Trying to better realize their creative idea, directors sometimes put their characters in a confined space. The sizes of the rooms vary: the heroes have to languish in a space shuttle, a room, and even in a coffin. The film "Separator" (2011) belongs to this series, claustrophobia covering the viewer in it is present to the maximum. The action takes place within the basement of an apartment building. The creation of Xavier Jans looks with a bang, especially if the viewer loves intense bloody psychological thrillers on the verge of horror.
Post-apocalyptic horror movie
French director Xavier Jans is a controversial visionary. On the one hand, the public branded him as a director after, to put it mildly, the unsuccessful adaptation of Hitman, on the other, he shot The Border, the most straightforward and tough horror of the whole wave of French extremist cinema. Then Jans decided to try his hand at the post-apocalyptic territory. In the movie Separator, he mixed several genres and diluted the narrative with clip editing. The director embodied his plan with such naturalism that other viewers became ill during the viewing. Naturally, the tape received an age limit - R. Perhaps this is why the film "Divider" in the reviews, viewers often position it as a post-apocalyptic horror. Film critics tend to define the project as a thriller.
The premiere of the project took place at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 13, 2011.
Storyline description
The plot of the movie "Separator" takes place in the basement of a multi-story building in New York City. He becomes a rescue bunker for a group of characters after a nuclear strike on a metropolis. Arriving missiles are reflected in the eyes of one of the heroines of the picture in the first episode. After the start of the attack, eight heroes manage to run into the basement. The bunker was prepared for such a development of events by firefighter-rescuer Mickey. A man, accordingly, declares himself the main one and sets the rules, allocates a room for each, distributes water and food. All unfortunate people are strictly forbidden to enter his room, hung with photographs from the service. In the future, the atmosphere is heating up to the limit, tearing off masks and exposing all the vices of the characters.
The director does not change his habits: if the Nazis-cannibals act as villains in “Border”, then in the 2011 movie, Asian-militants, presumably from North Korea, will hunt for the unfortunate inhabitants of the bunker.
Call to the public
The gray, hopeless (in the literal sense - the color scheme of the film is intentionally reduced to zero), extremely pessimistic picture suggests the viewer not to build illusions. Xavier Jans focuses on the fact that in hopeless circumstances, human moral standards, the laws of civilization do not mean anything. A man turns into an animal and in order to survive, he is not shy about anything and nobody.
As the authors of the reviews emphasize, in the movie "Separator" this idea is expressed so intelligibly that the tape, which was immediately conceived not as an entertaining movie, in the wide box expectedly failed. With an initial budget of $ 3,000,000, rental fees did not reach 100 thousand.
Not looking for compromises with the traditional preferences of the public and genre trends, the director did not leave a single character in the bunker who was not subject to moral degradation. It was extremely difficult to put up with this viewer audience, which needed a positive hero to empathize with. Therefore, the audience reviews about the movie "Separator" are quite negative. IMDb feed rating: 5.80.
Criticism
From film critics the film "Separator" (2011) received no less negative reviews. Foreign film experts literally threw stones at the tape. On the Rotten Tomatoes aggregator, the picture has a rating of 25%: it was compiled on the basis of 53 reviews, the authors of which set the project 4 points out of 10 possible. On Metacritic, Xavier Jansa's work received 28 points out of 100 possible based on 17 reviews from critics, and this corresponds to the status of “generally unfavorable reviews”.
In fairness, it is worth mentioning that there are reviewers who believe that such projects are necessary, since they lower the viewer from heaven to earth. Just so that the audience does not forget what a person consists of. But you can hardly find a movie fan who watched the "Separator" twice.
Expectation and reality
In most reviews of the movie "The Separator," the authors stated that they went to the cinema intrigued by the trailer, which is a cut of jumpscare and frightening images. Although Zhans's work lacks sharp movements and eerie situations, oily suspense, all these horror elements are similar to being played out to fans of the genre. The true director is only interested in the story of the degradation of the characters, he is not shy to pull out the emotional experiences of the characters on any occasion. All the shades of their inner state are in full view: denial, anger, skepticism, fear, doubt, panic ... In this regard, film critics often compare the picture with the film "Blindness" by Fernando Meirelish. At the same time, the ending of the main storyline is dynamic and dramatic. The surviving heroine, who left her relatives to die, comes to the surface and sees the ruins of the city and the sky, covered with a layer of ash.
For the future
By the way, Xavier Jans will demonstrate a similar author’s interpretation in which the experiences of the heroes come to the fore, overshadowing the plot of the plot, also in the horror genre, “Spell. Our days". This project has nothing to do with the iconic James Wan horror film. This is a familiar story for fans of the genre about the exorcism, transferred by Jans to the entourage of the Orthodox Church, unfolding in the scenery of a Romanian village.