Nature Morte

The Art Of Murder

Nature Morte
UK 2006
Directed by Paul Burrows
Redemption Films Region 2

Warning: Here be some heavy spoilers.

Nature Morte is, to date, the only film written and directed by Paul Burrows. I’d not actually heard of it before but I sought this out because I was impressed with Carole Derrien from Mindflesh (reviewed here) and wanted to see something else she was in. As it happens, this is probably a better film than Mindflesh in some ways although, I have to say, the interesting and intriguing premise with its shifting antagonists would have been much better served, I think, if Burrows had managed to acquire a bigger budget. Something about the way the film has been lit makes it feel like it’s an art house classic trying to express itself with limited tools.

That being said, they’ve certainly tried their best to get the production values up to the standard of the director’s vision and, if it sometimes looks a little rough around the edges, I’m certainly cutting this one some slack because the simplicity of the plot and the single mindedness in which it pursues that without getting over complicated is to be applauded these days, I think.

This one starts off well, with a woman who goes back to an artists rooms in Marseilles... unaware that this artist takes inspiration from the women he slaughters as he paints them. Something, which is revealed at the end of the film, causes this artist to shoot himself after his latest victim has been rendered in canvas but this doesn’t stop him becoming extremely famous in the world of fine art.

Enter art critic and private collector Oliver Davenport (played by Troy McFadden), who has written several books on this serial killer artist, who always painted his bloody victims tied to a chair in each painting. Enter, also, the police... who have found an artist with more or less identical paintings working in Thailand. They want Davenport to go there and investigate to see if this guy was an accomplice in the murders, which he does since he now wants to buy the paintings of this artist too. Once he arrives in Thailand he meets this decidedly shady and intimidating artist, Lec (played by Laurent Guyon), and his girlfriend Blanche (played by Carole Derrien). He starts going to their pleasingly weird drug and sex fuelled parties while negotiating to buy the artists work, becoming embroiled in their world somewhat... if only he could remember what happened when he was ‘helping’ the artist on his latest picture session.

And, yeah, this is a film where the fate/transformation of Davenport is probably something you will suspect right from the start of the movie but, ultimately, is not just about that as it turns out that Lec is one of a number of ‘killer artists’ over the years churning out exactly the same kind of work... or at least that’s the implication. What it’s really about is the ‘object’ that fuels the fires of these artists and transforms them into fine artists who slice up their models in a somewhat Faustian deal that is left both shady but obvious, by the time of the film’s final act.

And it’s a nice little movie, transcending its appearance of being a thriller set in the art world and, due to the almost Dorian Gray element of supernatural influence, firmly placing itself in the realm of horror movie... albeit a sexy, unscary one.

Indeed, as if Derrien wasn’t enough (why is this lady not in more movies), she’s also joined in the last third of the movie by fetish model Morrigan Hel from the Satanic Sluts, who has a pretty true to stereotype role in the movie but also, in the end, is another in a presumably long chain of inheritors of the... shall we say... transformative powers or art?

Despite the obvious budgetary limitations, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the film and loved the very loaded names of some of the characters in it, such as Viva Sartorius and Elisabeth Dahlia (always up for a good Betty Short reference, me). I’m not sure why the film seems to be floundering in such obscurity but I reckon it would have been a safe bet to be much more celebrated if it had been around in the days of the Scala Cinema for sure. Also, I think this one could have scored big at Frightfest and I’m wondering if it got any kind of premiere there at the time it was around. I notice it took two years since it’s Cinénygma International Film Festival and Belfast Horrorthon premieres in 2006 before it got any kind of commercial release.

The various actors and actresses are mostly pretty good in this and I find it a bit of a shame that the ambitions of the director are occasionally limited by the bargain bucket mentality of the funding for the project but, hey, that seems par for the course these days. It does surprise me, though, that this guy hasn’t directed anything else since this and I think we might have seen some amazing films from Burrows on the modern horror circuit if this had been a better known movie, perhaps.

So, yeah, the intrigue of the premise is, perhaps, not quite matched by the follow through in some ways but it does go on way longer than where you would expect it to end, as it reveals the final puzzle pieces in the last third of the movie and... I think horror and exploitation fans especially will probably enjoy Nature Morte for what it is. Worth checking out, especially with the ‘value for money’ price of the DVD on Amazon at time of writing. An interesting watch.