If you ever sat in front of a screen looking for one of those films that left you thinking after the end, that can touch at times that kind of cinema so weird that it is too crazy to believe it and that it wrapped you with style and personality from the first minute, you are in luck.
‘Trance’ is that jewel that is now available in Disney+ that you may let go and that it deserves urgently that you dedicate 97 minutes of your time.
Directed by the always versatile Danny Boyle, the head of such iconic titles as ‘Trainspotting’, one of the best films of the 90s, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ or ‘127 hours’, ‘Trance’ is a psychological thriller that plays with the rules of gender cinema to give us an experience that is part of the puzzle, part of a feverish sleep and emotional mountain part. And the best thing is that you never know what part of the journey you are in.
The plot starts with an art theft that seems to go on wheels … until it stops doing it. Simon, art auctioneer with personal problems, is involved in the theft of a very valuable picture of Goya, but after a blow to the head, forgets where he hid it. The problem is that those who orchestrated the theft are not willing to accept an answer as “I do not remember.” A hipnotherapist hired to help Simon recover the lost memory and the criminal brain of the coup, a type as charismatic as intimidating, complete the main triangle.
In ‘Trance’, Boyle drags us through a spiral of fragmented memories, lucid dreams and altered realities where we cannot trust at all or what we see or what we believe we know. Are we seeing a memory, a fantasy, a lie? That ambiguity is part of its charm.
James Mcavoy shines like Simon, halfway between vulnerability and neurosis with an intensity that hooks. Rosario Dawson, meanwhile, offers one of his most magnetic and risky interpretations of his career, while that constant threat that Vincent Cassel invites us to rethink if he will not be the main victim of this story.
Psychological thriller, modern noir, romantic drama, certain touches of science fiction … ‘trance’ is a gender cocktail that, by its game with the levels of consciousness, slightly remembers ‘origin’, one of the best science fiction films in the history of cinema, but also refers us to classic Thrillers such as ‘Memento’ or, even, Eyes Wide Shut, one of the best movies of Stanley Kubrick.
Neon lights, distorted reflexes and saturated colors immerse us in a dream and disturbing atmosphere. And, as always in Boyle’s cinema, music, in this electronic case, is one more character.
As reflected in the criticism of photograms to ‘trance’, the film is the result of “The cold merger of manual labyrinthine thriller with Hitchcock playback executed by a chulazo suited with DJ in the background”.
‘Trance’ is not a predictable film. Ask questions, throw false clues and play with you as a good magician would. And when you think you have understood everything, it changes the perspective and forces you to look again.
Boyle’s film is a film experience that catches from the first minute and does not release you until much after the credits. A hypnotic, intelligent and sensory work that deserves much more recognition than it had at the time of its premiere.
Jorge is an expert in film, series and comics. Their favorite genres are terror and science fiction, the perfect balance between the thunderous cry of the slasher and the disturbing silence of space and, although it flirts with the author’s cinema in search of that hidden jewel away from the mainstream, he does not hide, his own is the commercial cinema by Marvel, Star Wars, DC and Pixar.
This restless journalist discovered a few years ago the mysticism of ‘Twin Peaks’ and, since then, it is just a more trapped concept within David Lynch’s head. When he manages to escape from the black lodge, he reviews the filmography of Maestro Carpenter, he is lost again between the pages of the ‘Watchmen’ of Moore and Gibbons or is thrown in search of new emotions in Miniseries format.
After his fleeting media such as TVE, RNE and the TV and Communication section of La Razón, Jorge has been Hendricks. He arrived at photograms in 2022, where he managed to get a place as a editor to write about the most popular series, the best films of Alfred Hitchcock or everything related to the franchises, reboots, prequels, sequels, recent recurrers and nonsense of the moment, thus retaking his passion for journalism and cinema.
Jorge has a degree in journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid, in addition to being a filmmaker from the RTVE Institute, where he acquired notions of preproduction, production and postproduction of audiovisuals.
