Neo-noir and Spaghetti Westerns converge in the hyper-violent and stylized Belgian thriller Let the Corpses Tan.
Written and directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, this is a contemporary thriller that pays loving homage to the Sergio Leone canon. Tight closeups on characters’ eyes aren’t just for the big showdowns in this flick. They even use two Ennio Morricone musical cues from 1969 and 1971. A pivotal character even smokes cigarillos like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name in the Leone movies.
Let the Corpses Tan is set in a compound of ruins atop a Mediterranean cliff, occupied by an oversexed artist who hosts visitors. Besides a writer, she’s hosting three mysterious out-towners. They turn out to be criminals who, with their shady lawyer, have pulled off an armored car heist and are flush in gold bars. Just as they are ready to sneak away, the writer is surprised by his estranged wife, her kid and her nanny. Then two cops happen upon the residents, and a gun battle explodes.
There’s only one road out of the compound and two groups of criminals and two groups of the non-criminals occupy various shelters in the ruins. It’s a standoff because no one can escape – or escape with the gold. They are forced to hunt each other in a lethal and claustrophobic game of cat-and-mouse, including even the guy caught without any clothes. Under life-and-death pressure, allegiances become malleable and the double crosses and side-switching begin.
So do the casualties. Sam Peckinpah would wince at some of the gore and splatter, and Let the Corpses Tan lives up to its deliciously brutal title.
As exhaustion mounts from the siege, various characters have vivid fantasies. Let the Corpses Tan gets very, very trippy. One breast milk crucifixion fantasy is like nothing I have seen or could have imagined. Eventually, there’s a Death character in female form, at one point a urinating Death.
There’s one interesting character. The artist/hostess is basically a goddess of carnality. She is played by Elina Löwensohn (from 1994’s Amateur with Isabelle Huppert), and Löwensohn’s eyes are voracious.
Let the Corpses Tan is essentially a soulless exercise in style, more interesting than gripping. It’s a visual stunner, though, and the Leone references are fun.