike

I don't see why one category would be inclusive or exclusive of the other, really.

K

I'd define porn in the broadest sense as when a story is only about itself, when something isn't the starting point or context of a narrative but the narrative only exists to put that something on display. In sex/nudity terms, it's the difference between an "erotic thriller" and a soft core skin flick.

Mike

I find these distinctions interesting, which is probably what keeps drawing me in to the perversity. I touch on this briefly in my Martyrs post: why does no one refer to most modern romantic dramas as porn or exploitation? Nicholas Sparks specializes in emotional manipulation for the sake of manipulation. Terror, horror, and dread are all just as legitimately emotive-based responses to explore as love, loss and sorrow. And they can be exploited as well. Why does no one say comedy is porn, since it only tends to be interested in making us laugh (how cheap, how exploitative). Martyrs has more to say about the real world than most films of the past 10 years, but it's largely dismissed (by fans and foes alike) as torture porn. Ultimately, I think it fails, becomes more about manipulation than ideology, but that doesn't make it different from the majority of films. It at least tries at being radical, which is notable and worth some attention.

Reviews now coming in for Human Centipede. Fairly mixed. (E.g. one review will claim that the unexpected humor makes it work, the next will cite the film's humorlessness as a chief problem.)

K

HIGH TENSION