[LET THE CORPSES TAN screens Sunday November 25th 2018 at 6:30 pm and Monday November 26th 2018 at 8:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
You can’t say that LET
THE CORPSES TAN doesn’t have a plot. It’s just that co-directors Hélène
Cattet and Bruno Forzaniand seem less concerned with the straight-forward crime
story their film hangs on than in conjuring up striking imagery informed by
fetishized B-movie tropes and art house pretensions. They don’t care about the
assortment of crooks, cops, and artistic outcasts who inhabit their sunbaked
neo-noir spaghetti western, and neither do we. So all that’s left is to sit back and look at the
pretty pictures.
To be honest, that’s good enough at times. There are some
shots here worthy of Jodorowsky, such as one scene in which a woman is bound
tightly with ropes by a group of men until champagne starts spouting from her breast, a scene which exists apart from the storyline and serves purely as symbolism. Most of
the film, however, is an all-day shootout between the various parties. Plenty
of compelling visuals in that aspect, as well, but not enough to alleviate the
tedium.
