When I read the plot of this movie, I was really interested in watching it, since I really like French movies. They are not shy in themes like sex, religion, violence, horror, blood, etc. and although the idea of this movie had a lot of potential, for me it was a waste of time. I liked the beginning, but after that, things got from bad to worse. I understand that it is a low budget movie, but that doesn't justify that the action happens so slow, that the photography is extremely dark and won't allow you to catch any details, that there are a lot of shots that work for nothing on the movie, like water on a lake (and since the photography is so dark, it is not even worth a landscape shot), or close ups and long dialogs with characters that are not important in the movie, same as lack of dialogs with characters that are worth knowing more, a camera that was by shoulder almost all the time (that makes the movie awfully tired to watch) and horrible audio, that makes steps on little rocks and water sounds really annoying. The acting is OK and again, the story had a lot of potential, but to me this new wave of "experimental" or "art" film, where supposedly everything is called artistic to justify the lack of budget or the lack of imagination solving budget problems, is not really art movies. Shame, because sadly, for me, even if it sounds as blasphemy to the art movie lovers, a commercial director could have made of the script something agile, maybe scary, and shocking. Specially when the story had so much to offer. The points are because the story is cool (horribly handled), the beginning is nice, and the acting was good too. That's it.

Nauseating it is but, genuinely striking film making at work, both disorientating and disturbing in equal measure. If nothing else Grandrieux like Von Treir's "Antichrist" raises the bar for horror films here, but doesn't rely on "gore" and shock the way VT did, instead generating fear from a soundtrack of guttural human cries, moans, noises, and silences, and bringing us unbearably close to characters and sensations we desperately and instinctively want to avoid.I still think the combination of fairy tale logic into such a brutal close focus doesn't gel as much as Grandieux believes it does, but there is something to be said for the notion that complete sentimentality and utter depravity are closer than they appear. I felt like an insect watching this movie, pinned to a wall of sounds and images. Not a good feeling, but horror films are not supposed to create good feelings are they. What's most horrifying about this film is it's lack of any moral aim, for all there terrors horror films do usually show the triumph of a "final girl" or the humanity of a monster, but like "The Descent" Grandrieux's universe is an unstable chaos of actions, desires, and terrors, but more so because even the logical rules of cause and effect, are no good here (like Funny Games' remote control scene but stronger and stranger), in one scene Claire and Christine escape Jean, only to have him magically appear in front of their car. Next cut he has them in his hotel, seemingly hypnotized as he for lack of a better word...sniffs their fear.What's so violating about a scene like this is not the violation that goes on within it, but the breaking of narrative rules that we depend on in a film like this, for respite, the chance to escape to breath. Sombre is suffocating, and makes even "love" itself, normally a redeeming force, a horror to behold.My first impression of Claire's attraction to Jean was echoing the Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him?". I felt not the usual jealously one feels when the object of your affection is publicly affectionate to the worst possible kind of person (or a decent person who is transformed into a monstrous caricature through sheer force of jealously alone), but one of panic. She does not know what she is getting into but we (the audience) do, having witnessed albeit elliptically at times Jeans earlier crimes. Eventually she does know who and what Jean is after he attacks her sister, but her attraction seems to intensify as our repulsion grows, and at first I felt this as a failure of understanding character development (no rational human being would willingly go back to THAT). But this was a failure more on my part than the films.I was expecting realism, when right from the beginning the film announces itself as not existing in a stable mental landscape of coherent naturalism. Our first images are a boy blindfolded in a field feeling his way in the air, then abruptly the sounds of children laughing like hyenas as they watch a Punch And Judy show.The hand-held camera at times jostles around with Jean's or a detached third party pov and at others holds itself sustaining agonizing close ups, all to create it's own kind of rationality(something after watching more Guy Maddin and Mark Rappaport I find a little easier to understand or at least accept).Claire and Jean's relationship is non-existent guided by the films only symbolic logic(chance or reason/hope), a prop like the puppets in Punch And Judy, but where Mister Punch, would kill his wife, his family, his jailers, and in some versions even Death and The Devil himself, and do so with a smile, Jean wrestles with his demons which are indistinguishable from his desires, and suffers for them. The film's final shots of Jean in the woods recall Lon Chaney Jr's. performance as "The Wolfman"(1941), and all the tragedy, doom, and masculine anxiety there in. In the days of 'Dexter" where serial killers can be heroes too, were all aware that wolves can wear human skin, and men don't need to transform into monsters to make beasts of themselves.In Fellini's "La Strada" where a lovely clownish child-woman is hopelessly and helplessly in love with a brutish strong man who rapes, torments, and abandons her, we are forced to see "love" as a beastly thing which traps our heroin from the rational action of escape. But it's this break with realism and into the metaphorical which freed Fellini from the other Italian filmmakers of the day and allowed him to progress into his trademark oneiric style, and it's also what gives "La Strada" it's emotional impact, which has to be weighed symbolically not literally. "Sombre" in many ways follows suit, but with more neo-Gothic, and new french extremist aesthetics."Sombre" is a difficult film, one which even the most willing to attempt to understand it, will not enjoy the first, second, or maybe any times watching it. I can't say I enjoyed it. I'm not gonna put this on during rainy day like "Slim Sussie" or "Monster Squad", but if I had a friend over who told me they were in the mood for a horror movie, something actually scary (a rarity) I would suggest this."...if my eyes don't deceive me, There's something going wrong around here..." -Joe Jackson

I'm pretty sure director Philippe Grandrieux's SOMBRE was supreme festival fodder during it's initial release, but to me it was an aggravating and trivial exercise to sit through. Like other *important* modern filmmakers, Grandrieux adopts a camera style that lenses his subjects often out of focus with the characters at times(..more like most of the time)on the edges of the frame, rarely in a position where we can see them with clarity. This choice is probably applauded by critics and those who appreciate a particular vision(..perhaps mimicking the distorted, warped view of the world in regards to the particular characters features prominently in the film)shown in this film, but I found Grandrieux's style frustrating and difficult. I'd actually prefer to see characters and Philippe Grandrieux's camera always moves, following the actors/actresses around, often jerking and shaking. I consider myself a patient viewer who has tolerated this style for a great deal of time, but it's begun to weigh on my nerves and what's even more tiresome about Philippe Grandrieux's direction here is that his performers, especially Elina Löwensohn as the psychologically troubled and confused Claire in love with volatile, quietly menacing serial killer Jean(Marc Barbé), are very good and deserve to have their work seen clearly without a camera unable to capture every nuance and aching truth presented for the viewer. Sure, if you are attentive enough and completely focus, the viewer is able to catch the performances when the camera stays still long enough.The film somewhat focuses on a serial killer, Jean, driving through the French countryside as the Tour de France is in full swing, picking up loose women working the streets, clubs and nudie rooms, strangling and suffocating them, leaving their carcasses often in rural areas along river fronts and fields(..or wherever he happens to engage in rough sex, often humiliating them before sticking his fingers down their throat as he initiates his ritual of grabbing their throats, squeezing tightly, covering their mouths pressing the air waves tightly so that oxygen can not be successfully and sufficiently accessed). Jean meets Claire, a very depressed virgin, a beautiful wallflower who seems detached from the world around her, bored and alone. Her free-spirited sister, Christine(Géraldine Voillat)is her polar opposite, actually attempting to seduce Jean, and is an open and vocal woman who has engaged in sexual activity, quite a blunt and frank individual..she's also a model for the type of woman Jean likes to ravage and kill. Once the three start on a journey together, Jean can not control the beast and almost kills Christine before Claire thankfully intervenes. Unable to break free from Jean's grasp, Claire will submit to his will in that Christine can survive without dire harm. But, will Claire be able to survive? Jean will force Claire into the night, having her indulge in drink and dance, but his victim becomes an all too willing subject with unpredictable fireworks sparking between these two troubled souls.Definitely an ultra-dark character study which features several unpleasant scenes where Jean works over victims before killing them, but the director's haphazard camera doesn't capture these traumatic attacks with any clarity(..there's enough to make those with a faint heart squirm a bit, though and the grunts, screams and pain of the victims certainly convey to the viewer what is happening to them). Löwensohn hits it out of the ball park with a very demanding and complex performance, her character's not an easy nut to crack..one grimaces at her decisions to associate with Jean when she knows the kind of person he truly is, yet embarks on an affair with him anyway risking her life in the process. Barbé shows us the torment he's facing, the monster he can not tame. His face conveys the agony that always pushes him to commit the deeds he does towards "corrupt" women who feed that anguish and desire. This film might test viewers who like a film to remain on the story of these characters because the director likes to show the trivialities of their lives, not concerned with moving in a linear path, freely allowing these people to exist the way they might in real life. Shots of the French countryside, which are often dump sites of the killer, are haunting..as are scenes of the waving water before Jean makes his move to dive in with a goal of possibly killing Christine. The director also opts for minimal music(..the sound of a car on the road with other sounds drowned out;a type of droning as the killer moves to and fro, from one place to another), instead using natural sounds of the environment with which the characters exist, quite effective.

For me, this is a very powerful movie. I feel like I was not seeing a movie, but seeing something greater, stronger, and more powerful than "movie". I like every scene in this film. I feel I couldn't breathe when I saw it. It really fascinated and captivated me from the beginning until the end. The acting is also very good. Some actors in this film give the feeling like they were not acting, but "being" their characters. Elina Lowensohn is very great. Her eyes speak much louder and clearer than her words. The lighting, the movement of the camera, the raw feelings expressed from this movie made me feel as if I was not in a cinema, but in the story with all these characters. Hardly a movie can touch or move me this strongly! The joke about the stranded one is a good comment on human nature. The road scenes are hauntingly beautiful. Personally, I think every scene in this movie is indeed "emotionally" beautiful.