Dead Lover

Bluesky

Oh, dead lovers, from Shakespeare via the Romantic poets and novelists to melancholic gothic metal texts of the 90s… Yes, the roots of inspiration for the actress Grace Glowicki’s sophomore feature as a filmmaker can be traced almost all the way back. Dead Lover has been on a tour of festivals since the premiere at Sundance’s midnight section and we managed to catch it on Karlovy Vary’s Afterhours programme. It will go on to play in Edinburgh's Midnight Madness section next month.

Glowicki opens her film with a quote from Mary Shelley, setting the gothic tone with a comedic twist. A gravedigger (Glowicki herself) feels lonely because she cannot find a partner due to her smell of dirt, corpses and death. Perfumes she concocts do not help much either. It seems that her luck is about to change when a promising young opera singer (Leah Doz) suddenly becomes her “client”. The gravedigger falls for her brother (Ben Petrie) and he seems to be falling for her as well. But, after their first encounter, he disappears and dies in an accident as well, leaving only one of his fingers behind him.

The gravedigger tries to resurrect him, inspired by lizards’ regeneration, and, after several failed attempts, she manages to do so. The trick is she used the rest of his sister’s body for that endeavour, angering the widower (Lowen Morrow) in process. Until the final countdown featuring everybody against everybody solves the crisis, we also get to meet a chorus of nosy women, a mob-leading priest, a couple of lesbian nuns, sailors, swimmers and an angry mob.

The question of what Dead Lover is, in a cinematic sense, seems less interesting, since the answer is quite simple: it is a darkly comedic and somewhat theatrical take on the tale of Frankenstein that favours gothic romanticism over Shelley’s science-y fantasy. The more interesting question is – how and why Glowicky and her associates made it exactly that way.

Dead Lover seems like the work of a theatre troupe, with the cast of only four actors playing a bunch of characters in different scenes. The “gender fluidity” and sometimes disparity between the actors and their characters seems quite natural in this type of setting. There is also a bit of DIY vibe regarding the set design and costumes, further underlined by Rhayne Vermette’s cinematography, which is shot from fixed positions in short takes, and Lev Lewis’ rough, borderline choppy editing that acts like a deliberate choice.

The expressionist feeling of early 20th century cinema is further enhanced by the specific colour scheme, resembling a very early version of Technicolor, while the sound recalls that of the early sound films. It might not be particularly new: Glowicki’s compatriot Guy Maddin has experimented with those things before in a more serious, nerdier way, but the Canadian actress-turned-filmmaker is more purely playful about it.

Finally, Dead Lover might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it is snappy and silly enough to entertain the most of the audience. Also, it is quite rich in the reference department to keep the avid film and literature lovers’ minds occupied. One should not be surprised if this one becomes a proper cult classic in the future because it has all the necessary elements for it: roughness around the edges, wild imagination and an impulse to convert it into an attention-grabbing movie.

Source