Rent The Raven (2006)

A curio. - The Raven review by NP

I was surprised to find Ulli Lommel, who wrote, directed and co-produced this reimagining of ‘The Raven’ had been a collaborator with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbender’s projects were so effective because of their startlingly intimate simplicity, whereas this film was clearly never meant to be straightforward.

From the very beginnings, it is fairly clear this is an experimental venture. The more you watch, the more you accept the growing probability that there isn’t going to be some grand finale that makes sense of the myriad of stark imagery and arty use of the low budget – and you wonder if, with no pay-off, it is worth carrying on.

I’m quite glad I did. I like that films like this are made. I had to look at Wikipedia to make sense of the storyline, and found their plot synopsis simply related what happened on screen, with no explanation or deeper meaning for it all.

Of the performers, Nicole Cooke impressed me the most. As ‘young’ Lenore, she relates various occurrences and acts as a narrator for some way into the film. The other players in the fairly large cast are smothered and somewhat swamped by the distortions and set-pieces that only loosely form a narrative. Their performances are good enough considering the unwieldy style of the project.

‘The Raven’ is something I might even return to, to see if I can make more sense of it, knowing how events turn out (or not!). This is clearly not a film for everyone. I’m not even sure it’s for me – but it is a curio. Like a fairly amateur art project, it has high ambitions, but it is difficult to know what those ambitions are – and I find that aspect of it interesting, if not traditionally satisfying. My score is 4 out of 10.