The Voice Thief (2014)

Asia Argento rages

Anad Jodorowsky may very well be a genius.

While I will concede that he is working from a story that his father Alejandro wrote, everything else is wonderfully gloriously his own doing and it’s very possible we’re witnessing the appearance of a wonderful filmmaker.

The story of The Voice Thief concerns an opera singer (Asia Argento) who who loses her voice. When she declares that if her husband (Cristobal Jodorowsky) can’t find her voice that night, she will kill herself, he is forced to go off to steal a voice for her-however every voice brings with it unexpected complications.

You'll forgive the lack of details, but the joy is discovering them for yourself, and with this film there are just so many joys.

Its shouldn't work. If I gave you details you'd say it couldn't work. But this wild, crazy over the top, with punched up colors, heightened sexuality, a glorious score and sense of the absurd that somehow keeps it all together. This is a film that, while seeming to  be like other films (even from the director's father)  is gloriously uniquely its own creature. Yes I know at times it looks and feel silly, but at the same time it all makes wonderful sense, of course the cross dressing singers are nuts but how else could it be? The internal dream logic is perfectly maintained and by the end of the film I was delighted that things had gone how they should- rarely has any ending felt this right.

If there is any flaw is that the film could be called similar to the work of the elder Jodorowsky, but on the other hand its based on one of his stories so the riff or steals are understandable.

When I saw this film I got about ten minutes in and I wigged out since I realized that I couldn’t stop the screening, I couldn’t see it again and I couldn’t hand it off to other people, I just had to sit there, mouth agape and wonder how it was that I was seeing something so incredibly special when most people I know couldn’t. Why was I so lucky?

You have to track this film down. Its a masterpiece and potentially the calling card of a filmmaker who will shake things up.

I think this is a brilliant film.