The Movie Sleuth plays catch up with a review of the excellent science fiction film, Vanishing Waves.
Sensory deprivation in film remains a curiously
underexplored subgenre in science fiction.
From Ken Russell’s Altered States in
1980, Tarsem’s The Cell in 2000 and
debatably The Jacket in 2005, there haven’t
been many movies about the labyrinthine depths of inner space inside the human
mind. For what they’re worth those films
tried to convey a hallucinatory experience of the mind in another dimension and
were about one mind attempting to rescue another in distress. Ostensibly forming the third entry in this
criminally neglected subgenre is the multilingual Lithuanian erotic science
fiction thriller Vanishing Waves. The story of Lukas (Marius Jampolskis), a
sensory deprivation researcher who attempts to communicate with a young
comatose woman named Aurora (Jurga Jutaite) via isolation tank. During the experiment, Lukas finds himself
invariably sexually drawn to Aurora and her increasingly surreal mindscape,
ready to lose his own mind if it means remaining with her.
Clearly informed by Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void with a heavy dose of Chris Cunningham’s Flex and a hint of Brian Yuzna’s Society in one of the film’s more
disturbing episodes, Vanishing Waves
is an entrancing audiovisual experience full of startling set pieces, visually
stunning vistas and a dreamily haunting score by Peter Von Poehl. While director Kristina Buozyte wears her
influences on her sleeve, they’re so breathtakingly executed we hardly mind as
we’re watching. Among the more
aesthetically striking odes to thoughtful science fiction in recent memory, you
really could take a snapshot from virtually any scene in the film and frame it. One unforgettable image involved a house in
the middle of a forest resembling the unused wood planetoid concept art for Alien 3.
As the camera dives into the bizarre construct and moves through panes
of wood linked together like an extraterrestrial spider web, I was reminded of
the vortex transitions in Enter the Void. Soundwise, Vanishing Waves will absolutely make you think of Noe with its
intentionally foggy soundscape with low bass rumbling and disembodied sounds
fading in and out of audibility.
Part of the film’s appeal is how swiftly it leaps from
light and playful romance to terrifying outbursts of surreal violence, leaving
the viewer on fertile ground never sure how to feel.
It really goes from one extreme to another in one breath, leaving you
scared but strangely wanting more. It’s
worth noting director Kristina Buozyte contributed K is for Knell to The ABCs of
Death 2, displaying a clear understanding of the balance between beauty and
horror. Contributing to the uncertainty
is the film protagonist Lukas, which like Aurora seems to bond with the man
before moving away from him again. Let
it be said there would be no Vanishing
Waves without the fearless and dedicated performances of its two leads,
with Jampolskis giving Lukas a dark undercurrent and Jutaite imbuing Aurora
with life and love. One of my favorite
scenes in the film involves Lukas in real time watching nurses clean the
comatose Aurora, her legs adorned with scabs and sores. Clearly the possibility of a real romantic
relationship with Aurora seems remote, but Lukas’ lust for her mind is so
strong he doesn’t seem to care.
All in all, I was blown away by Vanishing Waves! Visually it
was a jewel with the score achieving a wide range of emotions tapping into
everything from bittersweet romance to fear of the unknown augmented by stellar
performances across the board! For those
who prefer their science fiction to be as provocative as they are perceptive
and intelligent, Vanishing Waves will
not disappoint as it challenges our definitions of fear and love both in this
world and perhaps even that beyond our own.
It’s a shame more science fiction thrillers in this day and age aren’t
quite this thought provoking.
SCORE
- Andrew Kotwicki