The Creative Deviance of SNOWFLAKE

Reza Brojerdi, Erkan Acar, Xenia Assenza, David Masterson, Alexander Schubert, Gedeon Borkhard, Katja Wagner, David Gant, Judith Hoersch, Mathis Landwehr. Directed by Adolfo J. Kolmerer & William James. (2017/121 min). 

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY FROM

ARTSPLOITATION FILMS

Review by Fluffy the Fearless😺

About ten minutes in, Snowflake threw me for a loop...which doesn't happen often.

The more movies you see, the harder it is to be really surprised by anything, especially if you spend an appreciable amount of time reviewing them. Rarely do you come across one that doesn't remind you - even remotely - of something that came before.

Snowflake begins like a German variation of a Tarantino movie, with two brothers bickering over the quality of the food at a diner. This deceptively mundane scene ends with the reveal that these two guys had just killed everyone else in the restaurant. I was immediately reminded of Pulp Fiction, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. So far, I'd seen far worse self-conscious Tarantino rip-offs than this one.

Then the film takes a sharp left turn into the surreal and never looks back. These two brothers, Javid & Tan (Reza Vrojerdi & Erkan Acar), while sitting in a stolen car, discover pages of an unfinished screenplay, the first scene being their violent encounter at the diner...word for word.

I suddenly perked up: There just might be some creative deviance at-work here.

Horrified, the brothers find the car's owner, a dentist who writes screenplays in his spare time and has no idea who they are. They force him at gunpoint to print the rest of what's he's written, but the problem is even he doesn't yet know how it will end. This is where Javid & Tan learn the story's protagonist, Eliana, is looking to avenge the death of her parents, who they murdered at the diner.

Porky Pig goes dark & gritty.

Meanwhile, with the help of her parents' former bodyguard, Eliana (Xenia Assenza) is indeed trying to hire people to find and kill Javid & Tan, including two cannibalistic brothers, a blind killer-for-hire and a sharp-dressed man in charge of a militarized underground cult. All these guys come highly recommended by the bodyguard's father, who thinks he is God. Oh, and did I mention that the entire story takes place in a totalitarian, lawless future, and the two brothers are out to avenge the death of their own family at the hands the country's former dictator. And by the way, there's also a vigilante stalking the streets who fancies himself a superhero: Hyper Electric Man. All this time, the dentist is struggling with writer's block while trying to come up with the perfect ending, one which Javid & Tan insist doesn't include the two of them getting killed.

Snowflake is as bizarre as it sounds, with a pitch-black sense of humor and frequent bursts of jarring violence. The scenes where Javid & Tan read about their actions as they are happening are clever and often amusing (reading about themselves reading the screenplay...the mind boggles). In a movie filled with fascinating characters, it's sort-of ironic that the titular character, a sultry lounge singer in angel wings (Judith Hoersch) is actually the least interesting. The premise doesn't fully sustain itself to the very end and ultimately doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with the basic plot, but Snowflake's metafictional elements are also what renders it unique.

Well directed by Adolfo J. Kolmerer & William James, Snowflake belies its low budget with a lot of creative ambition. The characters are interesting and their story is a lot of twisted fun. It goes on a bit longer than necessary, but remains a surreal little gem of a film. A must for adventurous viewers looking for something different.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE: "BEHIND-THE-SCENES"

TRAILERS

KITTY CONSENSUS:

PURR-R-R...LIKE A GOOD SCRATCH BEHIND THE EARS