Review

Lost Souls

Dir. Janusz Kaminski. 2000. R. 97mins. Winona Ryder, Ben Chaplin, John Hurt, Philip Baker Hall.

One of the things film critics get asked on a regular basis is just what the hell they're writing on their dorky little steno pads while the movie is still unreeling before their judgmental eyes. Since there isn't really a whole lot to say about Lost Souls, a terminally hokey demonic-possession thriller that's finally getting released after more than a year spent moldering in the can, permit me to enlighten you by taking you on an annotated tour of my notes (in italics), transcribed as originally scribbled in the dark:

Credits rock. Foreshadowing a code that will figure significantly in the plot, the film's gorgeously evocative opening credit sequence features strings of numerals that morph into the names of cast and crew. If only what followed were one-tenth as elegant and captivating.

Winona Raccoon more like. Playing the sole lay member of a Catholic team devoted to seeking out the devil, who's apparently due to take human form at any moment, Ryder wears ridiculously heavy eye-shadow throughout, as if planning to attend a Cure concert immediately following each exorcism.

Surfeit of style. Janusz Kaminski is best known as the cinematographer who shot Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, and Lost Souls is every inch a former D.P.'s movie, replete with foreboding slo-mo effects, desaturated colors, hazy washes of ominous light, etc. Unfortunately, Kaminski's painstaking craftsmanship only throws the script's numerous deficiencies into sharper relief.

Smoking under stove air. A nice character moment here: Ben Chaplin, cast as a best-selling true-crime author who's destined to become the Antichrist on his 33rd birthday, turns on the exhaust fan over his kitchen stove and holds his cigarette underneath it, presumably because his girlfriend (Sarah Wynter) either doesn't know that he indulges or disapproves of the odor. That it's never explained, and doesn't later become significant, suggests the kind of attention to detail that the rest of the picture sadly lacks.

(Skip this next one if you don't want a key revelation spoiled.)

Check XES. If you've seen the film's print ads, you already know that the word sex spelled backwards has got somethin' to do with somethin'. Turns out it's the number 666 expressed in ancient Greek. This struck me as a pretty remarkable coincidence, so I investigated the next day, and found that it's actually true (although the E is really more like a squiggle that happens to slightly resemble our letter E when it's drawn as a backwards 3).

Yeah the fuck right. Bad note-taking on my part, really, as this could refer to any of a dozen utterly preposterous plot turns. Most likely, it was scrawled in reaction to either an asylum's decision to unlock the door of a convicted murderer after he apparently slips into a coma or a moment in which one of the characters comes up with both his parents' blood types off the top of his head (do you know?).

Closing credits also rock. The movie is over, thank Christ. (Now playing; see Index for venues.)—Mike D'Angelo