The “substance” of the Coral of Farge is a frank and funny body-crown. In pursuit of the youth, Demi Moore agrees to the experiment - and Margaret Kuly becomes

At the Cannes festival, the Body-Corror of Coral Farge “The Substance” was shown: in the absence of an official translation, the audience calls it “substance”, but the “substance” will be a more accurate analogue. For Farge, who became famous in 2017, the film “Survivor” is the first Hollywood project. Critic Anton Dolin tells why Body-Horror became a feminist genre in modern cinema.

“Blood from the screen splashes into the hall,” warned the director of the Cannes festival Thierry Fremo, announcing the premiere of “Substation” in the competitive program. And he did not exaggerate at all. It’s funny how the paradigm is changing: five years ago, the inclusion of a purely genre film, also a horror, one of the applicants for the “Golden Palm Branch” would be a scandal, and now, after the triumph of Julya Dumurno and its “Titan” , such a gesture does not seem to be shocking, but quite respectable and logical. Moreover, it is difficult to imagine how a film, similar “substance”, could be left without the attention of Cannes.

For the Frenchwoman, Coral Farge, whose name in 2017 was glorified by the horror “Survivor”, a new picture-the first experience of cooperation with Hollywood. But, using his resources (mainly acting), she refuses to be tamed and follow the unwritten rules of American genre cinema. In Body-Corror, which is typologically related to “Class B”, one of their best roles of the A-star Demi Moore and Margaret Kuolly play, without shame and doubt, exposing the bodies and creating on the screen that. Remaining a genre experiment, the film fearlessly attacks sociopolitical problems, starting with the dependent position of women and ending with the absurd mania of youth and beauty, even crazy even the best.

None of these topics are new, and in some plot predictability - especially for the experts of the genre - the main problem of “substance” is. However, this is the case when the form becomes content.

Without copying or imitating anyone, Farge works delightfully with every plan, allowing you to enjoy the simplicity and expressiveness of the images. The first of them is a broken egg: a green liquid is injected into the yolk, and the second one hatches from it, exactly the same. The pseudo -scientific background of the phantasmagoric intrigue was served without words in a matter of seconds. A little more time goes to the following episode: a star on Hollywood Boulevard, a view of the top. The whole biography met in a couple of screen minutes. We see how the star is installed, we observe the photo shoot - the actress at the point of higher glory - but time passes, the name is forgotten, passers -by do not slow down, the star is cracking ... Now it's just a fragment of the sidewalk. Although the name is still read: Elizabeth Sparkle. The heroine of the “substance” has the speaking name - “brilliance” or “spark”, which directly indicates the parables of the narrative.

Demi Moore plays a bright parody of himself. Her Liz, once sparkling from large screens, now leads the morning aerobics program, mining the salary literally in the sweat of her face. But from there, a noisy Mizogin producer (a small but expressive role of Dennis Caide) expels her, since the television newspaper needs new faces. A new casting, Liz in despair has been declared - and is decided on a risky experiment on herself. Having accepted the proposal of an unknown medical company, it is injected with a drug, the purpose of which is to extract from a person the “best version of itself”. Liz’s body falls lifelessly onto the tiled floor of the bathroom, the skin diverges in the spine, and a new heroine is literally born from it - young, beautiful, perfectly complicated (Margaret Kuolly). She calls herself Sue and immediately easily passes the casting in the same sports program. Rather, in her "best version."

The Faustian transaction, as usual, has its own conditions, which - an immutable dramatic law - will be violated. Firstly, every seven days it is necessary to alternate a new “I” with the previous one so that the “matrix” resolves. Going out for a temporary limit is categorically not recommended. Secondly, if a young and beautiful version takes you a little more energy from the obsolete version than expected, irreversible changes will occur. Thirdly, and this is the main thing, we must not forget that these two bodies are one and the same person, and not two competing personalities.

Farge is good in combination of incompatible. It harmoniously crosses minimalism with excessiveness, the highest humor - with a tear. If you look for analogies, Barbie will come to mind (a comedy about the pursuit of female perfection) and the Requiem for a Dream (a tragedy of invincible addictions), and, of course, “Portrait of Dorian Gray”.

But the inevitable comparisons with the Titan will be superficial: there is nothing in common except the genre between the films. The power of Titan was in its aggressive randomness, while the “substance” prefers symmetry and geometry, recalling Kubrick’s legacy (a corridor in television and a “shine”). At the sound level, this is expressed in the current rhythm of the retroelectronic soundtrack of DJ and the composer Raffertie - well, in the film about aerobics without dance music, nowhere. The counterpoint of controlled visuality and sound with the deplorable inability of the heroines to control themselves is a funny and productive conflict.

The appeal of women recruits to the most bloody and physiological sucks of Horror became one of the most interesting aspects of the latest wave of feminism in the cinema. More and more frankly, the author is melting injuries and frustrations into grotesque and frightening images.

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These paintings are the triumph of visuality. The content in them recedes into the background. The plots continue to talk about the atrocities of Patriarchate, the lawlessness and dependence of women - not only on men, but also on imposed stereotypes. The inevitable explosions of violence in climaxes seem to destroy this unjust world in the name of creating a new one. Even if its outlines will be nightmare, as in “substance” (the name “The Substance” can be translated with the words “essence” or “essence”), the outlines of new freedom can be considered for all transformations and mutations. Including creative.

Anton Dolin