Desecration, 30 year-old writer/director Dante Tomaselli's
first feature film, is definitely not the modern-day masterpiece that
many had claimed it to be -- the film suffers from one too many
production flaws and an utterly horrible, hackneyed finale to be
considered a truly great film. There are, however, shards of brilliance
haphazardly scattered throughout the work -- expertly crafted sequences
hinting at the possibility of greatness buried within the young
filmmaker -- which ultimately elevate Desecration well
above most of the genre films released within the last few years. To his
credit, Tomaselli thankfully steers clear of the spoon-fed approach to
filmmaking, opting for a more subjective method that eschews narrative
in favor of powerful, iconic imagery focusing on death, religion, and
childhood -- universal emotional triggers, to be sure -- empowering the
viewer to draw their own conclusions.
The semi-autobiographical tale centers on Bobby Rullo (Danny Lopes), a
youth tormented by the painful memories of both his mother's abusive
nature and her violent death (which he witnessed firsthand from the
vantage point of his playpen). Raised by his grandmother, Matilda (Irma
St. Paule, whose phlegm-soaked wheezes are as equally unsettling as
anything else in the film), a profoundly religious woman who no doubt
prompted the boy to attend a Catholic school. While incarcerated at St.
Anthony's Catholic Academy, something takes control of the introverted
lad's remote-controlled model airplane, crashing it into the head of the
troubled Sister Madeline (Christie Sanford), instantly killing the
woman. The emotional tumult of the incident unleashes a powerful demonic
force into the world, which almost immediately inhabits the body of the
dead woman. The entity commences to run rampant across the campus,
leaving scores of dead nuns in its wake as it seeks the object of its
desire, Bobby Rullo.
Tomaselli's staggering potential is blindingly evident in
Desecration. The film is literally crawling with memorable
scenes showcasing the filmmaker's awesome command of his craft; a
precision that should have taken many years (and many more films) to
hone. One such passage occurs fairly early into the film, in which
Brother Nicolas (Vincent Lamberti) guides his class in the dissection of
a frog. The priest's instructions are a bizarre amalgamation of all the
themes trailing through the film! The invasion of the Frog's body by the
scalpel -- in itself a desecration of sorts -- mirrors the
possession of Sister Madeline by the demonic entity. The pinning of the
frog's hands and feet recall the crucifixion of Christ, further
punctuated by the sign of the cross Brother Nicolas makes while
illustrating the direction of the incisions. The concepts of death,
possession, and religion, are all deftly interwoven into one seemingly
innocuous sequence that, like the film itself, seeks to unsettle rather
than scare. While many of the film's surreal vignettes prove eerily
effective -- the memories of the featureless nun (her absence of facial
landmarks tying in nicely with Bobby's lack of knowledge as to what his
mother looked like) shambling across the mist-shrouded campus, the
unheralded appearance of the possessed nun in the left side of the frame
during the scene where Matilda fumbles with the pay phone, and Atmo
Royce's remarkable Daliesque nun paintings (featured in a gorgeous
quadripartite image gracing the disc's cover -- a truly compelling
graphic that will surely stand out among other titles on store shelves)
do not dissipate quickly -- some, like the unintentionally hilarious
sequence where Sister Madeline meets her doom, fall disastrously flat.
One of the most annoying aspects of the production is the abysmal
quality of the recorded dialogue, which sounds as if it were recorded in
a sewer! To their credit, Hotwax Recording, Inc., save the day by
thankfully diverting attention away from the substandard location
recording through a dizzying whirlpool of a mix - peppering most of the
film with an almost imperceptible keening that fully fleshes out the
otherworldly visuals. Desecration's ill-conceived
denouement, by far the most damaging aspect of the work, transforms what
could have been a truly great cinematic experience into a fairly
mediocre one. One has to wonder the heights that could have been reached
had Tomaselli reworked the ending... |
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