More of an art film than a straightforward horror opus, "Dead Leaves" is partly a road movie - both for the cast/crew and the film's two characters on a doomed trip through the Eastern United States - and a psychological examination of devoted love in its last and most irrational throes.

Much like a Hitchcockian premise, a sudden death forces a man to take extraordinary actions. Here, it's to preserve the physical and emotional beauty of his love, but rather than becoming an indulgent special effects trip for the video rental crowd, "Dead Leaves" flips to quasi-experimental mode; director Constantine Werner sometimes dips into Godardian terrain, with long takes and slow camera moves, and the juxtaposition of temporal episodes as the fractured lead reconciles past with present emotions before completely going cuckoo.

Werner also provides an erratic commentary track for the DVD; his meaningful observations should have been grouped or isolated to key scenes, as long, silent gaps often separate his observations, particularly towards the end. His explanation of the film's leading character, however - a classical, tragic romantic hero with a narcissistic, self-destructive streak - will help viewers to comprehend some of the film's more curious fixations and nuances. His decision to road-trip the production, and be the only person with a detailed plan for each scene, further addresses the film's experimental construction; with no lab to process the Super 16mm footage, the success of the production's often improvisational techniques wouldn't be known until principal photography had thoroughly wrapped, and footage emerged from the laboratory's chemical baths.

Werner's film is also an example of a pre-digital revolution indie film: shot on film, the footage was edited on an Avid, rudimentarily mixed, and a 35mm blow-up print created for the festival circuit. The director admits how much of the film's $50,000 budget could have been radically shaved down via affordable all-in-one editing systems like Final Cut Pro. Like "Primer," the use of film gives "Dead Leaves" a distinct look, further altered by desaturating colours, and shooting in deliberately ugly landscapes to create a grungy world. Mindaugas Blaudziunas' cinematography is nicely composed, but the withering November shooting period adds an overbearing, depressing mood for an already grimy story. The film's audio mix is also very basic, and the poetry excerpts that bridge the film's episodic segments have pinched sonics.

The DVD also includes a short making-of featurette, mostly in black and white, which is pretty much a straightforward agglomeration of behind-the-scenes video footage. (The film's opening shot is quickly addressed on the director's commentary, while the featurette shows the hands-on manipulation cinematographer Blaudziunas achieved with a raccoon cadaver. Definitely not for the squeamish, or animal lovers.)

Lovers of kinetic and depraved horror films will find "Dead Leaves" a wholly different experience, while fans of art films will be more open to Werner's attempt in creating a brooding, grungy film-poem.

© 2005 Mark R. Hasan