KISSED (57)

Directed by: Lynne Stopkewich

Starring: Molly Parker, Peter Outerbridge, Jay Brazeau

The Pitch: A necrophiliac girl goes to work in a funeral home.

Theo Sez: Some remarkably silly stuff here, especially when it tries to explain the exact nature of its heroine's obsession ("When Life turns into Death it's explosive," she says ; "There are streaks of light, magical and electrifying" - which just instinctively sounds wrong, not to mention that it's about on a par with high-school poetry written by people who grow up to become accountants). Much more effective when it just concedes that obsession (especially sexual obsession) is by its nature unexplainable, and concentrates instead on evoking the dislocation that feeds it, a kind of stillness in the midst of Life : everything about it suggests a deliberate loneliness, the world held at bay, an arm's-length quality, from its very specific framing (never anything going on at the edges of the frame, no passers-by or fellow customers) to the way it uses music very low in the mix, as if it's coming from some happier place far away. Fairly straightforward indie fare, with its alienated feel and underpopulated look, focusing on socially-awkward characters - wallflowers, "troubled men", inexperienced lovers - and going always for the grittier option (a shot of our adolescent heroine pirouetting gracefully is undercut with an insert of her sneakered feet chopping around in a clumsy circle as she dances). Not particularly promising perhaps, but very neatly done within its limits : a cool, accomplished film about nothing very much.