Sugar

Released by: Pathfinder Pictures
Released on: 2/7/2006
Director: Patrick Jolley, Reynold Reynolds
Cast: Samara Golden
Year: 2005
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The Movie:

The basic premise of Sugar is that a woman (Samara Golden) moves into an apartment and is haunted by the past belonging to the man who used to live there, Anthony. The more she uncovers about him the more her world starts to close in on her and as it closes in, her mind starts to go. Or is it gone in the first place? When the movie starts, we see the character coming out of a refrigerator - that's not normal behavior.

At least I think that's what it's about. It's pretty hard to say. Sugar is less a traditional narrative than a series of images structured to tell a story, so in that regard, by comparison it's less a novel and more of a picture book. The style switches around a lot, going back and forth from color to black and white, the cinematography closes in on its subject very effectively, and there is little to no dialogue throughout.

Golden is very good in the movie, giving what can only be described as in intensely intimate performance in this film. She doesn't shy away from the material at all, which isn't surprising seeing as she has a co-writer credit, and does an admirable job of delivering a fine turn while dealing with some very difficult scenes. She's naked for portions of the film, though it hardly feels exploitative or like its there to titilate, rather it seems like the nudity is presented to us to matter of factly so that we're able to see how vulnerable her character is during these moments.

If it all sounds rather pretentious, well maybe it is, but it works. The obvious comparisons to some of David Lynch's work is hard not to make, Eraserhead in particular, and at times the visuals are reminiscent of some of David Fincher's work reminding us of the gritty, filthy sets used for the murder set pieces in Seven and the moldy prison compound used in Alien 3. It's not as linear as any of those films though, not as straightforward. It's not often that a film can tell us as little as Sugar does but still make us think, make us strive to come up with our own interpretation of the events that have just unfolded before our eyes.

The filmmakers give us enough to work with so that even if things aren't spoodfed to us we're able to at least follow the film. There seems to be some sort of revenge motif playing out through her story, possibly resulting from some earlier abuse inflicted upon her. Other than that though, the rest is up to you because the film, ultimately, for the viewer is an exercise in interpretation.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The image is presented fullframe, which is the proper aspect ratio. At times things are really grainy looking and the color is muted but this is obviously a stylistic choice on the part of the director and cinematographer and not a specific fault with the transfer. With that in mind, there's a pretty decent level of both foreground and background detail present in the image, black levels are strong, and when appropriate the color reproduction is also pretty decent.

The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is free of any hiss or distortion and presents the dialogue (what little there is of it) quite nicely. J. G. Thirwell's odd score comes through very nicely and adds some real depth to the movie. Bass levels could have been a little bit stronger here and there but other than that the audio sounds very good on this DVD. No alternate language or subtitles are available.

We don't get a whole lot in the way of supplements on this release, but it's not completely barebones. Present in the extra features section are a still gallery, some brief production notes, a few cast biographies and a selection of trailers for a few other unrelated Pathfinder titles.

The Final Word:

Sugar is a trip. It's not going to work for everyone but those into surrealist, avante garde horror movie ought to give this one a look as it gives you plenty to chew on. Pathfinder's DVD could have used a commentary track but other than that, it looks and sounds quite good.