Visions of Suffering – review

Director: Andrey Iskanov

Release date: 2006

Contains spoilers

I don’t know… I honestly don't...

Imagine me sat before a keyboard, my fingers poised over the keys thinking of what to say about this Russian movie and everything was a blank.

That it is about vampires (or a surreal variety thereof) is certain. What else… I don’t know. Iskanov takes us on a surreal, almost narrative-less journey through a psychedelic and disturbing landscape. Inflicting us with visions – as suggested by the title – but I am at a loss to try and explain what I saw. This should be embarrassing, I like to think myself fairly intelligent and able to divine the symbolism of many a film but this has left me blank. Not embarrassed, however, I challenge anyone to make sense of this.

a dream

Yet it is clear that the director had a vision, a story he was trying to tell. It begins in dreams. A man (Alexander Shevchenko) walks through a sepia, rain lashed landscape. We see a shrouded figure beating at a symbol or a drum of some sort. We see strange shapes in the trees – later revealed to be some form of parasitic creature – and they seem to be rapidly decaying, oozing globules of viscous fluid. The figure in the shroud turns angrily to the man. He awakens.

strange lunch

The man has nightmares whenever it rains, dreams that leave the smell of death in his nostrils. The phone rings and, when he answers it, it is dead. He goes to a surly neighbour and phones a repairman. As he waits, back in his flat, he pours muddy looking coffee and looks at a sandwich with a full fish in it – an ugly, nasty looking thing. Elsewhere in the city a priest (Andrey Iskanov) sleeps and suffers a nightmare, set in the same sepia world, he is threatened by a creature with a scythe. One of the parasites feeds off the creature.

the man

The repairman arrives. As he repairs the phone he asks if the man has nightmares. When he confirms that he does the repairman says that they are vampires. They are creatures who are given form by the rain and they fear nothing but publicity. He tells the man that if you listen on the phone you can hear them and if you hear too much they will come for you. When he leaves an alien figure (the best description I can give) appears in the rain and sucks the repairman's blood through his skin.

a watcher

The man listens on a line and hears voices, “mutilate him” he hears and “spill the blood”. Research by the priest tells us that these vampires are similar to Mara, causing nightmares and sitting on their victims' chests as they sleep – though in this case the vampires seem to take the men to another world; a dream realm, if you like. The man discovers that his flat is being watched by pale men wearing black, they try to kill him by pushing a knife through his door's spyhole, managing to wound his ear. There is some connection between the man and the priest through a girl, who might be the man’s girlfriend, is probably a whore (that the priest has bought the services of) and is certainly a drug user.

vampires

Other than that what can I tell you? Necrophilia, mentions of dhampir, gory death scenes, detaching brains, psychedelic effects and little narrative. I still am unsure what I watched or even whether I enjoyed it or not.

Score wise I am going to cheat but, before I do I will say that the vast majority of viewers are going to dislike this film and, should you have seen it and had a “Eureka” moment please leave a comment, with what it was about, below. ? out of 10.

The imdb page is here.