If David Fincher was able to graduate from the grime-chic surface thrills of “Se7en” to the personal, obsessive mastery of “Zodiac,” then surely filmmakers can consider serial killers over and done with.
But no, here comes the drearily suspense-less “Anamorph” to make grisly/gorgeous images with purposely massacred bodies and leave any human drama pertaining to the act of murder for the movie equivalent of a missing persons bureau.
Willem Dafoe plays a boozy, ashen New York detective haunted by the guilt-ridden remnants of a past serial killer’s crimes, and whose soul-dead existence may be the muse for a new psycho who likes turning his victims into trompe l’oeil tableaux. But making a movie that has to tell us it’s about changing perspective with gallery-installation murder scenes and mini-lectures on Renaissance art techniques and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” is like thinking we’ll recognize a plate of peas only if the peas spell out the word “peas.”
Director H.S. Miller thinks he’s made something broodingly visionary, but you’re more likely to be aesthetically shaken up by one of Mad magazine’s Fold-Ins.
“Anamorph”
R for grisly images, violence and language. 1 hour, 43 minutes. Directed by Henry Miller; written by Miller and Tom Phelan; starring Willem Dafoe, Scott Speedman, Clea DuVall, Amy Carlson. Opens today at Neighborhood Flix.
