Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Film

Indie Flicks: Troubles in translation

By RICK GERSHMAN
Published June 9, 2005

High Tension (R) (91 min.) - Director Alexandre Aja's father is a writer-director in French cinema; his mother is a film critic. So at least at the family homestead, Aja's High Tension is critic-proof.

In fact, quite a few critics have praised Tension since it opened in French theaters a full two years ago. That's one reason Lions Gate picked up the slasher film for a U.S. theatrical release.

Perhaps that means the original, uncut version makes a little more sense. But Tension's story is (mostly) so basic it's hard to imagine much difference.

Two young women taking a weekend trip, Marie (Cecile De France) and Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco), arrive at a farmhouse owned by Alex's family. That night, a middle-aged stranger (Philippe Nahon) starts a bloody killing rampage and takes Alex captive. Marie's rescue attempts lead to a shocking twist.

Only it's not so shocking. It's idiotic, physically impossible and slightly reminiscent of Fight Club, but that curveball was central to the story. Tension's twist exists just to be cool.

But then, style clearly is far more important to the 26-year-old Aja than story. That's no shock seeing that director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) is one of the producers.

Granted, Aja is effective at mining scares. Tension takes cues from Dario Argento's Italian giallo films and sports a brilliantly vicious climax that recalls the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It's just not as vicious as it used to be. Lions Gate trimmed the roughest material from the original (titled Haute Tension) to avoid an NC-17 rating. The cuts add up to only about a minute, but 5 or 10 seconds here and there can make a huge difference.

End result: Make no one happy. Hard-core horror fans will be dissatisfied at missing the bloodiest bits, but the softened Tension is still way too brutal for anyone other than those hard-core horror fans.

This U.S. release deserves another knock for the dubbing, which is both poorly done and maddeningly arbitrary: Most dialogue is dubbed, but on seemingly random occasions, it remains in French with English subtitles. Huh?

Still, Aja's talent is undeniable and his next project, a remake of Wes Craven's ferocious cult classic The Hills Have Eyes, could be the perfect marriage of artist and material.

If those hills do have eyes, I'm sure Aja will have them gouged out in no time. C

- RICK GERSHMAN, Times Correspondent

[Last modified June 8, 2005, 10:18:05]