The film features Chin Siu-ho as himself; an actor who checks into a room of a ramshackle housing complex with the intention of suicide. Unbeknownst to him is the sinister history of the room he has chosen. The twin spirits who inhabit the room are looking for a body to possess and the anguished actor provides a nice vessel for them. He is fortunate enough to be rescued by Chan Yau (Anthony Chan), an ex-vampire hunter who now runs a food stall inside the complex.The tenants gather around to watch Yau in action as he expels the spirits. After this incident, our protagonist is still reluctant to accept the supernatural occurrences around him and goes into a sort of filmic comatose. The same can be said of Yau, who refuses to interfere with supernatural affairs again.

Rigor Mortis is about the pair and how they come to work together, but as Chin and Yau bottom-trawl the narrative for a while, subplots carry the film. The death of Auntie Mui’s (Nina Paw) husband and her desperate efforts to resurrect him with the help of a deceptive occult specialist Gau (Chung Fat) play a significant part in the plot. There’s also emotionally disturbed mother, Yueng Teng, and her young albino son, Pak, who constantly lurk in Chin’s apartment.

Teng and Pak are part of a larger symbolic reference to the colour white throughout Rigor Mortis. Pak says, “… white is the most beautiful colour in the world”, which is crazy considering violent and disturbing flashbacks of the character’s past are in angelic white; flashbacks that give a glimpse of past psychological wounds, but never truly delve into them enough to enhance narrative understanding.

Exorcists, ghosts and hopping vampires aside, Paw’s performance as Auntie Mui is the highlight of Rigor Mortis. You are constantly unsure about whether or not to sympathise with her or feel anger towards her. Either way, Paw’s portrayal of Auntie Mui is simply outstanding, making her someone you feel moved by. Her character-forming grief, a terrifying reminder of how love and loss can impact a person in the worst of ways.

There are many shots from windows and peepholes, a voyeuristic style of cinematography that works well with Rigor Mortis’ atmosphere and underlying themes. On top of that, the art direction and sound is superb.

The familiarity of all the ghostly croaking and gargling from the long-haired contortionist ghost can be pointed to Takashi Shimizu’s (director of The Grudge) undeniable influence, as he co-produced Rigor Mortis. Asian cult cinema goers and those with prior knowledge of Chinese folklore may pick up on these small things and understand Rigor Mortis a little bit better. It isn’t completely necessary to understand the reason behind recipes for raising the dead or the significance of glutinous rice, though some aspects may get lost on a Western audience.

Rigor Mortis will send chills down your spine with suggestive imagery rather than screamers. Mak’s first feature comes close to being somewhat of a masterpiece, if not for it’s ending. It is tiring and cumbersome to come to the end of the film, with a twist that feels like the result of last minute decision making. It will leave you with more questions than it does answers, but one thing is for sure, Rigor Mortis is definitely worth a watch.

3.8/5 stars

Pay attention to the Russian voiceover narration in the first few minutes as an ambulance is driven across deserted roads. It will inform you that a post-Soviet oligarch, who came into fortune with a Siberian power station, was a lover of the arts. So much so, he not only bought a conceptual artist’s performance, but the artist himself. The nameless artist remained imprisoned for four years following the patron’s untimely death. This voiceover is the only explanation of anything you are going to get throughout the film’s entirety.

The slow-paced start deludes you into thinking The Distance may be painfully mundane before the delicious art-house absurdity comes into full effect. Three dwarves – Scumek, Baransky and the comically high pitched Vólkov – harbour strange powers, telepathy being one of them. They set up caravans in a base to plan their robbery of ‘The Distance’ (a sort of MacGuffin), which is located in the power plant’s turbine room. In fact, the film is essentially an 80-minute build-up to the heist.

Marc Gómez del Moral’s spatially aware style of cinematography consists of slow long shots over scenic and barren Siberian terrains. Aesthetically, it’s pleasing, and with a movie as confusing as this, it becomes easy to clutch onto the beautiful arrangement of images when it grows too bizarre.

You may find yourself detached from some characters, as they don’t have any prominent domain in the film, or simply feel alienated by the absurdity of it all. Everything from the artist with a mud-covered face, in a room with seemingly complicated equations, to the mutant guard of the power plant, who masturbates wearing heels and shouting “Pluto” at orgasm, is really quite bizarre. The least odd thing about The Distance may be the love affair between a Japanese-haiku-speaking smoking bucket and a chimney.

The influence of Dadaism is evident in the irrational absurdity of the film as well as its social and political allegories. The Distance has been compared to Tarkovsky’s Stalker and also bears similarities with the sexually charged humour of David Lynch’s films.

As an art film, the imagery overpowers the narrative, so don’t be upset if the credits begin to roll and you have no idea what you just watched. Though interesting and visually stimulating, The Distance is the type of film which will have you sitting down with a raised eyebrow, analysing the content and wondering what the hell is going on.

If you’re a lover of all things bizarre and the free rein creativity of art-house films, then this is definitely your cup of tea.

3.5/5 stars