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The body of a missing little girl is discovered horribly burned
and mutilated, in a derelict and abandoned building which
used to be a clinic which treated her leg. The girl's father
identifies the body, aided by a bracelet with the girl's name
on. Now, five years later, the parents are separated, the
father having moved to London. Claudia, the mother, is feeling
morose and vulnerable around the anniversary of the girl's
death, and is further astounded to receive a phone call from
what sounds like her little girl, trying to convince her mother
that the body wasn't her and she is still alive. She contacts
the police detective who had her daughter's case. He has left
the force but, intrigued, he joins Claudia in attempting to
uncover a cult which dates back to Nazi Germany. But what
do they want with the girl? And is she really still alive...?
Curiously,
there's no explanation as to what the Nameless were actually
trying to achieve, and what "synthesis" involved, except the
very vague inference that they were corrupting or experimenting
on small children. The only thing that effectively comes across
in the telling is the revelation that these are really bad
people!
That simply isn't good enough for cinema audiences or DVD
viewers. We don't even get to realise whether or not this
is a supernatural occurrence. A character is killed by a group
of people who converge on him in a room and then simply disappear
- or at least are immediately forgotten about in the story.
I don't know about Nameless; Hopeless would
be more accurate. We are cheated every step of the way by
direction which has no real structure, and is significantly
more suggestive than revealing. In other words, there's little
substance. There's practically no explanation for anything
that happens - not that anything very exciting does. The ending
is a cop-out (literally!) and we are left disappointed at
the lack of explanation. So many unanswered questions. I haven't
read the Ramsey Campbell book this film is based on, but he's
an accomplished enough horror writer, and I doubt if he would
have left everything so ambiguous.
For anybody insistent on giving Nameless a try, I suggest
watching it with Spanish language and English subtitles. There's
an English dubbed version, but the translation is often inaccurate
and you're obliged to turn on the subtitles just to see what
a sign or newspaper displays. Things get amusing when you
watch with dubbed English and English subtitles. The
subtitles follow the spoken words in only the loosest sense
- even swear words are exchanged for other profanities, only
to be bizarrely changed back in other scenes.
The
Making of Documentary proves even the actors don't
seem to know what the film's about, except that it's a descent
into "evil". Other extras include a Music Video (the
highlight of this disc) with words sang to the film's main
theme, interspersed with a montage of clips from the feature;
and a Trailer.
The
only saving grace for Nameless is the lightening-quick
directorial cuts which appear to serve as visions for the
central characters and teasers for the viewers. Nevertheless,
I see this as a wasted opportunity.
Ty
Power
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