(re)Search my Trash

<body> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="800" cellpadding="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td width="100" rowspan="2" background="../stylepix/square.gif" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="592" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="592"> <tr> <td width="100%">  </td> </tr> </table>    <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="255" align="right"> <tr> <td width="100%"> <p align="right"><img border="0" src="../stills/machination-poster.jpg" width="250" height="368"></td> </tr> </table> <p>Now even in normal times, Maria (Steffi Thake) has always ben a bit on the neurotic side - and then the pandemic strikes, an event that just seems to confirm (and amplify) everything she has ever believed in, as now her cleanliness becomes compulsive, her fear of others almost reasonable, and her (so far repressed) agoraphobia almost mandatory - all of course augmented by an unhealthy fit of hypochondria. Thing is, Maria is no island, there are places where she's needed, people who care about her, and she still needs food and needs to pay rent. But calls from her boss (Sean James Sutton) and her dad (Mikhail Basmadjian), and visits from her brother (Rambert Attard) and her landlord (Andrew Bonello) only cause her to retreat into her own shell even more - so much so that one's led to believe there's more than just the pandemic to blame for her behaviour ...<p> <p>Now everyone who reads this and has lived through the Covid 19 pandemic with its lockdowns and related craziness (and at the time of this writing [2022], this is <i>everyone</i>) will probably find oneself in at least some of this movie, as it aptly (if with some exaggeration) portrays the feelings of helplessness and paranoia all of us have felt at least to a degree durning these rather testing times. But what makes the film is that despite all its realism it actually is <i>not</i> a film about life during the pandemic but only takes this background to show a multi-layered psychological study with roots in the horror genre that deliciously slowly unfolds itself and becomes all the more disturbing the deeper it goes. And a subtle yet empathetic directorial effort and a very strong central performance by Steffi Thake really help this what it is, a rather fascinating piece of psycho horror with roots in the real world ... </td> <td width="4" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="100" rowspan="2" background="../stylepix/squareright.gif" valign="top">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top">  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> currentyear = "2022"; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="../scripts/endcredits.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> dosworsdonn(); </SCRIPT> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body>