For December this year, I thought about doing something completely different with my film series. There were a few films that had been added to my Watchlist as a result of either liking more recent work by the directors or just wanting to see them. So, in December 2024, I will give myself an early Christmas present and watch these nine movies, then afterward write reviews on each one of them. The last ten days of the month will be dedicated to “My Best of 2024” lists. This first film was put on hold because of enjoying Cuckoo released this year by filmmaker Tilman Singer which was his second attempt after directing his debut movie. We did an episode on it in our podcast and while it wasn’t mind-blowing for me, it had an interesting perspective and style that made me want to check out Luz instead.
During an accident, a taxi driver (Luana Velis) was hurt. After the event, she is taken to the police station for interrogation. In fact, when Luz was still studying at a girls’ boarding school in Colombia she had tried to help her fellow student. It was actually a kind of ritual that triggered something off. She has gotten the attention of someone who simply won’t let her go and has followed her all over the world up until Germany. Primarily set in an office room inside a police station where Luz is hypnotized such that she can re-enact what happened during her cab drive on that night as well as reveal what it is that is pursuing after her in this case, something sinister.
One of the elements that Singer does well here is capturing these early-mid 80s feels. It has a dreamy synth score and was shot on 16mm, which gives Luz to be rooted in the giallo horror works directed by Dario Argento. This isn’t the psychedelic horror of the 1970s like Suspiria, but more a kind of acid chromatic vibe which so many retro horror movies have lately tried to get but completely missed. Although I didn’t like it much, there were some places in Stranger Things’ last season involving Vecna where I thought that it approached this best. There’s a very specific tone painted on the screen when you look at wide angles and fluorescent lights.
The idea didn’t come as a genre piece according to Singer. It was based on an interrogation room scene where he imagined the subject of questioning reliving their day and had actors act out what they are seeing in front of us. Further reading about how suggestible subjects can be under hypnosis gave him his second part of the story a vicious questioner. He then wrote about one woman whose dark past chased her across the Atlantic Ocean, clinging onto her till it could have her wholly.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Luz is its overlapping characters. Dr. Rossini (Jan Bluthardt) is the main antagonist, although we hardly see him in most parts of the film. It’s only his physical appearance that can be identified. The character being played by the actor is actually Julia Riedler’s first appearance on-screen. Riedler takes up the role of Nora, a woman he meets at a bar when he is nursing a drink. She knows that he will be paged tonight to come to the station and hypnotize someone. However, she is not really Nora but instead acts as a receptacle for an invisible menace.
I bet some people get overwhelmed around the middle of this picture; it’s just 70-minute long! In this scene, Luz is under hypnosis and being interrogated by Dr. Rossini. A sound booth operator who doubles as a technician translates what Luz says (who speaks Spanish primarily) into German or sometimes English. This part of the movie began to feel like live theater, and I could easily imagine someone with some technical expertise directing a stage adaptation of Luz from here on out.”
The film is not governed by the traditional storylines, instead it is a slight portrait of a character and experiment in scene structure.
One problem I have with this movie is that it feels like one extended sequence among many scenes that make up a larger horror movie. To me, it seems too long for an effective short film and lacks substance to be considered as a satisfying feature length work. The sound design was innovative by Singer and he also played with the physical space during shooting. The cinematography here is flawless. There are plenty of possibilities with Tilman Singer; both these works and Cuckoo suggest as much but Singer has never really put all his great ideas or images on paper before.
For more movies like Luz (2018) visit solarmovie.
