VINYAN

VINYAN

The last film of the day was to be the thriller, Vinyan, at a late showing and Edinburgh's Cameo.  The film again focuses on a couple who are starting to fall apart after the recent loss of their son.  The way the son went missing is a mystery until very late in the film so I'll leave that one blank.  Hopefully you should understand the relation to the opening of the film.  Long story short, the couple think that they see their son in a video about child slaves in Burma and therefore set about illegally breaching the border to try and find their son.  But what they find is far from what they expected.  The title "Lord of the Flies" comes to mind, but in a totally unexpected and unique way.  The film is fantastic.  A brilliant atmospheric film which keeps its realism throughout even when the story begins to fold in on itself to create the idea of unstableness.  The long drawn out scene when the two are looking for someone to take them to Burma in the darkly lit and very loud clubs around Vietnam.  You can hardly hear the two main characters speak as they begin their search.  It is already obvious that the wife is quite unstable already as she frantically does anything to keep searching for her son, even the video that she sees her son in is not exactly what you would call obvious.  The son is a blur in the background wearing a soccer top, with a wild hair do.  As the story progresses we are taken from the loud suburban area to the quiet seas of Vietnam and then suddenly into the demented world of unpopulated Burma, where the wilderness is dangerous and the only inhabitants of the area are deadly.  The atmosphere is built amazingly in the Burma sequences, with mist covering the wilderness, even at night to try and bering about a sense of mystery and horror.  The couple don't know where they are, what's in front of them, or what is waiting for them.  Well something is definitely waiting.  Something that would seem harmless in the world you and I live in, but has been left alone, to live, to feed and to support its self.  I think it's safe to say that if a quote the original statements of the film you will understand that this film is a family struggle revolving around a sort of Apocalypse Now feel and i have no problems agreeing with that one.  9/10