Slashing The Seats

You’d be forgiven for not expecting much of a Christopher Smith film as the opener to FrightFest’s ‘09 schedule, what with him being the chap who made the lacklustre Creep and the amusing but silly Severance.

Throw in the fact that an ex-soap star – Melissa George of Home & Away fame – takes the lead and you might even allow yourself to walk in the other direction. But Smith has clearly been given more creative control with this, his latest and undoubtedly best film, because it’s actually shocking just how good it is. The poster gives nothing away about the quality of the movie. With an image of George on a liner holding a bloodied weapon and a strapline that reads ‘the forecast is EVIL’, you might expect a schlocky slasher effort, but from the moment the credits roll this is an altogether different kind of beast.

The premise is difficult to explain without giving too much of the complex narrative away, except to say it features Melissa George and a friend going on a boating trip, along with some people she doesn’t know. From there onwards, things turn dark. As confusingly dark as Donnie Darko, with a whole lot of Time Crimes thrown in.

Referencing those two films would be unfair, however, simply because they deal with a similar kind of theme. With a trippy opening that feels like a less coherent but far superior Morvern Caller, Smith marks out his own style, deliberately throwing the viewer completely off-kilter. By the time the action begins, you’re already begging a few hundred questions. In addition – if you’re as cynical as yours truly – you’re expecting there to be a million unresolved loose endings by the time the film’s over. Happily, as far as I can work out, everything is tied up pretty well indeed.

But much working out is required. This is less a film than a complex equation designed to distort your ability to comprehend the fabric of time. At various points I found myself looking at my hands, counting fingers and trying to solve the puzzle onscreen on my hands, wishing I’d taken a notepad and pen into the theatre rather than a coca cola and a bag of pick ‘n’ mix. It took a couple of post-cinema drinks to suss out among our party exactly how the plot worked and still we were left with a couple of questions.

Smith mentioned in the introduction that it took him four years and lots of post-it notes to write Triangle. George said the role of Jess was her most challenging to date – which makes her technically harder to handle than the man-eating bundle of neuroses she portrayed as Laura in HBO’s In Treatment. When watching Triangle, you’ll feel the cranial anguish they experienced creating it as it manifests in your head, itself trying to slowly plug the jigsaw together. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the mental exercise involved.

Though I can’t quite believe I’m typing it, Triangle is definitely a contender for film of the year and, for me, the best and biggest surprise of FrightFest 2009.

And, no. It’s got nothing to do with the British soap opera of the same name from the 70s.

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