Mandy-A Psychedelic, Dreamlike Anti-Revenge Film

For most of its runtime, Mandy moves at a drifting, dreamlike pace. Scenes move at an intentionally slow pace, all captured with a psychedelic aesthetic that pushes the viewer into an almost hypnotic state. As absorbing as the early scenes can be purely visually, the early moments provide moments of character-building that make the early sections incredibly emotionally enriching. Much of that enrichment comes from the scenes with Mandy, which show Mandy to be a good, caring person, adding an even more profound impact to the tragedy that unfolds.

What then unfolds is a visceral and violent quest for revenge that leans even more into the psychedelic feel of the early section. The use of color, the editing, and Jójann Jójannsson's score give the film's later half a gripping phantasmagoric atmosphere. The film then spins its later half into a brilliantly subversive anti-revenge narrative. Despite the glorious, over-the-top brutality of each moment of violence, each one serves to dehumanize Nicholas Cage's Red until he's nothing more than a silent husk.

The film's slowly moving pace doesn't always work. Even if the early section eventually becomes immensely absorbing, the intentionally slow pace can cause me to drift in and out. In a way, though, I still think it slightly works, as even if I do find some of the early sections relatively slow and tedious, the experience of drifting in and out feels intentional. The dreamlike feeling of much of the first half puts me in an increasingly hypnotic state that grips me increasingly as it goes on.

Mandy is a hypnotic and gripping experience, first and foremost. With its psychedelic visuals and score, the film puts me in a state very few films have managed to do. As a story, though, the film is just as incredible through its brilliantly subversive anti-revenge narrative. It's a film that equally grips me as an audio/visual experience and a brilliant, provocative, and tragic narrative.

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