David Given Schwarm

I watched this last night after I got my sick family to bed. It was on the Cox Free Movie Preview channel for Sundance. It was an amazing Chinese film–yet another movie from China that deal aggressively with the nature of Art.
The movie is really well done on a lot of level, the psychosexual killer stuff is so completely over the top I did not really find it disturbing. The childhood trauma creating lasting issues message was very strong. The Elevator Ledge scene totally rules, the bathtub flash back scene is very memorable. I liked the painting in class stuff. I liked the book store and coffee shop scenes. The jealousies. The part when the parents walk in. “I still have the money in my account you put there last month” was great.
Likely the strongest take away from this that I had was the fact that the snuff video left on her porch was labeled in English–“Take A Look”. A fantastic comment on the risk of dancing with the dark side. The fact that it is in English makes the message somehow much more disturbing–the sex=death theme takes on the sense of being some kind of outside western influence.
I do not think I would ever recommend this movie to anyone, for fear of what they would think of me, but it was a good movie to get me out of myself last night.