Caged Beauty

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What did I just see!? And I don't mean that in a "What glorious movie did I just encounter"-kind of way. "Caged beauty" is either total trash clothed in artsy details or very artsy cinema clothed in total trash. Which of the two, I really can't decide. It is kind of hard to summarize the plot because it rarely made sense but all in all you could say that it evolves around an unfinished concerto and how far people are willing to go to find the missing piece. While there are several side-plots, this is more or less the main issue addressed. Don't expect the film to be a thriller or any kind of investigations to take place, there is few tension in this. Indeed it is a rather slow movie, maybe also due to the fact that many sequences are kept silent except for the score, something you typical see in much older movies. I'm not sure what to make of this, I gave it three stars because I do think that you can interpret masses of things into this and maybe I just didn't get the message but it could as well be that there is none and the director plays with this fact. Decide for yourself.

CAGED BEAUTY is more boringly mindless junk from director Gregory Hatanaka, the man responsible for such cinematic abominations as SAMURAI COP 2. This one's the worst film I've seen of his, which is truly saying something; it's an art-house bore, supposedly about a captive woman but padded out with endless dialogue footage so the actual captivity occupies only a small part. It's more arty and pointless and ever, and a complete dud.

"Caged Beauty" is the 2016 re-release of the 2010 "Violent Blue." Not usually a good sign. The film is not for everyone. It is art house filled with dysfunctional characters. Silvia Suvadova plays Katarina, the titled character. She gets caged about an hour into the film. She is a music teacher obsessed with finishing Molcik's unfinished concerto who died in 1939. She tells her psychologist (Bogdan Szumilas) she is concerned because her husband (Nick Mancuso) is getting out of prison and her brother is distant from her. She apparently has promiscuity issues as the doctor asks her out. Her brother (Jesse Hlubik) is an electronics genius who is friends with club owner Bolo (Barry O'Rourke). Kylie (Andrea Harrison) lives in the flat under Ondrej, the brother and works for Bolo. She is into mathematics and music. The performers in the club relay messages to Bolo in their music. Kylie decodes the music into words about Chinese shipments. Ondrej creates a device that writes music, predicting the next notes after you place some notes into it. The characters behaved in a surreal manner, sometimes just standing still during a scene. In one scene a couple is doing some type of slow moving dance/yoga to the "Hookie Pookie." Yes, it was an obscure type of comedy, especially the teacher confrontation, a weird scene I actually enjoyed. The first hour introduces us to the absurd characters. The film was in part English, in part subtitled, and at times silent with the words on the screen as a silent film. The characters are initially introduced as if you are watching the opening credits. The music does not have subtitles and I feel that I missed part of the film without it. The production was about 90% rough Bergman and 10% Tarantino. Good luck. Guide: F-word. sex. nudity.

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