The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears

When Dan returns home to Brussels from a business trip he finds his trophy wife missing yet the front door still chained. Searching for answers he encounters older neighbour Dora on the seventh floor; her husband disappeared many years ago – could the two be linked? As Dan plays detective, he descends into a horrific and supernatural world of shapes moving behind the wallpaper, odd encounters and that mystery woman in the red hood.

With no shot lasting more than a few seconds it becomes a baroque plot simply too confusing to follow, so trying to figure out the clues in this bombarding film will only bring you to tears and induce a serious migraine. Not much effort is made in delivering character engagement as symbolism and style are the only things on the menu here. Though the lead, Dan, played by Klaus Tange, does have intensity in his performance and piercing blue eyes that occasionally grab attention through the laser-fire editing.

Italian Giallo-inspired filmmakers, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (critically acclaimed for their 2010 debut feature AMER) certainly hit the centre of this niche genre on the head (in their case repeatedly and literally) but The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears sacrifices story and involvement for an unsatisfying sequence of freakish scenes that straddle the luridly erotic and the loudly gruesome.

Reminiscent of Dali but on a seriously bad acid trip, this film does occasionally construct some beautiful if fleeting images, black leather gloves and flick knives. Surrealist savagery aside, still it’s basically an exercise in endurance rather than enjoyment.

Frenzied and feeling more like stretched out art installation that art house, its primary redeeming and frankly only connective element is the alluring location, a spectacular art nouveau apartment block with appeal, charm and opulent character that’s sadly lacking in the rest of this disorienting and continuously digressing film.

Laura Jorden

The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears is released nationwide Friday 11^th April 2014.