Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour’s menacing moment film boasts impressive turns – including from Suki Waterhouse – but conforms to convention after a smart,chilling first actOne of the handful of woman directors at Venice, Ana Lily Amirpour made her ticket originally with her much-liked directorial debut A Girl Walks domestic Alone at Night and its smart pitch: “The first Iranian vampire western.” Now she has completed her follow-up, and The Bad Batch treads the same genre path – albeit on a more expensive (and expansive) scale,and with a tall-calibre cast.
Leading the way is Suki Waterhouse as Arlen, an apparently wholesome individual who is tossed out of the United States into the Mexican desert in the film’s opening scene: she is one of the unwanted “bad batch”, or inferior citizenry who are no longer wanted. After briefly wandering the arid flats,she is kidnapped and taken to an encampment called The Bridge, filled with bulked-up steroid abusers; in short order she is chained up and two of her limbs severed for food, and like a bunch of other runaways we see sharing the same fate. (The Bridge’s ostentatiously placed American flag is a none-too-subtle indication we are in symbolic territory: the prosperous US is to be represented by narcissistic sadists who consume the helpless.) Related: The skateboarding Iranian vampire diaries Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com