By Keri O’Shea
It’s a strange phenomenon when you think of it, but in recent years we have had such a glut of ordeal movies that we now require stronger, more numerous shocks in order that we may maintain interest in the proceedings. Otherwise, all we have is someone being tormented or tortured with very little scope for redress, or redress that, when it comes, doesn’t feel equivalent to all of the outrages perpetrated against the victim. Where is all this going, I wonder? Well, Modus Anomali goes at least part of the way towards developing an interesting overarching structure, providing a more sophisticated than usual justification for the events on screen. The only issue with this is that in some ways, that justification is a little hard to understand.
A man awakens, buried, somewhere in the Indonesian jungle. As if that wasn’t enough to ruin anyone’s day, he also finds himself amnesiac – he can’t remember who he is. Disorientated, frightened, he makes his way to the first dwelling-place he can find, and suddenly things go from bad to worse as he discovers a video camera rigged up and ready to go. The video shows him a woman being murdered, in the house where he now stands. It seems as though someone out there is playing with him, and he has to find out whom. His mobile phone contacts have all been deleted – though impressively and unlike most horror films, he can get a signal! – but he finds a wallet in his pocket and, slowly, he remembers his life. It seems that his children are out there somewhere and he has to find them before his pursuer does.
So far so familiar? We’re not short on people being terrorized in unfamiliar surroundings by apparently omnipotent aggressors, and writer/director Joko Anwar is surely aware of this, so perhaps this is why there’s no preamble and any characterisation we get is as a result of the largely non-verbal performance of Rio Dewanto, who communicates his panic and confusion well. The film kicks into high gear straight away, although in many respects it seems to be a quintessential ordeal horror (do we have quintessential ordeal horrors now? I would say we do). By that, I mean that the plot seems to exist only to maim, torment and antagonise the lead character – although it is considerably more unusual to have a lone male lead, and perhaps there’s something of a cultural difference in the way Anwar is happy to direct Dewanto running away in terror so often – it seems unlikely somehow that a male Western counterpart would be written to behave this way, although it’s the only reasonable reaction. In this, too, Modus Anomali goes that extra way towards striking out on its own and that is commendable.
However, just when you think you have settled into a comfortable viewing mode, the film turns on its head, moving into a second act which calls the first act and all of its events into question. I’ll say this for it – it’s an unexpected series of twists. Now, I do like a movie which makes me think. That is to be welcomed. It’s a fine line to walk though, this temptation to pull the rug from under the audience’s feet; in my case I still feel I want to know that the writer has a very clear and cogent idea of what the fuck just happened, even if I don’t. In Modus Anomali, it seems it all could hinge, after all, on a get out clause which is actually a rather overused trope in horror cinema (and no, thankfully I’m not talking about the ‘it was all a dream’ cop-out.) I said ‘seems’, though. I’m still not exactly sure. Do I feel that all would become clear on a second viewing? Hmm. I’m not exactly sure there either, and that breaks the spell of the achingly-tense build up to an extent.
There is much to applaud in Modus Anomali: I’ve mentioned the central performance, and that when brought into juxtaposition with some gorgeous framing and locations, it works very well. Dewanto is frequently the only thing on screen which is in clear focus, meaning that just as our lead finds his eyes start to play tricks on him, with inanimate objects momentarily looking like human figures, the audience is prey to the same thing. When this has happened to you several times in a few short moments, it goes a long way towards generating the fear and paranoia needed to fully participate in the lead character’s fate.
The lead character…Dewanto…why am I playing coy with naming our lead guy? Quite honestly, because it just doesn’t work. It’s part of the second major issue with Modus Anomali – electing to film it in bloody English. Do you know what the lead character’s name is – an Indonesian actor, mind you? John Evans. Okay, fine, so perhaps he has a Western name, you think. Yet he’s speaking in heavily-accented English, whilst other characters – all supposed to belong to the same family, mind you – variously speak very Americanised English or even seem to have been dubbed into English. It makes it very difficult to believe in the family unit on offer and it took me out of the film’s proceedings at times. I know that Anwar may have had his hand forced on this issue, finding that it’s still difficult to sell the rights to an Indonesian language movie, but frankly, this would have been so much better in the native language. People who shy away from films because of subtitles deserve to be horse-whipped for making things like this happen, seriously.
So, it’s a film with some stylistic and thematic issues, but Modus Anomali does deserve credit for trying to exceed the old torment – more torment – hidden reserves of strength – redemption formula so common to ordeal films of this kind. A movie which falls into two distinct parts, it supplies some food for thought as well as grisly violence; if you like either or both of these features, then you may well enjoy this one.