H.C.E. (2006) Reviews

• A haunting visionary film

  cineaste4252007-04-17

  I saw "H.C.E." at the Pioneer Theatre in the east village and I knew I was experiencing something haunting and extremely original. It didn't look like any movie I'd ever seen before. The director, Richard Sylvarnes, was there and he explained a bit about its creation. He had been doing a photography project for many years where he staged elaborate tableaux of important historical figures (Jesus, Socrates, etc) and some fictional ones too. Years later he put some of the frames into his computer and discovered that they became like a flip-book—the still images started to move. He organized all of these images into a larger structure and added new material, plus trance-like music he composed himself. The result was something that looked like it was from the dawn of cinema and at the same time very new. If you're drawn to explorative, visionary cinema, "H.C.E." is a film you should check out.

• A rare great experience

  pelican1012007-04-14

  I saw this film with a friend of mine at the Tribeca Film Festival and couldn't stop talking about it. The director introduced the film as an experimental film and it certainly was. He also said the film's look was influenced by the birth of cinema before the first movie camera was made. Think 1886. It had to be one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. It's also a film like no other. It starts with the dawn of mankind and shows various mythological references to original sin. It seems the whole movie was like the confrontations between good and evil. As hard as we strive to be good we often fail because of our own inner human weakness. The beauty of some of the images was extraordinary at times. An angel narrates the film who was a little girl and her voice was so haunting that many in the audience wanted to know who she was. I think you'd have to see this many times to get the full impact. This was one of those rare great experiences and a highlight of the festival.

• this is the worst movie of all time.

  ericl-32006-12-19

  I'm not kidding. I saw it at the Tribeca film festival last may and it truly blew me away. The room was full when it started, but there was only me and this one chick when it ended. It has no plot, it has not acting, it's a bunch of fuzzy tableaux based on "Finnigan's wake. It really cannot be described without getting myself sick, and there has to be ten lines to publish this thing, so how can I warn people about the astounding badness of this piece of filth? This is, without a doubt or hesitation, truly the worst movie of all time. No kidding. I know others my not agree, but they haven't seen it. The Horror The Horror.