“Deceit is my life-partner, the only one I need”

July 3, 2020 5:45 AM

An Impossible Poison is a seven minute long horror film by Bidisha.
posted by Kattullus (16 comments total)

This is very close to what I imagine my ex is up to these days.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:08 AM on July 3, 2020

I'm on team Witch Lady, how is this horror?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:49 AM on July 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm usually super open to seeing short films that members of the community put here on the blue. Maybe this one needs more of a pitch? I'm not seeing much here, it kind of feels student film-y but with a decent cinematographer and attention to sound design. There's not really a story, and the poem it's based on... I dunno.

I've seen lots of short films with kind of witchy things and blood, its one of those student filmmaker genres, like how they all open with a person turning off an alarm clock as they wake up or the one where someone's dead and they're figuring it out during the film. What about it made you want to post it? I'm genuinely interested.
posted by MythMaker at 10:27 AM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

MythMaker, you might read the statement and links at the Bidisha link for context....
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:51 AM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

MythMaker: What about it made you want to post it?

I found it moving, and the final scene has stayed with me.
posted by Kattullus at 11:30 AM on July 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Describing it as a "horror" film seems to be placing expectations on it that it isn't trying to fulfill. This just seems like a nice lady who is sad doing a religion to make her feel better. Some people like doing religions, but even as a firm atheist I wouldn't call that idea "horror" in itself. The horror genre carries ideas of twists, reversals, and unforeseen consequences as foundational principles, and there aren't any here.
posted by Scattercat at 1:14 PM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

For me, the horror lies in what she might be giving up to do that ritual.

There was a whole section about paying a price, and generally, it’s not the person on the receiving end that pays it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:44 PM on July 3, 2020

For me, the horror lies in what she might be giving up to do that ritual.

the use of color in interior decoration
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:53 PM on July 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

GenjiandProust: For me, the horror lies in what she might be giving up to do that ritual.

That reading is one reason why it stayed with me, but now I lean towards a supernatural interpretation, that the blood is that of the target of the ritual. She’s so content in the end.
posted by Kattullus at 1:59 PM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Is it necessarily the case that because the rig comes from under the empty pillow next to the protagonist, it is the absent occupant of the pillow who is the recipient of the pins and the knife? The enigma is pleasing.

it's one of those student filmmaker genres, like how they all open with a person turning off an alarm clock as they wake up or the one where someone's dead and they're figuring it out during the film. What about it made you want to post it? I'm genuinely interested.
How is it like how student films all open with a person turning off an alarm clock as they wake up? Why after one cursory glance and an impressive dodge of the responsibility to look deeply at someone else's creative effort, to discover who the maker is, to delve, do you still think you are the audience for that effort, to the degree that you'd post about it early in a thread about it and potentially derail the thread? How is it possible that you have failed so completely to read the room around this website here of late? Have you been in a deep slumber over the past five, six years? Why do you think you know? Why do you think it's for you to know? Why do you think it needs to be for you to know? Why do you continue to believe now in the year 2020 that you are the anointed audience for all and for this particular film?
posted by Don Pepino at 2:18 PM on July 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

it is the absent occupant of the pillow who is the recipient of the pins and the knife

That was my reading, yes.
posted by Scattercat at 2:24 PM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

The artist needs to invite the viewer to delve deeper. There needs to be something there that pulls the viewer in and to want to know more. An artist puts their art out there for others to experience. There is no guarantee that all viewers will experience it the same way or as the artist intended. If one person looks and then says 'eh?" well that is their opinion, just as much as when someone else looks and says "Wow!" There should be room here for both.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:45 PM on July 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

If you're "usually super open to seeing short films" then you probably would want to examine, in addition to the film presented to you, your reason for not being open this time.

The artist did invite the viewer to delve: the artist made a film. There's your invitation; you just declined it. The thing is 7 minutes long. You could have given it a second spin before you decided: Nope! Nothing here! You didn't give it time because before you had a chance to, your protective blinders flew up: "A student effort!" "A nice lady!" "Decorative!" So you can neither see nor be pulled by what is there.

PS: Did nobody catch the obvy references in it to The Ring/Ringu?

PPS: Just because your first reading is: doll = betraying lover doesn't mean it has to be your only reading.

PPPS: "The horror genre carries ideas of twists, reversals, and unforeseen consequences as foundational principles, and there aren't any here."
The artist said it was horror. So it's horror. Your job is to figure out how. Maybe this is an expansion of the genre. A kind of relaxing, leisurely, soothing, pretty, meditative horror. Just let it in. Steep in it.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:37 AM on July 4, 2020

Did nobody catch the obvy references in it to The Ring/Ringu?


After she brushed out her hair over her face I half-expected her to crawl up the wall.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:00 AM on July 4, 2020 [3 favorites]

Well Mythmaker, having seen a lot of student short films myself, some of them absolutely engrossing and fabulous, I agree with you. This one was more technically polished than many, and again as someone who has seen a lot of student short films, that factor alone doesn't guarantee the caliber of the work as a whole.

I mean, it was ok, it was lovely to look at, it was coherent. For me, it did not succeed in conjuring the depths others have seen in it. As for the critical notes, I know how the sausage is made and won't make further comment. But I really chafe at the notion that it should be unacceptable to state an honest opinion here, let alone an informed honest opinion.

Bidisha is a broadcaster, critic and journalist for BBC, Channel 4 and Sky News. She also says in her blog she was a bit nonplussed that the film was read as being a horror film.
posted by glasseyes at 1:41 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

There is probably a little more here. Another viewing night help. I also am very open to a minimal, dense treatment that requires diligence to really understand and enjoy. The horror genre expectation is doing zero favors. It still feels like the implications peppered throughout cannot possibly be satisfying. The Ring reference with the hair, for instance, could also just be how that actress' hair naturally falls when let down because there's no follow through of it as a leitmotif.

Maybe your favorite band doesn't suck, but suggesting that anybody who opines they might not be as great as you believe is both derailing a thread and perpetuating some kind of long running culture war is pretty unnecessary. I'm kinda thinking this thread might be helped by a reset.
posted by abulafa at 2:22 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]