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| Strange imagery delineated into a triangle in vivid reds and purples outline this poster for Panos Cosmatos' Mandy |
A forest logger gets his fantasy illustrator girlfriend kidnapped and later murdered by a strange religious cult.
Mandy is written and directed by Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)) with co-writers Aaron Stewart-Ahn and Casper Kelly (Major Flake (2001, TV movie)).
It is a weird and psychedelic movie that appears to have been made by and for people on drugs. It is hard to comprehend and its many drawn-out, quiet, long shots had me zoning out. For a long while nothing much happens; then a bit happens. Mandy is never a plot movie; it evolves in a radically atheistic, anti-Christian direction, as proponents of Christianity are uniformly heinous, hate-filled murderers, deviants and deranged.
Linus Roache (Barry (2016)) is fascinating as the evil cult leader; Nicolas Cage (Drive Angry (2011)) primarily yells and lends Mandy his cinematic mug. The film turns to gory violence. To me the film seems like an overlong edition of a stylish heavy rock music video, which it probably should have been. Mandy is tiring but has visual qualities and a trippy Jóhann Jóhannsson (Prisoners (2013)) score, among the composer's last before his overdose death in 2018.
Cage gives an interview about the film in this 5-minute video from Sundance
Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 1.5 mil. $
= Mega-flop (returned 0.25 times its cost)
[Mandy premiered 19 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 121 minutes. Shooting took place from July - August 2017 in Belgium and London, England. The film opened #30 to a 225k $ first weekend in 75 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #28 the following weekend in 71 theaters and grossed 1.2 mil. $ (80 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 106k $ (7.1 %) and Russia with 77k $ (5.1 %). The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit award, among other honors. The-Numbers.com estimate that it made an additional 3.6 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Cosmatos is returning as director behind 1 episode of Guillermo Del Toro Presents 10 After Midnight (2022). Cage returned in Looking Glass (2018). Mandy is certified fresh at 90 % with a 7.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Mandy?
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