She Dies Tomorrow (Amy Seimetz, 2020)

Not quite sure what to do with this one. A woman believes she will die tomorrow and passes this thought to everyone around her like a virus. With uncanny prescience, Seimetz evokes the terror twilight of our empire and privileges mood over story with an array of time-tested art-film techniques - jumbled chronology, clipped narratives, abrupt character introductions, etc. I greeted these difficulties with pleasure. But somehow, I felt that story was putting up a fight with mood, that all the arty devices were still tied conventionally to narrative. Even more perplexing is the fact that I cannot quite prove this nor can I explain why this is detrimental in any way (apart for my general disdain for contemporary narratives). Perhaps my unsettled state as the final credits rolled is proof of She Dies Tomorrow's ultimate success. Nevertheless, the film I cannot help thinking of now is Raging Bull, of all things - a modernist exercise I don't know what to do with apart from mildly appreciating its modernist hijinks. All of which means this merits a second viewing. Until then...

Grade: B+