Tareque Hossain
Erosion is complicated tale of two relationship in distress serving as a mutual bond for Gabe (Emmanuel Xuereb) & Irene (Charis Michelsen). An intricate thread of feelings gradually develop between them, sharing common passion and lack of satisfaction. Both of them seek mental and sexual freedom through harmless breach of so called laws of our society.The story develops slowly but strongly, depicting glimpse of the lives of the few characters. Keeps you amused, often aroused by the erotic and tasteful sexual scenes, and most importantly, pushes you into deep thinking about life and its purpose. Many will find their shadows in the characters, perhaps not as eccentric in bending the law, but yet it turns easily out to be a touching story of some our lives.Acting is superb, Xuereb does a splendid job, so does Charis. Some of the dialogs could be made stronger, few were slightly atmosphere ruining.Its a film that makes you sit back and re-evaluate your point of view towards social bindings and philosophy of life. Not for everyone. For those who think. A film to remember, and it deserves 9 out of 10.
yorkshire_keith
Once upon a time a film would tell you a story. If something in the story was extremely sordid, bloody or harrowing the director would miss this part out whilst at the same time allowing you to work out what was happening or had happened through sound or consequence or symbolism. This allowed a far wider audience to see films with really quite important messages. Here we have the opposite method. Put together the saddest, most painful or just dull aspects of a film that would once have been tastefully left out, and challenge the audience to start trying to imagine the story. We find we can do it that way, being the imaginative creatures we are and having done the work we're pretty much told anyway gradually, but I for one found I didn't really want to. This film made me think... It made me think I'd rather be sat in front of Lethal Weapon. Now that is not good.
ajcleary
If you don't like to be spoon fed a story and instead, enjoy piecing the story together yourself, you will take great pleasure in a film like EROSION.I saw the film at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. It opens in the middle of the story without the traditional set up. It threw me off a little at first because I didn't know anything about the characters or their conflicts or relationships. Nevertheless, after about 10 minutes, I realized why the story was told this way. Without an upfront setup, I as an audience really got to use my instinct to follow the characters, to feel their pleasure and pain, and to experience what they're going through, without passing on judgments, making assumptions, or knowing where I'm going as a participant. My favorite scene is the costume shop scene where Gabe, the lead character, delivers his monologue on his philosophy of life and the rules of Erosion. That's when I really felt the emotional connection with the character and started to really appreciate the director's choice of storytelling.This film demands the audience's full attention, as well as participation. If you invest enough of your time and attention following the story, the reward is definitely memorable.
Doylesigerson
I read about this film drifting IMDb because I commented on the filmmakers previous film DREAMERS which I liked very much. The producer kindly sent me a copy since it was not out in the UK yet. This film is everything I expected and more. Ann Lu has again gone beneath the surface of why people do what they do as she did in her first film. The cinematography is splendid, the acting very good. The film reminded me not only of the the French New Wave, but also the work of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky in its refusal to offer up the simple answers posed by life's questions. To be sure, I wonder if the MTV generation will understand the film's deeper aspects, but nonetheless, Lu is a filmmaker with a very promising future.