Recompence – 2010 – Close to masterpiece
Recompence is a film about a girl who wakes up in the woods with no memory of what has happened before this point. Hurt and in need of help, she wanders through the woods and begins to question her own sanity as a figure starts appearing and disappearing everywhere she goes. What makes it all even stranger is that she feels a connection to this figure, an attraction of sorts.
I won’t deny that I stole the synopsis above from the movie’s official site. Not because Recompence is a very hard film to comprehend in that way, even if it’s hard to interpret in other ways, but because there’s not that much plot to describe. The movie’s strength isn’t in the plot anyway, it’s in the expression of it!
This movie spellbinds you even before the opening credits come to an end and if you have seen some of Ronny Carlsson’s movies before, you know what to expect when it comes to image/sound combinations. This one doesn’t disappoint either! This is, in fact, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in that matter. It’s fascinating very early on in the movie and just after the opening credits, when you hear some environmental sounds to the beautiful black and white imagery, it’s even more interesting. What are we about to see? What will happen? Will we be surprised? Shocked? Disgusted or even astonished?
Begotten
It’s hard to judge the actors in a film like this, there’s no dialog and the actors are not even the main characters. Instead, it’s the very beautiful cinematography and the remarkably fitting music together with the camera angles that make the movie what it is! What the figure in white represents is a tough question to crack and it results in a thrilling feeling when we follow the woman’s path through the woods. Trees have never been more attractive! Begotten comes to mind with the extremely black and white footage, especially at one time when a sequence where all shades of gray are extinguished in a very stylistic effect! There are certainly similarities with Begotten, apart from that this movie is much better and more understandable than Begotten ever was!
But even if Recompence is understandable from one point of view, there are still plenty of question marks to straighten out. Does the film tell something metaphorically? What does the figure in white represent? It’s a question that’s open to subjective interpretation. A lost love? Death? Something completely different? It’s up to each one to decide, but either way, it’s an extremely visually beautiful film! Did I mention the cinematography?
