Every Shocktober you’ve gotta watch one of those illogical Italian movies with crazy use of zooms and focus and repetitive editing. Londoner “Jane” (Five Dolls star Edwige Fenech) sees murder everywhere since her miscarriage, husband “Richard” (her costar from Martino’s Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh) wants her to take her blue pills and make sweet love to him and not go to therapy. But Jane is being stalked by the blue-eyed man from her murder dreams. After he tries to kill her with an axe, neighbor May takes Jane to a group she says can help: a rapey clown cult of pale-faced people watching a guy with Freddy fingernails do animal sacrifices.

“You’ve crossed the limits of reality.” Everyone starts dying – Richard pitchforks Blue Eyes (Ivan Rassimov of Schock) then shoots his wife’s sister Barbara for trying to seduce him, the cult kills Richard, etc. Even the tidy explanatory ending doesn’t make sense, which is perfect.

Therapy and training sessions – no context, all different kinds of approaches, but consistent fixed-frame camera style and clean look to all the rooms. The people who touch sleeping pigs are a nice tie-in to Gunda.

“It is left up to the spectator to decide whether these mindfulness training programs and coaching courses symbolize something bigger.” This feels like one of those noncommercial docs that T/F found in a museum or academic project, like The Task or Segunda Vez.

This Triet was a real treat… hmu if you need pull-quotes for the 8K reissue. Snappy movie with shocking editing, scenes overlapping, no time wasted – a temporal pincer as complex as Tenet but an hour shorter and possible to follow.

Sibyl is Virginie Efira (of Elle, and soon Benedetta), a therapist cutting back on her case load so she can write novels, then actress Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) shows up with all kinds of twisted drama (she’s pregnant by her famous costar Gaspard Ulliel, who’s supposed to be with their director Sandra Hüller). Eventually Adele will only speak to Sibyl, so the film production flies her out to Stromboli as a go-between. Of course Sibyl is stealing all this for her writing, which the movie keeps slipping inside, shifting all the roles and drama, while in reality Sibyl is losing her sobriety and her family.

Triet’s Age of Panic and Victoria also got good reviews. This played Cannes 2019 in competition with ten other films I’ve now seen – it’s easier to catch up when there’s no Cannes 2020 to distract me.