[critical] THE VOICES

Pour his fourth feature film, film director, screenwriter and cartoonist of French origins, iranian Marjane Satrapi continues to try out different genre of cinema. With THE VOICES it will be horror-comedy, after the animated film Persepolis (2007), the drama Chicken with plums (2011) and the thriller comedy The gang of Jotas (2013). Part of a scenario that is not from it, a first for the filmmaker (author of the comic book Persepolis and Chicken with plums, a screenwriter for The gang of Jotas), Satrapi manages to ownership of the project, in its execution, recalling the universe of the comic strip that she knows well. She made an original film is absolutely hilarious that alternates perfectly between humour and terror.

Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) lives in Milton, a small american town still, where he worked in a factory for bathtubs. A bachelor, he is not lonely to the extent that he gets along very well with his cat, Mr. Mustache, and his dog, Bosco. Jerry sees his regular psych, as charming as comprehensive, in that it reveals one day that he appreciated Fiona (Gemma Arterton) – the delicious English who works at the accounting of the plant. In short, everything is going well in his rather ordinary life – at least as long as he does not forget to take his medication…

 

On paper THE VOICES had the air of a great anything way series B. This a priori is finally quickly rejected since the appearance of Ryan Reynolds on-screen. The actor struggling in Hollywood since a series of commercial failures has taken the bull by the horns with this character full of ambiguities. After you have impressed under the guidance ofAtom Egoyan in the Captive, it is with perfect subtlety that it alternates in THE VOICES between a character dopey but endearing, to the limit of the ridiculous in his work clothes pink, a scary serial killer. Because the more time passes and more Marjane Satrapi makes us aware that we are subject to the gaze of a sick mind. The one of Jerry, a schizophrenic, who, without his medication, living in a world without problems, without spots, both literally and figuratively. The universe limit redneck of this small american town, where a look-alike asian Elvis Presley interpreter of the best titles of the King in a chinese restaurant, comes to mingle with the visions of the surrealists of Jerry, full of butterflies and appearances of god. A joint that allows the filmmaker to justify its choice of colorful images brilliantly kitchs, and push it to the extreme, the ridiculous, some of the sequences, always funny, like the caterpillar of the employees of the factory, with the beautiful Gemma Arterton in the lead.

”A perfect mix of genres-at once terrifying and hilarious.”

We find as always with pleasure of the british actress to the plastic amazing. With it Marjane Satrapi creates a paradox at the limit of the frustrating. Insisting on the body and the desired shapes of the young woman, in a dress more form fitting, in the manner ofAnita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini – 1960), it cannot be seen eventually in the majority of the film as the head of the actress. Because no one’s surprise Fiona is the first victim, the more or less accidental, a Jerry unstable. The latter after getting rid of the body in an original way, don’t keep her as her head in his freezer. A head that reminds him constantly of his crime directly to him, since without his medicines Jerry hears voices. He imagines that what he “rest” of Fiona talk to him, just as his dog, Bosco, good paw, logically, the side of his master, and his cat, the terrible but hilarious Mr. Mustache. If the dog is man’s best friend, this is not the case of the cat who officiates here as a bad conscience pushing them to the crime. The comedy comes, of course the choice of Satrapi to show the image of the animals (lined by Ryan Reynolds himself) talking, always in the logic of the mind of Jerry. Only with this multiplication of voices, the insanity of the young man becomes more and more dark, just like the aesthetic of the film. Despite its offbeat side to the utmost, THE VOICES keep a real penchant for horror and the director gets a perfect mix of genres, at once terrifying and hilarious. As well as being immoral, the acts of Jerry provokes laughter through the movie, but when reality catches up with him, the lovely colors unrealistic make up the ugliness and the darkness. Moments agonizing worn once again by the double play of Ryan Reynolds, still so difficult to understand when he reveals his past to Lisa (Anna Kendrick), another colleague. Comes to this drag-and moments of gore that the director prefers to intelligently suggest by the assembly, as during the first “splitting” of Jerry. With a fair use of the framework, Satrapi moves from one plan to another, as when one follows the boxes of a comic strip. Always keeping a touch of humour in the face of the worst of situations, she thus creates a sequence that some consider funny, and appear horrible to others.

 

By going to the end of this kind that she discovers, Marjane Satrapi succeeds perfectly the mix of styles. Undeniably funny, the film does not fall in the parody with just a succession of gags way Scary Movie (2000). Above all, it is unbelievable situation and the sequences of scares used in a way that sound which allow the rate to never decline. Witness the scene in the end credits, a real gift to the viewer. Pushing one last time delirious, until its climax, the protagonists engage in an interpretation of the great title Sing a Happy Song (1979) by The O’jays, vocal training soul of the 1960s and especially the 1970s, went through a phase disco and still in business. In their outfits always also stained to the utmost on a white background, the actors participate in a final sequence pleasurable which makes THE VOICES a pure pleasure, from the beginning until the end.

The other outputs of the 11 march 2015

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