Eden Log (2007) Movie Info
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | Eden Log (2007) |
| Director | Franck Vestiel |
| Screenplay Writer | Franck Vestiel, Pierre Bordage |
| Based on Novel by | — (Original screenplay) |
| Lead Actors | Clovis Cornillac |
| Cast | Clovis Cornillac, Vimala Pons, Zohar Wexler |
| Genre | Horror, Sci-Fi, Mystery |
| Release Date | December 26, 2007 (France) |
| Duration | 1h 38m (98 minutes) |
| Budget | Not widely reported |
| Language | French |
| Country | France |
| Box Office (Worldwide) | Limited theatrical release |
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A man wakes up in a dark cavern, buried in mud. Aside from a nearby corpse, he has nothing no clothes, no memory, and a humanness that’s only rudimentary. As he crawls out, the cavern turns out to be a sub sub basement of a decaying, underground corporate industrial complex punctured by strange roots. Thus begins the man’s journey: a multiple quest to find out where he is, who he is, and what his purpose might be. None of this is made easier by the fact that he’s being hunted down by savage mutants and armed security troops.
As the undaunted protagonist (played with grim intensity by Clovis Cornillac) climbs his way up through the labyrinthine facility, encountering other unusual characters along the way, fragmented records and technological ruins hint at a recent, horrifying disaster or a visionary hope for the future. And as the man struggles to survive while penetrating closer and closer to the center of a deadly energy scandal, he begins to discover the role he himself has been playing in the world he’s now lost in.
Franck Vestiel’s big-screen directorial and screenwriting debut, Eden Log can be categorized as French avant-garde sci-horror. But calling it that would be too limiting; it is a dark psychomentary, an environmental diatribe, a harrowing study of what it means to be human, and perhaps cinema’s first Gnostic zombie movie.
Adding to the tradition of such classics as Halperin’s White Zombie, Gilling’s Plague of the Zombies, and Romero’s Land of the Dead, these (pseudo) zombies are bestial, diseased mutations of an abused lower class, lashing out mindlessly at a world that’s pushed them to the bottom. They’re not undead, but they are ugly, invasive, and truly menacing although their humanity is only marginally less apparent than that of the armored corporate guards. As the two groups spread through the complex, their conflict with each other takes on a powerful socioeconomic significance, as well as psychological implications for the man who finds himself caught between them while struggling to recover his own humanity.
No one subtext should be necessary to appreciate Eden Log, however. The film is emotionally gripping and aesthetically unsettling, often even eerily beautiful. As a horror film, it relies more on pervasive atmosphere and disorienting visuals and sense of space than on violence, but the mutants and troopers help keep up the action. The soundscape-like score is haunting, and the sets fluctuate between Terry Gilliam, H. R. Giger, and recovered junk. The effect is surreal and darkly dreamlike, but the minimal color palette and intense textures infuse Eden Log with a grittiness that is anything but fantasy. In pacing as in style, the film recalls Lynch’s Eraserhead, Tarkovsky’s Stalker, and Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo movies. Like those films, as well, Eden Log is a highly unique vision, with form and meaning that dovetail into something weirder and more powerful than your standard sci-horror flick.
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