Mandy
Riding the Helter Skelter
Imagine, if you can, a film thats list of influences that seems to stretch on and on forever. 80’s action and horror cinema, black metal, prog rock, pulp science fiction novel covers, the Manson family, Hellraiser, fistfuls of ecstasy and gallons of LSD. A plot that moves with an unnerving swiftness towards points and conclusion that seem almost irrefutably correct without showing you how it got there. The psychedelic art-house nightmare you may have just been trying to imagine is as close to Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy as you are likely to be able to fathom before going completely and utterly insane.
Mandy stars Nicolas Cage as Red Miller and Andrea Riseborough as the titular Mandy Bloom. To reveal anything else of the films plot or cast list would spoil far too much of the film, but it is a wild ride of violence and madness and steady downward spiral into pure insanity for all involved. And the plot feels like a long sprint, it moves so fast but it still somehow manages to feel like a full film, offering just enough moments for you to catch your breath and put together whatever it is you just saw before throwing up something new for you to try and process. The near two and a half hour run time feels as if it passes by in maybe an hour, but not a second is wasted or poorly executed. It is two and half hours of near perfect pacing, an impressive feat given the subject matter and the artful cinematography of Cosmatos.
The film is a veritable masterclass of surreal lighting, camerawork and sound design. The moments of calm normalcy actually feeling more jarring the deep black frames and bright neon colours that make up the majority of scenes. At times, your own eyes will act against you and struggle to adjust, which only adds to the maddening thrill of the film. The film is excellently scored by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson who managed to wring every last bit of tension, mania and sadness with a score of dark synths and screaming guitar chords. The film opens however with the wonderfully suspenseful and melancholic Starless by King Crimson and the score seems to follow in its steps, quietly paying homage to the song with sounds straight from the darker side of classic Prog Rock. It all coalesces into the perfect blend of vision and sound for the story the film wishes to tell.
The components of Mandy feel almost incomprehensible when viewed externally. Watching any part of the film removed from context would just leave you confused and disorientated. But when viewed as a whole, it somehow makes sense. Where Red starts and where he ends up feels completely irrefutable, every scene happens because it has to be that way. And it is amazing to see how mad the film gets and still manages to throw in moments of dark humour and soul crushing empathy. Mandy is a nightmare that everyone should see, if they can stomach just how wonderfully mad everything is.
Mandy stars Nicolas Cage as Red Miller and Andrea Riseborough as the titular Mandy Bloom. To reveal anything else of the films plot or cast list would spoil far too much of the film, but it is a wild ride of violence and madness and steady downward spiral into pure insanity for all involved. And the plot feels like a long sprint, it moves so fast but it still somehow manages to feel like a full film, offering just enough moments for you to catch your breath and put together whatever it is you just saw before throwing up something new for you to try and process. The near two and a half hour run time feels as if it passes by in maybe an hour, but not a second is wasted or poorly executed. It is two and half hours of near perfect pacing, an impressive feat given the subject matter and the artful cinematography of Cosmatos.
The film is a veritable masterclass of surreal lighting, camerawork and sound design. The moments of calm normalcy actually feeling more jarring the deep black frames and bright neon colours that make up the majority of scenes. At times, your own eyes will act against you and struggle to adjust, which only adds to the maddening thrill of the film. The film is excellently scored by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson who managed to wring every last bit of tension, mania and sadness with a score of dark synths and screaming guitar chords. The film opens however with the wonderfully suspenseful and melancholic Starless by King Crimson and the score seems to follow in its steps, quietly paying homage to the song with sounds straight from the darker side of classic Prog Rock. It all coalesces into the perfect blend of vision and sound for the story the film wishes to tell.
The components of Mandy feel almost incomprehensible when viewed externally. Watching any part of the film removed from context would just leave you confused and disorientated. But when viewed as a whole, it somehow makes sense. Where Red starts and where he ends up feels completely irrefutable, every scene happens because it has to be that way. And it is amazing to see how mad the film gets and still manages to throw in moments of dark humour and soul crushing empathy. Mandy is a nightmare that everyone should see, if they can stomach just how wonderfully mad everything is.
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