A review now for a film which is currently unavailable in a sell through format, the only way to see this film is through old VHS tapes or bootleg DV-R's. Michael Mann's The Keep, is a supernatural war film from 1983 and is a troubled film. I managed to get hold of DV-R and decided to give it a watch as it's one film i've never seen before. Check out my words after the jump...
I'd
heard so much about how his film was a lost masterpiece and that is
was offensive to film fans that the film wasn't available on DVD or
Blu-ray especially due to it's name cast that includes Gabriel Byrne,
Jurgen Prochnow, Scott Glenn and Ian McKellen and that it was
directed by Michael Mann (Heat). So this intrigued me, I started my
search for the film, I couldn't find a download or a stream and ended
up going the bootleg DVD-R route which I try and avoid if I can, so
paid out some cash, not much, and received a very high quality disc.
Now this is the first time i've seen this film and after watching it
I can see why Michael Mann tried to disown it. Now that's not to say
it's an entirely awful film, quite the opposite, it's a very well
shot flick with some pretty good performances and some pretty
fantastic visuals, my biggest problem with film is it's structure and
editing. Mann's original cut ran to 3 1/2hrs, but was cut down and
butchered by producers to a run time of 90mins. I can only wonder
what they removed from the film to make it 90mins but in it's current
theatrical guise, its an almost incoherent mess of a film. Had the
film run a bit longer, maybe two/two and half hours, The Keep could
have been held in the same esteem as The Exorcist. Halloween or Dawn
Of The Dead, regarded as a horror classic, but as it stands in this
butchered version, it's unfortunate that it's just another mediocre
80s horror film.
Knowing
the back story of the film this review is based on the 90 minute
theatrical cut as there is no way of seeing Mann's original vision
for the film, so my description of the film's plot maybe off a bit
because in all honesty I couldn't work out what the fuck was going
on.
During
the final days of WW2, A German army unit is sent to Romania (I
think) to lock-down a Keep but strange things start happening and
soldiers start dying. When weird ancient text appears on the walls
the German captain enlists an imprisoned Jewish professor to decipher
the text and explain what it mean. The deathly ill professor along
with his daughter are brought to the keep and set to work trying to
work out the weird text. Meanwhile, a man wakes up with his eyes
glowing, this is Scott Glenn, he is drawn to the keep. The S.S show
up under the leadership of psychotic Gabriel Byrne who arrives to
investigate the deaths of the soldiers. Something happens and a
monster is unleashed and coerces Ian McKellen's professor to steal an
artefact and escape the keep taking the item with him which will
release him. It turns out Scott Glenn's character is a sort of prison
guard and has returned to the Keep to make sure the monster doesn't
escape because if he does then it would mean big trouble, there's a
battle, some shit happens with luminous green blood, the monster gets
sealed back into the keep and the film ends. The film suffers badly
from lack of character development, we don't know anything about the
characters, especially Scott Glenn's supernatural gate keeper, we
don't know why McKellen is suffering from an illness and we have no
idea who or what the 'monster' is, this is due to fucking awful
editing and structure from the producers.
There
is no faulting Mann's directing skills, the films looks very nice,
shot in the 2.35:1 Widescreen aspect ration and the way he shoots it
gives the film a very uneasy and mystical feeling especially with the
use of fog and damp dull colors and the Tangerine Dream soundtrack
adds to the atmosphere of the film.
Overall,
my first impressions of The Keep were not that great, it lacks any
form of characterization, suffers from bad editing and a lack of
structure to be called a great film, which is what it's being hailed
as. The visuals are good they can't compensate for a badly put
together film. If Paramount give Michael Mann a chance to revisit and
reconstruct the film to a length of more than 90 minutes for
remastered directors cut, I may consider checking it out but in it's
current theatrical state at the moment, it's highly unlikely i'll be
revisiting it any time soon.
Finally watched this tonight after it sat in my queue for years.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely suffers from horrible editing, but there is something about the film. I feel Tangerine Dream's soundtrack plays a large part in that.