I’m not quite sure what I was expecting to get out of ‘From Inside’ but I definitely got more than I bargained for from this animated feature, produced, directed, written and illustrated by John Bergin. The words I scrawled down after viewing it for the first time (and certainly not the last) were “bleak depressing and somewhat harrowing, a powerful and haunting post-apocalyptic vision and nightmare.” The animated movie was made in 2008 By John Bergin who also on reading further would appear to be an award winning graphic artist as well as a musician, his band Trust Obey were signed to Trent Reznor’s Interscope label. With the band he recorded a soundtrack to the film adaptation of Alex Proyas version of The Crow with Brandon Lee, which like me you may have missed due to the popularity of the excellent alt-industrial compendium album accompanying the movie that came out on Atlantic Records.
This film proved my introduction to the work of Bergin and indeed I had not even heard of ‘From Inside’ until I was offered it to review. Made in 2008 this is the first UK release of it if I am not very much mistaken and it also now has the addition of a soundtrack to the film added by none other than Gary Numan and Ade Fenton. Win all round, as it’s not just Carl McCoy, Iggy Pop and Lemmy striding across a post-apocalyptic wasteland as they did in Richard Stanley’s excellent Hardware back in 1990 now.
The film is narrated by Cee who is voiced by Megan Gold, the one other film that she appears to have credited to her is playing Susan Atkins in a TV movie adaption ‘Will You Kill For Me? Charles Manson and his followers,’ which sounds absolutely compellingly awful. Cee is pregnant and travelling on a massive train through an increasingly grim landscape. We don’t know what has happened, we don’t even know if this is earth and the future but it is not difficult to guess. As the train takes up the entire length of the screen near the opening of the film and the smoke from it billows out like an animated version of ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ we are aware that its journey is going to be a captivating and an ultimately epic one.
Colours are grey and drab but the hues and vibrancy still shine through with the skill of the animation sparkling. I am reminded of films such as ‘Dark City’ as well as ‘The Crow’ both by Proyas as well as the barren landscapes of John Hilcoat’s ‘The Road.’ When it rains, as it is prone to do amidst this desolation, it rains red blood and rivers and streams brim over with it, with striking clarity really jumping off the screen. The electronic soundtrack is subtle and flows with things, instantly recognisable from the artists behind it. It rises and clanks organically in time with the train and the industrial wreckage it passes. Cee opens up about her past and what has led to this, other travellers are sinister figures and we are not quite sure what is going on and what is reality and what are her dreams. In one scene the train engineers skewer babies on pitchforks to feed the fire and keep the train moving. There are plenty of moments that remind of the death camp trains ferrying prisoners to their fate and ultimate extermination in Nazi Germany.
Behind it all there is a sense of some camaraderie and determination to survive in the face of hostility and for Cee’s baby to be born. That is something that is inevitable and cannot be stopped even when the train itself is by a landslide in a massive tunnel. Ultimately what will be at the end of the journey and the question of whether redemption will be at hand is what kept me glued to the screen, enthralled completely by the combination of narrative, imagery and sound, all drawn together in perfect co-ordination.
At 70 minutes long I would have liked this to be longer, in fact I was so engrossed I would have happily seen it expanded by another hour but the tale is told within the time it has, even if the last few minutes have you thinking it’s never possibly going to have enough time left to run before its denouement.
‘From Inside’ hits the mark on many levels and strongly fits into the realms of the cult movie genre for so many reasons. The main reason it probably has not been regarded as such so far is due to its lack of distribution and not many knowing about it. Hopefully this release will change all that as this really does deserve to be seen. Be warned though it is a film that will linger with you long after viewing (although that was only last night, I am pretty damn sure of this) in much the way as Studio Ghibli’s 1998 seminal anime ‘Grave of the Fireflies.’ Winning many an award at prestigious film festivals such as Stiges and Fantasia, ‘From Inside’s’ small screen debut is one that should not be missed.
(Review by Pete Woods)
http://www.wienerworld.com/from-inside-gary-numan-special-edition.html
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