Eden Log

It is a general rule of thumb that waking up in a cave sets a pretty negative tone for the rest of your day. Ever had one of those days where you wake up, and immediately come down with a case of Oh-God-I-really-really-don't-want-to-get-up-and-face-the-day-itis? Research has shown that nearly everyone experiences this ailment at least once every month. Two commonly recognized cures are either hitting the snooze button and sleeping another 10 minutes, or give your employer a SOB story about how your visiting cousin from Ecuador managed to give you an extremely rare disease. But, when you wake up in a cave, one generally doesn't go back to sleep for another few minutes. Generally, because they're in a CAVE. One would think that such a start is pretty hard to beat in terms of overall awfulness. Think again. Now imagine you're waking up in a cave, with no idea as to who you are. You're alone, afraid, no clue as to who you are, and you're being hunted by...something.

This is the situation facing our poor, unnamed hero (Clovis Cornillac). Not only does he find himself in a cave, but his only companion is a corpse (Note: corpses keep extremely poor company). This is a predicament commonly experienced by those in dire straights, or just someone waking up to face the most horrible hangover imaginable. Now, I'm going to say it right here: it is extremely possible that this opening sequence will lose half of Log's potential audience, as our Lone Wanderer (sorry Bethesda, couldn't resist) makes his way out of the cave in a sequence that is minutes of pitch black being illuminated by a strobe light (does ANYONE like strobe lights?), to reveal a shadowy figure grunting and stumbling around. Then darkness. Then a strobe. More grunting. And on...and on...and on... Mercifully, he manages to escape the cave and its strobe light, which is easily the most evil lighting effect known to man. Escaping the cave hardly means his troubles are over, as the distant shrieks of something most definitely not human kindly remind him, and he soon finds himself in a portion of a subterranean society called Eden Log. Y'see, Eden Log, as the propaganda-spewing holograms tell us, is supposed to be a utopia, a final resting place. But as is always the case, something has gone wrong in paradise, as now our wanderer must contend with a vicious group of soldiers; monsters that, from the looks of them, should be at a family reunion with the humanoids from The Descent; and an enormous, carnivorous plant root; as well as trying to piece together his past as well as just what happened in Eden Log.

To start, this is a tricky film to categorize, as it straddles the lines of several genres, yet never finds one to snuggle in. The film has been as marketed as sci-fi/horror, but with the exceptions of some nifty landscapes and the aforementioned holograms, there's not much in it that could allow one to easily declare it a science-fiction film. Also, though the mutants are appropriately grotesque and menacing, they never come off as that much of a threat, with their few meetings with the hero consist mainly of them roaring and smacking the poor guy around. So...what is it? If anything, the film is more a moody, downbeat look at just how far humanity will go to create a personal Eden, even if it means their complete loss of innocence through deception and unimaginable cruelty. Trying to remain vague here, as though the film moves at quite a slow pace, the eventual solution to the mystery surrounding Eden Log and its violent demise is very satisfying, and the admittedly confusing, allegory-drenched climax is, if nothing else, visually brilliant.

The film's pace is sure to throw many off, as much of the film's running time is Cornillac making his way through the ruins of this underground world, where more questions are raised then answered. The film is extremely light on dialogue, with only a couple scenes where our hero actually interacts with another survivor. One is filled with somewhat stilted dialogue, and the other exists to set up our hero as one of the staples of science fiction: the mysterious man with an unexplained power that enables him to deal with whatever obstacle lies in his way. The film is much more a mood piece, and most of the delight one gains from the film is drinking in its world in all its terrible beauty. To this extent, the film is often stunning to watch, creating a marvelously designed landscape where all color seems to have died off with everyone else, leaving only black and chrome. With the metallic structures brilliantly contrasting with the darkness, as well as the seeming fusion of the flesh-eating root with its man-made surroundings, one expects that somewhere H.R. Giger is thoughtfully nodding his head. In fact, despite a solid performance from Cornillac (for once, a character whose only emotions seem to be perplexed and pissed off actually work for the movie), he is given little character development other than he has a mysterious ability to Hulk-out and combat the mutants and soldiers with ease, the actual world and all its nuances comes off as the more interesting character.

Eden Log is most definitely not a film for everyone. Myself, I'm still not sure how I feel about the movie, even though my final thoughts were mostly positive. When the film works, it works, and the end revelations shine with true brilliance. Its all the more frustrating then that the film is often uneven, with many segments that drag on far longer than they should, *looks at beginning strobe light scene*, and the reveal of the hero's identity is rather trite and underwhelming. Finally, even though I'm all for ambiguity, I wish that the hero's power was explained in greater detail, and exactly what the blazes happens in the end. That being said, I'm unable to stop thinking about it, and this definitely is a film that should be experienced, if you happen to be craving something that takes a little from Column A, and a little from Column B, and manages to create something pleasingly different. If the film had a bit more of a budget to illustrate the world it creates, and a bit more time to fully flesh out the ideas it puts forth, we very well could have been given a near classic.