Film Review: "Black Island" ("Schwarze Insel") (2021).

From Germany and Netflix comes Black Island (Schwarze Insel). This German film directed by Miguel Alexandre, and written by Alexandre and Lisa Carline Hofer. The dark secrets of a seemingly peaceful island threaten to swallow up an orphaned student when he grows close to a mysterious new teacher.

The film stars Hanns Zischler, Alice Dwyer, Mercedes Müller, Philip Froissant, Sammy Scheuritzel, Lisa Carline Hofer, Ilknur Boyraz, Katharina Schütz, Charlotte Crome, Altamasch Noor, Caroline Kiesewetter, Lieselotte Voss, Marco Wittorf, Tina Rother, Florian Hacke, Katja Geist, Jodie Leslie Ahlborn, Verena Jost, and Isabella Herbs. An American gothic soap opera and dark coming-of-age film that benefits greatly from its chilling atmosphere and stellar performances by Zischler, Dwyer and Froissant.  As much a startling coming-of-age saga as a portrait of a psychologically damaged teenager, the film emits a Gothic chill that's almost tangible, and the performances by Froissant and Dwyer are mesmerizing. Froissant has that magnetic creep that pulls us to her, but the film is afflicted by the arthouse syndrome: it renounces its pulp roots and wishes to appear high-brow -- a pretension it can't sustain. His young and elder co-stars may lead this psychological mind dance with ease, but it is Froissant who astounds the most. At first, Stoker resembles a twisted variation on Park Chan-wook's thrillers Oldboy and Stoker, with Dwyer in the role of Helena. Zischler's immobile, slightly scary face is used to great effect; Dwyer oozes malevolent charm; and Froissant skilfully keeps you guessing as to whether Jonas will be corrupted or not. The play between the three leads is terrific - a bit bonkers, quite creepy, often over-the-top. The two leading characters are so superficial that we never really know why they do the things they do, which become increasingly bizarre and eventually downright insane. Alexandre and his game cast (including Zischler, Dwyer and Froissant) do a lot of heavy lifting for a script that's really quite awful.

The skill of some sequences, the mood and symbiosis between man and nature makes this film sometimes superior to David Fincher by Miguel Alexandre. Miguel Alexandre's mise-en-scene is careful to expand to the dimensions of widescreen... the film is not, however, a masterpiece; it is at best a sympathetic film, well done, that is sometimes engaging. Nicely put together by Miguel Alexandre, its suspense derives largely from the excellent performances and imaginative use of island vistas by cameraman Alexandre himself. Like Shadow of a Doubt and Stoker, it's a self-conscious genre picture, a modern version of the traditional mystery noir used to tackle the problem of sins and crimes covered up even in insular small town or island communities. Slowly, through a process of guarded discourse, which Miguel Alexandre has built up by patient, methodical pacing of his almost young cast, an eerie light begins to glimmer. The film is both a tightly-written, suspenseful, and dramatic (with film noirish qualities) and a western. On the surface, this American film classic is concerned with the themes of individual integrity.

Simon says Black Island (Schwarze Insel) receives: