I missed the first 15 minutes or so and that might be why the ending left me as confused as it did. I mean, what happened to the doc? Was the forest and the hole part of a dream? Was the whole movie a dream? Did I fall asleep and dream it all myself? In any case, I found this to be pretty good. It's slow, of course, by the standards of, say, "Coma", or "Freddy and Jason Haunt a Hospital," but the visual images, the score, and the acting make up for it and keep a viewer's attention engaged.
The visual images are striking in their sterility and simplicity. It's not not like any hospital you've ever been except maybe in a couche-mar. The hospitals I'm familiar with -- the better ones -- have people bustling about night and day, and the floors have coded colored lines on them. This hospital is mostly empty. And oddly lighted. Even the OR is dark except for some dramatic lighting over the patient etherized upon the table. In the corridors, the FLOORS seem to emit their own white light.
There is hardly any score to speak of. There is usually an ominous discordant electronic hum. Aside from that there is only a slight groan from an opening door and the squeak of rubber soles on polished linoleum. Well, an occasional scream too.
The acting is fine on everyone's part. Dr. Phillip's role doesn't call for much except a haughty look and a stern tone. But Isabella is just about right. Few people have ever looked so winsome and helpless. She has a slight figure and the face of an adolescent girl. (Try to imagine Gerard Depardieu in the part.) The story itself is rather routine. We've seen it in one or another variation before. But this is a well-done example of the genre, worth catching.
The visual images are striking in their sterility and simplicity. It's not not like any hospital you've ever been except maybe in a couche-mar. The hospitals I'm familiar with -- the better ones -- have people bustling about night and day, and the floors have coded colored lines on them. This hospital is mostly empty. And oddly lighted. Even the OR is dark except for some dramatic lighting over the patient etherized upon the table. In the corridors, the FLOORS seem to emit their own white light.
There is hardly any score to speak of. There is usually an ominous discordant electronic hum. Aside from that there is only a slight groan from an opening door and the squeak of rubber soles on polished linoleum. Well, an occasional scream too.
The acting is fine on everyone's part. Dr. Phillip's role doesn't call for much except a haughty look and a stern tone. But Isabella is just about right. Few people have ever looked so winsome and helpless. She has a slight figure and the face of an adolescent girl. (Try to imagine Gerard Depardieu in the part.) The story itself is rather routine. We've seen it in one or another variation before. But this is a well-done example of the genre, worth catching.